Fearing for your rights in the wake of a tragedy
By Thoreau
Immediately after the Virginia Tech shooting, a lot of people on the internet started talking about gun rights. And it’s completely understandable: In the aftermath of a tragic event like this, a lot of innocent, law-abiding people will naturally fear that this will be used as a pretext to restrict their rights. As a gun owner, one who is preparing to move to a place known for strict gun laws, I’m somewhat worried myself that by the time I get there, all prepared to comply with the existing laws, they’ll change the laws and force me to jump through even more hoops.
Now, advocates for 2nd amendment rights aren’t the only innocent, law-abiding Americans who need to fear that their rights will be lost after a violent tragedy. Imagine that something similar happened, with as many innocent lives lost, only this time the attacker was a Muslim. In recent years every American has been given reason to fear that such an attack might be used as a pretext to undermine our rights under the 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments to the Constitution.
I realize that there are plenty of 2nd amendment advocates who do care about 4th, 5th, and 6th amendment rights for all Americans. But I think it’s safe to say that there are also some conservatives who talk the good talk on freedom when it comes to the 2nd amendment, but have been rather willing to go along with violations of the other amendments in response to fears of Muslim fundamentalists.
I would ask everybody to remember that the message of “Don’t violate the rights of innocent, law-abiding people in response to violent tragedies” is good advice no matter what the identity of the attacker might be. Our freedom is far too precious to be surrendered in response to tragedy.
Also, I’ve occasionally heard the complaint “Why do so many Muslims complain about our government and racial profiling but I never hear them condemn terrorism?” Well, leaving aside the fact that the complainer is frequently selectively deaf, let’s turn it around and look at discussions of gun control in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting: Somebody could just as easily say “Why are those gun owners so interested in complaining about gun control that they would talk about that rather than express sympathy for the victims of this tragedy?”
Of course, gun owners do have sympathy for the grieving and do condemn the actions of the killer. But if it seems like they’re complaining awfully loudly about gun control, perhaps it goes back to the fact that they are innocent, law-abiding people who fear that their freedoms will be violated.
Comment by Kieran —
April 18, 2007 @ 9:08 pm
Here’s some more good advice.
Comment by Kieran —
April 18, 2007 @ 9:19 pm
OK so maybe I’m a bit cranky this evening.
Comment by Mona —
April 18, 2007 @ 10:08 pm
Kieran: Thoreau sent both me and Jim an email asking whether this post was appropriate, and I felt it was. I (correctly) pointed out that the subject of gun control is now all over the TeeVee and Internet, and so this isn’t an “exploitation” issue, it is a response to the correlated issue that has already been raised by many — as always happens when some horrific gun slaughter occurs.
Comment by Leonard —
April 18, 2007 @ 10:10 pm
Hey, I did my 5 minutes, yesterday, from about 6:02 to 6:07. IIRC. So, you know, I’ve healed and got past it and stuff, and it’s time to fight about it!
Comment by 2d Amendment —
April 18, 2007 @ 11:35 pm
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.
Comment by Kevin Carson —
April 19, 2007 @ 1:16 am
Your post reminds me of my reaction when I woke up on the morning of 9-11 and turned on the radio.
My first thought was fear of “my own” government. I immediately predicted that in a matter of weeks, Congress would pass a “counter-terror” package including the jackboots’ entire wish list that Schumer couldn’t ram through after the OKC bombing. Whatever was still left of the Fourth Amendment would be turned into toilet paper. “Shit,” I thought, “I’ll be lucky if my Wobbly red card doesn’t land me in a concentration camp for subversives before this is over.”
I learned quickly that mine was, to say the least, an atypical reaction.
Comment by wade —
April 19, 2007 @ 5:57 am
As a brit, i’m baffled and perplexed, by school shootings and the right to bear arms. It is very sad.
Comment by Karl —
April 19, 2007 @ 6:08 am
Thoreau,
1. Good luck with your prospective move to “Gun Grabber Land” wherever that may be. Good luck keeping your gun.
2. The 2nd Amendment is the Amendment that protects the rest of the Amendments and the Constitution as well. A case can be made that the right to bear arms is more important than the franchise.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
April 19, 2007 @ 6:37 am
Wade, I’m an American and I’m no less baffled than you are. It’s one of those things that I’ve resigned myself to: as someone who has no desire to ever own a gun, I’m an outlier in this country, and nothing is going to change that.
Comment by Jennifer —
April 19, 2007 @ 6:43 am
Maybe you guys would have a different view of guns if you were a woman in a body so small and weak that pretty much any healthy male above the age of ten could kill you bare-handed if he so chose. As one such person myself, I look at those who would ban guns and ask, “Why do you think it should be illegal for me to have the only effective means of self-defense?”
The fact that I am technically Poor and live in a less-than-stellar neighborhood only makes it worse.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 19, 2007 @ 7:09 am
Kevin-
Yep, that was one of my reactions on the morning of 9/11. In addition to being sad for the victims and fearful of what else might happen that day, I suspected that the response to the tragedy would itself be tragic.
And although I own a gun, I should make it clear that it’s not something I’m personally very passionate about. I like shooting it, but I’m not a fanatic about it. Nonetheless, I understand why innocent, law-abiding gun owners immediately think to themselves “Oh, great, now somebody is going to use this tragedy to curtail my rights.”
It’s the same reaction that I had on 9/11 concerning the 4th amendment (just like Kevin), and it’s the same reaction that I’ll bet a lot of Muslims had (only their fears were probably much sharper, for obvious reasons).
So I can understand why different portions of society will respond to different tragedies with “Hey, don’t use this as a pretext to go after me. I did nothing wrong!” I hope that those segments of society, which don’t always overlap, will come to understand each other better, and form a united front to defend both the 2nd and 4th amendments with equal vigor.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 19, 2007 @ 7:20 am
BTW, I know this will sound callous, but I’m just relieved that it wasn’t done by a Muslim. Otherwise they’d be going after other amendments besides the 2nd right now.
Comment by quasibill —
April 19, 2007 @ 7:26 am
In theory, sure. In practicality? I’ve seen the Constitution shredded before my very eyes, and the 2nd amendment fanatics cheering it on. If the people were to actually exercise their second amendment rights and follow Jefferson’s dictum, it would’ve happened long before now.
The reality is that all of the Constitution is worth merely the paper it’s written on. It takes a body politic that actually shares the common goal of liberty to make any of it actually happen.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 19, 2007 @ 7:43 am
I’ve seen the Constitution shredded before my very eyes, and the 2nd amendment fanatics cheering it on.
Yep. There is non-trivial overlap between those who staunchly oppose gun control and those who have turned a blind eye to some of the civil liberties abuses of the past several years.
But the overlap is by no means complete, and so I hope that more gun owners will see the parallel between their responses to the VA Tech shootings and the responses of others to 9/11 and similar events.
