by von
"AT LEAST 20 people were killed this morning at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and University after a shooting spree at two buildings on the campus." (Washington Post) Other sources put the total number of dead at 21, including the gunman, with about the same number wounded. (Indianapolis Star.) UPDATE: MSN reports that at least 30 are dead.
The bodies are still warm to the touch; it takes some time for a mass that size to cool. But a distant tragedy is no tragedy at all when you’re sitting hundreds of miles away with only your computer screen for reflection. So, the political debate begins. Professor Reynolds starts: "These things do seem to take place in locations where it’s not legal for people with carry permits to carry guns, though, and I believe that’s the case where the Virginia Tech campus is concerned. I certainly wish that someone had been in a position to shoot this guy at the outset."
This could be a post about crassness, bad timing, and lack of judgment and taste. About waiting until a decent period before advancing one’s pet causes. About shame and proportion and shared humanity. It could be about any of those things — or them all — but it’s not. You see, I had the exact same thought as Professor Reynoylds. I’ll not begrudge him for writing what I might have.
But does the cold logic work? Do these things tend to occur where guns are scarce or virtually nonexistent? Not exactly. Places where guns are universally restricted — where even a dedicated criminal frequently cannot access a firearm — have proportionately low gun violence rates. The same occurs where guns are freely available, because someone who wants to misuse a gun is deterred by the possibility or actuality of an armed response. For instance, one would not cite Switzerland, which has notoriously high gun ownership, as a land of systematic violence.
No, to get real, US-style gun violence, you need to be messed up in precisely the way the US is: You must have regions with relatively free gun ownership bordering regions where guns are heavily restricted. It’s the mix that allows guns to travel where they can do maximum harm.
It’s a depressing thought to turn over in your mind, but no more depressing than 21 people cooling beneath the noonday sun. And not even cold yet.
UPDATE 2: If I define my purpose on this blog as inciting controversy and discussion, then I’m a tremendous success. But I fear that folks are reading a little too much into my post. Although one can infer from this post that I’m "pro-gun," in the roughest sense of the term, I haven’t recommended any policy changes in the post. I’m not advocating that we arm college freshmen as they enter the dorm in hopes of deterring mass violence. I’m not suggesting that this tragedy would or could have been avoided had it occurred where concealed weapons permits are common.
Since not too many college students have the training to effectively stop a shooting rampage, I’d say the fantasy of one of them firing back is a bit moot,anyway.
Wow this is awful. I was seeing “1 killed” all morning. ABC has it as 29 dead as of now.
ABCNews now says at least 29 dead.
They’ve already got a special “THE VIRGINIA TECH MASSACRE” section up.
My first thought on reading the post is that people who’s first thought about a massacre at a college dorm at 7-8 am, or in a college classroom at 10 am is that more students should have guns have marked themselves as unworthy of serious attention. I already knew this about Prof. Reynolds. I’m sorry, von, to have to put you in the category too.
When you go home tonight, look your wife and kid in the eye, and think about how your first reaction to the death of someone else’s kid — a bunch of someone else’s kids — was a video-game level fantasy.
-After 9-11, I don’t see how we can trust many of these folks with the ability to identify danger.
I’m sure the president of the Young Republicans would have killed everyone except the shooter.
When you go home tonight, look your wife and kid in the eye, and think about how your first reaction to the death of someone else’s kid — a bunch of someone else’s kids — was a video-game level fantasy.
I went to college in a state where it was legal to carry a handgun with a concealed permit, and had several friends who did. There was nothing videogamish about it.
Almost as good as the Perfesser is Ace of Spades‘ “Is he Asian? No that was some other guy, but he could still be Asian” coverage.
Reminds me of what Tbogg said: No one is going to get a blogging Pulitzer for being the fastest to post what they just saw and heard on the TV. Or, I would add, for festooning them with talking points.
The same occurs where guns are freely available, because someone who wants to misuse a gun is deterred by the possibility or actuality of an armed response.
Yes, like in Iraq, where we see the effectiveness of deterrence every day.
In the real world, a nut who wants to take as many people with him as possible is not going to be deterred by local gun ownership statistics.
And it’s remarkable how, when the facts and circumstances of the shootings aren’t even in yet, gun fanatics already “know” that more guns would have meant someone could have shot the guy sooner.
According to the early reports, you had people in such a panic that two of them leapt from a top-story window and got seriously injured. I’m not sure I’d feel more comfortable if people with that sort of bad judgment were instead returning fire at who they thought was the shooter.
If some lefty blogger had posted this morning to say that this shooting was the product of one of Bush’s policies (heck, there’s a lot of blogs, such an example probably exists), he would have been widely derided by von’s buddies, accused of BDS, and held up as the embodiment of the unserious Left, even if no one had ever heard of him before. But the most popular conservative blogger can use this tragedy as an argument against gun control before anyone even knows what happens, and I doubt you’ll hear a whisper of mainstream condemnation. Which I guess means it’s OK.
Incidenatally, CharlieCarp, the question presented is whether, given the current availability of handguns — the mix of regions of high and low availability — what to do.
Oh, and there’s also the lockdown policy to consider. Any college kid who wants to live out the Reynolds fantasy and Ramvbo out is more likely to be shot – by the cops, that is, as they hunt down the actual perp.
Yeah, I wish the Shoot Back! crowd would wait a little while before it starts spouting that Red Dawn horse hockey. But I stopped expecting adult commentary from those ranks quite some time ago.
Yes, like in Iraq, where we see the effectiveness of deterrence every day.
I think we can safely exclude places where a civil war is occuring, whether it is occuring with guns (Iraq) or largely without them (Rwanda, a few years back).
“If some lefty blogger had posted this morning to say that this shooting was the product of one of Bush’s policies (heck, there’s a lot of blogs, such an example probably exists), he would have been widely derided by von’s buddies, accused of BDS, and held up as the embodiment of the unserious Left, even if no one had ever heard of him before.”
Oh, this is absolutely going to be used by both sides of the debate, and with very little useful talk on either side.
According to the early reports, you had people in such a panic that two of them leapt from a top-story window and got seriously injured. I’m not sure I’d feel more comfortable if people with that sort of bad judgment were instead returning fire at who they thought was the shooter.
Why are you assuming it was bad judgment? Perhaps, confronting a madman, it was the best of a series of bad options.
No, to get real, US-style gun violence, you need to be messed up in precisely the way the US is: You must have regions with relatively free gun ownership bordering regions where guns are heavily restricted. It’s the mix that allows guns to travel where they can do maximum harm.
That’s not how the U.S. is messed up. The U.S. is messed up because it’s popular culture glorifies violence at a level higher than other societies do.
Canada, with a more restrictive gun regime, borders U.S. states that have considerably less restrictions on guns, and while freedom of movement across the border isn’t as free as it is between States, it’s not all that hard (and in the very recent past very easy) and yet gun violence is statistically much lower in Canada. So the idea that it’s the lack of uniformity across jurisdictions that is the root cause is a thesis I’d put forth.
owning a gun, carrying a gun, shooting a gun, pointing a gun at a person and shooting are very different actions. reynolds or anyone couldn’t possibly predict what would happen…
“with very little useful talk on either side.”
Gosh, you and I are in complete agreement on this one.
von, at least you were honest about what your thoughts were, and also trying to start a constructive debate on how to handle things. Reynolds lets it all hang out, without regard to families of the victims, much like O’Reilly did in his debate with Geraldo.
There may be a time to look at things like he wants to, but not now. This is just exploiting a tragedy to make a cheap political point, without any evidence to back up his assertions.
Why are you assuming it was bad judgment? Perhaps, confronting a madman, it was the best of a series of bad options.
Well, I’ll put my $5 on panic, and you can place your own wagers as you will. Basically, in a situation where a lot of people are freaking out, I’m not all that saddened that more of them didn’t have guns handy.
WTF??
you cannot be implying that a college full of kids with loaded handguns is going to be a safer place ?
That’s not how the U.S. is messed up. The U.S. is messed up because it’s popular culture glorifies violence at a level higher than other societies do.
exactly.
we have fncked-up ideas about responsibility and the magic of instant violence to solve our problems.
adding more guns to the mix wouldn’t change anything the death penalty hasn’t changed – if a killer knows his actions are going to earn him The Chair and goes through with it anyway, there’s no reason to think he’ll be deterred by the chance that he’ll get shot by a vengeful bystander before he kills his fourth or fifth victim.
von: I went to college in a state where it was legal to carry a handgun with a concealed permit, and had several friends who did. There was nothing videogamish about it.
What is videogamish is the notion that an armed college student will be able to whip out a gun and shoot the villain dead.
You might just as well wish that one of the college students had been bitten by a radioactive spider…
I’d think you need someone w/ a concealed weapon either highly trained, or in the immediate vicinity of where the massacre starts, to do much good. I don’t buy the deterrence argument at all in this context. The shooters in massacres like this tend to be pretty indifferent to their own lives; a fair number end with the gunman shooting himself.
