A trauma surgeon in New York City, where shootings and murders have skyrocketed in the last eight months, believes it is the job of politicians to stop criminals from behaving criminally. The Daily News reports:
As he watches the surge in gunshot victims across New York City, veteran trauma surgeon Dr. Ronald Simon is baffled by politicians’ inability to stem the bloodshed.
“It’s mind boggling to me that we can’t get our act together to start taking steps to prevent this kind of gun violence,” said Simon, Director of Trauma Surgery at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn.
Simon also believes that if we just curtail the existence of firearms, the bad guys will stop being bad:
“I just hope that eventually, sooner rather than later, people could put their political desires or motives aside and all get together and create laws or programs that will enable us to reduce the availability of guns and prevent people from getting them that shouldn’t have them so that there are no innocent bystanders,” Simon said.
But Simon — who lives and works in one of the most heavily gun-controlled cities in the country — might want to talk to some New York city politicians who pin the blame for the crime surge on reasons other than guns:
City Council member…Joseph Borelli, a Staten Island Republican, agree that the city’s medics and doctors are doing yeoman’s work in dealing with the violence — but they disagree on the cause.
Borelli blamed the changes in laws governing pre-trial detention and police tactics, and the NYPD decision to dissolve plainclothes anti-crime units.
“This has been an exercise in progressive government gone awry,” he said.
And now for some off-roading op-ed. There is an overwhelming belief by some that guns are to blame for the recent violence. If only gang bangers and violent offenders didn’t have guns, we’d all be safe, even the bad guys! And we all know if politicians would only enact stricter gun control laws, criminals won’t be able to get their hands on firearms…right?
It seems to be forgotten, time and again, that criminals are going to behave a criminals. Politicians can throw all the gun control in the world at the problem, but those who want to do violence will find a way to do it. Either they’re going to get their hands on firearms — just as they already do — or they’re going to use other weapons to injure and murder people.
The idea that ever-more laws will somehow reduce acts of violence is delusional and unrealistic. It’s also asking for trouble because it gives Big Government ever-increasing power over the lives of all of us. Believing government can waive a regulatory wand and end “gun violence,” as Dr. Simon seem to, is unicorns and rainbows thinking, like Maria twirling on an Alpine mountaintop.
Reality is something else. The good guys end up punished and the bad guys become the only ones who are armed. Does that seem right to you?
This may be a biased crowd to ask, but here goes: do any of you believe giving the government more power will do anything to curb violence has any positive effect?