This entry is the second in a 3 part series on the issues raised by the horrific violence in Newtown, CT. The first was on mental illness (http://t.co/NOJfvN6Y), and the last will be on cultural changes. This one is on guns and gun control. Unless you like legal stuff, feel free to skip the afterward on the Constitution (it's marked).
In summary, I think that Newtown gives us very little evidence about the need for changes in the way we handle gun laws. It does give us a reason to pause and think, though, and so it is reasonable to take that time to inspect our gun policies and how we got there. In the end, I think people should be able to defend themselves with small arms, and hunters should be able to hunt with them, with relatively little government oversight, but that significantly more oversight is good once we go very far into the assault weapon spectrum and beyond.
An overview of a strategy
The government should not be allowed to assume that most citizens cannot be trusted with personal defense, but there is a "potential of destruction" line beyond which we cannot allow individuals to cross.
The first part of that says, hey, we shouldn't assume people are bad. We also shouldn't assume that bad people will be overly constrained by relatively superfluous laws like the need to have a permit ... 'cause if you are willing to kill someone, you probably don't feel the need to have that shiny slip of paper. On the other hand, we can't assume that gun control laws don't work at all. Certain types of gun control laws reduce the total number of weapons out there, and some reduce that number who can easily get certain weapons.
The second part of my strategy above implies that it is reasonable to discuss the limits of individual armament. Nobody wants everyone to have a nuke ... or a drone, or a Stealth Bomber, or a Sherman tank, or an RPG. The capacity for destruction in those examples, even when misused by only tiny portions of the populace, far outweighs the positives. My feeling is that we run into a gray line in the assault weapon spectrum, where freedom, protection, and hunting is overcome by the needs of others to be free from the likelihood of such dangers.
Other intelligent laws, like requiring background checks before selling weapons, should not be that big a deal. I mean, I used to write real-time software to look up people's demographics and credit history to guess whether they would be more likely to buy a car, a stereo, or a European vacation with the new credit card we were about to issue -- we should be able to do some relatively quick stuff with felony and terror lists. (There will be difficulties on the margin; those should be solved, not used as excuses.)
We should also encourage more intelligent stewardship of guns. Where and how to store the weapons and ammunition, the importance of using common sense and training, etc.
Oh, and one quick thought: No, most teachers should not be carrying firearms. That is an incredibly bad idea. It takes a special temperament and mentality to be able to pull a gun and shoot someone in optimum conditions (like a battlefield), and a room full of running, shrieking kids does not create optimum conditions. Besides, how long would it take for a student to take a teacher's gun from her (most teachers are still "her"), or for her to leave it sitting around? I have read a bit on the subject and talked with officers and military friends, and after thinking about it for around 3 seconds they have all said, yeah, it would be stupid to expect teachers to be armed security guards.
Conclusion
Let's have an intelligent policy that lets people defend themselves while keeps really powerful stuff off the streets. We can use technology to try to pinpoint bad guys who shouldn't have guns and limit sells to them. We should neither think everyone is bad nor that "gun control" is a stupid idea. Hunters and liberals alike should be able to agree on 90% of what is in and out without much thought, and the rest we can bicker about through representatives. Maybe they'll authorize some weapons to be used only on firing ranges, for those that must shoot 10 rounds of explosive ammunition a second.
I don't know if the horrors of Newtown would have been at all slowed by any of the above. Maybe a culture that discussed more conscientious stewardship of guns would have encouraged the mother not to have such weapons available, but maybe not. Those events suggest it's worth us trying to implement intelligent policies, though.
What are your thoughts?
Afterward: Esoterics in the Constitution
For those interested in the argument from the Constitution ... The 2nd Amendment states this: "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." Lots of people think they know what that means, but smart scholars have disagreed for a long time about it, so I won't go much into that debate. Almost everyone that has published on it would agree that a major reason for its inclusion was to give the states practical means to oppose the federal government if the federal government ever tried to rule by force. It was not meant to allow insurrection (see other parts of the Constitution for verification), but instead as a legal way to permit extra-legal action should the feds go nuts. This was a practical solution for a practical document made by revolutionaries who understood that sometimes governments fail. Personally, I think that's where the 2nd Amendment ends -- it stops the feds from infringing on gun rights, but does nothing to stop the states (and 14th Amendment incorporation, for legal nerds, shouldn't make sense here, in my opinion).
But that doesn't mean that I think there is no right to self defense. The 9th Amendment says that there are other rights and that those rights shouldn't be ignored just because we listed a few in the first 8 amendments. Part of the spirit of the 2nd Amendment, and the general understanding in most of American history (including, in my opinion, now), is that law-abiding people have the right to defend themselves, with a gun if necessary. I think that was, and is, fundamental to the way our society has functioned, so I think the proper place for gun protection is the 9th Amendment, informed by the 2nd.
The problem of tyranny needing to be met by an armed citizenry seems a far off one, but who knows what government we will have a decade from now? That problem already has a legal solution, though: a well-armed state militia. Proper training, with state lines of reporting, could serve the same purpose it was supposed to in the 18th century. Active members of the state militia would have access to weapons that others do not, just like federal troops.
