Tragedy, and Tragedy Averted

Consider two Newark crime stories with very different endings. Assuming that the papers got the facts right, the stories ran like this:

First, a group of young people run afoul of some murderous thugs, who line them up against a wall and murder them in cold blood. The crime captures national attention because the victims were young, bright, hardworking, students, but, in reality, it’s an all to common experience in Newark, in which five dozen other folks met similar fates so far this year.

A scant two days or so later, another altercation on the streets of Newark commenced with in similarly ominous fashion. Another miscreant approached an innocent, produced a gun, and shot his victim in the foot.

But, this time, the story ends very differently, because the "victim" possessed the wherewithal to fight back: a pistol. Instead of a dead innocent – yet another statistic in the seemingly endless list of innocents who relied upon the tender mercies of criminals, only to discover that criminals display no mercy – the evening ended with a dead assailant.

Again, assuming the facts to be as the papers report – a VERY chancy assumption, of course – the second story ended with an unmourned death, that of a criminal who got precisely what he deserved. A law abiding citizen (in this case, an off-duty corrections officer) with a firearm turned another potential murder into a story with a happier ending.

This sort of thing happens all the time in those states enlightened enough to actually trust their people to wield the force necessary to defend themselves. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of potential crimes, and uncounted numbers of likely murders, never occur because the victim selected has the moxie – and the instrumentality – necessary to fight back.

Typically, the Left asserts that the easy availability of guns causes the problem. Just TRY getting a pistol permit here in NJ. And getting a carry permit requires little less than permission from God Himself. Murderers and thugs – who, obviously, care little about ANY law – pay not attention to NJ’s effective ban on (legal) weaponry and encounter little difficulty securing firepower; if the country can’t keep 12 million illegal aliens (the initial reports suggest that the murderers in the first case were illegal aliens) and vast quantities of drugs out of the country, what chance exists to prevent criminals from getting guns? Unfortunately, the burden of draconian anti-freedom gun laws falls upon those who obey the law. With deadly consequences.

The inanity of the gun-grabbing perspective defies description. In order to buy into such nonsense, one must believe that the gun, and not the miscreant behind it, causes the problem. In the second case described, gun grabbers must believe that the pistol in the hands of the victim was every bit as evil as that in the hands of the criminal, a patently silly proposition.

Or consider the recent massacre at Virginia Tech, in which a lunatic with a gun found himself the ideal hunting ground: a place full of unarmed victims, in which the forces of enlightenment officially proscribed possession of firearms. And ask yourself a simple question: were the students at VT safer when only one person had a gun on campus, or later on that day when hundreds of armed men descended on the school?

Obviously, it's the bad guys, not the guns, which present the problem.

Starting with the incontestable proposition that the Bad Guys will ALWAYS be able to get guns, and that when evil arrives at your doorstep, it tends to show up heavily armed, society has, effectively, two choices: go quietly like lambs to the slaughter, and read ever more heartbreaking stories of young lives cut short by criminal conduct. Or let the good people fight back and trust them to make the right decisions.

The headlines of the second story – bad guy dead, good guy alive – should suffice to demonstrate the logic of trusting the people. But since the gun-ban mentality owes nothing to logic, the bodies of innocent victims will, alas, continue to mount.

Sound and Fury

The Left excels at only one thing: noise.

Morristown got a dose of the Left’s idea of political discourse on the subject of immigration last weekend. High volume and lack of manners, often in Spanish.

The Right – foolishly believing that ideas matter – simply lacks what it takes to pull of a good rally, simply because conservatives can’t find it within themselves to chant mindless slogans. (Anything beginning with "hey hey, ho ho" for instance) The Left compensates with volume that which it lacks in intellectual heft.

Too, the Right generally believes that both sides to any issue should be heard. Go to any college campus and consider the speakers they invite. If a leftist speaks, conservative students may ask probing questions, but they make no attempt to silence the speaker. In the fabulously unlikely event that a college invites a conservative, the Left demands that the invitation be revoked and attempts to shout the speaker down. Because "Fascists" and "racists" possess no right to be heard, right?

