Terror shifts Americans' views on self defense

Josey1

Terror shifts Americans' views on self defense It's only appropriate that the book heralded a year ago as the trump card of the gun control movement should fall into disrepute even as that movement collapses in disarray in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. When published, Michael Bellesiles' "Arming America" was praised by Garry Wills in the New York Times Book Review for having "dispersed the darkness that covered the gun's early history in America." The book made the startling claim that firearms were neither widely owned nor popular among early Americans. If this were so, it might undermine the credibility of the widespread belief that the Second Amendment was intended to protect an individual right. Even as the book made waves, advocates of gun control moved slowly, but surely forward with plans to tighten controls on gun shows and impose further restrictions at the state level. The White House seemed within their grasp, and with it, tighter gun laws at the federal level. Now, "Arming America" is shedding defenders like ducks shed water. Amidst credible allegations that Bellesiles misused and even fabricated research, the New York Times describes a situation that "could be one of the worst academic scandals in years." Independent inquiries by the Boston Globe "suggest a disturbing pattern of misuse of data by Bellesiles in his book and in an article defending his thesis which he published on his Web site." And rather than supporting tough new restrictions on firearms, Americans are flocking to purchase guns and acquire permits to carry concealed weapons. True, the fate of the book and the movement which originally championed its allegations aren't directly linked. If the charges of academic fraud stick to Prof. Bellesiles, he'll have been the author of his own fate. The larger gun control movement is a victim of events beyond its control. Those events include the September 11 attacks, which many Americans clearly took as evidence that government, for all of its tough laws and legions of enforcers, can't necessarily defend people against determined attackers. The pro-self-defense group Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership drew that conclusion explicitly, saying, "the one act of defense that could have prevented the hijackings is armed response by the pilots, crew and/or passengers." JPFO went on to recommend: Pilots should be armed. Crew members should likewise have tools of self-defense, whether they be guns, scissors or letter openers. And passengers should be allowed defensive tools, as well. Most Americans might still be barred from carrying self-defense tools through airport security, but they seem determined to follow that advice wherever else possible. In November, Fox News reported: In California and several other locales, officials report that gun sales rose 30 percent in the weeks following the terror attacks. In Texas, Washington and Oklahoma the number of people filing for concealed-weapons permits has been about 25 percent above normal. And the Wall Street Journal predicts that "[t]his Christmas, gun sales for children and adults could get an added boost from self-defense fever inspired by the events of September 11." If the connection between guns and self-defense needed any further emphasis, the federal courts stood ready to help. In October, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Second Amendment does, in fact, protect an individual right to bear arms. From an individual rights perspective, the much-watched Emerson case was actually a mixed bag -- it went on to allow the suspension of constitutional rights without a guilty verdict, based only on a restraining order. But it was the first federal court decision in a long time to rank the right to bear arms alongside free speech and other individual rights. Foes of private ownership of firearms haven't just rolled over, of course. Senators Charles Schumer and Edward Kennedy, among others, castigated Attorney General John Ashcroft for refusing to allow the FBI to pore over records of approved background checks for gun purchases to see if the names of terrorist suspects might pop up. But the Brady Law forbids using records of approved purchases to "establish any system for the registration of firearms, firearm owners, or firearm transactions or dispositions, except with respect to persons, prohibited" from buying guns. Which is to say, it's almost certainly illegal to use records of approved purchases in the way that the senators want. Besides, the records in question are of purchases that the government itself already said were OK. They may include names of people suspected of terrorist links, but those people are, presumably, already under observation. Anti-gun members of Congress have also tried to use September 11 as an excuse to require private individuals who peddle parts of their collections at gun shows to subject purchasers to background checks. But the claim that this will somehow inhibit Al Q'aeda from meeting its shopping goals rings hollow -- and not just because the September 11 attacks involved no firearms. According to a Justice Department survey of prison inmates, criminals are increasingly getting their guns from "family or friends" -- the source for 40% of respondents, who have adopted such informal transaction in preference to commercial purchases. It's hard to see how regulations that can't thwart nickel-and-dime stick-up artists will stymie sophisticated international terrorists. With advocates of gun restrictions reduced to lame calls for impotent and illegal measures, it's obvious why prominent political scientist Larry Sabato told the Christian Science Monitor that "[a]ny gun-control legislation of any kind is a non-starter now." But the national shift in opinion on the issue of self defense and gun rights may not just be for "now." With Americans flocking to purchase firearms for themselves or to give them as gifts to loved ones, the ranks of gun owners are swelling. That means the potential audience for a Michael Bellesiles of the future is probably shrinking with each chime of the cash register in a sporting goods store. And with that audience goes the constituency for tightened restrictions on firearms. http://www.free-market.net/spotlight/gunshift/