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Postcard from the gun show
July 31, 2008
I went to my first gun show recently–part of my ongoing remedial education in American cultural literacy, which my (American) wife has lately taken in hand–and I have been turning the experience over in my mind these past few days. As a Brit, of course, I was conditioned to expect that the first time I saw an unholstered pistol would be when a mugger stuck one in my face. That is how it works in a civilised country. So for me it was passing strange to see many hundreds of pistols–not to mention shotguns, assault rifles, armour-piercing bullets, laser-sighting attachments and all manner of other lethal weaponry–arrayed for the delectation of ordinary citizens. They let me pick up a gun, for heaven’s sake!
A few moments inside the exhibition hall, I was still puzzling over the perfunctory security check at the door–“Are you carrying firearms?” “No, but why would that be a problem?”–when I gaped as a rotund and cheerful old gentleman with a white beard walked past me to the exit, with what looked like an Armalite and attached bayonet slung casually over his shoulder. (I was pleased to see that the trigger was secured by a plastic tie. Dangerous otherwise.) Trade was brisk. The Supreme Court had just overturned DC’s de facto prohibition on hand guns, upholding the Second Amendment as an individual rather than collective right.
Though a Brit, as I say, I did not bring the default attitude of many Europeans (or East Coast liberals, same thing) to the event. I am by no means an instinctive gun controller. It is not obvious to me what is wrong with the argument that says, “The criminals already have guns; gun control disarms the rest of us.” I don’t know how many times I have heard that view sneered at, or laughed at, or pointed to as an infallible marker of stupidity. But I haven’t ever heard it seriously confronted, let alone refuted. Thought experiment: would I feel safer walking around DC at night if the district allowed concealed carry, so that some fraction of law-abiding citizens on the street would be armed, or would I feel more at risk? Answer: safer. I don’t say this settles the matter: I’m not sure what I think about gun control, and the seeming resistance in some quarters to any and all forms of regulation is ridiculous. But why is this not a legitimate consideration?
I don’t think the Democratic nominee would have felt at home with this crowd. I heard several references to Comrade Obama, and saw one button (which I coveted) that said, “I am a BITTER gun-owner.” They seemed to me an affable, friendly and very courteous bunch (well, you would be, wouldn’t you?). I don’t think you could mix with the show’s visitors for more than five minutes without thinking it was nonsense to attribute their interest in guns to bitterness or disappointment or some form of social pathology. But of course there is a political dimension. Aside from other motivations–sport, self-defence–the gun-show universe is about pride, self-reliance, and resentment at being bossed around. Distinctively American traits, wouldn’t you say? Best in moderation, no doubt–but still, where would the country be without those attitudes? I may get thrown out of Georgetown for this, but I say, good for them.
You may feel safer, but empirically (source, alas, not to hand), if you walk around at night in an area which allows concealed carry, then you aren’t.
Posted by: Sean Matthews | July 31st, 2008 at 9:43 am | Report this commentSean’s comment would only be valid if the comparison was between otherwise identical neighbourhoods that did and did not permit concealed carry. Whatever the rules, I should feel safer in Omaha than Harlem.
Posted by: John | July 31st, 2008 at 10:32 am | Report this commentSource and peer review of the statistical analysis needed before we can tell if he’s right or is merely repeating a misinformed or deliberately misleading quotation.
Question: If you have a blazing rown with your wife / kids/ loved ones do you feel safer in a house containing firearms or one without?
Posted by: James | July 31st, 2008 at 11:59 am | Report this commentI thought that the majority of injuries/deaths by gunshot (and all other weapons for that matter) in the US were caused in dosmestic incidences by people who know the victim rather than by stranger violence on the street (someone please correct me if I am wrong). After all if there is a gun knocking about, at some point someone will probably use it!
The glaring fact remains that over 50% of gun-related deaths in the U.S. are caused by the deceased’s own weapon.
So if you want to more than double your chances of dying from a gunshot….. buy a gun!
Posted by: Philip, Canada | July 31st, 2008 at 1:32 pm | Report this commentThe glaring fact remains in the U.S. that in over 50% of gun-related deaths, the deceased was killed by their own weapon.
So if you want to more than double your chance of death from a gunshot….. go buy yourself a gun!
Posted by: Philip, Canada | July 31st, 2008 at 1:36 pm | Report this commentWhat is wrong with that argument is that gun control would make it much harder for the criminals to get guns too. The premise in the argument would therefore change.
Posted by: R | July 31st, 2008 at 2:10 pm | Report this commentR - what is wrong with your argument is that premise that criminals obtain their guns legally. If they did so the gun could be traced back to the criminal and modern forensic science enables the gun to be identified from the bullet. So any criminal planning to use a gun to commit a crime will use one that has been obtained illegally. Anyhow, Clive Crook was discussing the carrying of concealed weapons, not ownership, so the issue is simply: is a criminal more or less likely to attack you if there is a chance that his/her victim has a gun in his/her pocket/handbag?
Posted by: John | July 31st, 2008 at 2:44 pm | Report this commentAnswers on the back of a postage stamp!
Philip - most suicides want to rather more than double their chances of death. Try comparing the number of cases where a guy is disarmed and then shot dead by an unarmed mugger with killings of an unarmed man by an armed criminal.
James - your argument, whether or not it is true, is completely irrelevant to Clive Crook’s blog, unless you expect your wife/son/daughter to stalk you (making an effort to conceal the weapon) and shoot you down in the street with your own gun after a domestic argument.
I do NOT want this country to adopt near-universal gun ownership US-style but, as Clive points out, a system that disarms the innocent while allowing criminals deadly weapons (guns and knives) does not make it safer.
Statistically if you own a gun you are more likely to accidentally shoot yourself or a family member than any kind of assailant / robber.
Why do you feel safer with a gun? You are a danger to yourself and your family!
Posted by: Adam | July 31st, 2008 at 3:02 pm | Report this commentCarrying a gun is only a defense if you have the opportunity to use it.
Assailants, knowing victims may be armed, tend not to approach them in open view with their motivation clearly expressed.
Instead they tend toward attacking with the element surprise. Therefore having a gun provides no defense.
I agree that, in a gun fight, having a gun allows you defense.
I disagree that, being snuck up on by an armed assailant, having a gun offers any defense.
And they might steal the gun, increasing the danger from criminals.
