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Small-caliber reasoning
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Small-caliber reasoning
Eric Schellhorn Thursday, May 16, 2002
LADIES and gentlemen, please be seated. Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Heston -- keep your firearms securely holstered at all times. No one's going to pry them from your cold little hands. And you, in the back row, from the Brady Campaign -- the one in the Kevlar jumpsuit: Relax. We'll keep this civilized.
Both sides represented here are, well, up in arms over a few new developments on the gun-policy front. But as is often the case in these sorts of domestic disputes, each side has more in common with the other than either is willing to admit -- namely, a tendency to let passion cloud intellectual honesty and good judgment.
Let's begin with the California Supreme Court's decision last month to uphold counties' right to ban gun shows on public property. This was a blow to the National Rifle Association and its offshoots, which had argued that local governments were overstepping their authority by enacting ordinances more restrictive than state gun laws already on the books. A curious tack that was, coming from conservatives who typically balk whenever local control is threatened by sweeping regulation and state bureaucracy. Then again, firearms fans have always favored pragmatism over principle. So, when storm clouds threaten their agenda, any old port will do.
That's why the U.S. Constitution is so central to their cause. The framers' lack of perfect foresight provides lots of fodder for the creative rationales that the gun lobby regularly uses to make its case. Last week, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, a lifetime NRA member, served notice in a U.S. Supreme Court brief that the Bush administration reads the Second Amendment as a guarantee of an individual's right to own guns, rather than a collective right to bear arms in the context of a state-sponsored militia. You have to ignore six decades of legal precedent and, not incidentally, the text of the amendment to arrive at the so-called "individual rights" interpretation.
Meanwhile, in the California gun-show cases, the issue of local versus state control is settled, but the lobby has kept some powder dry. Remaining before the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco is the question of whether local gun-show bans violate the First Amendment. Pro-gun factions, you see, tout such shows as educational gatherings and forums for the exchange of gun- related banter. Thus, the reasoning goes, any attempt to ban the shows violates the free-speech and peaceful-assembly rights of gun enthusiasts and manufacturers. But that's a red herring.
If gun buffs just wanted to get together over chamomile tea to talk marksmanship and magazine capacity at the county fairgrounds, even the Berkeley Department of Parks, Recreation and Waterfront might permit it. It's the presence of the guns themselves, of course, that gives counties pause.
Such erratic logic is the mark of a desperate bunch casting about for support to save themselves from extinction. The gun lobby has powerful allies in the Bush administration, but the long-term picture is nowhere near as promising. In 2001, handgun sales in California fell to the lowest level since the state began tracking them 30 years ago. The percentage of U.S. adults who own at least one gun fell from 31 percent in 1996 to 24 percent in 2001, according to the University of Chicago. What's more, many, if not most, immigrants arriving on these shores don't share American culture's primal attachment to firearms. As one University of California expert told the Christian Science Monitor last month, "The culture of shooting is slowly ebbing away."
If the gun lobby is truly intent on winning new friends, it needs to abandon disingenuous rhetoric and begin attacking initiatives such as Los Angeles and Alameda counties' ordinances on substantive grounds. Faced with the kinds of infringements posed by the counties, gun owners and manufacturers should take up one simple refrain: Any government action taken to restrict firearms ownership or related pastimes must be reasonably expected -- if not proven -- to achieve the stated aim of curbing gun-related violence.
On that score, the counties wouldn't even have been able to defend a simple syllogism: a) Gun-related violence is a problem in some California communities.
b) Some guns are sold at gun shows held on public property in those communities. Therefore, c) Banning gun shows on public property will reduce incidents of gun-related violence. You don't need to be Socrates to spot the flaws in this received wisdom, and it's typical of the small-caliber reasoning at the heart of so many gun-control initiatives.
If public discourse post-Sept. 11 has thrown one lesson into strong relief, it's that when the core values of public safety and individual freedom conflict, democratic societies must work to strike an appropriate balance. The firearms debate, therefore, isn't a sideshow -- it's a microcosm. If the gun lobby could keep its itchy trigger finger in check when challenged to consider legislation that might actually heighten public safety, and if gun-control advocates could come to appreciate that some guns may still have a place in a modern American society, well -- there just might be some hope for the rest of us. Let's ask the hard questions first, and shoot . . . er, legislate, later.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/05/16/ED161897.DTL
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Eric Schellhorn Thursday, May 16, 2002
LADIES and gentlemen, please be seated. Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Heston -- keep your firearms securely holstered at all times. No one's going to pry them from your cold little hands. And you, in the back row, from the Brady Campaign -- the one in the Kevlar jumpsuit: Relax. We'll keep this civilized.
