It has been near a month since the horrific shootings in
Newton and I have largely remained silent in the aftermath as I have considered
my position. I participated in a few
debates, mostly half-hearted attempts to be honest, compared to where I was
after the Aurora shootings. However, I
have largely remained silent because passions were high (and likely still are
truth be told) and I decided that the first impulse which I had might in fact
not be the right one in these emotionally charged times. I have mostly listened to others, did a bit
of research including reading a pair of books which were very illuminating and
had a couple of discussions with people I personally consider to be prudent and
deep thinkers. Rather than write an
essay, I decided to write my thoughts down in the order that they have occurred
to me. I did a little bit of editing and
reorganizing but have did little else to modify what I have thought. One thing is for certain, I believe I am
about to piss EVERYONE off so let’s get to it:
<Picture is of Malcolm X. How you feel about this photo says alot about who you are, your knowledge about America, and your real thoughts about gun-control / rights>
1. I support the 2nd Amendment and the rights of
Americans to own arms. I am not one of
those folks which believe in the infallibility of the Constitution. Because I have actually read REAL history
books, the Constitution was enormously controversial in its time and was
ratified only after a very long, arduous and contentious debate between
Federalists and anti-Federalists. It was
an imperfect document, the result of many compromises which Ben Franklin
himself announced, ‘There are several parts of this document that I at present do
not approve’. Because of that fact, I
recognized that the document likely had flaws and frankly it is over two
centuries old written in a time dramatically different than our own. I l pay attention to what it has to say and
believe it offers a good baseline, but I have far more regard for Federal and
State Law which actually evolves with the times (in theory, so could the
Constitution, but good luck with that in this day and age). But I do think they got the 2nd
Amendment right and the United States Supreme Court has reaffirmed the right to
bear arms so honestly any conversation which starts with ‘we should ban guns’
is silly and not a serious one.
2. The vast majority
of gun owners are responsible Americans.
Statistically, this is an obvious but I think it is important to be
said. Some of the rhetoric from the left
is critically flawed and ultimately doomed to fail because it treats gun
ownership as something unfortunate at best, or a critical moral failing and a
danger to society at worse. This is
stupid. Not only is it reactionary, it
is also a mindset that is certain to ensure the maximum amount of hostility
from lawful citizens who own firearms. No
one who does the right thing wants to hear, or even implied that they are one
step removed from the people that shoot cops and kids. It is also important to note that gun owners
are us. It transcends political
parties. My father in law, one of the
most generous and even tempered people and someone who is more than a little
left of center in my opinion, is an avid hunter and outdoorsman who own a
number of weapons. He is not a bad man
and any suggestion or implication he is not is laughable.
3. I am pretty much a
huge fan of statistics. Numbers don’t
lie, but people’s interpretation of those numbers do. In the past several weeks, I have seen the
most spectacular massaging of numbers on both sides of this debate to the point
where I have begun to cringe whenever I see them…I am looking for the bias and
instinctually have begun to look for whatever warped argument that particular individual
is about to force upon us to support his/her position. Much like the election polls numbers, which
were telling us which way things were heading long before the actual event
(thank you, Nate Silver) occurred, statistics have become another bullshit
front in the culture war debate. A right
wing/left wing Rorschach test where righties see gun confiscation and lefties
see Mad Max. Everyone has their favorite
pet study, or blog post that they believe PROVES their point but a cursory
critical eye almost inevitably reveals the flaw. As far as I am concerned, the Federal Crimes
DB available online through the FBI is the ONLY source worth using at this
point for violent crime statistics.
4. One thing I am
certain of numbers-wise is that there are a lot of guns in this country. 50% of the world’s total if numbers are to be
believed. What I
find interesting is that while the raw number of weapons has risen, the number
of households where a weapon is present has actually dropped by quite a
bit. One figure I have seen is 65% of
all the privately owned weapons are owned by 25% of the gun owners which makes
me a bit uneasy, though I haven’t really come to complete grips why. Despite the declining number of households
with weapons, the raw number of armed citizens is still quite large with 70-80
million gun owners in this country. One
thing about this figure that is significant is that any gun control solution is
going to have to acknowledge the reality of 300 million (+) firearms in this
country that cannot be wished or taken away.
5. One other thing I find
remarkable is that given the large number of guns in this country is how little
violence we have with 30 years of decrease.