Posted by: Dan Barnes | July 31st, 2008 at 3:15 pm | Report this commentThe gun issue in America is complex and bizarre.
First, it is clear, if you read the Bill of Rights, that the “right to bear arms” was tied to the concept of a “well ordered militia.”
The concept of the militia was imported from Britain, where going back at least to Elizabeth Gloriana’s time.
Militias were, compared to large standing armies, a money-saving measure, something Elizabeth relished.
The Colonists also were tight with a dime (after all, the rebelled in part to avoid paying a just tax).
Added to that impulse was the fear of standing armies.
Well, militias ceased being – except for the private ones of weird survivalists and Aryan Nation types back in the hills - a long time ago. America keeps a massive armed forces, spending more than half a trillion dollars a year on it.
So the “right” has lost its original justification entirely.
Now many Right Wing defenders of gun ownership in America always frame the issue around the idea of being able to oppose a tyranny.
In view of the armed forces of the United States - Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, and National Guards - which could put down any rebellion by citizens in America in days, this truly is a naïve and fatuous argument.
The mental image of a bunch of belly-over-the-belt, thinning-haired guys in hunting camouflage taking to the streets to oppose tyranny is ridiculous.
That the argument is constantly put forward in America shows the juvenile level of thinking on the matter.
I might add, as a cynical observation, that if they weren’t going to rebel against the lies and abuse and war crimes of Bush, they clearly never would.
The real, underlying reason Americans remain so married to their guns today also has historical origins.
But in this case, the historical origin is slavery.
Those who’ve read about the South in the 18th and early 19th century will know there was a constant fear of slave revolt, paranoid in its dimensions (perhaps the result of guilty consciences?), despite there only ever being one fairly small revolt ever.
Jefferson – the great blubberer about liberty and lifelong holder of more than 200 slaves - supported Napoleon in trying to put down the successful slave revolt in Haiti, a very bloody business. That same Southern fear of slaves and revolts was at work in his support of tyranny over liberty.
Today, Americans remain afraid of black crime to a degree British people perhaps can hardly comprehend.
Guns are felt to be one answer. As are gated communities. And as are blundering, fuel-wasting vehicles like SUVs – deliberately designed to suggest military armored cars and to instill confidence in suburbanites for their safety on the highway as they drive from one safe area to another, through dark and feared territories.
Of course, none of this makes any sense. Black criminals almost always prey on black victims. And the number of times a white middle-class person has actually been saved by a gun is infinitesimal.
But the paranoid psychology continues. There is almost a sense of some Americans seeing themselves as desperate Israel settlers carrying around automatic weapons to stop any nasty Palestinians.
When I was a boy, despite the Constitutional issue, guns had to be licensed in any city and it was illegal to carry them hidden, except for special permitted circumstances. This has all gone further downhill, as now many jurisdictions allow people to carry guns hidden under their clothes or in their purse or in the glove box of their car.
So when traveling, watch who you bump into or get into an argument with. It could be your last.
Guns stolen from legal owners, a common event, likely account for more crimes than legal guns can ever hope to prevent.
There’s no sorting this all out rationally. It will simply take another hundred years for America to become a fully civilized society.
Posted by: JOHN CHUCKMAN, TORONTO | July 31st, 2008 at 4:56 pm | Report this commentIn reply to R:
I was assuming that the ability to carry concealed guns increased the likelihood of ownership. If you have a weapon to conceal (or someone esle does) you or they presumably own it and keep it at home when you / they are not carrying it around. However, if not being able to carry gun (concealed) does not reduce gun ownership then this does not apply.
However, you do still have the added risk from (drunken?) idiots (rather than “criminals”)carrying guns and doing stupid things with them.
Do you feel safer in a crowded bar knowing several people are carrying guns? Especially if you get into a debate with someone over a drink someone knocked over, or who has taken offence at the way you looked at them / their partner etc etc. Or what about being in a shop when there is an arguement between a customer and a shopkeeper. As I say if there are guns about someone will eventually use one.
Following Adam’s comment:
I think that the evidence may actually point to criminals being more likely to use guns when they think they will be met with guns (rather than not commiting the crime at all). This has certainly been voiced in the debate about arming police in the UK.
So the very fact of wide presence of (concealed) guns on the street potentially leads to criminals using guns more readily - a sort of ’shoot first just in case’policy.
If this is correct then it undermines the case for the right to carry concealed guns regardless of the ownership issue.
Less of a problem if they are unconcealed - then at least we and the criminals all know who to avoid!
Posted by: James | July 31st, 2008 at 4:58 pm | Report this commentApologies - my first paragraph is in reply to John - not R, got confused between headers & footers
Posted by: James | July 31st, 2008 at 5:31 pm | Report this commentDuring the Revolution, Washington demanded that state militia be put under his personal command. Members of Congress were aghast and denied the request.
When the Constitution was proposed, many remembered Washington’s earlier power grab and were suspicious that the right of states to maintain their own militia, independent of the federal army, was not mentioned in the document. They demanded revisions and the result was the Second Amendment.
Posted by: Maj. Kong | July 31st, 2008 at 8:40 pm | Report this commentGood and clear historical explanation by John Chuckman. Too bad that the right-wing extremist bloc on the Supreme Court led by Scalia paid more attention to the gun lobby and to the millions of gun-toting whites who don’t want to give up the power to shoot imaginary black assailants than it did to the clear language of the 2nd Amendment, whose meaning Mr Chuckman has explained so well.
Too bad also, that Barack Obama caved in on this issue as well. Let us hope that he doesn’t cave into the right on too many more issues, or his chances for winning the presidency might just cave out from under him.
Posted by: algasema | July 31st, 2008 at 9:07 pm | Report this commentIt’s simple to point out what is wrong with “the criminals already have guns, gun control disarms the rest of us”. The premise is wrong 99.99% of the time in countries with gun control. In the vast majority of cases criminals do not have guns. As the logic is therefore distinctly flawed - and obviously so on the most superficial examination - it is easy to see why some people find it a laughable argument to make.
Let’s set aside the constitutional argument in the US, and also the hunting ones because UK gun control is not an absolute ban on guns. In this context, the motives for removing gun control are fear, and an irrational desire for control that reality will not grant you. These are common and understandable fallacies, but not good motives. Having guns around makes life more dangerous, not less, and it requires a strong culture (such as in Switzerland) for it to be otherwise. Neither the UK nor the US have the requisite culture, I believe, and a change cannot simply be mandated by law.
