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Jewish World Review
December 18, 2012/ 5 Teves 5773
Taking on Guns Will Be the Easy Part
By
Bernard Goldberg
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
We've already started hearing the arguments about how we need to control guns, at least certain kinds of guns. We hear these same arguments every time something horrific, like the terrible tragedy in Connecticut, shatters our otherwise normal routine.
This time, I suspect, we'll stop talking and actually do something. Twenty dead first graders has a way of focusing a nation's attention.
No reasonable person, and that includes millions of gun owners, wants to repeal the Second Amendment though I suspect more than a few liberals would like to if they could. But no reasonable person can make the case any longer that civilians need semi-automatic weapons and clips that hold 100 bullets.
Some may worry about the slippery slope. That's understandable. If we ban assault weapons, they say, what will the authorities ban next. Handguns? Rifles? Then who will protect us, not just from common criminals, but also from the government itself? They will tell us that we already have enough gun laws on the books and that we don't need any more. They're wrong.
The First Amendment guarantees all of us freedom of speech. But we can't shout fire in a crowded theater if there is no fire, and we can't libel decent people with made up stories designed to hurt them. No rights are absolute.
Republicans would be smart to actually lead the move to ban assault weapons and not just follow the Democrats. This would help repair the damage done to the GOP brand by the crazies who think President Obama was born somewhere outside of the United States and the zealots who think that abortion should always be illegal, even in the case of rape or incest.
But on many issues Republicans aren't smart. So when Congress convenes in January, and gun legislation is brought up on Day One, some Republicans will vote No on the assault weapon ban. If too many vote that way, it will be another self-inflicted wound for the GOP, more proof that they're out of touch with the American people.
But in many ways dealing with guns will be the easy part. Congress, I think, will pass laws that ban assault weapons. But what laws can Congress pass to protect us from the mentally ill?
Virtually all of the young men who used their guns to kill innocents in Tucson or at Columbine or the movie theater in Aurora or at Virginia Tech were sick.
People who knew them knew something was wrong long before the rest of us turned on the TV and found out just how unstable they were. But that didn't stop the massacres.
Years ago, when I was a correspondent at CBS News, I did a story about young men whose families knew they were mentally ill, and suspected that some day they would do something terrible. But they couldn't get them committed to a mental institution unless they either threatened to hurt themselves or someone else or until they actually did hurt someone. Eventually they did. One man shot up a church killing many of the congregants. Another killed his parents. Only then were they taken out of society.
It's a safe bet that somebody knew that Adam Lanza was a ticking time bomb. His mother probably knew, but she can't tell us about him anymore. Others may have known too. And we may soon hear from them. What they tell us may be interesting. But it will come too late.
We don't want to live in a country where someone can simply say, "Hey my neighbor's nuts" and then have the police take the poor guy away. And no mother wants to report a threat, if it means her child will go to jail.
But neither can we let people who show signs of serious mental illness walk the streets until they do something terrible. That's crazy!
We don't need any more long conversations about guns. By now, we all know the arguments. Now we need to pass laws that deal with assault weapons. Laws that make sure civilians don't get their hands on them, whether the NRA likes it or not.
And we also need to do something about mentally ill people who are well on their way to doing something truly horrible. And we need to do it fast. The nexus between semi-automatic weapons and mental illness is a scary one and too often a deadly one.
But we all know that. What we don't know is what to do when we only suspect the worst, when we think that kid who is a loner and seems odd may do something terrible but have no hard evidence to back up our fears. The system doesn't know how to handle hunches.
So let's end the conversation about guns at least the part about assault guns. And let's start the much more difficult conversation about the young man in the next room, or the one next door, the one who doesn't seem to fit in, who seems strange and sullen, but who hasn't done anything bad. Yet.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
JWR contributor Bernard Goldberg, the television news reporter and author of several bestselling books, among them, Bias, a New York Times number one bestseller about how the media distort the news. He is widely seen as one of the most original writers and thinkers in broadcast journalism. Mr. Goldberg covered stories all over the world for CBS News and has won 10 Emmy awards for excellence in journalism. He now reports for the widely acclaimed HBO broadcast Real Sports.
