More Dead Children

We had another horrible school massacre, another mass murder of elementary school children (with teachers, we are talking around twenty people). The eighteen year old shooter was killed by the police. He first shot his grandmother, who last I checked is still alive. I have no magic answers here. Maybe, at least a ATF director will be confirmed now?

"We don’t know everything that happened in Uvalde that day; reporters, and the police themselves, are still filling in the picture." Yes. There are reports that the police somehow screwed up. [Apparently so.] On one blog, people are cocksure about that, and a few were pissed (childish downvotes) that I'm not sure before we can get a clear picture of what happened. One concern is that the police should have just went right into the school (apparently, this is SOP), but again, I do not pretend to know exactly what went down.

I think it's an example of humans being humans, lashing out some without knowing all the details. Maybe, yet another death toll of children will result in some change in Congress. More tinkering, perhaps, since past death tolls didn't result in more. Meanwhile, we wait for the 2A case out of New York to drop at SCOTUS. 

[the below was added]

On that front, we again have people focusing on the "Second Amendment," and how textually that amendment seems to be limited in scope.  The talk of "militia" and all that.  See, e.g. here, which is a more open-ended discussion of the problems of finding a solution (e.g., mental health is a tiny part of the equation, and background checks are limited too ... a basic problem is handguns, which is blocked by Heller).

The emphasis on the Second Amendment is found on both sides of the equation, even though there are other ways to protect gun rights. Also, people neutral or leaning toward gun regulation have noted that the history is that by the time the Fourteenth Amendment came along, there was a broad understanding the the 2A protected an individual right.  

No matter what, there was a general understanding there was a liberty of self-defense (and perhaps other things, like hunting for subsistence). The idea that non-citizens (accepted here, even though they could have limited themselves to undocumented) broadly have no rights is dubious too as a matter of equal protection.  As noted by Prof. Franks in The Cult of the Constitution, this can affect what regulations are acceptable.  

The problem here broad here. We can repeal the Second Amendment and be left with 45 states with protections.  D.C. v. Heller recognizes a range of acceptable regulations, but there is not the political will (mixed with the filibuster) to pass broad legislation (again if handguns are protected, only so broad) or even limited legislation regulating guns.  The record in the states is more mixed.  Again, we will get a hint from the Supreme Court how far such state regulation will be able to go.   

I noticed after writing the first part of this entry an article that in part noted: "India is among a small handful of countries, including Canada and New Zealand, that have instituted legal protections for prostitutes."  The article discusses a legal opinion that provides further checks on proper treatment. It is an interesting example of modern day judicial review abroad.  

New Zealand (with a few million people) and Australia (25M) are nations where major efforts were made to respond to single massacres. But, the systems and nations are significantly different.  New Zealand does have a form of Bill of Rights, checking [I find there is a ton of details out there], without a right to bear arms.  Different countries have different forms of government (parliamentary, let's say), and societies.  Good luck with a 650K buyback program in this country. The litigation alone will be a mess. 

Again, you can point to certain states where regulations were passed, and some tinkering (after the assault weapon ban ran its course) on the federal level.  Both Obama and Biden tried certain executive orders, including lately against so called "ghost guns."  The Trump Administration even went after "bump stocks."  It all seems hopeless when there are more guns than people, but those who want a bit, I guess there are spots.

I again do not have any magic answers.  I do know that in my lifetime we have moved forward in various ways. We have a black woman vice president. We have (no matter if there are concerns now) nation-wide same sex marriage.  We have made significant moves addressing women issues.  At one point, drunk driving and smoking no longer became something to handwave.  Will we, like with slavery, do something BIG with guns?

I don't know.  We have our problems state-wide with things like stand your ground laws, which perverts our basic relationships in public places. We have as was pointed out some places that guns is now a basic Republican (and probably some Democrats in certain locations) campaign trope.  That is the sort of thing we need to shame at the very least.  

"Stop the Steal" candidates have won Republican primaries this year, with the exception of Georgia.  That's horrible and shows how basic lines are not accepted.  We need basic lines for guns too.  For now, we have more dead children, and more "prayers."  Let us assume we are all praying or doing the secular alternative.  Let's mix the empathy with action.   

ETA: We are regularly told that these mass shootings are a drop in the bucket regarding the overall nature of our gun problem.  

There are two general answers. First, we should not diminish the scope of these incidents by citing the immediate victims as raw statistics.  A suicide (a significant number of the gun deaths, in part since it is harder to kill these days) is a significant part of individual gun deaths. 

The numbers are greater there.  But, the reach is not.  Do not assume I do not know that individual gun deaths reach more than the death itself. This is especially the case with gun related crime, which can severely harm communities, and have other aftershocks.  

Nonetheless, there is a special dark power to a school shooting. Every student at the school is significantly harmed, along with the teachers and so on. And, students nation-wide are as well.  A suicide is usually not known other than special cases like the mother of the Judds (singer/actress).  Crime is often generally vague.  Wrong as that might be.  

But, it is hard to avoid the effects of mass shootings.  The psychological harm is not to be diminished too much without misunderstanding the overall harms.  Jake Charles, a legal scholar of the 2A, noted on Twitter that he is very concerned about stand your ground laws because it significantly changes how we act in public places.  These mass shootings have wider effects too, even if the death toll is smaller.

Likewise, it is not just that children are affected and all that. There is something special about a bunch of people all at once being murdered. Again, it would not be human to be unmoved by so many people dying. We probably should be more affected by other deaths.  We have limited abilities to deal with death.  Still, twenty people dying at once is not just twenty individuals. It is a mass event.

Second, all of these effects factor in here, mass shootings are national events that provide some push for change. This too is how things operate. Individual actions can lead to some movement, including local legislation and so forth.  So many mass shootings, including of children, can shock us into bigger change.  But, as with past wrongs, past evils, we as a society have so many ways to not do much at all.

Still, minimizing mass shootings because of raw numbers has problematic aspects.  You can point to the other problems -- the number of criminal shootings are troubling enough, with troubling effects, to warrant major changes.  People have been pushing, after all, changes regarding police related matters.  Often these involve use of guns.  It's an interconnected issue at some level.  I am not ignoring such things.

But, still.