"Suppose you were an idiot..."
Regular readers and political sandbox recreants will recognize the title as the opening of a Mark Twain aphorism. It percolated up into my frontal lobe after reading this inane bloviation by Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA):
First off, didn't happen.
Setting aside the political theater (how do you tell if a 21st century politician is lying? His thumbs are moving), Swalwell's tweet has a problem.
That problem? The facts.
See, New York State passed the SAFE Act nine years ago. The SAFE Act bans sale of “assault weapons,” and because “assault weapon” is in the eye of the beholder, it defines the term.
The Buffalo shooter purchased his Bushmaster XM in New York, at a licensed gun shop, meaning that he did not purchase an “assault weapon.” It's a nuance that I do believe some in the press have realized, because the coverage in several sources I checked uses the phrase “assault-style rifle.”
Therein lies an ironic truth.
The difference between an “assault weapon” and other semi-automatic rifles is style. As in cosmetics, as in 'how the gun looks.'
Some have argued that the features that differentiate the two add lethality to the former, but it is a reality that your average hunter's deer rifle is far more certain to kill a target than the most commonly vilified assault weapon, merely by the fact of its more powerful chambering. Nevertheless, features like pistol grips, adjustable stocks, bayonet and grenade launcher (really??) mounts are considered to alter the firearm's utility so substantially that they deserve banning.
The Buffalo shooter did alter the gun he purchased - illegally, mind you - to accept larger capacity magazines. That he did so again speaks to the futility of such bans.
Did Congressman Swalwell acknowledge in any way that the ban he demands already exists? That legislation failed to stop this murderer? That there were several points of intercession that were not acted upon?
Of course not.
Instead, he took to Twitter, with its 280 character limit and its concomitant promotion of emotional id over rational superego, and put forth a (likely, IMO, fabricated) anecdote about his 4 year old dispensing wisdom that adults apparently can't seem to grasp.
By the way, this shooting isn't “normal,” no matter the Congressman’s plaint. First off, mass shootings of this magnitude remain very rare occurrences. Second, there are over 400M firearms in private hands in the US, and 400M of those, rounded to at least three digits, have never been and will never be used in any sort of crime, let alone a mass shooting. If 99.99999% of something isn't used for mass shootings, then it's bending the truth beyond the breaking point to assert that this event is normal.
America has a much bigger mental health problem than gun problem. By some reckonings, two thirds of our homeless are mentally ill, and even a more conservative estimate leaves us with likely tens of thousands mentally ill left largely to their own devices. But, mental illness is a tricky problem that faces strong headwinds from politically favored activism, and one that politicians see little credit in resolving. Demagoguing against lumps of iron, plastic, and wood, on the other hand, scores outrage points, so we get nonsensical blather such as Swalwell's substituting for real questions about how this teenager wasn't attended to prior to his racist murder spree.
For those unfamiliar with Twain's snarky bit:
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
He also gifted us with:
There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.
All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.
The lightning there is peculiar; it is so convincing, that when it strikes a thing it doesn't leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether--Well, you'd think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had been there.
Whiskey is carried into committee rooms in demijohns and carried out in demagogues.
I never can think of Judas Iscariot without losing my temper. To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature, Congressman.
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Yours in liberty,
Peter.
“America has a much bigger mental health problem than gun problem.“ Indubitably! But, many of the same people who now fervently wish to “BAN ASSAULT WEAPONS!” will also stand in the way of certain forms of mental health treatment, citing the “rights” of the mentally ill.
I must wonder if the tragic shooting in Buffalo would have been ameliorated if someone at Tops had been armed with a concealed carry firearm. Few people continue their rampages when victims return fire.
Great quotes. Here's my personal favorite:
“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” -P.J. O'Rourke