Gun Control Bullshit
[This all came out in a big, giant, incoherent BLLLLEEEAARRRGHH and needs to be refined. Sorry.]
Ironically, Rigger shared the URL of a Penn & Teller "Bullshit" episode with me earlier today. The topic is gun control, and (perhaps ironically in itself) it's one of the more rational discourses on the subject I've seen.
The show is here - 28 minute streaming Google video
Had some of the Virginia Tech teachers and students been carrying firearms, I would imagine the crazed man who shot them would have been stopped much sooner.
There is a truly outstanding thread on Slashdot arguing both sides of this theory. Excellent points made for and against a lot of the things I hypothesize about below. Thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
eviljohn for pointing it out. The Slashdot crowd tends to be a lot of highly intelligent people with strong opinions, so it's interesting and informative reading with less knee-jerk assholing than you might ordinarily find. They're way better at making these arguments than I am; I'm no good at debate.
There's a theory that concealed carry laws make criminals less likely to target people because they can never be sure who's got a gun. This is a really great theory, and I even put a little stock in it, but I think it only applies to more rational criminals - not the mentally unstable people who might shoot up a school. This guy probably wouldn't have thought about who might've had a gun. Rational thought didn't apply.
Gun control laws certainly wouldn't apply to him, either.
Regardless of the state of gun control laws, the killer would still have had access to his shotgun, because gun control laws don't control criminals with guns; they control law-abiding citizens with guns. Criminals can always find illegal items - it's what they do. From drugs to guns to exotic animal products, if it's out there, they'll get it. So crazy guy had his gun and he went to the college.
But if one or two people had been packing, fewer people would have died. Tragic.
This past Thursday, robyn_r invited me down for dinner and a trip to the range. It was a really cool thing for him to do. He and his wife, Sylvia, are friends from back in my Stilyagi/Ann Arbor days. After a delicious homemade pizza dinner, Robyn and I headed to the range, where I shot a hell of a lot better than I expected to. Robyn had me try on a few different handguns, and the Sig P239 fit perfectly. On the way, we had a discussion about Second Amendment stuffs, wherein I was reminded that I am the kind of person who is far too naive to argue too much about gun control.
I'm all for owning guns, but also for storing and using them responsibly. Years ago, in another life, I thought that gun control laws would help to protect people from getting accidentally shot or shot by bad people on purpose. I thought that registering guns was a good idea, and that making people wait to buy their guns was also a good idea. Currently, I think both of those are really bad ideas. Background check? Those are great - those are perfect. Check the hell out of someone's background before they buy a gun. Still, as I mentioned, if a criminal wants a gun...well, they don't need a background check in Vinni's basement. There's also the training aspect; if someone wants to buy a gun, make damn sure they know how to use it. Not everyone is going to want to go through tactical defensive shooting courses, but at least a basic course like the one the NRA offers should be required. The four rules of firearm safety should be ingrained into the brains of everyone who is ever around a gun: 1.) all guns are always loaded; 2.) never point a gun at something or someone you are not willing to destroy; 3.) keep your finger off the trigger unless you are sighted in on the target you want to shoot; and 4.) verify your target and what is beyond your target.
My friend from long ago, Wendell, (now on lj as nwleathersir06) taught me those rules in 1998. He also educated me on why registering guns is a bad idea. Once again, my naivete had me by the proverbial balls; I was thinking, "well, if you're not breaking the law, why should you care if you have to register the gun? That way, the police know you're allowed to have it if there's any question." Well, if you register your gun, the government also knows that you have it, and it makes it a whole lot easier to pluck it from your grip. Ask any Australian how "unlikely" that is. Back then, though, I vehemently and passionately argued with Wendell and our friend Chuck (who was on Wendell's side) about the matter. I can't even remember what my logic was, but now I know that I was insanely naive. All I was thinking about were good citizens and the law.
That was pretty much my whole point of view - crime. Still to this day, I haven't ever thought much about having to overthrow the government, which is what the Second Amendment is all about. Despite what my mother thinks, I am a good, decent, law-abiding citizen who, while discouraged with the current Administration, wouldn't ever think about overthrowing anyone during the normal course of any given day.
Robyn, on the other hand, is a pragmatist. In fact, for a time, he says that he was a One Issue Voter on this subject. He's not planning to overthrow anyone at the moment, but he recognizes that someday, say if George Bush successfully gets beyond the Twenty-Second Amendment (two-term limitation) due to his power-hungry legislation during times of war, there may be a need for a revolution. There may well, I realized. If Bush sets aside the Twenty-Second Amendment, I'd be tempted to take up arms against the government myself. Ok, I'd actually be more apt to staff the office behind the people taking up arms and try to work diplomatically, but I'd be in support of a revolution of some kind. Our government is out of control, but I still have hope that it's going to come back into balance. But if something awful does happen, if Bush further removes our civil liberties, people like me will be forced to stand idly by as the tanks roll past, because we didn't foresee the possibility that this could happen.
Gun control is a dicey subject, but it's not necessarily something that people should blindly follow their political party's leaders on. It is a complicated, convoluted, difficult issue that you can't just throw a gallon of black or white paint at. If you know me, you know I don't tend to follow the politics too closely. Like Dave Barry (I believe that's who it was,) I feel that the word politics comes from the base words "poly," meaning "many" and "tics," meaning "blood-sucking insects." But I do know that people who blindly follow a party on any issue are not thinking clearly.