The idea of a bunch of college students on campus w/ guns as a safety measure sounds ridiculously stupid to me. I mean, I can certainly imagine individual upperclassmen who have their own place and knows what they’re doing, but guns in the freshman dorm? You’ve got to be kidding me.
Oh, this is absolutely going to be used by both sides of the debate, and with very little useful talk on either side.
Yeah, but are both sides going to inappropriately chime in to try and score political points before the bodies have even cooled? Because right now, the score seems to stand at Instapundit 1, Everyone Else 0. Right now conservative bloggers are scrambling to try and find some lefty with 50 pageviews so they can make the “both sides do it” argument.
Maybe the after-the-fact arguments on both sides will be completely worthless, but at least they won’t be dreadfully inappropriate. I swear, until I read this post I hadn’t given a thought to the political arguments that might be made regarding this tragedy, and my world was a much better place as a result.
For instance, one would not cite Switzerland, which has notoriously high gun ownership, as a land of systematic violence.
Canada, too, has a lot of household guns, but very few handguns and automatic weapons, and much less gun-related violence.
Switzerland, as I recall, also has mandatory military services which includes weapons training, and has a militia-based defense system that requires quick access to weapons. Hence the gun ownership, I believe.
Both cases are not really comparable with US handgun culture. I’m opposed to private non-hunting weapon ownership, but I find the Swiss system far more acceptable than that of the US. And the statistics should indicate why.
Just a preemptive call for comity – when I’m upset I’m more likely to say something I’ll feel bad about later, and no doubt others are similar. There’s also a thread above that could use some poems about grief.
It seems to me that this is an excellent time to talk policy. This is very distressing to me — I graduated from VT in 1996, and I’m three weeks away from moving back to Blacksburg — but even I can make the connections between public policy and people dying. Whenever something like this happens, a lot of folks insist that we *not* talk about policy at all, that we not “politicize the event.” But it’s usually politics and public policy that enabled the tragedy and politics and public policy that will be used to fix it. So I can’t think of a better time to at least renew the discussion.
Right now conservative bloggers are scrambling to try and find some lefty with 50 pageviews so they can make the “both sides do it” argument.
Well, John Aravosis has a few more than 50 pageviews.
Not to pontificate while the bodies are still warm, but…
The same occurs where guns are freely available, because someone who wants to misuse a gun is deterred by the possibility or actuality of an armed response.
I’m fairly sure this is false, or at least needs some pretty heavy qualification. Tim Lambert pretty much demolished John Lott/Mary Rosh’s arguments for more guns, less crime and I don’t know of any other research claiming this correlation.
And speaking as a perennial teacher of college freshmen… no. No guns on campus. No. A thousand times no. I don’t give a crap how much of a deterrent you think they might be — they aren’t — you’re massively overestimating their capacity to act as “rational agents” in a MAD context. Just, no.
Rilkefan: Just a preemptive call for comity – when I’m upset I’m more likely to say something I’ll feel bad about later, and no doubt others are similar.
Let’s hope that Von is, certainly.
I was in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Thursday March 14 1996: I remember the flag on Edinburgh Castle flying at half-mast. The Snowdrop Campaign followed: a sense of terrible national sorrow and anger for what had happened in a Dunblane primary school that Wednesday morning.
In order to better frame Von’s discussion here, I’d like to note that it is generally illegal for anyone other than police or campus security to carry any deadly weapon on a college campus. It’s that way at all California campuses. It was that way at the University of Colorado. I also checked, and verified that this was also the case at both the University of Wyoming and the University of Alaska.
We aren’t talking about states or cities here. We are talking about campuses. And while I believe that there should be some legitimate exceptions to these weapon laws on campus — like in faculty and graduate housing where residents are 21 or older and then only in their dwelling or secured for transport according to all applicable local laws) — I don’t think that guns belong in classrooms or on campus outside of these narrow exceptions.
And believe me, if those exceptions were legal, we would have a gun or two in our household.
“Yeah, but are both sides going to inappropriately chime in to try and score political points before the bodies have even cooled? Because right now, the score seems to stand at Instapundit 1, Everyone Else 0.”
Instapundit updates just under a zillion times a day. The fact that he is one of the first major bloggers to talk about the issue (inappropriately) isn’t shocking. If everyone goes through their normal updating cycle and the left (not to mention more people on the right) avoids inappropriate comments, I’d be shocked–and then you’d have a point.
My point man for fairly popular quick trigger left-wing stupidity OliverWillis is already saying: ” Here’s the deal – we’ve got screwed up people and we’ve got a culture that allows someone to essentially walk into a store and grab more firepower than the revolutionary army had. It’s amazing this doesn’t happen more, and yet people want to have our country awash in guns.”
I think Katherine hit the nail on the head. If college students were allowed to have firearms in their dorm rooms then we would have 29 campus gun deaths every weekend instead of a horrible incident once every decade.
Looks like the White House has managed to strike just the right tone:
Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, said President Bush was horrified by the rampage and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia.
“The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed,” Perino said.
I confess that it would never occur to me to offer comforting words for both the victims and the gun lobby. But perhaps I lack compassion for those whose first reaction to a tragedy like this would be “I hope no one uses this as an excuse to take my guns away.”
Blue Neponset,
“If college students were allowed to have firearms in their dorm rooms then we would have 29 campus gun deaths every weekend instead of a horrible incident once every decade.”
No question that. College students are notoriously poor at controlling emotions (as most of us should recall), and strongly into exploring the limits of our new freedoms without having grown into the accompanying responsiblities. I am very glad that the most lethal weapons I handled during my college years shot water and paint pellets.
I had a buddy back in the day who lived in a dorm room down the hall. He liked to fly — inside of his head and outside of his head. So he’d drop a hit of acid and then go rent an airplane at the local airport on a sleepy Saturday afternoon.
Just for yucks he would come in over the treetops and buzz the dorm.
God, I wish he’d had a gun license, too. There’s nothing like a little weekend strafing to snap a guy out of his hangover and make him head for the heavily fortified library to hit the books.
Or better, I could have procured a gun license myself and set up an anti-aircraft nest in my dorm window and shot him down. Maybe I should have taken flying lessons, too. Dogfights over the campus. Oh, baby!
Ah, the unregulated days when the FDA, the FAA, and the ATF didn’t go around spoiling all the fun.
The shooter is reportedly Asian. Will Reynolds speculate on whether he might have immaculate SAT scores but got shafted in the admissions process because of affirmative action, which he is sure wouldn’t exist if all Asians carried guns?
Here’s a more interesting question than the stupid, stinking, blasted, effing gun issue. What is it about mass murder by lone killers in America? What is it about American culture that fosters these rogue elements with their heavy weight of grudges and dreams of vengeance?
Have these people taken to heart the cult of individual initiative and entrepreneurship even in the awful act of murder?
If Wayne LaPierre had been an armed guidance counselor at Columbine High School, there would have been six more dead. Four cheerleaders, one kid trying to stuff his trombone case into his locker, and Pierre himself, shot right through his NRA insignia. The first five bullets would have been a match for LaPierre’s stupid, stinking, blasted, effing gun.
Because competent American killers don’t f—around considering the competence levels are freely available everywhere you look. Cause we loves our guns and we loves our shooting ranges and we loves our gadgets with their precision moving parts clicking as they hang from our mail-order GI belts, and we loves our bandeleros, and we loves our buck knives, and we loves our grudges.
Damn, Willis beat me to it.
Von,
Your hypothesis that high gun density deters crime has no evidence. There is no reason for anyone to believe that until you cite some evidence.
You may very well be right, but the claim is far from self evident.
Are you really an attorney? Don’t they cover basics like this in law school? I’m not trying to be insulting but I am really confused why someone with your training would make such unsupported statements, and then proceed to build a whole argument from them.
This is a sentiment – that what happened in Virginia happens on a larger scale in Baghdad every day – that is worth reflecting on too.
Yeah, we should be focusing on all of the good news coming out of America instead of this mass death stuff.
We had elections and painted schools for Christ’s sake!
Although I am strong supporter of Second Amendment rights, add me to the list of those who think that concealed carry by students on a college campus would be sheer insanity.
I conclude that if Phil Spector had not carried guns, he would not have gotten laid nearly as much.
If Yoko One had been carrying a gun that awful night, the lobby ceiling of the Dakota would have one extra bullet hole in it. Of course, she would have had to change those billboards to read “War Is Over, If You Carry A Gun”.
On the other hand, if Saddam Hussein had been left in power in Iraq to fire that shotgun off the palace balcony, Al Qaeda would not be in Iraq now.
The data are fuzzy.
