Guns

               The NRA says that the best defense against gunmen in school is armed guards at schools.  In our circles and in the establishment press the NRA is pilloried, derided and treated as idiotic.  The political posturing has been fine theatre.  Candy Crowley on CNN asked the NRA spokesperson what kind of country we would be if we did that? 

            Contraria started this series by saying, “when everyone knows something to be true it is probably false”.

            Well, the kind of country we would be with armed guards at the schools would be…Israel. 

            Arabs entered the Netiv Meir elementary school in Ma’alot Israel on May 15, 1974 taking 115 hostages.  When the Israelis stormed the building the Arabs sprayed the children with machine gun fire, killing 22 and wounding 68.  A good day for the Religion of Peace.

            Arabs prefer to attack “soft” targets in Israel such as buses, schools, pizza parlors or discotheques, where the most children can be killed.  The Israeli response has generally been to provide guards.  Shopping mall entrances are guarded and bags examined.  Streets are patrolled and schools are provided security.  Most Israeli streets are safer than most Chicago streets.

            Crowley has asked the wrong question.  It is not relevant what kind of country we would be if we protected the children – it is relevant to ask what kind of country we already are where evil or crazy people kill children, and we leave soft targets exposed to the killers.   In the past months we have seen mass murders at movies, malls and schools.  What kind of country are we that won’t take the steps shown to be effective to stop mass murderers from killing children?

            I have no tolerance for the NRA.  The Second Amendment does not sanction private armies, and no individual should own an Abrams tank, an F-18 or a high capacity assault rifle.  However, I do know that Columbine happened while the assault gun ban was in effect, and we do not have any alternative history as to what would have happened if the Newtown killer had different weapons.

               We have become accustomed to the necessity of taking off our shoes and being scanned at the airport.  We wish it weren’t so, but we do what we need to do. I agree with President Obama that we don’t know that tighter gun laws would prevent the next attack, but we need to do what we can to lessen the likelihood or to limit the tools available to the killers. How many more dead before we introduce security at the soft targets?

           

           

Fiscal Cliff

            It is December, 2012, some days away from the “fiscal cliff”.  In the future what will have happened will be in retrospect obvious and the only thing that could have happened.  For the moment, however, as usual the random guesses that will later turn out to be The Truth are unsorted from the other nonsense.

            In the summer of 2011 in that week’s crisis over the national debt ceiling discussed elsewhere http://contrariat.blogspot.com/2011/08/downgraded.html  the Congress agreed to lift the debt ceiling for 18 months in exchange for a package of automatic tax increases and spending cuts effective January 1, 2013.  The theory was that with the spending cuts unpalatable to the Democrats and the tax increases unpalatable to the Republicans the Congress would have 8 weeks between the 2012 election and January 1 to reach some accommodation to avoid the “fiscal cliff”.  The can was kicked down the road.

            Now, in 2012 the Congress, ever mindful of earning its historically low approval ratings has failed to act.  The blame will fall depending on political tastes, but I believe it belongs mostly to the Republicans.

            Contraria has reason to be hopeful.  The scenario as presented in December requires that the Congress enact tax increases and spending cuts to avoid the automatic tax increases and spending cuts triggered in 2013.  They just can’t do that.  However, in January 2013 with the higher tax rates and lowered spending in place the Congress could come to our rescue.  I can imagine first hearing that the sequestered defense funds threaten national security, so the Republicans vote for the spending, which the Democrats will tie to other spending.  Then we may hear that the automatic tax increases are hurting the masses, so they are mostly repealed.

            I’ll take my chances that the only things Congress can do are to increase spending and decrease taxes.  By going over the “fiscal cliff” with tax increases and spending decreases we have, albeit inadvertently given the Congress the opportunity to do what it is good at.  Maybe it will all work out.