I’ve had the stuffing kicked out of me by a gang of youths in a Berkshire suburb with no provocation. I ended up on the ground, and then in hospital with nothing but bad bruising and a few days off (facial bruising isn’t pretty). If one of them had decided to show what a big man they were by shooting me, then the risk of serious injury or death shoots up dramatically.
The idea that I would feel safer with gun because I could have then defended myself in a gunfight is nonsensical. Having a gun would make no difference to my odds of being burgled. I’d rather take on a mugger hand-to-knife than gun-to-gun. I’d rather walk down alleys in London in the knowledge that guns aren’t likely to present, rather than damn sure somebody’s got one.
I often find idiots and drunks are more dangerous than criminals. Let’s not give them guns to make it worse.
Posted by: Jonathan | July 31st, 2008 at 9:21 pm | Report this commentJames - I cannot understand your argument as I just do not believe the ability to carry a concealed rather than a visible weapon is a significant incentive for an innocent citizen to buy a weapon.
Posted by: John | July 31st, 2008 at 9:39 pm | Report this commentYour side arguments are totally irrelevant to Clive Crook’s blog which asked whether the risk to innocent citizens on the street was greater if criminals did not know whether the potential victim had a gun.
I do not advocate mass use of guns but you fall into the stereotype that he criticised of condemning the argument without properly answering it.
A crowded bar? Someone who could pull a gun and shoot you in a CROWDED bar without hitting anyone else must be within range of a right hook.
The evidence from the UK is that murder using guns, murder of policemen and prison officers etc quickly rose by about 500% after the death penalty was suspended (see Roy Jenkins’ leaflet trying to justify the abolition of capital punishment) Criminals generally do not want to be killed (surprise!)
There are a lot of good arguments against gun ownership: please use one of them.
I am not convinced of the usefulness of gun laws among the lawless.
Here are a set of new crimes reported from Sen. Obama’s Illinois Senate District, where guns are very much illegal:
Robbery: Armed: handgun
Place: Street. Reported at 11 p.m. on July 22, 2008.
and 44 more reported yesterday
Posted by: John Powers | July 31st, 2008 at 10:26 pm | Report this commenthttp://chicago.everyblock.com/locations/wards/7/
‘The criminals already have guns; gun control disarms the rest of us.’
That isn’t much of an argument, my friend, that’s a statement in need of propositions to support it. You’re also loading your ‘argument’ by assuming two things: (a) that ALL criminals have guns, and (b) gun control only disarms the ‘rest of us’. Those assumptions don’t take into account (a) that ‘the rest of us’ may still one day fall into the ‘criminals’ category (crime of passion, insanity, et al) by committing crimes made more horrible by adding a firearm to the situation, nor (b) that gun control policies on a national scale may curb, if not eliminate, the existence of guns on streets.
Your thought experiment is also rather inane. Your ‘gut feeling’ as to how you would feel walking around the nation’s capital is no substitution for rational speculation, statistical analysis and/or community cost-benefit analyses.
But of course you’re not giving light to those arguments. Suppose, however, that you do. And you start by making the reasonable–and reasoned–observation that your argument in favour of gun crime only really works if we suppose there is a clear matching up between bad guys and good guys (again, a clear indication of simplicity: not all crimes are likewise evil, even dare I say homicide in all occasions…any good law text book can tell you why.) In a world where I am only ever confronted by total maniacs or professional criminals (e.g. drug pushers, gangsters, gang members, contract assassins, etc.) it may seem logical to desire defence in the form of a firearm. But what happens in situations where–as posted above–a person commits a crime out of passion, after an argument, etc.? Or a perfectly ‘law-abiding’ citizen has his car crashed and, in a fit of fury, wields his weapon offensively against another individual? Stranger things have happened…
My point, in a round-about way: adding weapons on a grand scale into society risks exacerbating situations that are already bad. In a world where, again, we’re not constantly confronted by ‘bad’ people, but rather often people ‘in a bad’ (mental, emotional, hyper-aware, etc.) state. There is dissonance precisely because you won’t always know you’re drawing the line properly (i.e. using a gun as a defensive weapon where a firearm is decidedly not needed), and precisely because doing so may put you–the law-abider–in a situation you wouldn’t want to be in.
But if a theoretical argument doesn’t work, then perhaps statistics may do the trick…in 2005 the FBI reported a total of 14,860 murders nationwide. A staggering 10,100 of those were caused by firearms (compared to 1,914 caused by crimes), 75% of which were commited specifically with hand guns. Restricting access to firearms DOES make society safer. In limiting (but never, obviously, completely eliminating) firearms in Germany and Spain, said countries have managed to live with homicide and gun homicide rates proportionally smaller than the United States. In Spain gun homicide is, in fact, practically non-extant…and the homicide rate as a whole is very low.
Maybe it’s just the exceptional depravity of US culture? As an American I reject that wholeheartedly. Nevertheless, I can see little evidence to suggest guns make our (or ANY) society safer…quite the contrary, on an empirical/rational level.
P.S. @ John Powers: the utility of gun laws is undermined in the United States because they are a patchwork of inconsistent, local and arbitrary laws. It may be difficult to buy a gun in one state/jurisdiction, but it’s probably much easier to do so in another jurisdiction…and carry that very same firearm with you to the next place. In developed countries where the law is unified (i.e. most likely not in a Federal state, though Germany proves that’s not of necessity the case) you see a corresponding drop in the homicide rate due to guns…and most likely across the world. (Also, how are guns ‘very much illegal’ ANYWHERE in the US? That’s impossible, through and through, as the Supreme Court ruling in DC proves…)
Posted by: Rene C. Moya | August 1st, 2008 at 3:14 am | Report this comment[…] Clive Crook, who writes for the Financial Times (think Wall Street Journal but run by socialists), gets exposed to the real America. As a Brit, of course, I was conditioned to expect that the first time I saw an unholstered pistol would be when a mugger stuck one in my face. […]
Posted by: DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Postcard from the gun show | August 1st, 2008 at 3:31 am | Report this commentClive Crook’s experience with the gun show reminds me of my experiences moving to the mountains of Western North Carolina after growing up in the liberal gun-banning Northeastern US. I even went to a gunshow or two, and they are exactly as Mr Crook describes: abundant anti-government buttons and stickers, an M60 machine gun, polite people.