Both sides represented here are, well, up in arms over a few new developments on the gun-policy front. But as is often the case in these sorts of domestic disputes, each side has more in common with the other than either is willing to admit -- namely, a tendency to let passion cloud intellectual honesty and good judgment.
Let's begin with the California Supreme Court's decision last month to uphold counties' right to ban gun shows on public property. This was a blow to the National Rifle Association and its offshoots, which had argued that local governments were overstepping their authority by enacting ordinances more restrictive than state gun laws already on the books. A curious tack that was, coming from conservatives who typically balk whenever local control is threatened by sweeping regulation and state bureaucracy. Then again, firearms fans have always favored pragmatism over principle. So, when storm clouds threaten their agenda, any old port will do.
That's why the U.S. Constitution is so central to their cause. The framers' lack of perfect foresight provides lots of fodder for the creative rationales that the gun lobby regularly uses to make its case. Last week, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, a lifetime NRA member, served notice in a U.S. Supreme Court brief that the Bush administration reads the Second Amendment as a guarantee of an individual's right to own guns, rather than a collective right to bear arms in the context of a state-sponsored militia. You have to ignore six decades of legal precedent and, not incidentally, the text of the amendment to arrive at the so-called "individual rights" interpretation.
Meanwhile, in the California gun-show cases, the issue of local versus state control is settled, but the lobby has kept some powder dry. Remaining before the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco is the question of whether local gun-show bans violate the First Amendment. Pro-gun factions, you see, tout such shows as educational gatherings and forums for the exchange of gun- related banter. Thus, the reasoning goes, any attempt to ban the shows violates the free-speech and peaceful-assembly rights of gun enthusiasts and manufacturers. But that's a red herring.
If gun buffs just wanted to get together over chamomile tea to talk marksmanship and magazine capacity at the county fairgrounds, even the Berkeley Department of Parks, Recreation and Waterfront might permit it. It's the presence of the guns themselves, of course, that gives counties pause.
Such erratic logic is the mark of a desperate bunch casting about for support to save themselves from extinction. The gun lobby has powerful allies in the Bush administration, but the long-term picture is nowhere near as promising. In 2001, handgun sales in California fell to the lowest level since the state began tracking them 30 years ago. The percentage of U.S. adults who own at least one gun fell from 31 percent in 1996 to 24 percent in 2001, according to the University of Chicago. What's more, many, if not most, immigrants arriving on these shores don't share American culture's primal attachment to firearms. As one University of California expert told the Christian Science Monitor last month, "The culture of shooting is slowly ebbing away."
If the gun lobby is truly intent on winning new friends, it needs to abandon disingenuous rhetoric and begin attacking initiatives such as Los Angeles and Alameda counties' ordinances on substantive grounds. Faced with the kinds of infringements posed by the counties, gun owners and manufacturers should take up one simple refrain: Any government action taken to restrict firearms ownership or related pastimes must be reasonably expected -- if not proven -- to achieve the stated aim of curbing gun-related violence.
On that score, the counties wouldn't even have been able to defend a simple syllogism: a) Gun-related violence is a problem in some California communities.
b) Some guns are sold at gun shows held on public property in those communities. Therefore, c) Banning gun shows on public property will reduce incidents of gun-related violence. You don't need to be Socrates to spot the flaws in this received wisdom, and it's typical of the small-caliber reasoning at the heart of so many gun-control initiatives.
If public discourse post-Sept. 11 has thrown one lesson into strong relief, it's that when the core values of public safety and individual freedom conflict, democratic societies must work to strike an appropriate balance. The firearms debate, therefore, isn't a sideshow -- it's a microcosm. If the gun lobby could keep its itchy trigger finger in check when challenged to consider legislation that might actually heighten public safety, and if gun-control advocates could come to appreciate that some guns may still have a place in a modern American society, well -- there just might be some hope for the rest of us. Let's ask the hard questions first, and shoot . . . er, legislate, later.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/05/16/ED161897.DTL
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
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