The Zero-Risk Society

by Fran Van Cleave
[email protected]

Exclusive to The Libertarian Enterprise

          Living on the Navajo Reservation, I get so desperate for talk radio, I do things I wouldn't normally do -- like turn on the TV at lunchtime. Now, finding something substantive on TV news is astonishing, but it does happen, probably for the same reason that a stopped clock is right twice a day.
          Two weeks ago, I happened to find an interview with Professor John Lott.
         Lott, the author of More Guns, Less Crime, gave statistics on crime rates in states with and without concealed carry, and on the subsequent decline of rapes and murders in non-concealed carry states which switched over to concealed carry. Then he discussed the percentage of guns used in crimes, which seemed to be the real focus of the interview, obviously precipitated by the Columbine High shootings. The figure he gave was 0.09%.
          Now, there was an uproar from the lefties when Lott's book came out, and they all disputed his research, because that is item #2 in the leftist canon, right after the personal attack: dispute all research that disagrees with your emotion-based conclusions. But none of them were able to prove that there was anything defective in his research or his statistical methodology.
          At this point in Lott's interview, the camera switched over to some Democratic Congresswoman, whose name I forget -- they all whine like Identikit replicas of one another. Interestingly, she didn't dispute Lott's figures at all -- but she demanded to know how he was going to "address [her] issues" about "ensuring" that none of these weapons would never be used in the commission of a crime.
          This was a revealing statement on several levels.
          First, it confirms the innumeracy of Congresswomen on the "useful idiot" level. Apparently she is oblivious to the lives saved by the display of a weapon, which greatly outnumbered the lives lost by the inappropriate use of such weapons among our boyishly misguided criminals. (I shall not attempt to estimate the number of young sociopaths who were appropriately disposed of.)
          Second, she believes that a 0.09% problem is addressable by law. When barely half of murders are solved by police detectives. (According to the latest statistics, one out of every eight people on Death Row is innocent.) Coincidentally, that is just about the same percentage as are said to be committed by relatives and friends of the victim. Those are the people the police go after first, regardless of circumstance. I leave it to you, dear reader, to speculate about the abilities of our stalwart boys and girls and blue to head off the purchase (or manufacture) of weapons of destruction by innocent-looking sociopaths with gullible psychologists and more disposable income than any five of us possess.
          I guess this implies complete and total gun confiscation, doesn't it? Gosh, if their shrinks thought they were OK, we can't trust anyone, can we?
          Third, because lefties all run in packs, like dogs, it means they've either stopped disputing his research, or she simply decided to go for the political jugular.
          It's not fear of guns. It's fear of risk.
          American society is getting old.
          Remember Lazarus Long? May the Universe bless Robert Heinlein for inventing him. Lazarus, that extraordinarily long-lived patriarch of the Howard families, had a healthy respect for saving his own skin, and no romantic notions about being a hero. But he lived life with gusto, learning new trades, fathering broods of children, eating heartily, lusting after woman and loving all he could catch. This was a man who knew how to live. Incidentally, he did end up being a hero, more than once, when principles became more important to him than his own tender skin.
          Compare Lazarus to the fretful Yuppie leftist personified by Congresswoman X. She has cloaked herself in the romantic notion of being a "political hero." Thus she characterizes herself as "bravely standing up to the NRA" by making speeches on TV, or to her followers, who applaud her every word. If she helps get confiscation passed, men she has never met will take their government-issued guns and go door-to-door, threatening innocent people with death if they refuse to surrender not only their property, but their inalienable right and duty to defend themselves and their loved ones, and, I might add, their duty to charge her and all the other gun-grabbers with treason for violating their oaths to the Constitution.
          For her brave part in this drama, she will be awarded more men with guns to watch over her, paid for by her victims. Heaven forfend she be inconvenienced in her important work of building a bump-proof society. Weren't we all promised that by the Founders or somebody? And hey, her self-esteem would just be ruined if she couldn't stand up there and point to this accomplishment. The only trade she's ever learned is talking nonsense at high speed, accompanied by a Victorian self-righteousness reminiscent of other wrong-headed manias, such as the Crusades, tulip-bulb futures, and Prohibition.
          She appeals to the fearful, the timid, the ones whose worry about their own tender skin trump any principle under the sun. The ones who loathe tales of courage and sacrifice, because they know what cowards they are. I do not believe that most people are cowards, however, I do believe that politicians responsible for victim disarmament, especially the ones who trumpet their "accomplishments" to the New York Times, are some of the worst.
          No human society can ever be zero-risk -- thank God! -- but after every dangerous event, we have politicians assuring us that we could be, if we would only do what they say. If a tolerance for obvious lies isn't evidence that our Boomer cohort is turning into doddering old farts before our weary eyes, I don't know what is.

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