We’ve had an incredible run of muckers with guns lately. Yesterday’s shootings in Illinois, the shootings here in Los Angeles where SWAT Officer Randy Simmons – who will be buried today in Culver City – was killed along with the father and brothers of the shooter, a shooting at a nursing school (!) in Louisiana, a City Hall in Missouri.
People who own guns can’t and shouldn’t just casually dismiss these. They are a part of the moral burden we accept when we choose to own a firearm. And clearly, not everyone should own one.
The question that will be asked – and that should be answered-is ‘should anyone‘?
I have a practical and a philosophical answer.
The practical answer is ‘enough of them do‘ and so we live in a society with enough guns that events like this will happen – often enough to horrify us. No measures that I can imagine – forget live with legally or politically – will get enough guns out of circulation to make sure things like this won’t happen. So we will live in a society with a sufficiency of guns; the question then is how to limit the likelihood that things like these will happen. There are really three things we can do:
* We can secure public areas better – but that means metal detectors and guards and unpacking your bags when you walk into a mall or into schools.
* We can try and ensure that there are enough good people with guns in any population to limit what active shooters can do.
* We can try and identify people likely to do things like this, and try and get them help.
Each of these approaches has drawbacks. Living in a ‘security state’ isn’t something many of us will take well to; when more people have guns more often, there is some likelihood that they will be misused (although the experience of ‘shall-issue’CCW states suggests that is insignificant); and living in a state where the authorities have the right to restrain us because of a thoughtcrime is certainly scary.
Having said that none of them work ‘absolutely’, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try them on a limited basis.
If the authorities are going to declare an area a ‘gun-free zone’, I’ll suggest they have some obligation to actually make sure that’s the case. Most gun laws and regulations are ‘feel good’ laws in which the distinction between passing laws or regulations and actually changing things in the real world.
I strongly believe that CCW should be a right for law-abiding, moderately well-trained citizens. Not that many will take advantage of it, but enough will that there is some likelihood that an crazy shooter won’t be the only armed person in a room.
And I believe that people who see escalating patterns of confrontational behavior need to say something. I’ve had talks with friends who own guns who were going through trying emotional times, and had the talks gone differently, I would have picked up the phone and called someone. One of the most frightening things I’ve seen lately is the commentary from the Missouri City hall shooter’s brother, who in essence supported his brother’s actions. He should have taken away his guns and gotten him help instead.
And philosophically, I look at these events through teary eyes and the grim realization that they represent the bloody, human cost of freedom.
Freedom that doesn’t leave room for people you don’t like to do things you disapprove of – even things you may find evil – probably isn’t freedom at all. And as much as I try and wish that weren’t so, and imagine my own sons in that Illinois lecture hall, I can’t see a way out of that conundrum.
Living life involves accepting moral burden. We are none of us perfect, none of us moral, none of us with clean hands. I’ve come to think that maturity is based on realizing that.
But I’m certain that the guns in my safe will not be misused. And I’m equally certain that as a gun owner, my hands are dirtier because of the events of the last weeks.
It is worth noting the fourth option (more police) explicitly on the list of possibilities. But a two-minute response seems like phenomenal response to me – and was still far too late.
A.L., pretty much my sentiments exactly, with the following exception. I’m not supportive of CCW rights in all cases. My concerns are several. One is that “law-abiding” is not a steady or static state. People are not born criminals. A person without a criminal record is not necessarily a person who won’t commit a crime in the future. A person without a criminal record is also not necessarily a person who hasn’t committed a crime. It’s a person who hasn’t been caught committing a crime.
Another is that a shooting is not always the result of criminal intent. It can be the result of anger, drunkenness or simple misunderstanding. Recently, in late January in Mt. Vernon, a Westchester suburb near here, an off-duty police officer was shot by two on-duty patrolmen because they thought the arrest he was making was a robbery in progress. And these guys were highly trained, highly law-abiding.