Violent crime, gun crime, murders, whatever measure you want to use has
shown a large decrease from the high water mark of the 1970s, and declined a
great deal since the 1990s. With a few
notable exceptions (like Detroit), this trend has extended to the cities as a
matter of percentages. I think the
debate of why this has occurred is important because most academics, criminologists,
academics, law enforcement professionals etc. will tell you that it was the
confluence of many reasons of which gun ownership rates was a very minor part
of it. Improved law enforcement methods,
shifting priorities in the Drug War as well as the declining importance of
imported cocaine (big driver of the 90’s violence), urban renewal, and most
importantly, improved economic circumstances largely drove this trend. I have seen a strain of argument that more
privately owned weapons = less crime but I would say, show me the hard
academic/government data. Correlation
does not equal causation.
6. Which brings us to the matter of mass shooting incidents
like Newton and Aurora. Here is the
uncomfortable fact: There is nothing to
be done on the prevention front here. A
person who is so mentally ill (and people this sick are an extremely small
number of mentally ill people) that he would countenance shooting unarmed
children is a person that is going to find a way to carry through no matter
what. The violence and horror of Newton
shouldn’t obscure the rarity of the incident.
60(+) mass shootings in 30 years.
Terrible, yes. But is it a reason
to fundamentally reorder our society with all the drama which that will
entail? I remain unconvinced.
7. What does strike
me though given the two points above is that the gun violence we do have in
this country that we need to be concerned with is handgun violence in high
population density/high poverty areas. I
think this is significant because if we are truly serious about dealing with
gun violence in this country, than it seems that the proper course of action
would be fighting poverty and rethinking the drug war. On the first point, people that have jobs and
have their needs met tend not to go shooting people. They have too much to lose and that is why you
don’t see free-fire zones in the suburbs or affluent neighborhoods. It has nothing to do with morality or race,
as certain of my right-wing friends like to whisper and dance around the
subject, it is about being poor (trust me, watch all the white Irishman in
‘Gangs of New York’ if you want this point reinforced.). As for the Drug War, it is functionally no
different than Prohibition. There was a
product (alcohol) that people wanted which the government for morality/public
health reasons denied and just like then, we have gang/criminal problems over
the matter. Why we are surprised by this
fact and why we haven’t legalized drugs and treat it like a public health
problem like we did alcohol and cigarettes completely baffles me. As a side note, one of my favorite games is
to ask Libertarians (particularly Tea Partiers, which ideologically they are
kindred) if they support legalization and watch them go through all sorts of
gyrations trying to justify the drug war with all the fun civil liberty
implications the war entails. It never
gets old and serves as a good bench mark:
If they support legalization or at least think hard about the issue and
are willing to discuss the problems of persecuting it in its current form, then
they might be worth having a conversation with.
If they do not and don’t even acknowledge the conflict, then they
immediately categorize themselves as not serious thinkers.
8. The NRA (as
defined by its membership) is not the enemy and may in fact be the solution to
the problem of gun violence. The NRA has
been around since the end of the Civil War and for most of its history has been
a reasonable and responsible organization of gun owners. In fact, the NRA had their hands in two of
the most fundamental pieces of gun legislation in this country. Even today, they are in the forefront of safe
and responsible shooting programs for gun owners of all ages and
professions. Any gun control solution is
going to have to come to grips with the membership of the NRA and frankly, no
long term solution is even possible without their participation.
9. The NRA (as
defined by their leadership) is the enemy and is part of the problem. The NRA has become two things: A) The chief gun lobbyist for a forty one
billion dollar a year gun industry, which has an interest in more guns / less
restrictions – pure economics, B) Part of the extended political wing of the
Republican Party with a long history of fund raising for right-wing Candidates
and much crossover between NRA leadership and Republican party advocacy (go
read bios on the board members of the NRA if you don’t believe that point). Given the Libertarian/Randian induced
sickness currently infecting Conservatism in America, this confluence of NRA
lobbying and lop-sided political advocacy has drug what I perceive to have been
a good and relatively noble organization into the current morass that is
American politics.
10. Along those
lines, Wayne Lapierre’s speech one week after Newton is the prime exhibit of
the problem with the NRA leadership. The
core of his message was not quite off the mark:
blame the shooter, not the weapon.