Perhaps it’s just manners. The Left is so completely persuaded of the rectitude of its own positions, and the evil of the opposition, that common courtesy simply does not apply. Conservatives tend to believe that the Left is simply mistaken, that rational argument demonstrating the self-evident flaws in Leftist philosophy will bring about a conversion. The Left, contrariwise, believes that conservatives are evil, motivated by malice, and, therefore, that they labor under no obligation to politely engage.

Last Saturday, on one side of the street, a polite, mostly demure crowd of about 250 folks gathered to listen to speakers extol the virtues of a rational immigration policy concentrating on the necessity to enforce existing immigration laws. On the other side of the street, an approximately equal number of obnoxious, loud folks gathered with inane signs, and chanted, usually in Spanish. Demonstrating just how much they respect America, they refused to calm themselves even during the national anthem. A number of representatives from NOW joined them and set a perfect example, talking, laughing, embracing, and waving (inane) signs during the Anthem.

The Left finds itself incapable of discussing the subject intelligently, accusing those who believe that the law should be enforced of "hate" and "racism". Indeed, the major chant spouted by the pro-illegal crowd ran "stop racist deportations". "Racist", as herein employed, means concentrating on the folks who are here illegally; since, disproportionately, they come from one area, enforcing the law against them constitutes "racism".

The primary objection that most conservatives have to illegal immigration rests upon (a) the fact that it’s illegal and (b) the fact that it costs American citizens an unholy fortune. But the Left has long viewed law enforcement with suspicion, noting that a substantial percentage of the folks who commit crimes tend to be "minorities". And, being (often) socialists, they don’t particularly care if taxes increase to support new immigrants, especially if that creates a new group of folks dependent upon government who will tend to vote for leftists who keep the boodle flowing.

Conservatives believe in the old saws, that crime should not pay, and that the punishment imposed upon a lawbreaker should fit the crime committed, etc. That means that people who come here illegally cannot be permitted to get a leg up over those who play by the rules. And the only punishment that fits the offense of being here illegally is to be sent back where you belong.
The question, though, is what the State or local governments can do to step into the breach left by the feds, who, inexplicably, fail to enforce seemingly clear laws.

Obviously, the policy of the state ought to be to make it difficult for lawbreakers to profit from their offense. Since the primary motive for this particular offense is economic, striking at those who employ illegal workers, thereby undercutting their incentive to locate here, seems entirely reasonable. Put another way, neither NJ nor any locality possesses the wherewithal to deport anyone, nor is it the appropriate sphere of local or state government to so engage. But as many of the costs associated with illegal immigration fall upon the states and localities, they certainly should do what they can to persuade illegals to find another destination.

Since illegal immigrants cost the state uncounted billions per annum in additional spending, for schools, health care, social services, and the like, the state possesses a powerful rationale to ensure that its own laws are enforced. This it can do at minimal expense.

For instance, a simple, state law requirement that anyone seeking work in NJ present some evidence of lawful residency, such as an NJ drivers’ license, or some similar, governmentally issued ID, enforceable against employers, would go a long way to solving this problem. NJ could begin an aggressive program of ensuring that employers secure such identity documents, if only to be absolutely certain that our tax, wage and hour, workplace safety, and other, similar laws are being obeyed.

We could couple that with the old common law doctrine of qui tam: anyone who squeals on a lawbreaker – someone employing an illegal alien – would receive a percentage of the fine (say $10,000 per worker), plus counsel fees for a private cause of action. (Somewhat akin to the private right of action against polluters violating discharge laws) Give the citizenry a private right of action against lawbreakers, and both the State and the citizenry make out. Citizens would have an incentive to ensure that the law is enforced and employers would be CERTAIN to ensure that they hire only those entitled to be here. Illegal immigrants, finding the economic prospects in NJ barren, would go somewhere else.

Illegals are, mostly, not evil. But they are also, mostly, not welcome, a circumstance a green card would change. This is not even a particularly difficult issue: if you’re here contrary to our laws, go home.

Perhaps, because it’s such an easy question, and the Left’s position so clearly contrary to basic common sense, they need to resort to yelling, chanting, and vandalism to win the point, securing through intimidation that which they cannot secure through argument.