Well, not really, to the extent that I’d prefer to be positioned behind a gun than in front…
But as of late I’ve realized I am not nearly as opposed to gun ownership and as strong a fan of gun control as I had been in the past. This kind of surprised me, because at age 47 its been a while since I’ve really changed my basic position on any significant public policy issues. Also, my anti-gun position seemed to mesh pretty well with my being far on the left of just about any and all social and political debates.
I can think of 2 reasons contributing to my feeling more favorably towards private gun ownership. Or at least 2 facets of a single reason - my revulsion at the route our country has taken over the past several years.
First, I am absolutely disgusted at the manner and extent to which we have allowed our privacy and civil liberties to be infringed upon in this so-called “War on Terror.” It is such a helpless feeling to see the Courts uphold ever-increasing police powers and reduced personal privacy. As I see my rights being eroded in this respect, the idea of exercising my right to gun ownership has some appeal. And I see some utility to acting now before THAT right is eroded. NRA-type arguments I had previously considered silly no longer seem quite so unrealistic…
My second reason is also sort of related to my disgust at the current administration and its policies - including what I consider the inexcusable and reprehensible war in Iraq. In the US the power to govern is suppose to result from the consent of the governed. But it seems to me that that consent is only meaningful if there is some real capability of withdrawing it. No, I’m not recommending armed rebellion against our electede officials and armed services. But for whatever reason recent events have caused me to interpret the 2d Amendment differently than I had previously, which was primarily as an archaic vestige of the civilian militias.
Not sure there is much of a debate here, but I posted in GD because gun threads often end up here.
I reached a similar conclusion years ago when it finally dawned on me that the 2nd amendment was written and approved by people who had recently overthrown their government using privately-owned weapons.
Do you believe that private ownership of guns as currently understood in America could ever had any real effect on a government with as much firepower as the U.S. government currently has?
Have you considered that if shooting actually started, those armed citizens may, in some cases, come down against civil liberties rather than for them?
Good questions. And I think my constitutional interpretation is much more symbollic than realistic. But as I perceive my freedoms being restricted in numerous ways, the idea of exercising the ones I can has some appeal for this old liberal.
Re: 1, no - I don’t think the public will ever be sufficiently armed or organized to contest the military. But it does not strike me as entirely unrealistic to suppose that private gun ownership and the remote possibility of even limited armed resistance might at least make some of the worst government excesses less likely.
Re: 2, sure. But I guess I was thinking that strict and strictly enforced gun use penalties might be a better approach than any attempts at regulation/restriction.
Convicted of having a gun on your person while committing a crime - automatic 10 years in jail. 2d offense, life w/o parole. Of course, we may need to let all the dangerous potheads and hookers out of jail to make room…
There’s an old saw- something about scratching a Republican and finding a Democratic underneath, and that Democrats are non-cynical Republicans . . .
More or less this is what it refers to. “Guns should be controlled because it’s not a useful freedom, it’s not like there would ever be a need to overthrow the government.”- Idealistic POV.
Cynical POV- “Well, just in case, because if we’re ready and able to do it, then we probably won’t have to.”
Everything is a public health hazard. Oxygen adds free radicals, and those’re bad, mmkay? We regulating oxygen now?
Shortly, there’s a line that is picked as to what is a sufficient health hazard vs. an acceptable risk- like allowing people to drive. Cars are deadly weapons in the hands of the inattentive, much less the malicious.
Just because your picked line is on one side of the issue does not a priori mean that all things you have deemed unacceptable are the set of all things unacceptable, because you’re still allowing things that are dangerous.
It always means more to you when you come to those sorts of conclusions yourselves. All the attempts at persuasion in the world mean nothing if you don’t take it inside yourself. Good for you.
I do like your ideas on criminal penalties for people who commit crimes using weapons. That has long been a position that I have held, that the right confers a responsibility that must not be abused.
Now, be prepared to defend your position. It’s not easy to do sometimes, but you’ve already demonstrated strength of character by starting this thread. Good luck with that, and don’t let yourself get dragged down into the rhetoric. Tell people what you think.
I was thinking aobut this recently in relation to my position on drug legalization- which is basically: every substance should be legal so that it can be regulated and so that grievances can be redressed in civil court. It’s a particular bit of universalism that doesn’t occur much in my political thoughts.