I think I might be more supportive if I lived elsewhere. But I sure don’t want to increase the number of people who carry a concealed weapon on the subway, no matter how law-abiding they were when they applied, or how much training they had. In NYC, CCW is too risky. It’s a recipe for disaster, I’d think.
That’s a good point, and you hear that kind of suggestion more and more these days.
I do worry, though, about if we’d be able to practically (and affordably) harden the checkpoints/metal detectors so that they would actually work against determined “invaders”, not just the law-abiding who would never dream of just bursting through or of taking out the lone officer manning it first. (Lots of options are open to you when you don’t care, don’t want, or don’t plan, to survive your assault anyway.)
I also note that creating a hardened perimeter almost always causes a bottleneck during busy time of people entering the facility; in effect this just moves the vulnerable dense mass of victims to a different location.
Mark,
I realize that Seattle and Portland are at least an order of magnitude less dense than NYC, but still urban enough that you shouldn’t write off our experience entirely.
Both WA and OR are shall-issue states (at least for residents.) WA has absolutely no training requirement at all. WA has no restrictions against open carry per se, but prohibits any loaded carry in a vehicle except by permit holders. So if you have a CPL you can and people do carry, both concealed and openly, on King County Metro, Pierce Transit, and Sound Transit buses and trains. Oregon doesn’t restrict open carry at the state level at all, but allows municipalities to do so. However, permit-holders are exempt from these local restrictions, meaning that concealed or open carry by permit-holders is allowed on Metro and other transit, and people do in fact do so (again, both concealed and openly.)
Neither place has experienced any problem from this. If it’s not literally zero, it’s so low that statistically it might as well be.
This leaves me with little sympathy for those who want to ban effective self-defense in urban areas because they fear “CCW is too risky”. Does some city, anywhere in the US, have an actual unfavorable experience with CCW that you can point to as a real-life example of the problems you foresee?
A hardened perimeter is impractical for numerous reasons. Whether you are talking about a large urban campus (such as the one at which I work) or outdoor malls, grocery stores, parks, etc, there are not enough security personnel in the world to staff such an endeavor. As a result, there really are very few public places that could be certified as “gun free” no matter the law or best intentions of the people attempting to manage this forlorn hope. And again, what you end up with is the people who obey the rules unarmed. The crazy guy,listening to the voices in his head, doesn’t care about “gun free” zones. In fact, all schools and public universities in California are “gun free” according to the law, but we take guns away from bad guys here on a regular basis.
At UCLA, in the aftermath of VT, there were new policies worked out with Student Health and Student Psyche Services to report potentially dangerous situations to the PD. We work in close partnership with these groups to identify potentially high risk patients and get them the help they need. We have, I believe, averted some violent acts with this system, but unstable people do not always share their intent. Once they decide to do the deed, they are probably going to accomplish some mayhem before they hear us coming and kill themselves. BTW, that is most common; as soon as they hear us arrive the shooting is usually over because they kill themselves.
Kirk, I grew up in Portland and my entirely family lives in Seattle (they moved there after I graduated HS 30 years ago) and so I have deep roots and personal experience in both places. I don’t think I’d have any more trouble with CCW permits in either place than you do. New York City, however, is a different animal. Don’t get me wrong, I love my adopted home. But there is a daily undercurrent of animosity here that you don’t find in places like Oregon or Washington due to the close quarters we live in and that can lead to open hostility more quickly. I’m the first to admit that, so far as I know, there is no evidence to support the belief that more guns would equal more shootings in NYC. I’m speaking on an emotional level here. I would be more fearful riding the subway with CCW laws here, and as a result of my fear, would never vote for them. Nor do I see what would be gained. Our murder rate is extremely low. Our streets and subways are extremely safe. It’s difficult to envision that the crime rate could get much lower, so I don’t see what is to be gained by introducing more concealed weapons into the mix. What would be the point? Why would anyone want or need to carry a conceal weapon on the streets, subways and in the bars of New York. And why would we want them to? What problem is being solved?
I mostly agree with this, but I do wonder about one of your latter comments: “‘m equally certain that as a gun owner, my hands are dirtier because of the events of the last weeks.”
