Act in haste, repent at leisure

Every time we have a tragedy such as the one in Newtown, Conn. We fret and fuss and make demands that government find a way to prevent it from ever happening again. The only one we didn't do that with, oddly, was the mall shooting in Oregon. I don't know why. Perhaps because there was nothing about it that lent itself to the usual rants that pop up after a shooting.

You know the rants I mean, the calls for more gun control laws. Perhaps the Oregon mall shooting didn't trigger those because it became clear quickly that the shooter had stolen the weapon he used.

These things are scary and I understand the kneejerk reactions regarding guns.

Guns are scary things. But the fewer people who have guns will just make them scarier. The less familiar one is with something, the less one understands them or views them positively.

What can we do to prevent a tragedy such as the Sandy Hook shootings? I don't know. We could confiscate all the guns in civilian hands in this country and it won't stop a crazy person from killing. He will use a knife, he will use fire, he will use explosives.

Could we increase the restrictions? Possibly. But the Sandy Hook case tells us that we would have to restrict or deny gun ownership by anyone with a relative with any kind of mental problems. I don't see how we could do that. And the shooter's problems stem from a form of autism, not paranoid schizophrenia, a condition not considered potentially violent.

You will hear many people calling for something, anything to be done in the next few days and weeks. But laws passed in the heat of the moment, when emotions are high, are rarely wise or effective.