In the wake of the shooting in Colorado, my mom voiced a
question I expect many people are asking right now.
"Can someone please tell me why the NRA would defend
anyone's ‘Constitutional Right’ to own two 40-caliber Glock handguns, a
Remington 870 single-barrel pump shotgun, and a Smith and Wesson AR-15
assault-style rifle? Benjamin Gorman, I just don't get it!"
I owe my mother an explanation, partly because I'm her son
and she asked, partly because I'm a gun owner who was raised to fear and detest
guns (especially handguns), but mostly because, when I got my
concealed-and-carry permit and they asked me for the name of reference, I wrote
down my mom's name. I think she deserves a reply.
Mom's question is actually three questions. Why should
anyone have these guns? Should this be a right? And, if it is a right, why
should the NRA defend that right?
First off, let's address those guns specifically. I don't
own a Glock because there are specific things I don't like about them, but I
have a Ruger 9mm semi-automatic handgun. I don't have an AR-15, but I have a
carbine which some people would call an "assault-style" gun. I own a
.22 and a youth 410 (that will be my son's when he's old enough). I don't own a
pump action shotgun, but that's the next thing on my gun buying list. There are
myriad reason for owning firearms, and I can't speak for all of them.
Personally, I had multiple reasons. First and foremost, I started researching
guns because I write novels (nothing published) and I wanted to be able to
write as knowledgeably as the story demanded. The more I learned, the more I
realized there's a whole world of knowledge I was unaware of. Could I have done
all my learning simply by reading about guns? Certainly. A decent writer could
also write believably about bicycles without ever riding one, and a moral
writer should be able to write about murder without committing one, so if I
felt that gun ownership was wrong, then my writing would be no excuse. But I'd
also come to believe that gun ownership is not immoral. Few question a hunter's
right to own a gun. Even fewer question a police officer's right to carry one,
even in an urban setting. We allow these people to carry guns because we
believe that most of them will be responsible. They will use these firearms to
feed their families and to protect themselves, and us, from those who would do
us harm. Implicit in this permission is an acknowledgement that there are those
who would use guns to dangerous ends. Not only are there hunters who misuse
guns (and police officers, too) but there are those who would use guns to do us
all harm. Consequently, as I see it, we have three choices: We could try to
create a society without any firearms. We could allow people to have guns and
hope they will be responsible citizens. Or we could have some mixture in which
guns are regulated but those who prove themselves responsible (mind you, prove
themselves to some government official) are permitted to have guns.
I used to argue for a society without guns. When my in-laws
first heard I'd never fired a handgun, their jaws dropped to the floor like
something out of a cartoon. But even after firing some of my brother-in-law's
guns, I would argue for strict handgun bans by saying I would give up that enjoyable
experience to bring back just one innocent child killed by a handgun someone
irresponsibly left sitting on their coffee table. That was a pretty effective
(emotionally manipulative) argument, but it rang more and more hollow in my own
ears as I grew older. Taking guns away from people responsible enough to follow
the law doesn’t bring back the dead, and it might not prevent future tragedies.
Certainly every accidental death caused by firearms is a tragedy, but would I
give up my right to own a gun if it meant I couldn't protect my own son's life?
And do I have the right to make that choice for anyone else? Even a world with
no guns at all wouldn't entirely alleviate this concern. Sure, I'm no ninja
super-hero myself, but do I get to tell a five-foot tall, 100 lb. mom that she
has to defend her children from a much larger armed assailant without a gun?
(My wife is one of these five-foot tall, 100 lb. moms. I wouldn't dare tell her
what she couldn't do in defense of our son.) Plus, can we please admit that the
notion of an America without guns is painfully naive? As a liberal, I'm
horrified by the notion some hold that we should round up 15 million illegal
immigrants and deport them on cattle cars. To me, the idea of police breaking
into and searching every house in America in search of guns that haven't been
voluntarily turned over is equally repellent, and even more impractical. There
will be guns. And let’s remember that a word without guns wouldn't necessarily
be a safer one. This guy in Colorado may have killed a dozen innocent people
with his guns, but Timothy McVeigh did a lot worse with a van and garbage cans
full of fertilizer. The terrorists who killed all those people in the Tokyo
subway system lived in a country that's a model for handgun control. And the
9/11 terrorists used box cutters.