How is this so? Do you own screwdrivers, kitchen knives, or cars? Do you have windows above the first floor, or rope of any kind? Are your hands dirtier because each of these has been used to commit murder? The thing about murder and other violent crimes, whether or not a gun is involved, is that it is not the tool that is somehow tainted, but the misuse of the tool and, in particular, the soul of the one who misuses it.
To feel somehow morally culpable for actions that you did not undertake, could not have prevented, and were thousands of miles from seems to me to be a dilution of moral responsibility, not an acceptance of it.
Jeff, I think it’s a little murkier than you suggest if you consider that cars, screwdrivers and kitchen knives are designed and purchased for tasks other than shooting someone. Whereas a gun is designed specifically to kill someone. When you shoot someone with a gun, you are not misusing a tool; you are using the tool for the precise purpose for which was designed, manufactured, sold and purchased. Comparing societies that have a prevalence of guns with those that do not suggests there is a correlation between gun ownership in general and higher homicide rates. I think AL was saying that in partaking in the overall trend, in supporting the overall trend of gun ownership, he is partly responsible for the downsides of such a trend. It’s a trade-off that we choose as a nation. We want to have our guns and we need to accept the consequences that come with it. That shouldn’t be taken as an argument for gun control, any more than an argument in favor of free speech is an argument for pornography. It’s just to point out that it’s a trade-off.
I still think the second amendment was a lot simpler when we were relegated to 18th century muskets. It’s pretty hard to go on a killing spree if it takes you more than a minute to load.
Still, the genie’s now out of the bottle. Apparently this last guy used 9mm and a shotgun, not very dangerous (or illegal) compared to the AK at the mall. I also think it’s interesting that Britain’s gun crimes have dramatically increased as of late. Sad really.
I still think they’re needs to be a crackdown on illegal gun trafficking, or selling to individuals without a background check, primarily to stop those who deliberately ‘lose’ merchandise to the black market. One possibility is a system where gun owners (& gun shops) are required to notify authorities of stolen weapons ASAP. This would also prevent criminals from claiming that a weapon was conveniently ‘stolen’ after a homicide. (I realize this probably doesn’t happen often, but it seems like a typical sticking point for law & order).
If that means creating a different system for gun shows (or better yet, make people register with a background check) we should do it.
I realize that gun owners universally reject a system where you have to register your gun. So this plan is out. Note: Seems like a sham to me, you are required to register your car, why not a gun? Do you really think that your handgun can fend off an oppressive government? They have tanks now.
Anyway, just brainstorming here. Gun owners, I think you bear some responsibility for finding a better system that protects your rights AND helps identify responsible gun owners from the criminals. Something has to be done, and gun-owners are likely to create a better plan than anti-gun activists. (Experience with the system and all…)
mark:
Well, no. “Guns” are not all designed and manufactured to kill people. Sporting arms outnumber all other types of guns by a considerable amount.
The shotgun used by the NIU shooter was certainly not designed to kill people with. Yet shotguns are the deadliest of all firearms at close quarters.
Yes, there are firearms that are designed as anti-personnel weapons. Would you say that we issue such firearms to police officers so they can kill people with them? A somewhat hysterical and dishonestly incomplete characterization, wouldn’t you agree?
Your arguments are old-fashioned, and based on materialistic superstitions about the inherent evil of firearms.
Old-fashioned and obsolete, I might add. Once again I am struck by how deflated the anti-gun lobby has become; their strength is a fraction of what it was 20 years ago. Private firearm ownership is no longer an issue, and European-style gun-grabbing is no longer an option.
Hmmm, the shooter here had no criminal history. Owned the guns legally. Offered no warning signs that this was something he was contemplating. While I applaud gun laws that attempt to limit access to the law abiding, non-psycho among us. The vast majority of gun owners are responsible, law abiding citizens. It is impossible to plan against or prevent every human tragedy. It is good to try. It is good to discuss it, but we have to recognize that bad things happen to good people every day, and the government, and regulations aren’t going to change that or keep an individual with dangerous delusions from acting upon them. Just because I am a gun owner, I cannot hope to prevent every gun related tragedy any more than I can hope to keep people cruising onto the freeway drunk. Everyone who has been to school in the United States, watched TV or read a billboard knows that drunk driving will get you arrested or killed, but people still drive drunk. Laws can only do so much.
