Making the click-through worthwhile: trying to figure out how a law can prevent reckless stupidity; Republicans begin to wonder what kinds of options they want in 2020; and a good initial result, with some warning signs, in the efforts to reduce federal regulations.
How Can Any Law Overcome Astonishingly Bad Judgment?
Nashville mayor David Briley, responding to the abominable mass shooting in his city Sunday morning:
“For a moment, let’s be honest about what happened,” Briley said. “Last night, innocent Nashvilleans were terrorized by a man with an AR-15. Let’s be honest. Some people see these weapons as having a purpose of terrorizing other people. It’s happening too much. Enough is enough.”
“It’s been only seven months since we had another mass shooting here in Nashville, and that is far too frequent. We need comprehensive gun reform to address mass shootings, domestic shootings, accidental shootings and homicides. If we can all just come together for this and for the greater good, we can take these weapons of war off the streets of our country.”
Yet this shooting stands out for the number of times law enforcement already took action to prevent the perpetrator’s access to firearms.
The 29-year-old Illinois man accused of carrying out a fatal shooting Sunday morning at an Antioch Waffle House previously had weapons removed from his possession after a 2017 arrest near the White House.
Newly obtained Illinois police records also show the suspected shooter thought he was being stalked by Taylor Swift and had previously threatened people with an AR-15 rifle.
Travis Reinking opened fire early Sunday morning at the Waffle House, killing at least four people, Nashville police say. At least four others were injured.
On Aug. 24, 2017, sheriffs’ deputies in Tazewell County, Illinois took a state-issued card from Reinking that Illinois requires for someone to own a weapon. During a Sunday news conference streamed online, Tazewell County Sheriff Robert M. Huston said Reinking volunteered to give up his four weapons.
However, Reinking’s father was present when those deputies came to confiscate the guns, Huston said. The father had a valid state authorization card and asked the police if he could keep the weapons. Deputies gave Reinking’s father the weapons, Huston said.
“He was allowed to do that after he assured deputies he would keep them secure and away from Travis,” Huston said, referring to Reinking’s father.
Huston and Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson said they believe Reinking’s father returned the weapons to Reinking.
In May 2016, the Tazewell Sheriff’s Office responded to a call involving Reinking, according to police reports obtained by the Peoria Journal Star. Reinking told law enforcement he thought Swift was stalking him. Law enforcement took Reinking to a local hospital for an evaluation.
In June 2017, police records state Reinking threatened someone with an AR-15 while wearing a pink dress. After threatening the man, Reinking drove to a public pool and dove in before exposing himself to others at the pool, according to the reports.
“(Reinking’s father) was advised that he needed to keep the weapons secure and away from Travis. (Reinking’s father) stated he would comply,” reads a police report.
Short of a ban on all private firearm ownership, what “comprehensive gun reform” would have prevented this shooting? Law enforcement took repeated steps to remove guns from the perpetrator, he was barred form legally purchasing or owning firearms . . . and, it appears his father gave him the guns back, according to a statement from authorities.
God bless James Shaw Jr. for wrestling the gun away and saving so many lives.
The Republican Party’s Decision for 2020 Is Far Away . . . But Not That Far Away.
Over the weekend, author Brad Thor seemed to reach his breaking point of exasperation with the Trump presidency.
New York Times best-selling author Brad Thor took to Twitter on Saturday to say he’ll challenge President Donald Trump in the Republican primary for the 2020 presidential election.
“The era of know-nothing, insult-comedy politics is over,” Thor wrote. Thor earlier tweeted that he would run if no conservative candidate stepped up to challenge the president. A few minutes later he wrote “in fact, let’s make it official. I’m in.”
Some Trump fans are likely scoffing, “what do you expect, this guy was NeverTrump” — but they forget that in August 2016, Thor revised his position a bit, comparing Hillary Clinton to ineffective cancer treatment and Donald Trump to highly-risky medication:
The clinic is a shady operation at best, but so many people want to believe it has discovered a cure, that they’re willing to pay cash (all up front, no questions asked) to give Drug #2 a chance. After all, what do they have to lose? Drug #1 is a death sentence and everyone knows that the other remedies floating around aren’t powerful enough to cure cancer.
