DC Gun Ban

Ryan Avent pleads "Can we all agree that however one feels about the merits of gun-control, the District’s tightest-in-the-nation gun laws are unlikely to tell us much about the actual costs and benefits of gun control, seeing as we share a border with Virginia?" Well, yes and no. I don't think you can infer anything about the merits of adopting DC-style rules as a national gun regulation regime from the effects of the DC gun ban in DC. But the vast majority of gun control regulations take place at the city or state level, for which purposes the DC case is an illustrative example. The slogan "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" is obviously an oversimplification, but DC is close to a pure instance of the principle. There's little practical impediment to handgun ownership in DC save a self-image as a law-abiding person.

And this is a not-infrequent scenario. Strict gun control regimes are popular in many urban areas, but it's precisely such areas that are in no position to enforce these regulations in a productive and effective manner. That, in turn, tells you something about the psychology and politics of the issue -- that on both sides its a form of identity politics; on the controller side, a means of expressing dislike of gun culture and various aspects of American folkways, a kind of liberal version of sundry ineffective "tough on crime" nostrums from the right.

Comments

The assumption that gun control laws can't be enforced given neighboring localities is false. Consider New York City where active police investigation of all guns found yielder lower homicide rates because people stopped carrying guns.
The goal is fewer guns in use and that goal does not require perfect enforcement.

Posted by Bryan C. Kennedy | December 12, 2007 3:06 PM

"Folkways"? Jesus fucking Christ.

Posted by Some guy | December 12, 2007 3:36 PM

Oh, I see. I think handguns should be outlawed because I hate rural folkways. And you want to own a handgun because it would match your gangster fashion sweatshirt.

And all this time I thought I wanted handguns banned because I'm afraid of getting shot.

Posted by Gary Sugar | December 12, 2007 3:38 PM

...on the controller side, a means of expressing dislike of gun culture and various aspects of American folkways.

I don't think that's very true, Matt. I think "conrollers" like me want firearms controlled (but not banned) more effectively because we think lives would be saved, and the quality of life would be improved for the living.

I know you've expressed the view before (at least I think you have) that gun control is a side issue. Presumably that's because murder isn't a very common form of death, even in the US, and so cutting the murder rate really wouldn't mean all that much, statistically-speaking. I agree with you there. But murder, it seems to me, causes a lot of fear. It generates headlines. And that has all kinds of spillover effects that disproportionately effect disadvantaged Americans, and helps make large swathes of the United States less agreeable places to live.

Anyway, cutting the homicide rate to, say, British levels would save, what, 8,000 lives? I think it's worth it.

Posted by Jasper | December 12, 2007 3:40 PM

Huh?

I'm from Philadelphia, home of a massive push for gun regulation. People in Philly are barely aware of "gun culture and various aspects of American folkways"; they're aware of lots of people getting shot. Gun control limited to cities may or may not be effective, and thus the enthusiasm for it may or may not be misguided, but the desire for gun control is directly motivated by awareness of lots of people being shot. You seem to be saying that most urban residents supporting gun bans know they won't work and are just looking to stick it to Joe Bob in Kentucky with his 25 rifles and Confederate flag, and I just don't think that's the case for any significant number of people.

Posted by stoneyforest | December 12, 2007 3:40 PM

"The assumption that gun control laws can't be enforced given neighboring localities is false. Consider New York City where active police investigation of all guns found yielder lower homicide rates because people stopped carrying guns."

Did gang bangers in NYC stop carrying guns as well? Strict gun control and vigorous, harsh prosecution of gun crimes has been a focus of law enforcement efforts in Chicago, but it hasn't stopped our gang bangers from carrying guns.

This doesn't mean that I would support concealed carry laws in Chicago. Concealed carry laws make sense for rural and exurban areas, where guns tend to be a tool of everyday life for use against animals. They don't make as much sense for urban and suburban areas, where guns are not a tool of everyday life for law-abiding citizens outside of law enforcement. I have a fear that many confrontations which occur in everday urban and suburban life would turn fatal if gun possession became widespread among the denizens of the city and suburbs.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 3:41 PM

'Concealed carry laws make sense for rural and exurban areas, where guns tend to be a tool of everyday life for use against animals.'

When you live on the mean country lanes you have to stay strapped because you never know when you'll have to glock a squirrel or a yankee who has lost his way.

Posted by Suburanknight | December 12, 2007 3:49 PM

You can take my lance from my cold dead hands.

Posted by Suburanknight | December 12, 2007 3:51 PM

"Concealed carry laws make sense for rural and exurban areas, where guns tend to be a tool of everyday life for use against animals."

Of course, because the animals would sneak up from behind if they saw the gun.

Posted by Gary Sugar | December 12, 2007 3:52 PM

Matt, have you ever in your coddled life spoken to a DC resident about gun control - that is, a DC resident who wasn't a graduate of an elite university who moved here for professional reasons? Do you really believe that the DC council enacted gun control legislation in order to express their dislike of American folkways? Sometimes your ignorance is charming, but today it's just ignorance.

Posted by Bloix | December 12, 2007 4:08 PM

Presumably many of the people who live in DC and support gun control legislation ARE in fact people who graduated from elite universities and (presumably) hate certain American folkways.

How many people who are in policy-setting positions in the Democratic party did not receive a high-end education? Probably not too many. After all, the people who are most likely the victims of gun crime in DC are unlikely to be setting the policy agenda. Thus, the people who are setting the agenda aren't setting it out of self-preservation, but for more abstract ideological reasons (like, for instance, hatred of American folkways).

Posted by oljb | December 12, 2007 4:27 PM

Aside from folkways being a pretty goofy word, I don't really have a problem with the assertion that dislike of the cultural impact of guns has something to do with supporting gun control.

Lots of people own guns responsibly, teach their children how to hunt, and so forth. But somehow the atmosphere they contribute to also seems to create the space for horrific crimes (the church shootings in colorado last week, virginia tech, etc.). Those are crimes that you just do not see in other countries that lack a cultural fascination with gun ownership and a passionate political faction that opposes all regulation of firearms. So, yes, it is a cultural phenomenon that I dislike.

Posted by southpaw | December 12, 2007 4:32 PM

"Thus, the people who are setting the agenda aren't setting it out of self-preservation, but for more abstract ideological reasons (like, for instance, hatred of American folkways)."

If they are elected officials, they are definitely setting it out of political self-preservation. Telling the average law-abiding city resident that you think it's okay for his/her neighbors to have guns is not a recipe for electoral success, even in DC. The average law-abiding city resident trust himself/herself to be a responsible gun owner, but doesn't have that same trust in other people who live in the city.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 4:45 PM

"I think "controllers" like me want firearms controlled (but not banned) more effectively because we think lives would be saved, and the quality of life would be improved for the living."

Well, yeah, but you only think that because the whole cultural war thing predisposes you to ignore all the evidence that gun control doesn't freaking WORK.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | December 12, 2007 4:48 PM

Coming at this from another perspective, while the motive for banning guns may be somewhat rooted in opposition to gun culture, ultimately it's a really dumb way to oppose gun culture, regardless of policy merits. Both gun culture and gun control movements are, at their root, an attempt to keep yourself safe by threatening the use of force. Both of them assume that our fellow citizens are untrustworthy and we need something to protect us from each other. Every nation must use some violent/coercive methods to enforce the order that permits civilization--but the question is how much? No matter what gun policy we have, most of us will survive to be killed by something other than violent crime.

Gun culture and gun control, having started from similar assumptions, exist in symbiosis rather than opposition. If you really want to get a handle on America's violence fetish, you will have to refuse to participate in violence--including state violence or threats of violence.

Posted by Consumatopia | December 12, 2007 4:48 PM

Hey, I also live in Philadelphia. And I think anyone living in Center City who doesn't have a criminal record should be allowed to carry a goddamm piece -- especially if they have to go out after night.

Because we know sure as shit that the Philly police can't protect us.

I went to night school at Drexel years ago -- and I had to run to my damm car one night when I stayed late in the library.

One of the little known facts about Ivy League University of Pennsylvania --which they don't put in their advertising brochures -- is that a major cluster of homicides occurs just a few blocks up from Penn. A friend of my wife who went to Wharton was threatened at gunpoint one night.

I live out on the Main Line -- the suburbs west of Central City. The crooks in Philly know damm well that if they come out here, our police will be on them like a pack of dogs. But then our local officials don't have to dust their offices for FBI bugs every week. See http://www.post-gazette.com/election/20031105phillymayoreln4.asp

The limousine liberals in Philly's Democratic Party elite do nothing to provide police protection -- or economic opportunities and a decent education -- to Philly's poor neighborhoods. Because they don't give a shit. But they are happy to impose their gun control policy on the residents of those neighborhoods.

Posted by Don Williams | December 12, 2007 5:01 PM

"The average law-abiding city resident trust himself/herself to be a responsible gun owner, but doesn't have that same trust in other people who live in the city"

You've just described politics in general. People think *they* should be able to own guns/see dirty movies/pay lower taxes/donate to political campaigns/whatever, they just don't think *other people* should have those rights.

Posted by too many steves | December 12, 2007 5:04 PM

"When you live on the mean country lanes you have to stay strapped because you never know when you'll have to glock a squirrel or a yankee who has lost his way."

"Of course, because the animals would sneak up from behind if they saw the gun"

Suburanknight and Gary Sugar,

Good snarks.

Let me rephrase what I wrote earlier. Laws that encourage widespread legal possession of firearms, like concealed carry laws, make more sense for rural & exurban settings than for urban & suburban ones. Guns tend to be a tool of everyday life in the former settings, since they are used for hunting or defending against wild animals. Guns are not a tool of everyday life in the latter, because hunting or defending against wild animals doesn't occur as often in urban & suburban settings. Instead, gun use in urban/suburban settings tends to occur in the context of crime; guns are either used to commit violent crimes or to defend against violent crimes. Therefore, while rural & exurban communities tend to have strong cultural norms promoting responsible and level-headed gun use, urban & suburban communities do not. That's why the average rural resident feels he can trust his neighbors with guns, while the average urban resident does not.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 5:06 PM

"The limousine liberals in Philly's Democratic Party elite do nothing to provide police protection -- or economic opportunities and a decent education -- to Philly's poor neighborhoods. Because they don't give a shit. But they are happy to impose their gun control policy on the residents of those neighborhoods."

Don,

Do the residents of those neighborhoods demand that they be allowed to carry guns to protect themselves? Do they consistently elect represenatives to the Philadelphia City Council and the Pennsylvania state legislature who vote against gun control measures and push for legal gun possession?