Mark,
Want to experience a lower murder rate? Come back to the Northwest! While NYC’s rate, these days, is nothing to be embarrassed about compared to other big cities, it’s still twice Portland’s rate and 40% higher than Seattle’s. So maybe, just maybe, we are doing something right in the public-safety arena.
TK,
Yes, certainly no gun law would have prevented this particular tragedy. But I’m willing to bet that most gun crimes are not committed by people with no felony record, no history of mental illness etc.
Kirk, I’m not so sure. Your stats may be a little old. Murder rate fell to below 500 total in 07 here in nyc. That’s about the same rate as Seattle’s now–a nearly identical per 10K rate. Are Seattle and Portland’s declining as precipitously? Maybe we’re doing something right. Different perhaps, but effective. (07 murder rate was lower than ’63 murder rate in nyc. ’63 was previous lowest on record. Records not kept prior to ’63). Drop in nyc homicide went from a high of 2,605 in 1990 to less than 500 last year, WITHOUT the magical benefit of CCW permits. Apparently, other tactics are useful.
Alchemist
You are right…however we already have laws prohibiting felons and the mentally ill from possessing firearms. Yet they can acquire weapons anyway. Most gun crimes are not committed by people who obey rules in general, therefore, more rules wont necessarily prevent or lower the incidence if gun crimes.We need to look at something different to address these types of incidents, while recognizing the reality that guns aren’t going away anytime soon.
This may really be a discussion about responsibility. Just who should or should not have the rights and responsibilities associated with the possession of any weaponry. The problem emerges as a result of society having moved from general to specialized roles for its members, and specifically how it has evolved in order to ‘police itself’. We have moved a long way from the concept of individual responsibility in general, and specifically with regard to an individual’s responsibility for the maintenance of law and order. Now a large part of that responsibility [and its attendent rights?] belongs to ‘the government’ – nominally the institutions of the judiciary and law enforcement. Problems eventually present because every beaureacratized institution’s opportunities for failure increase with size, and at some size and/or degree of complexity costs start to outweigh benefits. So how much regulation is enough, and how much is too much? That’s the formula that democracies are designed to make explicit. The rights/responsibilities balance is just that – a balance between extremes. The biggest danger has got to be the ‘knee-jerk’ response, and the only defence I can see is to NEVER allow ‘jerks’ of any kind into positions of power. Here is where I believe democracy is most vulnerable. When things seem to be going well we get lazy and assume that we can let someone else do the hard work of vetting and electing the officials who make and enforce our laws. The fact remains, that if we have bad laws or too many laws or not enough laws, it is our collective fault. The ongoing cost of democracy and freedom is constant vigilance and my worry is that we have instead what seems to be a pervasive apathy in the area of self governance. Whether at the level of a blog discussion or in a legislative forum, the various forms of the ‘gun debate’ need mostly to avoid simplistic solutions for society’s problems – whether it is banning guns or arming everyone. Nothing short of hard thinking and reluctant compromise is required to maintain a real democracy. One hopes that the fundamental responsibility of participating in society’s collective decisions has not been ignored to the point where unqualified legislators have slipped past a complacent electorate, and as a result we will see poor decisions made on the issue.
Ditto to that.
Unfortunately, when we talk about a crisis in moral values and its violent consequences, our friends on the left – bless their warped little hearts – react the same way we do when our gun ownership is threatened.
Jeff M –
When you ask why I feel some moral responsibility, it’s because I think that owning and using dangerous things carries moral weight.
Owning a 500hp car carries more moral weight than driving a natural-gas Civic; both because the impact on others is greater (in that case) and because it is something you have to use more responsibly.
