Target true causes of gun crimes
Is Mayor Marty a closet member of the NRA?
Boston’s mayor, who proudly took to the streets in the anti-NRA #MarchForOurLives last month, is an unlikely hero for the Second Amendment crowd — but maybe he should be. The Boston Herald reports he’s spending another $2.4 million on more psychologists, social workers and nurses in the Boston school system to provide “more behavioral health support for kids.”
“Providing students with resources to help foster their physical, emotional and mental health goes a long way on putting them, and keeping them, on a path to success,” Walsh said. It’s also a much smarter way to prevent school shootings than the sort of broadbased gun bans Marty’s fellow marchers were demanding.
Mayor Marty was on former Obama flak David Axelrod’s podcast the other day, touting Massachusetts’ strict gun laws as a model for the nation. And yes, Massachusetts has one of the lowest gun crime rates in the country. But New Hampshire has a lower murder rate — and is much more Second Amendment friendly.
And while Boston’s murder rate is about onetenth of the current murder capital of America, St. Louis (followed closely by Baltimore and Detroit), it’s still higher than El Paso, Seattle and Portland, all similarly sized cities in states with less gun regulation.
This is the point that gun rights supporters like Jim Wallace of the Massachusetts’ Gun Owners Action League have been trying to make: The smart way to prevent gun crimes is to focus on A) criminals, and B) the factors that cause a person to pick up a gun with bad intent in the first place.
Massachusetts liberals are unwilling to do anything about problem A, the criminals. We have a mandatory sentencing minimum for gun crimes, but it is rarely enforced because so many on the Left are trying to keep young men in general — and young men of color specifically — out of the prison system. It’s a worthy goal. But while releasing an armed gangbanger back onto the streets may improve his self-esteem, it’s a lousy way to reduce gun violence.
Interestingly, the mayor makes no mention of safety or preventing crime in his announcement of the new funding and staff. I wonder if it’s because the politics of admitting that there are solutions to gun violence that don’t involve attacking the Second Amendment are (ahem) inconvenient. While the NRA is reluctant to make any compromises regarding gun laws — a strategic and philosophical mistake on its part — the area where there’s currently the most potential for progress is in the area of mental health.
Ah, but there’s the rub: Second Amendment folks hear “mental health” and think “Let’s help people with mental illness.” Anti-gun activists like those in Massachusetts hear it and think “Let’s take someone’s guns!”
And so it is with the state’s push for the socalled “Extreme Risk Protection Orders.” The idea is to “temporarily” take away the guns and right to own guns from people determined to be dangerous and/or suicidal. But as Wallace points out, that’s the only thing the ERPO does.
“If a court has determined that a person is an ‘extreme danger to society,’ are we OK with them practicing medicine, driving a school bus or resuming active duty in the military?” Wallace asks. “This legislation does nothing to address the numerous other means a dangerous person could cause harm.”
He’s got a point. If someone is really mentally ill and really dangerous, why not get them some real mental health treatment? Have them institutionalized? When the only solution Massachusetts politicians are offering is “Take the guns!” it feeds the notion that the real motive behind these proposals isn’t mental health.
Mayor Walsh could lead the way in the response to Parkland by emphasizing the power of adult engagement and the insights of mental health professionals to keep kids from doing crazy things in the first place. But if he did, he might get that political kiss of death: Kudos from the NRA.