CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, July 30, 2012

From London to Hollywood: Fantasy gone too far?

For many, the highlight of the opening ceremony for the XXX Olympic Games was when the fictional character, James Bond, called upon a very real Queen of England so the two of them could make a faux parachute jump into the Olympic Stadium – a clever mix of fantasy and reality.

But then, ceremony producer, Danny Boyle, a ruddy-red Socialist, went really off into fantasy land with his plug for Britain’s system of socialized medicine. If you know any Brits personally, then you know they dislike the long waits to see a physician, the interminable waits to receive treatment, and especially the denial of treatment to those whom government bureaucrats deem not cost-effective to treat.

As for the other fantasies, there was too little Mary Poppins and far too much of the demons designed to scare the living daylights out of little children and even adults. The lurid depictions of the scary, evil figures in some of English Literature brought to mind Colorado’s wannabe Joker who slaughtered and wounded so many at the opening of the new Batman movie.

One famous Hollywood director says Hollywood is partly to blame for the Batman-movie shootings. But most of the Hollywood moguls insist on-screen violence has no adverse effects on the human psyche and human behavior. The Batman movie brought in $289 million in its first ten days. Hmmn. Wonder if that influences Hollywood’s thinking?

The noted writer, Peggy Noonan, suggests our problem is not gun-control but our problem is with an increasingly sick culture. She says, “... a million violent movies have the cumulative power to desensitize and destabilize, to make things worse, and that’s what we’ve been seeing the past quarter century or so, the million movies. Each ups the ante in terms of carnage.”

Of course, any attempt to curb Hollywood’s love of violence runs smack dab into the free-speech provisions of the 1st Amendment. Peggy Noonan says the liberal Left would turn Congressional hearings on movie violence into a latter-day version of the McCarthy Hearings. So, forget that.

What if we reduce the number of venues that the mass killers think of as “free-fire” zones where they, and only they, possess firearms? We could do that by encouraging righteous, law-abiding citizens to carry their firearms, either concealed or openly, in a larger number of venues.

So doing would illustrate Economy of Force which is one of the Nine Principles of War. Economy of Force means: Reduce your forces where they are less likely to be needed, allowing you to concentrate your forces where they are most likely to be needed.

If you wish, call it setting up an ambush or baiting a trap for the mass killers. But these “attractive” venues would canalize the mass killers onto smaller terrain where law enforcement could be nearby. But that’s not a total defense, either. Recall, 90 seconds after the wannabe Joker started shooting, police were at the guns-prohibited theater. But at least the wannabe Joker was captured before he could flee in his pre-positioned escape vehicle.

Under Arizona’s new gun law, some bar owners figure pistol-packing patrons deter violence of all kinds. So far, no one has proven them wrong. How about a public place where management issues firearms to selected patrons? Probably, that is not the kind of establishment where a wannabe mass murderer would feel welcome.

Nationally syndicated columnist, William Hamilton, was educated at the University of Oklahoma, the George Washington University, the U.S Naval War College, the University of Nebraska, and Harvard University.

©2012. William Hamilton.

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Email: william@central-view.com