Now that’s not a bad thing. One thing that attracts me about owning guns is the fact that I have to confront my own morality in a very serious way. I think that’s something more people should do – it goes hand in hand with the ‘responsibility’ discussion above.
And further that owning a gun – like owning a motorcycle – makes me a member of a community, like it or not. And when people in my community act badly, I feel some measure of responsibility for it.
A.L.
TK- I fully understand your point about hard perimeters (not as well as you do, of course…<g>) – my core point is that if you’re going to declare a space a ‘weapons free zone’, it needs to be weapons free. If you can’t make it weapons free in fact, it’s not weapons free.
Seems simple to me…
A.L.
One thing that attracts me about owning guns is the fact that I have to confront my own morality in a very serious way.
Surely this is something you would have confronted, very seriously, without the aid of firearm ownership, anyway? I don’t mean to be flip, but your morality is something you confront daily.
Scott, that’s an interesting point.
I think that in today’s society, most people are sheltered from the consequences of bad action; we are sheltered both from the consequences and from the gravity of most of our actions.
A.L.
Mark,
You’re quite right; I think my stats were from 2005 (don’t know where to find newer ones.)
It’s very good if things have continued to improve in NYC. However, I don’t see anything in what I previously said that deserves being disparaged as “magic” thinking.
AL,
Sure, but I do think the discussion about “how hard a perimeter” is a real one, not merely rhetorical. Does it need to guarantee that one or at most two actors (e.g. the Columbine shooters or the VA Tech guy) can’t breach it despite their best efforts? Or does it need to be able to withstand a Beslan-class assault? Do the answers differ for different locations? Etc…
AL, I am a shooter, and that @#$%& who murdered the students was definitely not part of MY community. My community is comprised of responsible people who have carried and used guns for years, to hunt, to target shoot, to defend themselves against thugs, and sometimes in service to our country. Would you feel sullied by running your lawnmower or using the barbecue if he had used a gasoline bomb? Did you feel guilt driving your car because a fanatic ran down a crowd of folk on the street with an automobile?
A minuscule number of these things happen, but we are exposed to every single one by the media.
Compare that to the hundreds of millions of disarmed people murdered by their own governments in the 20th century.
These events are a tragedy, and even more so because they virtually all seem to occur in a “victim disarmament zone”, AKA “gun-free” where the victims are , by Law, unable to mount any sort of effective defense.
Compare to the seldom reported situations where an attack is attempted,and thwarted , because the intended victims were armed. Reference the recent school attack in Israel, for example.
Of course, some responsibility may also lie with those who have promoted one of our times GREAT LIES “violence never solves anything”. In fact, when someone is trying their best to kill you, violence is the ONLY satisfactory answer. “don’t resist, give them what they want”-fine, what if they want your LIFE!
And one other thing- I have known many, many people who chose to carry a firearm for the protection of themselves and loved ones, some after horrifying assaults- – all of them , without exception, view it as a deep and serious responsibility , and say the very act of carrying a gun, inclines them to avoid any possible confrontation. In short, being LEGALLY armed makes people less aggressive, not more.
Okay, in my past life I designed high security systems for part of my living. Intrusion detection and access control.
bq. I do worry, though, about if we’d be able to practically (and affordably) harden the checkpoints/metal detectors so that they would actually work against determined “invaders”, not just the law-abiding who would never dream of just bursting through or of taking out the lone officer manning it first. (Lots of options are open to you when you don’t care, don’t want, or don’t plan, to survive your assault anyway.)
The only hardened system that can stop determined invaders is a fort or prison. Want to live in one of those? Many of those? Most “secure” areas are just designed to keep the casual tourist out not the determined invader. Truth is that you can only slow ’em down. If they really, really want in and have the firepower they are coming in. The best you can do is slow ’em enought for reinforcements to arrive and help you neutralize the threat.
Gun free zones only assure that the law abiding are unarmed in those zones. The criminal or mentally unhinged, by definition, just DO NOT CARE! And may openly mock your efforts AND thank you for the target rich environment.
bq. I also note that creating a hardened perimeter almost always causes a bottleneck during busy time of people entering the facility; in effect this just moves the vulnerable dense mass of victims to a different location.