These tragedies happen in Canada, too. When I lived in Switzerland there was an incident where a guy snapped and shot his extended family (part at a house I drove by on the way to the accelerator). I would guess that as the idea slowly occurs to crazy angry people outside America that going postal is an option, we will seem less exceptional.
I would guess that as the idea slowly occurs to crazy angry people outside America that going postal is an option, we will seem less exceptional.
I would guess that so long as the Second Amendment is interpreted to mean what the NRA wants it to mean, and not what it actually seems to say, the US will continue to be, as well as seem, exceptional in the level of gun violence.
I would guess that as the idea slowly occurs to crazy angry people outside America that going postal is an option, we will seem less exceptional.
35 dead would be a lull in Iraq.
“If college students were allowed to have firearms in their dorm rooms then we would have 29 campus gun deaths every weekend instead of a horrible incident once every decade.”
Should be easy enough to confirm, if that’s the case, since they USED TO BE allowed to have ’em. Always amazes me what short historical memories anti-gunners often have; I’m only middle aged and I still remember when you could find surplus military arms advertised in the backs of comic books.
Canada, too, has a lot of household guns, but very few handguns and automatic weapons, and much less gun-related violence.
Ding! The *problem* with the U.S. gun culture is that the pro-gun crowd says they just want guns for hunting and home defense, but gets angry when we try to regulate any guns at all, or to restrict gun ownership to people who don’t appear to be complete loons and have some modicum of training. Kind of like we do with oh, say, cars.
I grew up in a rural area of Oregon — lots of Democrats, lots of people who love their guns. Huge parts of the Midwest are the same way. Look, we lib’ruls don’t care about rifles for hunting and shotguns (maybe revolvers) for home defense. The fact is that it’s just hard to perpetrate a massacre with those types of weapons. But I have yet to hear a good justification for AR-15s (which are just de facto M-16s anyway), TEC-9s, or the whole gamut of weapons that really only have use on the battlefield, in gang wars, or shooting sprees.
The *problem*, when you get right down to it, is that in lieu of a *sensible* gun policy, all we have are the “cold dead hands” folk, and they drive our national discourse. Look at the difference between the polices that the NRA pushes and the policies that NRA members actually support, and the problem becomes real clear.
I would guess that so long as the Second Amendment is interpreted to mean what the NRA wants it to mean, and not what it actually seems to say
It says what all the other amendments in the Bill of Rights say — to wit, that the people have a right that shall not be infringed. Now let’s argue about what constitutes infringement and what doesn’t. That should solve the problem of violence in the world.
As long as rilkefan is pointing to non-US instances of this kind of thing, let’s not forget Erfurt, Germany and Port Arthur, Australia.
(I would like to say that regardless of solving the problem of violence through arguing about the existence of guns, I find von’s thread title — both in its apparent glibness and in its apparent attempt to maintain his “I listen to punk rock and am therefore still cool and relevant” creds by referring to a Sex Pistols song about abortion — to be rather tasteless.)
Should be easy enough to confirm, if that’s the case, since they USED TO BE allowed to have ’em.
When were college students allowed to have firearms in their dorm rooms? When I went to college they really frowned upon such things.
” since they USED TO BE allowed to have ’em.”
by the colleges? Is that really true?
I mean, my school thought we couldn’t be trusted with a microwave oven, electric hot pot, poster or wall hanging larger than 4 feet by 4 feet, or halogen lamp. And while the codes were silly and widely flouted, there was a dorm fire a few years before me started by people who would light their couch on fire and try to put it out really quickly as a party trick.
I guess you could have concealed carry permit restrictions that ruled out idiot freshman’s eligibility, but then how likely is it to prevent something like this? I know a lot of college professor types; I’m not sure any of them owns a gun. So the odds that out of 4 classrooms, one professor brings a concealed weapon to class….
cleek– 35? Jeez, what an awful day. But again, note the lack of a civil war.
Jes, note the word “less” in “less exceptional”. I’m not expecting to see this happen in say Germany any time soon, but in France, or via other methods in the UK, I wouldn’t be entirely shocked.
Commonsense, ignoring the ad hom, I provided evidence that high gun ownership rates are not, in and of themselves, the cause of increased violent crime. I cited Switzerland above; you can add New Zealand and Israel to the list (although Israel admittedly has quite a bit of violence independent of the what we would strictly call the crime rate).
You’re quite correct that the fact that gun ownership alone does not cause increased violent crime; indeed, there may be something else at work in Switzerland and other places where gun ownership is high and violence is relatively low. (Other commentators — more insightful than you — have suggeted the presence of universal military service, the reliance on longarms rather than handguns, and economic reasons.) In response to these commentators, I would start with the Lott study, which cannot be so easily dismissed (and has not been demolished).
Phil: It says what all the other amendments in the Bill of Rights say — to wit, that the people have a right that shall not be infringed.
It says “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.”
Which suggests indeed something more like Switzerland, where almost every male citizen is a member of a well-regulated militia, and where virtually every adult citizen has the right to buy up to three firearms… but if you want a carrying permit, you have to still have your right to buy, you have a solid reason to want one (ie, to be able to show that you actually need to carry a gun), and you have to pass an exam to prove you know how to use a gun. (Facts from wiki, but their external link to a Swiss government website seems to say much the same.)
But what the NRA wants it to mean, and what their funders want it to mean, is that anyone shall be able to buy any guns they like without any restrictions whatsoever. Which is a substantially different thing…
“Erfurt, Germany”
Wow, totally, humiliatingly pwned. I forgot about the DDR and the lingering bad stuff in Germany. And I had absolutely no idea that high school students could get licensces for Glock 17s. I would have bet a month’s salary against it.
The argument that an armed citizenry can prevent violennce is valid only if thhere is a lot of armed violence to prevent and a low rate of people doing stupid stuff with guns.
Unfortunatley for us, Americans very frequently combine guns with drugs, alcohol, temper tantrums and bad judgment, making the rate of stupid behavior with guns very high. On the other hand the rate of armed criminal violence in this country is not high overall. I live in an area where a gun for the prevention of crime is extraneous.
The chance of being shot by a nut on campus is low. On the other hand, if it became commonplace for students to carry guns, the chances of being accidentaly shot by a drunken rowdy would be uncomfortably high every Saturday.
But again, note the lack of a civil war.
and here i thought the worst acts in Iraq’s civil war were being committed by “crazy angry people”.
It says “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.”
Gosh, thanks. I’ve never read it. You forgot a comma, by the way:
“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.”
Which suggests indeed something more like Switzerland, where almost every male citizen is a member of a well-regulated militia,
1. “Suggest” to whom? You?
2. Who are members of the militia in the United States?
3. What did “well-regulated” mean in the context in which it was written in the US Constitution?
you have to still have your right to buy, you have a solid reason to want one (ie, to be able to show that you actually need to carry a gun)
I don’t think people should have to demonstrate need to exercise their Constitutional rights, but that’s just me.
IIRC, the reason we no longer have a lot of surplus guns being advertised is that there are not a lot of surplus guns being sold on the cheap by the NRA. All those surplus M1 Carbines are in the hands of collectors and we are no longer geared up for mass mobilization.
And I second Katherine’s question about campus regulations and when deadly weapons (let alone firearms) were forbidden from most campuses.
“Which suggests indeed something more like Switzerland”
Indeed, the founders were great admirers of Switzerland. However, they saw no conflict between widespread private gun ownership and a militia system, instead viewing the latter as enabled by the former. The thought behind the 2nd amendment was that, even if the states got lazy, and failed to keep the militia system up, it would still be possible to raise a militia on an emergency basis if the general populace was armed.
Hence, a private right is guaranteed in order to safeguard the potential for a militia.
rilkefan, I was in Germany when Erfut happened, which is one of the reasons I remember it when it seemed not to have had much impact on the memories of most Americans. Suffice to say that it was as horrifying as you can imagine, and my German work colleagues in Frankfurt were nearly as shellshocked as many Americans were on 9/11. It hit them that hard.
According to this article, following Columbine there are new cop tactics for school/university shooting incidents.
“The first thing is to put the guy in a box,” said security analyst Kelly McCann.
“You might be outnumbered,” said Wittmier. “You’re not taking as much time to find out more about the threat.”
“You could end up in there and find there could be two or three shooters, coming at you from multiple directions,” Wittmier said. “There could be booby traps set up, such as explosive devices.”
Were students to be armed, how could casually-attired students, professors and/or law enforcement personnel not end up shooting each other in a panicky anarchy, given that police tactics apparently are based on killing ASAP the gunman?
Von,
You wrote The same occurs where guns are freely available, because someone who wants to misuse a gun is deterred by the possibility or actuality of an armed response.
That sentence contains two statements: 1. that areas with high gun density suffer less violence and 2. the reduced violence is caused by “the possibility or actuality of armed response.”
