NRA members to blame for double homicide? Say what?
The entire gun debate is nothing but a series of strawmen on both sides so this is not surprising.
If we say:
"Respecting the right of self-defense is important, both in terms of not infringing basic rights, but also in a utilitarian sense in that responsibly armed people can defend themselves when law enforcement cannot."
This is translated to:
"Guns for everyone will make America a crime free paradise."
I try to break it down this way:
In a country which recognizes the right to be armed for the purpose of self-defense:
* There will be gun accidents. And they will happen in homes where people are otherwise possessing guns legally. They will sometimes happen after years of meticulous gun storage on the one day someone leaves their gun on a table because they are tired, or distracted. In these cases, sometimes, children will die.
* Innocent people will be shot. And they will mostly be shot by people possessing firearms unlawfully, but some will also be shot by people who, until the specific incident in question, follow the rules.
No one should be arguing for some kind of utopia to emerge from a state or country which does infringe the right to self-defense.
In point of fact, it is because the debate has become as debased as it has, that no cooperation can exist between people who hate guns and those who love them, in terms of stopping gun violence and preventing gun accidents.
I cannot be the only gun owner who hears the term "gun violence" and reacts reflexively, knowing some kind of anti-gun argument is coming - and generally it does. Yet if we ignore this pattern recognition for a moment, I would ask: is anyone who takes a political stance on guns happy with the level of gun violence in the United States?
I'm not. Oh sure we take exception to even putting it this way, because our point is that guns are a mere detail in the act of committing a criminal act - in other words, our bumper sticker, "Guns don't kill people - people kill people."
But if I offered a solution to reducing the number of violent acts perpetrated by a firearm, and this solution did not involve further infringing on the rights of individuals, would anyone be closed to hearing about it?
I don't think so.
I hate to put it in exactly these terms, but the other side drew first blood. I've been reading about the history of the modern gun control movement, and this is largely a product of the 60s and 70s - a product of rising crime, paranoia, and urban anomie (see "Taxi Driver" and "Dirty Harry" for the zeitgeist).
One of the tropes you'll encounter today is the claim that "no one wants to ban guns," followed by an eye-roll and mumbling about "common sense" gun control regulations.
One of the largest gun control organizations in the country, which is a coalition comprised of 48 specific organizations, calls itself the
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. A list of organizations constituting the organization can be found here:
http://www.csgv.org/about-us/member-organizations
These include:
* American Academy of Pediatrics
* American Psychiatric Association
* Center for Science in the Public Interest
* National Association of Social Workers
* National Urban League, Inc.
As well as a fairly shocking number of religious groups.
This organization, if you look at the "pull" in terms of the numbers of people who, by virtue of belonging to these individual groups, constitutes a fairly influential mob of sorts.
This organization was once called the
National Coalition to Ban Handguns. Of course if you pushed them on this now, they'd undoubtedly try to downplay their roots, because this dog won't hunt in 2010.
If you consider these roots of the gun control movement (which again claims repeatedly it doesn't want to ban guns, just regulate them), and then look at the dirty tricks of the late 90s such as the lawsuits that led to the Tiahrt Amendment, this is why gun owners won't even sit down at the table to talk to "anti-violence" groups. We don't trust them. They fight dirty. The lawsuits against firearms manufacturers in particular were a terrible end-run around the legislative system, and - for me at least - tainted "anti-violence" groups to a point where cooperation is impossible.
I wonder how many people who just don't get the NRA and other gun rights organizations understand all of this. It is as if they believe that we gun owners like death and mayhem and accidental shootings and drive-bys and crime-ridden inner city cesspools. Like we're advocating gun ownership because we want to see this happen.
And I don't think any of us do. At least not most of us. But it is telling that the actual term "gun violence," without any other context, causes me - and probably most of you - acute dyspepsia.
What if...
What if we took gun control as a political concept off the table entirely? What if those who are truly concerned with violence simply said, "We're abandoning this. We will not push for any legislation about firearms anymore, but in return, we want to build a coalition to formulate solutions to the crime problem."
Imagine...
I've never liked Eddie Eagle. Even as a child I'd find that patronizing. I'd rather listen to a cop come in and tell me stories about things he's seen. But what if you could formulate such a program in the inner cities, and what if as part of this, you could mentor youth in the shooting sports, so that they learned to respect weapons the same way many of us did? It isn't as if not schooling them this way has done them any favors. I have always found the shooting sports to be especially dignified and respectable. We're all standing around armed, after all, and that requires a specific way of relating to one another.
Imagine...if we could try a "carrot and stick" approach to cities, where violent criminals got longer and harsher sentences, but we also participated with progressives in diversion programs, intervention, and everything from midnight basketball to early release for non-violent offenders (which would alleviate prison overcrowding and one of the rationales used to release violent offenders earlier than they should.)
I know a lot of gun owners are religious. Certainly churches could play a role.
Overall, imagine cooperation rather than being at each others throats.
None of this is possible so long as law abiding gun owners are smeared and used for political fodder every time some public shooting occurs. None of this is possible so long as governmental force is on the table, and it always is.
I am opposed to gun violence. That is to say, yes, I am anti-violence across the board but specifically, except in the context of self-defense, I am against shooting people. I think this is true of most gun owners. The other side has never tried to leverage this. They won't even give us the benefit of the doubt on it, besotted with convenient stereotypes, strawmen, and outright derision as they are.
It's sad. Because while I don't think you can ever stop all gun violence, I do think there can be less of it, and nothing has stood in the way of getting people together on this more than gun control - even supposedly "common sense" gun control - has.