However, I have trouble extending the same universalism to weapons. I feel like people ought to be able to own and shoot guns. But I’d rather that private individuals not have bombs and mass destructive weaponry like missiles, mortars, etc. Why? I don’t know.
I realize that here you have the beginnings of a slippery slope argument, but except for the truly fringe, many of us stake out some territory on that slope when it comes to private ownership of weapons. Because a weapon is fundamentally different than a drug, or a car, or whatever- it is designed to cause damage and misapplied, it can cause mayhem.
I further realize that there isn’t a huge secondary market in larger arms, at least not in America- but is regulation the reason for that?
No answers here, just thoughts that the OP inspired.
For me, it’s the fact that arms are designed so that a) They need loading, and b) The trigger needs pulling.
Most explosives will go off under the right circumstances, removing both “safeguards” from the equation. Hence, I do not feel these should be available unregulated. There’s no guarantees unless an expert, and even then it’s risky without the proper tools.
Am I the only one who sees the irony that it’s a pro-gun administration that you clearly disagree with that has made you more pro-grun (or less anti-gun, however you want to put it).
Either way, the conclusions you’ve reached are pretty close to my reasoning why I believe the Second Amendment was drafted in the first place and is still necessary. And to add was Airman Doors said, it’s notable of your character that you’ve taken the time to re-evaluate what was probably a pretty strongly held position. These sorts of issues tend to be very tender issues that are rare for people to actually give honest reconsideration to, much less change. So, it speaks highly of your integrity and open-mindedness that you not only did so, but posted about it. FWIW, I’d like to hope I’d say something similar if you’d changed to an opinion with which I disagree, but for similar reasons.
I’ve come to a somewhat dichotomous attitude towards guns.
Back in the days before we needed to be paranoid about the Bush Administration, I thought it made sense to humor the gun nuts and their desire to have weapons to fight back against a totalitarian takeover.
The way I figured it, you’d principally need rifles to fight back against an army of jackbooted thugs. Handguns might help, but they’d be incidental.
OTOH, handguns are the weapon of crime. Hardly anyone holds up a gas station attendant with a rifle.
The upshot: I’d like to see universal handgun registration (and further regulation as needed) to control street crime, and would be happy to let long guns go unregistered, unregulated, untracked (no record of sale required, etc.) in exchange, so that the Federal, state, and local governments have no record of who has what long guns.
Now, I certainly think that this is a reasonable argument for things like semi-auto .50-caliber rifles being freely available everywhere (which they are, mostly :D). Civil rights aside, there’s not even any benefit to regulating something that’s never been a threat to public safety in the first place. But I’m honestly not sure that handgun registration would even do much good.
A lot of handguns used in crimes are illegally obtained anyway. What steps can be taken to ensure that criminals register their handguns, without forcing repressive controls on the law-abiding?
Yes, absolutely it does and would. It’s not necessarily about armed uprisings in the streets and tanks rolling through Times Square. It’s more about the difference it makes when the standard issue is kicking down your door. It creates at least a thought that people are not passive subjects, with the sole method of force in the hands of the authorities.
It doesn’t have to be guns, but that is how it has developed in the US. It could be a powerful labor movement, but that has never really been present here. The British Army could have cleared a path through Cable Street and allowed Moseley to march down there, but the resistance of the people created sufficient costs of such action that it would have been politically impossible. Similarly, an armed population, even if it is incapable of successfully fighting against the authorities, can tilt the cost calculation sufficiently to alter governmental decisions.
If a gun is illegally obtained, what does that suggest to you?
Must’ve started off somewhere legal, right?
You simply require the legal owner to verify possession of his handguns at regular intervals, and report any missing handguns to the cops at that time. Failure to report = partial liability for any crimes committed with the gun.
There’s nothing that can be done about the handguns that are already in the hands of criminals that is anywhere near 100% reliable, but remember those gun-buyback programs from a couple of decades ago? Could modify them to buy back unregistered handguns, no questions asked. You might never completely eliminate the supply of unregistered handguns, but over time it could be substantially reduced.
No point in throwing out the good because it isn’t perfect, or because it may take some time to have a serious effect. Unless, of course, there’s a faster, more effective alternative.
