Predictably, calls for more gun control

See: MSNBC's Richard Lui: 'Is It Time to Rethink the 2nd Amendment?' | NewsBusters.org

It's predictable as rain and barometers. After every high-profile shooting the call goes up for more anti-gun laws. The words echo with the pious zeal of social reform, but what we are presented with is merely the next item on the laundry list of restrictions the left has promoted for years. In this case it is the return of a measure that was tried before, did nothing useful, and was rolled back with the end of the Assaulty-Looking Weapons Ban.

I would think there is a good deal of cynicism involved when the left sounds like true believers in a noble cause, though the measures promoted are not known to have any impact on misuse of guns by criminals or the deranged, but do hamper the rights of the law abiding. That, I think, is the point--to harass and denigrate 'the gun culture.' The aim is to take and exercise power over people who are doing something the left doesn't much like, arming themselves. It's simple bullying. That is at least all I can figure out. If the point were really to reduce misuse of guns, more sensible ideas could be put forward.

It's time we blamed the hand, not the gun. In my previous post I suggested the mental healthcare community has let us down by not pushing anymore for commitment and adjudication. These legal proceedings are red flags that someone is off his rocker and trigger a prohibition on owning guns. Ah, but heaven forbid we now send some lunatic to a "snake pit," or put something in the public record that might embarrass him.

The law as written prevents adjudicated mental defectives and committed inmates of asylums from receiving guns, and the background check system now detects those people as a rule. But the system assumes the shrinks play their part, and make public the dangers certain people pose 'to self and others.'

Intervention, though, has become a dirty word, and commitment something to be avoided instead of promoted. Present day, politically correct psychiatric practices need to be reconsidered. The law is impotent to stop the lunatic who remains under the legal radar.