You made a clear statement of causality in statement 2. The only evidence you hinted at was anecdotal and could only show correlation. It doesn’t matter how many countries are just like switzerland: no enumeration of countries is sufficient to demonstrate causality.
Correlation does not prove causality. In any event, anecdotal enumeration does not even demonstrate causality.
Could you please show me where in your post you provide evidence for your causality claim?
Gun violence is a function of the degree of social cohesion, and the availability of guns.
The USA is never going to be as socially cohesive as Switzerland or Canada, or at least not anytime soon. With that variable beyond their control, lawmakers’ only feasible policy is to restrict gun access if they genuinely want to reduce gun access.
Gun advocates’ citing of Switzerland as a well-armed, peaceful country is an argument for gun owners to move to Switzerland, it is not an argument for a different country to adopt Switzerland’s laws.
sorry for the italics.
detalics
While understanding it’s an intensely controversial issue, I thought it was long-established constitutional doctrine broadly recognized by Democratic and Republican Justice Depts (until the current one, that is) that the 2nd Amendment does not convey a personal right to firearms.
Adam: “Look, we lib’ruls don’t care about rifles for hunting and shotguns (maybe revolvers) for home defense. The fact is that it’s just hard to perpetrate a massacre with those types of weapons. But I have yet to hear a good justification for AR-15s (which are just de facto M-16s anyway), TEC-9s, or the whole gamut of weapons that really only have use on the battlefield, in gang wars, or shooting sprees.”
I had the impression (based on Mark Kleiman) that non-military-style weapons are in fact plenty sufficient – that automatic weapons bans don’t address a real problem – I thought a shotgun would be a fearsome weapon in a crowded space.
OCSteve said something I agree with….
@brett, I would wager alot more things than simply gun ownership have changed sense that time. Both culturally and with respect to gun technology.
Guns are fundamentally tools just like a computer, or a car.
F1 cars are not street legal and I don’t see anyone complaining about this, they are tools for a very specific activity. By analogy, why should high powered weapons be street legal?
Can anyone give a good reason for a civilian to own anything fancier than a bolt action rifle? (not counting hand guns because then you get the paranoid protection crowd which I just have to agree to disagree with)
(to give you some stereo types to properly pigeon hole (but lets not apply the pigeon hole principle) me i’m an east coast liberal, but I do know how to shoot and enjoy target shooting)
But again, note the lack of a civil war.
Yes, note the lack of a civil war. I think, though, the idea was to point out, as the United States enters a period of mourning and witnessing the varying emotions already occurring, what it must be like for the emotional state of people in societies where the violence is exponentially greater. It’s called empathy.
“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.”
“Because the sky is blue and so are gun barrels, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Who are members of the militia in the United States?
at the time of the writing of the Constitution, the militia was that which is described in Article 1, Section 8: the military bodies of the States which can be used by Congress to defend the country. today, that duty is performed by the National Guard.
3. What did “well-regulated” mean in the context in which it was written in the US Constitution?
it meant, basically, “well-organized”, as Jefferson’s other statements make clear.
heh. y’all can skip my “sky is blue” thing. that should’ve been removed in proofreading.
College freshmen of all political stripes are pretty much libertarians.
We weren’t permitted to have girls (after hours) or alcohol or drugs in our dorms. No fireworks either. Certainly no weapons, though it would have been more dramatic for some wags to blow up the toilets with hand grenades, instead of cherry bombs.
Right.
I suspect I could have smuggled in Anna Nicole Smith carrying a litre bottle of Jack Daniels and a kilo of marijuana, and had her help me assemble a fully munitioned B-1 bomber in my room without much notice.
Someone probably had a gun, legal or not.
It occurs to me, bouncing off of Brett Bellmore, that Columbine High School* went for decades without someone conceiving that it might be easy pickings for heavily armed crazy people.
And I have a feeling that if the two killers had known someone had a gun, it would have enhanced their fun.
Guns or no guns for self-protection, why is this type of mass vengeance slaughter with heavy weaponry happening?
*I live three miles from the school. Great school. High test scores. High college placement.
You have my AC-130U Spooky gunship when you pry it from my cold, dead, hands.
Von
Strike New Zealand from that list.
From wikipedia
Correlation does not prove causality. In any event, anecdotal enumeration does not even demonstrate causality.
Please see the Lott study, which I reference above. (Google the Lott study on gun violence.)
While understanding it’s an intensely controversial issue, I thought it was long-established constitutional doctrine broadly recognized by Democratic and Republican Justice Depts (until the current one, that is) that the 2nd Amendment does not convey a personal right to firearms.
That was the ascendant view in the 1970s and through much of the 1980s, but the trend has been reversing since the early 1990s due to the persistant (and admittedly quite good) scholarship of folks like Volokh and Reynolds.
My personal view is that there are pretty good arguments on both sides.
“It’s called empathy.”
It’s called a variety of things. There’s always a context; it’s not always useful to note it.
“Please see the Lott study”
Please don’t (pillar of salt warning [ack, pun unintentional]).
And, again, ignoring larger 2nd Amendment concerns, how many here believe that we should reverse the current laws forbidding deadly weapons on college campuses?
Would you also advocate for allowing deadly weapons in courthouses and airports based on the same reasoning?
it’s not always useful to note it.
And sometimes it’s very useful. It’s a personal thing. As was your choice to belittle those who do.
Who are members of the militia in the United States?
at the time of the writing of the Constitution, the militia was that which is described in Article 1, Section 8: the military bodies of the States which can be used by Congress to defend the country. today, that duty is performed by the National Guard.
This is not entirely correct. I’m in the unorganized US militia, and so are you. (Assuming you’re an able-bodied male between 18 and 45.)
In any case, I’m drearily uninterested in yet another protracted and purposeless discussion about how the Second Amendment, unlike every other Amendment in the Bill of Rights and in fact every other place in the Constitution, does not mean “the people” when it damned well says “the people.”
Usual caveat: Not a gun owner, never have been.
Von: Please see the Lott study, which I reference above. (Google the Lott study on gun violence.)
I did. I found multiple references. Concealed handgun fraud: Exposing John Lott, On Double Standards, Funder of Lott 1996 CCW Study Has Links to the Gun Industry, Unintended Consequences, Pro-Handgun Experts Prove That Handguns Are a Dangerous Choice for Self-Defense, Appendix B: Bibliography of Studies Criticizing Lott and Mustard’s Findings. I could go on, but if I add too many links this comment will probably be counted as spam…
How about the Mary Rosh Study?
spartikus: “And sometimes it’s very useful. It’s a personal thing. As was your choice to belittle those who do.”
I’m sorry you’ve so badly failed to understand what I wrote. I don’t care to engage you in this context.
Sorry for the length of this post. It is re: history of 2nd amendment, so if you are not interested, no need to read.
Issue:
We are all aware of the general debate about the 2nd Amendment: Is the right an individual right to bear arms, or is it a collective right vested in the Militia? It is beyond the scope of this article to determine the meaning of the Second Amendment today. But where did the amendment come from? What made the Founding Fathers include this amendment in the Bill of Rights.
The Law before the Amendment…
The right of the people to arms is a relatively new phenomenon. Whether the right belongs to the individual or the people as an aggregate, the arming of citizens was considered a dangerous idea for most monarchies. The idea of the militia originated in modern times in England, where it was believed that free yeomen would be more effective fighters than continental serfs and it was this idea that spawned a duty for men to bear arms.[1] All able bodied men from 16 to 60 were liable for service. [2]. This period lasted through the Cromwell revolution in England, but by 1659, the government began compiling lists of arms holders, and confiscating the weapons.[3] The British reacted to this by passing the British Bill of Rights in 1689 and stated “that the Subjects which are Protestant may have Armes for their Defence Suitable to the Condition and as Allowed by Law.”[4]
While arms were crucial to the colonies, early in the colonial period of Virginia, all weapons were “nationalized” and given to those most able to handle them.[5] In the northern colonies, it was clear that the English did not trust the settlers (who were mostly Dutch) and in every one of their colonies, the government kept firearms under its own control.[6] “The militia remained as little more than a political gesture, intended to convince settlers that they still played a role in their own defense.”[7] Colonial legislatures routinely passed laws that required Protestant men to have weapons, but restricted the right to have fire-arms from Catholics and others they considered unworthy.[8] Additionally, any person who refused to serve in the militia also forfeited his right to arms. [9] While some colonies required that each freeman own a weapon, they often required that they be stored in central locations.
