Well, I’ve gotta go to that place that probably no one else wants to. I think we must squarely face the monumental Supreme Court Decision that was handed down today with regard to gun control in Chicago. As some may have observed, we at GMD are by no means united in our opinion on gun control; and I, for one, think that makes it an excellent topic to sort of kick around in an intelligent and respectful way, as I know we can. It’s what we do, and there’s no avoiding it.
I’ll put my cards right on the table and say that I support me some judicious gun control. I also grew up in Chicago, so I have more than a passing idea of the particular hell that city might become without it. Granted, it’s like closing the barn door after the cows have escaped, trying to keep firearms away from the bad guys these days. The entire continent is so heavily traversed by firearms, with or without permitting, that the argument that everyone ought to arm him or herself has grown exceedingly difficult to contradict; but I refuse to believe that this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind for our little experiment in democracy, conceived at the apex of the Age of Reason.
We need to grow-up and face the responsibility of making some decisions ourselves to preserve life, as well as liberty; and to understand the inherent conflicts in “the pursuit of happiness.”
You would think that I would be heartsickened by the Supreme Court Decision, but I am not. I am far more distressed by the decision impacting campaign finance because that could well be the proverbial nail in the coffin of true citizen-directed democracy.
On the contrary, the Chicago decision will test the viability of the argument that our Constitution and all of its amendments must ever more remain inviolate, resisting any further change or evolution due to educated enlightenment or altered circumstances. I think it’s about bloody time we begin that conversation, and today’s decision is the catalyst that is likely to make it happen.
This has the potential to play-out rather quickly in real-time. Unlike the campaign finance decision, whose ramifications may well be hidden from the casual observer, there will be big-time attention on the part of every citizen as the arms race with their neighbors begins. How far will it go? Mortarfire and rockets exchanged between warring neighborhood gangs? My impression is that right now, nobody really knows for sure.
“Be careful what you wish for…”
What about the romantic idea of the Tea Party that citizens should be able to arm themselves against a presumptive tyrant? Okay; so, who gets to decide for the whole population that revolution is justified? I think we can all see where that one is going. “Treason” is just the ugly stepsister of “patriotism.”
We already incarcerate more of our population than any country in the world. Perhaps that is the next recourse for gun control; but what does that say about us as a culture? What does that say about us as a democracy? Are we poised on the brink of the great unwinding?
I’m not intractable on this. Some of my best friends oppose gun control; but, so far, no one has managed to convince me that we’d be better off without it. I guess we’re about to find out.
Oh, yes; I’m pulling up a comfy chair for this discussion.
the Vermont sort that is…. which is little or none.. I think we are prohibited from keeping a gun in our pockets only if we intend to commit a felony with it. Otherwise, absent the school or the random state or federal building-guess there is no real danger within those walls-a lot more folks are walking around armed than you may ever think.
City life is different, and your lament about the horse being out of the barn is really relative here. I really do buy into the whole, too late to the party idea. Most of the cops with “protect and serve” are not around when you need either, and their role is now more substitute tax collector. Sacred cow and all but we have far too many dollars running into a quasi military police force than we could ever need. Most of the enforcement in Chittenden county could be done on a segway or a chevette…. but we need room for the shotgun and everything tactical in the trunk.
I know a lot of people who have a lot of guns… most still hunt, but not all… I dont think I have a reason to fear any of them.
So, with respect to your comment on “are we better off without it”… well, there is really no place I can think of in Vermont that I am afraid to walk, so gun control must not be the variable that impacts safety that much.
I hear this quite a bit, even in kestrel’s graphic in the other thread. The cops are far away. Your gun is under the bed, in the pocket, in the glove box.
Is this fear based? Or is it it true? Am I walking around naive and unprepared?
How many times have you needed a cop for something that could get violent? Does it happen weekly? Monthly? Biannually?
Would (did) having a weapon help diffuse the situation?
I’m fairly clueless when it comes to this stuff. Lived in Harlem and also in Tribeca in the big city, and never felt carrying a weapon of any sort would have done me any good… nor did I feel I needed one. Woman in my building who was held up in the elevator by knife didn’t need one either – she just kicked the guy and managed to get off on the next floor…
So, back in VT – am I in need of arming up and protecting my life, liberty, and happiness (along with my family, dog, bikes, garden, and compost bin)?
And I hope to see some stats from that other thread – I’m curious what the numbers look like when it comes to averting risk with a firearm…
…and stir the pot myself.
“I think it is too fucking bad the Supreme Court and our national government doesn’t view the rest of the Bill of Rights and other rights giving constitutional clauses in the same way they view our right to be armed.”
What interests me about this decision is not so much the subject itself as the way it illuminates the lack of a judicial theory among the court majority.
Theoretically, this is a state’s rights court. They claim to want the minimum of federal interference in the rights of states to chart their own legislative courses. Agree with it or disagree with it, this is yet another extension of federal jurisdiction. Of course, the court pitched out states rights in favor of political interest with the Bush v. Gore decision, but so it goes.
Also, theoretically, this is an originalist court. They claim to be umpires calling balls and strikes, looking back to the original intent of the framers. I think this position is a crock for a variety of reasons, but there it is. Even so, they are inserting an imaginary “A musket over the fireplace being necessary for farmhouse defense” clause in place of the actual ” A well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state” clause. An originalist would recognize this first clause as explaining the framers’ intent. The framers of the constitution still held the romantic notion that yeoman farmers were capable of picking up muskets and defeating a professional army. George Washington knew better and relied on the Continental line troops, but the Jeffersonians had a vision. (Which cost them the burning of D.C. in the War of 1812) The framers offered citizens a collective right to “bear arms” (a military term at that time) in order to defend the state, not themselves.
Contrast that with some state constitutions (such as ours) that specify personal self defense (Article 16). We do, in fact have a well regulated militia, the National Guard, but this pseudo-originalist court wouldn’t recognize that.
Whether you agree with the decision or not, it presents a court majority that has functional, though unacknowledged, political theories but only pays lip service to judicial theories.
I lived in New York City for almost 20 years and never once did I ever wish I had any kind of firearm. And I worked late at night and regularly rode the subways at midnight. I felt far more danger from the rookie cops fresh out of the Academy than I ever did from the homies on the corner.
I believe that guns should be regulated by population density. In dense areas, like NYC, guns should be strictly regulated, like they are now: you must show a specific reason to need a gun, ‘just ’cause I want to’ is not good enough. Carrying diamonds is a good reason, for example.
In Vermont, with our low population, the state’s current laws – almost none- are fine.
Next, every gun owner should be registered with the state and should be forced to prove they have $1M liability insurance policy.
Cars are less deadly than guns and we strictly regulate those, how can guns possibly be any different.
Finally, the activist Federalist Society branch of Government, made up of Catholics (of all people), we euphamistically call the US Supreme Court, seems to have completely ignored half of the 2nd Amendment in their zeal for Constitutional Originalism. The primary reason for allowing our citizens to be armed in the first place is for the ability of the state to muster ‘a well regulated militia’. Well since we no longer use our state militia and instead hire a permanent mercenary standing army, what possible constitutional reason can there be for the 2nd Amendment anymore? No militia, no guns.