Our national schizophrenia on firearms defies rational explanation. In the wake of yesterday's Supreme Court decision, both presidential candidates and, according to public opinion polls, most voters believe in "the right to bear arms."
Yet only one out of three Americans owns a gun and, after mass murders like Virginia Tech, there is an upsurge of grief and outrage at the easy availability of deadly weapons.
Somehow, there is a disconnection between the idea of guns and the reality of what they do that can't be explained away by NRA lobbying or the fierce protestations of "gun nuts."
How do we reconcile the apparent contradiction that many of those who believe in preserving the life of fetuses are just as passionate about the right to own weapons that kill human beings after birth?
By now we are inured to arguments such as that in a "liberal elite" New York Times editorial today:
"This is a decision that will cost innocent lives, cause immeasurable pain and suffering and turn America into a more dangerous country. It will also diminish our standing in the world, sending yet another message that the United States values gun rights over human life."
Many of us agree with that, but there is no justification for feeling morally superior to those who deny it if we can't find a way to talk about that basic human difference without demonizing each other.
Showing posts with label Second Amendment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Second Amendment. Show all posts
Friday, June 27, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
New Rules for American Shootouts
If your neighbor has been firing automatic weapons at squirrels after midnight, Antonin Scalia is willing to think about whether or not he is breaking the law.
"Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited," the Justice wrote in today's 5-4 Supreme Court decision striking down the District of Columbia's strict ban on gun ownership. "It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."
Otherwise: "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to protect a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful proposes, such as self-defense within the home," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority, made up of Bush appointees Thomas, Roberts and Alito, along with the swing vote of Ronald Reagan's farewell gift to the Court, Anthony Kennedy.
"Unconnected with service in a militia" is the phrase that will open the door to challenges of gun laws everywhere, nullifying centuries of acceptance of the clear wording of the Second Amendment: "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."
Before the Bushes, America was a country that did not wage preemptive wars abroad or encourage homeowners to take up arms at the slightest provocation. If the 21st century is not going to be a replay of the Wild West, voters will have to elect a President to appoint future Justices who agree with dissenting John Paul Stevens:
"The opinion the court announces today fails to identify any new evidence supporting the view that the amendment was intended to limit the power of Congress to regulate civilian uses of weapons."
If you hear gunfire late at night, pull down the shades and, before calling the police, check with Justice Scalia for an opinion.
"Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited," the Justice wrote in today's 5-4 Supreme Court decision striking down the District of Columbia's strict ban on gun ownership. "It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."
Otherwise: "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to protect a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful proposes, such as self-defense within the home," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority, made up of Bush appointees Thomas, Roberts and Alito, along with the swing vote of Ronald Reagan's farewell gift to the Court, Anthony Kennedy.
"Unconnected with service in a militia" is the phrase that will open the door to challenges of gun laws everywhere, nullifying centuries of acceptance of the clear wording of the Second Amendment: "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."
Before the Bushes, America was a country that did not wage preemptive wars abroad or encourage homeowners to take up arms at the slightest provocation. If the 21st century is not going to be a replay of the Wild West, voters will have to elect a President to appoint future Justices who agree with dissenting John Paul Stevens:
"The opinion the court announces today fails to identify any new evidence supporting the view that the amendment was intended to limit the power of Congress to regulate civilian uses of weapons."
If you hear gunfire late at night, pull down the shades and, before calling the police, check with Justice Scalia for an opinion.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
The Politics of Murder
Déjà vu won't do. Recurring nightmare is a better description for what happened today on a college campus in DeKalb, Illinois--an armed-to-the-teeth gunman, random shooting, sudden deaths.
This time there were five victims, plus the shooter, who stepped from behind a curtain in a lecture hall and started firing indiscriminately before killing himself on the stage. He had a shotgun, a Glock pistol and another handgun.
Ten months after Virginia Tech, the body count is mercifully lower, but the aftermath will be the same.
A special agent of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is at the scene, promising to "be urgently tracing the firearms and learning the history of the weapons" to "learn where they came from and how the shooter came to possess them."
Last April, John McCain responded to the Virginia massacre by saying, "We have to look at what happened here, but it doesn't change my views on the Second Amendment, except to make sure that these kinds of weapons don't fall into the hands of bad people...Obviously we have to keep guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens."
Now, as the Republican nominee-to-be courts the favor of his from-my-cold-dead-hands constituency, will his response be any different? The rest of us will have to mourn without him.
This time there were five victims, plus the shooter, who stepped from behind a curtain in a lecture hall and started firing indiscriminately before killing himself on the stage. He had a shotgun, a Glock pistol and another handgun.
Ten months after Virginia Tech, the body count is mercifully lower, but the aftermath will be the same.
A special agent of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is at the scene, promising to "be urgently tracing the firearms and learning the history of the weapons" to "learn where they came from and how the shooter came to possess them."
Last April, John McCain responded to the Virginia massacre by saying, "We have to look at what happened here, but it doesn't change my views on the Second Amendment, except to make sure that these kinds of weapons don't fall into the hands of bad people...Obviously we have to keep guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens."
Now, as the Republican nominee-to-be courts the favor of his from-my-cold-dead-hands constituency, will his response be any different? The rest of us will have to mourn without him.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Second Commandment and Amendment
To go all the way to the nomination, Mike Huckabee will have to reconcile his party's tension between those who worship God and those who put more faith in guns, a distinction largely lost on liberal Democrats.
Until Iowa Evangelicals embraced him, Huckabee was suspect among Values Voters, who had doubts about what he terms Second Commandment Christianity, which extends more compassion to illegal immigrants and the undeserving poor than other Republican candidates are willing to do.