Comment by Matt Weiner —
April 19, 2007 @ 8:11 am
The 2nd Amendment is the Amendment that protects the rest of the Amendments and the Constitution as well. A case can be made that the right to bear arms is more important than the franchise.
Private gun ownership didn’t do squat to protect individual rights in Saddam’s Iraq.
Comment by Barry —
April 19, 2007 @ 8:37 am
Beat me to it, Matt. Then again, these guys also sign up to the ’soldiers protect the freedom of the reporter, the protester,….’; they apparently think that N. Korea has no army.
Comment by William Newman —
April 19, 2007 @ 8:49 am
Matt Weiner: Granting your premise that folks in Hussein’s Iraq enjoyed the right to bear arms at the level that the US founding fathers guaranteed…
First, as an aside, strictly speaking you’re speaking nonsense about guns doing nothing to protect individual rights. The net effect might not have been good: possibly there were more cases where private arms allowed private crimes than stopped them. But the gross effect, of cases like ordinary joe A being stopped from raping ordinary jane B because of the presence of private arms, could hardly have been so close to zero that “done squat” fits.
Back to the main point you were trying to make, you are correct that private arms at the level present in Iraq weren’t effective in stopping government from abusing individual rights. However, does that actually refute “the right to bear arms is more important than the franchise”? Look at the history of democracy in much of the world, including places that resemble Iraq. Observe patterns like the cliche of “one man, one vote, once” (after which the winner of the election or the winner of a coup locks the place down). If in the absence of other cultural software (or whatever the missing factor is) the franchise isn’t sufficient to protect individual rights, it’s not entirely damning that individual arms aren’t sufficient either.
I think the history of the past two centuries or so does show the founding fathers were wrong about private arms being necessary for a free society: enough countries, esp. European and Commonwealth countries, have remained freer than 1780s England for long enough that the claim can be considered refuted. OTOH, the history of the past century suggests that out-of-control governments are a vastly larger danger than private misuse of arms, so if private arms help even a little, they’re still a good thing. And, of course, some people think the rule of law (not just ignoring the annoying bits of the Bill of Rights, frex) is important too.
Comment by Hesiod —
April 19, 2007 @ 10:04 am
“Assault on our fundamental liberies” in gun rights speak means: “It is intolerable to me that I have to wait 5 dayts to purchase a handgun so I can go target shoot aluminum cans in my backyard. People who prevent me from instantly gratifying my every trivial urge are Nazis.”
Comment by ajay —
April 19, 2007 @ 10:14 am
William Newman makes a good point. I’d like to extend it by suggesting that 2nd Amendment rights are the only ones in the constitution which are not, more or less, universally (by which I mean globally) accepted by people who support liberal democracy.
In Europe, Africa, South America, or wherever, you’ll find general consensus among supporters of liberal democracy that a liberal democracy should hold regular, free, fair, universal elections, that criminals deserve a fair trial, that torture is bad, that press censorship is (generally) bad too, that the state shouldn’t impose religious tests for office, that people shouldn’t be compelled to testify against themselves, etc, etc. Most of these are to some degree in the UNDHR.
But there is really significant disagreement on the issue of gun ownership. It’s quite easy to imagine a democrat (lower-case d) like, say, Nelson Mandela saying “I don’t think private individuals should be able to own handguns”, while it’s a bit more difficult to imagine him calling for the abolition of the secret ballot or trial by jury.
I know I’m teetering on the edge of petitio principii here, but comments?
Comment by Hesiod —
April 19, 2007 @ 10:17 am
The simple fact is, gun band actually do work. Despite the disionformation spread by uns rights advocates in the US, the giun ban in Britain has not resulted in a huge increase in crime. Crime trends there have remained relatively steady. They were increasing before the gun ban went into effect, and stayed on about the same trajectory. The only difference is, viopelnet deaths from firearms have flattened out over teh same period. And violent crime rate in Great Britain is something like 1/5th what it is in the United States.
That isn’t to say that a gun ban in the US would work. There are over 200 million guns on the streets in the US. They are so prevalent it might actually do more harm than good to ban theme here. Which, ironically, helps the NRA.
Now, from a philosophical standpoint, you can make a libertarian defense of the right to keep and bear arms. But, form a practical standpoint, dspite the best efforts of pro-gun researchers in the US [John Lott, for example, has widely been discredited], it’s not very clear cut. Weak gun control laws are probably worse than none at all.
ON balance, I’d prefer a system of mandatory registration, background checks for ALL gun sales, adjudicated mental health problems being included in background checks to prevent those individuals from obtaining firearms without medical clearance, and a mandatory liability no-fault insurance system for gun owners similar to the system most states have for automobiles.
I would also impose a significant tax on firearms and ammunition sales to help defray the social costs of prevalent gun owenship.
Of course, I will be labelled a nazi-fascist-stalinist wacko for proposing these common sense ideas. But, I frankly don’t care.
Comment by Karl —
April 19, 2007 @ 10:23 am
Jennifer,
I agree.
Making the saying more inclusive if not 100% accurate:
All men and women are equal, Sam Colt made that way.
Comment by Dave W. —
April 19, 2007 @ 10:39 am
But if it seems like they’re complaining awfully loudly about gun control, perhaps it goes back to the fact that they are innocent, law-abiding people who fear that their freedoms will be violated.
Not all gun freedoms are created equal.
Some of the unseemliness on the pro-gun side is when there is exaggerated complaining about the loss of a small margin of gun freedom.
That happens, as you probably know, and when it does it starts to look like something other than proper grieving procedure.
Comment by Azael —
April 19, 2007 @ 10:46 am
I guess we have only ourselves to blame for the bombings in Iraq. If I follow the logic on the 2nd Amendment proponents correctly, then the problem with car bombings in Baghdad is that we have created car bomb free zones. What we need to prevent further car bombings is for most people to have their own car bombs carried with them.
Note, I own a gun too.
Oh, and ditto the 7:26 am comment by quasibill. I keep hearing that the 2nd amendment is what prevents reality itself from collapsing around our ears, and yet here we have pretty much the collective proponents of the amendment solidly backing the very people who have been busy shredding it.
The problem, Thoreau, is that we keep seeing a “non trivial overlap” – a polite way of obscuring “an overwhelming majority” of people who are amazingly authoritarian, believe everyone should be packing heat, are ready to round up everyone who even has a Muslim name. Many of them (I’m thinking Dale Franks, another prominent Libertarian) actually has eliminationist fantasies they proudly broadcasts regarding the left on their blogs.
I’m truly sorry that some people’s freedoms are being infringed, but I want my country back, and I’m tired of wire taps, Justice being used as a political arm of the white house and citizens of this country locked up with no charges or access to counsel. I’ll worry about gun control laws infringing on people’s god given right to purchase a gun without a 5 day waiting period when I get back far more fundamental freedoms and constitutional guarantees from the very people who are frickin’ nuts about guns.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 10:46 am
The Sunnis had the legal, private firearms and Saddam’s government protected Sunni privilege; the Shiites, not so much (and not so much).
