Here’s a thought: What effect does passing laws have on curing the ills of the human condition? A partial answer might be related to this distinction: “Passing laws” must be distinguished from “enforcing laws”. All too often we bludgeon ourselves with personal invective into passing laws and then walk away patting each other on the back on a job well done. But wait. The new edicts will have to be enforced with the non sequitur of “government efficiency”. The reality is that they won’t be effectively executed. And even if they are, they probably won’t change things one iota.
Classic example: The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and its ban on “assault weapons”.
The ban on “assault weapons” was in effect from 1994 to 2004, when it was allowed to sunset. What effect did the law have on Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School?
Answer: None that I can perceive. Klebold and Harris still entered the campus almost as well-armed as Seal Team Six. Gun controllers popped the champagne corks in 1994 and later Klebold and Harris popped untold rounds into the Columbine student body in 1999. 39 casualties later – 15 of them dead, including the shooters – and we were still as unsafe as before Clinton’s 1994 self-congratulatory signing ceremony.
These laws rely on two things for their effectiveness: (1) government employees and (2) the corresponding belief in an end to criminal creativity. As a matter of fact, criminals don’t stop thinking after a law is passed if they are bent on criminality. Set the rules at gun bans or age limits, for example, and the means will be devised to achieve the desired ends: steal the guns; inherit them; resort to other non-banned rapid-fire weapons; heck, load up a pressure cooker if need be.
Passing a law will not end human frailty and the human capacity to do evil. Chances are, they’ll do nothing to correct for our toxic modern culture, the thing that lies at the root of many of our problems.
Time to grow up and face reality.
RogerG