As the colonies began moving toward independence, the need of the Crown to disarm the colonists became more profound. This disarming met significant resistance. The Boston Evening Post wrote in 1769 (referring to the British Bill of Rights) “ It is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their defense; and as Mr. Blackstone observes, it is to be made use of when the sanctions of society and law are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.”[10] The Boston Massacre in 1770 led to a trial in which John Adams (defense counsel to one of the British soldiers) stated “here every private person is authorized to arm himself, and on the strength of this authority, I do not deny the inhabitants had a right to arm themselves at that time, for their defense, not for offense…”[11] Finally, On April 18, 1775, the British Army marched on Lexington and Concord to confiscate the military equipment stored there, and this action ignited the American revolution into active combat.[12]
The American Colonists needed and believed in the right of the people to keep and bear arms, but did they intend it to be a collective right, or an individual right?
A Well Regulated Militia…
Why does the Second amendment refer to the militia? At least part of the issue was simply political. There is historical evidence showing that the Militia itself was a tool for social order, not because it was an effective policing or military force, but because compulsory membership created a military heirarchy among all of the men in society.[13] Additionally, since the new nation decried aristocratic titles, the militia ranks were used as a substitute.[14]
The experience of the Revolutionary War made it clear that at that time, a militia was not effective as a defense of a free nation, let alone a necessary defense. It was not until a standing army was formed that the British were defeated.
Here I expect we shall be told that the militia of the country is its natural bulwark, and would be at all times equal to the national defense. This doctrine, in substance, had like to have lost us our independence. It cost millions to the United States that might have been saved. The facts which, from our own experience, forbid a reliance of this kind, are too recent to permit us to be the dupes of such a suggestion. The steady operations of war against a regular and disciplined army can only be successfully conducted by a force of the same kind…[15]
It was also believed that people with something to lose, such as their property and homes, would be more effective fighters. The weight of history does not support this contention, but it was again a politically popular idea. [16] In fact, it was this very idea that Federalist Number # 24 was written in part to deny:
Previous to the Revolution, and ever since the peace, there has been a constant necessity for keeping small garrisons on our Western frontier. No person can doubt that these will continue to be indispensable, if it should only be against the ravages and depredations of the Indians. These garrisons must either be furnished by occasional detachments from the militia, or by permanent corps in the pay of the government. The first is impracticable; and if practicable, would be pernicious. The militia would not long, if at all, submit to be dragged from their occupations and families to perform that most disagreeable duty in times of profound peace. And if they could be prevailed upon or compelled to do it, the increased expense of a frequent rotation of service, and the loss of labor and disconcertion of the industrious pursuits of individuals, would form conclusive objections to the scheme. It would be as burdensome and injurious to the public as ruinous to private citizens.[17]
.
While the Federalists did not believe the people could adequately defend the borders, they did believe that they could resist a standing army of their own:
Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year…
This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.” [18]
Meanwhile, it was accepted that American government was special:
Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation… the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms… Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it.[19]
As the Federalists show, the militia was intended to counterbalance the standing Army controlled solely by the federal government, whose power was intended to be limited by the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was a limitation of the Federal Government, not of the states. However, the Constitution had already provided for a Militia controlled by the states prior to the Bill of Rights. According to Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress has the right:
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
Additionally, Article II, section 2 accepted the existence of the militia, and granted to the Executive:
The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States;
In the full context of the Constitution, then, what is the meaning of “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state?” Does “well regulated” have a different meaning than “organizing, arming, and disciplining?” Without the Second Amendment, Congress was already required to provide for and arm the militia, and reserve the authority of appointments and training to the states, while providing the militia to the Executive.
The Right of the People…
In what way, then is “ the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” modified by the preceding clause? There are several different areas for reasonable differences of opinion as to what the second clause of the amendment meant, largely because the amendment was not debated to any great extent. One problem found in looking at the Bill of Rights is that there was a group of people who felt that the enumeration of rights actually limited the people to those rights enumerated, and were therefore against all of the amendments.
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power…[20]
This idea is particularly applicable to the debate over the right to bear arms, because the argument about what the right is centers on whether the amendment is intended to provide solely for the well-regulated militia, or did it include the personal right to defend self and property. For those who believed the Bill of Rights would limit the rights of the people, this argument would probably be a culmination of their fears. Noah Webster wrote in the American Magazine that “if a bill of rights was necessary, then it should include a provision ‘that Congress shall never restrain any inhabitant of America from eating and drinking, at seasonable times, or prevent his lying on his right side, in a long winter’s night, or even on his back, when he is fatigued by lying on his right.’” [21]
At the time of the revolution, however, the Militia included all able bodied freemen, so the issue of the People vs. the Militia is nonsensical, because they were the same according to the accepted terms of the day. This universal service requirement generally required all free males from 16 to 50 to serve.
There are numerous indications that the founding fathers were interested in disarming those individuals they did not believe should be citizens. Blacks, Native Americans, Roman Catholics, Tories, and other non-Protestants were often targeted as unworthy of arms ownership. This can be interpreted in at least two ways. One possibility is that gun ownership was not intended to be a right for individuals. The second possibility is that gun ownership was a sign of citizenship. Since other substantive rights such as freedom of religion, speech, and voting were also restricted in varying degrees for these groups, it is not surprising that gun ownership was as well, and in fact the loss of the ownership of guns made it possible for the other rights to be taken.
At about the same time as the Federal Bill of Rights was adopted, several of the states were adopting their own statements of rights. Thirty-seven states now have constitutional amendments that are similar to the Federal 2nd Amendment, although some are more limiting, and others grant a greater personal right.[22] For the purpose of this discussion, however, the states that adopted them too remote in time to the adoption of the Second Amendment do not shed light on the original framers intent. A few contemporary examples: The Pennsylvania Constitution which was adopted in 1790 states: “that the right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned.” This was a restatement of a previous document, The Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights which in 1776 stated “that the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves, and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by the civil power.” Vermont later adopted this amendment verbatim in their own Declaration of Rights.[23]
Since the Second Amendment did not include the individual right, this can be accepted as showing that the Amendment in the Bill of Rights specifically rejected the right of individuals to keep and bear arms to defend themselves. This would be somewhat disingenuous, however, because the Second Amendment also does not specifically declare that the people can defend the state. However, it can also be used as evidence that clauses were often stuck together that have little to do with each other, such as “a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state,” and “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
The States are not uniform in their support of the Second Amendment, however, and while Connecticut has an amendment that specifies the right to bear arms in self defense, Massachusetts limits that right to the common defense.[24] What the state amendments do show is that personal defense is a right that was at least considered, and shows that the construction of the second amendment was not unique to the common defense. For example, Pennsylvania clearly uses the terms “bear arms” in conjunction with the people defending themselves. Some authors, such as Warren Freedman, have argued that “bear arms” is strictly a military usage, but the use of the term at the same time period in terms of self defense shows this argument to be false.
Conclusion
The current meaning of the Second Amendment remains in doubt until the Supreme Court rules definitively on the subject. What should not be in doubt is that the Founding Fathers assumed that citizens had the right to defend themselves with arms at the time that the amendment was written, and that the terms used in the amendment do not preclude the interpretation that the meaning of the amendment is for self defense. The fact that similar amendments at the state level specified an individual right to self defense but were not adopted federally can be seen to insinuate that they were rejected. Similarly, these same amendments show that individual self defense using arms was a popular idea at the time of the amendment, and the fear of some at the time that the Bill of Rights would be used to limit rights rather than ensure them may have culminated here.
Phil: This is not entirely correct. I’m in the unorganized US militia, and so are you. (Assuming you’re an able-bodied male between 18 and 45.)
Heterosexual male, presumably. (I assume the same legalities apply.)
In any case, I’m drearily uninterested in yet another protracted and purposeless discussion about how the Second Amendment, unlike every other Amendment in the Bill of Rights and in fact every other place in the Constitution, does not mean “the people” when it damned well says “the people.”
Are there any of “the people” who are not permitted to join the National Guard, then? (Aside from those not permitted by sexual orientation, which I’m sure we’re both in agreement is really kind of stupid.) According to wiki, any of “the People” can, which would mean that if gun ownership in the US was restricted as it is in Switzerland, the rights of the People under the Second Amendment would not, in fact, be infringed.
(In fact, the gays-in-the-military campaigners would then have a solid Constitutional argument for why it’s illegal to ban someone from serving for their sexual orientation…)
Von,
I’m confused. Your response to me indicates that the evidence I was asking for can be found in a Lott study. But you don’t reference it in your original post. Was that an oversight? Or did you consider the question of causality to be uninteresting? It seems like I’m missing something…
As others have pointed out, Lott has some, er, um, credibility issues. Could you please suggest another academic who has not been as compromised?
Surely there exists more than one academic in the entire world who has done research that validates your causality claims. I look forward to reading their work.
Again, I thought even the Reagan and Bush pere Justice Depts did not recognize a personal right to bear arms.
I’m always amazed by how the same people who happily trade all other rights for security pitch a fit about their automatic weapons being taken away for security. They usually say it’s because guns are the final defense against their rights being taken away — to which I say, ok, so why isn’t the NRA rising RIGHT NOW to free Jose Padilla? Apparently, it’s only each individual gun owner’s rights that his or her guns will protect. Which kinda puts paid to the whole idea that we’re maintaining the potential for a militia.