The Kurds had weapons and rebelled – and under the Northern no-fly zone, pretty much ran their own, promisingly liberal, country.
I don’t think Hussein’s Iraq is the great anti-gun-ownership talking point a lot of people try to use it as.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:00 am
Yeah, and those people who object to being herded into “free speech zones” when they demonstrate or who mind when some guy gets arrested for wearing an uncomplimentary t-shirt within a line of sight of the president are just bitchin’ about someone impeding their trivial urges to whine, man!
And their suspicion that the people who support such trivial limits on freedom of speech long wistfully for greater censorship is just ideological posturing…
Comment by Azael —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:05 am
Eric, that’s not even half an argument. Free speech zones aren’t the equivalent of 5 day waiting periods as it’s perfectly clear that the free speech zones eliminate the free speech. The 5 day waiting period doesn’t eliminate the gun or in any way diminish it’s “usefulness”.
If you would, please, expand further on your logic to convince us poor liberals that these are, in fact, the exact same thing.
Seriously, it’s logic just like this that makes gun advocates look like complete loons.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:08 am
I’m having trouble with this sentence. Are you saying an overwhelming majority of people are universal-arms authoritarian who want to round up Muslims? Are you saying an overwhelming majority of authoritarians want everyone to have guns and want Muslims rounded up…?
I’m puzzled by the idea of people who want everyone (or most everyone) to have guns and want Muslims rounded up, as there’s often discussion of situations like Rwanda and the Holocaust and the Warsaw Ghetto in gun-rights circles I’ve encountered, with the firm consensus being, “unarmed people get rounded up, armed people don’t.”
Comment by ajay —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:10 am
Following up, one thing does seem to reinforce the idea that gun rights are in a separate class: that the supporters of other rights often seem lukewarm on gun rights, and the supporters of gun rights often seem indifferent to dangers to other rights. People in the US certainly seem to be acting as though the 2nd Amendment isn’t an irrevocable part of the Great Liberal Democratic Package, don’t they?
Comment by ajay —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:14 am
“unarmed people get rounded up, armed people don’t”
Oh, of course. Because US history is utterly devoid of cases where large groups of heavily armed people have been, e.g., rounded up by the federal government and force-marched hundreds of miles to live on reservations.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:15 am
Not at all! It’s just a trivial relocation of the speech. They can say all they want in the little free-speech zone. Heck, the media even knows where they are and will drop by occasionally. For that matter, everyone not within a certain distance of the free speech zone’s venue can say anything s/he wants.
And most importantly, free speech zones only exist for the few days of the event. Very trivial, by your standard.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:16 am
Considering how much NRA and RTKBA folks in general resent the ACLU and other groups, I think one is related to the other.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:17 am
Not without taking their guns away, first.
Comment by ajay —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:18 am
Sorry, Eric, I don’t understand what you mean. What is related to what?
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:20 am
Of course, the key thing, ajay, is that whether or not you buy it, the RTKBA folks do. So I’m a bit skeptical of the overlap claim.
Comment by ajay —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:21 am
Not without taking their guns away, first.
Right. So the only difference is that, if you are unarmed, the feds can come along, round you up and take you away. If you are armed, the feds will come along, take away your arms, round you up and take you away.
That’s not exactly the best argument I’ve ever heard. It’s more like saying that putting a pink ribbon around your car doors protects your car from theft, because you can’t get into the car unless you take the ribbon off.
Comment by Azael —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:21 am
Are you saying an overwhelming majority of people are universal-arms authoritarian who want to round up Muslims?
I’m saying that Thoreau’s phrase: “a non trivial intersection” is a polite way of obscuring that the “non trivial intersection” is a majority. It’s like saying “99% overlap is a non trivial intersection”. So, just to be clear, the people who are 2nd Amendment fanatics who believe that this is the holiest of amendments, the amendment without which the constitution and reality itself would collapse around our very ears, compose an almost identical set consisting of the authoritarians who are applauding the shredding of our constitutional rights, locking up citizens (and others) without any charges, holding them without counsel. These are the people clamoring for interment camps, cheering the wire tapping (without warrants) of Americans on American soil. The list is pretty much endless at this point.
Oh, and ditto the 11:14 comment by ajay. I guess you never studied American history, Mr. .5 of a b. Wounded Knee, forced marches, you name it. Pretty much armed resistance all the way through it.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:30 am
Well, aside from the fact that there are many single-focus groups that devote themselves to more-or-less single civil liberties and rights like free speech or legal representation (making the NRA and such not all that inherently unique), I think the cultural split on the issue has a cause. The ACLU and other groups give short shrift to gun rights, so the NRA and similar groups don’t leap to give them any aid. There’s rather a lot of gun-owner hostility to the ACLU, which at the national level doesn’t support an individual second amendment right at all.
Comment by Azael —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:34 am
My lord. Yes, the ACLU is simply wasting too much time dealing with voter suppression, racial injustice, horrific conditions in prisons, unjust convictions and all the other silly things they spend their valuable time on when they should really be giving equal time to making sure that people can buy weapons anytime and anywhere without the slightest hint of regulation.
You are a loon.
Comment by ajay —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:37 am
36: Oh, I see what you mean. In other words, you’re saying the NRA doesn’t leap to defend other civil rights because a) it’s none of their business and b) they don’t like the people who do, because the ACLU and others like them don’t share the NRA’s view of a right to own guns. Fair enough.
Point 1: OK, so why doesn’t the ACLU and the rest of the civil rights community think this way? This is my point about gun rights – specifically the individual right to own guns – being widely seen as somehow different from other rights. If there was a charity devoted to free speech issues, you might not expect it to spend much time worrying about the right to vote – none of its business, right? But you wouldn’t expect it to be actively hostile to Right to Vote charities. After all, they both believe themselves on the same side.
2) As mentioned above, the people who support gun rights often seem to be quite uncaring about other rights – or even advocating their destruction.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:37 am
Unless you fight, which is the whole point. What folks like Azrael miss is that the RTKBA folks argue that you can’t round up people who are shooting back; you can only round up those who surrender and hand over their guns. Or who hand over their guns as part of an agreement the other party doesn’t, shall we say, respect.
Now, you can say that this is stupid and that there’s nothing to be learned from things like the Warsaw Ghetto’s resistance to the Nazis, and you can even pretend the Red-leaners are one amazingly homogeneous group that isn’t fractured and isn’t in conflict and doesn’t hold differing sets of opinions…but you have to pause and at least acknowledge that, like you, they actually believe a non-trivial portion of what they say.
Comment by ajay —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:40 am
And I’d dearly like to hear an example of when armed resistance against the federal government has protected any of the rights of US citizens. Most of the examples of armed resistance that spring to mind were aimed at a reduction of liberty, not an expansion of it. The Civil War. The Ku Klux Klan.
