The Enemy of Good is Perfect
Written by Nick Caraway —
We will be hearing a lot of things over the next couple of days in regards to the mass shooting in Boulder. Maybe it will be in the mass shooting in Georgia. Heck, it could be any of the seven mass shootings we have had over the past seven days in this country. The conservative playbook is well-documented at this point.
1) It is too soon to talk about this.
2) Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.
3) It’s a mental health issue.
4) Thoughts and prayers.
Get out your bingo cards. You’re going to win with that combination in any order. The one variant that sticks in my craw is how the right always tries to poke holes in the argument to install background checks or ban automatic weapons. The gamut they use to point out the isolated cases where those provisions wouldn’t have helped. In other words, the enemy of good is perfect.
If there is no perfect solution then we shouldn’t use it because it’s not perfect. It would be like striking down all traffic laws. See, not everyone follows speed limits. stop signs, or traffic lights. There isn’t always a police officer there to write a ticket for those offending. Occasionally, someone dies because someone broke a traffic law. Texas alone has seen 611 deaths this year due to automobile accidents. Therefore, traffic laws don’t work because they haven’t addressed the problem perfectly. Therefore, they should be abolished.
The arguments against gun control make about as much sense. If people are going to wait around for the perfect solution they won’t get anything. Of course, we know that’s by design. The goal here is to make the world a better and safer place. We cannot make it perfectly safe. Perfect doesn’t exist. If background checks will prevent some of these events from happening then we need background checks. If banning assault weapons will prevent these events from being larger then we need to ban assault weapons.
The enemy of good is great (or perfect). Often times good is the best we can do. There are more deaths every year due to handguns than assault weapons. We likely won’t see an end to handguns and it’s debatable as to whether we should. Assault weapons and background checks are low lying fruit. The vast majority of people agree with those measures and it won’t severely limit people’s freedoms. If you need an Ar-15 to hunt I’d suggest taking up golf.
Nick
“..I don’t apologize for thoughts and prayers,”-Sen. Ted Cruz
1The Colorado State Shooting Association got the initiative to not have these weapons in the city blocked in court just 18 days ago. In an article in WaPo this morning a spokesman for the association hit all of your points. I would like to see an interview with the judge who made that decision!
2Agreed, agreed, agreed.
Along with background checks, I’d like to see a mandatory waiting period of one to two weeks, which would allow a better background check, and would prevent the kind of murder that’s just on impulse…I’m mad because I’m convinced my neighbor poisoned my dog, so I go down to the gun store, buy a 9 mm pistol, and come back to shoot my neighbor the same day. A week might make it clear the neighbor I blamed didn’t poison the dog; the dog got into another poison I stored in my garage. Or that the neighbor did poison the dog, and the police arrested them. Etc.
Nobody really has a need for a gun the same day they shop for one. The people who complain about having to wait are the ones who have an illicit target in mind.
Because I had no arrest record, I wasn’t asked to wait on any of my firearm purchases…it took only minutes…but since I was buying for target and farm use, not planning to go shoot anyone, I didn’t care. If they’d said “come back in a week; we’ll have it waiting for you,” that would’ve been fine. If I’d wanted a deer rifle, I wouldn’t have tried to buy it just before hunting season–I’d have planned to buy it months in advice and practice with it at a range first.
3Gun toting boobert already used the “thoughts and prayers” line except she didn’t mention the victims. Her first complaint was about Biden.
4And yes, of course it’s a mental health issue- a mentally ill person able to get and have guns. Nothing will happen again about reasonable gun control after 2 mass shootings in a week, only 2nd amendment bullshit.
“If you need an Ar-15 to hunt I’d suggest taking up golf.”
Or target practice with a single shot rifle.
5I always found it somewhat audacious that a hunter with an AR-15 might refer to himself as a “sportsman”. How sporting is it to mow down prey with a spray of bullets? Given enough bullets in rapid succession it’s hard to miss.
About that final reference: if you need an AR-15 to hunt you’ll likely need an AR-15 to golf, as well. It’s a difficult sport. I recommend you take up Canasta.
6‘Nations do not die from invasion; they die from internal rottenness.’
‘We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.’
~ Abraham Lincoln
7Turns out the mass murderer bought the AR-15 just 6 days ago and his wife watched him “playing with it”. Thank the judge that overturned Boulder’s assault rifle ban recently, in my opinion. Wonder how he’ll sleep tonight.
8Imagine Trump with a gun…
9No one needs to own a gun in Boulder, Colorado. The town is made up of college kids and wealthy middle-aged potheads. The closest thing to civil unrest Boulder residents have ever seen is the search for their cars in the parking lot after a Phish concert.
10The least they could do is the same as for abortion: 3-day waiting period, drive 500 miles to make the purchase, watch films of people being injured and/or killed (including the guy with the gun), hear all about the imprisonment/conviction process, etc., etc., etc….
11Hey, Rep. Boebert added to the “usual” RWNJ talking points. She tweeted out the profound
“While we are still awaiting important information and details in this case, random public shootings & senseless acts of violence are never ok.”
Maybe, just maybe, there is a thin wedge there to ask Republican Representatives and Senators what ought to be done about the “never ok” things around us.
12It came to my attention years ago that the seeming attitude of the majority of conservatives to any solution to any problem is, “If you don’t have the perfect solution, then we’re better off with no solution at all. Just improvement, even if it’s a massive improvement, is just not good enough. Till you have the perfect solution, do nothing.”
13djw @ 13. Good.
It is not true that all national gun control measures have failed. You can no longer buy by mail (legally, anyway) without restrictions. That was opposed by the NRA.
I propose a Lysistrata approach. Shame the gun nuts, ladies, Make fun of their tiny penises.
It really is true that most gun nuts are too cowardly or have sufficient instincts of self-preservation that they don’t shoot other people. They spend money and affection on guns because they are unloved; they love their guns and their guns love them back.
If gun-loving were to become as socially reprehensible as littering along the highway, then at least some of the gun-lovers would decide it isn’t worth it.
14The Republicans in my State just made concealed carry without a permit legal in just about everyplace including bars. What a great combination: alcohol and guns. What could possibly go wrong?
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