(Now, if I’m being totally honest about my motivations, I
should also confess that, despite my ridicule of the paranoia of the right, I
also harbor concerns some would dismiss as paranoia. Though I maintain my commitment
to a kind of open-minded skepticism, I find supernatural apocalyptic scenarios
exceedingly unlikely. I’m not concerned with the Rapture, the return of
Quetzalcoatl, or the misreading of a Mayan calendar, but I do worry that our
civilization is more tenuous than we like to admit. Possible man-made causes,
like Peak Oil, a series of severe natural disasters precipitated by global
warming, or even massive currency devaluation caused by a shaky international
monetary system could potentially lead to circumstances that would make
government overreach look like the better alternative. In that chaos, I’d like
to know how to use a gun safely and effectively to protect my family. To me,
this seems just as sensible as having a fire extinguisher or a first aid kit,
but I know that even speculating about the fall of our civilization would cause
some people to dismiss me as a kook. Oh, and then there’s always the potential
Zombie Apocalypse…)
So, if we acknowledge the reality that we can't get rid of
all the guns we already have, we could adopt a complete laissez faire attitude toward guns. I think that might be the
position of the NRA, or at least of many of its members, but it's not mine. If
the rationale for gun ownership is based on this free-for-all attitude, and is
inspired by the Founders' idea that people need guns to defend themselves from
their own government, then people should be able to have any weapon accessible
to the military. That's madness. I may be comfortable with my neighbors owning
guns, but I don't trust any of them with nuclear weapons, least of all the kind
of neighbor paranoid enough to get into an arms race with his own government.
Since we can't get rid of guns and shouldn't take away a
person's ability to defend him or herself in a world with guns, but also can't
allow anyone to have any weapon they want, we need to find a balanced approach
that preserves ownership rights for those we find to be most likely to handle
the responsibility, while keeping guns out of the hands of people likely to
misuse them. We also need to be reasonable about what guns we allow people to
purchase legally. This tragedy in Colorado doesn't shed much light in the
latter question. The guns he had were not only legal, but should be legal within
such a balanced framework. Glocks are self-defense weapons, the most popular
choice of police departments. The AR-15 is certainly a military grade weapon,
but semi-automatics are practical for home defense, too; you wouldn't want to
have to rack a round between each shot if you were being attacked. Lastly, the
pump action shotgun, in my opinion, is the best weapon for home defense because
it has the added feature of producing a universally recognizable sound that can
ward off an intruder before a single shot is fired. As someone who hopes to
never fire a gun in the direction of another human being, I find that very
attractive, and I would expect that those favoring gun regulation would, too.
Unfortunately, this particular act could have been carried out if the man had
carried in a coat and belt full of loaded six-shot revolvers from the late
1800s. Though this instance doesn't tell us much about what guns to outlaw, it
certainly tells us that we need to beef up our mental health services. I don't
know anything about this assailant yet, but I can perform a layman's diagnosis
and assert that he was ill. Now, I have heard concerns from more ardent
gun-rights supporters who are even leery of limiting the rights of the mentally
ill. Their rationale is that a corrupt government could use the pretext of
mental illness to systematically take away gun owner's rights. I find this
unpersuasive. Any government that had the ability to systematically separate
massive numbers of people from their guns without the consent of the majority
wouldn't need any pretext at all. Conversely, a government still beholden to
its people couldn't successfully convince them that all gun owners were diagnosably
mentally ill without broadening the definition of severe mental illness so much
that it would be meaningless. Consequently, I have no problem limiting the
right to bear arms to prevent the severely mentally ill from purchasing guns,
much as we prevent felons from doing so. I know our purchasing systems are
porous, and unlike some on the more extreme fringe, I don't have a problem with
background checks, waiting periods, and other measures that keep guns out of
the hands of criminals or (potentially) the ill.
But even that relies on a certain trust in the government's
commitment to the right to own guns. I think gun-rights advocates undermine
their own case when they go too far, always presupposing the worst form of
tyranny. If the right to bear arms is to be protected, it's most easily done by
working within the system, with the government, to show the people that gun
rights are designed to help law abiding citizens. All the "from my cold,
dead hands" rhetoric presumes a government that wouldn't be cowed by a
constitution anyway. As long as gun owners want to maintain a legally protected
right, rather than having it obviated by an anti-gun majority, we should seek
to promote, enforce, and maintain the kinds of regulations that keep guns out
of the hands of the kinds of people who would turn the majority against gun
ownership.
