We Are Not Doing Enough To Keep Our Children Safe

Shortly after the September 11th attacks I was talking to The Concierge's uncle and he shared with me his plan to prevent future airplane hijackings. If every passenger were shackled to his or her seat during the flight, with one passenger at a time allowed to be set free to use the bathroom, those horrible attacks never would have happened. Obviously we all want to be safer, but we have to make sure not to go too far in abridging freedoms in the hope for increased safety.

Benjamin Franklin said "People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."
While I believe Benjamin Franklin had the right idea, some things have changed in the past 200, 220, 230 years. That's the same way I feel about the Constitution. I believe in the Constitution as the foundation for our land, but I also recognize its limits. In those days they needed the right to have guns to form a militia to protect themselves from an oppressive government.
I think the Constitution is great and we should uphold it as the framework for what we want our country to be. But it has been changed, amended and interpreted many times. And I don't some small curbs on gun possession will take away the right to bear arms as granted in the Second Amendment.
However, if this world were perfect, I would wipe away all the guns, no one can have one for any reason, like the U.K. Property crimes might go up, but murders would go way down, especially mass murders.

But that's not possible here so let's deal with the reality of the situation. I hate hunting, but I realize some people enjoy it as a hobby. I don't know why killing animals is so much fun for some people, but I was angry when the government took away my hobby (online poker) so I would be the last one to suggest hunters lose their rights.
I have read the stories, and even written about them, when someone has used a firearm to successfully and lawfully defend their home and property and protect their loved ones from someone wishing to do them harm. I'm sure you could find just as many stories, maybe more, of gun accidents, where little kids got killed playing with their fathers' shotguns.

I keep a kosher home. We have two sets of dishes, don't eat meat and milk together, etc. Outside the home I go nuts. I like the chicken parm at Carmine's. I have been known to devour shrimp at weddings. I like lobster and I love bacon. People often ask me (mostly non-kosher jews), "isn't that hypocrital?" The answer might be yes. But the better answer is, if I am unwilling and unable to do everything, should I do nothing, or should I do something?

We will never ever be totally safe. We will never be able to completely take guns away from people. We will never diagnose every mental illness. We will never have an armed guard, trained gunman in every place a gunman enters, and even if we could I still wouldn't feel safe sending my child to a school where a teacher/principal/security guard is strapped.

But that doesn't mean we should do nothing. Maybe we should place limits on certain "assault weapons." Maybe we shouldn't allow civilians to have magazines that can fire so many rounds per minute, like the one the Connecticut shooter used. You want to make those changes, I'm fine with it. Maybe the next deranged killer will murder 20 people, instead of 26. That would be a great way to save 6 lives, but still a horrible way to lose 20.

You want to loosen privacy laws. You want shrinks to be able to alert law enforcement about potentially violent patients. Fine. You want to ban the mentally ill from possessing guns, that's fine with me.

But let's be realistic about what your gun laws will accomplish: very little. The perpetrators of these crimes don't care that murder is illegal, they certainly aren't going to abide by your gun laws. If someone wants to do harm to someone else, they will do it.

You want to ban violent video games, and violent movies and violent song lyrics, go ahead. But again, remember what Benjamin Franklin said.

You may have read this entire post, looking for answers and not found any. Because I don't have any. I have only a thought, that I have harped on many times on this blog: personal responsibility.

When it comes down to it, it is up to the individual. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. It's an oversimplified cliche, but it is true. A gun without a bad person firing it is fairly benign. A bad person, a crazed, psychotic individual without a gun is just going to look for another way to do harm.

By putting the fault for these crimes in the gun, the mental illness, the violent video game or the bully who picked on the killer in 4th grade, we obscure the responsibility of the individual. We allow sick, scared, hopeless people to separate themselves from their actions.

We need to restore personal responsibility in America. What happens to me is because of what I do and what I choose. What I do and the consequences of my actions are mine and mine alone. We need to do that today. And it starts with you. And me.

Jim Boeheim's 900th Victory Postgame Speech

Jim Boeheim gets his 900th career victory in Syracuse's win over Detroit. And he uses the postgame press conference as a chance to share his views on gun control.



"If we in this country as Americans cannot get the people that represent us to do something about firearms, we are a sad, sad society," the Hall of Fame coach said as applause can be heard in the background.

"If one person in this world; the NRA president, anybody, can tell me why we need assault weapons with 30 shots in the thing. This is our fault. This is my fault and your fault. All of your faults if we don't get out and do something about this."

"If we can't get this thing done, I'm with (Mayor Bloomberg), if we can't get this thing done, I don't know what kind of country we have. This is about us. This isn't about the President or those other people down there. We have to make them understand somehow that this needs to get figured out. Real quick. Not six months from now."

I am not saying I disagree with Boeheim, and I hope to have my own thoughts on this issue written up shortly, but I don't think this was the appropriate place for these comments. This was supposed to be a celebration of his career, not a downer about 20 murdered children. But it was his night and he can do with his forum as he pleases.