My guess is no to all of the above questions. If Philadelphia's law abiding citizens who are residents of the crime ridden inner-city are like the law abiding citizens residing in Chicago's crime ridden inner city, they would consistently oppose measures promoting widespread legal gun possession. As bad as their situation is when guns being illegal, they feel it would be far worse if guns were legal.

Is my guess incorrect, Don?

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 5:19 PM

You're guess is probably correct, but irrelevant, in as much as gun ownership is a civil liberty, if your neighbors feel better with you disarmed they can go pound sand.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | December 12, 2007 5:27 PM

eltoro,

Have you ever been out of the city?

Rural and exurban people do not fend off animals or hunt on a regular basis. Most rural areas abide by the same seasonal hunting windows as the rest of us. A rural citizen is far more likely to own a handgun for protection against a neighbor on meth than against animals. (The same applies for out-of-season hunters or trespassers during hunting season.) Naturally, most animals are scared of humans. Only in the suburbs, where animals have become acclimated to humans, does regularly carrying a firearm for defense against animals make sense.

Most importantly, there is no a priori reason to suspect primarily using guns to defend against crime would lead to a less responsible gun culture than primarily using guns to hunt, assuming the world works the way you posit. Matt nailed the psychology of the politics. The real issues are what makes sense for urban areas. I favor widespread availability of handguns in poor, urban areas for law-abiding citizens. I also favor, among many other things, an effective criminal justice system for the poor.

Posted by Apep | December 12, 2007 5:45 PM

"You're guess is probably correct, but irrelevant, in as much as gun ownership is a civil liberty, if your neighbors feel better with you disarmed they can go pound sand."

Brett,

No civil liberty is absolute, even the right to bear arms. So the feelings of your neighbors are extremely relevant, and if a critical mass feels that you and I should be disarmed, they can do more than pound sand. (Trot out that civil liberties argument when a Chicago cop arrests you for violating a gun control ordinance, Brett; I'm sure it will be a Get Out of Jail Free Card.)

Bear in mind, Brett, that the wording of the 2nd Amendment leaves the door open for the regulation of firearms. It says "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."

This implies that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is contingent upon the role that the arms play. If the act of bearing arms promotes a citizen soldier's ability to defend the well-being of a free State, then acts infringing upon that are unconstitutional. If the act of bearing arms, however, contributes to the insecurity of a free State (such as what happens in our inner cities, when guns enable gangs to operate like warlords in Iraq or Afghanistan), then acts infringing upon such bearing of arms are constitutional.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 6:05 PM

No photo credit = that's MY's piece?

Posted by Trevor | December 12, 2007 6:07 PM

"Rural and exurban people do not fend off animals or hunt on a regular basis. Most rural areas abide by the same seasonal hunting windows as the rest of us. A rural citizen is far more likely to own a handgun for protection against a neighbor on meth than against animals. (The same applies for out-of-season hunters or trespassers during hunting season.) Naturally, most animals are scared of humans. Only in the suburbs, where animals have become acclimated to humans, does regularly carrying a firearm for defense against animals make sense."

Apep,

That's probably true in modern America, but historically rural areas needed firearms more often than urban ones as a tool for hunting or defending animals. That's why rural culture in America is far more gun friendly than urban culture in America; guns don't carry the same stigma and association with crime with rural Americans as they do with urban Americans. This is due in large part to the fact that an urban or suburban resident is far more likely to have to actually use a gun to defend himself against crime than a rural or exurban resident.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 6:23 PM

"If the act of bearing arms, however, contributes to the insecurity of a free State"

I think you need to read the 2nd amendment a little more closely, Eltoro, if you're finding an "if" in there somewhere. The preface doesn't make the right to keep and bear arms contingent on it being necessary to the security of a free state, it asserts that it is necessary, as an explanation as to why that right shall not be infringed. As such, it grounds BOTH propositions in the Constitution beyond the reach of anything short of an amendment.

And, no, I wouldn't expect explaining that to Chicago police to help me any more than a essay on the 14th amendment would help me with Bull Conner. Where agents of the government are out to violate a right, mere assertion of that right will not stop them.

Now, it's true that the right secured by the 2nd amendment is not absolute, any more than freedom of the press entitles you to go around beating people to death with a typewriter. But we're not talking here about enactments which attain great benefit at the cost of marginal impingements on the right in question. Rather, we're talking about enactments which, even assuming they work as intended, curtail the harmless exercise of the right by hundreds for every criminal they even inconvenience. There's not a chance they'd survive any honest application of strict scrutiny, of enforcement of this right as a right is supposed to be enforced.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | December 12, 2007 6:30 PM

Apep,

Animals in suburban areas may be more acclimated to humans, but it doesn't follow that a suburbanite needs to use firearms to defend against animals.

Most of the wildlife that your average suburbanite deals with are racoons, deer, and possums. Deer don't really attack humans, but they have a bad habit of running into cars speeding down the road at night. Firearms would do little to protect you from this situation, unless you literally have a passenger riding shotgun with you.

Racoons and possums on the other hand are more concerned with attacking your garbage can for food, rather than attacking a human, so firearms are not necessary for dealing with such vermin. If you do need to use a firearm, you shouldn't need anything more lethal than a pellet gun. If you do need to resort to lethal measures in dealing with such critters, poison would be more appropriate than bullets.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 6:35 PM

Apep,

Animals in suburban areas may be more acclimated to humans, but it doesn't follow that a suburbanite needs to use firearms to defend against animals.

Most of the wildlife that your average suburbanite deals with are racoons, deer, and possums. Deer don't really attack humans, but they have a bad habit of running into cars speeding down the road at night. Firearms would do little to protect you from this situation, unless you literally have a passenger riding shotgun with you.

Racoons and possums on the other hand are more concerned with attacking your garbage can for food, rather than attacking a human, so firearms are not necessary for dealing with such vermin. If you do need to use a firearm, you shouldn't need anything more lethal than a pellet gun. If you do need to resort to lethal measures in dealing with such critters, poison would be more appropriate than bullets.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 6:36 PM

Re eltoro's comment "historically rural areas needed firearms more often than urban ones as a tool for hunting or defending animals. That's why rural culture in America is far more gun friendly than urban culture in America;"
---------
Oh, hogwash. I grew up in the country -- and I knew lots of people who owned guns who never hunted.

The reason was that if you called the sheriff, it would probably take the deputy about 30-40 minutes to show up. Assuming someone didn't cut your telephone line and prevent you from making the call.

Kinda scary to be out in the dark countryside without any options if you wake up and hear someone breaking the kitchen window.

People used to feel safe in urban neighborhoods because cops dragged their fat asses out of the patron cars and actually walked the city streets.

Of course, if the city machine steals all the money there's nothing left to hire the cops.

Posted by Don Williams | December 12, 2007 6:36 PM

There are many areas of this country where there are high rates of firearms ownership and very low rates of homicides.

In part because such communities tend to rapidly exterminate the predators that commit murders -- instead of sending them into the revolving door of urban justice system.

And such communities are peaceful because someone who has a job, a house, and some money in the bank doesn't risk it by illegal aggression and violence.

To answer el toro's earlier question, how many people does he think have enough faith in the Philadelphia political system to actually vote?
Has Philadelphia's gun control policy ever been put to a public referendum?

And does he think that there are no citizens of Philadelphia who would like a gun to defend themselves but are intimidated by city's illegal persecution of gun owners??

Re eltoro's comment about the "will of the people" --that's a cruel joke given the corrupt and dysfunctional nature of US politics. If eltoro won't ensure that residents of poor neighborhoods in Philadelphia are protected, then why does he feel that he can interfere with their right to defend themselves?

Posted by Don Williams | December 12, 2007 6:47 PM

"I think you need to read the 2nd amendment a little more closely, Eltoro, if you're finding an "if" in there somewhere. The preface doesn't make the right to keep and bear arms contingent on it being necessary to the security of a free state, it asserts that it is necessary, as an explanation as to why that right shall not be infringed. As such, it grounds BOTH propositions in the Constitution beyond the reach of anything short of an amendment."

Brett,

If the preface was meant merely to be an explanation and assertion, then why don't the other amendments contain such prefaces? The fact that the 2nd Amendment is the odd man out of the Bill of Rights says that the preface carries far more meaning than an explanation and assertion. It tells us that the right to bear arms is meant to protect the citizenry from tyrannical uses of government power, not from legitimate uses of it. It is meant to curb lawlessness on the part of the government, not lawlessness on the part of the people.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 6:47 PM

Matt gets this one mostly correct, for a change.

People don't stop carrying guns because there's a law - just as people don't stop dealing drugs because there's a law. Even strict "enforcement" of a no-gun law - which in practice simply means you got to prison if caught carrying one - clearly has no effect IF YOU'RE A CRIMINAL.

Now, it DOES have an effect in this sense. If you're caught carrying a weapon while in the commission of a Federal felony - and that means virtually all drug deals - you get an extra five years mandatory minimum consecutive. This means people doing drug deals tend not to want to carry on their person at the time of doing the deal. They may have a gun in the glove compartment or otherwise nearby - and that will get them the five years, too, if their lawyer can't plead it down- but they'll consider the issue of on person carry. On the one hand, they need to have a weapon near in case the deal goes sour. On the other hand, if they're busted for this deal with a gun, they get an extra five years. It's a consideration.

But that's all - a consideration. It doesn't prevent any homicides because it they really think they're at risk of being ripped off, they're going to carry that gun.

The same applies to the general population. You won't carry a gun in New York because if somebody sees it, you can get busted. And a lot of people don't know how to carry a gun effectively concealed. And, of course, you can always get stopped for some other reason at random, searched, and discovered. So a no gun carry ban tends to work at reducing the number of guns carried.

I see however no statistics indicating that that alone reduces homicides, since most law abiding gun carriers aren't planning to shoot anybody.

So the argument that a gun ban doesn't have to be strictly enforced to be useful is simply bogus.

The simple fact is that gun bans are not enforceable for the people who carry guns for a criminal reason - and unnecessary for those who don't.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 12, 2007 6:49 PM

Don,

I don't believe that you are over a century old. Therefore, your comment about people who lived in the country when you grew up not using a gun for hunting doesn't invalidate the idea that historically, rural areas tended to use firearms as a tool for hunting rather than a tool for committing crimes or defending against crimes, in comparison to urban areas.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 6:52 PM

" . . . a means of expressing dislike of gun culture and various aspects of American folkways, a kind of liberal version of sundry ineffective "tough on crime" nostrums from the right."

Shit, he's turning into McMegan. I think it's time for an intervention. Fucking Matthew McYglesias.