But that's political tactics and policy, not the underlying
principle. Most fundamentally, we do have the right to bear arms (just ask
President Obama, the first democratic president and former constitutional law
scholar to assert that he interprets the second amendment to guarantee an
individual's right) and furthermore, we should have that right. Beyond hunting
and self-defense, a well-armed populace is a check on the government. Our
government has been beholden enough to its white, male, land owning citizens,
that it's easy enough for some of us to forget some of its excesses and
injustices. But think of all the Americans who haven't been afforded the most
basic rights. We have to acknowledge that those rights could be removed again.
After all, Japanese Americans had their rights suspended during the internment.
So, since we know it's possible, we should also acknowledge that the government
is far less likely to do something like that again knowing so many of its
citizens are armed. It's a raw check on government overreach, I'll admit. It
has none of the beauty of crisp, fresh, free newsprint , none of the biting wit
of satire, none of the nobility of an independent judiciary, none of the
simplicity of the ballot box. It's not my favorite check on government power.
It's not even the most efficient. But it is the last check.
If it's a right worth having, it's a right that needs
defending. In just the last few years, we've seen what happens when people
won't stand up for the right to habeas corpus; extraordinary renditions,
parallel courts, torture. You might not like gun owners any more than you like
people accused of being in Al Qaeda, but just as those people deserve to have
their rights protected, gun owners deserve to have theirs protected, too. And
for the same reason: Just as you could someday be falsely accused of a crime
and be protected by those brave enough to stand up even for accused terrorists,
you could someday find yourself in a position that causes you to second-guess your
decision not to own a gun, and those supposed villains who defended the rights
of this crazy guy in Colorado would instantly become the heroes who defended
your rights, too.
Now, as for the NRA, I can't speak for them specifically. As
much as I respect those who stand up for all our rights, I can't stomach the
NRA’s complete submission to the Republican Party. I also don't understand
their irrational antipathy towards President Obama. He's actually been very
good to gun owners, not only asserting the individual right to bear arms, but
opening up federal lands to hunters under their individual state laws. I'm not
positive, but I'm pretty sure he opened up more previously restricted land to
guns than any president ever. So why are they so devoted to getting rid of him?
Partly it's the paranoid style of the American right which always assumes that,
despite any evidence, the other shoe is about to drop and the communist plot
will be revealed. Also, they hate this new UN restriction on the illegal
international firearms trade, despite the fact that it explicitly allows for
the import of any guns that meet the laws of the receiving country. Personally,
I think that’s pretty weak, since some of the receiving countries would turn
those guns over to terrorists immediately, but then we don’t look to the U.N.
because of its track record of strong enforcement. There’s some concern among
gun owners that the ban will create bottlenecks in the legal supply chain, but
this presupposes that some of that chain depends on the illegal import and
export of firearms, something that should be curtailed anyway. Beyond these
fears, the ban plays into paranoia about some evil UN led “One World
Government,” the kind of conspiracy theory I find ridiculous because
politicians and bureaucrats, in my experience, just aren't smart enough or well
organized enough to pull something like that off.
Despite my disdain for the NRA, I am a card carrying member
of the Liberal Gun Club, and I'm glad there are people on both sides of the aisle
protecting our right to bear arms. Tragedies like the one in Colorado, much
like the events of 9/11, incline us to make reactionary decisions based on our
horror and our fear of our own inability to explain the circumstances. Those
who want to prevent violence would do well to take a deep breath and remember
that such snap judgments all too often lead to even greater horrors. After all,
we responded to thousands of deaths on 9/11 by killing or displacing a million
people in Iraq. Since murder rates in this country have been consistently
declining for decades, we can’t allow our outrage at this anomalous event in
Colorado to motivate us to do anything, especially curtailing our most
fundamental rights, without carefully weighing all the potential
consequences.
Addendum: Apparently my fellow liberals aren't the only ones who are inclined to be reactionary
when it comes to guns. Here's a great take-down of one of Bill O'Reilly's uninformed rants: "Bill, You Ignorant Slut" by Robert Farago.
Addendum II: And I'm not completely opposed to this proposal, either, though I don't think it would have had any bearing on the events in Colorado. "Regulate Guns Like Cars"
