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Not only do I agree with the bolded above, but I imagine most of those in law enforcement would agree. Yes we have a modern problem, that mostly did not exist in the past, with the five minutes of fame atrocity killers, but they are a needle in the haystack of gun owners.
Nothing, and in particular no system designed of rules, regulation and law, is perfect, and that includes firearms law and regulation.
You do indeed wonder, as the Left incessantly hammers the gun control issue, whether the real goal is indeed something else entirely. Whether the goal may just be to eliminate the "tool of last resort against tyranny," even if those on the Left who do this may not even know what they do or why.
Most of those on the left have no idea what is going on. They are influenced heavily by the propaganda which targets them just as anyone else. Most of them feel that they are being good people and getting karma points by supporting things which are peaceful and non-violent. I suspect that psychologically this serves to paper over and push down genuine and fully human aspects of their personalities which run counter to who they wish to be.
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You (Spendulus) seem to attempt with reasonable success to take a scientific approach to reality. You probably reject outright the suggestion that there is an observable genetic drift component to some of the recent health trends afflicting the younger population. It simply does not make sense scientifically.
I propose that a 6x increase in 'active shooters' during the the term of President Obama similarly does not pass the smell test in social science terms. Coupled with such things as:
- the 'modernization' of the Smith-Mundt act
- the ability for legal advisers working for the executive to make amazing interpretations of law to support policy (e.g., John Yoo)
- the corporate consolidation of mainstream media and the working relationships between corp/gov in this respect,
- the fairly staggering observations made by independent analysts (aka, 'conspiracy theorists')
- Obama's admitted focus on gun control which dates back to early in his term (prior to most of the events.)
I suggest that it is perfectly possible that a lot of the 'problems' we've seen in the last few years have been state sponsored psychological operations. To me it is simply not very unthinkable, especially with an eye toward historical events in the same vein, and is at present time the most rationally coherent read of reality. In scientific terms, the hypothesis has the highest explanatory power as I read things.
I do believe it most likely that we are seeing a lot of psychological operations permeating our social awareness. Beyond that, I suspect that more than a few people on the political Left believe this to be going on as well but they consider it to be a means to an end that they agree with. For my part, I believe that the likely end-point is not at all what they are expecting or will find themselves agreeing with. These people are being played as much as any other group. Perhaps more.
