Context Makes Some Gun Control Good Libertarian Policy
I replied to a friend who emailed me—enthusiastically—a NewYorker.com essay (August 5, 2019) entitled “After El Paso and Dayton: Three Ways to Think about Mass Shooting.”
Since, as I wrote to my friend, the author, Adam Gopnik, makes only arguments with the left-liberal “good housekeeping seal of approval,” I need not repeat them, here.
This is what I wrote:
Yes, Gopnik is archetypal left-liberal in every view. His recent book’s title says it all: A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventures of Liberalism. I would change only one word, adding “in” before “sanities.” So obvious to most of us.
Some one percent of gun-related deaths in America are in mass shootings. The other 99 percent, give or take, are not.
Obviously, you find Gopnik convincing. In some ways, I do, too. He would have done better without the politically correct slam at the President as “the racist in the White House.” According to polls, a majority of Americans (like me) say their first-hand experience is that no racist messages are coming to Trump supporters. Only endless reiteration of the need to uphold entry and immigration laws—and then, to change them. And that millions of illegals from crime-ridden nations inevitably include many thousands of criminals. And human trafficking as such—actively promoted by the left-liberal message of “amnesty” and permitted by overwhelmed law enforcement—is fraught with violence.
Trump supporters have first-hand knowledge that Gopnik is flatly wrong. They rightly conclude Gopnik is expressing, in his gun-control arguments, that same political bias and craving to defeat Trump. Thus, though some of his arguments are plausible, we tend to receive them as predictable left-liberal propaganda.
Where are the gun-related deaths—really?
Some one percent of gun-related deaths in America are in mass shootings. The other 99 percent, give or take, are not. And so … when the argument that the Second Amendment is nugatory, even ridiculous, rests on that intolerable one percent of gun-related deaths, we ask: What about all the others, which are inflicted in the course of violent crimes? (Topping the list of causes is suicide.)
In an AVERAGE weekend in Chicago and other cities, there are dozens of shooting deaths—more than El Paso and Dayton combined.
In an AVERAGE weekend in Chicago and other cities, there are dozens of shooting deaths—more than El Paso and Dayton combined. Chiefly, they are committed in the course of crimes by African Americans against other African Americans. (Black Lives Matter, about a few percent of gun-related deaths in the course of law enforcement, is intended as a smoke screen over the African-American slaughter with guns.)
I realize, though, that Gopnik is tactically restricting his argument, at least for now, to assault weapons and large magazines. They are truly fearsome when directed at masses of helpless civilians. Monstrous. But, he says, then, that claiming our right of self-defense against such attacks is foolish. We would be carrying handguns. Actually, in Dayton, police racing to the scene killed the perpetrator, with his assault rifle, in one-half minute after he started firing. And they are credited with preventing dozens of additional murders. But with a modified assault weapon and about 250 rounds of ammunition, firing at more than one round a second, the killer had managed to kill or injure dozens.
So, how are handguns not a defense if, say, a dozen people on the scene in El Paso or Dayton had been intelligent, mature men and women carrying a gun? And well aware, obviously, that someday they could be caught up instantly in mass slaughter and would have to act swiftly and decisively in a crowded area? The Dayton police responded magnificently in less than half a minute; but half a minute was too long. Seeing the shooter arrive with the rifle is when to start taking him down.
To me, that sounds infinitely preferable to throwing your body over your child and dying protecting it—with your husband dying, in turn, to protect you and child—the horrifying, enraging El Paso example cited by Gopnik.
I would choose not to be slaughtered without a chance. Much rather go down firing back.
(I would choose not to be slaughtered without a chance. Much rather go down firing back.) Gopnik cites one quirky example, a former police officer, who said that attachment to guns is a kind of mystical, thrilling high. Gopnik actually thinks so and recommends old guitars and such as substitutes.
And, please note, this entire discussion of self-defense relates to one percent of gun-related deaths—those caused by mass shooters. Overwhelmingly, when we talk about self-defense we mean in the home, at a small business, in a car, and on the street.
“A well-regulated militia being necessary …”
Gopnik uses the “right to bear arms” as part of a citizen militia, a clause in the Second Amendment, to dismiss the general right to gun ownership. But he seems, then, to scoff at the notion that guns might be pertinent to organized citizen militias. Indeed, he sneers at the “climate” that gives rise to the idea of well-armed citizen militias.
Many of the rest of us know there is widespread thoughtful concern among millions of Americans, today, that for well over half a century American government has been sliding toward an interventionist/welfare state that if not reversed will attain the proportions of fascist-style socialism (National Socialism/ Nazism).
Jews and other Poles who died fighting back against the Nazis at the very end of the war—in the Warsaw Ghetto—were desperately short of weapons, not least because the Nazis had made it illegal—of course!—for citizens to carry weapons. Only Nazi troops, guards, police, and other Nazi units carried arms.
Those in the Warsaw Ghetto obtained weapons at the cost of suicidal assaults on Nazi troops, police stations, and other depots to seize weapons. With them, they delivered astonishing punishment to the occupying Nazis before they were destroyed.
Seems far-fetched, doesn’t it? America?
It Can’t Happen, Here was written by Sinclair Lewis in 1935, the heyday of fascism triumphant across Europe. Many writers since, not least Ayn Rand in her novel, Atlas Shrugged, have taken up the theme in convincing detail.