I live in Philly too. I also know folks from more rural parts of the state - the expanse between Philly and Pittsburgh - who grew up with hunting and gun-owning, and are completely responsible about it. This isn't about that. Our increasingly desperate push for gun legislation out here is currently based around the following apparently culture-war crazed, American-folkway-hating, pathetically-ineffectually-liberal measures:

1) Limit handgun purchases to one gun a month.

2) Require gun owners to report lost or stolen handguns.

3) - the odd one out, with the least support - allow municipalities to pass their own gun-control legislation. (There are a lot of problems with this, but at least it tries to respond to the very real rural-suburban-urban differences and allow responsiveness to local conditions, instead of dumb and divisive one-size-fits-all legislation.

The whole point behind 1) & 2) is making it easier to shut down straw purchasers who help get guns to criminals. I understand that buying lots of guns a month and then leaving them around - oh darn, where did I put it - is an extremely important Real American (tm) Folkway, but honestly, it's less about hatin' on heartland hunters and more about all the kids and cops who keep on getting shot. Indeed, smaller cities and towns across Pennsylvania - places like Lancaster - are also struggling with gun violence, which may be why lots of folks across the state support these very moderate and sensible kinds of measures. Yes, yes, making it harder for criminals to get a gun won't fix the underlying problems, but it's harder to take out random moms and kids and such without one.

See for example ceasefirepa.org.

Posted by Dan S. | December 12, 2007 6:54 PM

Re eltoro's comment "It tells us that the right to bear arms is meant to protect the citizenry from tyrannical uses of government power, not from legitimate uses of it "
-----------
How can citizens protect themselves from tyranny if they've been disarmed?

If a government attempts to use "tyrannical uses of government power" to disarm them, what should the citizens do?

Gee, I know. We can depend upon the integrity of the American Bar Association to strongly defend our rights. They've been so active in the past 7 years after. That's the same American Bar Association who just voted Attorney General Gonzales "Lawyer of the Year". See http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/ap/20071212/twl-gonzales-lawyer-of-the-year-1be00ca.html

How was that the ABA spokemans put it? Ah yes:

"Think about Time magazine's Person of the Year," Adams said in an interview. "In years past they've named people like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin. So we're not suggesting by these awards that these are the best lawyers in any sense of the word. We are saying they are the most newsworthy _ and perhaps also the best."

Posted by Don Williams | December 12, 2007 6:56 PM

As for "gun culture", every country and culture has its preferred personal weapons. Technology marches on, so firearms are becoming preferred everywhere, even in Britain. It's stupid to carry a knife when you can carry a gun.

But just because you don't see the news reports from other countries of how many people got stabbed, or beaten with a stick, or even slashed with a sword, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. The fact that these weapons tend to result in less actual deaths (if that is the case) merely reflects the more effective technology.

There is also the general cultural issues of how much crime arises in other countries per capita in comparison to the U.S.

And even there, on average, if shot, you have only a twenty or twenty-five percent chance of dying. Which is because most people using firearms aren't very good at it, like anything else.

I do recall one of the top combat handgun experts in the country once saying that his personal nightmare was to be caught in an elevator with an expert knife fighter. He figured he'd win, but he'd lose an arm doing it.

Actually, the elevator isn't necessary, as a good knife fighter can close fifteen feet to you in two seconds - enough time for a GOOD combat handgunner to get into action. But if you aren't that good a handgunner...

Of course, it's also harder to be an expert knife fighter than a reasonably good handgun user.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 12, 2007 6:58 PM

"Re eltoro's comment about the "will of the people" --that's a cruel joke given the corrupt and dysfunctional nature of US politics. If eltoro won't ensure that residents of poor neighborhoods in Philadelphia are protected, then why does he feel that he can interfere with their right to defend themselves?"

Don,

I not advocating that residents of crime ridden neighborhoods be deprived of the ability to defend themselves. I simply have misgivings about promoting widespread gun possession in urban areas.

I am not the only who has this misgiving. These same poor inner city residents also have this misgiving, which is why such residents tend to be the fiercest advocates of gun control measures in cities, even more so than your limosine liberal types.

If the residents of poor neighborhoods in Philadelphia consistently vote in represenatives to the City Council and the state legislature who are pro gun control, they are depriving themselves of the right to defend themselves. I have nothing to do with it. If you feel that course of action on their part is wrong, then take action and promote a change in their mindset. Don't complain about dysfunctional politics if you don't take action to make it functional.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 7:06 PM

"How can citizens protect themselves from tyranny if they've been disarmed?"

How can citizens protect themselves from widespread lawlessness if the availability of guns to outlaws undermines the ability of the government to bring out about law and order? Just as the widespread availability of firearms can serve as a check on illegitimate and tyrannical uses of government power, it can also serve as an impediment to necessary, proper, and legitimate uses of goverment power also.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 7:19 PM

eltoro, here's the quotes that explain the Second Amendment:

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." (Richard Henry Lee, Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights.)

"The great object is that every man be armed . . . Everyone who is able may have a gun." (Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution.)

What part of that don't you get?

As for rural vs urban, yes, rural people - that is, REAL rural people, farmers and the like, not people in small towns - and especially rural people in the Western states, carry rifles in their trucks regularly. Urban people do not. Nonetheless, rural people will carry weapons for both hunting and animal control and use as weapons. It's part of farming and part of the "cowboy' culture.

It's irrelevant to the need for urban weapons carry.

Most people can go through life in an urban environment and never be threatened by crime. I myself spent the first forty years or so of my life without ever being threatened - until I was mugged at knife point. Had I a weapon at the time, I could have made a citizen's arrest and possibly saved someone else from being slashed. (More likely, I would have simply shot the asshole in the back a half block down the street when he turned away and left his ass there. Good luck to the cops trying to solve that "crime" without a witness.)

But the point of the Second Amendment is to provide for the common security of the country against both invasion and state tyranny by ensuring that the population cannot be disarmed.

Regulation has been allowed. The problem with regulation is that if you can identify who has weapons, you can confiscate those weapons. Of course, this begs the question of why said weapons wouldn't be used to avoid that. However, if you confiscate before imposing tyranny, that problem is solved. Which is why the NRA opposes registration.

So the NRA compromised and recommended harsher penalties for criminal use of firearms. This is WHY we have a mandatory minimum five years sentence for the use of firearms in the commission of a felony (ten years or more on second use.) Personally I don't think that works, either, but it does introduce a concern for career criminals that reduces their carry of weapons when not necessary. That doesn't really reduce crime, in my opinion, however. It merely extends the incarceration time of those who get caught. And if the underlying reasons for crime aren't corrected, this is nothing to the purpose. It merely creates a massive criminal and prisoner class - which is exactly what the US has now.

The main problem with ANY form of supposed gun control is that it does not and CANNOT work. Simply because those who use weapons in crime are not deterred by laws and those do not do not need to be "controlled."

The main problem with any notion of "banning" guns is that it is 1) physically impossible, since there are literally scores if not hundreds of millions of guns; 2) logically impossible, for the same reason as "gun control" - people not willing to abide by the law and perceiving a need to possess weapons will not obey that law; 3) due to one and two, you end up with just another large, profitable black market.

If you can't "ban crime", how can you "ban the criminal use of guns"?

If you can't "ban drugs", how can you "ban guns"?

The ONLY thing you can do is either: 1) treat the symptoms by arresting and incarcerating criminals; 2) deal with the underlying reasons for crime to exist. It's a public health problem, and solutions to such problems tend to involve science and procedures, not laws and prisons.

I remember a G.I. Joe comic that had a ninja operating a convenience store (as cover) in a poor neighborhood. A kid comes in with a US Army .45 and tries to stick up the store. The ninja uses patter to keep his attention occupied, then calmly disarms the kid. He then "buys" the gun from the kid for twenty bucks. The kid walks out. The ninja relays the history of Okinawa to a compatriot - how when the Japanese banned all weapons on the island, the natives simply invented the use of martial arts with rice flails (nunchakus) and other farm implements. He concludes that someday the politicians will learn that passing laws against "things" will not solve anything.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 12, 2007 7:29 PM

"If the residents of poor neighborhoods in Philadelphia consistently vote in represenatives to the City Council and the state legislature who are pro gun control, they are depriving themselves of the right to defend themselves."

No, a majority of them (More likely a plurality.)are depriving the rest of them of that right. You don't need the government's help to deprive yourself of a right, you just refrain from exercising it. You go to the government if you're intent on depriving somebody else of the right, against their will.

You can't just conflate individuals like that, and pretend that because a vote has been taken, it's just peachy if the government takes away a fundamental liberty. All you're talking about is some people ganging up on some other people, NOT folks deciding what to do in their own cases.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | December 12, 2007 7:51 PM

I would agree that part of the opposition to gun control results from disapproval of gun culture. I use "disapproval" rather than "distaste" because I have nothing but moral opprobrium for the whole enterprise of gun culture and that has nothing to do with aesthetics. I object to gun culture because it glorifies domination and promotes the myth of the efficacy of violence. Gun culture cherishes the firearm as an emblem of self-sufficiency and free government. Hence you have Don Williams on this thread worrying that when the gates of tyranny open, there will be nothing free citizens can do to preserve their liberty. If we do find ourselves in a circumstance where we feel the need to resort to violent guerilla resistance, I cannot see how we would not have already bowled over our own institutions of free government. If our government became so corrupt that a large segment of the population ceased to believe that any state coercion was legitimate, private handguns would restore democracy about as quickly as they would restore a functioning, legitimate state in Iraq.

Widespread private gun ownership has nothing to do with a well-functioning liberal democracy. A shared committment to our Constitution, to popular accountability, to citizenship and resistance, and to jealous scrutiny of our legal processes, on the other hand, do serve as real impediments to tyranny. This point is apparently lost on Don Williams, but Alberto Gonzales is the ABA's most significant lawyer of the year because the public corruption he oversaw has done far more damage to liberty than any gun control law could ever do. The idea that guns hold public power in check deserves to be ridiculed and rejected. The incidents of that belief should be rejected as well, including the treatment of gun ownership as a somehow vitally important right that cannot be outweighed by concerns for the safety and order of our communities.

Posted by StJoe | December 12, 2007 8:27 PM

Re St Joe's comment "Widespread private gun ownership has nothing to do with a well-functioning liberal democracy. A shared committment to our Constitution, to popular accountability, to citizenship and resistance, and to jealous scrutiny of our legal processes, on the other hand, do serve as real impediments to tyranny."
------------

So how is that working?

Posted by Don Williams | December 12, 2007 8:40 PM

What's apparently lost on you, StJoe, is that, until the 2nd amendment is duely repealed by way of Article V, gun control is flatly incompatible with that "shared commitment to our Constitution" you find so valuable.

