Sunday, February 3, 2013

Pro Common Sense


In the interests of full disclosure, I am not anti-gun. I spent almost 9 years in the Air Force and qualified on two handguns and an M-16. When I was growing up, I hunted with my grandfather, and even owned my own double barrel, 20 gauge shotgun. I was also responsible, as a kid, for dramatically increasing the copper content of the soil around our house, as well as a few trees (sorry again Mom!), due to heavy BB gun use.  I've been a military history buff since I was a little kid and I love me some Quentin Tarantino. So I'm hardly a frothing crusader for repealing gun rights. But having said all that, I fully support some common sense gun regulation.

No, I'm not looking to take everyone's guns away. In fact, almost no one is, so I wish the NRA and others on the 'no compromise' side of this argument would stop whining like 2 year olds whose ice cream just hit the floor. Look, guns exist for only one reason: to kill. You can talk up target shooting and skeet shooting, etc. But the truth is that firearms were not invented and perfected to shoot clay pidgeons. They were invented to kill human beings. And over time, they have become more and more efficient at ending lives. I'm not saying that a gun is evil, but let's not pretend they are holy relics or talismans of liberty either. Guns are as likely to support tyranny as they are to protect freedom. Guns are not the cornerstone of Democracy. The cornerstones of Democracy are governmental checks & balances, freedom of expression and our judicial system, not who has the most, or biggest guns.

It's important to remember that there are two different spheres of life where guns exist; military and civilian. The military has much different needs than does a convenience store owner down the street. For the military, it's all about killing people in the quickest, most efficient manner possible for a particular situation. Whether that's a sniper rifle to kill a single individual from a mile away or a special forces team clearing a building with FN P90 assault rifles. Fast, reliable and deadly are the key features. And these weapons are put into the hands of highly trained soldiers. Individuals who have been drilled over and over on how to operate rationally in the chaotic environment of flying bullets. These are specialized weapons in the hands of those who have been trained to be specialists in the dark art of killing other human beings.

Then we have the civilian world, where the needs are much different. Here it's about sport or personal defense. There is no need for 30+ round magazines or a high rate of fire. Neither will help you hit a target on a range or take down a game animal and neither is needed for self defense. If one standard pistol magazine isn't enough to defend yourself, you're either in the middle of a gang shootout or you're running with Officer John McLane. In either case, your problems are unlikely to be solved with a few more rounds. And for the survivalists out there, I'm afraid a larger capacity magazine is not going to help you if the government really does come for you. Your AR-15 isn't going to save you from a highly trained tactical strike team or a platoon of trained infantry.

Military grade weapons have no place in civilian society. That's why your neighbor can't mount a quad .50 on his garage and you can't pick up Stinger missiles at Walmart! Neither of you has any legitimate need for that kind of firepower. Home defense? Try a shotgun. Talk about fear factor! I'd be more scared staring down the muzzle of a 12 gauge than an AR-15 any day! The AR-15 might miss, at least with the first few rounds, but the shotgun probably won't.

The other thing that so many people seem to not understand is that owning a gun does not imbue you with magical powers. You hear it after every mass shooting. The chorus of, "if only they had all been armed this would never have happened!" Look, Rambo, owning a gun doesn't make you Jason Bourne. Shooting targets on a range or hunting deer does not remotely qualify you to be calm and rational in the middle of a firefight.  Sure, if some of the teachers at Sandy Hook had been armed, the result might have been different. Perhaps they would have stopped the gunman, but that difference could also have been that several more bystanders may have been wounded or killed as multiple 'good guys' started spraying shots down range without carefully clearing their target.

It doesn't help that the Second Amendment is so non-specific. The whole thing is one sentence with one or two commas, depending on where you source the text. You would think that might make it straight forward, but it's not. Read it for yourself:

"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."

