American politics doesn't cause American murders

As conservatives, we expect – we know – that the Left will attempt to use anything and everything it can, no matter how distasteful, to advance its agenda. That is why every time there is a dramatic shooting, outfits such as the Brady Campaign can be relied upon to be firing off press releases before the blood is even cold, with no compunction about the fact that they are behaving as despicable ghouls. That is who they are.

But conservatives’ first duty is to reality, and the reality is that what causes American murders is our national failure to adequately monitor, restrict, or rehabilitate violent offenders with sub-homicidal criminal careers and our national failure to address seriously the role of mental illness in violent crime, private demons leading to public mayhem. It isn’t sexy, it isn’t ideologically neat, and it doesn’t provide much of an opportunity to engage in moral preening, one of the greatest and most destructive of all temptations. It may pay to campaign at Jane Fonda depths of stupidity — the inexplicable success of Barack Obama suggests very strongly that it does. But we cannot govern that way, and we surely cannot live that way — nor would any sensible person wish to.

If we could eliminate all the American murders rooted in political ideology, there would be (almost) no effect. If we could eliminate all the American murders committed by people with prior criminal records, there would be (almost) no murder. The relevant question in the matter of Ismaaiyl Brinsley isn’t what he was doing on Instagram but what he was doing on the street.