The mountains of Western North Carolina have I think more guns than people, counting children and dogs, but very little crime. It seemed to me that especially outside of Asheville, which in many ways has more in common with Manhattan than with the surrounding region, not only was crime in general minor and generally non-violent, but death of any kind by gunshot was rare enough to be newsworthy for more than a day or so.
It seems to me that some kinds of people will hack each other to bits with machetes if nothing else is to hand, whereas others can be surrounded by lethal force and live in quiet enjoyment of their natural bounty. In the one case, gun laws, unless followed by knife-laws as seems to be needed these days in England and then perhaps blunt-instrument and big-stick laws, will inevitably be ineffective, whereas in the other case, they are perhaps as irrelevant as a law prohibiting the use of gasoline and matches to light people on fire.
Michael Moore, in “Bowling for Columbine”, which is in general quite anti-gun in intent, was honest enough to point out that, if memory serves, Canada has actually an even higher rate of gun ownership than the USA, but very little gun-crime. He may even have commented about people not bothering to lock their doors, which also seems not uncommon among the locals in the mountains provided they live far enough from Asheville. Guns may be the most convenient way of killing people, but they certainly aren’t the only way, and someone does have to pull the trigger.
I join Mr Crook in not being sure what the right answer is, or if there is a good one-size-fits-all solution. I do mistrust those on either side of the debate who are filled with passionate intensity.
Posted by: Jim Bray | August 1st, 2008 at 5:30 am | Report this commentGun control is nothing more than governments disarming their people. Prior to the gun control laws being introduced into the UK a century ago, crime and murder rates were still four times higher in the US than the UK. It is pointless to try and compare the US with the UK because we are not the same.
Why not compare the UK with Switzerland? Oh, because they have a very high gun ownership and lower crime than the UK - and that doesn’t suit the theory that guns are bad?
All the stats from the US show that concealed carry states have lower crime rates than states with tough gun control. If you don’t know if your victim or a witness is carrying a gun, are you sure you want to try and steal from them, or get an easier victim? Maybe a clever criminal can more to a state where the law has removed the guns?
What the UK needs is a revision of the self defence laws to ensure that victims of crimes are not turned into criminals for protecting their property.
Posted by: F0ul | August 1st, 2008 at 11:23 am | Report this commentUntil they do that, I will prefer to answer from the dock, rather from the morgue!
Rene,
“how are guns ‘very much illegal’ ANYWHERE in the US? That’s impossible, through and through, as the Supreme Court ruling in DC proves..”
How so? The Chicago gun law is still on the books and being enforced. Go take a walk around the Loop waving a pistol (or just tell a cop you have one while you are at your hotel for that matter). You will end up in Cook County jail well before anyone shows the slightest concern for any Supreme Court ruling.
The Police take their orders from Mayor Daley (as they should), not from Justice Scalia as you theorize. The near impossible part is using a Federal ruling to overturn a local ordinance, which could take years.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | August 1st, 2008 at 1:15 pm | Report this commentContrary to myth that using a gun in self-defense is more likely to result in injury or death to the victim or innocent bystanders and fail to successfully thwart the crime rather than the criminal, the evidence, as opposed to selective anecdotes, suggests the opposite. (Of course this doesn’t mean that all people should have a gun, or a gun should be used in all life-threatening situations.)
Posted by: EFsDad | August 1st, 2008 at 3:29 pm | Report this commentI loved the earlier quotation by Dan Barnes that the US military could put down an insurrection in the US in a matter of days - you mean like the insurrection in Iraq? The one in a country with 1/12 the population, wide open terrain, and typically clear skies? You sure you still want to make that assertion?
And as for your racial position, Mr Barnes, I think that is far more revealing of your own fears than those of anyone else.
Also, please remember that in Colonial America, everyone who served in the local militia was required to either bring their own personal gun or buy one from the armory. Private gun ownership was assumed and expected - as was taking an active part in the protection of one’s neighbors, something that is quite obviously lost among the “civilized” people of large urban locales.
Posted by: Peter | August 1st, 2008 at 9:29 pm | Report this commentI have read the posted comments with interest, but without seeing one reference to the problem that older people have. I am 77 years old,and due to service connected injuries, I cannot run, nor protect myself other than with a firearm, and almost any thug so inclined could beat me to death without undue effort, except for only one thing- he will likely have a few bullet holes in him, and may find his abilities seriously compromised. Incidentally, the UK has certainly made self defense both unlawful and impractical, but crime does go on, primarily with knives, which can leave you just as dead as the biggest firearm. A U.S Government study many years ago concluded that an attacker with a knife was far more likely to kill or seriously injure his victim than a thug with a firearm.
Posted by: Frank Perkin | August 2nd, 2008 at 1:18 am | Report this commentThe thing I have noticed missing in all the comments is any reference to the character of an individual and how that affects that individual’s propensity for harming others.
It should not be lost on anyone that a man with a hammer, who is bent on killing, can and will certainly kill many more individuals than someone who is not interested in harming their fellow man, yet owns and carries a firearm.
It has everything to do with the heart of the individual. It should not be presumed that owning a firearm automatically makes that individual a bad person and dangerous. If so, then you condemn virtually every U.S. President for the first 100 years of America’s existence. You also condemn the vast majority of Americans for most of America’s existence.
Just because you cannot see a reason to own firearms, and think that you might be violent with them, is not a reason to assume that is true for everyone who does own them. There are many reasons to own a firearm, some peaceful, some not.
It should also not be lost on everyone that a 90 year old woman who knows how to use a gun is fully equal to a 20 year old thug - even if the thug has a gun.
Posted by: Paul W. Davis | August 2nd, 2008 at 5:30 am | Report this commentTo better understand the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution it is helpful to consider how almost every reasonable person would interpret this amendment if it did not involve something which is considered controversial or politically incorrect by some and idolized by others. Arms in the possession of ordinary citizens meet both criteria. Let’s, for the sake of argument, suppose that the Second Amendment dealt with books, not arms or weapons, and read like this: “A well educated electorate, being necessary to the maintenance of a free State, the right of the people to own and read books, shall not be infringed.” Does anyone really believe that liberals would claim that only people who were eligible to vote should be allowed to buy and read books? Or that a person should have to have voted in the last election before the government would permit him or her to buy a book? Would the importation of books be banned if they did not meet an “educational purpose” test? Would some States limit citizens to buying “one book a month”? Would inflammatory “assault books” be banned in California?