Comment by Karl —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:42 am
Jennifer,
I agree with your sentiment.
Making the saying more explictly inclusive:
“All men and women are equal. Sam Colt made them that way.”
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:44 am
Ehn, I think RTKBA folks would be generally happy if the national ACLU just didn’t dismiss an entire constitutional right and devoted some fraction of their efforts to protect it, as the Texas ACLU has. Of course, if that qualifies as “equal time” in your mind, then yes, you have their grievance correct.
Curious – I’ve actually been a member of the national ACLU, and I’ve never been a member of a gun-rights group. How exactly did you go from reading a reasonably accurate, non-pejorative description of how some folks you disagree with think to concluding I’m a nut?
I mean, I’m not the one knee-jerking and claiming vast uniformity in my political enemies, here.
Comment by ajay —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:44 am
Unless you fight, which is the whole point.
Look, old chap, the native cultures of America had a lot of admirable features, but “nonviolent resistance” wasn’t one of them. They fought. They fought like tigers. Read some history. And then contemplate how much good it did them. They lost – and then they were rounded up, etc.
And any lessons learned from the Warsaw Ghetto must start with this one: If you attempt to wage an urban insurgency against the Nazis, you will lose. What good did their (admittedly heroic) resistance do them? None at all. They were defeated and murdered.
Yes, it may well have helped the general war effort, but in terms of directly helping the Warsaw Jews – nothing.
Comment by ajay —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:46 am
if the national ACLU just didn’t dismiss an entire constitutional right
“interpret differently” not “dismiss”.
Comment by Azael —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:49 am
My lord, Mr. .5b. You’re right. They simply kill people who are shooting back. After they’ve shot enough of them, simple human nature will ensure that – sooner or later – the rest will give up. Or you have a genocide.
It truly is an amazing reality you live in where you’re preparing for the shoot out at the OK corral and our rights have been shredded by a bunch of suits and religious loons without chambering a single round.
Your obsession has made you blind to what’s going on under your nose.
Comment by Azael —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:52 am
How exactly did you go from reading a reasonably accurate, non-pejorative description of how some folks you disagree with think to concluding I’m a nut?
Well, such is the blogosphere commentariat I guess. On the liberal side, we’re just a bunch of godless commie socialists who simultaneously will bomb you into PC compliance and force you to become a flacid pacifist who will let Israeli bulldozers run right over ya.
It’s a talent.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:55 am
Only to the extent that Team Red is run by people a bit more indifferent to rights than the Teams are usually, and Team Blue particularly dislikes gun rights. I missed what country you’re from, as I took some of your remarks (correctly?) to indicate you’re an international commenter, but unlike in those with more parliamentary systems, in the US, Team Red and Team blue are basically it when it comes to political representation.
There’s really nowhere plausible for, say, disgruntled NRA folks to go if they’re unhappy with Team Red. There was nowhere for ACLU folks to go when Team Blue was pushing against civil liberties as hard as peacetime allowed in the 90s. Both the Teams are loose, often unhappy coalitions often at odds, but through the wonder of partisanship, folks tend to act as if they represent two solid, irreconcilable systems of thought.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 11:57 am
“interpret differently†not “dismissâ€.
They dismiss the idea that the second amendment refers to a civil liberty. That’s certainly a different interpretation, but it’s definitely a dismissal.
Comment by Justin M. Stoddard —
April 19, 2007 @ 12:03 pm
ajay wrote:
Unfortunately, sometimes, some people are faced with an impossible situation. In this case, it was “die fighting” or “die passively”.
Which of the two would you choose? And, more importantly, would you presume to deny me the same choice?
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 12:14 pm
None spring to mind; of course, most of the examples of oppression at the federal and state level involve no armed resistance and actual disarmament. Jim Crow-era disarmament of blacks, for instance. Relocation camps during WW2 for Japanese-Americans.
Most of the examples of armed resistance in protection of rights have been against other private groups – black gun clubs protecting against the KKK during Reconstruction and the 50s and 60s.
Nor was unremitting hostility or, in many cases, sufficient skepticism of American intentions. I’ll return your patronizing recommendation – look into all the broken treaties.
Ah, but the lesson they take is “Wow, look how long they held out and how many casualties that resistance inflicted. What if the Warsaw Ghetto hadn’t been unique? How could the Nazis have possibly rounded up the Jews if they’d all been armed and ready to fight?” And they’ll probably throw in, “Better to be shot fighting back now than gassed later.” Etc.
Are they right? I suspect they have a point; you may not. But, again, just try to keep in mind that this isn’t some Jedi mind-trick to lull you into supporting the right to keep and bear arms – this is what they think, this is what they say to each other while bitching about “gun-grabbers”.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 12:16 pm
Ehn, whatever; you’re getting boring.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 12:25 pm
And ajay, I’ll have to point to Azrael’s reactions as evidence of the political culture divide. I’m not a gun-nut and not a gun-owner; I’ve never even fired a gun in my life. In the past, when someone’s let me handle a gun, I’ve been interested, but I’ve also held the things with almost comical care. As a civil-liberties person, I am more concerned about freedom of speech and other things right now…but I do think weapon ownership is a civil liberty and disapprove of limits on it.
And I know Thoreau, while a gun guy, is damned concerned about civil liberties in general. And yet, if folks like us so much as speak non-disparagingly about gun rights, people like Hesiod and Azrael twitch and drop us into the “Evil Red Nazi Gun-Owner” pigeonhole.
Comment by Karl —
April 19, 2007 @ 12:27 pm
ajay,
Re: 43.
Resistance is good in itself when dealing with vile villians like the Nazi’s. Survival with freedom is the greatest victory but failing that, each Nazi death was a not so small victory. Each bit of pain inflicted on the enemy was good. Far better to fall fighting than to meekly die in a gas chamber or be worked to death. And some did escape and survive from the Warsaw Ghetto and from the Sobibor extermination camp.
Regarding Native Americans, consider the greater survival of the agressive Caribs vs. the relatively peaceful Arawaks.
Comment by matthew hogan —
April 19, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
“What good did their (admittedly heroic) resistance do them? None at all. They were defeated and murdered. ”
Which is why they should have called 911 instead, or the police directly, and certainly perhaps requested a restraining order, like non-gun-loving loons in a civilized society would have done.
(Seriously, the Warsaw ghetto uprising caused hesitation about rounding up Hungarian Jews en masse, a fact overcome only by use of various ruses — perhaps even recruiting disinformation collaboration by Jewish leaders like Mr. Kastner).
Comment by Hesiod —
April 19, 2007 @ 12:42 pm
The 2nd amendment cannot be divorced from the founder’s fear of a standing armed forces and their preference for citizen militias.
It’s right there in the language of the amendment. Yet, 2nd amendment enthusiasts frequently dismiss the entire purpose of the 2nd amendment in teh firts place, usually by pointing to isolated quotes from various founders or contemporaries taken out of their appropriate context.