Actually, I think the reason they don’t care about security from guns is that most of them don’t live in cities and are comfortable with the idea of city folk getting shot dead. As more and more of us come to live in suburbs/edge cities, and as more and more massacres happen in such communities, the majority may finally grasp that we latte-drinkers and welfare queens had a point about not letting loons stumble around with heavy weaponry.
Some thirty years ago, my Dad, who was a forensic pathologist and had already seen a hell of a lot more than 20-30 warm or cold bodies, tried to educate the American public to the overwhelming danger of handguns, responsible not only for incidents like this, but most of domestic homicide. Most of the time, statistically, no handgun means no homicide. Hate to sound simplistic on this one, but I really do think it is that simple. And as for deterrence arguments, just scrap them, because they do not hold up under scrutiny in these situations where no one is behaving in a rational fashion. (I’m assuming that the weapons were handguns, really there is not even the faintest excuse for letting heavy artillery float around the U.S….)
I’d like to also mention I see a serious difference between handguns and things like rifles and shotguns.
A handgun is pretty much purely a weapon. In all respects but two it is a pretty crappy weapon. It is, however, easy to carry and easy to conceal. As a weapon of war, it leaves a lot to be desired. As a hunting tool, it’s virtually useless. (There are a few occasions I would prefer a handgun, but in all of them I could make do with a rifle).
I say ditch the handguns. Leave them to cops — who have a reason and need for easily portable weapons. Leave the well-organized militia it’s shotguns and rifles.
It’s Constitutionality is debateable. I just happen to think it would be a good idea, and would be willing to amend the Constitution to achieve it.
‘sides, if you’re fighting off the government with just a handgun, you’re six kinds of stupid to begin with.
“Again, I thought even the Reagan and Bush pere Justice Depts did not recognize a personal right to bear arms.”
Lots of Justice Departments don’t recognize lots of things. That doesn’t mean they’re correct in their interpretation. Would you want the Bush II Justice Department’s interpretations of what rights Americans do and don’t have — over the plain language of the Constitution — to be the final word on the matter? I sure wouldn’t.
trilobite, am I correct in understanding that your argument is that if the NRA does not send a private army to free Jose Padilla, they do not really believe that guns may be necessary for self-defense at some point? That’s, um, kind of silly, to be generous.
I certainly would not want to live in a country where the only persons allowed to own any weapons are the police and the military, particularly not one where the right wing trends as rightward as ours does.
It was a different time and place, but Charles Whitman’s toll in 1966 was arguably reduced by having to take cover from return fire by some Texas students with hunting rifles. In that circumstance it quickly became clear that the shooter was on the observation deck of the Administration building, so there wasn’t any uncertainty about who to shoot at.
I present this merely as an observation, not as endorsement for arming every college student.
“I say ditch the handguns. Leave them to cops — who have a reason and need for easily portable weapons.”
I can’t agree with this at all. There are plenty of times where ordinary citizens might have a need for an easily portable and concealable weapon. A sufficient number of women over the years have successfully shot potential rapists and abusers that I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking that tool away from them.
von: In response to these commentators, I would start with the Lott study, which cannot be so easily dismissed (and has not been demolished)…. Please see the Lott study, which I reference above. (Google the Lott study on gun violence.)
I tried to head this off but no, don’t see it. Yes, it has been demolished. Yes, it’s fantastically easy to dismiss. No, you should not cite it if you want to retain your credibility; see, for example, the extensive archive at Deltoid — well over 100 articles, last I checked, although it seems to have disappeared for the nonce — in which Lott and his work have been dismantled, eviscerated, and generally shown to be fraudulent. Your claim could conceivably — conceivably — be correct, and I’d be interested to see some justification to that effect, but you’ve mustered precisely zero (credible) evidence for the proposition.
BTW, a quick question: wtf did happen to the Deltoid archive? I can’t find the old Lott/Rosh/MGLC/guns archives any more…
“Would you want the Bush II Justice Department’s interpretations of what rights Americans do and don’t have — over the plain language of the Constitution — to be the final word on the matter? I sure wouldn’t.”
My point was that even people ideologically inclined to a personal-right stance historically weren’t. What the Bush fils admin thinks is relevant to no argument about what’s reasonable. And really, “A well-regulated militia” is plain English too. Is it your position that the 2nd Amendment would have the exact same force without the _initial_ clause?
According to Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress has the right:
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
Additionally, Article II, section 2 accepted the existence of the militia, and granted to the Executive:
The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States;
In the full context of the Constitution, then, what is the meaning of “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state?” Does “well regulated” have a different meaning than “organizing, arming, and disciplining?” Without the Second Amendment, Congress was already required to provide for and arm the militia, and reserve the authority of appointments and training to the states, while providing the militia to the Executive.
“A sufficient number of women over the years have successfully shot potential rapists and abusers that I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking that tool away from them.”http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-06-06-crime-drop_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA<\href>, which is ~41 a day. There are something around 40,000 traffic deaths a year which is over 100 a day.
surely someone has gone through and counted this as it is one of the standard arguments….
And who says that a hand gun is the only effective defense weapon?
Alternately more people are killed due to side effects of alcohol (at I be willing to bet it contributes to a lot more rapes than guns stop)
It seems there are over 15,000 murder a year in this country (
I tried to head this off but no, don’t see it. Yes, it has been demolished. Yes, it’s fantastically easy to dismiss. No, you should not cite it if you want to retain your credibility; see, for example, the extensive archive at Deltoid — well over 100 articles, last I checked, although it seems to have disappeared for the nonce — in which Lott and his work have been dismantled, eviscerated, and generally shown to be fraudulent. Your claim could conceivably — conceivably — be correct, and I’d be interested to see some justification to that effect, but you’ve mustered precisely zero (credible) evidence for the proposition.
Well, at least Von didn’t say it was beyond dispute . . ./snark>
Spartikus suggests incidents like this don’t happen in Canada because the culture is more peaceful, though guns cross the border so freely (and used to cross the border even more freely before 9/11) he assumes any Canadian who wants one can have a firearm. The Canadian culture is not so very different from the US culture: books, movies, broadcast tv, and radio cross the border all the time and have a strong influence.
The Montreal Massacre in 1989, where a gunman murdered 14 women at an engineering school, has been a focus of Canadian gun control controversies ever since.
http://www.guncontrol.ca/English/Home/Home.htm
Spartikus suggests incidents like this don’t happen in Canada because the culture is more peaceful
Spartikus suggested that Canada has a statistically lower rate of homicide by firearms despite bordering a jurisdiction with less restrictions on gun ownership.
Phil: A sufficient number of women over the years have successfully shot potential rapists and abusers that I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking that tool away from them.
That was evidently very successful advertising by the gun lobby:
A Deadly Myth: Women, Handguns, and Self-Defense:
Jes,
Phil’s point was about the number of cases in which a woman shot someone in self defense. Your cite deals with the number of cases in which a woman killed someone in self defense.
You might be able to bridge the gap by using the injury/death ratio for people shot with handguns. However, that still wouldn’t account for cases where women pulled a gun and did not successfully shoot their assailant.
On Homicidal Collegiate Maniacs
The Jewish Athiest considers the tragedy from the omnipresent gun-law standpoint, and notes the right/left divide raises questions and has a wish that our answers be tempered by apathea (dispassion). hilzoy at Obsidian Wings has an answe…
I’m in the unorganized US militia, and so are you.
well-regulated != unorganized.
i can’t be called up to serve in any militia unless there’s a draft. in that case, i won’t be required to use a weapon of my own; i will be provided one by the State.
but, we do have a well-regulated militia. it’s called the National Guard.
Without the Second Amendment, Congress was already required to provide for and arm the militia, and reserve the authority of appointments and training to the states, while providing the militia to the Executive.
right, which makes the 2nd amendment seem like either a half-assed attempt to weasel a general right to own guns for everyone under cover of the need for States to maintain organized militias of their own, or not a general right at all. for a general right to own guns, it’s terribly worded – that entire first clause is basically irrelevant. if a general right is what they really intended, they should’ve left it off . but they didn’t.
i’m willing to accept that because of the way events played out, that we do have that general right now. but i really don’t think that’s what the Constitution says.
However, that still wouldn’t account for cases where women pulled a gun and did not successfully shoot their assailant.
This is sort of the brandishment myth, which holds that there are millions of would-be victims out there dissuading their attackers merely by possessing a firearm, and gosh, we never hear about these incidents because the encounter simply terminates. It’s a good folk tale, but if it were true I think John Lott wouldn’t have had to resort to so many fabrications in his attempt to prove it.
“more likely to be the victim of a handgun homicide than to use a handgun in a justifiable homicide.”
