Daddy was right. Ain't no use in talking about religion, politics, whether that dress makes yer wife look fat, or guns... unless you're sitting among a bunch of hunters all dressed up in their "out-to-kill" finery, oiling stocks and cutting cross-hatches into their bullet points.
Take abortion. The gyrations politicians go through to avoid waving the banner for either side would be hysterical if it wasn't so obvious... and boring. "I'm for abortion only in the event a woman is impregnated by a creature from another planet—or the dark lagoon. Otherwise, while I personally would never have an abortion, I support a woman's right to be confused." I daresay there must be some kind of middle ground that doesn't leave women between a rock and hellfire and brimstone, but no one's brave enough to suggest it.
Likewise, in one of the few thundering blunders made by the Founding Dads, we have the Second Amendment, in my humble opinion, a veritable smorgasbord of words that can be construed to arrive at any conclusion one wants. What the hell does it mean?
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."
If one focuses on the first two phrases, it's clear that gun ownership applies to the state's militia, probably as protection against feared federal hegemony, although it didn't work all that well in the Civil War. If one focuses on the last phrase, it's clear that the people's right to own veritable arsenals can never be withdrawn. Put the two together, and you have... mush.
A case in D.C. may wind its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The District passed a law banning all hand guns except for current and former police while allowing rifles and shotguns as long as they're either "unloaded and disassembled or bound by trigger locks." An appeals court killed the law, and the city has asked the Supreme Court to hear it. Surprise, surprise, the Bush Administration opposes the law.
And the two sides, one standing on one edge of the Grand Canyon, and the other on the far side, cavil endlessly to anyone with ears about the death of children, the right to protect one's self in one's home, etc. etc. ad nauseum. There is, at last, nothing new to be said.
So, how does one rationally address this issue? (Pardon me while I fall off my chair laughing.)
Let us begin by acknowledging that the other side (whichever side you're on) has deep, powerful, often unconscious emotional reasons for their positions. And, while you're at it, admit you're in the same quandary. We pretend to argue logic and reason, but what's driving those arguments are perceived threats to important personal values. If we could talk about those values and those emotions, we'd at least make a start at having a discussion rather than a televised political debate among Presidential wannabes. We may even find that we have some of those values (self-preservation, family protection, security) in common but that the triggers for those values are different.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dr Dreadful
Brace for impact, Mark...
Well done on a witty, astute and for the most part impartial piece. You will shortly be assailed by the usual gun nuts (on both sides) convinced that you, the government, the Republican Party, liberals and/or the UN is out to get them.
I sometimes think that the only way we're ever going to decide what the intent of the 2nd Amendment really is would be to appoint some venerable and pedantic old judge from the backwoods of Nepal, who's never heard of the United States or its Constitution, to take a good old look and give us his considered, untainted legal opinion as to what the hell it actually means. And then abide by his decision.
2 - Mark Schannon
Dr. Dreadful, thanks for the comments & I'm keeping my head down. Alas, there have been numerous studies and books by supposedly neutral experts trying to parse the meaning of the 2nd Amendment, but no one's come close to creating consensus.
And it wouldn't matter if there was an "objective" truth: people's well-entrenched belief and value systems will reject anything that challenges it. That's why the only approach is for somewhat reasonable people to agree that a middle ground is possible. Win their hearts, then win their minds.
In Jameson Veritas
3 - Baronius
Here's my problem. I don't care about the issue at all - I've got no emotional commitment to either side. I'll never own a gun, because I'm deeply suicidal. But it's obvious to me that the gun rights nuts are right. So don't play the game where you label both sides as emotional; that's a copout. As for the particular text, we know what it says and what the authors believed it meant. And the gun nuts are just simply right. If you want a new compromise, amend the Constitution. Otherwise, you've got to go with what it says.
4 - Bruce W. Krafft
"Let us begin by acknowledging that the other side (whichever side you're on) has deep, powerful, often unconscious emotional reasons for their positions. And, while you're at it, admit you're in the same quandary. ..."
Actually Mark, I will 'admit' no such thing. My position is based on clear well researched scientific evidence. A gun is the safest, most effective self-defense tool available, bar none. Where 'shall-issue' laws are passed, (and controlling for other factors) crime goes down.
And for those of you who still cling to Dr. Kellerman's 'study' which shows that a gun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill someone in the home than an intruder, I suggest you go to Guncite where you can see the flip side of the data: that in homes *without* a gun you were 99 times more likely to have someone in the home killed (without a gun) than you were to kill an intruder (without a gun).
Seems pretty straightforward to me . . .