The Democrats aren't entirely wrong in wanting to enforce some measure of control; they see the violence and want it to stop. They see children shooting themselves and their friends and their siblings with Dad's gun and they want it to stop. Of course we all want it to stop - the Republicans aren't out there passing out .45's to kids. The Democrats' answer is that if the guns aren't there in the first place, that can't happen. Or, if the guns are registered, that will somehow short-circuit the cycle of gun-related crime. Ok, I see the logic there. But there are problems that are born of taking away the guns. The Democrats are as naive as I have been on this issue. They're the cowboy in the white hat who abides by all that is right and true. On this thing, I mean. Sort of. Clumsy analogy, but work with me here.
The Republicans aren't entirely wrong, either; in fact, I lean more toward the Republican side of this issue, which is really disconcerting. Still, I recognize that making full-auto guns readily available probably isn't the best of ideas, regardless of how fun it might be to have them. Instead of punishing the whole society for the tragedy of the child shooting himself, they place the responsibility squarely where it belongs; on the gun owner. The parent who improperly stored the gun is to blame, not the gun itself, not guns in general, not society. Don't take away my stored chain saw because a youngster accidentally cuts off his hand when he found Grandpa's ready to go in the shed and didn't know how to use it. Don't make cars illegal because a little girl knew where the extra keys were and ran over a neighbor. The Republicans are the cowboy in the black hat who's not necessarily a bad guy. He might have done questionable things in the past, but in this moment, he's The Good Guy. He may go back to his evil ways, but in this shining moment, he's right and even if we don't like it, he's still right.
I kind of hate it that I'm making the same arguments that, a decade ago, I thought were asinine.
Until pretty recently, the gun advocates came across as ... well, fanatics for the most part. Gun-crazed rednecks and animal-shooting maniacs who were neither articulate nor educated in a lot of cases. News footage of trailer-dwelling people from Georgia come to mind, wearing filthy tank tops and ballcaps, shooting tin cans off a fence and drawling, "ya cain't take muh guns!" Charlton Heston didn't really help the matter any, either, even with his celebrity.
However, if you watch that episode of "Bullshit" linked above (and it really is worth 28 minutes of your life, regardless of what side of the issue you're on,) you'll see several very articulate, intelligent, rational people explain very calmly why we need to maintain our right to bear arms. Ok, there's also one strange lady who keeps 5 or 6 different firearms hidden in the fur shop she owns...as well as a .32 in her, um, bra. But there's also a woman who watched her mother and father deliberately shot in the head by a guy who drove his truck through the front window of the restaurant and began executing the patrons. Her gun was in her car because carrying a firearm was illegal. If she'd had it on her person, she likely could've stopped that man very, very quickly.
Most of us can, if we take a moment, see both sides of the story in terms of safety v. crime. But how many of us really think about the whole Protecting Ourselves from the Militia aspect? I, like many, thought that the first part of the Amendment, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," was referring to the second part of the Amendment, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." I thought that the Amendment was saying that we need a well regulated Militia of people bearing arms.
Well.
It's NOT.
The first part explains why the people must bear arms. The founding fathers just fought against a well regulated militia for their freedom, and if they hadn't had their own firearms, we'd still be a colony. The Amendment is saying, "Hey, we know that in order to remain free, we have to have an army regulated by the government. We get that. But you know what? Someday, that government might need to be put in its place, and so we're going to ensure that the people can indeed make that happen." Penn and Teller do a good job of explaining this. Here I was running around all those years quoting Jeaneane Garafalo ("The Second Amendment calls for a well regulated militia - it's not so Crazy Uncle Bob can have an Uzi!") when she and I were both tragically misinformed.
It's not an easy subject, like I said. The key to it all is responsible ownership. Kids won't shoot themselves accidentally with Mommy's handgun if it's properly locked up and inaccessible. It can be properly locked up and inaccessible to kids right next to the bed; it doesn't need to be in a hidden locker with the ammo stored in the attic in another locker. There are sane, sensible lock box solutions designed for exactly this. They don't even have keys or combinations to worry about. Keep your loaded gun immediately accessible to you and inaccessible to anyone else.
All of this talk is especially relevant today in light of the Virginia Tech shootings. It's a sad day and it could have possibly been avoided. Perhaps this will finally make a few light bulbs turn on. Columbine didn't do it, but that awhile ago now.
"A well-armed society is a polite society." I'm not sure how accurate that saying is, but I think it might be on the right track. We see it all the time in the animal kingdom; if two animals both have the capacity to seriously kill or injure each other, they don't do it unless there is a sincere and pressing need to do so. There's too much at stake. Too, when an animal's life is at stake, it will fight back. A seal in the jaws of a great white bites at its attacker, even though it is usually futile. A rabbit will bite at the nose of the fox as the fox attacks, and sometimes, the bunny gets away because the fox is so surprised at being bitten by a fucking rabbit that it has no response for that situation. Animals fight to survive with whatever tools they have when their lives are threatened. I think, were I faced with a maniac wielding a shotgun, I'd like to have another gun as my tool. Then I wouldn't have to be helplessly and powerlessly blown away.
As the "Bullshit" episode discusses, if we all have guns it's not going to turn into a shooting gallery every time someone gets pissed off. Arguments happen at gun shows all the time, but how often does anyone get shot?
Most of us are smarter than that, and the ones who aren't will soon get weeded out.
Wow.
Some really compelling arguments there. May have changed my (previously not quite made-up) mind, even. Thanks.