He is a graduate of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey and a member of the school's Hall of Distinguished Alumni and proprietor of BernardGoldberg.com.
Previously:
• 12/17/12: When Obama's Words Mean Nothing
• 12/10/12: Do You Believe in Magic?
• 12/04/12: Obama and the Dolts Deserve Each Other
• 11/27/12: When the Ends Justify the Meanness
• 11/20/12: Our Mesmerizer-in-Chief
• 11/19/12: This Pretty Much Sums It Up . . .
• 11/12/12: Santa Claus and the GOP Civil War
• 11/07/12: Obama Wins . . . and Loses
• 11/01/12: Out on a Limb, Predicting A Big Victory For . . .
• 11/01/12: Should Mitt Talk to Bill?
• 10/30/12: Really Dumb Conservatives . . .
• 10/23/12: Debate #3: How Much Does Foreign Policy Matter If You Can't Find a Job?
• 10/22/12: When Conservatives Are As Dopey as Liberals . . .
• 10/19/12: Journalists' Who Don't Even Try to Hide Their Bias
• 10/17/12: Obama Stopped the Bleeding --- But Was That Enough to Change the Momentum?
• 10/15/12: No Winner in the Debate --- But Maybe a Loser
• 10/08/12: The October Surprise
• 10/04/12: Civil War in the GOP Could Go Nuclear on Nov 7
• 10/01/12: Even If He Wins, Obama Will Lose
• 09/27/12: Obama Picks Up a Crucial Demographic
• 09/26/12: If Obama Thinks He Inherited a Mess Four Years Ago . . .
• 09/24/12: A Good Way to Kill Free Speech
• 08/30/12: Facts I Have Uncovered About the Real Mitt Romney
• 08/23/12: Hope and Change, R.I.P.s
• 08/16/12: Who's Smarter: Joe Biden or Yogi Berra?
• 08/13/12: His Silence Makes Him Complicit
• 08/07/12: Did You Know that Harry Reid Got Rich Pimping Out HOs?
• 08/02/12: Like Birds on a Telephone Wire
• 07/30/12: What Me Worry? YES!
• 07/26/27: The Mystery Continues --- A Tale of Two Polls
• 07/16/27: We've Set a Low Bar for 'Courage'
• 07/11/27: Will Class Warfare Work?
• 07/09/27: A Brave New World
• 07/02/27: Now the Fun Really Starts
• 06/19/27: You Can't Make This Stuff Up . . .
• 06/19/12: I Would Have Fired Him Before He Got Back to the Office
• 06/12/12: Time to Crush the Myth about Gender Pay Inequality
• 06/06/12: The Desperate Campaign of Barack Obama
• 06/01/12: Hey Fatso! Listen Up!
• 05/25/12: Going After the Stupid Vote
• 05/22/12: The X Factor(s)!
• 05/15/12: Obama Has a Halo; Newsweek Has No Shame
• 05/10/12: Authoritarians on Campus
• 05/08/12: Obama's Path to Victory: Divide and Conquer
• 05/01/12: President Cool Meets Reality
• 04/25/12: Why Media Bias Matters
• 04/17/12: NYT: At It Again
• 04/13/12: Kissing up to the Rev. Al
• 04/10/12: This Just In: War Breaks Out --- Thank You, Lord
• 04/03/12: In Cold Blood?
• 03/27/12: Trayvon Martin and Media Hypocrisy
• 03/26/12: Time to Go, Rick
• 03/22/12: Obama's Mantra: Don't Blame Me
• 03/19/12: The U.N. Human Rights Council --- and other Jokes
• 03/13/12: Bias in the News: Blame it on Their Zip Code
• 03/06/12: Thank Heaven for Rich People --- a Second Look
• 02/29/12: Some Free Advice for the Republican Field
• 02/28/12: Do We Have a Right to Lie?
• 02/16/12: Can Obama Win Re-Election by Promising Free Stuff?
• 02/06/12: The 5 Stages of Mitt
• 02/02/12: Florida Has Spoken; Cue the Fat Lady
• 01/30/12: The Other Global Warming Story
• 01/26/12: They See Racists Everywhere . . .