This is my main chuckle everytime I fly somewhere, which is quite often. The “security screening area” is just an abattoir to the terrorist. It is a pinch point that concentrates the victims for elimination. Again, the determined armed intruder or intruders are going to mow down the opposition. The are mostly sitting chatting with their thumbs is dank, dark places.
The local neighborhood beat cop told me that they are there to do the paperwork after the crime is over. He freely admitted that is about all they could do. He could not openly advocate armed citizens for some reason or wouldn’t but he did not blink when I told him I was armed. He just asked for my permit. The locals park behind my house in the alley and run speed traps. We give them coffee.
bq. And I’m equally certain that as a gun owner, my hands are dirtier because of the events of the last weeks.
WRONG! You are NOT morally culpable in any way for a nutters actions. Or the gun grabbers have gotten to you with their specious moralistic nonsense arguments.
I have a theory as to why these nutters choose schools, churches and malls for their mayhem. They KNOW that the gun free nature on their chosen target means they CAN cause damage because there will be little or no resistance to their sick agenda. You don’t see them shooting up police substations do you? Or National Guard Armories? Why? Because they know the intended victims will most likely be able to resist, is why.
Just sayin’ is all….
raven – as a side question, are you a Raven? (graduate of API)…
I get your & robo’s point, but somehow viscerally disagree. Let me think on it a bit and reply.
A.L.
Um, the whole state of Illinois is a gun free zone. You would almost think every nutter in a day’s drive would be coming here and blowing people away. This was news, however, because it was unique. Mama always said crazy is as crazy does.
Kirk, I certainly didn’t intend to accuse you of magic thinking. I was addressing the popular notion that CCW permits have the power to reduce homicide rates—as opposed to the hard and difficult work such reductions actually require.
mark – while the numbers are not completely clear, it’s likely that there is some impact of pervasive CCW on homicide; similarly there is likely to be some simple demographic basis for declining crime rates – along with good policing and other interventions.
Note that in 2007, NYC had 2.9 homicides/100,000; Seattle 2.6, and Portland 1.8, and my home town of Torrance 1.4.
A.L.
A.L., I have noted these #s in my comments above. The point I was making is that NYC’s precipitous drop in homicide rate was accomplished without CCW. It seems to me likely that the factors involved in this decrease probably are the same factors that contributed to the nation-wide decrease that is seen in places like the NW, and that CCW permits played an insignificant role. If CCW was a significant factor, you wouldn’t expect such a dramatic decrease in NYC, which doesn’t have CCW laws. It seems to me there must be other factors in play. I believe they are little more subtle than CCW.
As I said in my first comment above, this issue is the only one I found to quibble about with you in an otherwise excellent essay on a difficult subject.
AL, no to API. But a corvid none the less.
Nut case shooters are extremely rare and there is no practical way to stop them. It is not a gun or bomb issue. It is a WILL issue.
A big yes to robo’s comment on the displacement of target areas by checkpoint- I HATE standing in a crowd to get through one of those so I can be “safe”!
The general homicide rate is DIRECTLY tied to demographics- eliminate the murders by young minorities and the problem almost disappears. This is political suicide to even mention, however. If any missed it, try the NYT breakdown of the latest murder stat’s released in NYC.
We have a cultural problem, and we are reaping the results of programs that proved beyond a doubt that the law of unintended consequences is real, and dangerous- I.E.; The War on Poverty- remove the incentive to work, reward women for having illegitimate kids, and see what happens to the family structure. Our efforts to “help”, has resulted in a cultural catastrophe for those we “aided”. The other thing it has done is create a large voting block for those who promise “more”.
It’s us, guys. We did it- we destroyed Pride and sense of accomplishment, broke up homes and families.
A perfect test case for socialism.
