Comments Posted By Zenmervolt
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OLIVER WILLIS: IRRATIONAL CERTAINTY
"ALL the evidence points to the hyped, false hysteria being a FACTOR though."
And ALL the evidence points to the Beatles' song "Helter Skelter" being a FACTOR in Charles Manson's murders. But we don't go around blaming the Beatles for the actions of someone who was clearly insane.
As was pointed out yesterday, Poplawski was dishonorably discharged from the Marines and had a protective order for abuse sworn out against him by a previous girlfriend. Either of those by itself is sufficient to disqualify a person from legally possessing firearms under current laws. This means that none of Poplawski's firearms were legal to begin with. Even Bush would have taken the firearms away from Poplawski. That is the objective truth.
In light of those facts, it makes no sense to posit that Poplawski's actions were the result of a fear that Obama would "take his guns" because ANY politician would have taken away Poplawski's firearms. He possessed his firearms illegally under current law; there is therefore no rational basis to suppose he would fear additional laws.
Now, the argument can be made that, since Poplawski was insane, he was not thinking rationally and was consequently still influenced by the murmurings of some fringe conservatives about potential firearms restrictions. This may well be so. However, it then brings us back to what I pointed out in the beginning of this post. Namely, that we don't blame the Beatles for Charles Manson's actions because Manson was insane and there's no way to predict what will set off someone who is insane. That's pretty much what insanity is, complete social unpredictability. An insane person can be set off by something as small as someone not signaling for a lane change on the freeway and it's ridiculous to try to hold fringe conservatives (as a group) even partially responsible for the actions of a madman.
Comment Posted By Zenmervolt On 7.04.2009 @ 07:45