In summary, I think that Newtown gives us very little evidence about the need for changes in the way we handle gun laws. It does give us a reason to pause and think, though, and so it is reasonable to take that time to inspect our gun policies and how we got there. In the end, I think people should be able to defend themselves with small arms, and hunters should be able to hunt with them, with relatively little government oversight, but that significantly more oversight is good once we go very far into the assault weapon spectrum and beyond.
An overview of a strategy
The government should not be allowed to assume that most citizens cannot be trusted with personal defense, but there is a "potential of destruction" line beyond which we cannot allow individuals to cross.
The first part of that says, hey, we shouldn't assume people are bad. We also shouldn't assume that bad people will be overly constrained by relatively superfluous laws like the need to have a permit ... 'cause if you are willing to kill someone, you probably don't feel the need to have that shiny slip of paper. On the other hand, we can't assume that gun control laws don't work at all. Certain types of gun control laws reduce the total number of weapons out there, and some reduce that number who can easily get certain weapons.
The second part of my strategy above implies that it is reasonable to discuss the limits of individual armament. Nobody wants everyone to have a nuke ... or a drone, or a Stealth Bomber, or a Sherman tank, or an RPG. The capacity for destruction in those examples, even when misused by only tiny portions of the populace, far outweighs the positives. My feeling is that we run into a gray line in the assault weapon spectrum, where freedom, protection, and hunting is overcome by the needs of others to be free from the likelihood of such dangers.
Other intelligent laws, like requiring background checks before selling weapons, should not be that big a deal. I mean, I used to write real-time software to look up people's demographics and credit history to guess whether they would be more likely to buy a car, a stereo, or a European vacation with the new credit card we were about to issue -- we should be able to do some relatively quick stuff with felony and terror lists. (There will be difficulties on the margin; those should be solved, not used as excuses.)
We should also encourage more intelligent stewardship of guns. Where and how to store the weapons and ammunition, the importance of using common sense and training, etc.
Oh, and one quick thought: No, most teachers should not be carrying firearms. That is an incredibly bad idea. It takes a special temperament and mentality to be able to pull a gun and shoot someone in optimum conditions (like a battlefield), and a room full of running, shrieking kids does not create optimum conditions. Besides, how long would it take for a student to take a teacher's gun from her (most teachers are still "her"), or for her to leave it sitting around? I have read a bit on the subject and talked with officers and military friends, and after thinking about it for around 3 seconds they have all said, yeah, it would be stupid to expect teachers to be armed security guards.
Conclusion
Let's have an intelligent policy that lets people defend themselves while keeps really powerful stuff off the streets. We can use technology to try to pinpoint bad guys who shouldn't have guns and limit sells to them. We should neither think everyone is bad nor that "gun control" is a stupid idea. Hunters and liberals alike should be able to agree on 90% of what is in and out without much thought, and the rest we can bicker about through representatives. Maybe they'll authorize some weapons to be used only on firing ranges, for those that must shoot 10 rounds of explosive ammunition a second.
I don't know if the horrors of Newtown would have been at all slowed by any of the above. Maybe a culture that discussed more conscientious stewardship of guns would have encouraged the mother not to have such weapons available, but maybe not. Those events suggest it's worth us trying to implement intelligent policies, though.
What are your thoughts?
Afterward: Esoterics in the Constitution
For those interested in the argument from the Constitution ... The 2nd Amendment states this: "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." Lots of people think they know what that means, but smart scholars have disagreed for a long time about it, so I won't go much into that debate. Almost everyone that has published on it would agree that a major reason for its inclusion was to give the states practical means to oppose the federal government if the federal government ever tried to rule by force. It was not meant to allow insurrection (see other parts of the Constitution for verification), but instead as a legal way to permit extra-legal action should the feds go nuts. This was a practical solution for a practical document made by revolutionaries who understood that sometimes governments fail. Personally, I think that's where the 2nd Amendment ends -- it stops the feds from infringing on gun rights, but does nothing to stop the states (and 14th Amendment incorporation, for legal nerds, shouldn't make sense here, in my opinion).
But that doesn't mean that I think there is no right to self defense. The 9th Amendment says that there are other rights and that those rights shouldn't be ignored just because we listed a few in the first 8 amendments. Part of the spirit of the 2nd Amendment, and the general understanding in most of American history (including, in my opinion, now), is that law-abiding people have the right to defend themselves, with a gun if necessary. I think that was, and is, fundamental to the way our society has functioned, so I think the proper place for gun protection is the 9th Amendment, informed by the 2nd.
The problem of tyranny needing to be met by an armed citizenry seems a far off one, but who knows what government we will have a decade from now? That problem already has a legal solution, though: a well-armed state militia. Proper training, with state lines of reporting, could serve the same purpose it was supposed to in the 18th century. Active members of the state militia would have access to weapons that others do not, just like federal troops.
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