As the gun powder was clearing on the Virginia Tech massacre a few months ago, the gun law lobby was citing the tragedy as evidence for greater gun control. On our side we were pointing out that draconian gun laws in Blacksburg failed to disarm the perp or protect the 32 victims. Additionally there were some on RKBA side, your correspondent amongst them, who looked at Seung-Hui Cho’s history and asked, “Why was this man walking around the campus?” We pointed to the failure of the mental health establishment and school administration, who had plenty of evidence that this man was dangerous and unbalanced, who took no action to protect the campus. In California, Laura’s Law was intended to address this issue.
However, I have some ambivalence about this, as well as a general uneasiness with laws named after individuals. Is there an individual liberty issue here? If all citizens have a right to be armed, does society have a right to protect itself by assuring that all those at liberty are mentally balanced? Or are the two liberties to be crazy and the to be armed so important that we cannot trade them off against each other? The statist is always focused on the benefits of the suppression of liberty, ignoring the consequences of abuse, but I am not blind to the negative by-products of liberty. Typically my response is that planning, regulation and control have their downsides as well, and I ma willing to accept the abuses of liberty, which IMHO are usually minor in scope when compared to the abuses of government control.
A great example is the eye-sore liquor store in my neighborhood. How I wish it would disappear and return our town to a more pristine state. However, I acknowledge that Mr. Singh, the owner of this blight on 1st Street, has a right to set up his business and sell booze to a public that demands his wares. Thus I sigh as I pass, “A small price to pay for liberty.” However, one must judge events by their scope, and 32 dead students are a significantly greater consequence than minor urban blight.
So is forced commitment in a society that allows citizens great liberty of action justified?
Personally I’d much rather run the risk of being shot by a crazy person than be disarmed, or than requiring that the state try to actively find crazy people and commit them. The latter is particularly scary, as I myself am almost certainly more than six sigmas out on some metrics.
Events like the Virginia Tech massacre, Columbine, etc. while unquestionably horrific, are blown up out of proportion by the media and by legislators that want to “look tough on crime”. University students (and faculty and staff) are far more likely to die in auto accidents than by being shot on campus.
I don’t have a problem with prohibiting felons and insane people ownership of arms. I dont have a problem with fellons being permanently barred from ownership of arms.
I do have a concerns about the crazy people issue. Who gets to decide who is crazy? Is it permanent? If you have ever seen a therapist are you forever prohibited from owning arms? There were questions about the details on the VTI shooter. Was he commited, or just evaluated.
I think I dont think the government can be trusted to make this decision.
I agree, I would rather be armed myself with ability to defend myself, than be dissarmed in the hope that criminals / crazys are also disarmed.
Don’t even get me started on the domestic violence thing. Yes, some, maybe even most dv perps should be disarmed, but most states have laws where the police must arrest someone when they respond to a dv call. A friend pulled the phone of the wall when his wifes boyfriend called (mid breakup preceding a divorce), cutting his hand in the process. His wife yelled at him and they both left the house. Two blocks away he gets pulled over for speeding. The cop asks why his hand is cut, and he tells the cop what happened. He gets arrested for dv and looses his guns. This is not a violent man, he has never as much as touched anyone. His wife said as much in court.