Fish License

 There are those who insist that when cars are outlawed, only outlaws will have cars. This is the snarky response to calls for gun regulation, noting that people could use a car just as easily as a gun to kill someone else. It happens all the time. Of course, you could commit homicide with a frozen halibut, and then we would need special laws covering the use and abuse of fish found in the freezer section. You might need to get a special permit for that haddock, for example. 

Returning to what amounts to real life, I bring this up because early this past Tuesday morning, a driver sent visitors to Boulder's Central Park running when he hopped the curb and began racing through the park with what people there described as murderous intent. He made repeated sweeps through the park in his pickup, hitting a light pole and a street sign before he abandoned his vehicle on a nearby street. “Detectives believe this crime was an isolated incident and do not believe it’s connected to any political groups or movements,” police said. The suspect may have been driving under the influence of drugs, investigators said.

It was also an early morning in Las Vegas when a former police officer who was out riding his bike was hit and killed back in August. The driver in the case was arrested shortly after the incident, and just this past week, authorities took another suspect into custody. Not the driver, but the passenger who had been recording the incident. Additional video evidence from a school resource officer helped identify the passenger, who can be heard on the recovered footage encouraging the driver to swerve into the bike lane to run Andy Probst off the road. Andy's daughter later gave this statement to the media:  "We ask you please do not politicize his death or use it for culture wars. He was a man of honor, with thirty-five-plus years in law enforcement. A little league dad, an honorary Girl Scouts member, a real-life ‘Pee-Wee Herman,’ a jokester, a prankster." 

So what about it? How are people who go through the "rigorous" training and licensing procedures for operating a motor vehicle still end up behind the wheel with murderous intent? Suggesting that we outlaw cars, as a bike commuter myself, doesn't sound ridiculous at all to me. But I'm sure there are those who may disagree. But then you consider the move to regulate the licensing and operation of guns gets shouted down, and continues to be made easier for those who would like to have a machine that kills people. 

And I'm not talking frozen fish here.