The Power of the Partial Solution

Another mass murder with a gun. It’s starting to become ho-hum. The 5-stage process goes like this:

1. Someone shoots a lot of people.
2. In the ensuing outrage, demands are made that “something must be done.“
3. Gun control laws are suggested
4. The NRA, America’s paid proxies for the gun manufacturers, says that no law will prevent mass shootings.
5. The bribed politicians pretend to argue; columnists speculate; then all agree that mass shootings cannot be prevented, so nothing is done.

Soon after, begin again from #1.

It’s happening more frequently now, and ironically, the more often it happens, the more inured we become to tragedy.

NRA tells you, there is no gun problem,
but the solution to the problem is more guns.

The NRA then says there are no acceptable solutions, because we cannot prevent all gun killings in America.  For every proposed solution, someone will claim, “That solution wouldn’t have stopped this [named] crime.

In truth, there are no total solutions to any crime. Still, we have laws.

Laws against speeding do not prevent all speeding. Laws against fraud do not prevent all fraud. Laws against burglary do not prevent all burglary.

All laws are only partial solutions.

Because no law will eliminate all gun killings, we must be willing to accept laws that at least will reduce gun killings.

We must be willing to search for and to accept partial solutions.

In evaluating proposed laws, we must ask:

• Will this law have a net positive effect? That is, will it do more good than harm?
• Is it feasible? That is, can the law be enforced by the police and the courts?
• Is it fair? That is, does it apply regardless of income, age, or ethnic background?

Last year we published the post titled, “Five partial solutions to gun violence.” Because we now are entering stage #5 (above), perhaps we should review those partial solutions, which are listed at the end of this post.

We have a choice. We can take the actions described below, which will not completely eliminate shootings. But they will save thousands of American lives, while reducing the urge to buy guns for “self-defense.”

Or, we can take no action, and know full well that the gun killings will continue and probably increase, as more people buy more guns to defend themselves against their fellow Americans.

Yes, we have a choice. We only have to demand it.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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Five Partial Solutions to Gun Violence

No, there are no 100% solutions to gun violence.

But, yes, we can institute certain partial solutions, greatly diminishing the deaths and woundings that occur every day.

1. Interpret the Constitution properly.  Our founders placed the words, “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state . . . ” at the beginning of the 2nd Amendment for a reason. Clearly, they understood that allowing everyone to have all kinds of “arms,” without limitation, was dangerous to the public.

We are a nation of laws. Regulation always has been and always will be, the key to public safety.

Even gun enthusiasts would be first to admit that the public should be prevented, by regulation from “keeping and bearing” certain “arms”: 50 caliber machine guns or bazookas or cannons or poison gas, or surface-to-air missiles, or atomic arms, etc.

So the question is not one of regulation vs. no regulation, but merely what kind of regulation?

And the Constitution tells us the answer to that question: “A well-regulated militia.” That is the kind of regulation needed. Guns should be under the control of well-regulated militias. They can be federal militias or even state militias, for those states more addicted to guns, but guns are too important not to be regulated.

2. Federalize gun manufacture and importation The misrepresentation of the Constitution, the bribing of Congress by the gun manufacturers and the gun importers and the NRA, the propaganda telling us that guns make us safer, despite daily evidence they don’t — these all are funded by one motive: The profit motive. Eliminate the gun manufacturer’s and importer’s profit motive, and the elements that put too many guns into the hands of too many people disappear.

3. Apply the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations)laws to gangs. A great many gun killings are committed by street gang members. Entire neighborhoods, even towns, are held hostage by the fear of turf wars, drive-by shootings, revenge shootings, and robberies. Street gangs are criminal enterprises under RICO.

Under RICO, a person who has committed “at least two acts of racketeering activity” drawn from a list of 35 crimes—27 federal crimes and 8 state crimes—within a 10-year period can be charged with racketeering if such acts are related in one of four specified ways to an “enterprise”.

Those found guilty of racketeering can be fined up to $25,000 and sentenced to 20 years in prison per racketeering count.

In addition, the racketeer must forfeit all ill-gotten gains and interest in any business gained through a pattern of “racketeering activity.

Despite its harsh provisions, a RICO-related charge is considered easy to prove in court, as it focuses on patterns of behavior as opposed to criminal acts.

Some patterns of activity include:

It shall be unlawful for any person who has received any income derived, directly or indirectly, from a pattern of racketeering activity or through collection of an unlawful debt. (Bottom line: Every gang member does this, so merely belonging to a gang is considered a crime.)

. . . to acquire or maintain, directly or indirectly, any interest in or control of any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce. (For example, if your gang deals in drugs, guns or women, you, as a member of the gang, are liable.)

. . . to conspire to violate any of the provisions [of the law]. (Even talking about breaking the law with your fellow gang members is a felony.)

Your police know who the gang-bangers are. They have lists.  The police could round up many of them,  tomorrow.

But rather than arresting gang-bangers, again and again, only to see them let them soon back on the streets to shoot someone, we can break up the gangs and take the gangsters off the streets permanently.

4. Additional penalties for gun carry during a felony Enact a law that essentially says: If you carry a gun while committing a felony, twenty years automatically will be added to the term of the felony itself.

5. Tax gun ownership.  Governments tax personal property, and the amount of tax is determined by the type of property.Place a heavy, annual tax on guns. Make gun ownership expensive.The ostensible purpose of the tax would be to pay for the widespread death, injury and damage to this nation and to its citizens, caused by guns.Anyone caught with a gun, for which no tax has been paid, would be subject to jail, and have the gun confiscated and destroyed.

Denying that guns are a danger to innocent people, while claiming that guns protect “good guys,” as the greedy gun manufacturers tell us, simply hasn’t worked, cannot work and never will work.

The quote, often misattributed to Albert Einstein applies here: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

Rather than foolishly continuing to repeat failure, common sense must prevail.

There is no way to identify in advance, the so-called “good guys” who should have guns. A “good guy” can become a “bad guy” in an instant, given some minor provocation or no provocation at all.

Even many mass killers have been seeming “good guys,” by any of the myriad definitions.

The only solution is over time to make guns harder and harder to get and use, by a five-pronged offensive:

1. Interpret the Constitution properly
2. Remove the profit motive from gun manufacture and sales
3. Eliminate gangs via the RICO statutes
4. More jail time for gun-carry during felonies. Get them off the street.
5. Make gun ownership expensive

Anyone, sincerely hoping to reduce gun violence will renounce the insatiable gun manufacturer’s profit-motivated propaganda, and recognize that for a safer society we must begin to reduce the number of guns in the hands of the populace.

There are many things we are not allowed, yet we agree to the prohibitions, because we understand we must give up something to gain something. That is what being in a society means.

We must give up the unquestioned attachment to guns to achieve a safer society. Other nations have done it. We Americans can do it, too.