The chief civil value of the 2nd amendment today, (Leaving aside the sheer libertarian value of leaving people the Hell alone until they screw with somebody else.) IMO, is it's "canary in a coal mine" status as the explicit right most despised by would-be tyrants. In a country where the Constitution in no uncertain terms guarantees this right, those who'd violate it reveal themselves for all to see as contemptuous of the rule of law.

No civil liberty would survive the sort of sophistry deployed against the right to keep and bear arms. It's worth having it in the Bill of Rights just to cause the solphists who'd gladly destroy the rest of that Bill to expose themselves.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | December 12, 2007 8:42 PM

"I do recall one of the top combat handgun experts in the country once saying that his personal nightmare was to be caught in an elevator with an expert knife fighter. He figured he'd win, but he'd lose an arm doing it. . . .

I remember a G.I. Joe comic that had a ninja operating a convenience store (as cover) in a poor neighborhood. A kid comes in with a US Army .45 and tries to stick up the store. . . ."

How do you bear it, Hack? How do you manage, from one day to the next, being so painfully irrelevant? Your fortitude in the face of such suffering is an inspiration to us all.

But don't worry - in the event that Philly is faced with an average of more than one farm-implement/ninja-related murder a day, we'll be sure to call you. At least, if we can't get that nice bonsai-growing karate-teaching Okinawan handyman to help us . . .

Posted by Dan S. | December 12, 2007 8:47 PM

"But the point of the Second Amendment is to provide for the common security of the country against both invasion and state tyranny by ensuring that the population cannot be disarmed."

Richard,

I'm actually in agreement with you. However, it is clear that widespread possession of firearms is a double-edged sword;just as it can prevent illegitimate and tyrannical uses of governmental power (e.g. the actions of the British before the American Revolution), it can also impede legitimate uses of governmental power (see how the warlords and their armies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are a law unto themselves in those countries, and how this lawlessness makes these countries dangerous places for their citizenry to live in). The Founders recognized this, which is why the 2nd Amendment contains a preface to it, unlike the other Amendments in the Bill of Rights.

I understand perfectly what the 2nd Amendment is for; the problem is that many so-called 2nd Amendment supporters don't grasp the full meaning of the Amendment. The 2nd Amendment is meant to empower the citizen soldier, not the outlaw. The constitutional argument against gun control is relevant only if the gun control measure infringes on the ability of the citizen soldier to provide common security against invasion and state tyranny, It is not meant to prevent the state from taking legitimate measures to protect its citizenry against outlaws who would prey on them.

So, Brett, don't just resort to the typical lazy civil liberty argument against gun control. You need to actually deal with the merits of the gun control measure, ilke Richard does. Argue how the measure actually prevents the outlaw from preying on the citizen, while preventing the law-abiding citizen from playing his role of providing for the security of himself, his family, his community, and of course our Free State.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 9:10 PM

Re Dan S's comment "But don't worry - in the event that Philly is faced with an average of more than one farm-implement/ninja-related murder a day, we'll be sure to call you. At least, if we can't get that nice bonsai-growing karate-teaching Okinawan handyman to help us . . ."
--------------
1) I suspect Richard was tossing out a fly just to see if some gun control advocates would lunge for it.

So I'll set the hook.

2) Dan S might wipe his sneer off. Consider, for example, the following:

"IRVINE, California (AP) -- Police shot and killed a sword-wielding man described by relatives as schizophrenic after he slashed and killed two former co-workers and wounded three other people at a supermarket where he used to bag groceries. "
Ref: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/06/30/supermarket.killings.ap/index.html

Maybe Dan S would like to join the British knife-control group "Mothers against Knives" (It actually exists).

Posted by Don Williams | December 12, 2007 9:32 PM

"The chief civil value of the 2nd amendment today, (Leaving aside the sheer libertarian value of leaving people the Hell alone until they screw with somebody else.) IMO, is it's "canary in a coal mine" status as the explicit right most despised by would-be tyrants . . ."

Wax on, wax off, Brett. Wax on, wax off.

" It's worth having it in the Bill of Rights just to cause the solphists who'd gladly destroy the rest of that Bill to expose themselves."

It's worth trying to pass legislation limiting handgun purchases to one a month and requiring people to report lost or stolen handguns just to cause the zealots who'd sacrifice everything else on the altar of absolutely unlimited gun fetishism - far beyond all reasonable limits of a kind that their First Amendment counterparts unblinkingly accept, and far beyond what most actual gun owners support - to expose themselves . . .

- but actually, no, it isn't, who gives a shit? It's worth it just to make it harder for criminals to get their hands on guns so we lose fewer random victims to stray bullets (hard to protect against even if you're an expert GI Joe comic reader or whatever), so fewer cops get gunned down (already armed, you know), etc.

And plus, I really don't want Bellmore to expose himself. No offense, but . . . just no.

What's interesting, though, is that his claim seems false even on its own grounds. The folks who tend to support gun control measures - even far more extreme ones than the very sensible PA attempts that have our local NRA-fanatics foaming at the mouth (and again, most regular folks, in a state that has a very strong hunting/gun-owning culture, support such moves) - simply don't seem to be associated with assaults on the Bill of Rights. If you want to argue that they tend towards things like banning restaurants from using trans fats, sure - and you'll have to pry those trans-isomer fatty acids from my cold, dead, greasy fingers!! - but freedom of speech, protection from unreasonable, warrantless searches and seizures, due process, a speedy and public trial, and etc.- er, not so much.

Indeed, one might suggest that certain would-be tyrants who have mounted, or otherwise support, the recent assault against such rights have been entirely uninterested in curtailing the Second Amendment. Somehow they managed to escape its magnetic pull. The would-be-tyrant flypaper is all dried out or something, I guess.

Posted by Dan S. | December 12, 2007 9:37 PM

I am certain, Mr. Yglesias, that the only reason you post about gun control is for the excuse of putting pictures of neat guns on your blog. Admit it!

Posted by gerontion | December 12, 2007 10:05 PM

"widespread possession of firearms is a double-edged sword"

That's beautiful.

Don writes:
" 2) Dan S might wipe his sneer off. Consider, for example, the following:"

I know you think you're making some sort of point here, but honestly - no. Yes, of course, some people are going to do their best to kill or injure other people regardless (especially if they're insane, in the heat of strong passion, criminals, etc.), and with at least some degree of success. If we banned edged implements (there's really an anti-knife group called MAK? I don't believe it), they'd use rocks; if we banned rocks, they'd use their bare hands; if we somehow took away the right to bear their own literal arms, they'd headbutt folks to death. But there are entirely reasonable actions we can take, without undue infringements on liberty, to make it harder for them to do so. (That's why, for example, the right to own rocket launchers or small nukes is somewhat restricted, despite being actually effective deterrents to gov't tyranny). Making it harder for crazy people to get guns, for example, is one such thing pretty much everyone agrees with. When Irvine has over 300 murders a year due to sword-wielding crazies in the checkout line, get back to me. 'Til then, I wish we had such problems. (It's also harder to get innocent-bystander casualties in gang-related knife fights. Oh crap, now I have an irresistible urge to snap my fingers and sing about being a Jet . . . )

Posted by Dan S. | December 12, 2007 10:09 PM

Dan S. reveals himself to be a sophist, so I guess it worked...

eltoro: "it can also impede legitimate uses of governmental power (see how the warlords and their armies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are a law unto themselves in those countries, and how this lawlessness makes these countries dangerous places for their citizenry to live in)."

I disagree. The problems with those countries have nothing to do with whether people own guns. That's putting the cart before the horse. It's entirely due to the fact that those countries have never HAD a liberal civil government that they have guns. They NEED guns for precisely the same reason US citizens do - they can't trust their government either to not oppress them or deal with those other factions in their society that would.

You have it exactly backward.

I don't know of any precedent in history where the mere possession of weapons by a population has resulted in the collapse of the government absent any other cause. We have plenty of examples where the lack of possession of weapons - and/or the banning of existing weapons by the government - led to the rise of totalitarian states - again, due to other causes, sure, but not being able to be prevented by the population.

The Founders cited numerous cases in Europe at the time of the Constitutional Conventions where the population was disarmed and unable to revolt effectively against the central government. That was explicitly why they adopted the Second Amendment.

Claiming that the mere possession of weapons can or necessarily leads to civil strife is completely unreasonable.

"The constitutional argument against gun control is relevant only if the gun control measure infringes on the ability of the citizen soldier to provide common security against invasion and state tyranny, It is not meant to prevent the state from taking legitimate measures to protect its citizenry against outlaws who would prey on them."

This is correct.

It is also irrelevant, since there is no way to regulate the possession of weapons by CRIMINALS without encroaching on their possession by the law-abiding citizen. This is the problem with registration - it does nothing to deter crime, and provides a state with excessive knowledge of its armed citizens.

While one can cite a certain number of idiots who are former criminals who get arrested by attempting to purchase a handgun legally, this is a drop in the bucket. An idiot that stupid is going to get arrested on his next crime, anyway. Any serious criminal is going to obtain his weapon on the black market if registration is being imposed. And that black market is created precisely because registration is imposed - thus rendering registration useless for its purpose. The cost-benefit is against the citizen.

No other weapons restriction is going to benefit the citizen either. Concealed carry permits are actually merely another means of registration. They only provide the ability to arrest a citizen if found to carry without one. It does nothing to prevent the criminal from carrying. It might extend his sentence once caught, but again, this does nothing to deter the crime as I've indicated before.

Restricting weapons to possession on one's own property (other than while hunting) might seem reasonable, but does nothing to deter crime and again restricts the citizen from a legitimate right of self-defense.

You simply can't find ANY argument where gun control will either be effective in reducing crime or any other public health benefit except at the cost of removing the primary purpose of gun ownership under the Constitution. You also cannot find ANY such argument where other, less Constitutionally-intrusive measures wouldn't be more effective.

There is simply no rational reason for any form of weapons control (outside of WMDs, presumably.) Knives, guns, batons, stun guns, pepper spray - California has a law against blowguns. When was the last time a cop was killed with a blowgun? How many Jivaro Indians live in Los Angeles?

These people even want laws against anybody except cops wearing body armor - in case a cop decides to shoot somebody wearing one.

It's simply irrational, emotional fear that drives these initiatives. Or, as Dan S. demonstrates, a desire to be a wannabe tyrant.

Dan S.:

The notion that limiting handgun purchases to one a month is going to stop illicit gun dealers is nuts. I suspect faking a Federal Firearms License using identify theft techniques is not that hard. In any event, making it harder to acquire weapons in that way will simply increase the value of setting up a true black market as well as increasing the value of stealing guns in private hands or from National Guard armories - which is where most illegal automatic weapons come from (at least before they all ended up in Iraq.)

