It’s important to remember that America exists as a nation only because its citizens were able to take up arms against a repressive government and win their freedom. Its founding fathers, quite rightfully, knew that the only true way for a populace to remain free from oppressors is for that populace to have the ability to fight back against oppressors. This bedrock principle is enshrined in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
That being said, the debate over gun control has been warped by Republican rhetoric for a long time now.
The 2nd Amendment reads: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” When gun-control comes up, the NRA screech that the 2nd Amendment shall know no limits. The gun-control advocates have never effectively countered this rhetoric, which is relatively easy to do:
D: Do you think that your neighbor should be able to mount a howitzer in his front yard?
R: No.
D: Then we both agree there should be gun-control. So the question is, where are we going to draw the line? Howitzers? Machine guns? Sub-machine guns? Assault rifles?
If they’re actually nuts enough to say that suburbia should be studded with howitzers, raise the stakes:
D: So do you think that your neighbor should be allowed to build a nuclear bomb in their basement?
R: No.
D: Then we both agree that there should be arms-control. So the question is, where are we going to draw the line? Nuclear weapons? Plastique? Howitzers? Machine guns? Sub-machine guns? Assault rifles?
If they’re actually nuts enough to say that nuclear weapons should be available to every Tom, Dick, and Jane, then they’ve lost all credibility in the debate.
The trick is to get this debate onto the level of yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. Only loonies believe that freedom of speech should allow people to deliberately create false panic, engage in criminal conspiracies, or perjure themselves under legal oath.
Similarly, only loonies believe that a right to bear arms should allow people unrestricted and unregulated access to nuclear weapons, plastic explosives, or biological weapons.
The legitimate debate, in both cases, comes down to: Where do we want to draw the line?
Right now, it’s impossible to have that debate because the issue is systematically reduced to extremist rhetoric. But with a little Socratic dialoguing and a handful of questions you can quickly and effectively strip away that rhetoric.
Once you’ve done that, you can start talking about the issue rationally. Here are some good questions that get to the heart of the issue:
1. What weapons should private citizens be prohibited from possessing under any circumstances?
2. What weapons should private citizens be allowed to possess only under strict regulations and controls?
3. What weapons should private citizens be allowed to possess only after being properly trained and licensed?
4. What weapons should private citizens have a right to own without limitation?
ARCHIVED HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Justin Alexander
The 1st Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law […] abridging the freedom of speech.”
Do we really need an amendment to make it illegal to engage in a criminal conspiracy using speech? Or to yell “fire” in a crowded theater? Or to spray paint graffiti on another’s property?
I don’t think it’s dishonest to believe that the 1st Amendment was never meant to be read that way. In fact, I think it’s unreasonable to hold that the founding fathers thought so, either.
Similarly, I don’t think the founding fathers intended for the 2nd Amendment to be read as “thou shalt not pass a law to make it illegal to bring barrels of explosive black powder onto the floor of the congress”. In fact, I think it’s completely unreasonable to believe that they intended the 2nd Amendment to mean that.
And, thus, by extension of technology and of time, I know that it’s unlikely they intended the 2nd Amendment to allow common citizens to own nuclear weapons.
Where is the line between )unreasonably, banning public speech and (reasonably) banning criminal conspiracies when it comes to gun control? That’s an issue that can be sensibly debated.
Or, at least, it could be sensibly debated if we weren’t constantly derailed into an unreasonable interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.
Which is the point of the essay.
Thursday, September 20, 2007, 5:31:04 PM
Ulzgoroth
There is an additional point in the debate. I won’t defend anyone saying that general availability of WMD is a good policy, but it is true that current gun control laws are in violation of honest reading of the second amendment.
While flawed, even current laws are better than unfettered weapon access. But blatantly ignoring a section of the bill of rights is not a good way to go about things either. We have an amendment process. We really ought to use it…
Wednesday, September 19, 2007, 3:27:37 PM
There is law regulating the storage of powder and explosive shell, nobody argues against this. The irony is that a private citizen should be able to keep a silo stocked with nuclear ICBMs, if, IF, they also have the same protective infrastructure to safely keep the warheads, rocket fuel, and miles of isotope centrifuges in good order. Most if not all citizens cannot afford this so the issue of them being rightfully able is contrived.
So what you’re saying, Keith, is that you 100% agree that the right to bear arms as described in the 2nd Amendment does not prohibit reasonable regulations for the possession of those arms.
“It’s important to remember that America exists as a nation only because its citizens were able to take up arms against a repressive government and win their freedom. Its founding fathers, quite rightfully, knew that the only true way for a populace to remain free from oppressors is for that populace to have the ability to fight back against oppressors.”
We agree on that much, at least.
Running through the socratic examples, I’m going to go with a “yes” and a “no” respectively. I think that leads us to the question of where the line should be drawn. At the same time, I think that it answers it.
There’s two things to consider here. We both agree with your opening paragraph, and (I assume) we both enjoy living on an earth that exists. Given those two presuppositions, the placement of the line seems rather obvious. In quasi-technical terms, strategic weapons should be prohibited to the individual citizen, while any form of tactical weapon should be permissible. In simple terms, anything that could precipitate doomsday is out. Anything less than that is fair game.
If you want a more detailed formulation, then consider this. Strategic weapons, such as thermonuclear warheads or biological super-weapons, are essentially useless to an oppressive regime. You can’t rule a country if you’ve already vaporized it (of course, you could vaporize it out of spite if losing control seems likely, but let’s avoid the rabbit hole of M.A.D. for now). As such, anyone who was to “take up arms agaisnt an oppressive government” would have no reasonable use for, or reason to fear, WMDs. An M1 Abrams, however, is a far-cry from being a weapon of mass destruction; and those same rebels would have some very good, 120mm reasons for fearing an M1 Abrams. With that in mind it seems that, in order to keep with the spirit of the 2A, the average citizen should absolutely be permitted to own weapons capable of threatening an M1 Abrams, up to and even including his own Main Battle Tank. Anything less, and the 2A begins flirting with vestigiality.