More and more we have to look to people like David Frum as the voice of the last remaining rational vestiges of conservatism. He does not disappoint on the New Town tragedy:
Daily Beast— And I’ll say: I’ll accept no lectures about “sensitivity” on days of tragedy like today from people who work the other 364 days of the year against any attempt to prevent such tragedies.
It’s bad enough to have a gun lobby. It’s the last straw when that lobby also sets up itself as the civility police. It may not be politically possible to do anything about the prevalence of weapons of mass murder. But it damn well ought to be possible to complain about them – and about the people who condone them.
“…and about the people who condone them.”
And what about those who steal them in order to do violence?
If you look at the Australian experience since seriously tightening up our gun control after the Port Arthur massacre, it’s quite encouraging. We never had the same culture as the USA of carrying concealed weapons, but tightening up hunting weapons and banning military weapons had a significant effect. The total murder rate went down by almost 30%.
More importantly we have very, very few hunting accidents and I can’t remember any accidental shooting at home incidents at all in the last few years. When you see reports of shooting murders in Australia, the great majority are fights between outlaw motorcycle gangs – the balance are family murders in farming or other country communities where people normally have a hunting gun at home. The only other significant number of deaths by gunshot are police dealing (often inappropriately) with sieges (normally family violence related) and with deranged people.
No massacres at all since the law changes. 7 massacres in the 10 years before that.
Ahh… I see Frum gets extra credit for timidly echoing what liberals have been saying for ALL OF HIS FUCKING PROFESSIONAL LIFE!
Ah, an epiphany: fuckhead NRA members are fuckheads.