• 01/24/12: The Arrogant and Clueless Mainstream Media
• 01/23/12: Gingrich Wins SC --- Media Help Big Time
• 01/18/12: A New Entry for 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America
• 01/12/12: The Dream Ticket Could Be a Conservative Nightmare
• 01/11/12: Now 'Anybody But Romney' Has a Name
• 12/30/11: I Have a Confession to Make . . .
• 12/27/11: Know When to Hold 'em and Know When to Fold 'em
• 12/20/11: NBC News, the KKK and the State of Journalism
• 12/19/11: Mitt and Newt: Two Rich Guys Arguing Over Money
• 12/13/11: Donald Trump Is the Greatest; Just Ask Him
• 12/12/11: Rob Peter to Pay Paul: Bad Economics! Good Politics?
• 12/07/11: Yeah . . . and Fish Don't Know They're Wet, Either
• 12/06/11: Did the Media Play Fair with Herman Cain?
• 12/05/11: Obama to Blue-Collar America: Adios!
• 11/29/11: We Can Stop the Crazy Train Before It Gets to Greece
• 11/22/11: Who Can Beat Obama?
• 11/15/11: The Dumbest Media Question I've Ever Heard
• 11/09/11: What If Herman Cain Did It?
• 11/08/11: What If Herman Cain Were a Lib?
• 11/02/11: Who Can Beat Obama?
• 11/01/11: We're Approaching the Tipping Point
• 10/25/11: A Response to the Angry Purists
• 10/18/11: They're Waiting for Reagan to Hit the Campaign Trail
• 10/12/11: Read This!!! --- But Only If You Have Nothing Better To Do
• 10/04/11: Can Obama Win Re-Election?
• 09/27/11: It's NOT the Economy Stupid, It's Theology
• 09/20/11: Bad News on the Doorstep
• 09/09/11: Hypocrisy!
• 09/06/11: Back to the Future
• 08/24/11: Hillary vs. Obama in 2012? It'll Never Happen --- I Don't Think
• 08/22/11: Warning: Conservatives May Be Harmful to Your Mental Health
• 08/17/11: Warren Buffett, Coddled Billionaire
• 08/11/11: Too Much Balance in the Media?
• 08/04/11: All Aboard the Crazy Train
• 08/01/11: Liberal Hate Speech
• 07/25/11: With All Due Respect, Go Fly a Kite
• 07/20/11: Who Is A Natural Born Citizen?
• 07/18/11: Guess Who's Not Paying Their Fair Share
• 07/12/11: Against More Taxes? You May Be a Terrorist!
• 07/11/11: Casey Anthony: The TV Show
• 07/06/11: Standards and Double Standards at MSNBC
• 06/29/11: Is Jon Stewart A Racist?
• 06/21/11: Let's Play the Race Card --- Just for Fun Of Course
• 06/20/11: Sarah Palin and Weiner's Weiner
• 06/03/11: Memo to GOP: Turn Mr. Obama into Mr. Yesterday
• 05/20/11: I Get Letters From People Who Should Be Locked Up
• 05/09/11: Is Torture Ever Justified?
• 05/02/11: The Promiscuous Use of the R Word
• 04/19/11: The Man Behind the Million Dollar Smile
• 04/12/11: What's the Difference Between Libs in Politics and Libs in the Media?
• 04/08/11: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone
• 03/28/11: The Pundits Are Driving Me Crazy --- And You Thought Qadaffi Is Nuts
• 03/14/11: No Liberal Bias at NPR Just Ask NPR
• 03/10/11: The media's frustration
• 03/01/11: Progressives Lost in Time . . .
• 02/23/11: The Lamestreams Strike Again --- This Time in Madison
• 02/03/11: You MUST Own a Gun --- Or Else!
• 01/20/11: It Was Horrible, I tell you … HORRIBLE!
• 01/11/11: Here We Go Again . . .
• 01/06/11: You Go, Oprah
• 12/28/10: A Year-Ender --- The MSM and Obama's Fall from Grace
• 12/14/10: Thank Heaven for Rich People
• 12/02/10: The Phony Nobility of Wikileaks
© 2011, Bernard Goldberg
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