the New Deal settlement has been reshaping Americans’ expectations about the nation-state’s reach and role. Consequently, the U.S. federal government will continue to provide a social safety net, regulate the economy, and shoulder a substantial share of responsibility for safeguarding the social and economic bases of political equality.
The State is responsible for two things:
- Respecting and protecting our Rights and Freedom
- Protecting individuals
Even with some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation,
…the State was unable to protect those kindergartners and first graders. Apparently, as news is starting to come out today (so this is subject to changes and updates) Adam Lanza was angry that his Mom was looking to institutionalize him. Feeling that she no longer loved him, and that she loved the school and the school’s kids where she volunteered, he murdered her for not loving him most of all and murdered those kids in retribution to her and to take his anger out on the kids she ‘loved”. Frankly, the root cause of this disaster was a severely mentally deranged kid and the tools that he used were secondary – after all, he broke multiple felony level laws to broach that “gun free zone”. The only law that slowed him down was the 3 day wait time imposed on gun purchases by the State of CT.
So, the State failed in its second responsibility. To be truthful, though, we are a Free society (or at least we were – but that is a topic for later) – unless the entirety of our Society is put into “Lockdown and Fortress mode” by Government edict, there will always be the risk of this happening again. But if the Elected Officials, especially of the Progressive Collective, decided that “Something Must Be Done” about an outlier condition (as in the large overall scheme of events in a free society, there are 10s if not 100s of millions of gun owners that will NEVER carry out such a disgusting act), the State will probably fail at the first responsibility.
Life is a balance act. Given all of the overheated rhetoric by the gun grabbers, with their rallying Liberal cries of “You Don’t Need That” (as in everything that they decide Free people no longer need because it doesn’t fit into their model of Utopia), I get the feeling that Rights and Liberties will be only of tertiary concern. This is especially true as I read of many anti-Second Amendmenters write / tweet / blog / scream the mantra of “repeal the Second Amendment” or “who CARES about the Constitution at a time like this!” Ah yes, punish, horse-whip, and otherwise abuse the innocent law-abiders. But will that even enter into their consciousness? Do they see themselves as just another kind of bully?
Doubtful.
