Tag Archives: ethics

School Shootings and Gun Control

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At a Parkland high school, a thug went in and killed 17 while injuring several more; he was captured elsewhere and after several hours.  At a Maryland school, a thug went in, wounded two, and was killed.

There are some critical differences in the two situations.

The Parkland thug had a semi-automatic rifle, while the Maryland thug had a hand gun.

The Parkland thug obtained his rifle legally, if with some trouble (one potential seller refused the sale, having developed his own suspicions while interacting with the thug).  The Maryland thug obtained his pistol illegally.

At Parkland, the armed responder was a cop, stationed outside the school (I’m eliding his failure to enter).  At the Maryland school, the armed responder was inside the school.

There are a couple of lessons here.  One is that gun control laws didn’t keep the Maryland thug from getting his illegal weapon.  The other is that possessing guns while inside the target and being trained in their use shortened the shooting incident and yielded far fewer casualties and far less lethality.

Those lessons are universal.  They apply in schools, in supermarkets and other public gathering places, and around in the home.

There is a role for gun control.  Training in the use of guns is critical.  Practice so the defender can fire accurately is critical.  That’s critical gun control.

The Old Ball and Chain

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Hillary Clinton made a speech in India in which she said some things that apparently she was too timid to say here in the US of A.  One thing she said was about white women:

…we don’t do well with married, white women. And part of that is an identification with the Republican Party, and a sort of ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.

Because white women who don’t toe the line and vote for Clinton (or now, presumably, for the Progressive-Democratic Party candidate, whomever she might be in whatever race) just can’t think for themselves, they’re just the medieval-esque property of their lord and master husband.  Or of their male child if they don’t have a proper life with a husband.

It’s plain why she didn’t dare say such a thing in Texas, or middle Oklahoma, or farmland Iowa, or anywhere else but the West Coast and the northeast.  Or in Tennessee.  Even Missouri, where a Progressive-Democrat Senator proclaimed her offense from Clinton’s spew.  Or in Wasilla, AK.

At least Clinton didn’t go after all the ditzy blondes that didn’t vote her way.

Oh, wait….

A Telling Remark

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It also emphasizes the magnitude of the Republican failure with the party’s choice for Senate candidate in last December’s Alabama special election.

In a Wall Street Journal piece centered on the intra-party fighting the Senate Progressive-Democrats are having over a banking bill that would release smaller banks from Dodd-Frank’s onerous requirements, Senator Doug Jones (D, AL), who won that special election, let slip this in response to criticism from Senator Elizabeth Warren (D, MA) over his support for that banking bill:

I don’t really worry about things like that. I do what I think is best for me[.]

What’s best for Jones.  Not what’s best for his constituents and employers, the citizens of Alabama.

Hmm….

Federal Student Loans and State Regulators

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The Trump administration has told States to stop regulating companies that service Federal student loans; that’s the Federal government’s job.  The States have demurred.

The whole thing could—and should—be made moot by the Federal government getting out of the student loan business altogether.  The Feds have no business here; it’s a private enterprise arena, and the States should be free to regulate, or not, to their hearts’ contents on intrastate student lending.  The Feds’ only role here should be to regulate Commerce…among the several States and not to compete in that commerce.

Another Leak

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The Wall Street Journal reported another leak concerning Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s pseudo-investigation of all things related to supposed collusion by President Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russia [emphasis added].

A meeting in the Seychelles weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration between a Russian executive and a top Republican donor close to the Trump transition team has drawn the scrutiny of special counsel Robert Mueller, who has heard testimony that appears to conflict with an account of the same meeting given earlier to House investigators, according to people familiar with the matter.

Specifically,

Mr Mueller’s investigators have heard testimony from a witness that the donor, Erik Prince, wasn’t introduced to the Russian by intermediaries from the United Arab Emirates, as he had told the House panel….

And

Mr [George] Nader told Mr Mueller’s investigators that he attended Mr Prince’s meeting with the Emirati delegation and that the Emiratis didn’t make the introduction between Mr Prince and Mr Dmitriev….

How—and why—are these leaks being made?  Can we even believe them, given the leaker’s dishonesty made manifest by the fact of his leaks?

…a spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment.

Not even to decry the leak.  But, then, of course not.  He’ll let the leak stand unaddressed.

“People familiar with the matter” include Mueller and his team.  Certainly, “people familiar” include folks other than Mueller or his team, but Mueller’s continued studied refusal to decry not only this leak but all of them is strongly indicative.

Mueller seems to be getting desperate to show something—anything—that would justify his having spent the millions of dollars he’s spent on his…investigation.