In the 1995 film “The Usual Suspects,” Kevin Spacey’s character Verbal Kent regales the detective questioning him with the story of Kaiser Soze, an elusive and mysterious figure, who at the end of the crime drama vanishes into the wind.

The past week the “fixer,” who helped Jeffery Epstein find girls to abuse also vanished just some weeks after Epstein met his untimely demise in jail. This past week, charges against him for sex trafficking were dismissed, though the investigative probe into his possible co-conspirators continues.

As stated earlier, the investigation into the sex trafficking ring and the activities at the private island, aptly dubbed, “pedophile island” continue. The powerful people mentioned, among them, former President Clinton and Britain’s Prince Andrew, are still somewhat under the microscope. Albeit seeming less so than before the untimely death of Epstein

The dismissal of the charges and the disappearance of his recruiter have put conspiracies about this ordeal on red alert. I do not wish to indulge or engage in those theories right now but will say that confluence of factors happening as they have in this case would make the most practical people question things.

This is one reason the probe not only needs to continue but needs to make significant headway, and eventually lead to arrests and convictions. Otherwise, confidence in the rule of law and our institutions, which is already very low among many, will continue to plummet.

That isn’t the only, or even the most important reason, however. The most important reason is to see the perpetrators of such evil to have to face the consequences of their evil acts and be punished. Society demands it to bring some semblance of law and order to this heinous and horrific problem. The victims not only demand but richly deserve some sense of closure and I believe retribution as well. I pray that those investigating have success in that endeavor.

It seems of late we cannot escape a shooting in the news cycles. Recently, we’ve had more than a couple, of what the mainstream media calls mass shootings, never-mind that they occur on a weekly sometimes daily basis in several major metropolitan areas, like Detroit, Baltimore and Chicago. In the all too predictable fashion, the Democrats call for gun control legislation, often with a tone and delivery that suggests we don’t already have massive gun control. Phrases and buzz words get thrown around, two in particular; assault weapons and universal background checks. It really serves little point to point out both are false — one in classification and one in the presentation.

Mass shootings are a rather new phenomenon as far as violent crimes go. I would imagine that the 1980s were the first instances of this, in as they are defined by the mainstream media. Those on the left argue that the laxity of gun laws are the reason for this uptick in violence. They argue that access to certain weapons makes these incidents inevitable.

This is a theory easily rejected, seeing as before 1968 one could order firearms vial mail. There was hardly anything resembling the background checks people undergo today, and prior to the National Firearms Act of 1934 people could buy fully automatic weapons and the local hardware store. That law enacted to stop gangland violence and in particular the use of the very popular Thompson Sub-machine gun, popularly known as the Tommy Gun. The law did little to curb gang violence then, or even now. For people who regularly flaunt the law usually do not care about the particulars of the law.

Another common trope from the left is that of requiring universal background checks and closing the gun show loophole. What they actually mean is they wish to ban any type of private sale. Universal background checks have been the norm for over 20 years at least, and outside of private sales and some antique weapons, people must undergo a background check to buy from a dealer at a gun show. Misinformation from the gun-grabbers on the left and their allies at places like CNN and MSNBC are two of the biggest reasons for the proliferation of these falsehoods, and only by putting forth the truth can those misconceptions and lies be countered.

Which brings me to my final point for this piece, one of the newer propositions in the fight against the 2nd Amendment, Red Flag Laws. On the surface, I suppose they seem admirable and well-intentioned. I can’t think of many (if any) people who want mentally unstable or violent criminals to acquire guns. Even the most ardent defenders of the 2nd Amendment realize that it can’t just be a free for all of whoever and whenever someone wants to carry a gun. That being said, any attempt to disarm someone before a crime is committed makes all of us who believe in the due process of law, just a little uneasy. It makes what is seemingly an idea with good intentions also rife with the possibility of abuse, of confiscation of weapons, and of despotism and tyranny.

So much so, that we should oppose such laws until we can assure that they will be free from abuse. So we remain, or should remain, vigilant in the fight against international sex trafficking and remain vigilant in protecting the right (and I contend duty) to keep and bear arms, without infringement.