But it was one of the most tone-deaf political speeches I have ever seen
in my entire life. He rabidly blamed the
entire litany of right-wing boogie men in his speech: The left wing media, the decline of culture
in America, violent video games! Let me
get this straight, millions and millions of people play video games and manage
to keep their shit together and you are telling me Borderlands 2 and The Insane
Clown Posse played a part here and should be banned? Seems to me that you can take out the word
video games and replace it with guns and wouldn’t that just shake up the
argument! You know your Fisher Price logic was not well received when the New
York Post calls you out. The author of
such fun commentary as comparing Federal Agents to Nazis and suggesting that Clinton
tolerated urban violence to get gun control passed, he is part of the problem
not the solution. Really Wayne, you are not going to get much traction
defending the 2nd Amendment with me by pissing on the 1st
Amendment.
11. On the matter of
culture and America’s decline which was a thread that was heavily hinted at in
Wayne’s speech and explicitly stated on Bill O’Reily’s trip down amnesia lane
talk show, let me make a quick remark.
The meme of America’s decline and the death of all that is good and
right has been a recurring theme throughout the entirety of American
history. Go back in just about any
period in US history and you will find people who believed that things had
irrevocably changed for the worse and they were seeing the death of all that is
good. So you are pissy because we have
rock/rap with curse words, nudity on TV, violent games on the XBOX, and a twice
elected black socialist President that wants the UN to take all your guns away
before you get sent off to the gay sex camps?
Apologies, but I will take the problems of this age over the Civil War, segregation
and race riots, the genocide of the American Indians, the age when the Klan
could musters tens of thousands of marchers onto the lawn of the White House, the
Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, or any number of the dark dire times which
this country has faced. The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never
simple and some folks need to take off their rose tinted glasses about the
past. Simply put, the good old days
weren’t. Fathers and Mothers blew blood
vessels at Elvis and the Beatles for crying out loud but guess what? one
generation’s Marilyn Manson is the next generation’s elevator music. No, one thing which is great about this
country is the dynamism and the constant change and reinvention which along
with immigration is the source of our national strength. So things are not the same as they were in
the 50’s! Good, America was designed
that way so stop bitching about it.
12. I don’t think we
should ban assault weapons, mostly because I think it misses the points which I
have made previously: A) The gun
violence we have in this country is far and away done by handguns and B) It
fails to address the real drivers of violence in the first place. Look, I sympathize with folks who think those
weapons should go away. I will state
that I personally really dislike the idea of ‘assault weapons’. They are unnecessary, serve no valid hunting
purpose and frankly they are not going to be used your typical home defense
scenario (break in, middle of the night.
You are going downstairs with handgun most likely unless you keep your
AR-15 next to your bed). Certainly not
all, but a sizable chuck of the people which I know that own assault weapons
are some of the most dogmatic and ridiculously overwrought people I know. I would not mind seeing them go way. That being said, I say we retain the weapons
because it won’t solve the gun problem in the US. Assault weapons are a minuscule amount of the
gun violence in this country. Banning
them would barely make a bleep on the radar screen. Rather than deal with the chimera of
widespread assault weapons violence, I would prefer that all the time and
effort be spent on attacking the poverty or mental health aspects of this
problem.
13. The whole mental health aspect of the current
argument makes me deeply uneasy. I am
perfectly alright with the idea that mentally sick people shouldn’t own weapons
but I can’t help but to think that there is a huge slippery slope here. Who gets to determine who is mentally ill and
to what degree? What happens if a
perfectly healthy person grows mentally ills (example: Solider with PTSD?
Elderly man?) and becomes dangerous? Is
it then acceptable to confiscate their arms?
How about commitment and what categories of sickness qualify? I am all for better mental health treatment
and recognition but there is a huge potential for abuse of civil liberties. This country has not had the best record for
forced societal solutions such as this.
If you don’t believe me, do a little research on the California Eugenics
Movement in the last century, forced sterilizations of ‘mental defectives’ in
North Carolina, the practice of lobotomies by mental health professionals in
the ‘50s-‘60s, rampant sexual and physical abuse in mental health facilities in
America today. For all the white knuckle
hallucinations which people have about even a minimal level of gun control
inevitably leading to a police state, locking up political dissidents and
opponents under the guise of ‘mental health’, something which happens TODAY in
China, is a far more likely path to oppression.
14. I vehemently
support the right of Americans to own guns, but I think I am deeply distrustful
and personally disdainful of ‘gun culture’.
