| Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty September 17, 2013 Another Awful Shooting, Soon to Be Followed by Another Awful Gun-Control Debate Another horrible day; another day ruined when some loon decides that the best way to address his problems with the world is to murder as many strangers as he can until someone shoots him. Someday it would be nice to actually discuss mental health in this country. Someday it would be nice to know if there are warning signs for these horrors or ways to prevent it before the first shots get fired. Is the shooters' cruelty ultimately driven by isolation? An inability to cope with adversity? Despair? Uncontrollable rage? Presumably, at some point, the shooter wasn't too far gone, and he could have chosen a path different from this horrific blaze of terror.
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| | But we can't have the mental-health discussion, because our leaders insist we must first have the gun-control debate. Immediately. It can't wait in line. It has to start before the shooting incident is over. Twitchy tracked all the pro-gun-control tweets from celebrities. Henry Winkler got his gun-control Tweet in by 9:50. David Frum seems to believe that it is somehow good, or useful, or helpful to himself and his cause to begin fuming about the need for gun control the moment the public hears about a mass shooting. He got his arguments for gun control -- actually, they were more just a mockery of the arguments of Second Amendment supporters -- out from about 10:30 to 10:56. This is a compulsion, right? He knows he's not going to persuade anyone, right? He knows that a lot of people find it jerky, and small, and petty to cite a mass shooting as an argument for gun control while that mass shooting is still going on, right? Then again, knowingly or not, he's just following the advice contained in an 80-page document titled "Preventing Gun Violence Through Effective Messaging," and produced by three Democratic political consulting firms led by the polling and research outfit Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. Their advice to gun-control supporters: The most powerful time to communicate is when concern and emotions are running at their peak. The debate over gun violence in America is periodically punctuated by high-profile gun violence incidents including Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, the Trayvon Martin killing, Aurora and Oak Creek. When an incident such as these attracts sustained media attention, it creates a unique climate for our communications efforts. It's not a tragedy, it's an opportunity! The report goes on: We should rely on emotionally powerful language, feelings and images to bring home the terrible impact of gun violence. Compelling facts should be used to back up that emotional narrative, not as a substitute for it. Because we don't want those facts getting in the way, right? A gentle reminder: Firearm-related homicides declined 39 percent and nonfatal firearm crimes declined 69 percent from 1993 to 2011, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. Firearm-related homicides dropped from 18,253 homicides in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011, and nonfatal firearm crimes dropped from 1.5 million victimizations in 1993 to 467,300 in 2011. Since you'll inevitably begin hearing about the "gun show loophole" whether or not the shooter at the Navy Yard got his gun from a gun show . . . In 2004 (the most recent year of data available), among state prison inmates who possessed a gun at the time of the offense, fewer than two percent bought their firearm at a flea market or gun show. About 10 percent of state prison inmates said they purchased it from a retail store or pawnshop, 37 percent obtained it from family or friends, and another 40 percent obtained it from an illegal source. And, of course, the shooter violated plenty of laws on the books before he fired his first shot: By just being in the city with a loaded firearm, regardless of whether he was the legally registered owner, the suspect Aaron Alexis would be in violation of D.C. law. Carrying a concealed firearm or carrying a firearm openly in D.C. are both against the law. Bringing a firearm from out of state without registering it in D.C. is illegal. Assault-style rifles are banned. And even traveling through D.C. with a firearm is illegal. In addition, the Navy Sea Systems Command headquarters is a federal facility that is subject to federal law, which prohibits carrying a firearm onto the premises (except by law enforcement or members of the armed forces). What Scared Off Bill Daley from a Gubernatorial Bid? So . . . why would Bill Daley suddenly withdraw from the Illinois race for governor? Bill Daley abruptly ended his bid for the Democratic nomination for governor Monday, saying a lifetime in politics had not prepared him for the "enormity" of his first run for office and the challenge of leading the state through difficult times. Daley, a member of two White House administrations, a presidential campaign manager and the son and brother of two former