Requiring people to report lost or stolen handguns? How do you enforce that? By prosecuting the VICTIM OF A THEFT IF AND WHEN said gun turns up in criminal hands? When you made it more valuable to steal private firearms in the first place by passing laws limiting access? When both these sources are a drop in the bucket compared to the number of weapons that change hands in general, legally or otherwise, in private transactions?

These measures are just registration under another guise - demonstrating once again that the real purpose of the sophist is to "register, then disarm."

These things aren't going to "reduce stray bullets" because they aren't going to reduce the possession of firearms in criminal hands by any measurable amount. So that appeal to emotion is worthless - and as I indicate, deliberately misleading.

"The folks who tend to support gun control measures...simply don't seem to be associated with assaults on the Bill of Rights."

I don't know where you get that idea. Most of the politicians I've seen in support of gun control are very much statists who would be happy to see the Bill of Rights trashed for their own little causes to be implemented by state coercion. They might come out and say so, but that's typical of the sophist.

Just like you, Dan S.

By the way, asshole, you can take your snark and shove it up your ass. My martial arts examples were intended to make points, which you are obviously too fucking stupid to comprehend. You're an intellectually dishonest coward who can't come out and expose your real desire to simply disarm American citizens, so you and your statist friends can impose your own notions of the way people should behave at the point of government guns.

That makes anything you say about the Bill of Rights both irrelevant and a fucking lie.

Brett has you nailed as a "would-be tyrant". Unfortunately, you're undoubtedly too far down on the totem-pole to even be considered a wannabe. You're just another Chris Ford prole bending over for the real statists.

StJoe: Nobody is saying that guns are SUFFICIENT to hold governments in check. We are saying that private weapons ownership is NECESSARY to hold governments in check.

So your whole argument goes out the window and does nothing to change the fact that that is what the Founders intended. The Founders clearly did not intend a bunch of gutless cowards to be living in this country two hundred years later. But that's what we've got.

You are probably correct that if the population were not so, they wouldn't need guns to check the government. But the Founders didn't even want to rely on that, so they made the Second Amendment.

As for civil war a la Iraq as a result, well, the Founders made that Amendment even knowing that during the Revolutionary War, thirty percent of the population were for it, thirty percent against it, and thirty percent didn't give a damn. So they were concerned that the MINORITY as well as the MAJORITY be armed if necessary.

Clearly they weren't concerned about a civil war - despite the fact that one occurred less than a hundred years later. And maybe it wouldn't have occurred if everybody in America at that time had been disarmed. Lots of luck with that theory.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 12, 2007 10:27 PM

"No, a majority of them (More likely a plurality.)are depriving the rest of them of that right. You don't need the government's help to deprive yourself of a right, you just refrain from exercising it. You go to the government if you're intent on depriving somebody else of the right, against their will.

You can't just conflate individuals like that, and pretend that because a vote has been taken, it's just peachy if the government takes away a fundamental liberty. All you're talking about is some people ganging up on some other people, NOT folks deciding what to do in their own cases."

Refraining from exercising a right is not the same as depriving yourself of that right, and you know it, Brett. It takes a chutzpah for you to rail against sophistry when you freely engage in it yourself.

I got news for you, Brett. All laws impose the will of the majority on the minority. That's the nature of democracy. Last time I looked, a law affects its supporters as much as its opponents. A law that deprives you of the right to possess a gun while residing in a city deprives me as well, regardless of whether you or I support or oppose the law. Passing laws that restrict an activity is not the same as some people ganging up on other people; this is only true if the law is designed to single you out for a restriction, while leaving me free of that same restriction.

In addition, the right to bear arms does not trump all other considerations, including the need for society to protect itself against outlaws using firearms to prey on law-abiding citizens. If an outlaw's possession of a firearm threatens all my other liberties, I have a right to impose restrictions on a outlaw's ability to bear arms.

Invoking the Constitution is not enough of an argument in this case then. What you need to show, as Richard Hack, Don Williams, and even Matt has argued, is that gun control laws passed in urban areas tend only to prevent the citizen from legitimately exercising a right to self-defense, while doing little or nothing to actually deter criminals from using guns to commit crimes. Laws that impede the ability of the citizen to provide for the security of a free State, while failing to prevent the outlaw from preying on the citizen, may or may not be unconstitutional, but they are fundamentally unsound.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 10:49 PM

No civil liberty is absolute, even the right to bear arms. So the feelings of your neighbors are extremely relevant

There are still a large number of areas where the neighbors feel threatened when an African-American family moves in. Are their feelings relevant? Or does the "scared neighbors" exception only apply to the 2nd Amendment?

I have a fear that many confrontations which occur in everday urban and suburban life would turn fatal if gun possession became widespread among the denizens of the city and suburbs.

Well, it hasn't here in Texas, despite what many liberals (including myself) predicted. In fact, it was the success of concealed carry programs in Texas that turned me into a pro-gun liberal. We're supposed to be the side that adjusts our opinions to conform to the facts, remember?

Unless of course you'd like to argue that the reason concealed carry works in Texas is because we're so mellow and peaceful compared to the rest of the country. If that's the case, go ahead; I'll be over in the corner drinking a Shiner and laughing my head off.

Posted by Dave Pooser | December 12, 2007 10:53 PM

"They NEED guns for precisely the same reason US citizens do - they can't trust their government either to not oppress them or deal with those other factions in their society that would."

Richard,

They need guns to protect themselves against the guns used by factions and governmental officials that would oppress them, but they also use guns in order to seize control of the organs of the government, and to oppress others. Like I said, widespread possession of guns is a double-edged sword. It can help prevent tyranny, and it can also enable it. In Iraq, the Sunni and Shiite militias use weapons to both protect themselves from oppression, and to engage in oppression themselves. The net effect of the lawlessness enabled by all these guns in the hands of the militias is to steadily any remaining chance of the Iraqis developing a liberal civil society.

"Claiming that the mere possession of weapons can or necessarily leads to civil strife is completely unreasonable."

I never said that mere possession of weapons leads to civil strife. I said that if outlaw elements possess a sufficient amount of firepower to resist legitimate governmental attempts at bringing about law and order, then civil strife and lawlessness arises. That's why I said that widespread possession of firearms was a double-edged sword that the Founders themselves recognized, which is why the Second Amendment is the odd man out in the Bill of Rights.

Don't forget that the impetus for junking the confederal government of the Articles of Confederation and replacing it with the federal goverment of the US Constitution was Shays Rebellion. Shays Rebellion, which was an armed uprising by farmers in Massachusetts, arose fears among the Founding Fathers about the ability of a weak national government to deal with armed insurrection. The rebellion though was put down by a Massachusetts militia, fulfilling its role of providing the security necessary for a free state. Clearly, the events of Shays' Rebellion weighed on the mind of James Madison and others when they wrote the Bill of Rights, but ultimately they decided that history showed that the dangers of disarming the populace were greater than the dangers of allowing the populace to be armed. Nevertheless, Madison and others felt it necessary to justify the right to bear arms in the very text of the Bill of Rights, unlike the other rights enumerated there.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 11:29 PM

"There are still a large number of areas where the neighbors feel threatened when an African-American family moves in. Are their feelings relevant? Or does the "scared neighbors" exception only apply to the 2nd Amendment?"

Apples and oranges, Dave. We're talking about criminals using firearms to prey on citizens, not about people moving in to neighborhoods when they are unwelcome. So, in the former, feelings are very relevant and legitimate consideration. What is more important, however, is whether a gun control actually succeeds in preventing criminals from using firearms to prey on citizens. Simple invocations of the 2nd Amendment aren't a sufficient argument against gun control. You need to show that it harms the citizen exercising exercising his rights, while doing little to protect the citizen from the criminal.

"In fact, it was the success of concealed carry programs in Texas that turned me into a pro-gun liberal. We're supposed to be the side that adjusts our opinions to conform to the facts, remember?

Unless of course you'd like to argue that the reason concealed carry works in Texas is because we're so mellow and peaceful compared to the rest of the country. If that's the case, go ahead; I'll be over in the corner drinking a Shiner and laughing my head off."

Dave,

I do alter my views to fit the facts. However, the facts include that what would work in Texas won't necessarily work in places like Chicago, particularly in its inner city. Concealed carry laws would probably work fine in the rural areas of Illinois, and maybe even the outer ring suburbs of Chicago. It could be a disaster though in a large urban environment; that's why I said that I fear that concealed carry laws in city like Chicago could make everyday confrontations more fatal. I did't say that I knew this for sure. So don't go accusing me of ignoring facts when formulating my views.

People in Chicago have gotten shot outside of Wrigley Field and Sox Park during confrontations between angry motorists and pedestrians. Somehow, I don't think that more widespread gun possession would alleviate the situation. I could be wrong though, and if you can give me some relevant data relating to a comparable urban area that shows concealed carry laws reduced incidences of fatalities in such situations, then I might be convinced that concealed carry laws in Chicago would a good idea.

Posted by eltoro | December 12, 2007 11:59 PM

" Or, as Dan S. demonstrates, a desire to be a wannabe tyrant."

Yep. I am Dan S. the great and terrible - look upon my only-12-guns-a-year-comment-thread-advocacy, puny mortal, and despair. Next stop is executing people who mix up "there," "they're," and "their" . . . actually, you know, that doesn't sound so bad . . .

"These measures are just registration under another guise - demonstrating once again that the real purpose of the sophist is to "register, then disarm."

Yep. Measures limiting folks to only one gun a month, and making them report lost or stolen guns is part of an evil plot to disarm Americans so we can stick loaded guns in their face and force them to submit to unspecified tyrannical impositions on their behavior. However, no Illuminati or Masons were harmed in the making of this conspiracy theory. Probably.

And honestly, if my real desire is to disarm American citizens so me and my statist friends can (etc.), I'm apparently the last one to know about it. I mean, "Read bedtime stories to your young children in a relaxed and happy manner, or we blow your head off, you unarmed fool!"just isn't very productive. I assume, anyway. Research appears to be lacking.

Geez - poke some folks a bit with a stick, and the crazy, it just comes pouring out.

Perhaps we should ban sticks . . .

Posted by Dan S. | December 13, 2007 12:04 AM

Re eltoro's comment "I got news for you, Brett. All laws impose the will of the majority on the minority. That's the nature of democracy "
-------------
1) No, that's the tyranny of the majority which the Founders feared and which they expressly designed the Constitution to prevent.

As the Declaration of Independence had stated , all men are endowed with INALIENABLE RIGHTS. I.e rights which can NOT be destroyed with legal sophistry.

