Another Mass Shooting

Should transgenders be denied the right to buy guns as tending to be dangerous loons?

Another school shooting, this one violating Sailer’s Law of Mass Shootings: 19 people shot at a Minneapolis Catholic school, but, fortunately, only two (so far) have died, but the strong-jawed transgender shooter is white.

The basic difference between the two types of mass shooters is suicidality vs. homicidality. Guys who have decided they are never coming home will hang around to finish off the wounded, while those who just want to kill this one guy who dissed them will scram when they hear sirens.

The latter tend to be black, the former nonblack.

This one appears to be similar to the horrific Las Vegas shooting when an extremely homicidal assailant shot from far enough away to mostly wound rather than kill.

This latest shooting raises an interesting question about gun control.

In America, there now exist several hundred million guns, which are durable goods with indefinite lifespans. So, point-of-sale gun control has obvious limits at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.

On the other hand, the New York City lesson is that the authorities can, if they agree, successfully enforce point-of-use gun control: intimidate lowlifes into leaving their illegal handguns at home. Make them more afraid of the cops catching them carrying a handgun for which they don't have a license than of them running into another criminal with a handgun.

If you can do that consistently as Bloomberg did over 12 years, the culture can be changed toward lowlifes leaving guns at home, and the murder rate can go much lower than almost anybody expected.

On the other other hand …

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