For me, omnipresent ideologists of Adam Gopnik’s persuasion, Antifa’s “direct action” (street violence) against ideas it finds threatening, Bernard Sanders and other Democratic presidential candidates, and much else makes it conceivable we could find ourselves facing a highly repressive government.
Is there any misinterpreting the self-righteous harangues by leftist Democratic candidates? Demanding sweeping government takeover of the U.S. economy? Venezuela-style expropriation of wealth and major corporations? Regulation to the vanishing point of industries such as energy? Enactment of social strictures regulating all personal (e.g., sexual) relations and business relations? Plans already far advanced to make schools breeding farms for postmodernist, politically-correct Americans? Systematic legal suppression of the white race and white males on behalf of people of color—a postmodernism ideological mainstay already universal in higher education?
I see no stated or implied limits in principle on the part of those who would use government social engineering to force America into the straitjacket of their vision of the postmodern socialist utopia.
The right to bear arms in the libertarian context
I did begin this commentary, however, with a concession that I found some of Gopnik’s arguments persuasive. Shooting deaths in America are a huge multiple (25X is commonly cited) of such deaths in other developed countries, although it is not limited to mass shootings with assault weapons, as I explained above.
Still, mass shootings are becoming more frequent and deadlier than ever. And they are made possible by assault rifles and their use by killers against crowds of men, women, and children going about their day.
I maintain that the Second Amendment must be taken literally—as stated. But, in addition, gun ownership is inseparable from the broader principle of political liberty: freedom of choice, ownership, and action within the limits imposed by equal rights of others. This liberty is not negated by illegal, even monstrous, actions of others. Preventive law is incompatible with the concept of human rights.
But “literal” does not mean without any context. As Ayn Rand said, nothing can be understood without context. For example, the right to freedom of the press has a context. Other rights exclude slander and libel from protection as freedom of the press. The legitimate role of government in national defense excludes publication of secret national security information from protection as freedom of the press. In the first instance, the limiting factor is the larger context of human rights; in the second instance, the limiting factor is a demonstrable requirement of government in the exercise of a legitimate function defending citizen rights.
The right to ownership of guns is sanctioned only in a society committed to rights. One implication is that retaliatory exercise of force is delegated to government with the mandate that it be exercised under objective principles. By the nature of that delegation of the right to use of retaliatory force, the government—specifically police forces—must control possession and use of arms. If they cannot, then effective exercise of retaliatory force by the police cannot be guaranteed. Of course, delegation of responsibility to police does not negate the right to self-defense in their absence. But the context implies weapons sufficient to such self-defense.
I am persuaded to consider restrictions on civilian possession of military weapons designed for rapid mass killing of people.
At this point, I am persuaded to consider restrictions on civilian possession of military weapons designed for rapid mass killing of people. Genuine militias, of course, must retain the Second Amendment right to organize themselves with an explicit structure and rules for operating in emergencies where the police no longer are carrying out their function. Such an emergency could be when police are rendered incapable of their function (invasion or revolution, say) or no longer operating on principles of protecting rights (a dictatorship, say, or a putsch to overthrow duly constituted authority).
Armed resistance to dictatorship is far more politically complex than “civilians battling tanks and fighter jets.” Reaction of troops to widespread armed resistance by citizens, impossibility of governing with organized local resistance in city and town, what police and National Guards would choose to do, effect on foreign powers, and limits on use of military weapons in areas where military families and relatives live: These and other considerations make the statement “Civilians can’t fight the army” a parody of the case for armed resistance to dictatorship.
Limitations on types of civilian weapons in context
Let us try a ban on military-style weapons and large magazines under a law enacted for a decade with automatic lapse after 10 years unless renewed by a two-thirds vote of Congress. It is almost certain we would save hundreds or thousands of lives that otherwise would be blown away, wasted, by evil individuals with uniformly despicable motives.
Details of implementation would follow best practices in other countries or states. A ban on all sales of military style weapons and ammunition, a ban on transporting either, and a standing offer to buy back weapons and ammunition would not be 100 percent effective immediately. But it would be the beginning of the end. After all, the carnage of mass shooting traces back at least to the 1920s and keeps accelerating. Is that because murderous anger, group conflict, and violent games and movies, for example, have created a “culture” of deranged killers? Then don’t provide them with state-of-the-art weapons for mass killing.
It is far from certain we would lose anything, assuming legislation formulated to uphold the militia’s right to bear arms and individual gun ownership—but within the context of a nation where police forces in principle must be capable of protecting us. The record uniformly shows that a form of violence against which there is no effective police protection is the sudden mass shooting initiated by a deranged murderer. Both the Dayton and El Paso shootings demonstrate that mass shooting with military-style weapons simply cannot be handled by police before many people already are dead.
And keep in mind a proposed law would not have to prevent people who might find themselves in such a nightmare from carrying a handgun. In fact, the legislation probably should make it a right, overriding state and local laws, to carry a concealed handgun after appropriate background checks and such. If self-defense has not significantly deterred criminals, as sometimes claimed, it may be because most heavily populated places, including New York, make concealed carry prohibitively difficult.
How about a deal, Adam?
About the Author: Walter Donway
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