Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” — Rahm Emanuel

Before I go any further, I ask that everyone extend their thoughts, prayers and condolences to all affected by Sunday night’s massacre on the Las Vegas Strip.

Concerning which, a few observations:

• I remember it more vividly than any email I have ever received. On the afternoon of September 11, 2001, an old friend from my Tucson days sent me an email with a subject line that read: “They want you to panic…”. The first sentence of the body of the email read, “… so don’t”. When something absolutely horrific happens, our natural tendency is to panic and demand that our government “do something” to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.
• Before rigor mortis set in on the first corpse, the Left, predictably, went to work demanding greater restrictions on gun rights. And they did so in spite of the fact that there is simply no correlationbetween rates of gun ownership and rates of homicide. America ranks first in the world in gun ownership and something like ninety-sixth in homicide. Furthermore, violent crime has fallen almost in halfsince 1995, even though we have more guns than ever. Speaking of 1995, that was the year in which Tim McVeigh killed 168 people without a gun!
• Which brings me to my next point: this drop in crime has taken place in a time when America has more immigrants and Muslims – i.e. the boogiemen of the Right – than ever. The Las Vegas suspect, Stephen Paddock was neither. If nothing else, we will be spared another round of baseless Islamophobia.
• The Left is not alone in demanding that we give up our liberties. Who remembers how, in the aftermath of 9/11, the Right gleefully gave away liberty in the name of security? Look for a repeat of this in the coming days. Americans have given up massive amounts of libertyin the name of being “safe”. Expect the Right to demand that Trump, like W before him, “do something ”!
• The state is far more dangerous than anything it claims to “ protect us” against. Stephen Paddock, according to the official narrative, killed 59 people and injured 527 more. He did a lot of damage with his two hands. However, as Eric Peters once stated “the government has millions of hands”. Hence, it can do infinitely more damage. Stalin and Mao were each responsible for the deaths of tens of millions people. And they sent the police and military – i.e. the idols of the Right – to do the actual killing.
• Don’t think you know what “the victims’ families ” think or want,because you don’t! Some 9/11 survivors fully support the official story as well as the official response, while others totally ridicule the official narrative and response. Yet others fall somewhere in between. In the aftermath of Columbine, Tom Mauser, who lost a son in that tragedy, called for more gun control while Darrell Scott, who lost a daughter on that horrible day, traveled all over the country proclaiming that more gun laws were not the answer.
• Don’t believe everything the mainstream media – i.e. CNN, Faux, MSNBCCCP – tells you. And don’t believe every conspiracy theory you hear. Do your own research and do your own thinking. As for me, I have a lot of trouble believing the official story. If you want me to believe that some guywith no priors in his 64 years other than a traffic citation all of a sudden went nutzoid killing 59 and injuring 527 more, I don ’t want your oceanfront property in Nebraska either. There is more to the story. Far more!
• Don’t throw down with the Left and give up your gun rights. Don’t throw down with the Right and give up all your other rights.
• Why should we be concerned about our rights in the aftermath of such a crisis? Because, in times like these, not only do very powerful people want to take our rights away but, also, people are most easily influenced into giving their rights away.
• Two million Americans will die from something this year. That means that 1,999,941 will die from something other than the Las Vegas Massacre. Your chances of death or injury from such an event are nanoscopic. As Jefferson once put it:

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”

I would rather live in a free society with the absolutely infinitesimal chance of being a victim of something like the Las Vegas massacre than in a society wherein I was constantly presumed a criminal and where the state could dispose of me at will.

That is your choice. Choose wisely.

Source: http://bit.ly/2yEM7wX