Emotion in Reading:
The meaning of the Second Amendment becomes quite clear if one removes the emotional “gun” issue. Let’s re-state the 2nd in another context:
A well educated electorate, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books, shall not be infringed.
If this were the law, would only educated people have the right to keep books? Or, would only the voting electorate be allowed to read? Of course not. All the people would have the right to keep and read books, and the state would benefit by having a more educated electorate.
There is NO requirement to be a member of a Militia to have the RIGHT to keep and bear arms. However, the more people who DO, the better the security of the state.
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right. [Nunn vs. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243, at 251 (1846)]
Posted by: John Bates Thayer | August 2nd, 2008 at 6:17 am | Report this commentThe comments of Dan Barnes seem to capture the view of someone who hates guns, but doesn’t know why. In lieu of introspection to determine why they feel that way, they instead generate implausible scenarios in an attempt to justify themselves.
That claim that Americans cling to guns because of a heritage of slavery and a fear of Blacks and slave revolts ignores the fact that the American revolution started in the non-slave northeast. Many of roots of the gun-control movement were attempts by racists to keep guns out of the hands of newly freed slaves.
As to, “It will simply take another hundred years for America to become a fully civilized society.”, recall that in the last century Europeans devoted great effort to killing each other during the first and second world wars, while governments in Germany and Russia excelled at killing their own people.
Posted by: John in Chicago | August 2nd, 2008 at 7:37 am | Report this commentCorrection and apologies to Dan Barnes, I was referring to the comments of JOHN CHUCKMAN, TORONTO.
Posted by: John in Chicago | August 2nd, 2008 at 7:43 am | Report this commentI am wearing a .45 on my hip as I type this. My state has required me to: 1] pay a $140 processing fee; 2] supply the state with additional photos and fingerprints, which they already have on file for me; 3] pay for and take a class ($120); 4] qualify on a range; 5] pass a written test; 6] undergo a state background check for any Class 1, 2, or 3 misdemeanor or felony convictions; 7] be investigated for any unpaid taxes, student loans, or alimony/child support payments; 8] be investigated for any psychiatric adjudications; and 9] undergo an FBI background check for any record of federal felony convictions or Homeland Security interest.
I am better qualified to carry my firearm concealed in public than is any public “servant” who thinks I am not. Suzanna Gratia-Hupp said “How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.”
I am a business owner and a responsible and productive member of society and a trustworthy citizen. I am calm and rational and generally have an easy-going demeanor, and I am not a threat to anybody who is not a threat to me first. I don’t pick fights, and I avoid verbal confrontations. I am not the kind of person of whom anybody needs to be afraid. Even so, I am under no legal or moral obligation to not defend myself or my loved ones if need be, and those who think that there is such an obligation are responsible for such dangerous conditions as exist in the first place. Criminals are predators, and they have increasingly felt free to practice their predations exactly because of the “duty to retreat” mindset that has become prevalent in our society.
Anybody who thinks that I am “part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of,” can go piss up a rope - Obama included - because politicians who think that like that are the REAL reason we have a 2nd Amendment in the first place… …to defend ourselves from THEM.
Posted by: Chris in Grapevine, Texas | August 2nd, 2008 at 5:52 pm | Report this commentWhat a pity.
Some of you Canadians show disdain for most guns–and most Americans.
Some of you Brits attempt to dissect Our Second Amendment as a collective right–despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling to the contrary.
This blog’s main thrust says only one thing–gun shows are fun.
But you intellectuals won’t have it.
Not only have you never been to gun show, nothing will make you ever want to go to one.
Trash American, her “gun culture” and the vast majority of her “fly-over” people.
Scheme for the UN International Agreement on Small Arms to cover America with European sensibilties.
Be like Obama when he thinks no one but his fellow elitists are listening.
Posted by: AmericanBob | August 2nd, 2008 at 8:00 pm | Report this commentChris is absolutely correct. The bugwits who think crime can be “controlled” by disarming “everyone” are so nuts that they are precisely the sorts who shouldn’t be trusted within 100 yards of a functioning firearm.
When did we reach a condition wherein a woman lying raped and murdered in an alley is somehow considered by society to be “more moral” than another woman, standing in the mouth of that same alley explaining to police how that rapist/murderer got a hole in his chest?
Posted by: Dave | August 2nd, 2008 at 8:01 pm | Report this commentMr. Crook, I admire your common-sense approach to armed self-defense and enjoyment of the shooting sports. The most basic right to protect ones’ family and self has been long (perhaps forever among those living in freedom) been a limit on sovereign power. Your British readers may recall how William and Mary came to be monarchs only after they acceded to the English Bill of Rights of 1689 prepared by the House of Commons. The right to bear arms was clearly then beyond the control of the Crown.
Posted by: Doug in California | August 2nd, 2008 at 10:12 pm | Report this commentYour clear-eyed comments echo the thinking of the Enlightenment visionaries. Obviously, some commentators responding to your posting are happy to have given back to their governments the right and responsibility to protect individual citizens even in their own homes. Anyone for the most profound personal reasons may decline to exercise that right, but when he or she takes away that opportunity from the rest of us through force of law, that person presumes to impose unacepptable restrictions on everyone. Your views have obviously discomfitted some of those people who would impose their decision on the rest of us. Those objectors are trying to twist a right to individual self-defense into a collective dependence on government. Pity.
Personally, I always feel safer somewhere like Texas where I’m likely to see people openly carrying than in DC or Chicago.
Any potentially dangerous technology (like motor vehicles) is unsafe in the hands of untrained or unstable people, whether it’s a firearm, an automobile or a chainsaw.
The fact that drunks, gangsters and fools buy guns and kill their spouses or hoodlums is no reason for me to avoid handgun ownership. Rather, I just try to avoid drunks, gangsters and fools, who are just as dangerous behind the wheel of a car.
I’ve been shooting for over 50 years, practice regularly, and take my control over my pistols and rifles as seriously as I do control over my cars.