I don’t define ‘gun culture’ as the act of owning a gun, or enjoying
target shooting, or owning a concealed carry license and actually using
it. I have close personal friends who do
all three. I define the above as the
folks who fetishize their weapons, who seem to make it a central part of their personal
identity and frankly, can’t shut the fuck up about it! The folks which every time there is a mass
shooting, their response is to rabidly post to their Facebook pages or other
social media sites increasingly profane and insulting posts about guns without
even acknowledging why the rest of us might even be a tiny bit concerned. I think my biggest issue with these folks has
to be the same thing I find wrong with politics in America, absolutism. The absolute conviction that they are totally
right and the opposite side is totally wrong.
Not only is the opposite side misguided in wrong, they are unpatriotic,
pussies, un-American, weak, liberals, socialists, fascists, have no regard for
the Constitution; want to enslave people, traitors, or any other label that in
other countries, usually presages some ugly violence. For them, they are in a gladiatorial arena
where their ‘opponent’ is someone who has to be defeated and destroyed. In my professional life, I am quite familiar
with people who practice absolutism as a manner of course, who are quite
comfortable with labeling their opponents and ascribing to them the vilest of
intents, and who cannot be negotiated with only defeated. They are al Qaeda. I imagine this comment will draw a lot of ire
but I am calling it like I see it. The
line between reasoned and principled opposition in a democratic system to
fanaticism is not a hard line and I believe a significant part of our gun
culture is on its way over it.
15. Another thought
on the above. Another criterion for the ‘gun
culture’ grouping is what argument you choose to use for justifying your
weapons. I totally get the self-defense
argument. I get the hunting and target
shooting argument. I even get the
historical argument of defending the homeland.
What I don’t get and alarms me are those that use the justification that
their weapons are a hedge to defend against an oppressive government. It is not alarming because of the historical
validity of their argument because yes, the 2nd Amendment was
written by folks who had just concluded a successful uprising against their
previous ruler and yeah, lots of people in other countries might have been able
to defend themselves against Dictators had they had a gun. It is alarming because there is almost
perfect congruence between those who espouse this argument and those who hate
the current President. Back to the
argument of Absolutism, they don’t look at the President as someone they
disagree with but someone illegitimate who is hell-bent on destroying America
and who must be stopped…at the ballot box (which failed) or quite possibly
through other means. Their personal
politics and language used mirrors the talking points of the worst fringe nonsense
(‘takers’, ‘parasites’, ‘welfare babies’, take your pick). Also as a side note,
in my observations those that seem to most vociferous in the defense of assault
weapons often seem to fall in this category.
Last year, I got to talk to an FBI domestic terrorism expert in Kansas
and he said that the number terrorist problem in the US is not Islamic
fundamentalism which they actually have a very good handle on, it is the ‘sovereign
citizens’ movement. I tend to
agree. I know good people who hate the
current government and who talk about ‘resistance’ but what they fail to
understand is that your public position doesn’t sound reasoned and principled,
it sounds like extremism. My
recommendation to them would be to knock it off.
16. The media has
been identified as being part of the problem in this debate and I tend to
agree, to a point (major print media has generally been responsible in their
coverage outside the editorial/columnist pages). Televised media has the problem of following
the story without offering the context.
The New York Times can afford to write a long story with historical
references and diving into the data to provide a nuanced view. CNN, FNC and the Networks have to tell the
story in 90 second stories which by their nature give a simplistic view and can
ultimately mislead. What I would
disagree with is that this is not a new development. Media has ALWAYS been like this throughout
history, the only difference being the velocity of reporting due to
telecommunications. Look up how the ‘Yellow
Press’ played a part in getting us into the Spanish America war in 1898. Journalistic coverage in the US used to be
far more ugly and partisan than this day and age and suggestions otherwise are
just plain ignorant of history. When I
hear people (usually right-wing types although you get it on the left in
regards to FNC) bitch about the media, I think a lot about Army Officer who
because of Vietnam are distrustful of the media and refuse to engage with
them. The media is going to tell the
story it tells and you can choose to not engage with them, but they are still
going to tell the story anyways. Deal with
it and use them to get your story out.