5 - RJ
how about we throw the 2nd Amendment into the trash heap of well-meant but stupid historical statements.
Yep. You're a gun-grabbing communist.
6 - Dr Dreadful
What did I tell you, Mark? Took all of nineteen minutes for the gun sites' bots to find your post...
7 - RJ
So don't play the game where you label both sides as emotional; that's a copout. As for the particular text, we know what it says and what the authors believed it meant. And the gun nuts are just simply right. If you want a new compromise, amend the Constitution. Otherwise, you've got to go with what it says.
Thank you.
8 - Roger
While we're at it, why not throw-out, or at least water down, other portions of the Bill of Rights, starting with the First Amendment. Once you establish the principal that the constitution is a buffet, where you can pick and choose which portions to honor, and which to de-legitimize and ignore, then you run the risk that some other portion of the Bill of Rights that you favor will be next on the chopping block. Surely, the Founders didn’t intend for the First Amendment to protect pornography or offensive art. (They really didn’t!) And of course they had no concept of television or the internet, so they couldn’t have intended to protect those media. See where this leads?
And in fact, a robust interpretation of the Second Amendment is much more consistent with the original intent of the Founders, than the silly idea that it protects the rights of states to form a national guard. The Bill of Rights was specifically passed to protect the rights of the “people”, which is why that word is used so frequently in it, including in the Second Amendment. The “militia” is comprised of the whole people, so said James Madison. Based on their own personal experience as armed revolutionaries, the founders understood the importance of citizens possessing militarily capable firearms to keep government reasonably honest, and to discourage tyranny. The Second Amendment was never enacted to protect hunters, but to enable the people to defend liberty in an effective way - at gun point. Like it or not, that’s the truth.
9 - Tony Heaton
Dr. Dreadful, I haven't seen anyone violently attack Mark. Maybe your lack of knowledge of words is why you might have trouble understanding the second amendment? Why do all you anti-gun people refer to us gun owners as gun nuts? Does it have anything to do with the fact that you have no data to back up your position?
If you understand English and the meaning of words with respect to their 18th century use, the second amendment isn't that difficult to understand. It also helps if you read the Federalist papers and other writings of our founding father's. The supposed misunderstanding of the second amendment didn't come about until the 20th century. Why don't ant-gun groups focus on the criminal rather than the tool. Criminals use various weapons to commit their crimes and only in the case of firearms do you focus on the tool. I don't see a call to ban knives, clubs, automobiles, etc. I live in New Mexico and we have a huge DUI problem, as does other states. We have people on their 40th and higher arrests for DUI. Not only do they not try and ban alcohol for automobiles, they don't even punish the criminal. In states that allow concealed carry, violent crime has been reduced. The anti-gun people said that blood would run in the streets like rivers. If you want the any data, post a request and I'll post some references. I'd do it now, but every anti-gun person I've ever talked to was not interested in facts.
10 - Tony Heaton
Sorry, I made an error. I intended to say alcohol or automobiles
11 - REMF
"Yep. You're a gun-grabbing communist."
Did "Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy ever have an illegitimate grandson...?
12 - Dr Dreadful
Tony:
1. I said what I did to Mark because every time anyone posts anything on this topic to BC, the pro-gunners descend like a pack of wolves, the gun control folks rise up to counter, and pretty soon we have a full-on dogfight going on. It's strange - it's only gun control where this happens. Beats me why.
2. I'm not anti-gun.
3. If you re-read my comment, I referred to "gun nuts (on both sides)". That means pro and anti.
4. I wasn't suggesting you were a nut either. I have several friends who are very strongly pro-gun. None of them are nuts.
5. I don't have any trouble with the language, thank you. The bit about the "well-armed militia" is the qualifier; the "keep and bear arms" bit is the right, yadda yadda. The thing is that having a militia for national defense is a bit different than keeping guns for private defense.
6. My personal view, being originally from Britain, which doesn't have a gun culture, is that I would rather not have them around the house or on my person. I do enjoy shooting them, though.
Hope that clears a few things up.
13 - Travis Lee
This is what passes for wit?
The US has something over 20,000 restrictive gun laws, and not a one has ever been shown to reduce crime. They don’t, and they were never intended to. The first gun control laws were enacted to suppress the rights of freed black slaves. The Sullivan Act in New York City was enacted to keep down immigrants and uppity tourists who didn’t like being robbed, and fought back with their own handguns. The Gun Control Act of 1968 was modeled after the Nazi Weapons law of 1938, and was originally aimed to control urban blacks.
I’m not going to argue the US Constitution with you. You are incapable of parsing a simple sentence correctly. Or understand the commentary by the founding fathers on the subject.
