Gun Control Is Not Proper Reaction to Arizona Tragedy

Ben Keane / January 13, 2011

The wake of a violent tragedy is an appropriate time for reflection, investigation, prayer, and the promotion of healing.  It is a particularly inappropriate time for political opportunism.  After last weekend’s tragedy in Arizona, Congress should put the brakes on any desire to ram through gun-control legislation that will neither solve the perceived problems in federal law nor prevent any future assaults on public officials.  Observation teaches us that in the wake of crisis, politicians’ instinctive reaction is to check the legislative box and claim that they have solved a problem by passing legislation – any legislation.  More often than not, however, such knee-jerk legislation fails to deter future bad actors and creates more problems than solutions.

Despite this reality, politicians on both sides of the aisle are already rushing to the floor in Congress to announce legislation supposedly designed to “prevent” the next madman from inflicting harm on our elected officials or other innocent Americans.  Representative Peter King (R-NY) was one of the first to offer up a hasty legislative reaction to the Arizona tragedy, proposing a new law that would “make it illegal to knowingly carry a gun within 1,000 feet of certain high-profile government officials.”  (more…)