The right to keep and bear arms was deemed necessaary to the “defense of a free state.” I.e. the Roman historo-myth of Cincinnatus. The citizen farmer who lays down his plow, and takes up arms to defend his homeland. The “well-regulated militia” being part and parcel of that defense.
Since then, the meaning of the second amendmeent has morphed into some kind of abolute right not be be encumbered like, say, free speech is. [You can;t divulge legitimate national security secrets, for example. That's not 1st amendment protected speech].
The right to keep and bears arms for “personal protection from fellow citizens” may or may not be what the founders intended. Handguns, at the time, were hardly the lethal, mass killing potential, easily concealed menaces they are today. There is pretty good reasoin to suppose that what the founders meant was that people have the right to keep and bear muskets and rifles to defend their homeland from threats as part of a well-regulated militia. And that the Gvt should not infringe that right, lest we get “standing armies,” and the potential for the loss of liberties tehy associated with that institution.
And, when tehy speak of the 2nd amendment securing all teh other rights, tehy are talkng about repelling foreign or domestic threats to the Republic. Not, directly, the ability of cicitizens to resist democratically arrived at, and otherwise constitutional edicts of their Government.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 1:04 pm
Correct. And the militia cannot be divorced from an citizenry with the right to keep and bear arms.
Not sure how you mean, as the history of the right has been a history of restriction and regulation.
In other words, military-grade long arms – the very sorts of weapons that are most regulated right now.
Hmm. I imagine you’d pretty much neuter many gun folks’ complaints about Blue gun-grabbers if y’all agreed to remove all legal restrictions on owning and carrying fully automatic machine guns and other military weapons in exchange for restrictions on pistol ownership. Then you’d be left with just the self-defense and shooter crowd.
The “gee, handguns are so much more dangerous now” argument is rather like arguing that the Founding Fathers weren’t thinking of political web sites when they wrote the first Amendment.
Right, and historical examples aside, the RTKBA folks don’t generally foresee ever resisting a functional, democratic US government.
Comment by ajay —
April 19, 2007 @ 1:25 pm
.5b: I’m not a gun-nut and not a gun-owner; I’ve never even fired a gun in my life.
Ironically, I’ve been shooting since the age of eleven. I’ve shot everything from Berettas and Brownings through Uzi, M-16, AK-47, and anti-aircraft guns to artillery pieces. I got past the “guns are exciting” stage before I started to shave. Now I view them as complex, valuable dangerous items that are a pain in the neck to clean.
I’ve never believed that the private ownership of guns is desirable or necessary for a free state.
Want to defend your nation? Enlist. Want to defend it part-time? Join the reserves. They’ll give you a gun. Two guns, sometimes. (I have no problem at all with well-regulated militias.)
Want to go target shooting? Join a club and keep your gun there. Want to protect your home? Install window locks and get a dog.
But letting people – completely without regulation – keep and carry lethal weapons around the place is frankly asking for trouble.
the RTKBA folks don’t generally foresee ever resisting a functional, democratic US government.
Really. So all that “From our cold dead hands” business was just a lie?
Comment by matthew hogan —
April 19, 2007 @ 1:54 pm
“But letting people – completely without regulation – keep and carry lethal weapons around the place is frankly asking for trouble.”
For the most part no. The vast majority of home weapons kill no one.
Asking for trouble is the price of liberty, including allowing people freedom of religion, speech, and the vote, and the ownership of occasionally child-mauling guard dogs. And the right to keep and bear a bong or a syringe.
“the RTKBA folks don’t generally foresee ever resisting a functional, democratic US government.
Really. So all that “From our cold dead hands†business was just a lie?”
Well cold and dead could imply no resistance, especially in these SWAT days.
Comment by srv —
April 19, 2007 @ 2:34 pm
Except that you’ve already let the states permit your right to handgun use in public. So the 2nd ammendment doesn’t mean what you say it means.
What is clear, is that your founding fathers didn’t want standing armies. Not that they thought you should be running around with handguns in public.
Comment by Highlander —
April 19, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
I worry deeply about the government taking away my right to own and operate a motor vehicle.
I mean, let’s face it, government regulation of motor vehicles is an onerous and intolerable intrusion on our basic civil liberties. A car is not simply a convenience, for many if not most it is simply a necessity of modern life. And nowadays, if you want to own and operate a car, first, you have to have reached a certain age (which is ridiculous, 13 year olds can and do easily operate automobiles every day in perfect safety… somewhere, I’m sure), you have to pass a tedious and intrusive test in order to be ‘licensed’ by the State, you have to pay for registration, you have to pay for insurance, and then you’re subject to all these ridiculous regulations as to where you can drive and how you can drive and when you can drive and what kind of vehicle you can drive on which surfaces — it’s insane!
I should be able to walk into any dealership anywhere in the world and buy any motor vehicle I want at any time business is being done simply by slapping the cash on the barrelhead. I shouldn’t need to show an ID, a ‘license’, an insurance card, I shouldn’t need to ‘register’ my vehicle with the state, and once I have my vehicle, I certainly shouldn’t have to worry about arbitrary and idiotic traffic signals and stop signs and one way streets (ONE WAY STREETS!! Who the hell is the government or anyone else to tell me what direction I have to travel in to get to my chosen destination? WHY DO WE PUT UP WITH THIS?) and fuck all else.
I should be able to just get in my vehicle — car, motorcycle, motorized uniped, 18 wheel truck, Abrams fighting vehicle, whatever… and go wherever the jesus I feel like going! I mean, what the hell, isn’t this America any more? Did we lose a war?
And if it’s this obvious, this instinctive, that our so called ‘government’ has no right whatsoever to interfere with my ownership and operation of any motor vehicle however and wherever I choose to do so, then how much more obvious is it that I must have a similarly untrammeled right to keep and bear any arms I want, whenever and wherever I want, and to use them however I see fit at any given moment, regardless of blithering noxious nanny state mother knows best dear interference from so called wiser heads?
I mean, a car is an artifact that has only one purpose, and while that purpose is enormously utilitarian, still, it is limited in its effect and application. But a gun! My God, the things you can do with a gun, especially a readily portable, easily concealable hand gun like a 9mm Glock! A gun is a wonderful all purpose tool and no human being should ever be without one; you really can’t LIVE without a gun on your person at all times! If we should be free to own and operate motor vehicles however we may desire to, then, certainly, we should be just as free, or more so, to own and operate GUNS!
I mean, my God. A child could see it.
If some maniac buys a car, rigs its gas tank to explode on impact, packs the trunk with razor blades, and then drives it into a crowded public square and detonates it, you’re not going to blame CARS, are you? Of course not! And guns are exactly the same.
I won’t listen to anything different, you know. I understand that I could be wrong, but in this particular case, any viewpoints that differ even slightly from mine are all rubbish. I know it’s true.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 3:17 pm
Yes, but taking away rights is begging for trouble.