Of course, self defense, in order to be successful, does not have to result in the attacker ending up dead. But counting things that way IS a pretty effective way of setting aside almost all self defense uses of firearms, isn’t it?
Steve,
Yeah, I agree with you; I probably shouldn’t have included that line.
I don’t really want to get involved in this but there is another researcher who provides some evidence along Lott’s line and who, unlike Lott, is a well-respected member in good standing (no sock puppetry, etc., ) of the academic community. IIRC, his name is Gary Kleck (no time to even google though, sorry)
Some observations:
Per the Bureau of Justice, slightly over half of all firearm deaths are suicides.
Lots of folks that are killed with a firearm are killed by a family member or someone they know. It’s called a domestic dispute. Hard to know how permission to carry will prevent that, unless we want to start bring our handguns to Thansgiving dinner.
The rate of access to firearms, and of death and injury by firearms, among minors in the US is astoundingly high compared to similar countries.
Per Statemaster, the US jurisdiction with the highest per capita rate of death by firearm is the District of Columbia. Next in line, in order, are the states of Alaska, Louisiana, Wyoming, Arizona, and Mississippi. Number 50 is Massachusetts. Barring DC, the West and the South, where gun laws are generally more permissive, are where folks are getting shot to death at the highest rate.
Here you go:
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-death-rate-per-100-000
Make of it what you will.
The factors that contribute to death by firearm are numerous. If somebody, somewhere, has done a credible, independent, peer-reviewed study of the relationship between permission to carry a concealed weapon and the rate of death or injury by firearm, I’d be mighty glad to see it.
By “credible” I mean one that factors permission to carry a concealed weapon out from all of the other manifold factors that come into play. By “independent”, I mean not sponsored by someone with an axe to grind.
Americans like guns. Hard to pin down why, exactly, but they do.
It’s equally hard to pin down if, and how, that relates to what makes a guy arm himself to the teeth and mow down innocent folks by the dozens on a nice spring day.
What I will say is that your odds of rendering a resentful, pissed off, disaffected young man harmless is much greater if he’s not armed. Whether you’re armed or not.
Most folks that feel strongly about gun ownership in this country are not, in fact, members of a citizen militia. They hunt, they like to shoot target, or they just like guns for whatever reason. But maintaining a well regulated citizen militia is not, in fact, the motivation for most gun owners. We have one, it’s called the National Guard. If they wanted to be in it, they could go sign up.
I’m not sure I actually have a point to make here, other than to say that everything anyone has said on this thread so far, including me, is basically dwarfed by the pain and grief of the families of the people killed at VT today.
Please, let’s let them bury their children, and then we can have the policy discussion later.
Thanks –
Re: Gary Kleck smells fishy. For example in a posting supposedly written by him he starts comparing anti-gun advocates to UFO believers…
I am highly skeptical of any survey of a population as non-homogeneous as this countries population.
As a sanity check, there are more than 100 readers of this blog, if his numbers are even close to right at least one person who reads this will have personally used a gun to defend themselves
Von,
I live in VA, and although I cannot speak to VA Tech’s gun regs, I can assure you that this is not a state that has limited guns! But at the same time, I cannot imagine a college where the students felt the need or desire to carry weapons to class…nor their profs. What world do you live in?
“Lots of folks that are killed with a firearm are killed by a family member or someone they know. It’s called a domestic dispute.”
It’s called criminals having families and aquaintances.
Russell, I hear you – but the subject has been broached, and will be discussed willy nilly, so let’s have at it.
I speak as a gun owner: let’s not arm everyone on the theory that a “well-armed society is a polite society.” That may be true in Switzerland, but it is not and never has been true here. The Wild Wild West wasn’t known for its civility, and pre-WWII America is no longer pre-WWII America. Hearkening back to those times in order to address what the country’s like today is silly.
Our cities are overcrowded. A lot of people have anger management issues, and rejection issues, and emotion control issues in general. Being in crowded urban areas exacerbates those problems. Saying that if everyone was armed, everyone would be safer, in view of those conditions, is just plain nuts.
Once in a while – let me emphasize, once in a while – you hear about someone who shoots someone before the second someone can shoot a lot of people. That happens so rarely as to be an anomaly. The overwhelming, overwhelming evidence is that more guns = more innocent people getting shot.
You can say that’s because people aren’t trained to use guns properly. You might be right. However, the NRA isn’t pushing to make training mandatory in order to own a gun; in fact, it opposes any conditions or limits on gun ownership. Also, all the training in the world can’t overcome what happens when a crazy, enraged, drugged person decides to go on a rampage.
Think about it. A shooter in a crowded area causes panic, people running and pushing and screaming. The theoretical Hero has a gun – but can’t fire without hitting innocent panicked people, and can’t be heard yelling “Down!” over the panicked screaming. Nor will anyone know he’s the theoretical Hero: all they know is that there’s another person waving a gun around. Increase the number of theoretical Heroes with guns, and you’ve a got a recipe for bloody disaster.
And the shooter? By definition, someone who walks into a crowded area to start killing people is nuts, okay? Just how much do you think that lunatic is thinking about maybe someone else being armed? Just how much of a deterrent is that, really – esp. if he’s planning on killing himself anyway, sa they usually do, and just wants to make sure he takes an honor guard with him?
Please. Put away those cinematic fantasies. Relegate them to their proper place in make-believe. Deal with reality. Just once, for the love of God, deal with reality.
That last comment’s sort of tautological, isn’t it?
The Second Amendment’s a relic. What the founders had in mind with that clause really doesn’t map neatly onto “the National guard” OR to “private citizens can own semi-automatics”. And while I wouldn’t ban private gun ownership given the option–there is room for legitimate self defense and the gov’t shouldn’t ban hunting for the same reasons it shouldn’t ban, oh, golf–I don’t see it as providing any meaningful protection at all against government tyranny. See: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. See: Taliban Afghanistan. Think what our military could do to a group of people with handguns if it wanted to. See: the many, many liberal democracies without a right to bear arms. It just doesn’t compare to an independent judiciary, habeas corpus, the right to counsel, freedom of speech and of the press….as far as protecting individual liberty it’s no more useful on a day to day basis than the Third Amendment, and unlike the Third there’s a real potential downside.
None of this necessarily means I don’t think it’s an individual right. I think there’s a plausible textual argument either way, and I like to read the Bill of Rights broadly so I should probably do so with the Second Amendment too. But “well regulated” would seem to imply that Congress can regulate.
Phil, the crack about Padilla and a private army….I think he’s talking about people who supposedly support the NRA out of their commitment to liberty, yet are actively in favor of what was done to Padilla. There are plenty of them.
I’d guess that all of this is going to turn out to be pretty irrelevant to the horror at Virginia Tech today. I don’t think concealed carry permits would’ve helped; I don’t think the sort of gun control measures that would be possible about our country changing its whole relationship with guns would’ve helped.
It’s called criminals having families and aquaintances.
Well, you know, after the fact that is self-evidently so.
How many folks who killed someone with a firearm had a criminal history prior to the event? I don’t know. Do you? How do you know? Or do you just presume?
For the record, and not that it has any bearing on the events of the day, I’m a second amendment hawk. Which is to say, it seems to me that the founders did not wish for the state to have a monopoly on the ownership of firearms.
I don’t hold that position because I think the average person is safer, or not, because they do, or don’t, own a firearm.
The reasons for the relatively high rate of death by firearm in this country are numerous. Good luck proving that keeping and carrying makes you, or anyone else, personally safer in their day to day lives. As far as I can tell, the evidence just isn’t there.
Thanks
That was evidently very successful advertising by the gun lobby:
I hope you don’t ever labor for a second under the misimpression that I give a rat’s ass about the gun lobby. I do, however, read newspapers, and I’ve read accounts of many women having shot and injured or killed attackers over the past several years. Anecdotes, of course, don’t prove anything, but those are real women who might have been raped, beaten or worse had they not had the means to deter their attackers. That counts for something.
Despite the promises of gun-industry advertising, a woman is far more likely to be the victim of a handgun homicide than to use a handgun in a justifiable homicide.
Which, in a single phrase, argues away handgun use by women which results in injury to the attacker and therefore deterrence but not death. I can, thus, ignore the rest of your pointless cite.
surely someone has gone through and counted this as it is one of the standard arguments….
Yes, surely. That doesn’t make it incorrect.
And who says that a hand gun is the only effective defense weapon?>
I don’t know, but if you find someone who does, I suggest you argue about it with them.
Me, I’m not comfortable telling a woman who might weigh 100 lbs. dripping wet that she’s gotta rely on pepper spray to deter rapists. If she thinks a handgun is a better equalizer, I’m not in a position to disagree with her.
Aren’t most of the places where gun ownership is not associated with a lot of violence pretty rural? I mean in Switzerland and Canada–are people in Geneva and Toronto heavily armed?
