When Mr. Obama said at the Newtown prayer vigil that America wasn't doing enough to prevent gun crimes, he left it open-ended as to what
would be enough. While he acknowledged that there is some point at which preventive steps would prove ineffective, he went on to intone, "[i]f there is even one step we can take to save another child . . ." Mr. Biden elaborated recently on this motif that we should do something (presumably at the expense of 2nd Amendment right —
don't tell me "the politics are too hard"), even if it would potentially only save one more life than would otherwise be saved.
If a family member dies from any kind of gun-related accident, you can bet that the parents will second-guess the availability of the gun. I know firsthand that parents are capable of doing this
without second-guessing the need for the Second Amendment. But parents of victims are especially vulnerable to being used as props for a cause. And that is certainly true for the
Gun Control Issue.
When my own parents were thinking about gun availability, I was reminded of a sort of retroactive version of
Sleeping Beauty. If you recall, Aurora's royal parents decreed the destruction of all spinning wheels in order to prevent the fatal prophecy from coming true. One can imagine a version of this in which the king and queen torment themselves over whether they should have destroyed the spinning wheels instead of simply trying to guard the princess on the fatal day. As in real life, it turns out that the royal decree did not stop the sorceress Maleficent from producing her own spinning wheel, as she did not pay much attention to the law.
In the story of
Sleeping Beauty you never see how the kingdom suffers, particularly the peasants, in this preemptive measure to save one life. The price of regular clothing would certainly be driven up for poor folks, making it harder to make ends meet. Not to mention the citizens who suffered for bootleg spinning, as it would take some harsh penalties to deter them from saving many, many man-hours in clothing costs. You have to make citizens into criminals in order to implement these safety regulations.