AL,
Regarding ‘dirty’ hands and responsibility, may I suggest you’re perhaps engaged in one-sided thinking here–the type of thing you don’t ordinarily do, by the way. You’re all set to feel responsibility, because you’re a gun owner, for the occasional ‘mucker’, but you’re ignoring the vast benefit of self-protection enjoyed by the many.
I’d say the ledger is vastly higher on the plus side. But yeah, I don’t really have any advice on communicating that aspect to one’s viscera.
Because while automobile registration hasn’t (generally) been used as a prelude to automobile confiscation, the same is not true for firearms registration.
Exactly. We keep attacking the tools of mayhem without acknowledging and addressing resources to remove the causes. In the discussion of constitutional rights with regard to gun ownership, we fail to spend as much energy on “Freedom of Expression,” the downside of which includes increasingly violent and dark entertainment offerings for our children that have helped weaken the notion of “reverence for life” and promote the “anything for higher profits” mentality that drives many aspects of our economy and poisons our world. The social promotion model teaches people to see life’s stumbling blocks as “victimization” and an attack on one’s self-esteem, which has become the paramount concern of society rather than consistantly promoting and rewarding a genuine concern for the well being of others. Music, television, film and other forms of media promote the valule of fame and money over all other achievements and if you don’t have it, you are encouraged to envy it in those that do. Even the news media focuses it’s a huge percentage of it’s attention on the trevails of Britt, Paris and Lindsey. And don’t even get me started on the popularity of “thug culture.” The glorification of the sociopathic criminal exemplified by Tupac,Dr.Dre and the lyrics from bands like Pantera, 5 Fingered Death Punch and others who feed the destructive emotions already troubling hormone charged youths who for whatever reason may be lacking good parenting,strong value systems and/or regard for the lives of others. I will be honest and say I am far less troubled by a criminal killing a criminal (as both parties made choices that brought them this fate) than the rising trend of the spree shooter who has chosen suicide, but doesn’t want to go alone. Who seeks fame and some wierd incomprehensible glory in his last moments. Whose last horrible act screams “LOOK HOW POWERFUL I AM NOW!” This is not about guns.
Raven; I hear what you’re saying. At the same time, you also belong to a larger group of american citizens. These stupid people who take no responsibility for their weapons are also our countrymen, as our the victims of this heinus crimes. Like with any problem, our nation has a responsilibity to protect it’s countrymen. Yes, violence is often neccessary, but in a completely civilized society (or in grade school, where I often heard VNSA) violence is only required in a limited number of situations. I don’t think I’ve thrown a punch since the 7th grade. It hasn’t been necessary.
I also agree that most gun owners take responsibility for their weapons. But there are many that don’t. A kid was shot at my highschool playing with his fathers weapon (that he cleverly hid under a pillow). Right now I see a system where there are no expected responsilities for owning a weapon.
By law, you must have car insurance, you must have passed a (very simple) road rules test, you must have passed a driving ability test. These tests are there to weed out people who cannot respect the rules of the road (they are also too easy). I don’t believe any similar test exists for guns, but it should.
It’s not that such a system would stop killers, or prevent catastrophies or accidents. But it would make people realize the gravity of the situation, and it would weed out those who weren’t willing to take 5 minutes to read through a pamphlet.
When I turned 16, I got my grandparents old car, a batty old Dodge that required a ton of repairs to get road safe. After that, I understood where my car had trouble, and what needed to be fixed. I kept up the maintenance, and it only died when I went to college and wasn’t caring for it anymore.
Compare that to most kids at my school, who were given a brand new truck/suv/sportscar and then proceeded to demolish it over the next three years. And then, for their sorrows, were given a brand new truck. And then proceeded to demolish that one too. I was at home not long ago, my friends still drive like maniacs.
It seems pretty straight foward to me.
1) We are going to have muckers. I’m pretty sure its not remotely a new phenomea. If anything, we are seeing it largely because the societal background noise of violence has died down enough to make it obvious.
2) The vast majority of muckers are not going to go to a police station or a NRA meeting to do thier shooting, because even in a deranged state they recognize that the odds being against them that heavily will prevent them living out the delusion of power that they want to experience.