Posted by: David Smith | August 3rd, 2008 at 3:19 am | Report this commentThe murder rate is basically determined by culture. In America, the murder rate among Jews is no higher than among Jews in Canada or England — even though the majority of American Jews can buy a gun at will. The murder rate among Japanese-born Americans is lower than that among the Japanese in Japan. Mexican-born Americans have a lower murder rate than among Mexicans in Mexico. Scandinavian Americans have no higher a murder rate than among Scandinavians in the Scandinavian countries. Descendants of American slaves have a murder rate no higher than that among the descendants of slaves in Jamaica (where the gun laws are quite prohibitive, with very harsh penalties). (Compared with European and Commonwealth countries, America simply has a different cultural/ethnic mix.) Of course, our killers are more likely to use a gun than killers in other countries — but we could remedy that if we wished simply by lowering the penalties for murder using alternate weapons.
Everyone has the ability to kill at least some people at least some of the time. There is no physical obstacle to killing the very aged, the very young, or anyone in the dwelling who is asleep. Keeping weapons from would-be murderers will at best delay and postpone the act. So if gun control means that murderers are slightly older when they finally hangs, it’s not such a great achievement. A person who lacks the will or the self-control to refrain from committing murder is to society a grave danger with or without a gun. If the government can keep the vast majority of such people locked up, there is little need for gun control. If the government cannot or will not keep such people locked up, it is a higher priority to ensure that the rest of us have efficient means of killing _them_ when necessary. For example, my self-defense would require a handgun even if gun control _could_ force robbers to rely on knives, arrows, clubs or whatnot.
As for the danger of keeping a gun, a backyard swimming pool actually creates a greater risk of death. (And your backyard swimming pool is far less likely to deter or kill a burglar.)
Posted by: fsilber | August 3rd, 2008 at 5:11 am | Report this commentP.S. Clive Crook wrote: “As a Brit, of course, I was conditioned to expect that the first time I saw an unholstered pistol would be when a mugger stuck one in my face. That is how it works in a civilized country.”
I disagree. If you’re going to have such high standards for what it means to be civilized then I assert that in a civilized country you don’t get confronted by muggers merely by walking down dark, lonely streets. In a civilized country you don’t have your house broken into merely because you aren’t home (all the more so if you _are_ home). So let’s recognize that none of our countries are truly civilized, and let’s acquire the arms we need to emerge victorious when fighting those elements of our society which _aren’t_ civilized.
And no, it is not because the criminals have guns that we need them. Even if a trio of muggers had only knives, arrows or clubs, a lone middle-aged victim would still need a gun to defeat them.
We’ve been told that police cannot keep our streets free of muggers nor our houses free of burglars until the root causes of crime have been eliminated. Well then, until those root causes have been utterly eliminated we’d be fools to leave the problem entirely in the hands of a police force incapable of doing the job.
Posted by: fsilber | August 3rd, 2008 at 3:25 pm | Report this comment“Having a gun would make no difference to my odds of being burgled” are among the odd comments by reader algasema. In America it does make a difference. The burglary rate is lower in the US than in Britain, particularly where legal gun ownership rates are high. Also, “hot” burglaries are much higher in Britain (these are burglaries that occur when the homeowner is present in the home) than in the US. Why? Criminals, though stupid, are smart enough to realize that they face the possibility of a shotgun in the face by the US homeowner. In Britain, the homeowner is likely to knuckle under, and become a victim. Even taking non-lethal measures to defend his home will get him in trouble with British police and courts. Britain is in utterly no position to lecture the US on crime.
Posted by: Rexxous | August 3rd, 2008 at 3:43 pm | Report this commentWell, after reading several attempts to “confront” the question (re criminals having guns) its still gun controllers zero.
Posted by: Shindig | August 4th, 2008 at 6:10 am | Report this commentI live in D.C. and I carry a gun anyway because I would rather be tried by 12 than carried by six. And it will be a cold day in hell when they pry my gun away from my cold dead fingers.
‘James’ says “Question: If you have a blazing row with your wife / kids/ loved ones do you feel safer in a house containing firearms or one without?”
I have owned guns for many years, so has my wife. In that time we have had our share of “blazing rows”, yet somehow refrained from shooting each other. Our children are all grown now, and we didn’t shoot them either. Ownership of a firearm does not make anyone a deranged killer, any more than ownership of a kitchen knife, hammer or length of rope.
Mr Chuckman says “…it is clear, if you read the Bill of Rights, that the “right to bear arms” was tied to the concept of a “well ordered militia.””
Quite so. And if you read US Code,section 311 it is also clear that the militia consists of ……..
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; AND
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.”
Posted by: Stuart | August 4th, 2008 at 3:49 pm | Report this commentThat is the current Law of the United States!!
In America this is the endless nonsensical debate, much akin to arguing religion.
I live in Florida, where gun control is basically non-existant. I’ve owned guns since I was legally old enough, own a gun safe and have a concealed weapons permit, yet I do not like laizze faire when it comes to guns.
The Dept of Justice published a study some years ago stating the obvious, most guns used in crimes in the US started as legal guns. If I remember correctly, over 50% of handguns used in crimes are stolen from law abiding citizens. In Florida, guns are not tracked once they are sold at the gun shop, can be exchanged between private parties easily, and may be carried in glove compartments or otherwise left unsecured at home.
Making it more difficult for criminals to get their hands on guns AFTER THEY LEAVE THE GUN SHOP is key here, but all efforts to further this goal are unacceptable to gun-rights activists. The fact that there is no uniformity among states makes it easy for criminals to circumvent any local efforts.
And unless the numbers from the FBI, AFT and DOJ are incorrect, having a gun at home makes you statistically more prone to accidental shootings. Seems to me emotion can get the best of us, just ask those who categorically state their huge SUV is “safer” than a car, when the figures from NHST prove otherwise.
Posted by: DJ | August 4th, 2008 at 5:56 pm | Report this commentFor those that think that Gun Control can stop criminals getting guns, consider that over 1,000,000 illegals (many with criminal records) sneak across the border each year. Also, onsider the War on Drugs is no closer to being won than it was in the 1908s, and there’s no way that you could stop the importation of guns, even if you banned them entirely.
