Sheriff Clarke's Strange Bedfellow

Now enter from stage Left (not Moonbat, but Lefty) Dr. Steve Hargarten:

Hargarten suggested that Milwaukee and other cities could tackle gun violence by treating it in the same way car crashes were addressed.

They should be made so that no one but the authorized owner can use them. That could be done in a number of ways, such as with electronics that recognize an owner's palm print or with a radio frequency signal, he said.

Of course, reliability is an issue with doodads and gizmos, but that's an argument for another day.

"Once a gun becomes an electronic device, safety features will be huge," he said. "Think of the safety features that have been added to cars."

Right. And think of that Allstate ad in which the company spokesman says that "the driver" is still the single most significant problem with cars...

Also needed are tough measures to limit unauthorized access to guns, said Hargarten, who studies gun violence as a public health issue.

Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. agreed with Hargarten's view of looking at shootings as an illness, calling it "a public health crisis."

I will politely opine that the Sheriff is utterly mad--crazy--wickiwickibonzo if he actually believes this crap.

Murder and mayhem are not polio, nor TB, nor head-lice.

Murder and mayhem are moral failings.

There's no "health issue" here except the health of souls.

Clarke's been seduced by Hargarten's passion and commitment--Steve's an enjoyable guy and he's very persuasive. Too bad he got his religious training from the Jesuits--otherwise he'd understand Moral Theo 101.

(By the way, the "health issue" angle's been tried before, during the Clinton Administration. Besides being an excellent vehicle for getting Federal grants, it's a method by which to side-step settled law on the topic of gun ownership. Think I'm kidding? You recall how another very powerful Western government used "psychiatric disturbances" as a method of imprisoning resisters, don't you??)