The Governor of New York Descends Into Nonsense
Over the weekend, Kathy Hochul, the lieutenant governor who replaced Mario Cuomo after his resignation, responded to the ambush murder of two New York City policemen.
The attack, which occurred in Harlem, left one officer dead and another who died several days later. Although details are not yet complete, they appear to have been ambushed when responding to a domestic dispute between a mother and a 47-year-old career criminal.
Governor Hochul tweeted, “Last night, a shot from an illegal gun took the life of a NYPD officer. When I say we’re going to do everything we can to stop the scourge of illegal guns in our state, it’s not just talk. We are tripling funding for efforts to get these guns off the streets.”
Knowledgeable people know that almost all handguns are illegal in New York. There is a pending Supreme Court case about whether a citizen can even take one away from home, for self-protection. New York City rarely issues permits and that has been the case for years.
There are states with much higher gun ownership than New York and that does not result in greater attacks on law enforcement. Clearly, it is not the gun, it is the criminal. If governors and mayors make it easier on criminals, one should not be surprised if there is more criminal activity. Criminals respond to incentives, and weigh risk and return, just like the rest of us.
So if anti-gun laws are so effective, why were the officers shot with an illegal gun? Could it be that someone who is willing to commit murder could care less about a gun law? If the gun laws don’t work, why double down on failure and push for triple the funding on a failed policy?
If existing gun laws are violated, and existing laws against murder are regularly violated, why would suddenly another new law be effective?
To use the governor’s words, why don’t they do everything possible to remove the scourge of violent criminals in New York?
Would it be different if the officers had been shot with a legal gun? Lots of people are shot with legal guns, killed with legal hammers, beaten with legal fists, clubbed with legal baseball bats, and stabbed with legal knives. The legal status of the weapon is rarely important. The issue really should be on the criminal who controlled the use of the gun, the hammer, the knife.
People are being shoved in front of subway trains in New York. Is shoving illegal?
There are doubtless are illegal guns in New York state that reside in bureau drawers that never go out on their own to commit a crime. Guns can’t walk, stalk, transport themselves, aim, and pull their own triggers. But notice her clear intent to put the emphasis on the actions of an inanimate object. A shot from an illegal gun killed the officer, not an officer who was killed by a murderer, that is a sentient purposeful human being.
This is similar to CNN’s characterization that the Waukesha Christmas massacre was caused by an SUV. Automobiles are not illegal in Wisconsin and nowhere in the United States do they drive themselves into crowds.
Why is all this emphasis by left-leaning sources placed on pieces of machinery rather than the humans that control them?
Because the Progressive Left has spent more than a year telling us to “re-imagine” law enforcement. They have pandered to Black Lives Matter and their mantra that cops are “pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon.” As a result, a record number of law enforcement officers were killed or injured last year, many in racially motivated riots. Law enforcement, prosecution, and penitentiaries are all racist institutions. So was the founding of the country, all the major thinkers, and the Constitution itself.
Criminals are not bad people, just disadvantaged. A racist system made criminals out of perfectly upstanding citizens. That is why they should be allowed to vote, should not be charged bail, should not have their backgrounds brought up in employment applications, and should not serve long prison sentences. If more blacks are incarcerated than whites, it is because of systemic racism, not because blacks commit more crimes.
This is what the Progressive Left has been saying. Thus, when crime surges blame it on guns, blame it on the railroads, blame it on economic inequality. Blame it on everyone except those who have promoted the current climate of criminal activity based on a twisted and naive view of human nature.
Gee, could all this effort from Democrats, the press, and universities, have an influence on people’s thinking? You would think the propagandists know this or they would not make such an effort to get their point of view out to the public.
At the margin, there are unstable people who no doubt believe every word of what the Left has been peddling, and they are acting upon it.
Maybe that is what motivated the murderer. You know, it could not have motivated the guns.  Guns don’t listen to CNN. Guns don’t listen to politicians either. But criminals do.
