Slaughter at Liege: political quackery is the Belgian reply to depravity :: 12/18/2011

Yesterday my colleague Peter Hitchens posted a blog note on cannabis and the massacre in the Belgian city of Liege carried out by Nordine Amrani, seen here on the right.

In the note, Hitchens wondered how a known violent criminal such as Amrani had been able 'to keep or acquire a substantial arsenal' and speculated that Amrani 'would probably have been banned from legal gun-ownership in most states in the USA, certainly since what is described as a "vice conviction" in 2003.'

I reckoned Hitchens was probably right, so I asked Dan Peterson to comment on the slaughter, and on the fact that the

Belgian authorities let a known violent criminal keep an arsenal. Peterson is a writer and firearms lawyer practicing in Northern Virginia -- that's the part of Virginia just across the Potomac from Washington DC (which speaks well for Peterson's taste, to choose to keep himself planted in the Old Dominion rather than in the federal district).

Just a taste of the opinions from this expert on the US Constitution's Second Amendment, which guarantees of the right of the people to keep and bear arms: 'Politcians and prosecutors who have lost their moral bearings will blame the instrument, not the man. It makes as much sense to blame Amrani's weapons for this sinister act as it does to blame airliners for the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9-11...'

And with that, I will turn over the rest of this post to what firearms law expert Peterson has to say on the slaughter:

In the aftermath of the mass shooting in Liege, the solution offered by Belgium's newly installed Socialist premier is to tighten legislation against 'arms trafficking' and the possession of 'heavy arms.' In other words, his remedies are the usual political quackery, designed to protect the careers of politicians, mollify the public, and sidetrack any real examination of the source of this hideous event.

Although press reports conflict, here's what we have learned about the murderer, Nordine Amrani. A Belgian citizen of Moroccan descent, Amrani was well known to the police. A prosecutor described him as 'in trouble throughout his life, up before children's courts, petty courts, appeals courts.' He was on unemployment benefits.