17. I think gun
owners need to calm down. They have just
enjoyed a remarkable run of legislative successes in the past twenty years which
have resulted in more guns and more ‘freedoms’ than at any point in the modern
US. When I hear them talk about their
rights are under assault and I look and see that it has been two decades since
the last major piece of gun-control legislation has been passed in the United
States, I wonder if we are living in the same country? On top of that, NOONE is talking about
confiscation of firearms, the boogie man of the fringe movement. No matter what happens in the current legislative
cycle, there are still going to be 70-80 million firearms in circulation,
hunting licenses and permits, concealed carry permits, hunting rifles at Wal-Mart,
AR-15s in the gun-closet, all of it. Why
the hyperventilation? Gun-control
advocates have largely been ineffectual in the past couple of decades, why the
belief they are going to be any more successful now?
18. I hear that the
Vice President is going to propose his recommendations to the President on
Tuesday and I wonder what we are going to see.
I already think the assault weapons ban is not worth pursing and I
generally feel the same way about high-capacity magazines for the same
reason. Once again, if you are not talking
poverty and the drug war, I honestly don’t think you are dealing with the gun
problem that the US really faces. I am
interested in hearing what he has to say because this issue, more so than the
current fiscal debate, is going to inflame passions.
19. One thing that
has been proposed that I do support is 100% background checks, registration,
and waiting periods of ALL firearms purchases to include gun show sales and
private sales between individuals. I
would support this for ammunition purchases as well. Gun rights folks like to tout that background
checks have worked, stopping many individuals from getting weapons that shouldn’t. Therefore, I get absolutely incredulous when
I hear the same people say that gun-shows and private sales shouldn’t be covered. Really? I have seen that the private sales account for
40% of the total gun purchases in this country (don’t know the figure for
gun-shows but imagine it is significant) and you are saying that shouldn’t be
regulated? Let’s have a sanity check for
a second. If I know that I cannot walk
into a dealer and get a weapon because I would fail the background check, where
could I get a weapon? I could steal one
and many do, or I could buy the gun from the 40% shadow economy that is off
market, evidence seems to suggest that this is how a lot of people do it. In
this day of automation and connectivity, online background
checking/registration at a police station, city hall, county clerk office, is
doable. Opposition to this doesn’t pass
the sanity check and the few lines of argument that I have seen against it seem
to delve back into the oppressive government/fringe territory and I think I
have made myself clear what I think of that argument.
20. I am skeptical on
plans for armed presence in schools. Put
aside the rarity of mass school shootings.
Also the hypocrisy of a society that is largely silent and complacent on
the far more frequent violence in ‘poor’ schools which has been a problem for a
long time (once again, back to poverty and drug war solutions). I don’t really have an issue with resource
and police in schools, but the arming on principals and teachers? That would be a solution until the first time
a teacher shoots a kid out of anger or ‘stand your ground’, a kid overpowers a principle
and gets a gun, breaks into the teacher’s desk and gets the gun, or any number
of the other things that could happen than we would be back to a lot of hand
wringing and navel gazing. Plus, it
fails to address the mass shooter problem anyways. If not a school, than it will be a movie
theater. If not a theater, it will be a
mall. If not a mall, than it is a
concert. You can’t hardened the entire
society the cover every eventuality. Is
the answer that we arm everyone eligible and they all carry at all times? Not sure that the answer is that turning
society into 1870’s Tomestone, Arizona is the right call.
21. One thing that I
sense is that society is a crux point right now. I am not saying we are going to see society
turn on guns. The sales figures and
polls really don’t support that fact and I for one am kind of glad that they
don’t. However, I sense that there is momentum
for ‘something to be done’. More than
anything, I think hard-core guns-rights folks and the NRA leadership is
misreading the situation. They think
that the same tactics of before are going to work and I am not so sure that is
going to happen this time. The point
Wayne Lapierre is missing is that the gun-control advocates, the media and
video game makers are not the true danger here.
It is society itself. These
violent acts are happening and while a clear-headed analysis will reveal the
ineffectuality of ‘assault weapons bans’ and similar proposals, the perception
that there is a problem is in the heads of the population and they want to see
a stop to it. The NRA and avid
gun-rights folks need to recognize that their typical IO message may not play
here and that they might want to start proposing solutions that don’t involve arming
everyone (the majority of Americans don’t own a gun, don’t carry, and don’t
want to see people packing on the streets or in their schools), in other words,
moderate their world view like the NRA use too, then they are going to find
themselves on the losing side of their argument.