2) Read the PREAMBLE to the Bill of Rights --the EXPLANATION for the PURPOSE of the 10 Amendments --including the Second Amendment:

"THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further DECLARATORY and RESTRICTIVE clauses should be added..."

3) The Bill of Rights are ESSENTIAL to preserve the Constitution. They define what Congress CAN NOT do -- rather than granting it the unlimited powers that eltoro claims.

The reason is that if COngress scraps the Bill of Rights, then the Constitution is dead.

4) There's a big difference between Congress governing the Country and the Process which Congress must follow in governing the Country.

That Process --the Rules which Congress must follow --can be changed only by Constitutional Amendment. For good reason. A lot of thought went into the design of that Process -- and changes should not be made lightly or without strong reflection. Other Nations have died from poor choices.

5) There's a further argument --given in the Declaration of Independence -- that some changes can NOT be made even by Constitutional Amendment -- because human rights are granted by God and may not be taken away.

There is also the argument --also given in the Declaration of Independence -- that the American People have the right --acting in unison -- to scrap the Constitution at any time. But only THEY -- not Congress -- have that right.

Posted by Don Williams | December 13, 2007 12:17 AM

"The Bill of Rights are ESSENTIAL to preserve the Constitution. They define what Congress CAN NOT do -- rather than granting it the unlimited powers that eltoro claims.

The reason is that if COngress scraps the Bill of Rights, then the Constitution is dead."

I didn't say that Congress has unlimited powers. i said that no civil liberty is absolute; the reason for this is that civil liberties can come into conflict with each other, and we must weigh which civil liberty is most important in a particular situation. Not a single one of the Bill of the Rights, even the 2nd Amendment, outweighs all of the other Bill of Rights by default in every situation. That's why I argue that simply invoking the 2nd Amendment is lazy argumentation.

If an outlaw uses firearms to prey upon me and deprive me of all of my rights, I have the right to deprive him of the ability to bear arms. The 2nd Amendment explicitly states that the purpose of the right to bears arms is to enable the existence of a well-regulated militia to protect the security of a Free State. It says nothing about giving criminals the unfettered ability to use firearms to prey on the citizen, and deprive the citizen of his rights.

BTW, if the outlaw elements of this society gain enough firepower to block even the legitimate, constitutional exercise of governmental authority, and creates widespread, unending, and unstoppable lawlessness, then the Constitution dies under that circumstance also.

Posted by eltoro | December 13, 2007 12:42 AM

Eltoro also makes some further comments , which I address in brackets:

1) Eltoro: "Don't forget that the impetus for junking the confederal government of the Articles of Confederation and replacing it with the federal goverment of the US Constitution was Shays Rebellion. Shays Rebellion, which was an armed uprising by farmers in Massachusetts, arose fears among the Founding Fathers about the ability of a weak national government to deal with armed insurrection. "

[Don: Actually, it arose from fears that the property rights of the rich might be in danger. When George Washington heard about Shay's Rebellion, his letters reflect the threat to property rights. See http://fsweb.berry.edu/academic/hass/csnider/berry/hum200/washington.htm ]

2) Eltoro: "The rebellion though was put down by a Massachusetts militia, fulfilling its role of providing the security necessary for a free state. "

[ Actually, the "militia" that put down the rebellion were a bunch of hired thugs -- hired by the eastern seaboard bankers whose predatory fucking of the western Massachusetts farmers had provoked the Rebellion.

Many of those western farmers facing foreclosures --due to high taxes levied on them by Boston -- had served in the Continental Army and had been promised lifetime pensions by Congress in exchange for years of unpaid or low-paid service. A promise that Congress broke in after the War was won. ]

3. Eltoro: "Clearly, the events of Shays' Rebellion weighed on the mind of James Madison and others when they wrote the Bill of Rights, but ultimately they decided that history showed that the dangers of disarming the populace were greater than the dangers of allowing the populace to be armed"

[Don:
a) Gun control advocates talk about Shays' Rebellion -- but seem ignorant of the Newburgh Mutiny. The 1783 plot within the Officer Corps of the Continental Army to overthrow Congress after Congress broke its promise to give pensions to those officers. A plot stirred up by Alexander Hamilton for his own purposes -- and halted at the last minute by the personal intervention of George Washington.

b) Another unit of Continental soldiers actually marched from Lancaster PA and surrounded Congress here in Philadelphia. Congressional aides got the mutinous soldiers drunk and Congress fled ..er.. under cover of darkness .. to the protection of the Princeton New Jersy militia.

c) In response, Congress adjusted its funding and A few years later the entire federal "Continental Army" consisted of about 8 or so caretakers at West Point.

d) Plus the Founders knew that the Revolutionary War had been largely won by the militias.

Circa 1781, America's wealthy were getting rich either by selling rotten horsemeat to the Continental Army at inflated prices or by trading with the British enemy. They refused to contribute enough taxes to support the Continental Army -- George Washington had to turn cannons onto his own men to put down mutinies in 1780 and Patriot war hero Benedict Arnold had came within a gnat's ass of turning the Fortress at West Point over to the British (hence control of the Hudson River , hence control of all of New England)

e) In New York , the Continental Army did little more in 1780 than sit outside New York City and discourage the British from advancing up the Hudson Valley.

In the South, the entire Continental Army had been surrounded and captured because of a stupid decision to try to protect Charleston SC --idiotic pandering to the property interests of rich merchants who wanted their warehouses protected..

f) The US Army's "American Military History" notes that the tide was turned in this discouraging situation by the frontier militias.

Guerrilla fighters under Francis Marion, Thomas Sumpter, and Andrew Pickens in the Carolinas constantly ambushed British supply lines. They also waged a war of terror -- showing that while they could not defeat Cornwallis's army, they could damm well exterminate any Loyalist who supported the British efforts to set up a puppet government.

g) The leader of a major unit of Cornwallis' Army, Major Ferguson , made the mistake of threatening the mountain people of the Carolinas, southwest Virginian and Tennessee. A large band of hillbillies assembled out of the blue, trapped Ferguson at King's Mountain and exterminated his army.

h) During the French and Indian War, Daniel Morgan had been a common wagon driver. He had coldcocked a British officer who had insulted him and had been beaten with a whip as a result. But in 1781, Daniel Morgan used a small army of militia and some Continental units to lure Cornwallis' cavalry into a trap at Cowpens -- and exterminated it. These victories -- and Greens' use of militia/Continentals at Guilford Courthouse -- was what allowed the French to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown.

i) More importantly, they convinced Dutch bankers that the North American venture was not likely to yield a profit any time soon and those bankers cut off George III's line of credit.

j) Read again the Founders criticisms of maintaining a large "standing army". They weren't talking about citizen militias.

Posted by Don Williams | December 13, 2007 1:08 AM

Some remedial reading for el toro:

The US Army's American Military History at
http://www.history.army.mil/books/amh/AMH-04.htm

(scroll down to page 87 and read from there).

The go to the next chapter and read down to page 108:
http://www.history.army.mil/books/amh/AMH-05.htm

Posted by Don Williams | December 13, 2007 1:19 AM

Oh, and for those of you who think the Department of Homeland Security is for protecting us Americans from foreign ragheads, Secretary Chertoff has just explained that he thinks We Americans are likely to be the enemy.

See http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071212/ts_nm/security_usa_dc

--------

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States faces a heightened threat of terrorist attack "for the foreseeable future" but any attack will likely be homegrown, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Wednesday.

Chertoff, who said over the summer that he had a "gut feeling" that the country faced a heightened risk of attack, said that assessment still stands.

"It's not something that's going to evaporate in a week or two. I think it's something that's going to be with us for a while," he told a small group of reporters in a phone call.

Chertoff, who is in charge of ensuring that the country does not face another attack like that of September 11, 2001, said the heightened risk was not based on any intelligence predicting a specific, imminent attack.

"I said we were beginning to enter into a period like this. And that didn't mean it was going to be a week, it meant it's for the foreseeable future," he said.

"There's probably a greater risk in terms of likelihood from a homegrown attack than from a massive international attack," he added."

------------
Hmmm. I wonder if Chertoff posts here under username "Chris Ford"????

Posted by Don Williams | December 13, 2007 1:28 AM

Don,

I'm not discounting the important role played by militias in American history. Moreover, I have acknowledged that the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to ensure that our citizen soldiers have the ability to resist a tyrannical government, and to help protect against foreign invasion. What I have questioned, though, is the default mindless invocation of the 2nd Amendment any time the issue of gun control comes up, even with measures that are aimed at preventing criminals and outlaws from having the unfettered ability to use firearms to prey on law-abiding citizens. The 2nd Amendment was clearly not intended to allow that, and gun control measures aimed at preventing criminals from having the ability to prey on the citizenry through firearms are clearly constitutional.

Posted by eltoro | December 13, 2007 1:45 AM

And you want to own a handgun because it would match your gangster fashion sweatshirt.
And all this time I thought I wanted handguns banned because I'm afraid of getting shot.
Posted by Gary Sugar

And of course the gangsta thugs will fall all over themselves to comply with a new law while ignoring existing laws. And liberal lawyers that support "gun bans" will beg that the "misunderstood youth and victim of his environment" caught the second time with a 9mm illegal gun not serve a day in jail for it.

Matt, have you ever in your coddled life spoken to a DC resident about gun control - that is, a DC resident who wasn't a graduate of an elite university who moved here for professional reasons? Do you really believe that the DC council enacted gun control legislation in order to express their dislike of American folkways? Sometimes your ignorance is charming, but today it's just ignorance.
Posted by Bloix

I think MY is more attuned to the DC residents wishes than you, you sanctimonious twit.
A faction in DC still believes that Government will solve all their needs and problems, from cradle to grave, including total protection from thugs who ignore draconian gun bans and pay little consequence when caught, especially the thugs aged 13-18.
The DC experiment has been a miserable failure. A 30-year failed experiment.

The comparisons to Europe and their gun laws are not transferable because until recently, those Euros had a cohesive society that had little crime-prone minorities. Now crime has exploded, and the UK has rates ahead of the US in armed robberies, and their own packs of minority thugs armed with knives, clubs, and more and more - illegal guns - despite laws that they should automatically obey - but don't. The average person in Wyoming owns a gun and there is no crime problem. Besides DC, states like NJ have rigorous but thug-ignored gun bans and shootings are a fact of life every night in Camden and Newark and jersey City.

