Right Problem, Wrong Solution

Barack Obama is correctly and properly drawing attention to, as he accurately describes it, the "epidemic of violence that's sickening the soul of this nation. The violence is unacceptable and it's got to stop."

His policies for correcting this problem, are focusing in the wrong direction. In addition to a goal of expanded after school activities and a harsh crack-down on the very small minority of licensed gun vendors who violate the law in selling weapons - worthy aims, both - he directs his major legislative endeavor towards the predictable drivel, the now lapsed assault weapons bad. That's apparently pretty much it.

Now, the assault weapons ban had very little to do with keeping any particular weapon off of the streets. Fully automatic weapons, what most individuals would consider an assault weapon, remain illegal for civilian ownership. Armor defeating, tracer, and explosive ammunition are illegal. The entire push of the ban was to target weapons that looked a certain way. The ban made a determination of what an assault weapon was based on purely cosmetic features - a pistol grip versus a rifle grip; internal versus external magazine, etc. - and banned weapons that certain way. The obvious result? Weapons changed their appearance, previously manufactured were still sold, and nothing of substance changed to the criminals who were buying and selling stolen or illegally imported weapons anyway.

Obama is trying to take a very complex and very serious problem and boil it down to a couple of quick little sound-bites. Violent crime in our country, particularly murder, is much too high. A couple of quick little legislative fixes - adding a little more money to programs and banning some guns - isn't going to have much effect on the problem. Fighting crime must be a large-scale, broadly focused endeavor encompassing a wide variety of tactics including:

1) More and better trained police,

2) Longer prison sentences for violent offenders, including automatic
life sentences for murder and child rape,

3) improved economic conditions,

4) Keeping kids in school through graduation,

5) Providing mentors and role models to help direct kids lives away from drugs and crime.Obama again correctly points out that many of the problems are due to a lack of direction in the lives of the young men committing so many of these crimes. As they grow up, they are lacking the mentors and the role models to show them the better, proper way through life. What he doesn't do, however, is lead people toward a better path. Just saying that parents and neighbors need to do more to help out isn't enough. He should be proposing ways in which they can help and proposing policies to encourage and foster that help which is so critical.

Instead, once again, we're getting the usual Liberal Elite combination of a political slam against a punching bag industry combined with hot air and no real solutions.