"All it takes to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun".

I think the main point is that anyone who has a child should not feel good if we can’t somehow be confident that their children are safe there, and that safety isn’t going to involve their kids watch exchanges of gun fire, even if there are five ‘good guys’ for every bad guy.

 

I likely agree with Conservatives that gun confiscation would be disaster, and I don’t think anyone is seriously pursuing it at this time.

 

But for gun advocates to go from wanting not just freedom to own weapons, but basically wanting them everywhere is horrific. I think some states have legalized having guns in church, in bars and at work.

 

Regarding schools, I see at least as much risk of a stressed out teacher who carries a gun to school panicking or in a fit of rage shooting a student as that same teacher being the ‘good guy’ that stops the next Adam Lanza. Introducing guns into more of our daily interaction can only cause normal confrontation, and arguments to have much more potential to turn into a gun fight and maybe a death or two.

Our society is in serious trouble if the only we can be safe is to be in a state of MAD. Remember that? At the height of Cold War we lived with the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD. The peace was kept by the knowledge that if a confrontation spiraled out of control it meant the end of EVERYTHING. It worked, but is a balance of terror the best we can do between nations and individuals?

 

I will say that Mr. Obama would have done well I think to not elevate the gun issue. While I think his limited measures have merit, it was not hard to see that his pushing the issue would cause the massive push back among red-states we are seeing. In the end, I think three things will happen:

 

1. Obama’s new gun policies will be blocked at least in the house;
2. The GOP will gain in fall of next year at least partially from the gun issue coming to the forefront;
3. More insane laws like the right to guns at school or church will be passed in red states.

 

No response at all to Sandy Hook would be better than those three I think.

 

Obama should have pursued better mental health policy. That likely would help us as much or more the gun proposals; might have actually been enacted; and would have lead to guns in church.

 

I think the only President of the US that could ever enact gun restrictions like limited magazine, with their limited benefit would be a conservative Republican. A conservative might never take that action of course, but I think he or she would not be under such suspicion that it was just the first step to confiscation, and you wouldn’t see the crazy reaction that Obama has summoned up.

Whatever Works

Wayne LaPierre spouts more nonsense than Dick Cheney.

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2014 Midterm Prediction

Everyone sees the GOP as vanquished from the last election, but they did pretty well just two years ago. With the 2014 election, we’ll again see an electorate older and whiter (mid-term turnouts are smaller) and if guns become an issue like healthcare did in 2010, I think we’ll see the GOP make gains. Midterms in the second term are usually bad for the party in the Whitehouse anyway.

Would More Guns Have meant No Hitler?

I keep seeing this claim that banning guns was part of Hitler’s rise to absolute power, and the claim we need freely held and available guns as protector of freedom.  Do the claims make sense?

On the face of it a rebellion against a tyrant is almost certain to be illegal under the laws as created by a tyrant.  It is hard to see how a law against guns is anymore of a barrier than  numerous other restriction on liberty that would be expected under a tyrant.  If an armed rebellion is needed it would seem to me that we’d be outside the structure governed by laws and constitutions in the usual sense  How does gun regulation matter more or less?

Here’s a detailed review on the issue of Nazis and guns.  The claim that Obama is Hitler, as usual, seems silly.

How Gun Rights Activists are out of touch

Check this out:

I think the intent is to be funny,  by a parallel to what she see as over-reach against guns.  But I can’t help but feel that again an attack on a school – a school – creating concern for the rights of weapon holders is offensive.  Overall, I oppose anything approaching a gun ban.  It won’t work, and would have to very intrusive to even come close to doing so.  But, worrying about the poor guns and gun owners when children are murdered by guns, please.

Gun Control isn’t Practical–But a Less Violence Would be Ideal

In the end, gun control likely won’t achieve its ends. People are very attached to guns and they aren’t likely to comply with anything approaching confiscation of guns. Making it work would be worse than the alternative. Criminal will still have guns especially, and I’m pretty sure that like on a lot of issues there evidence on both sides as to whether fewer guns means less violence.

So if the President’s gun initiative go nowhere, I don’t think much damage will be done.  Armed schools as an alternative?  I like that even less.  I do like the idea of a less violent world with fewer weapons.  Libertarians who sympathize with gun rights, also in the end oppose coercion in all forms, or should.  As such, I’m uncomfortable seeing libertarians defending not just the rights to guns, but MORE guns.  In the end all that seems likely to do is to insure that the “right” people end up dead.

Guns as a protection of liberty?  Likely, its practical in a world where coercion isn’t going away.  Under the right circumstances weapons may be a defense of liberty. But lets call a spade a spade. All this righteous talk about liberty is basically asserting a right to terrorism in pursuit of liberty. I get it, but I’m finding the piousness of the defense of tools of violence a little tiresome. Guns and violence are nothing but a necessary evil.  Could we be less romantic about weapons?

This whole post is reaction to Reason snarkily dismissing children supporting gun limitations.  There are plenty of reason to doubt the practicality of their views, but do we have to so categorically deny the beauty of their ideals unsullied by the cynicism of adulthood.

Gun Control 2013 and Abortion 1973

We’ve all suffered from the hyper partisanship that has become our politics in 2013.  We used to expect politics to recognize that we didn’t agree on things, but attempt to organize society in a compromise that all could live with, at best anyway.  Now polarization is the order of the day, and politics is just blood sport:  endless conflict with little compromise.  How did this happen??

I think we can trace some of it to the rise of abortion as an issue.  This single issue has proved beyond compromise in any meaningful sense; but pro-choice has carried the day so far.  Pro-life advocates have none the less pushed an agenda of ending choice.  Little discussion has focused choice perhaps in the early months, but protection of the fetus there after.

The state of the pro-life pro-choice fight came I think at least in part from the imposition of ‘choice’ by supreme court ruling.  That happened of course in 1973.  Abortion rights were emerging before that.  California under the governor ship of Ronal Reagan signed expanded abortion rights into law before the court ruling.  Had stated moved ahead with different laws and the political process moved toward a more organically derived abortion result:  I think our politics today would be less polarized.   the political process should drive to avoid splitting the nation into armed or nearly armed camps.

Now I think we potentially face a similar cross roads in 2013.  There is talk of executive action to limit gun rights.  Many would proclaim it a great thing if gun rights were so curtailed.  I can see why.  We have a gun cult in the United States, and an obsession with guns and weapons in general.  Dear reader:  I am no fan of guns.  If I had God like power to make them all go away, I would.

If executive order is used to curtail guns I think this will enflame a huge gun rights movement that will further split and enflame our body politics.  David Frum says it pretty well:

If the president — any president — inserts himself into the gun debate, he will inevitably polarize it. Supporters of the president will rally, but opponents of the president will become more obdurate. Because the president has many items on his agenda, and often needs the votes of Democrats from districts where pro-gun feeling runs strong, his opponents will probably outlast him. …

Instead, progress to more rational gun laws must be led from outside the political system. Look at the success of the campaign against drunken driving.In 1980, 13-year-old Cari Lightner was struck and killed by a drunken driver. That driver had recently been arrested for another driving under the influence offense, but he remained on the road to kill again. Cari’s mother, Candice, threw herself into the cause of stopping drunken driving. A powerful organizer, she founded a group, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, that not only changed laws at the federal and state level, but also changed the larger cultural context.

My sense is that this issue especially will rise with Obama.