Now, I’m a bit hoplophobic, but I recognize that’s just my deal. Why exactly do you reduce gun ownership to gun-fetishization?
No, they don’t foresee resisting a functional, democratic government.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 3:19 pm
And we let state and federal governments set up “free speech zones”, so the 1st amendment doesn’t mean what it says?
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 3:31 pm
Thanks for the giggle, Highlander.
Car ownership as gun ownership. Interesting.
What if felons could not own cars. What if many cities all but banned cars for use by anyone but the police? What if you not only had to get a permit to buy a car (after a waiting period), but in some jurisdictions, you had to justify your car purchase to the local cops? What if anti-car celebrities were chauffeured around in limos by people who didn’t have valid driver’s licenses?
What if there were activist groups (full of people who couldn’t tell the difference between a steering wheel and a spark plug) that crowed about the need to ban cars after every large car accident? What if they got a law passed banning coupes because they look kinda-sorta-maybe like race cars? What if they went after “Saturday-Night Cruisers”, ie cheap cars bought by poor people? What if they wanted to close the “cash loophole” when it came to selling cars?
What if the CDC released reports on the car accident “epidemic”?
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 3:39 pm
And now the reverse.
What if gun classes were a common part of high-school public education? What if, once I had a gun license, I could walk into any gun dealership, fill out tax paperwork, and walk out with a gun with no background check?
What if I could sell a gun (at a gun show, or in my own driveway) by doing nothing more than handing over the title and filling out some paperwork – and no particular government oversight?
What if I could get a version of that license to freely operate anything up to and including artillery pieces? What if I could own and operate any firearm whatsoever, without even a gun license, as long as I didn’t take it off my property?
What if the idea that gun manufacturers were somehow responsible for the intentional, criminal use of guns was thought so laughable that a gun suit wouldn’t make it a day in court?
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 3:43 pm
Of course, to be fair – what if people whined about the evil bullet companies every time the price of ammunition changed?
Comment by Highlander —
April 19, 2007 @ 3:55 pm
Eric,
I guess I was too subtle.
Motor vehicles fulfill a valid and valuable public and private service. Their specific design use is to allow people to cover more distance in a shorter period than if those people did not have access to motor vehicles. Our entire culture is built around this capacity, nearly everyone has to use a car at least once a day to some vital purpose, and pretty much all of us find it convenient to use motor vehicles often. They serve a useful purpose.
Guns are designed to effeciently and conveniently kill people, close up or at a distance. That is their function. I can’t speak for you, but I, and millions of other people, get through years of our lives at a time — hell, decades — without ever needing to use a gun, or, for that matter, wanting to. We need cars every day, or we find them convenient to use every day, and yet, because cars when misused can be so dangerous, we require their operators to be licensed to use them, and insured in case they or their cars malfunction in such a way as to cause major damage.
Now, guns are not necessary and cannot be used without causing major damage and/or death to people. They serve no other function. Take away every gun in the world and civilization will not so much as hiccup. Set the wayback machine for two years ago and convince the Virginia Legislature to make it somewhat more difficult to buy a Glock 9mm and maybe 32 dead people aren’t dead today.
Comment by Dave W. —
April 19, 2007 @ 4:04 pm
If there is ever economic collapse in the US (ala the Soviet Union), then the people with guns will have more power and not get ripped off or killed if police protection starts to slide.
That is probably the best post-1861 justification for the 2d amendment as a policy matter.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 4:05 pm
Quite the opposite.
Guns fulfill a valid and valuable public and private service. Their specific design use is to fling a projectile further, faster, and straighter than a person without a gun could throw it. This can be used for a variety of purposes, ranging from defending the country or law enforcement to self defense, hunting, or even just target practice.
Likewise, I go years and even decades without needing or even wanting to arrange an abortion (on behalf of someone else, naturally), but I support the right of a woman to get one. I’m not sure how the rarity of the desire undermines the right to fulfill it.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 4:06 pm
And yes, similarly, cars can be used for a wide variety of illegal acts…
Comment by Hesiod —
April 19, 2007 @ 4:12 pm
Comparing guns and cars is only superficially useful.
Cars are not explicitly designed as weapons. They are a mode of transportation that, used improperly, can kill or severely injure people.
Automobiles are tools, and their primary purpose is not to kill people or animals.
In that sense, they are more like Fire than firearms.
Even knives have a useful purpose aside from being weapons. Guns don’t. They have no practical use as anything other than weapons. Oh, I suppose you could use them to hammer a nail, or as paper weights. But, that would be a tremendously inefficient and costly way to use them when you can use, say, a rock or a $5 hammer instead.
And, Eric, our society DOES take away your driver’s license if you committ a crime with the automoibole. If you drive drunk, for example, your license gets pulled or suspended. Or there are other restrictions placed on you.
And, again, as Automobiles are ultimately tools, it makes about as much sense to take away someone’s right to drive a car because they committed bank fraud as it does to take away their right to own or operate a cordless screwdriver.
Guns are something else entirely.
Even so, I do think mandatory no-fault liabilkity insurance should be universal for gun ownership. I also beoie in significantly taxing gun and ammunition sales, as I said earlier, to defray the societal costs of prevalent gun possession. Costs of which there can be no doubt, frankly.
***********
In other words, military-grade long arms – the very sorts of weapons that are most regulated right now.
Hmm. I imagine you’d pretty much neuter many gun folks’ complaints about Blue gun-grabbers if y’all agreed to remove all legal restrictions on owning and carrying fully automatic machine guns and other military weapons in exchange for restrictions on pistol ownership. Then you’d be left with just the self-defense and shooter crowd.
I’d have no problem with law abiding citizens who were deemed fit to serve in a citizen militia posessing military grade assault rifles in a secure place in their home. But, of course, they can never be used or taken from the home unless there is a legitimate threat to the Republic from come quarter — or for well-regulated militai drills.
That’s what the 2nd amendment allows, and intends. Of course, back iun the day, the same rifles and muskets used for military purposes doubled as hunting weapons for most people. But that would not be applicable today, so there would be no need to use the weapons for any other domestic purpose that as I described.
If disaster strikes, and there is a breakdown in civil Order, or the President dissocolves Congress and declares martial law and the suspension of the constitution, by all means, defend yourself or your families with those weapons. Or form into rebel militias, to fight the dictator.
Comment by Karl —
April 19, 2007 @ 4:16 pm
Highlander,
67.
“Take away every gun in the world and civilization will not so much as hiccup.”
Wanna bet?/I beg to differ
Take away guns and you could likely have a world where brawny sword-swingers like your immortal namesake
or Mongol hordes dominate (not an original idea).
Guns are the modern equalizer for everyman that keep the toughest thug from becoming king.