If you mean to ban pistols, or other firearms in the US, you will have to repeal the Second Amendment.
You will have to get my State, and others to repeal their right to keep and bear arms.
You will have to repeal my state’s Concealed Carry laws.
You will have to enact a Constitutional amendment to seize and confiscate personal property, previously lawfully obtained, and owned.
And then you will have to repeal the Fourth Amendment to facilitate searches of every home, business and square foot of ground in the country, and random road blocks, and searches of pedestrians on city sidewalks.
And since literally millions of “gun-nuts” will insist on their right to due process you will have to repeal the fifth amendment right to due legal process, as they will demand the right to a jury trial.
When you manage to do that…
Well, as King Leonidas said to Xerxes when he demanded the Spartans lay down their weapons…
MOLON LABE: Come and take them.
There are an estimated 300 MILLION firearms in the US.
50% of all US households have at least one firearm, 80-85 million individual gun-owners. The Clinton so-called ban put more semi-automatic rifles into Americans’ hands than all the marketing by the industry ever could have done. Americans get VERY feisty when the self-appointed elitists like you tell them they can’t have something.
If you suspect that we are dangerous desperados, why do you think we would comply with your new regime? Do you think I have handguns, semi-auto rifles, and scoped long-range rifles just to relinquish them?
I just have to ask, you and what army?
Perhaps you have no guns, but many anti-gun activists own guns, have carry licenses, and even have armed body guards. When your kind demands more anti-gun laws, you invariably mean for everybody else, not, of course, FOR YOU.
Either you believe that we dangerous “gun nuts” will simply comply with mass confiscation, or you believe that we harmless and cowardly folk can simply be beaten down with a handful of seizures and high profile prosecutions.
But if things do come to that point, it will be the beginning of a flat out civil war.
If you really are that foolish, do you recall that WE are the ones who have the guns?
More guns than all the combined police and military in the whole country. If you were counting just hunters in this country, it would tally more than the forces of the five largest militaries in the world, COMBINED.
Most gun-rights activists will try to reason with you and your kind, to persuade you that we are not criminals, we pose no threat to you, that we are just regular folks with jobs, and families, and love puppies. But I have had my fill of the arguing and the deliberate obtuseness of people like you.
The most hateful, hostile, violent people I have ever met are anti-gun activists. I’ve seen them literally shaking with RAGE when a conversation comes to guns. You wish to make me a criminal, and have your state-armed thugs put me in prison, or kill me, and you think I will simply sit here ?! Umm, No.
Come and take them.
And if you have any courage, don’t send police or guardsmen to do the dirty work.
DO IT YOURSELF.
Oh, I guess that makes it a little different, doesn’t it?
Do you think you can instigate a war, and remain safe in your gated community, secured by your armed employees? Hmm. How amusing.
The “reasoned approach” to gun control I would suggest, is don’t go to war with me.
Just don’t.
14 - Christopher Rose
I also enjoy shooting guns for fun but that's not the issue.
In the context of the USA, the police ought to be protecting the citizenry but are doing an incredibly bad job.
Due to the easy availability of weapons in the USA, many criminals have taken to possessing and using them to give them an edge.
Due to this, many US citizens understandably want to get guns to protect themselves as the police do a bad job of protecting them.
As the citizens get armed, criminals respond by getting bigger guns such as machine guns or assault rifles.
This kicks off a stupid arms race which will probably end with domestic robberies being committed by gangsters in tanks!
The solution is simple, get the police to do their jobs properly and disarm the criminals and the gangs which are taking over ever larger tranches of the USA.
If gangs can run their areas so effectively, it shows it can be done. The police could do with learning a few tricks from the criminals.
15 - Christopher Rose
Travis, it would be easy to get your guns off you. If I wanted to do that, I'd get an anti-tank weapon and blow you and your house to bits whilst you slept. Thanks God for the right to bear arms!
16 - Travis Lee
And you proved my point, Christopher,
Hostile, hateful and violent.
Why is a handgun in my possession evil, and yet your willingness to murder me with a military weapon is appropriate?
Gun laws are enforced at gunpoint.
Better get me the first time.
Good luck.
17 - fsilber
The author misunderstands the issue. It is not a fear of a general ban on all guns which causes people like me to oppose a ban on handguns.
My fear is that if handguns are banned, ordinary peaceful, law-abiding private citizens will have no ready means of shooting down robbers, rapists and carjackers.
God knows, it has been decades since we could rely on the police to do this for us.
18 - Christopher Rose
Travis, actually I think you proved mine. I was pointing out a set of facts. Facts are not hostile, hateful or violent.
