- Yes, the animate killer, Stephen Paddock was possessed by evil, but the inanimate objects he used (misused) were as neutral as a dump truck (or airplane).
With Manichee everything is either good or evil. It is a religion of dualism said to explain the universe where even inanimate objects are reduced to that dualism. It was one of the early rivals to Christianity and in our judgement rivals it today in the form of devotion to the idea of the benevolence of the state (liberalism) as good, emanating the world of light, and opposed to political incorrectness, defined by them as evil whatever it is determined to be at a given time. Like liberalism today, “It was utterly unconscious that its every answer was a mystification or a whimsical invention; in fact, it gained mastery over men’s minds by the astonishing completeness, minuteness, and consistency of its assertions.” Consistent but often tragically wrong.
For liberals, guns are evil, certainly suspect, nothing to be seen as neutral. Getting rid of them is a good. Of course their inconsistencies abound but rather than venture into deeper philosophical discussion we will point out the many practical articles that we have noticed challenging the whimsical nature of gun control arguments to ban this or that gun or related devise. You can depend on liberals’ inherent illogic to erupt in response to high-profile mayhem with guns. But they do have something right about the matter, under our Second Amendment, the individual ownership of guns represents a challenge to the “light” of the state.
The “whimsy” of gun control enthusiasts is remarkable given their lack of talk about ordinary inanimate objects that are quite capable of being used in greater “dynamic actions” to kill human beings. They are logically impaired by their liberal Manichaeist religious fervor.
Bump stock available
Take an ordinary sort of light to medium duty dump truck. They are available in used but running condition for less than the cost of a couple good rifles with copious ammo, and obtainable with far less scrutiny. Their presence on city streets is unremarkable. To illustrate their comparable destructive capability remember last years mass killing in Nice France by a crazed Islamic terrorist driving a truck. The type of truck does not matter, only that it had some heft to it. Such can push cars and temporary barriers out of the way to impart mayhem.
Compared to the Las Vegas shooting rampage, the Nice killer used that “device” to kill more and injure almost as many in half the time (five minutes). Here is the Wikipedia entry about that murderous rampage resulting in the deaths of 86 people and the injury of 458 others:
The driver was Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a Tunisian resident of France.[5][6] The attack ended following an exchange of gunfire, during which Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was shot and killed by police.
. . . at approximately 22:30, just after the end of the Bastille Day fireworks display, a white 19 tonne Renault Midlum cargo truck emerged from the Magnan quarter of Nice turning eastward on to the Promenade des Anglais, then closed to traffic, near the Fondation Lenval Children’s Hospital.[33][39][41]
Travelling at close to 90 kilometres per hour (56 mph) and mounting onto the pavement as if out of control, it hit and killed numerous bystanders before passing the Centre Universitaire Méditerranéen, where it was first reported by municipal police.[37][42][43] 400 metres (1,300 ft) from the children’s hospital, at the intersection with Boulevard Gambetta, the truck accelerated and mounted on to the kerb to force its way through the police barriers—a police car, a crowd control barrier and lane separators[44]—marking the beginning of the pedestrianised zone.[45]
Having broken through the barrier, the truck, driving in a zigzag fashion, knocked down random members of the crowd milling about on the pavement and in the three traffic lanes on the seaward side of the Promenade.[24] The driver tried to stay on the pavement—returning to the traffic lanes only when blocked by a bus shelter or pavilion—thus increasing the number of deaths.[46] . . .
The driver fired several shots at police from his 7.65 mm firearm, close to the Hotel Negresco,[52] as police arrived; they returned fire with their 9mm Sig Sauer handguns, gave chase to the vehicle and attempted to disable it.[42][53]
The truck travelled a further 200 metres (660 ft) until, in a badly damaged state, it came to halt[54] at 22:35 next to the Palais de la Méditerranée approximately five minutes after the start of the attack.[33][39] There, two national police officers shot and killed the driver.[5][24][39]
The sort of inexpensive used dump truck shown above gives readily available extra heft or “bang” for the buck. Add a few tons of sand to it (an optional accessory, so to speak) and its potential lethality arguably increases, due to increased inertia after obtaining speed. Is a dump truck evil? Is a dump truck with sand more evil? Or is it the operator?
It is analogous in some ways to the arguments over the legality of the “bump stock” accessory reported to be used by Paddock in the Las Vegas killing spree. Such a devise is portrayed as increasing killing capacity. Sand in a dump truck in motion has as much claim to assured lethality.
The “bump stock” is a silly but expensive gimmick in our judgement that does not actually increase the lethality of an already semi-automatic weapon, arguably decreases it. Any of the types of semi-automatic rifles that Paddock had with him can be aimed better without the use of bump stock and still fired at a rate of a round a second, including allowing reloading periodically, resulting in 600 rounds downrange in the span of ten minutes, roughly the span of his “active shooting”, and in that time inflict as much, arguably more lethality. The “bump stock” is more a useful tool for the guns-are-evil crowd than anything. Be assured,today’s Manichaeists are looking to ban more than bump stocks.
R Mall
