{"id":1639,"date":"2008-02-15T16:16:25","date_gmt":"2008-02-15T16:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2008-02-15T16:21:16","modified_gmt":"2008-02-15T16:21:16","slug":"muckers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1639","title":{"rendered":"Muckers"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve had an incredible run of muckers<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.
\nThe question that will be asked – and that should be answered-is ‘should anyone<\/i>‘?<\/p>\n

I have a practical and a philosophical answer.<\/p>\n

The practical answer is ‘enough of them do<\/i>‘ 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:<\/p>\n

* 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.<\/p>\n

* We can try and ensure that there are enough good people with guns in any population to limit what active shooters can do.<\/p>\n

* We can try and identify people likely to do things like this, and try and get them help. <\/p>\n

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<\/a>); and living in a state where the authorities have the right to restrain us because of a thoughtcrime is certainly scary.<\/p>\n

Having said that none of them work ‘absolutely’, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try them on a limited basis.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

And philosophically, I look at these events through teary eyes and the grim realization that they represent the bloody, human cost of freedom.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The moral burden of gun ownership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}