=========================
eltoro - You have no clue about rural populations and the role of firearms. Rifles and shotguns are for hunting and target shooting. Pistols are for target shooting, collecting, and self defense, along with shotguns. Some military style rifles can serve as self-defense in wide open spaces, and for varmits. And there is a small group that hunts with long-barreled telescopic sight pistols. But of the firearms, the primary use of pistols is self defense when to cop is within reasonable distance to come like a white knight and defend you and your family.
And rural people and many suburbanites have plenty of pistols and in areas where they have concealed carry laws, crime has gone down significantly soon after such laws are adopted. Because then the thugs know there is a chance the woman jogger they try dragging off in the bushes may shoot their asses (Ohio woman just put what turned out to be a serial rapist-killer in a wheelchair and with colostomy and catheter the rest of his sorry life with 3 shots to the gut when he tried dragging her off)

And watch what happens when - hopefully when - the Supreme Court gives law abiding DC residents the right to defend their persons, homes, and businesses from armed thugs - given failure of government to protect them after government stripped them of self-defense rights...

=========================
And I do note that "gun bans" are the simplistic fantasy of those controllers, who tend to be the same technologically ill-informed people that believe solar will replace oil, nuclear, coal soon, who have deep faith that The People will always bow to the wishes of the judges appointed by Ruling Elites.
Guns are found freely available in many countries where sale to non-government people is prohibited except on special sufferenace of local authorities for "need to use" hunters. All it takes is sufficient demand. Similar to how effective the ban on getting cocaine or pot is..

Guns are also 14th century technology. The technologically illiterate do not have any real idea how simple and easy gun manufacture is, especially with mik'd machinery and electricity. Before we had electricity, and economy of scale thanks to Eli Whitney's interchangable components - we had several hundred small shops in America making guns by the boatload.
Today, with prints and directions readily available -any reasonably good craftsman can make a servicable handgun (the easiest to make), even shotguns and rifles with practice.

(Fascinating Discovery Channel show on the gunshops of Peshwar Pakistan was aired a few years ago. With no electricity, foot-powered machinery, they were banging out dozens of quality, rugged, accurate full-auto weapons from machine-pistols up to 50 cal machine guns daily...and doing customizing work like inlay and accurizing that the US military and US gun manufactures learned new things from.)

All a gun ban would do would be to put hundreds of people in business making fairly decent home-built weapons if enough demand exists to establish a domestic black market, or form smuggling rings. Double the handgun price, and one person running our border could get 40,000 bucks worth of pistols up to customers in a single back pack.

Also, if the US banned it's citizens from gun ownership without a bureaucrat's "permission, which is a privilege we can take away at any time for any reason - stamp" - then alternate defense weaponry would be easily made as the "secrets" percolated through the population. Means of arson, bombing thug or government concentrations with homemade high explosives, even deadly flash powders - all from common materials.....

So it is silly to claim laws will save DC residents from non-law abiding thugs. It is stupid to blame Virginia for the thugs guns intead of the thugs themselves, because if you ban all jurisdictions outside DC from private gun ownership of handguns, etc., even low-crime ones...you just shift to smuggling or a good machinist banging out 100 black market guns a week and feeding an underground market that by manufacture or smuggling from nations like China or Mexico, would eventually meet the demand.

Allow law-abiding people their Constitutional right to self defense. Allow concealed carry permits so crooks Lock up any thug, even 14 years old, caught with a gun for 10 years, mandatory. Use a gun in a felony robbery or rape, 10 years added onto whatever punishment the crime itself merits. Make it so thugs fear that each day they pack a gun might be their last day of freedom for a long, long time.

Admit gun bans, an idealistic piece of 60s and 70s social engineering, have failed to do what their supporters said they would. Failed miserably. Time for a new approach that has lowered crime dramatically where it was put in place. Increased penalties and fear in criminals and their ACLU lawyers further marginalized. Law-abiding Americans 18 and older with the right to defend themselves, concealed carry for business owners and other preferred targets of thugs.

Posted by Chris Ford | December 13, 2007 1:47 AM

I was going to quibble with a few things, Ford, but what really jumped out is that you are such a loathsome piece of shit, I'd ban your guns just because it would give you a sad face.

I own guns, I've got a Springfield from WWI that belonged to my great-grandfather, a Japanese .22 pistol that came back from WWII from my grandfather, my dad has a .50 cal M-2 he brought back somehow in a suitcase squirelled away somewhere and I would hate to see any of them gone. I've even got a pistol that chambers .410 shotgun shells or .45 ammunition that I picked up because I thought it was neat.

I'd get rid of them to make you unhappy, that's what a nasty piece of work you are.

Posted by Ed Marshall | December 13, 2007 2:09 AM

"You have no clue about rural populations and the role of firearms. Rifles and shotguns are for hunting and target shooting. Pistols are for target shooting, collecting, and self defense, along with shotguns. Some military style rifles can serve as self-defense in wide open spaces, and for varmits. And there is a small group that hunts with long-barreled telescopic sight pistols. But of the firearms, the primary use of pistols is self defense when to cop is within reasonable distance to come like a white knight and defend you and your family"

Chris Ford,

Nothing you have stated here invalidates my point that in rural areas, firearms tend to be a tool of everyday life, associated primarily with hunting and with defense against wild animals, while in urban areas firearm use occurs primarily in the context of crime, either in its commission or prevention. This different historical experience with guns in rural versus urban populations is why the divide over gun control tends to fall across urban/rural lines. Thanks for proving my point.

Conaidering how low crime rates in rural areas are compared to urban areas, the use of firearms by rural law abiding citizens to prevent crime is a rare phenomenon compared to using firearms for shooting wild animals. For you to think that generation after generation of this experience wouldn't shape the attitudes of rural residents toward guns is amazingly short-sighted on your part.

Posted by eltoro | December 13, 2007 2:12 AM

Eltoro, if your point is that the phrase "a well-regulated militia" somehow means that individual citizens are not allowed to own weapons, that is simply false.

The phrase means at least one and possibly two things:

1) It means that any militia raised from the body politic should have the means to confront any national army. This means they should have weapons and know how to use them. Most of the quotes, such as the one I mentioned, specifically suggested that every young male in the US should be trained in the use of weapons.

2) It may well also mean what you think it means - that such a militia should be "well-regulated" in order to prevent the overthrow of the central government in the absence of actual need. But I doubt that they intended the Constitution to be the instrument of THAT need.

They certainly did not intend it to be a limitation on the possession of weapons by the citizenry. They also had no specific concerns indicated by either their speeches or any other area of the Constitution that the central government should have any specific means of controlling the population's possession of weapons.

At the time, the intent was that every able-bodied man in each of the states would comprise the states militias. The militias could be called up at need and deployed. These militias would not be a ragtag mob but a military force with a command structure and training and equipped with their own personal weapons, with military weapons such as cannon supplied by the states armories.

Note that the primary point was that these militias would be comprised of men carrying their own personal weapons - much as Switzerland requires each of its citizen soldiers to possess their own (albeit state issued, I believe) military rifles and to undergo regular training with them.

You're simply reading far too much into that one phrase.

And I repeat, the mere possession of firearms does NOT contribute to the problems in other countries, in the absence of other factors. The fact that the possession of weapons is a "double-edged sword" in other countries is not relevant to the discussion of criminal behavior in the US. You are not going to see the US devolve into a "warlord" state simply because a few right wing nutcases or some inner city street gangs manage to get hold of weapons, even automatic weapons.

The science fiction genre of "cyberpunk" envisages just this sort of scenario. But nobody claims that it arises from the mere legality of the possession of weapons. It will arise from a general collapse of respect for the government at every level. as well as the influence of other factors.

One of those factors in most cyberpunk fiction is the rise of corporate mercenary armies outside the control of any government - something that the US clearly is allowing to occur in Iraq and even here in the US, if New Orleans is any indication.

I suggest that corporate mercenary armies are a far clearer danger to the democracy of the US than a bunch of private owners of handguns and rifles.

Your entire argument is bogus.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 13, 2007 4:44 AM

Eltoro: "People in Chicago have gotten shot outside of Wrigley Field and Sox Park during confrontations between angry motorists and pedestrians. Somehow, I don't think that more widespread gun possession would alleviate the situation."

This is bogus as well. Nobody is suggesting that every nutcase in the country be armed as a matter of course, even if that was what Patrick Henry would have liked to see.

Nonetheless, the fact that people should be allowed to carry firearms is not precluded by the fact that somebody will inevitably be injured or killed by firearms as a result. This is the "if it saves one life" crap which is a completely bogus argument.

The reality is that the possession and/or carrying of firearms by the citizenry - whether a majority do or not - will in a reduction in crime of particular sorts, if not a general reduction. The reduction might not be large, but the fact that the victims of muggings and the like might be armed will become a consideration for career criminals in the same manner that the mandatory five years for gun carry during a felony is a consideration - a minor one, perhaps, but it's there.

And there have been studies done which indicate that the possession of firearms in the US has had the effect on the suppression of crime in general to be the equivalent of some additional scores of thousands of police officers.

Therefore, the "if it saves one life" argument is easily refuted by referring to the fact that firearms have frequently saved lives. One classic case I recall reading about is a woman who was grabbed in a parking lot and thrown into the trunk of a car and driven to a remote area. What the assailant had in mind we'll never know, because when he opened the trunk, she put five .38 caliber bullets in him.

Going beyond that, there is Robert Heinlein's aphorism that "an armed society is a polite society". Of course, we're unlikely to realize that in toto, but to some degree the principle is correct. When disagreements can escalate to fatal encounters with armed persons, such disagreements tend to be broken off or muted much earlier in the process. Someone once said, "What about the armed gang members in my neighborhood?" The response was, "They're armed - you're polite."

The fact that some people have poor impulse control does not negate that.

Also, how many of those public gun fights we hear about are between people who are already over the borderline of crime and it is for that reason they are carrying guns in the first place?

The shootings the other day in Vegas are alleged to be over a girl - but the individuals when found are likely to be gang members or drug dealers - which is why they were armed in the first place. This places the reason for the assault not on the possession of weapons, but the possession of weapons in the wrong hands.

Which, I repeat, you CANNOT control with ANY law.

The fundamental bogus aspect of your arguments is this notion that "we can do something" and that "something" has to do with the regulation of a THING, an OBJECT.

This is completely and totally erroneous.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 13, 2007 5:06 AM

eltoro: "Not a single one of the Bill of the Rights, even the 2nd Amendment, outweighs all of the other Bill of Rights by default in every situation. That's why I argue that simply invoking the 2nd Amendment is lazy argumentation."

Nobody is simply "invoking" it or claiming that they outweigh any other Amendment (irrelevant in any case, since there is no conflict.) It was passed with a specific purpose. That purpose is still legitimate, despite all the crap about how "no citizen army could withstand the national army of the US today", which is bullshit. That it's unlikely to ever occur does not change the concept or the validity of it.

"If an outlaw uses firearms to prey upon me and deprive me of all of my rights, I have the right to deprive him of the ability to bear arms."

