Two horrible tragedies have occurred in the past month. February 28th Bart Ross murdered the husband and mother of federal judge Joan Lefkow as part of a failed assassination attempt. March 11th accused rapist Brian Nichols allegedly fatally shot judge Rowland Barnes, a court reporter and a deputy, escaping in a stolen car.

Bart Ross was a broken man, who, evidence suggests, blamed the justice system for his problems and saw Judge Lefkow as a representative of the system. He had decided that the only way to solve his problems was to end his life and he was going to take the woman responsible for his misfortunes with him. Unfortunately for Ross, Michael Lefkow discovered the would-be assassin hiding in the basement and Ross was forced to change his plan, instead killing the man who ruined his plan and an elderly woman visiting her daughter.

Brian Nichols, the alleged rapist, was allegedly willing to kill three innocent people at their place of work in order to avoid answering for his actions. Nichols knew he was facing a long prison sentence and took the action he believed could possibly keep him free from the law. His attempt failed and he was caught after only a day on the lam.

Both of these incidents represent the lowest form of behavior and contempt for the laws under which we live and the mechanisms that enforce them. Ross and Nichols’ alleged victims were guilty of nothing more than being law-abiding citizens going about their day-to-day lives. The two alleged offenders showed total disregard for the law, acting in their own presumed best interest, caring nothing for the implications of their actions.

These two atrocities, while horrible, should be looked at as isolated incidents, not as poster cases to prop up legislative agendas. The crimes represent desperate measures by desperate men, unfazed by the repercussions of their actions. Ross, a registered gun owner, illegally carried and concealed his firearm and then used it to illegally kill two people. Nichols, already in custody for a violent felony, is alleged to have illegally reached into the gun holster of a police officer and illegally discharged the weapon into four innocent victims. Clearly, neither of the perpetrators was concerned with what the laws regarding firearms are.

Gun control advocates have already begun to use the Ross case as a reason to restrict gun ownership. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has said that this incident is indicative of there being too many guns on the streets. This is a gross politicization of a horrible crime. There are many good arguments for gun control and many good arguments against it, but these recent tragedies should not be part of the debate. Anyone who is willing to go as far as assassinating a judge, a judge’s family or a law enforcement officer and is willing to end their own life in the process is not going to be deterred if their crime spree involves committing one more rider felony.

Desperate people who are determined to carry out a course of action that involves multiple murders and suicide are well beyond the point of dissuasion by laws. Individuals whose crimes involve attacks on the legal system and our way of life are not concerned with whether or not they are allowed to carry a gun or how long of a waiting period there is to get one. If Ross hadn’t already owned a firearm he could have easily purchased one from a dealer in a back alley or from behind the counter of an unscrupulous pawnshop.

Any attempt to use these killings as evidence to support policy, by either camp, is a gross misuse of these tragedies. The only conclusions that should be drawn from recent events is that judges and their kin need to take precautions to protect themselves from those who misplace their anger caused by judicial rulings. The intense and successful manhunt staged to apprehend Nichols should show those who would consider assassinating a judge in the future that we will not stand for such an attack and that there is nowhere to hide when you attack any individual, particularly those that form the foundation of our legal system. Nothing that happened in either of these cases can legitimately be used as part of the gun control debate. The use of these recent tragedies as political firepower is nothing more than exploitation.

Adam Smith ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science and economics.