It seems like the only part most people care about is the last section, but the whole first part seems to clearly be a qualifier, implying that it specifically pertains to militias. There are some who interpret the Second Amendment as some paranoid safety valve, put in by the founding fathers as a defense against an overreaching government. That seems like a strange thing to shoehorn into the bill of rights. Not to mention, it's like a bride calling from her wedding reception to put a divorce lawyer on retainer. It also doesn't seem to fit when you read the whole amendment. I can't get past the militia bit, personally. When I read it, what I see is a warning not to ban guns because to do so would functionally disarm the state militias, who were pretty much the entire US army of the time. But we no longer base our security on civilian militias whose equipment is provided by the individuals themselves. We now have a professional military and the militias have been superseded by the National Guard, who have their weapons provided for them by the individual states. I think the Second Amendment is actually a bit anachronistic. Remember this comes from a time when the founders never imagined that the United States would have a standing, professional military numbering more than a million men and women.

This whole issue is way too complicated to fix by just arming everyone. Just as we will never stop every mass shooting by tightening gun laws. However, there are obvious steps that can be taken to make it a little harder for some individuals to arm themselves. Making background checks universal, whether you're shopping a brick and mortar store or just browsing at a local gun show, will make it harder for those with ill intent to pick up a weapon while adding only a minor inconvenience for everyone else. It's like security at the airport. Sure it's annoying, but everyone has to deal with it and it does provide a basic barrier to those trying to do harm. Is it fool proof? Of course not. Having laws and punishments setup for murderers doesn't stop 100% of killings, but that's no reason not to have them in place. Will banning some assault rifles stop the next Sandy Hook? Probably not, but it may very well save lives among the thousands of other shootings. And it will do so without causing the vast majority of gun owners the tiniest inconvenience. All I ask is for gun rights activists to stop and take a slow, deep breath. Holster their bravado. Then listen with an open mind and think rationally about what is actually being proposed and consider the real world impact.

4 comments:

  1. Fully agree. Eloquent and on-point. Reminds me that I need to write my (Republican) congressman.

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    1. Yes, I'll be sending the NRA some money and thanking my congressman for standing up for my rights.

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  2. Do the recent events involving the LAPD have any impact on your thoughts? During the manhunt, they have now shot up two vehicles that were similar to one driven by Dorner. In October a man in LA (Jonathan Cuevas) was shot in the back several times by an officer, then a point blank kill shot as he lay defenseless on the ground. We see police abuse almost daily across the country. Even the manhunt and the reward suggest that police exist, more than anything else, to protect and to serve themselves. Do you think there would be a $1 million reward and massive, at times maniacal shoot-'em-up manhunt if someone in your family was killed?

    You are right that a single armed citizen won't stand a chance a chance against an army or a SWAT team, but that's a skewed scenario. Part of the reason for 2nd Amendment is to give individuals a right toward a collective effort (and not necessarily via any government-recognized militia). (Though it's not limited to militia. If there were a right that said, "Bodily health being important, the right to eat broccoli shall not be infringed," and they proved that broccoli was in fact not healthy after all, would you still have the right to eat broccoli? Probably so. The first clause states one reason for the right, but the second establishes the right.)

    Any way, I support limitations on firearm types and capacities that also apply to all federal, state, and local law enforcement and security. Let the troops have whatever they need for the battlefield. Meanwhile, at home, if the police or feds feel they need a weapon to defend themselves, or to assault the citizenry, who's to say civilians don't need it too? As we fall further and further into a police state, we the people may find ourselves in need of tactical weapons.

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    1. That's an important point. We have a president that wants to infringe the people's right to keep and bear arms, but has no problem assassinating US citizens with drones without any judicial oversight. We have a Patriot Act that basically allows any federal, state and local agency to detain a suspect indefinitely without trial and record all electronic communications without a court order. Let's not forget that both law enforcement and the armed forces are the employees of the people. Why would an employer give up rights that are preserved for it's employees? Because of the principals outlined in the Constitution, we the people are no longer subjects of a monarchy. But in giving away our rights we will eventually and inevitably again become the unfortunate subjects of a state.

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Please let me know what you think, even if it's to disagree.