For the life of me I can't find this with the NES search function. So, mods, if it's a dupe, which I suspect it is, please close it out and point me to the right thread so I can post what I think is a reasonably solid response, below.
Article in the 12/21/2012 Washington Post by Robert J. Spitzer: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...fe0ae8-49fd-11e2-820e-17eefac2f939_story.html
An old classmate with a very left-leaning, European perspective on firearms asked me to respond to these points, which I did below...
Article in the 12/21/2012 Washington Post by Robert J. Spitzer: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...fe0ae8-49fd-11e2-820e-17eefac2f939_story.html
An old classmate with a very left-leaning, European perspective on firearms asked me to respond to these points, which I did below...
First off, the Washington Post's editorial board is notoriously anti-gun, and this article also carries an obvious anti-gun bias. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous. I've restated his points as he is intending to make them, rather than in their "myth" format he used...
1. Democrats can support gun control and not reduce or lose their political power.
Who cares? It's thinking along political party lines like that that is part of the problem. Both Democrats and Republicans should be thinking about a) what is truly in the best interests of the nation and b) what they are empowered to do and not empowered to do under the fundamental laws of our nation, i.e. the constitution. Considering the concept of unintended consequences, in the case of laws it is better to do nothing than to do something in popular haste. (cf. Prohibition... oops!)
Also, btw, we already have extensive gun control in this country. People trying to make this a "gun control or no gun control" argument need to learn what the laws already are, and how they are (or are not) enforced before trying to make the argument that there should be more controls placed on law-abiding citizens. I know you're doing this... just saying that many people are not. Our own governor even said that the rifle purportedly used in the Sandy Hook shooting is illegal under MA law. That's completely false. CT and MA have essentially the same state-level Assault Weapons Ban laws, and that rifle had all the required "crippling" as stipulated under those laws.
2. It's every bit as important, if not more-so, to remove firearms from society because they are so often used for suicide in addition to murder.
First, to be clear that I'm not being heartless here, I have lost close family members to suicide, both by firearm (not in the US, btw) and by other methods, sometimes after years of suffering and repeated attempts. Still, if someone truly wants to kill themselves, they will find a way to do it, and that is their personal choice, not mine to make. I won't try to contradict his statistics because I don't have time to hunt them down, but it's simple enough to point to all the other countries with extremely strict anti-gun policies and much higher suicide rates than the US (in fact, the US is around 38th on the list) to show that removing access to a particular method isn't the solution, even if you could. Do we really think that we could reduce the suicides from 38k/year to 20k/year if ALL 300 million privately owned firearms in the US evaporated (which as we all know, just isn't going to happen)? http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/Suicide-DataSheet-a.pdf
So again, there must be a compelling public interest to even consider restricting the fundamental human rights (e.g. speech, religion, association, privacy, self-defense, etc) of the many. This strikes me as a draconian measure in the very slight theoretical chance that it will result in a fractional reduction of the suicide rate. As such, it doesn't pass muster.
3. America’s schools are safe.
I agree with this statement, and also feel that the NRA's suggestion is as one-dimensional and ineffectual as Sen. Feinstein's suggestion to ban rifles with adjustable stocks or disarm all private citizens (yes, she has stated that this is her desire).
However, in the spirit of "we must do something", there *are* things that can be done to make schools safer, and it's not uniformed guards and metal detectors... those just make for good "first targets" for a determined shooter. Spree shooters attack targets least likely to be exhibit armed resistance. (Before you say "what about the Ft. Hood shooting?", you must know that soldiers are prohibited from carrying firearms while on post. Once you gain access, it's a free-fire zone.) The Federal Flight Deck Officer and Air Marshal programs have been a rousing success on the airlines, because possible hijackers don't know who might be able to stop them. This FFDO program should be extended to the faculty of our schools and universities on a voluntary basis, with the same kind of extensive training and certification.
4. America’s gun heritage is compatible with firearms regulations.
I'm I the only one who sees the absurdity in using this statement to *support* firearms regulations??
---"In 1619, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a law making the transfer of guns to Native Americans punishable by death. Other laws across the colonies criminalized selling or giving firearms to slaves, indentured servants, Catholics, vagrants and those who refused to swear a loyalty oath to revolutionary forces."---
This is exactly why firearms ownership is a *civil* right. First off, this was still the King's England in 1619, and those laws were enacted to keep Native Americans, slaves, etc from exercising their full human rights to self-defense against the horrible injustices being visited upon them! In fact, the Dred Scott decision by the US Supreme Court, reinforcing the status of slaves as chattel, went so far as to state, and I quote: "It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union ... the full liberty ... to keep and carry arms wherever they went." -- As you can see, an armed black man was one of the things that the oppressors feared most!
So yes, there are some despicable things in America's past, and we can only hope to move beyond them as a nation as we have progressively done (with greater or lesser success) over the past 220+ years. Prohibiting law-abiding citizens from tools that can help protect themselves and their families due to their race, class or religion is one of those despicable acts that we must never again allow.
5. The 2nd Amendment of the Constitution does not grant "the people" the authority to overthrow the government.
Of course it doesn't, no government explicitly allows itself to be violently overthrown, but ubiquitous civilian gun ownership is still a critical component that helped facilitate the American revolutionaries' casting off the yoke of an oppressive dictator. It has also, throughout history, been clearly recognized as a threat to dictators everywhere. So, is it illegal to attempt to overthrow the government? Yes. Should every government always act as though the people will revolt and overthrow them if they trample the human rights of their citizenry? Yes! And unless there are some teeth behind that possibility in the form of an armed citizenry, then it is entirely possible and historically common that governments increasingly take more and more power to themselves and become abusive of the people's civil rights.
In modern times we've seen it happen in Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Nicaragua, Chile, El Salvador... and yes, even in the United States with the genocide of Native Americans and violent oppression of disarmed African Americans even into the 1960s. Some would argue these abuses are continuing, and even increasing, today in the form of the NDAA and the Patriot Act. It is the convenient twisting and bastardization of the true meaning of the Bill of Rights, and its protection extending to all humans, that allows these atrocities.
So, are armed Americans going to rise up and overthrow the government anytime soon? No, it's really not even close to "that bad". But that doesn't mean that we should dismiss the possibility that someday they should, if the government becomes untenably oppressive beyond what can be corrected through legal means. To deny this while supporting freedom fighters throughout the world is hypocritical. People are people. Man's inhumanity to man is a constant throughout history, power corrupts... and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is nothing about the 21st century western culture that makes us magically immune to this.
Hope this makes some sense and gives food for thought. Time to finish packing for my visit to the entire family in Florida... leaving the house at 4am to make our flight (ugh!) and yes, I'm bringing a couple of pistols to go target shooting with my dad and brother while I'm there. 'Merica!