Comment by Dave W. —
April 19, 2007 @ 4:46 pm
Geez half bee — I come out with an argument for the 2d amendment here and you retaliate with that?!?!
Don’t get it. :/
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 5:00 pm
And then you do so, I note.
Nor do cars have much use besides being vehicles, aside from the odd case of people living in them.
But not, to my knowledge, if you use a car to transport stolen goods or to flee prosecution. And it also takes away your right to possess a firearm even if you didn’t use one in a crime.
Guns are ultimately tools as well; simply noting that they’re weapons doesn’t justify taking away the right to use a firearm.
Well, keep in mind that well-regulated meant “disciplined”, not “authorized and controlled by the government”.
That’s a fascinating and unique reading – it allows and intends restrictions that the people who wrote it, you admit in the next sentence, never would have dreamed of suggesting (or tolerated). And I’m afraid you can’t claim guns have no plausible use in modern society – hunting and self-defense are obvious counter-examples. Whether or not you approve of hunting or think self-defense should be permitted, these are real uses.
Comment by Dave W. —
April 19, 2007 @ 5:09 pm
Well, keep in mind that well-regulated meant “disciplinedâ€, not “authorized and controlled by the governmentâ€.
What is your support on this interesting argument?
Comment by Anonymoose —
April 19, 2007 @ 5:13 pm
If disaster strikes, and there is a breakdown in civil Order, or the President dissocolves Congress and declares martial law and the suspension of the constitution, by all means, defend yourself or your families with those weapons. Or form into rebel militias, to fight the dictator.
Does anyone seriously believe that possessing the sort of arms available to citizens in the United States could slow down in the slightest way a military intent on enforcing its own vision of order on the populace? Red Dawn notwithstanding, small arms are not the weapons US forces in action in Iraq worry about. How do our commenters feel about restricting the ability of John Q. Public to fabricate IEDs and self-forging projectiles? They are clearly not useful for self-defense against criminals (unless you ring your home with Claymores, I suppose), hunting or target practice. But they would be far more effective at protecting the American people from a dictator.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2007 @ 5:47 pm
Kind of irrelevant, don’t you think, considering Hesiod and I were discussing a hypothetical situation where full-blown (and currently quite illegal) military weapons were available to American citizens? I think a Swiss-style system where citizens can actually have real military weapons would accomplish this goal better, but I think even current weapon ownership would be a real impediment to some dictatorial regime in the US.
I wouldn’t support such restrictions in the latter case, and I’ll note that the crazies who actually make bombs and try to use them on other people don’t seem any more deterred by laws against bomb-making than the pistol-wielding crazy in the news was deterred by a gun-free campus.
Comment by Hesiod —
April 19, 2007 @ 7:14 pm
I think a Swiss-style system where citizens can actually have real military weapons would accomplish this goal better, but I think even current weapon ownership would be a real impediment to some dictatorial regime in the US.
The Swiss system had ZERO effect on the NAZI decision to maintain Swiss neutrality during WWII. The Nazis essentially bullied the Swiss into being a defacto client state, and used Swiss neutrality to resupply its forces with the understanding that the Allies would respct ostensible Swiss neutrality during the war and not bomb them.
There is a pretty good account of this in Gerhad Weinberg’s masterful one volume history of the war. I had the discussion with Steven Den Beste a few years ago and eviscerated him on that myth.
In addition, the Iraq situation should prove, ironically, that personal firearms don;t mean diddly poop when you are occupied or being oppressed by a superior modern armed force. And I’m not talking about Saddam. I’m talking about the United States.
Small Arms fire is NOT our problem in Iraq.
Comment by Hesiod —
April 19, 2007 @ 7:18 pm
Well, keep in mind that well-regulated meant “disciplinedâ€, not “authorized and controlled by the governmentâ€
Yes. “Disciplined” in the context of the expected regular order and discipline of a military force of the day. In other words, subject to a heirachical command structure, drilling, organization, etc.
The idea was to have a citizen militia in lieu of a standing army, remember.
Comment by Hesiod —
April 19, 2007 @ 7:33 pm
Guns fulfill a valid and valuable public and private service. Their specific design use is to fling a projectile further, faster, and straighter than a person without a gun could throw it. This can be used for a variety of purposes, ranging from defending the country or law enforcement to self defense, hunting, or even just target practice.
Yes. They make it much easier for an unskilled, weak, homicidally insane person to kill 30 people in the space of 15 minutes. Something they would not likely be able to accomplish with a knife or a machete no matter how determined.
As for self defense, that argument only makes sens eof the person seeking the handgun (in most circumstances) also rationally assesses other risks to their life and limb: Such as auto accidents. For the vast majority of people in this country, your choices of dying or being seriously injured in an auto accident far exceed your chances of those thing happening to you as a result of violent crime. So, except in infrequent circumstances, carrying around a concealed handgun for “self-defense” is an irrational act — assuming you also drive you car to work or on vacations. It’s akin to invading Iraq because you don’t want the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
Moreover, even if you assume that a fireram has deterrent value, there’s no need to carry around a loaded one. Just flashing an unloaded firearm should be enough to dissuade your standard attacker. IN fact, I think one of the gun rights studies (Levin, I think?) includes brandishing as a “defensive gun use.”
Heck, it doesn’t even have to be a real gun It could just be a very good mockup, and you’d still get the requisite deterrent value.
Of course, gangbangers are almost all heavily armed, and that doesn’t seem to dissuade other gang members from attacking them. That population has one of the highest homicide rates in the country.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 19, 2007 @ 8:10 pm
Wow, lots of comments. There’s no way that I can respond to everything, but I just want to say that I think William Newman makes very insightful points in comment 17. I also think that ajay, in comment 19, makes some insightful points. These insights may not be comforting to a person with my stances and interests, but they are important points to ponder.
In the end, though, I would say that while private gun ownership may not be sufficient (or even necessary) to stave off government oppression, in general I think that responsible people who aren’t hurting anybody else should be left alone, and rights should only be taken from those who abuse rights. In other words, the standard for whether we get to enjoy a right should not be “Is it necessary to fend off tyrants?” Rather, the standard should be “Is he or she hurting other people? No? Then leave him or her alone.”
Comment by Thoreau —
April 19, 2007 @ 8:15 pm
In response to comment 23 by Azael, I should say that I also agree that gun rights are not the most important issues on the list, at least not right now, and so I’m certainly not about to vote for a pro-gun politician who is otherwise anti-freedom. My priorities are elsewhere at the moment.
That said, the main point of my post was not to prioritize a particular issue in a particular way. Rather, the point was that when the response to a tragedy is “Hey, let’s pass laws that make things harder for responsible and law-abiding people who didn’t hurt anybody”, it’s understandable if those responsible and law-abiding people get upset.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
April 19, 2007 @ 8:24 pm
I’ve recently encountered an argument in several different places, that has some plausibility to me. I’m familiar with the struggle for useful and valid statistics on gun use in self-defense (including display and all the other stuff short of killing someone), but not on other means, so if anyone has data, I’d like to see it. The argument is this:
People in need of self-defense, including women, disabled people, and the like, do better to own non-lethal means of self-defense like pepper spray. When you know you may kill your attacker, you are more likely to delay your attack, particularly if you’ve been acculturated to non-aggressive behavior in general. If you know that your response is likely to be painful and distracting but not lethal, you are more likely to use it promptly.
