Bad Apples

There's been a lot happening on the Valdosta State campus in the past few days.  First a series of protests involving walking on a U.S. flag.  Then a publicity hound got in the mix, stealing the flag and giving the group publicity they never could have achieved on their own.  With the media now paying attention, we found that the protesters were affiliated with the New Black Panthers.  And then yesterday, the University police discovered a backpack apparently belonging to the leader of the protesters, Eric Sheppard, that contained handgun.  An arrest warrant has been issued, and Sheppard is now a fugitive, and presumed "armed and dangerous."

Now, the most probable case is that all this true, that Sheppard is an amateur would-be terrorist (or at least an angry young thug), and when the police eventually catch him, they'll be removing a dangerous animal from the streets.

But I can't help being a little suspicious.  Consider the number of stories of police planting evidence.  The many examples of institutional racism in law enforcement.  And of course, the inflamed passions on VSU lately, as the police were forced to defend someone desecrating a flag - a very unpopular decision locally.

Then consider how odd it would be for Sheppard to leave that backpack just lying around.  I mean, come on - who leaves their gun lying around like that?  Isn't it just a bit too convenient that the police not only found the backpack containing the gun, but that they also found "unmistakable evidence" that it belonged to Sheppard?

This is why "a few bad apples" really are a problem.  Most police officers are trying to do a difficult job honestly and properly.  But there's a few doing it wrong - and worse, those bad apples have been left in the barrel for _decades._  It's hard to trust any police officer at this point, because there's no way to tell which ones are bad, and no confidence that even the good cops will report them.

Last, consider that this is coming from a privileged, white, upper-middle-class male.  I've never been stopped by the police unreasonably (a couple of traffic stops, each one deserved); never been mistreated by a cop; never even been the subject of rude behavior from a cop.  And I still have trouble believing this convenient discovery.  How much harder is it going to be for people who get harassed on a regular basis?  Who are the same color as all those unarmed men that have been shot to death by cops in the last few years?  In a community where a black high schooler was found dead, rolled up in the middle of a wrestling mat, and the death was ruled accidental?

I don't expect this to end well.

Ghoulish Principles

It is truly sad how nearly every tragedy in modern society is immediately twisted to serve the purposes of ideologues.

The horrible shootings at Virginia Tech are a perfect example. Within hours of the story hitting the news, I saw arguments on both sides.

On one side, unsurprisingly, there are calls for additional gun control. If it had not been so easy for the killer to acquire guns, the activists say, then this terrible tragedy never would have happened. I suppose that might even be true, since it turns out that he did indeed purchase his weapons legally. But considering the amount of planning that he apparently put into this, and the ease of buying guns ILlegally, I really doubt that an extra law would have stopped him. Most of the laws I’ve seen proposed would CERTAINLY not have stopped him. Let’s assume that he stayed within the law. A ban on semi-automatic handguns would have forced him to use a revolver. A restriction on magazine sizes would have forced him to reload more often. Even a complete ban on handguns would merely have forced him to bring in a rifle or sawed-off shotgun…which could have been easily carried and concealed disassembled in a large book bag - then reassembled after he chained the doors shut. Would any of those changes have actually saved anyone?

On the other side, activists are calling for increased gun ownership and more freedom to carry them concealed. They point out that one sane person in the building carrying his own pistol could have taken the gunman down before he killed so many innocent people. Maybe it would have worked out that way. Or maybe it wouldn’t – I’ve seen multiple sources that claim that 50-75% of soldiers in a battle do not fire their weapons. Those numbers are for World War II and earlier – the military has since then added desensitization and conditioning to their training methods, and by the end of Vietnam got up to 90% of their forces firing when needed. That means that even in trained soldiers under direct fire, 10% of them are too frightened to pull the trigger. Maybe that one person with a pistol would have shot the murderer and saved lives…or maybe he would have missed and got shot himself…or maybe he would’ve missed and killed another bystander…or maybe he would have hidden somewhere and hoped he wasn’t found.

Or maybe there would have been several people in the building with guns. That increases the odds that some of them would have taken action…which leaves several people roaming the building with handguns out, looking for a shooter. What happens when two of these good citizens come around a corner and spot each other?

And in the meantime, if the pro-gun activists have their way, we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of college students running around armed. It’s been awhile, maybe college has changed since I went – but I remember seeing numerous relationship breakups, the stress of Finals Week, depression and homesickness, and lots of drinking. How many additional murders and successful suicides would result from adding handguns to that volatile mix?

Obviously, there are good arguments on either side of the issue. But is this really the right time to argue it and the right example to use for support? Good public policy comes from a careful and rational examination of the issues and consequences. The immediate emotional reaction to single event is hardly the right mental state in which to design that policy – and the activists’ ghoulish attempts to use this tragedy to further their own causes makes me want to reject them all.

Edit - From what I've seen in the news, the Virginia Tech gunman was clearly an attention-seeker. I've seen two separate sources suggest that publicizing his name only encourages such behavior. That makes sense to me - accordingly, I have removed his name in favor of anonymous terms - "gunman," "killer," and "murderer."