Chicago mayors, dropped out of the race less than four months after declaring his political resume gave him the best credentials to replace Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn. Daley, who will turn 65 in August, said he was not dropping his bid because of health concerns, family illness or other issues. Though some important Democrats privately questioned whether Daley could win the primary, he maintained he was not dropping the race out of fear of losing but because of the potential for winning it. "To be honest with you, losing it wasn't the worst of my fears. In many ways, winning it and having the commitment of five years to nine years was something I struggled with," he said. "You know, the dog catches the tire and, boom." Daley said he still believed Quinn was a weak candidate who would lose the November 2014 general election to a Republican. Some will speculate about a scandal, but remember Daley's a Chicago Democrat in Illinois. Scandals almost never impede those guys. My guess? He got a really good look at Illinois's finances -- and realized the state is unsalvageable. They Want You to Forget, but Syria Is Still a Mess The Obama administration would like you, and the rest of the world, to forget about Syria. Many will assent to that request. Those closer to the region can't just turn their heads away and forget about Syria, and they're not feeling particularly warm towards us: The reception by the Arab Gulf states has been equally frosty. Saudi Arabia was one of the most aggressive proponents of a U.S. intervention: Riyadh's ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, rushed back to D.C. from vacation last month to advocate for military strikes against the Syrian regime. Now, according to multiple analysts who follow Saudi Arabia closely, the kingdom fears that the United States is retreating from its promises to hold Assad accountable for the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack. The Gulf states consider the plan "an absolute waste of time," said Nawaf Obaid, a fellow at Harvard University Kennedy School's Belfer Center who serves as an advisor to Saudi diplomats. "This is the perfect 'save my ass plan' that Bashar needed, and the Russians gave it to him." Obaid predicted that the U.S. leadership vacuum will cause Riyadh to deepen its involvement with the rebels. Obama's acquiescence to the plan, said Obaid, "really hit [his] credibility in the region as an indecisive and even potentially weak president." The Saudi media is already suggesting Assad is breaching the deal. The daily al-Watan, quoting Syrian opposition members, claimed that regime forces are smuggling chemical weapons to the Lebanese paramilitary organization Hezbollah. Meanwhile, the Lebanese daily al-Mustaqbal, which is tied to an anti-Assad political party sympathetic to Riyadh, accused Syria of smuggling equipment for manufacturing chemical weapons to Iraq. Chemical weapons in Iraq (sigh). Obamacare Clash, Dead Ahead This just handed to me: Obamacare is still bad. Now -- is Obamacare bad enough that Americans will be okay with shutting down the government to stop it? If the government shuts down because President Obama refuses to sign (or, more likely, Senate Democrats refuse to pass) a budget eliminating funding for implementation of the Obamacare plan, will Americans stand with the GOP? Or with the legislation's namesake? Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and their crowd are absolutely convinced the public will stand with Republicans. The president is absolutely convinced the public will stand with him. Games of chicken are more complicated when both drivers are convinced they'll benefit from the collision. NBC, with survey results easily overlooked yesterday: New numbers from our NBC/WSJ poll show that the law remains unpopular with the American public. Per the poll, 44% call it a bad idea, while 31% believe it's a good idea, which is virtually unchanged from July's survey. What's more, by a 45% to 23% margin, Americans say the law will have a negative impact on the country's health-care system rather than a positive one. And 30% of respondents think it will have a negative impact on their families. Just 12% say it will be positive, and a majority -- 53% -- don't believe it will have an impact one way or another. We've said this before, and we'll say it again: Health care's unpopularity can be traced to the decision by the White House and its allies to allow Republicans to define it AFTER it was signed into law. Just how poorly has the White House messaged health care? Consider that 30% of Democrats say they don't know enough about the law to have an opinion, and "only" 56% of Democrats call the plan a "good idea" So barely half of the president's base calls health care a "good idea." That's a big problem. ADDENDA: Today's Washington Post headline: "From Newtown to Navy Yard, unpredictable calamities upend Obama's second term." Rick Wilson: "It's called, 'being president.'" NRO Digest — September 17, 2013 Today on National Review Online . . . Editor's Note:
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