“I believe,” Huckabee has said, “that life begins at conception, but I don't believe it ends at birth. I believe we have a responsibility to feed the hungry, to provide a good education, a safe neighborhood, health care.”
On the other hand, after criticizing Bush on Iraq, he had to go hunting in Iowa to reassure devotees of the Second Amendment who lean toward Giuliani's macho, John McCain's militant patriotism and Mitt Romney's imitations thereof.
All this has raised doubts about whether he is a "true conservative" across the spectrum from Rush Limbaugh primitives to the National Review intellectual wing of his party.
"Huckabee," Limbaugh contends, "is using his devout Christianity to mask some other things that are distinctively not conservative. He is against free trade. He's really doesn't believe in free market."
NR editor Rich Lowry agrees with the assessment that "Huckabee could be a disaster," likely to "lose conservatives on taxes, spending and immigration and alienate moderates and Democrats on social issues."
From here to Super Tuesday, Huckabee will have to blend the competing strains of his party to lock up the nomination. If he can do that, what they see as his shortcomings could turn out to be pluses with independent voters.
Until Iowa Evangelicals embraced him, Huckabee was suspect among Values Voters, who had doubts about what he terms Second Commandment Christianity, which extends more compassion to illegal immigrants and the undeserving poor than other Republican candidates are willing to do.
“I believe,” Huckabee has said, “that life begins at conception, but I don't believe it ends at birth. I believe we have a responsibility to feed the hungry, to provide a good education, a safe neighborhood, health care.”
On the other hand, after criticizing Bush on Iraq, he had to go hunting in Iowa to reassure devotees of the Second Amendment who lean toward Giuliani's macho, John McCain's militant patriotism and Mitt Romney's imitations thereof.
All this has raised doubts about whether he is a "true conservative" across the spectrum from Rush Limbaugh primitives to the National Review intellectual wing of his party.
"Huckabee," Limbaugh contends, "is using his devout Christianity to mask some other things that are distinctively not conservative. He is against free trade. He's really doesn't believe in free market."
NR editor Rich Lowry agrees with the assessment that "Huckabee could be a disaster," likely to "lose conservatives on taxes, spending and immigration and alienate moderates and Democrats on social issues."
From here to Super Tuesday, Huckabee will have to blend the competing strains of his party to lock up the nomination. If he can do that, what they see as his shortcomings could turn out to be pluses with independent voters.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
A Boycott of Larry Craig's Oppressors
After the Virginia Tech massacre, a few courageous believers in the Second Amendment, Fred Thompson among them, spoke up and put the blame where it belonged, on those who let innocent students and faculty be killed by not being armed.
Now, public-spirited citizens of the American Land Rights Association are speaking out on behalf of Larry Craig, denouncing the “Gestapo tactics” of the Minneapolis police and calling for a boycott of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Air Terminal.
“This is a really serious case of police overreaching, and the victim here is Larry Craig and the Constitution of the United States,” civil libertarian Ben Stein declared on Fox News.
No word from the ACLU as yet.
Now, public-spirited citizens of the American Land Rights Association are speaking out on behalf of Larry Craig, denouncing the “Gestapo tactics” of the Minneapolis police and calling for a boycott of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Air Terminal.
“This is a really serious case of police overreaching, and the victim here is Larry Craig and the Constitution of the United States,” civil libertarian Ben Stein declared on Fox News.
No word from the ACLU as yet.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Exposing Bad, Bad Joe Biden
In last night’s “debate,” the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was unmasked as the vain, insensitive person he really is, but TV watchers may have failed to notice until keener observers revealed it today.
The New York Sun blog blasts “Biden's obnoxious response when he insulted the gun owner toward the end as being nuts. It wasn't so much a personal gaffe as a moment that projected an ugly image of the Democratic Party as out of touch with rural voters and gun owners.”
On the blog of Reason Magazine, we learn that Biden hurt the feelings of “a libertarian-leaning voter who wants the government off his back.”
Biden’s inhumanity was in response to Jared Townsend of Michigan who asked “if our babies are safe” as he cradled his semi-automatic weapon, explaining, “This is my baby.”
“If that’s his baby,” Sen. Biden heartlessly jibed, “he needs help. I don’t know if he’s mentally qualified to own a gun.”
On Slate Mickey Kaus cites that as another of Biden’s “cringe-making, unhinged spontaneous reactions,” akin to a 1987 incident in New Hampshire when the Senator unfeelingly answered a question about his credentials by saying, "I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do."
Those who have been bamboozled into thinking Biden is a distinguished Senator with 34 years of service should be ashamed of themselves. How can they support the kind of insensitivity that led to the martyrdom of Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech and that has been visited on countless other Second-Amendment heroes?
The New York Sun blog blasts “Biden's obnoxious response when he insulted the gun owner toward the end as being nuts. It wasn't so much a personal gaffe as a moment that projected an ugly image of the Democratic Party as out of touch with rural voters and gun owners.”
On the blog of Reason Magazine, we learn that Biden hurt the feelings of “a libertarian-leaning voter who wants the government off his back.”
Biden’s inhumanity was in response to Jared Townsend of Michigan who asked “if our babies are safe” as he cradled his semi-automatic weapon, explaining, “This is my baby.”
“If that’s his baby,” Sen. Biden heartlessly jibed, “he needs help. I don’t know if he’s mentally qualified to own a gun.”
On Slate Mickey Kaus cites that as another of Biden’s “cringe-making, unhinged spontaneous reactions,” akin to a 1987 incident in New Hampshire when the Senator unfeelingly answered a question about his credentials by saying, "I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do."
Those who have been bamboozled into thinking Biden is a distinguished Senator with 34 years of service should be ashamed of themselves. How can they support the kind of insensitivity that led to the martyrdom of Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech and that has been visited on countless other Second-Amendment heroes?
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