by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n It is a bad idea to demonize your opponents with epithets such \u201cshameful\u201d and \u201clying,\u201d given that the case was not made that proposed gun-control legislation would have prevented a Sandy Hook. To prevent these school-shooting horrors might require either armed guards in schools, or Draconian new laws about gratuitous screen and video-game violence, or more frequently incarcerating the mentally unstable, or, on the theory of reducing rapid rates of fire, confiscating millions of previously sold semi-automatic handguns and rifles. All those measures would have offended millions across the political spectrum in ways that demonizing the NRA apparently does not. In the end, it was not the \u201clying\u201d \u201cgun lobby\u201d that persuaded enough senators to defeat the bill, but the president\u2019s inability to make the argument that his proposals would help stop another Sandy Hook or Columbine.<\/p>\n Moreover, the current sophistry of using catastrophic current events to rush legislative agendas or build political capital is as natural as it is also dangerous \u2014 and can rebound in unexpected ways. If those who are skeptical about the legality and utility of infringing on the Second Amendment through legislative action are reduced to being slandered as shameful liars, and (if we believe what is now being written) they are in part culpable for the sort of carnage at Sandy Hook, then almost any event in the news becomes political fodder.<\/p>\n We are also witnessing horrors in Boston, brought about by terrorists planting bombs. Should we engage in a renewed national moral effort to make all terrorism, past and present, something that permanently earns one social ostracism, a tactic so odious that the perpetrator is a shunned, permanent moral outlier, who has sacrificed all claims on polite society? That would certainly help create a zero-tolerance climate for even the thought of placing bombs to hurt the innocent, an effort worth it, to paraphrase the president, if it might deter \u201cjust one\u201d would-be terrorist. If so, where is the outrage in these dark days that convicted bank robber, terrorist bomber, and murderer Kathy Boudin is teaching at Columbia? (One can certainly see where this thinking leads in the case of the unrepentant terrorist bomber Bill Ayers \u2014 e.g., to a political fundraiser in his kitchen over coffee and all that.)<\/p>\n The evil Dr. Gosnell ran a charnel house in Philadelphia. He made a handsome living off of performing supposed late-term abortions that allegedly led to the murder of at least one mother and seven babies born alive (the most current eight charges may be the tip of a 30-year iceberg), involving the worse sort of racism, crimes against human decency, and labor and health violations in his surreally named \u201cWomen\u2019s Medical Society.\u201d<\/p>\n So should we argue that the Dr. Gosnells of the world \u2014 preying on the low-income and vulnerable, in search of profits (he certainly fits the president\u2019s past castigation, during the debate over federalizing health care, of those medical profiteers who lop off limbs and take out organs for money) \u2014 should always count on some sort of ethical cover, media blackout, and legal laxity, given the popular culture\u2019s and law\u2019s ambiguous attitudes toward later-term partial-birth abortions? If so, what are the moral consequences and ethical responsibilities of being the sole Illinois legislator to speak against legislation that would have protected babies who survived late-term labor-induced abortions? Or is that theoretical connection between one\u2019s beliefs, associations, and legislative record, and current deaths just the sort of demagoguery we wish to avoid?<\/p>\n If it is likely (and I think it is) that Barack Obama never believed that allowing the termination of fetuses who might survive late-term partial-birth abortion would logically lead to something like Dr. Gosnell, or that his past debatable association with a terrorist like Bill Ayers insidiously lowered the threshold of social tolerance for such politically motivated violence against the innocent, then why cannot he see that those who protect the legal rights of gun ownership by the law abiding are not responsible for the non-incarcerated mentally deranged, who feed on a diet of profit-driven, computer-screen violence, and who illegally obtain guns to commit mass murder in gun-free zones that they have deliberately so cowardly targeted?<\/p>\n The business of selective moral outrage is fraught with sophism and only invites nemesis. A president of all people should quit it and lower the tone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner It is a bad idea to demonize your opponents with epithets such \u201cshameful\u201d and \u201clying,\u201d given that the case was not made that proposed gun-control legislation would have prevented a Sandy Hook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[330,536],"tags":[190,12,852,35,858,849,859],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1wX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5900,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-psychodramas-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":5887,"position":0},"title":"Obama’s Psychodramas","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Unlike Sandy Hook and gun control, the Tsarnaev case teaches real lessons about immigration. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Barack Obama has a habit of trying to energize his legislative agenda by stoking the fires of emotionally charged current events \u2014 and in ways usually illogical and incoherent.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Immigration"","block_context":{"text":"Immigration","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/immigration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5822,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-psychodramas\/","url_meta":{"origin":5887,"position":1},"title":"Obama’s Psychodramas","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 27, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Barack Obama has a habit of trying to energize his legislative agenda by stoking the fires of emotionally charged current events \u2014 and in ways usually illogical and incoherent. The shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords and the horrible mass murders at Sandy Hook\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Global Warming"","block_context":{"text":"Global Warming","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/global-warming-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-age-of-tokenism\/","url_meta":{"origin":5887,"position":2},"title":"The Age of Tokenism","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online It is a depressing characteristic of government today to loudly enact legislation and impose regulations of little utility, while neglecting to address the root causes of truly serious problems. We do not know to what degree a Sandy Hook or a Columbine is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":125,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-great-new-year-stampede\/","url_meta":{"origin":5887,"position":3},"title":"The Great New Year Stampede","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services There is a new-year stampede developing that we have not seen for a long time. Gun stores are swamped with panicking customers. They are looking for handguns, semi-automatic rifles and as much ammunition as they can afford. But buyers are not just camouflaged\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6071,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-new-american-enemies-list\/","url_meta":{"origin":5887,"position":4},"title":"The New American Enemies List","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media The vast majority of the annual shooting homicides are committed by inner-city and minority youths below the age of 30. Handguns are involved in 80% of all murders. Rifles and shotguns account for less than 10% of homicides. No matter; the National Rifle Association\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6164,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/liberal-apartheid\/","url_meta":{"origin":5887,"position":5},"title":"Liberal Apartheid","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The elite mostly lead a reactionary existence of talking one way and living another. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online One of the strangest things about the modern progression in liberal thought is its increasing comfort with elitism and high style. 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