What Harris noted, probably more than a decade after I did, is that there are a lot of people out there claiming to know how to fight, but not all of them actually able to prove it.  The "moment of truth" that arrived whenever someone who believed they understood how physical violence played itself out in the real world was a thing of beauty.  I always loved it when the truth won over bullshit.  I still do.

I loved it when Iraq dissolved into sectarian violence in that I turned out to be correct.  I told everyone I knew that winning the war against the Iraqi army with an army designed to fight the Soviet Union would not be a problem.  Winning the piece, on the other hand, would be.

When the housing bubble burst, I stood vindicated and nowhere could anyone find the millions of commentators who insisted that "nobody is making any more land".  I predicted that, too.

I have been fascinated by the issue of gun violence for well over a decade, and it comes as no suprise to me that massacre after massacre ocurrs on American soil while the public maintains their collective delusion or indifference and the politicians watch the opinion polls the way a mountain climber watches the weather.

Gun control is the massive, dangerous mountain upon which many political careers have disappeared into the whiteout never to return.  Politicians occasionally discuss climbing it, but none have the courage to risk what seems to be certain death.

The massacre at Sandy Hook was a moment where the clouds parted and for a brief moment there appeared to be a summit in sight.  The summit being an authentic answer to this debate about public safety, and how to stem gun violence.

Instead, the democrats spotted a false summit, somewhat lower than the actual summit, which by the route they calculated would be easy to reach and have minimal risk.