There’s some logic there. But does anyone know where the evidence goes?
Comment by Karl —
April 19, 2007 @ 8:51 pm
Hesiod,
78. Thanks for the Gerhard Weinberg reference. Need to check it out: what is the exact title?
You said that the “Swiss System” (of citizen soldiers with arms stored at home) had zero effect on Nazi plans.
Did Switzerland’s mountainous geography combined with its armed population provide absolutely NO deterrence!? You may be right, especially if Hitler, decided that ultimately the Swiss would not fight the way the Serbs did or if Hitler didn’t care whether they did or not.
I have read that Sweden managed to deter Hitler from invading by a military build up. Does Weinberg refute this also?
Long ago, I read an amusing anecdote that after Nazi aircraft began harassment by strafing Swedish shipping, the Swedes deterred it by issuing anti-aircraft guns as personal sidearms to the officers of their merchant vessels.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 19, 2007 @ 9:46 pm
Switzerland’s ability (real or alleged) to deter Nazi invasion is not directly relevant to whether the armed Swiss population has been a key factor in deterring the Swiss government from turning tyrannical.
The fact that their adult male population has military training, military weapons, and is prepared to be called to service is really just a long-winded way of saying that Switzerland has a military that it can use when needed. If that fact deters foreigners from invading, well, that means that the military is serving an intended and predictable function.
It doesn’t necessarily follow, however, that the existence of a Swiss military (even in a reserve capacity) will deter the Swiss state from oppressing the Swiss people. What matters there is the issue of whether the Swiss military will comply with orders to oppress the Swiss people. Now, it may very well be that the structure of the Swiss military (primarily reservists) makes the military far less likely to obey an order to oppress the Swiss people. But, if that is indeed the case (at least for the sake of argument), then the key factor there is the fact that the soldiers are part of society rather a separate class, not the fact that so many Swiss people are armed.
Which goes back to the comment on the American Founders and their distrust of standing armies.
I’ve never been impressed by the argument that we need guns to fend off an oppressive government. To the extent that the 2nd amendment protects a vital freedom, it is protecting the freedom to defend yourself from criminals, not the freedom to fight a civil war. There’s a very big difference between the two concepts.
Comment by Glaivester —
April 19, 2007 @ 10:28 pm
A few thoughts:
On Iraq, as Eric the 5b. stated in comment 24, the Kurds’ armament may well have been what prevented Saddam from asserting control over Kurdistan during the 90s. Yes, without the no-fly zones the Kurds likely wouldn’t have been able to hold on, but why couldn’t Saddam have taken them with ground forces unless they were well-armed?
As for the hatred of the ACLU, the fact of the matter is that the ACLU is not just neutral on gun rights, it is very anti-property rights. It often goes to court to enforce “civil liberties” such as anti-discrimination. While the ACLU may be helpful in fighting police abuses, it really doesn’t care if the government takes all of your property as long as it does so without discrimination and not as part of a criminal investigation.
Comment by ajay —
April 20, 2007 @ 9:05 am
It often goes to court to enforce “civil liberties†such as anti-discrimination.
I suspect the reasoning here is “my right to swing my fist ends at your face”: there is less overall loss of liberty if civil rights laws are enforced than if they are not.
Similarly, taxation could be seen as a loss of property rights – the government is, after all, taking your stuff – but if the taxes go to fund, say, a court system, the overall effect on liberties is positive.
Ditto, for example, the FDA (defended below); it detracts from my liberty to run my sausage factory as I please, but its overall effect is still positive.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 20, 2007 @ 1:41 pm
The Swiss system had ZERO effect on the NAZI decision to maintain Swiss neutrality during WWII…I had the discussion with Steven Den Beste a few years ago and eviscerated him on that myth.
And what exactly does your reliving that little triumph have to do with what you and I were discussing in the present day?
So, in other words, for the vast majority of people, the gun bans you long for wouldn’t make them any safer, and for some minority of people, gun bans would make them less safe.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 20, 2007 @ 1:41 pm
Hmm, the comment system doesn’t like nested block quotes.
Comment by Glaivester —
April 20, 2007 @ 7:06 pm
I suspect the reasoning here is “my right to swing my fist ends at your faceâ€: there is less overall loss of liberty if civil rights laws are enforced than if they are not.
You are missing the point. No one has a right to force someone to hire them, so discriminating against someone is not a violation of their liberty. You can only argue that I have a right not to be discriminated against in applying for a job if you assert a positive right to be hired, as positive rights are not “liberties.”
So arguing that enforcing anti-discrimination laws prevents the loss of a “liberty” is to argue that you have the “liberty” to force someone to hire you, which is ludicrous.
In any case, the larger point is that the ACLU has a very different idea of what constitutes civil rights than do libertarians. So there is no reason to assume that a libertarian who believes in civil rights should see himself as an ally of the ACLU, although they may work together when their interests intersect.
Similarly, taxation could be seen as a loss of property rights – the government is, after all, taking your stuff – but if the taxes go to fund, say, a court system, the overall effect on liberties is positive.
But the government uses the money for all sorts of stuff that it has no constitutional basis for funding and that is not related to enforcing liberties.
Comment by Dave W. —
April 20, 2007 @ 7:39 pm
Of course, gun owners do have sympathy for the grieving and do condemn the actions of the killer. But if it seems like they’re complaining awfully loudly about gun control, perhaps it goes back to the fact that they are innocent, law-abiding people who fear that their freedoms will be violated.
The shooting at NASA is not going to play well either.
Comment by Karl —
April 21, 2007 @ 9:07 pm
Opening
what the gun grabbers will claim is a CANard 
of worms:
Call for a cop. Call for an ambulance. Call for a pizza. See who arrives first.
If Little Caesar(TM), the Noid(TM), or the Godfather (TM) arrives first, get yourself a gun and learn how to use it.
Comment by Karl —
April 21, 2007 @ 9:46 pm
Continuing in the same vein – Barnabus Collin (TM) :-# :
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
Comment by Karl —
April 21, 2007 @ 9:52 pm
SWIFTly
making A Modest Proposal 
Let those who propose that the common law abiding man and woman be prohibited from owning firearms for self defense be prohibited from having bodyguards.
Comment by Karl —
April 28, 2007 @ 8:56 am
Thoreau,
You and the gun owners are correct to fear.
Read this proposal from ex-U.S. AmbASSador
Dan Simpson who aims to confiscate every private gun in America.
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070425/OPINION04/704250310/0/OPINION