Can Free Markets Prevent School Shootings?

Joel Cox writes at The Farrell File:

This video has been making its rounds on social media right now as Charles W. Cooke of the National Reviewseemed to stun a liberal panel when he pressed the panel to propose a single piece of legislation that would prevent gun related tragedies.

While it’s great to see the public sharing this video and questioning the practicality of the proposed gun control legislation, there are also some other flaws of the left that were on full display in this video.

Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin sounded off emotionally, and very respectfully, to Cooke’s comments about the complexity of this issue:

All I’m saying is I listen to your tone, it’s about, “This is complicated, the other side’s ideas won’t work, this is not just about young white men.” I just think, I want everybody in the country that has a public voice to be saying, “We passionately need to be find solutions to this, not talk about how complicated it is.” I’m not a policy expert, and I’m a journalist not here to weigh in on particular provisions. But to say we need passion to solve this, not talk about complexity and talk about how the other side’s ideas aren’t any good.

To me, the major theme of Halperin’s message is that this issue needs to be treated with passion; that passion will lead us to viable solutions. Well, Mark Halperin is wrong. We don’t need passion to drive solutions. We need sound, logical, and pragmatic thinking to address these concerns. Passion is a word that implies emotion, and emotional knee-jerk reactions to tragedies provide less than desirable proposals to an issue that both sides agree is very complicated and difficult to solve. If our goal is to come up with solutions that will truly help solve this problem, it is clear that politicizing these events in order to hastily push through more legislation is not the answer.

Another common flaw of the left on display in this video is the assertion that not writing new legislation or implementing new government influence is synonymous with doing nothing:

Mika Brzezinski: So we should try nothing then, Charles?

Cooke: I didn’t say –

Brzezinski: Well, what are you saying? You’re basically saying, “No one has the answers, no one can do anything about it, so let’s not do anything.”

When we look at the great innovations over the years that have made our lives better, how many of these innovations came from government? The fact is that it has been profit seeking private entrepreneurs that are responsible for these innovations that have enriched all of our lives.

Even recently, we’ve seen how Uber has been able to provide a solution to the issue of affordable and spontaneous street transportation in our major cities, an issue that was created by government intervention. But if we were to look at this example like the left is looking at gun control, we did nothing to address this problem. No action was taken by government to fix this issue, therefore, nothing was done. Despite “nothing” being done, consumers still benefited from market solutions. Just imagine what can be done if we apply this concept of “doing nothing” to other issues facing our nation….

Read More at The Farrell File