About a year ago it was noted (sort of correctly) that whenever there is a gun restricting law being considered, someone obligingly commits a serious crime with the type of gun or weapon addressed by the law. This year there was a law addressing domestic terrorism and we had the Oklahoma City Bombing. Those in favor or such law claim they were right and those against such laws accuse the government of creating the crimes to get the laws enacted.
It would be interesting were this something new. It is not. It goes back centuries.
Consider the middle ages, they discovered a guaranteed way to increase the incidence of witches and witchcraft. They talked about it.
There are dozens of examples. A bishop shows up at a church to exorcise an outbreak of witchcraft in an area and there are more witches. They even congregate in the church to interrupt the exorcism.
There is an outbreak of satanic affliction at a convent and once the word gets out it spreads throughout the countryside. Send the exorcist to deal with it and it spreads to the next country.
Not to single out women, Remember the Alamo / Maine / Waco and there are people who are upset. Give it some popular press and you have a war.
Even those so irrationally connecting Oklahoma City with Militias with Waco with gun laws have a germ of truth. Addressing crimes causes crimes. This is nothing new. It is human nature.
So when there is a push for a ban on some kind of gun(s) we find the media filled with stories of same. Not only does the discussion instigate reporting of same but from some strange quirk of human nature it instigates the commission of such crimes.
So in April, as a consequence of a domestic terrorism bill, we got domestic terrorism. Did the bill and the media coverage cause it? Did condemnation of witchcraft increase the number of witches? Is the bear Catholic?
No, I can not prove it. I can only point to similarities in things we know (I hope we all agree witches do not exist in reality) happened as a consequence of similar attention in other times. But we have seen "assault" weapon crimes occurring when laws regarding them were being considered. We have seen domestic terrorism when a domestic terrorism law was being considered.
This is a very consistent pattern going back over 1000 years, attention increases occurrence. And there is evidence from history to answer the "chicken and egg question. The solution to ending outbreaks of demonic activity was to remove those were claiming it or to ignore it. Ending talking about it ended it occurrence.
So I have some observations from this. There will be more incidents of domestic violence and they will continue and increase the more public attention is given to them. If attention stops the violence will stop.
This may sound strange but look at the problem presented by the Unabomber's demand to be published. If acceded to he says he will only bomb on more time at most. But if acceded to every nut can make the same demand.
But imagine a world where his demand letter had never been made public. The person is then reduced to threatening action unless receipt of his letter is acknowledged and not knowing if he should blame the post office for non-delivery or drop a bomb on his local mail carrier for nonfeasance.
And the failure to advertise the Unabomber's existence gives no one else ideas. It does not feed that perverse side of human nature.
Note for example the NRA's statement regarding membership and adverse publicity, three new memberships for each resigned membership. The militias have made similar statements. Guns? 60 Minutes runs a segment showing that the "assault" weapons ban has boosted sales.
Given the results of the Oklahoma City bombing, it is wise to buy stock in fertilizer companies.
This is the human nature we have to acknowledge exists in order to deal with. If we want to stop domestic terrorism before it starts, stop talking about it.