Which, however, you cannot do with the sole exception of incarcerating him.

So your suggestion that this fantasy outweighs the Second Amendment is bogus.

I might also point, with reference to your invocation of Shays Rebellion, two things: 1) Thomas Jefferson was of the opinion that Shays Rebellion wasn't a bad thing; 2) Massachusetts suspended habeus corpus for that emergency, besides calling out the militia - which shows just how quickly the state is prepared to dump the basics of law in any so-called "emergency."

Speaking of criminals, you may not be aware but at the time the US states were prey to (sometimes large) bands of what were called "land pirates". Think of Quantrill after the Civil War - they were something like that. Despite that, and the general dangerous nature of the times, which were hardly less dangerous - especially at the frontiers - than any major city today, the Founders had no trouble desiring that everybody be armed.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 13, 2007 5:30 AM

Unlike Ed Marshall, although I agree with him about Chris Ford in general, Chris does get this business of gun control right. Of course, he gets the law enforcement part wrong.

Of course, that's because he's a right wing nutcase and the we all know right wing nutcases are anti-gun control.

I, however, am not a right wing nut case. So I'd appreciate it if Chris would go away.

The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

Dan S. is on a par with Chris Ford for being a major asshole. unable to argue with any logic or reason, just snark. So he can bugger off as well.

Eltoro may be wrong, but he at least is trying to hold a civilized discussion. I appreciate the effort.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 13, 2007 5:41 AM

" Dan S. is on a par with Chris Ford for being a major asshole. unable to argue with any logic or reason, just snark. So he can bugger off as well."

Y'know, I'd actually feel somewhat chastised if Hack hadn't almost immediately broken out the standard 'They're coming to take your guns!!!!1!' hysteria, and started ranting on about my evil statist friends or something. (Also, if he wasn't flipping out in part because I unkindly mocked his use of GI Joe comic-sourced ninja parables . . .

Posted by Dan S. | December 13, 2007 6:59 AM

Can we all agree that however one feels about the merits of gun-control, the District’s tightest-in-the-nation gun laws are unlikely to tell us much about the actual costs and benefits of gun control, seeing as we share a border with Virginia?

Can someone please ask Mr. Avent to explain why Alexandria, VA, essentially an adjoining suburb of Washington, D.C. and a city in a state with "lax gun laws" up to and including legal open carry, has a homicide rate that is a tiny fraction of D.C.'s?

What other evidence does he need that the "tightest-in-the-nation gun laws" are pretty damned useless at actually reducing gun violence?

Posted by Kevin Baker | December 13, 2007 9:37 AM

[...] my dad has a .50 cal M-2 he brought back somehow in a suitcase squirelled away somewhere and I would hate to see any of them gone.

er... unless that M-2 has a lot of official paperwork to make it legal to own, or else is very thoroughly deactivated indeed, i would be extremely careful about admitting to any knowledge of what might possibly be interpreted as a fully automatic weapon sitting around in somebody's attic. the BATF have historically frowned severely on unregistered fully-autos of every kind, and they're ten-year federal felonies if your fingerprints are found on 'em.

of course, your dad took a cutting torch to several crucial, difficult to repair components of that M-2 very shortly after the war, such that it cannot possibly fire. naturally, he's the sort of conscientious person who would have remembered to do that. you and i know that, but the government might not.

Posted by Nomen Nescio | December 13, 2007 10:10 AM

How many people who are in policy-setting positions in the Democratic party did not receive a high-end education? Probably not too many.

As that illustrious Harvard grad Marion Barry was fond of noting, before we retired to the local Motel 6 to snort coke off of hookers' asses.

Posted by brooksfoe | December 13, 2007 12:03 PM

I wish the people in this country would get rid of the idea that the government of this country is obligated to protect you as an individual, or that is has any obligation to secure your rights from other citizens.

The government, whether it be city, state, or federal, must concern itself with the population as a whole. Thanks to certain programs over the years, folks have gotten this idea in their head that somehow the government is obligated to help an individual out for that individuals sake.

Eltoro, who seems to be the only person here arguing for gun control with something approaching logic, asks if it is wiser to allow a city to enact controls in order to shield its residents. I can see the appeal to this line of thinking, however, despite what the city politicians might think or feel, a city government has no obligation to protect the residents. Police are reactionary, they investigate crimes and arrest suspects to be held for trial. It is great when the police can intervene in a crime and protect citizens, but it is too much to ask of them to clean up the streets of crime.

If a neighborhood wants to be free of crime, the residents of that neighborhood MUST be willing to take the risks needed to confront the criminal element and convince them to leave. Police are generally more than willing to help a neighborhood do this, but the police can not do it alone, and in many cases, will not even try. There are not enough of them and when the residents of a neighborhood fail to co-operate out of fear or mistrust, then the police will leave the neighborhood to rot and try to contain it.

Of course, the residents then plead for protection, but complain when the police respond and enforce curfews and randoms searches, and the other things police need to do to get a handle on crime. The police are in a no win situation.

The thing missing here is the courage of the residents. They most certainly outnumber the criminals, and most likely have all the intelligence they need to crack a criminal network, but lack the courage to do it themselves.

How many times have we seen movies and heard stories based on true events whee the courage of a neighborhood was more than equal to the task of removing a criminal element, many times without even the need for violence. Removing or restricting guns does not solve the problem, as these are merely tools that are used be criminals to cow the locals. If the guns leave, other tools will be employed. Bombs are very easy to make and kill much more indiscriminately than a gun does, and illicit even more fear.

If the residents are unwilling to do what it takes to stand up for themselves, how can they honestly expect others to do it for them on a continuing basis.

I apologize if this seems rambling, it's been a long day.

Posted by MadRocketScientist | December 13, 2007 10:52 PM

"They certainly did not intend it to be a limitation on the possession of weapons by the citizenry. They also had no specific concerns indicated by either their speeches or any other area of the Constitution that the central government should have any specific means of controlling the population's possession of weapons.

At the time, the intent was that every able-bodied man in each of the states would comprise the states militias. The militias could be called up at need and deployed. These militias would not be a ragtag mob but a military force with a command structure and training and equipped with their own personal weapons, with military weapons such as cannon supplied by the states armories."

Richard,

I am not advocating for a limitation on the possession of weapons by the citizenry as a whole; I am seeking to limit the possession of weapons by those who would prey on the citizenry using firearms. I'm not one of those controllers who want to eradicate gun possession throughout this country, even from law-abiding citizens. I just question the wisdom of passing laws in urban areas that would encourage the widespread possession of firearms by the citizenry. I admit that i could very well be wrong; it's possible that concealed carry laws in cities like Chicago would make urban life safer for its law-abiding citizens. I'm not a dogmatist on this issue at all. I am well aware that legal gun possession in cities like Chicago was far more widespread in their pasts, when their crime rates were far lower. If gun control measures don't actually prevent criminals from using guns, there's no point to them. If encouraging responsible gun possession among law-abiding actually works better than gun control measures, then I will support measures like concealed carry laws. Widespread legal possession was not incompatible with city life in the past; it may still be compatible now.

My real disagreement with you, Don, and Brett is over the idea that any and all gun control measures are inherently unconstitutional. I simply don't buy that, because of the way the 2nd Amendment is worded. Even you admit that the intent of the Founders with the 2nd Amendment was create and maintain an expansive system of militias, not ragtag mobs. The Founders never intended for the 2nd Amendment to impede the legitimate exercise of governmental power, making state and local governments impotent in the face of armed lawlessness. Clearly, gun control measures can pass the constitutionality test, so long as they are narrowly tailored to deal with the problem of armed lawlessness.

However, I do agree with you that as a practical matter, most gun control measures, even when they are intended solely to deal with criminals, tend to affect only the law-abiding citizen. So even if they pass the constitutionality test, they impose an unfair burden on law-abiding citizens, and do nothing to inconvenience the criminal. The exception to this, as you have noted, are laws that make punishments for offenses involving firearms more severe. It seems then that propents of gun control should limit themselves to the modest goal of making the penalties for violent crimes using guns more severe. Gun control laws work best as a punitive measure, not as a measure of deterrence.

Posted by eltoro | December 14, 2007 11:22 AM

1) I don't think there is any question that the Founders would have agreed that, if you possess a firearm, you are in a shitload of trouble if you use that firearm illegally.

They had no problem with suppressing rebellion by a MINORITY faction -- see what they did with the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.

Although that Rebellion was triggered by --and somewhat justified by -- the dirty corruption of New York City's sainted Alexander Hamilton.

2) But the plutocrats behind the Constitutional Convention conspiracy wanted to hedge their bets -- lest they lose control of the new central government. So they rigged the game with several controls:

a) Senators could block many actions except with an overwhelming majority -- and Senators were APPOINTED by the State legislatures, not elected by the people.

b)Congress can only allocate military funding for its term of office -- it cannot fund the military far into the future. That is, it cannot make the military independent of funding from future Congresses.

c) Finally, CONGRESS controls who commands the militias -- the state governors or the President. Congress also ensures that roughly 40% of the military's combat units are made up of the organized militia -- the National Guard.

So if Congress impeachs the President -- and the President ignores the guilty judgement, refuses to leave office and tries to use the federal military to become dictator -- then Congress can flee to the protection of the state governors. Just as it had to flee to the protection of the Princeton New Jersey militia from the Continental Army.

d) Since the founding of the Republic, the militia has been defined as all males of military age (18-46). (Actually, it used to be all WHITE males of military age ..heh heh).

e) If the arms of the militia are all collected into a few armories, then the militia may be disarmed simply by sudden seizure of those armories. As the British tried to do at Lexington. But if the arms of the militia are dispersed across 300 million people, then no one can clandestinely disarm the militia -- the protector of Congress and State governments -- without the alarm being given.

3) That , in turn, discourages any men of ill will from even attempting to impose a dictatorship.

Just because many people --including the arrogant owners of the New York Times -- are ignorant of the mechanisms which protect their freedom does not mean that those mechanisms do not exist.

4) The thing which so infuriated NRA members was that the arrogant proponents of gun control depicted anyone raising these concerns as lunatic gun nuts , even those some of the top experts in Constitutional theory -- Lawrence Tribe and Akail Amar -- agree with the NRA.

The leaders of the gun control faction have never concealed their desire to confiscate all firearms from private ownership.

Posted by Don Williams | December 14, 2007 1:38 PM

Matt,
I want to thank you for this post explaining your pro-gun toting position. I also like the picture very much.
Of course the idea that the enforcement of inner city gun laws in impractical is total silliness. absolute, unabashed silliness.

Posted by bend | December 14, 2007 7:02 PM