3) Police men are more like historians than they are like body gaurds. Thier job is to document a crime, and if necessary pursue the criminal. They don’t stop crimes any more often than ordinary citizens do. That’s why wealthy people, like say Michael Moore, employ armed gaurds. The fact of the matter is that even if your responce time to the crime is ‘minutes’, minutes is going to be far too long to do anything about the crime. I can fire alot of bullets in ‘minutes’. Policemen simply can’t be everywhere at once, and even if they could be, would you really want them to?
4) The second ammendment states, ‘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.” Too much effort when reading that first clause has been placed on arguing that this isn’t an individual right. The effort would have been much better spent on actually considering the wisdom and truth of that first clause. In fact, a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, and a problem like muckers shows why that is so. When muckers run amuck, its only a well-regulated militia that you can actually expect to be on hand to immediately respond.
5) There is no good solution to the problem of muckers. The very fact that someone wants to kill someone else is tragic. Truth be told, if someone just wants to kill somebody and anyone will do, there is very little that can be done to prevent it. People are too inventive and people are too fragile. The best you can do is minimize the damage, and the best way to do that is with an armed well-regulated militia of free citizens. The alternative solutions are ugly. It isn’t just enough to disarm the population (and I’ve seen how ugly that is living in ‘disarmed populations’), you must also put a policemen on every corner because its certainly going to be the innocent and law-abiding who are going to be most easily disarmed.
6) The term ‘well-regulated’ in context doesn’t mean ‘controlled’ in the since we most usually use ‘regulated’ today. It means controlled in the since of ‘displined’ or ‘trained’.
7) My kids go to daycare at a place that prominently states that it is a gun free zone. It scares me. I don’t expect the kids to protect themselves, but I would wish someone thier could. I’d much rather the daycare stated prominently, “Be warned. Staff of this facility are armed and trained to use thier weapons proficiently. They will respond to threats quickly and appropriately.” I happened to know in High School that the Vice Principal had access to a handgun. Seems like a good policy.
I think if your daycare announced that they were armed, they would get less business. Not that it means anything, but many people are scared of even the perception of weapons.
I think the day care would get less business from some and more from others. I actually think that it might have a waiting list. In some countries, where the threats are more common and very real….teachers are armed or there is armed protection at the school. Most officials are either armed or there are armed people nearby. Young adults are required to serve in the military, in part to serve their debt to the society that reared them and in part to make sure they are trained to deal with threats to their society after their military service. When people believe the threat, really believe it, they lose their fear of those who will protect their children. Example: I used to live up the road from a jewish summer camp. After the shooting at a jewish day care in So. Cal, a group of armed, plainclothes mystery men became part of the environment at the camp. There were no objections from parents. The same thing occurred after 9/11.
Kirk (#31) et alia – no, I think the balance sheet is firmly on the side of god people owning guns; mine aren’t for sale (well, I am thinking of changing handgun systems…).
I had a notion about this and will try and get it into a post.
A.L.
How utterly barbaric, “conscription†is just another word for “slavery.â€
Maybe so, Thorley, maybe so. Personally, I have not noticed us getting any less “barbaric” since the draft was abolished. In fact, a good case could be made for the reverse.
Let’s take another view.
If it is “barbaric” to require physical service, ala the military, is it not also “barbaric”, to require one to work 5 months out of the year to pay taxes?
Should there be no requirement for the privilege of citizenship other than breathing?
Ideally, the government(our fellow citizens) protects our security and our freedom- and we should expect this for free?
It is true, in most “barbarian” cultures, one would be looked upon with disdain should they, being of sound mind and body, refuse to pick up arms to defend the tribe. Anyone who has had to work hard to survive, with a small group, will quickly recognize a deadbeat ,and ostracize them.
Perhaps it is time we reconnect with our”barbarian” inner man.
Wow…I know a few people from Sweden and have family in Greece and have yet to hear them refer to their time in the military as slavery. They felt it was an honorable duty and part of their obligation to their home and fellow citizens.