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SEIFFE:  Dangerous Duckworth

Thursday, October 12, 2006

By Ralf Seiffe

This week, Democrat Congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth appeared in the company of The Brady Center to Prevent Firearm Violence and with the president of the police union to advocate “sensible” gun laws.  In the wake of the recent school violence, this Rahm Emanuel puppet advocated a new attempt to outlaw so-called assault weapons.  Not only is this a useless, anti-Constitutional proposal, it shows the candidate’s lack of judgment and illustrates the danger she would pose as a member of Congress. 

What Ms. Duckworth and her friends completely--and consistently--miss is the part about volition. Here’s a quick test to demonstrate why volition is the most important measure of the threat from any sort of weapon. Veterans and hunters in Winnetka have a lot of guns and ammunition.  When driving through that suburb after dark, would you feel a clear and present danger?  Of course not.  

On the other hand, consider the modern, municipal drug gangs who overtly sell their poisons in open air markets.  This business is so profitable that it attracts other thugs who want to take over the territory so the gangsters arm themselves to protect their turf.  They maintain their arsenals to battle other drug felons for control of the most profitable business in the cities.   Would you feel some sense of danger when driving in those neighborhoods at night?  It makes the hair on my neck stand up. 

The difference between the middle-aged veteran and the teen-aged dope dealer is their volition.  It would seem to me that if we wanted to reduce gun violence, we should start by disarming the gangs with laws that already exist.  There are more than 2,000 gun laws, enough to effectively prosecute the urban armies.  Certainly, fewer guns in the hands of dope dealers--who are already prohibited their possession --would instantly reduce random and drive-by shootings.   It also occurs that disarming a 55-year old veteran by taking his target rifle away would do very little to stop firearm violence. 

Deciding whom to go after--the drug thugs or the veterans--is a matter that requires judgment.  Advocates of “sensible” gun laws apparently cannot make judgments that recognize heavily-armed drug dealers as evil and target-shooting vets as benign.  The consequence of this failure to discriminate forces them to focus on guns as a substitute for effective action against the real evil that anyone exercising even rudimentary judgment can clearly see. 

The same thought applies to the random school shooting.  Rarely do the lunatics who shoot up schools do so without some warning.  Their behavior, friends or Internet postings have, in most cases, indicated a threat, a plan or even a cry for help.  However, without making a judgment about what is evil or what is good, these pre-incident warnings are useless.  Left-wing, political correctness prevents school officials from making real value judgments about the behaviors of students.  This may be changing; Wisconsin is talking about setting up a fund to reward students who recognize these signs and identify students with the volition to murder their school chums. 

Even more disturbing is Duckworth’s political expediency.  According to The Daily Herald, Ms. Duckworth was asked which of the “sensible” gun laws she came to the podium to promote would have prevented any of the school tragedies.  The newspaper reports the candidate was unable to name even one. 

© 2006 Ralf Seiffe

Ralf Seiffe advises business start-ups and product launches from Chicago, Illinois and is a political analyst and columnist for the Illinois Leader and Illinois Review.

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