Since When are Guns Laws Not Political?

After the sinking of the Titanic, Congress immediately began forming committees to investigate the tragedy. And by immediately, I mean immediately -- committees were formed before survivors had even reached solid ground. In all, investigations lasted six weeks and eighty-two witnesses were interviewed. As far as I can find, no one complained about congress "politicizing" a tragedy. In fact, I'm sure of it because "politicize" is a made-up weasel word thrown around by spineless modern politicians who want avoid tough debates and hard discussions. It didn't exist back then. But literal-mindedness aside, no one protested that it was unseemly to allow a tremendous human tragedy to spur politicians to take a look at their outdated maritime laws. Why? Because it's a stupid argument, that's why. Ships needed more life boats right away, not later. If your reaction to needless death is to try to prevent further needless death, sitting around waiting for an imaginary "seemly" period of time to pass is idiotic.

A lot of people are thinking like the congress of the Titanic's day. With this post, I include myself in that group. A mass murder in an Aurora, Colorado theater requires action -- not a period of pointlessly sitting on our hands waiting for a politically-correct amount of time to pass. And the reason for immediate action is that the next mass killer is out there now and the next mass killing is around the corner.

The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik spells out the problem:

[N]o one -- really no one -- anywhere on the political spectrum has the courage to speak out about the madness of unleashed guns and what they do to American life. That includes the President, whose consoling message managed to avoid the issue of why these killings take place. Of course, we don’t know, and perhaps never will, what exactly “made him” do what he did; but we know how he did it. Those who fight for the right of every madman and every criminal to have as many people-killing weapons as they want share moral responsibility for what happened last night -- as they will when it happens again. And it will happen again.

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