"And then what?"

The wise Tom Sowell supposedly (I cannot find the link) summed up what we need to think about when we dream up policy proposals with the simple words: "and then what?"  This makes great sense in light of the many proposals that erupt after each of the awful mass shootings we have experienced.  Little kids being murdered and maimed by the feeble-minded repels and stuns.

People inevitably reach for simple solutions. "There oughta be a law." "Gun control." Even the wise Ross Douthat proposed new regulations for owning AR-15 rifles.

But we also learn the crushing truth that the authorities could have and should have kept a better eye on the murderer. And they fumbled badly. So which gene pool will supply the folks who will enforce any of the new proposals?  It's a serious question.

I am not trivializing but we have all seen various personnel that staff some of our public agencies. Even the FBI is now emerging as more politicized Keystone Cops than Elliott Ness. We are not getting to Denmark.

The Baltimore Metro is closing for one month for repairs. Los Angeles' Blue Line may soon do likewise.  These are not old facilities. "Crumbling" infrastructure is not from lack of funds.  Rather, it is from funds badly administered and spent.

None of this is good news. It suggests that we have deeper problems than agreeing on another new law or regulation. The sanctimony is thick after these shootings. But no one wants to address the fundamental problem of the personnel that we end up with staffing so many of our agencies and bureaucracies. Politicized hiring practices dominate.

ADDED

Craig Newmark send us here.