On the other hand, it seems that a significant proportion of pro gun types see threats where there are none, are dangerously intolerant and not very skilled at understanding what is happening right in front of them. These are all good reasons for disarming them...
fsilber, I hope you were being at least slightly funny. The problem is with the police force.
19 - David Codrea
Of course there's a right way to interpret the Second Amendment, Mark. Just because you say there's not doesn't make it so.
Be intellectually honest and do some research before acting like you're an authority and obscuring the issue.
Start by getting a copy of attorney David T. Hardy's "In Search of the Second Amendment" DVD, which interviews leading Constitutional scholars and examines the historical record on how the amendment was developed and the intent of the Founders.
If you're going to set yourself up as an authority with credentials to negate evidence presented by figures like Kates, Polsby, Levinson, Halbrook, Malcolm, Amar, Barnett, Cottroll, Kleck, Lund, Johnson, Innes, Reynolds, Volokh, et al., then let's party.
Educating yourself so you know what you're talking about would be the "reasoned approach." Otherwise, you just come across as another self-impressed dilettante with a fashionable opinion and a following of equally shallow and uneducated sycophants.
20 - None
"In the context of the USA, the police ought to be protecting the citizenry but are doing an incredibly bad job."
Since when is it the police's job to protect you? Since when do policemen walk down every street at night making sure everyone's tucked in?
21 - Rudy Kohn
"As the citizens get armed, criminals respond by getting bigger guns such as machine guns or assault rifles.
This kicks off a stupid arms race which will probably end with domestic robberies being committed by gangsters in tanks!"
The problem with this statement is that it doesn't follow from empirical evidence. In the years before right-to-carry legislation, crimes with automatic weapons were extremely rare.
However, now that over forty states allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons, we would expect the use of automatic weapons in crimes to increase. Millions of people now carry concealed handguns completely legally. Crime has decreased where concealed carry is allowed.
Automatic weapons are generally no good for committing crimes, and are still almost never used. They are large, heavy, and go through ammunition at staggering rates. They are usually more difficult to conceal. They are prohibitively expensive. Their use in crime brings down extremely harsh responses from law enforcement.
I submit that no escalation has occurred on any measurable scale.
22 - Gordon
The problem really isn't the police (well other than the problem of them wanting to be the only ones with guns even after they are retired). The courts have ruled that the police have no duty to protect anyone but themselves. That leaves protection of me and my family to me. That alone is enough reason for me to want the most effective means to do so, and since I am not a pro linebacker, that means a gun.
23 - Clavos
Since nearly all the police departments in the USA write "to serve and protect" (or some variation thereof) on the sides of their cars?
And if that's not their primary function, then WTF are we wasting taxpayers' money paying them for?
24 - Robb Allen
Chris almost has a coherent idea, but fails at the very end to falling for an emotional gambit.
A recent report indicates at least 270,000,000 firearms are owned by citizens in the US (this means non military, non police weapons). 99.7% of those weapons never see a crime. If you think that number is low, consider that even 1% would mean nearly 3 million firearm related crimes a year, and that simply is not true.
Reduction in legal gun ownership will not affect the .3% of criminal's guns. Ever. Not even a smidgen. Making 100% of handguns illegal would still see that .3% in circulation as criminals would not turn in theirs. And crime would not change.
In short, it's not the tool, it's the criminal. How many times do we read "the gunman had a lengthy rap sheet", or "was wanted for other charges"?
So, if you want to reduce crime, you focus on the criminal. If you want to look like you're doing something, you try to ban guns, knowing damned well the criminals aren't going to care about the ban in the first place.
25 - Paul
While admitting there are two sides to every story, and both sides make very reasonable arguments, I really feel like the old bumper sticker says it best...When you outlaw guns only the outlaws will have guns. Statistically a high percentage of guns used in crimes are illegally obtained. But making more laws doesn't change what someone already willing to break the laws will do. I'm totally in favor of strengthening criminal control, coming down harder on anyone who uses a gun to commit a crime. How many gun crimes are committed by repeat offenders? I do like your impartiality, and I think more people need to understand the arguments of both sides. As far as the second amendment.....interpretation is the key. I know what it means to me, and back in the day when they wrote it, does anyone know how many homes had guns? I'm not sure how many in the city, but I'd bet the number is huge, as far as out of the city I'd bet that number was 99.99%. I also realize part of the story here is handguns vs rifles/shotguns. In my mind a gun is a gun, but statistics show most gun crimes are committed with handguns. So what happens after you "abolish" owning handguns? Does anyone think they'll magical disappear? Does anyone reading this think illegal drugs are difficult to get?