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Charlton Heston's Hands Are Neither Dead nor Cold

April 23, 2007 10:23 AM

ne of my favorite things to do is read the opinion section in student newspapers. This has never been more enjoyable than in college, where the Lumberjack provided some of the worst-written, most incoherent student opinions ever. Good times, good times.

Here at the UW, I usually read the Badger Herald opinions because, well, the Daily Cardinal sucks. Yesterday, I picked up the Friday issue of the Badger Herald and flipped to the opinion section. What I saw was shocking only because of its predictability: a student wrote a piece arguing that the Second Amendment is out of date.

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, it's not surprising that people are advocating that we reexamine or gun policies. It's also not surprising that some people are taking this opportunity to argue that we should ban guns all together. So, although it's a rather cliche topic, and others have done a better job, I'd like to offer my thoughts on the whole debate.

I don't think the Second Amendment is out of date. In fact, I'd probably be in favor of expanding gun rights, although I wouldn't oppose more thorough background checks.

You hear a lot about how we need the Second Amendment to protect ourselves from our government or, as Homer Simpson put it, the King of England. This position has always struck me as a bit paranoid and, frankly, stupid. While our forefathers actually rose of in rebellion against England and thought it was appropriate and necessary to periodically raze the government, I can't imagine myself ever taking up arms against another country or my own government. So this particular justification, while feasable in a historic sense, is not compelling to me.

There's also a lot of talk about how we need guns to protect ourselves. I don't have any statistics on this, but I bet guns are rarely used in this way. I can remember one news story about a normal guy with a gun bringing down a guy on a shooting spree, but I don't remember it well enough to do a search to offer a link. In any event, I don't know how often this would come into play, so I don't know how compelling it is as a justification.

Another common argument is that the only people who would give up their guns if they were illegal are law-abiding citizens; the criminals would keep their weapons. As long as the police are allowed to use guns, though, I don't see what the problem here would be, partly because I don't know how often gun-wielding citizens stop crime. Still, this sort of argument doesn't hold much weight with me.

What I start to find compelling is the relative rarity of gun-related deaths. Although I don't have a source to link to, one of the commenters on the Badger Herald site mentions that there were just over 11,000 gun-related murders in America in 2001. I'm fairly certain that the number of car-related deaths far outstrips that number, yet we don't hear too much about outlawing automobiles.

Of course, the car and the gun are instantly distinguishable: the car is the backbone of modern life. It probably saves more lives than it costs. In other words, the car's usefulness justifies its costs. Not so for the gun, some would argue. But I don't think this is a fair argument.

Our right to own a gun isn't about how useful gun owership is. There are always going to be people who use guns for bad purposes, just as there will always be people who use screwdrivers, shovels, nailguns, lead pipes, concrete blocks, arsenic, rope, and icepicks for bad purposes. Almost anything can be a murder weapon. It is important that our government allows us to own something that has almost no purpose other than to kill. It is a mark of trust and understanding. It is the ultimate symbol of our recognition that we value freedom above all other things.

Legal speech can be indirectly deadly. Requiring a warrant for a search means that, sometimes, guilty people escape. Giving people the right not to incriminate themselves means that, sometimes, guilty people are acquitted. All of these provisions represent the policy that, in this country, you are free to do what you want unless there's damned good reason to curtail your freedom.

Reasonable people may, of course, disagree, but I don't see a good enough reason, even in the face of recent tragic events, to curtail the individual's right to protect himself, his home, his family, his peace of mind, his freedom, or his guns with a gun.



6 Comments


New Guy said:

There's another distinctive difference between guns and cars, the purpose of creating them. Automobiles, save for the rare and awesome exception of tanks, are not created to kill or maim. Sometimes, it's not what you do, but what you are meant to do. Though, just to be clear, I'm not for banning all guns, just them assault weapons.

April 23, 2007 1:53 PM



Utah said:

My thoughts on gun control are pretty well known so I'm not going to give the whole speech about how gun control strips only the law abiding of the ability to use guns to protect themselves. It pisses me off to no end when people scream about gun violence and then expect the mere act of outlawing firearms to protect people from gun-related deaths. That's like saying the act of making drugs illegal has made our nation drug-free. I think the Second Amendment serves an important crime deterrent purpose and helps people enjoy things like hunting, sport shooting, and facilitates the feeling of safety, which I feel is the largest part of safety itself. And although I know you'll disagree with me, I think that a historical deterrent still exists in allowing citizens to own guns and prevent a tyrant from ruining the constitutional protections of our democracy.

Finally, what is this hippy also against cripples walking again?? Evidence conclusively proves that gun legs are the way of the future for those unfortunately amputated and provides effective deterrence against zombie attacks.

April 23, 2007 4:32 PM



tRJ said:

You might enjoy this infographic, which shows the most common gun-related death to be white, male suicide.

And, as you would expect, I am all for the guns, even the big ones.

April 23, 2007 5:25 PM



Ismael Tapia II said:

That is a really interesting graphic, and perhaps surprising--who knew that was the group with the most gun-related deaths.

I, too, am for all guns, including the big ones. In my younger days, I said people should be allowed to have harrier jets in their front yards and, to a certain degree, I still think that.

April 23, 2007 5:56 PM



Dangerous Mind said:

You know, when I was in college in VA, I was once told that "if the Jews had been allowed guns, then the Holocaust would've never happened."

But more to the point, I think you raise an interesting point about how gun ownership is a mark of the trust our government puts in the people. I'd like to think that's historically true, and that the Second Amendment isn't just the result of constant threats of attacks by Native Americans and the Spanish, English, and French armies around the original 13 states.

At the same time, I think this is the first point where I completely disagree with you. It's probably just a function of my upbringing, but I am very firmly against gun ownership/use. I can understand their use in larger cities as a security blanket of sorts, and I respect that; however, I don't think that they have a place in suburbia, except as an invitation for misuse and accidents by the uneducated masses. (As an aside, one of my sister's friends shot himself while curiously playing with a gun - he was 15 years old and a police officer's son that "definitely should've known better".)

April 23, 2007 6:23 PM



TheExpat said:

As a long-time gun owner in the US, I feel I should chime in here.

Dangerous Mind brings up an interesting issue with his ideas of locale determining availability/legality of gun ownership. Where should guns be legal? I would argue that the countryside is at least as dangerous as a city, however, seeing that people and places are fewer and far betweeen, allowing for discrete acts of violence by bad folks. Personally, I disagree on the suburbia assessment, but I do think restrictions are well within the realm of common sense with regards to bars, libraries, hospitals, arenas, buses, trains and other public use areas and vehicles. When I say 'restriction', I mean everything from exclusion of particular parties to outright bans depending on context.

I am a pro-2nd Amendment kind of guy, though I believe that gun education should determine availability, and should be more strictly administered. This is not to say that I think the government should administer and register every new gun owner (like the ATF does now), but rather that private companies should be enpowered to restrict/allow legal gun ownership through training and psychological evaluation, while only being periodically audited by the state for regulatory compliance.

This is similar to how the police decide if they want to give you a badge. Are you able to use your gun properly? What what context are guns appropriate? Are you a completely insane bag of shit hell bent on killing others? This is the kind of methodology I support for safer legal gun ownership.

As for illegal, I agree with Ismael that there are always going to be people who look at a gun, shovel, ice pick, etc. and think, 'hey, I could totally off somebody with this thing'. Some problems have no ultimate solution that works in all cases. That is, except of course when Chuck Norris is involved.

April 24, 2007 3:09 AM



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