Posted by: Holdfast | August 4th, 2008 at 6:43 pm | Report this commentDJ, the point about resistance to so called gun control is that it’s the only way to avoid the “legislative creep” that will eventually lead to full prohibition by the back door.
This what happened in the UK’ when a deeply unpopular government was seeking reelection, the cynical politicians used a tragedy to bring in draconian legislation in an attempt to buy votes on the backs of grieving parents and curry favor with the tabloid press.
This would not have been possible with the framework for prohibition already being in place by the “sensible controls” laid down in the various Firearms Acts in previous years.
And guess what? it didn’t work, because no with near 100% prohibition in place for over 10 years, you are far more likely to be shot in London Bristol or Manchester than in NYC LA or Detroit. And what are the cops doing? swooping down on toy shops and kids with BB guns, because it boosts arrest rates and makes the government look like they are doing something about ‘gun crime’……..
Not only that, the strictest gun controls outside the communist bloc failed to stop a terrorist ‘Army’ operating a 30 year armed campaign within it’s borders!
If you want gun control, emigrate to Britain and see how you like it there.
Posted by: Stuart | August 4th, 2008 at 9:03 pm | Report this commentFor all those people who are trying to justify their belief in sympathetic magic with bogus “science” - “the gun made me do it” - why not take a look at Eric S Raymond’s essay: “A Brief History of Firearms Policy Fraud.” http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=314
And here’s a quote from today’s “The Sun” newspaper:
Posted by: John Pate | August 4th, 2008 at 10:04 pm | Report this comment“Shocked squaddies who were stabbed and battered by yobs during a night out claimed yesterday they’d be safer in Iraq.” http://tinyurl.com/6m2xm6
A partial explanation of my position:
Why You Should Take Your Gun to School
The question of how best to secure Austin Community College students and faculty from the predations of those inclined toward violence as a means to their own end is a sore puzzle, indeed; and one that places our nation’s very foundations at risk. It puts the very basic principle of our forefathers–that individual freedoms should take precedence over the common good―at odds with the seemingly intuitive truth that less availability of guns will mean less bloodshed.
When one hears of the kind of tragedies perpetrated by gun-toting mass murderers at Columbine, Virginia Tech, or at a school full of Quaker children, their first thought is quite naturally, “How could this have been prevented?” Certainly, one could make the case that if the killers had been unarmed their plans would have been much more difficult to realize, and so one tends to focus intuitively on the gun as both the problem (facilitator) and the means (banishment) to the solution.
Were our forefathers wrong? Were they shortsighted when they constitutionally guaranteed the ability of the citizen to arm himself and thereby provide for his own defense ? Were they merely the appeasing pawns of their less civilized society, pandering to the fears of those who might live on the wilderness fringe? Should Americans instead have been treated like they had been all along under King George III (as mere subjects who must be cared for) rather than as citizens with the rights and responsibilities of those who embrace self-determination? I think not.
No adult class of Americans, such as most of the students or teachers at our school, should ever be stripped of those rights and responsibilities simply because they happen to occupy the same buildings as our most precious resource: our children. In fact, as each new atrocity seems to prove, to do so may actually increase the danger to the children by creating an environment where the madman may wield his weapon with impunity, without fear of immediate opposition to his dastardly plans.
It is logical to assume that if they were intending to cause the most damage possible, that such miscreants would target a place where they were least likely to encounter armed resistance, a place where being armed was not allowed to their victim, the law-abiding citizen. They have found such a place in our schools, thanks to our own misguided intuitions. I say misguided because it is the very intention of protection that has engendered our risk. When Seung-Hui Cho undertook his grisly task of indiscriminate murder, he was able to walk calmly among his screaming victims, executing each in turn without fear of intervention, their spurting blood marking his slow, methodical passage. I say misguided because it should be obvious to even the most casual of observers that the idea that gun free zones are enforceable is rather ludicrous on its face. I sometimes wonder if any of the more than thirty victims that day in Blacksburg were one of the thousands of Virginians licensed to carry a concealed gun. Certainly, those people might have been able to intervene, had they not been in just such a gun free zone.
I recently discovered one famous case of such intervention from my youth, in which legally armed citizens returned fire from a crazed gunman with a brain tumor. They succeeded in pinning him down with rifle fire until the police could arrive and subdue him with several well placed shots, thereby limiting his massacre to fourteen dead and thirty-one wounded at the University of Texas. These same citizens were later credited by one of the two officers who shot the gunman, for having prevented Charles Whitman from taking careful aim at his intended victims. Of course, while there is no way to count how many were saved from his bullets by the armed citizenry (since only victims may be counted), there can also be no denying that some were in fact saved, since the killer’s actions were obviously thwarted.
According to several studies, the most notable of which might be that of pioneering researchers Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, guns are used by Americans to defend themselves against criminal attack more than two million times each year. Their study was so thorough in its approach that Marvin E. Wolfgang, noted gun-control advocate of the Northwestern University School of Law, wrote his endorsement of their work, entitled “A Tribute to a View I Have Opposed.” In the article, Wolfgang summarizes his opinion:
“…the Kleck and Gertz study impresses me for the caution the authors exercise and the elaborate nuances they examine methodologically. I do not like their conclusions that having a gun can be useful, but I cannot fault their methodology. They have tried earnestly to meet all objections in advance and have done exceedingly well.”
Those who insist that the security of ourselves and our children is best left to the authorities should remember that the police rarely perform actual last second rescues. Said another way, seldom is the cavalry on the way, and Officer Do-Right is stuck in traffic. Perhaps if there were security officers stationed at every door of every classroom such confidence in authoriy might be justified. But since economy prevents such a condition, it seems naught but foolhardy to be comforted by the illusion of inviolability provided by the faux fiat that is the law. One is forced by the reality of such events as Virginia Tech to acknowledge that such law is secured only by the consensual agreement to comply and that for some, such agreement is apparently viewed as non-binding.
When one begins to appreciate the true genius of the US Constitution and its Amendments, it becomes quite clear that our founding fathers wished fervently to ensure that their descendents would never again be the powerless subjects of their governors, but would instead remain citizens in a free republic into perpetuity. I fully understand the attraction of self as subject, of wanting all things (especially security) to be provided by the state. But the subject is only slightly more free than the plantation slave, who must also be provided his security, and so must also settle for what seems reasonable to his betters. He cannot be allowed to arrange for it himself like the citizen because his elitist masters view him as part of an “unruly mob,” in dire need of being controlled.