If that’s endorsement, it’s an extraordinarily reluctant one — but Thor was willing to give Trump a chance.
I would argue that if Trump generated four years like 2017 — tax cuts, rolling back regulations, a dramatic drop in attempts to cross our border, a booming stock market, building up our military, bombing chemical-weapons users — then the argument for his reelection would be much easier.
Unfortunately, 2018 brought us to a bumpier stretch of road. The booming stock market hit a lot of turbulence as soon as the aluminum and steel tariffs were enacted. Instead of focusing on, say, China’s unfair practices on intellectual property, Trump tweeted that “trade wars are easy to win,” and floated the idea of more government subsidies to farmers to help them deal with the consequences of the retaliatory tariffs. In a nationally-televised White House meeting, Trump endorsed the assault-weapons ban and renounced concealed-carry reciprocity, and literally declared, “Take the guns first, go through due process second.” The White House walked back the statement several days later, but the mess proved that Trump rarely knows what he’s talking about, and rarely means what he says.
It’s hard to imagine a higher-risk gamble than negotiations with North Korea, and there’s little sign that Trump is diving into preparations. The “churn” of cabinet members and top White House staff seems to be accelerating, not decelerating. The lavish expenditures of cabinet members like Price, Pruitt, Carson, and the rest are an embarrassment to everyone who believes in a small, efficient government. Trillion-dollar annual deficits are coming back.
Finally, we just have no idea what special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation will bring.
Will we have a serious challenger to Trump in the 2020 Republican primary? John Kasich seems determined to run for president of Ohio again. Every time a candidate who ran for president and found limited support chooses to run again, I think they need a better strategy than “the voters will realize what a terrible mistake they made in not choosing me, and overwhelmed with guilt, will be motivated to make amends.” Jeff Flake occasionally makes noises, but one has a hard time picturing him outside of the Jon Huntsman role — the Republican who laments how his party has gone astray and wins the endorsements of the likes of the New York Times editorial page.
There’s still a lot of road ahead. I’d argue that the more thought and energy that Republicans put into 2020, the less they’re putting into the elections of 2018.
But I do think that the aftermath of the 2018 elections will bring a serious and probably angry discussion amongst Republicans about whether the Trump presidency is generating the results it promised — and if it isn’t, whether it’s the fault of the president or the fault of outside circumstances. There are good people in this administration, doing their best, trying to slowly push policy in the right direction, dealing with extraordinarily difficult circumstances. A fair question will be whether the man sitting behind the Resolute desk is helping or hindering those efforts.
Finally, No Longer a New Record on the Length of the Federal Record
Here’s another bit of good news out of the Trump administration’s first year: A lot fewer new rules and regulations than Americans have come to expect:
You can literally see how Trump stacks up against previous presidents by printing out the full length of the Federal Register, that annual behemoth that publishes every new rule issued by a federal department or agency. In 2016, Obama’s final year in office, the register ran to a record length of 95,000 pages—far ahead of the previous record, set just one year before, of 80,000 pages. Thirteen of the 15 longest registers in American history were authored by Trump’s two immediate predecessors.
Trump’s 2017 register? A mere 61,308 pages, the lowest count since 1993.
While Trump delivered on his promise to cut two regulations for every new one added, there are worrying signs that federal rulemaking might increase in coming years. Agencies have three times as many regulatory actions as deregulatory actions in the pipeline, Crews says.
Trump’s mindset can probably be summarized as anti-regulation in the abstract, until he wants to regulate something.
ADDENDA: Here’s Friday’s chat with Tony Katz about former FBI director James Comey and the book he probably would have preferred to write.
Tom Nichols, sharing a story that reveals how certain people like free-market capitalism for themselves, but denounce others for “greed” if they make the same decision: “His rule was: other people in a capitalist economy should take less profit and enhance his life, while he should charge as much as the market would bear. He voted twice for Clinton. Twice for Obama. And then he voted for Trump. To get even, or something.”
Megan McArdle with a disappointing hard truth about how many Americans see the world: “Everyone thinks every industry is simple except theirs.”