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Commentary: The real war on Christmas

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 20, 2012 - This column was supposed to be about Christmas. At this time of the year, I usually pen a light-hearted piece in keeping with the holiday spirit.

Once, I wrote of Scrooge on the morning-after, when he awoke from his revelry to realize that he’d given away all his worldly possessions. I used the fictional old coot as a metaphor for holiday shoppers who max out their credit cards while binging on seasonal consumption.

On another occasion, I questioned the critical judgment of George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life. (Was it actually a good idea to entrust the vital bank deposit to drunken Uncle Billy?)

The Yuletide columns were intended to be harmless spoofs, providing the reader with an entertaining interlude from the pressing demands of daily life. This year, I’d planned to write of the so-called “War on Christmas” — a phenomenon widely reported on Fox News and a matter of much concern in conservative circles.

Personally, I find it incredible that some people take umbrage when they receive cards extending “Season’s Greetings” or best wishes for “Happy Holidays.” This is offensive? Really?

I contemplated writing a drama about the sinister forces behind The War who would rob children of their favorite holiday. To keep the moral of my story as ecumenical as possible, my hero — the guy who saves Christmas — would be a Jewish merchant who owns a department store. The challenge was how to pull this off without unduly offending anyone.

We’ll never know if I was able strike the delicate balance between satire and sarcasm because Christmas was effectively cancelled on Dec. 14 when yet another psycho with an assault rifle reintroduced mass carnage into the national dialog. Because this particular bloodbath took place in a grade school where most victims were 6 years old, the crime was so unspeakably horrific that it shocked the conscience of a nation otherwise inured to the sound of gunfire.

In the wake of the Slaughter of the Innocents, the question arises as to whether mass murder is the product of deficient societal response to mental illness or society’s failure to adequately regulate guns. The answer to that one is “yes.”

Basically, our typical mass murder incident looks like this:

Maniac + High-capacity rifle = Memorials with candles, helium balloons & Teddy Bears

The formula looks simple but that simplicity is deceptive because the practical elimination of either factor in the left side of the equation is difficult at best. Bearing in mind that no one solution will be unilaterally successful, let’s at least consider lessons that can be drawn from recent experience and their implications for the path forward.

It’s A Crazy World: When told of atrocities like the massacre at Sandy Hook grade school, most people shake their head, sigh, and say something like, “It’s a crazy world.” Though such comments are intended to be rhetorical and dismissive, they’re actually spot-on.

We once routinely confined individuals suffering from severe mental disorders to state-run institutions. Today, those institutions have been closed and replaced in large part by out-patient treatment protocols. The latter strategy is putatively more humane for the patient and cheaper for the taxpayer. Unfortunately, those advantages come with a price. If the world seems crazier than it used to, one reason may be that more crazy people are walking the streets.

Authorities are leaving no stone unturned in their quest to discover the Connecticut killer’s motive.  Who cares?  Maybe he hated his mother; maybe he was following instructions from his homicidal parakeet. The relevant question is why this profoundly disturbed individual was at large with ready access to firearms.

On-Your-Honor Gun-Free Zones Don’t Work: Hanging a “No Firearms Allowed” sign by the entrance to a school or store may make you feel better about yourself, but it does nothing to make you safer. In fact, it merely advertizes to the potential killer that the facility is a rich source of defenseless victims.

In 1999, the mass murder at Columbine High stunned the nation. Today, that episode has fallen to third place on the list of most lethal domestic school shootings, having been eclipsed by the slaughters at Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook. I reluctantly conclude that an armed security presence in the form of full-time guards or trained and equipped volunteer faculty members is needed. Note that most of the shooters either surrender or kill themselves when confronted by cops who also have guns and know how to use them.

High-Capacity Magazines Do Work: These devices — often misidentified as “clips” — are designed to provide maximum killing power in short order. As there are no legitimate civilian applications for them, they should be restricted to on-duty military and law enforcement personnel exclusively. Let’s at least make the killers pause to reload.

Rather than concern ourselves with the style of the weapon—whether it is of military or sporting design—we are better advised to limit its lethality. I would thus restrict a rifle magazine to 5 rounds and a pistol’s to 8, though there is nothing sacrosanct about either specific number.

I also oppose any effort to “grandfather” over-the-limit magazines already in private hands. Instead, the law can provide for a grace period during which the older magazines could be exchanged anonymously and free of charge for legal ones at participating gun shops and police stations. After the deadline for compliance is reached, possession of an illegal magazine would entail mandatory jail time.

Of course, no penalty can deter a suicidal maniac.  He’s usually prepared to pay the ultimate price. But a federal statute crafted to the guidelines specified above would make it a lot harder for him to get his hands on the tools of his trade.

The Constitution Is Not A Suicide Pact: Those words are as true today as they were when first uttered by Justice Robert H. Jackson in 1949. Yet, many of the people most concerned with the War on Christmas are the same ones who are most stridently opposed to any form of firearm regulation.

To individuals who contend the Second Amendment precludes reasonable measures to prevent slaughter, I would reply in a way this publication won't print. The editors will, however, allow me to wish them a Merry Christmas, so let's just leave it at that.