Local legislators’ answers to bump stock debate ‘numbing’
It’s time to drain the swamp — of those time-worn political ideas and ideologies that get in the way of politicians actually using their noggins.
The human brain demands use. Otherwise, it is a mere repository of cliches and trite phrases. Like Pavlov’s dog, its responses become habitually predictive. Such seems to be the case with Republican state Rep. Matthew Dowling of Uniontown.
If that is deemed unduly harsh, consider what Dowling told the 蘑菇视频’s Mike Tony about legislation to ban bump stocks — the device used by nut-job Stephen Paddock of Las Vegas infamy to convert his semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic firearms capable of slaughtering scores of individuals in minutes if not seconds.
Dowling said he was wary of the bump stock bill in part because it was introduced by “two of the most liberal members of the legislature.”
I bet young Mr. Dowling howls at the moon on Halloween, too. Just joking there.
Dowling went on to tell reporter Tony that “the liberal left will do anything — and use any tragedy — to fulfill their agenda of taking away our freedoms.”
Now, I’m not sure if that reflects Dowling’s ideological proclivities or his political bona fides. After all, the Republican conservative right — hey, that’s one better that the “liberal left” — has perfected the crude art of scaring half the population half to death with its deranged warnings about the loss of freedom — civil, religious or otherwise — to the grasping paws of malignant government.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh toward Rep. Dowling, who is new to Harrisburg. There is always his House colleague, Rep. Ryan Warner, a veteran of several terms.
In the same article about bump stocks, Rep. Warner of Perryopolis told the 蘑菇视频 that he is continually amazed that “the same politicians who want to ban certain firearms are also the same politicians who openly defend illegal immigration.
“If you don’t take a stand to stop illegal immigrants from entering our country,” Warner said, “do you really believe you’ll be able to stop illegal firearms from coming in?”
Warner added that mass shootings were less a “gun problem” than a “heart problem.” He indicated the focus of attention should be on reversing the nation’s moral decay.
As proof, I suppose, of national decline, Warner said that “Thompson” submachine guns were readily available in the 1940s, yet Americans in those years were spared the high casualty shootings of more recent times.
Wow! First, I wasn’t aware that shooter Paddock had used foreign imports to murder so many and to spread so much mayhem. I was under the impression that his arsenal of weapons was purchased legally in the U.S.
Second, I’m not sure I could identify anyone who is actually turning a blind eye to illegal immigration, who favors porous borders. To the best of my knowledge, both Democratic and Republican administrations have stationed patrols at our northern and southern borders for decades, even centuries.
Democrats may oppose a Trumpian wall, but they indicated only recently that they’re all in for “enhanced” border security.
As for Warner’s benign history of the submachine gun, well, that’s a good one. The Thompson submachine was designed by a former Army general for use by the military.
It was quickly adopted by the gangsters who ran roughshod over the 1920s, providing what the American public craved — liquor.
The Thompson submachine, through its many iterations, was known variously as the Tommy Gun, The Annihilator, The Chopper and the Chicago Typewriter.
Calls for reining it in began with the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929 and picked up steam following the attempt on Franklin Roosevelt’s life in 1933. FDR signed the National Firearms Act in 1934, which had John T. Thompson’s stellar innovation in its crosshairs.
Having a third- or fourth-hand knowledge of history, Rep. Warner apparently assumes that human nature has only recently taken a turn for the worse. I defy the gentleman to peruse any newspaper of any decade, up to and including the 1940s. He will hardly find a week in which there was not an atrocity or a murder committed.
Evil deeds are the bane of humankind, always and forever. That’s not to say evil consequences cannot be mitigated, an idea that has yet to penetrate the vast unused recesses of Rep. Dowling’s brain.
“Sadly, evil exists in this world,” Dowling told this newspaper, “and legislators — no matter how much they wish to do so — will never solve that problem.”
Both Warner and Dowling evidently suffer from learned helplessness — a psychological term first identified in 1965 by psychologist Martin Seligman.
Seligman was studying the behavior of dogs, using a variation of Pavlov’s famous “classical conditioning” experiment. Learned helplessness is when a person begins to believe that they have no control over a situation, even when they do. The motto of the person who suffers from learned helplessness is: “What’s the point in trying?”
So Stephen Paddock bumps off 58 of his fellow Americans, his murderous actions enhanced by the bump stocks he himself placed on his weapons, and nothing can be done about it.
Seligman was interested in treating mental depression. Too bad he didn’t delve into the numbing of the brain as a result of politics, whether of the ideological or partisan kind.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books — Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation and Our People. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.