The Absurd Emotionalism of Time in Crime

There is a fundamental flaw in the notion of limiting good people from being able to have ammunition storage devices that can be easily removed and re-used.

The progressive idea of limiting magazines to small sizes or worse, as is the case in California, to not even being able to remove the magazine without a tool, is a vain attempt to limit the number of people murdered over the course a particular amount time.  To the progressives, the death toll divided by the minutes that it took to enact this crime equals the relative emotional evil of the act.  Therefore, the Aurora shooting that claimed 12 lives and took about 10 minutes would have an emotional evil level of 1.2. If we were to actually try to equate it to a real value.

Now, let's compare that to Joseph Christopher.  Who you say?   Joseph Christopher also murder 12 people (attributed, perhaps more), but the difference, he did it from Sept 22, 1980 to May 10, 1981 or over the course of about 13440 minutes.  Joseph used a small caliber handgun (Being 1980, I would assume this was a revolver) and then he switched to a knife.  12 / 13440 = .000893 (emotional evil) ...  Was there a call to arms for the banning of small caliber handguns?  Was there a call to arms for banning knives? No of course not.  People were afraid of him, but they did not associate his tools with the act...too much time between his murders transpired and "HE" became the criminal, not the tools he used. He, because of the amount of time, became the focus as opposed to the tool he used. 

How about a more famous one; like John Wayne Gacy.  Over the course of his spree of real evil from 1972 to 1978, he killed 33 men, mostly with strangulation.  

Now, to clarify, if instead of taking 6 years to kill those 33 men, John Wayne Gacy walked into a church, sealed the doors and systematically over the course of about an hour killed the 33 people sitting there, we'd be outraged.  The President would be making speeches, Congress would be proposing laws.  States, like California, would make it illegal to go into a Church with rope.  But yet, instead of that, we simply were afraid of John Wayne Gacy, the man, not his tools. Why is that?  The only thing that would be different is the amount of time it took for the murders to take place.  That's it.  The number of the dead didn't change, and those that suffered at his hands, remain dead no matter if it took thirty minutes to complete of six years.  The act was still murder, multiple murders.

John and Sarah Makin murdered babies over the course of their lives, as many as 13.  But I'd bet not a one of you know whom they are, and that's considered okay because it doesn't strike at the underlying emotionalism. The length of time that transpired and the sheer 'difference' of the emotional state from what happened in Newtown. I get it.

The picture included with this article is the Long Island Serial Killer, who is still at large*. Ever heard of him? Of course, you haven't. And even if you have, it probably doesn't make your heart jump for justice like watching a whole bunch of people die at one time.

My point is, that we have a fundamental problem, we humans, in thinking that the size of the event, the occurrence at that moment, is more powerful than the same acts that simply take longer to occur.  Evil finds a way and it is not the fault or failure of the .22 caliber handgun that Joseph Christopher used. It is not the plastic bags and rope that John Wayne Gacy used. It is not the tool and it is definitively not the sensationalism of the crime that merits our attention. Frankly, people who follow so close to the present that the length of the past fades away as the news media speaks its next word, are not doing any justice to mankind. They are not becoming the keepers of the sacred knowledge and the creators of wisdom, but are instead, simply a kind of already saturated sponge, where the liquid of today runs into the drain of yesterday and is lost forever.

There needs to be a fundamental shift in thought.  Acts of violence should be measured equally.  Currently, the gruesomeness of the act is an emotional response by the viewer, not a rational (legal) recognition of the crime(s).  You see, when we allow emotion to make the decisions, we blame everything and anything. We get so lost that we actually blame time. We say, "only if he had been forced to take more time!" and since we can't pass laws to force time to change, we pass laws to change the way tools are used in a pathetic attempt to create more time (plenty of YouTube videos out there now show that limiting magazine size or bullet buttons make almost zero difference in the time spent).  We get so caught up we actually play god with the clock and try to force men to fit into the confines of the made-up time frame we allow lawmakers to create. It is absurd, and looking at it from the outside one can only shake their head, unable to understand why lawmakers blame everything but the criminal. And worse, why the average person loses their ability to perform logical thought and succumb to the emotionalism of the moment.

In the end, this emotionalism, following in the fast feet of sensationalism, destroys more than it helps, for it kills individuality. It, in fact, allows Legislators the right to ignore Natural freedoms and, by its actions, take Liberty and property from their own owners. Only a sensationalist, caught in the moment, would dare say that the theft of freedom and the taking of someone's property, who had nothing to do with the act, is an appropriate response. It would be like taking my chainsaw because my neighbor was cutting down other people's trees, purely an impulsive, emotional sensation outside of any kind of logical expectation.  It shows weakness, and a sad, misguided view of humanity, to blame all of mankind for the actions of a few. 

That is not an enlightened view, that, sirs, is the kind of thinking they used in the dark ages. I dare say, for progressive thinkers, your actions are truly regressive.

I stand in opposition to limiting people's personal freedoms. People are not property.

* - When I first wrote this he was still at large, here is what wiki says about the murders and the suspects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island_serial_killer