As for myself and a good many other Americans, we prefer to carry firearms in order to have within our own grasp the means to secure our persons and property and are quite willing to vociferously oppose those who would deny that constitutionally guaranteed preference through foul legislation or judicial decree. As President Ford once noted, ” …a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”
Perhaps it is instinctual for people to try to ban those items which appear to facilitate crime, since prohibition has historically been the knee-jerk reflex of those with the authoriy to make law. Prohibition has only proven effective as a means of controlling such items in a police state, where the people have few rights and may be subjected to search and seizure at the whim of any government agent. In countries such as ours it has failed miserably, as the bans against guns, alcohol and drugs have markedly proven. These failures seem to suggest that prohibition and freedom are incongruous, if not entirely imiscible.
I encourage those who have regular occasion to be on campus to ask themselves whether they would want someone trained and licensed in the use of firearms to be armed and present if the next Cho or Whitman happens to pick their own office or classroom for their last stand. If so, then they should discard the completely disproven and irrational instinct toward gun control and demand that those licensed for concealed carry not be prohibited from it on campus.
Even Thomas Jefferson recognized that citizens should never be disarmed, having copied by hand into his “Commonplace Book”, this quote from the 18th century criminologist, Cesare Beccaria:
“False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction.
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
Was Jefferson bitterly clinging to his guns and religion?
I think not.
Posted by: dilligras | August 4th, 2008 at 11:45 pm | Report this commentI see a lot of insinuations about the horrors of guns, but I seem to be missing any actual data that was provided to back up their assertions. It seems strange to me that one person accuses gun rights supporters of being juvenile, but then proceeds to use insulting stereotypes and at the same time never presents any actual facts to back up his claims.
Lets start with this fun data from the Bureau of Justice Stastics: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/wuvc01.pdf
“Crime by armed offenders was most
likely to occur while the victim was
engaged in leisure activity away from
home”
“Victims of crimes by strangers were
also more likely than victims of crimes
by intimates to be confronted by an
offender with a firearm (14% versus
5%, respectively).”
Also, please note violent crime has dropped to nearly half during the time period covered by this study, this was also the time period during which many states began allowing concealed carry. So, if you believe concealed carry makes life more dangerous, please try to understand this, during the time that millions of Americans began to carry firearms your chances of being the victim of any violent crime went down by over 50%. I cannot offer proof that those citizens carrying firearms made you safer, but if they made you less safe than something else managed to completely counteract the threat of armed private citizens AND decimate your chance of being harmed.
Another study, again same source:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/hvfsdaft.txt
And finally, do you believe concealed carry makes you safer, well try this little one for size:
“A fifth of the victims defending themselves with a firearm suffered an injury, compared to almost half of those who defended themselves with weapons other than a firearm or who had no weapon.” (For those of you bad with math, that means you have a gun 20% of being hurt when you are the victim of a crime, you don’t have a gun 50%, I like the 20% odds better.)
In most cases victims who used firearms to defend themselves or their property were confronted by offenders who were either unarmed or armed with weapons other than firearms. On average between 1987 and 1992, about 35% (or 22,000 per year) of the violent crime victims defending themselves with a firearm faced an offender who
also had a firearm. (Because the NCVS collects victimization data on police officers, its estimates of the use of firearms for
self-defense are likely to include police use of firearms. Questionnaire revisions introduced in January 1993 will permit separate consideration of police and civilian firearm cases.)
And as for the “And the number of times a white middle-class person has actually been saved by a gun is infinitesimal.”
“Applying those restrictions leaves 19 NSPOF
respondents (0.8 percent of the sample),
representing 1.5 million defensive users.”
Source: http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/165476.txt
That number is A, per year, and B, from a study funded by the clinton administration. So please do not try to tell me that that moron Bush somehow made his cronies cook that number up.
Posted by: Adam Towne | August 5th, 2008 at 1:06 am | Report this commentI would also welcome an infinitesimal deposit in my bank account please.
Just a thought…….when I was a kid we were allowed - often encouraged - to play with toy guns, and playgrounds echoed to the sound of our cowboys & indians or mock WWII battles all summer long.
We never contemplated using real guns to cause real death and injury; we knew better, we knew right from wrong. When we got older, we were encouraged to join cadet corps and learned to handle weapons safely and responsibly.
That was a different world, before feminism, social engineering and political correctness spread it’s ugly cancer
Posted by: Stuart | August 5th, 2008 at 6:02 pm | Report this comment“The gun issue in America is complex and bizarre.
First, it is clear, if you read the Bill of Rights, that the “right to bear arms” was tied to the concept of a “well ordered militia.””
It’s not complex or bizarre at all, where do you think James Madison got this from? Article 7 of the Bill of Rights 1689 - “All the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence…”
The difference is that in the UK civil rights have been steam-rollered in favour of political correctness (or back in ye olde days, simple oppression), whereas in the US the Bill of Rights is a revered document that is strictly enforced.
Anyone saying that the Second Amendment is not an individual right is living in a delusion as the US Supreme Court pointed out recently.
Posted by: Steve | August 7th, 2008 at 7:33 pm | Report this commentWherever we have concealed carry in the US, we have safer areas. This isn’t a feeling, it’s fact. Florida passed concealed carry, and gun crimes went down despite the liberal hand-wringing that it would be the Old West. I, a very law-abiding person, am going to begin a ridiculously long process to get a concealed weapons permit soon. Meanwhile, the criminal just stuffs the gun in his pocket. I am sick and tired of leftists telling me what I can’t do! I have a right to my own protection, however I see fit, and I will not surrender that to some whiny, effete liberal who thinks he knows what’s good for me!
Posted by: Adam Smith | August 14th, 2008 at 6:47 pm | Report this commentSomewhere Edmund Burke talked about the Constitution of Great Britain and presumed that it was so sacrosanct that it would not have to be protected by the legal hedges which the authors of the American Constitution had thrown around theirs. Unfortunately, the Rt. Hon. Mr. Burke put too much faith in Britons of future generations who, over the years, have allowed successive Parliaments to take away the hard-won right of the British people.
Posted by: JohnA | August 27th, 2008 at 11:43 pm | Report this commentWhich is one reason many Britons have emigrated to the U.S.