Phil, the crack about Padilla and a private army….I think he’s talking about people who supposedly support the NRA out of their commitment to liberty, yet are actively in favor of what was done to Padilla. There are plenty of them.
I don’t think so: triolbite seemed to be saying, “If you really think you need guns to protect against government tyranny, there’s some government tyranny right there — have at it!” It’s a silly argument. and if that’s not what trilobite meant, he or she should have phrased it a lot better. The fact that one doesn’t take the most insanely extreme action right now in support of one’s beliefs doesn’t mean he or she doesn’t hold those beliefs.
The Second Amendment’s a relic.
So let’s repeal it.
Katherine, those other places where ‘everyone’s armed’ don’t also, SFAIK, have deeply embedded cultural fantasies about manliness, heroism or personal autonomy growing out of the barrel of a gun.
It’s actually kind of miraculous that we don’t have these massacres more often than we do.
Aren’t most of the places where gun ownership is not associated with a lot of violence pretty rural? I mean in Switzerland and Canada–are people in Geneva and Toronto heavily armed?
New Zealand certainly is. Guns are a pretty vital tool if you’re living remotely and have large livestock (putting an animal out of its misery is quite important) as well as for shooting pest animals like rabbits and possums (and larger predator animals in places like Canada I’d assume).
The key thing is that our laws are set up to discourage guns as defensive weapons (to the point where ordinary police do not carry guns), there are strict rules about ownership,types of gun, storage and traveling (you can’t travel with an assembled gun).
Apparently there’s quite a high takeup of martial arts as a result.
surely someone has gone through and counted this as it is one of the standard arguments….
Yes, surely. That doesn’t make it incorrect.
I was hoping the people who quote it would produce said numbers.
Cleek,
If the militia is already armed in Article I, by Congress, and the Amendment refers to the right of the people to be armed, how can any reasonable interpretation lead someone to believe the intent is to arm the militia again?
It’s not politically possible to repeal it and I don’t think it’s all that necessary. In the meantime, yeah, it’s in there….But I sure wouldn’t suggest it to any country drafting a new Constitution, and I’m not going to have much patience or respect for arguments that give it the same importance of free speech, habeas, etc.
Switzerland may not have “systematic gun violence”, but it *does* have rampage shootings. A 2001 massacre at a local Swiss parliament killed 14.
And as a college instructor, I find the concept of concealed carry on campus terrifying. During a seminar two years ago, one of my students threatened to leap over the table and “kick another student’s ass”. I thought for a moment he actually would, as did everyone else in the room. The would-be assailant was ex-military, large, and passionate, and I wasn’t looking forward to placing myself in his path. But thank God I didn’t have to wonder: “will some of my students try to `deter’ him with a hail of gunfire”?
Yes, for us to feel safe on campuses again, we obviously need more guns.
By the way, let me add to the chorus: Lott’s work on guns has been so thoroughly discredited that it is probably Exhibit A in the recent history of fraudulent social science. The big clue is that you can’t conduct a major telephone survey which leaves no trace—no paper records, no expenses, no former employees, nothing. And I’m not inclined to give him any benefit of the doubt, since his brandishing statistics seem outlandish on face.
I was late to the news today, and therefore late to the discussion here. A little earlier I visited a track and field board (!), where, under the heading “Things Not Track and Field,” a similar threadjacking from tragedy to gun control had started several hours earlier. To be fair, it began with an offhand anti-gun comment, not with the “let’s all carry guns” lobby, but it degenerated fast.
I was furious, and became more so the more I thought about it. Allow me to quote myself, rather than try to recapture the moment:
(1) Doesn’t anyone here care enough about what happened today to actual people to stop – just for a moment – obsessing about gun control and the “right to bear arms”? Or is every tragedy nothing but an opportunity to score political points?
A plague on both your houses!
(2) OK, you (Zzzz) did spare “just a moment” for the victims. And the shooter. Good for you. [He informed us he had said a rosary for both]
But within hours of the shooting, you – and I realize you were not alone – were off on your political rant. These discussions don’t just happen. [His actual phrase was that they “arise.”] They happen because people decide their politics are more important than mourning, or respect, or healing, or simple human decency.
You – all of you who were involved in this, not just Zzzz – couldn’t even wait 24 hours.
Geez.
(3) I just rechecked the thread – for some reason I can’t check it while composing a message. The story broke shortly after 9 AM. About five hours later, shortly after 2 PM, the question of gun control arose here (and Zzzz was not the one to start it, to be fair) and from then on the thread went due south
Five hours. Then I guess we can take the black armbands off and put on our fighting Red and Blue colors again.
(4) Zzzz characterized his contribution to the politicization of this tragedy as simply correcting misinformation.
If he had left it to his brief message of 14:42, OK. [On who can own assault weapons]
But by 14:44 he was back with “What a tragedy that no one was able to defend themselves and those around them” and a spirited defense of gunownership, which does not exactly fall under the category of correcting misinformation.
Nor were his contributions of 15:01, 15:23, 15:48, 19:07, and 20:10. This was full-fledged partisan debate. This was dancing on corpses to make his point. (It’s too early to dance on their graves, I assume.)
Sheesh.
I hate to use the same language on my friends here at ObWi, but as a wise man once said:
“If the shoe fits, stick it in your ear.”
One of our difficulties in addressing the issue of gun control is the false notion of all-or-nothing. There seems to be an assumption on the part of opponents of gun control that this is a black-and-white issue: either everybody can have all the military hardware they want, or nobody can have anything. Framing the issue this way is dishonest and misleading. Our problem is to set limits somewhere between the two extremes. I would suggest an obvious limit: no automatic weapons. There is absolutely no justification for anybody owning an automatic weapon.
I think we can also agree that hunting weapons should be allowed. So the real issue boils down to handguns. I confess that this issue is not so clearcut. The debatable issue is, should a citizen have the right to own a weapon that is intended for use against human beings? I tend towards a negative answer, because I don’t trust most people to handle a weapon responsibly. Too many people lose their tempers. Too many people misunderstand what’s happening (such as the chap who murdered a trick-or-treater one Halloween). Too many people can’t load or carry a gun without shooting themselves or others. (Recall the case of the idiot who posed his dog with a shotgun for a photo, and the dog somehow fired the gun, wounding it idiot.) Put all of these together, and I conclude that society would benefit from a ban on ownership of all guns save hunting rifles and shotguns.
Katherine: And while the codes were silly and widely flouted, there was a dorm fire a few years before me started by people who would light their couch on fire and try to put it out really quickly as a party trick.
Wait, I missed this. Did you go to Yale?
maybe.
🙂
Well, let’s put it like this: one of my high school friends burned down a Yale dorm in 1994 or 1995, I forget which. I have a feeling it’s a small world, after all… (:
hey Brett Bellmore, instead of hanging around here making vague digs, why don’t you go back over to Yglesias’s and face up to the stupidity of your claim that “a lot of times mass murders are prevented by some bystander packing a gun who shoots the potential killer before s/he kills a bunch of people.”
[note: not a verbatim quote, but preserves sense of claim. Link if you want it (Bellmore at 4:42 PM); scroll down for responses.]
They happen because people decide their politics are more important than mourning, or respect, or healing, or simple human decency.
dr_ngo:
I’m honestly confused. I didn’t know anyone at VA Tech. Obviously I feel bad for the dead and their families and communities, but it doesn’t really affect me. I think most people are in the same boat.
Since I don’t know affected people, I can’t mourn very well and there’s no healing for me or anyone I know to do. I honestly don’t see why discussing politics is disrespectful or indecent.
I’ll grant you this: the politics never occurred to me until I read Von’s post. As terrible a tragedy as this is, I don’t think a single horrific incident has policy implications. I’ve been arguing about general policy and I don’t think I’ve even mentioned the VA shootings.
Are we supposed to stop political disucssions after all horrific, nightmarish violent shooting sprees? Only the ones in the US? Because if the lives of Iraqis count as much as the lives of American college students, I don’t think we’re going to be able to disucss politics or gun control for a very long time.
I’m sorry this upsets you, but you need to understand that your beliefs about the propriety of political discussion are not self evident to the slower among us (i.e. me). Please enlighten, if you can stomach discussion.
In response to these commentators, I would start with the Lott study, which cannot be so easily dismissed…
Yeah? Well I’ve got a Chick Tract that says the Pope is the antichrist. It also cannot be easily dismissed.
Yes, their both nuts, but since Chick isn’t a demonstrated fraudster & doesn’t lavish praise on himself via sock puppets, I think he has the advantage here.
Seriously, there are plenty of arguments to be made for letting people have guns, but invoking Lott to defend this is like invoking Piltdown Man to defend evolution.
Von,
I’m curious why you immediately thought of guns. After all, the second amendment deals with arms, not guns.
In any event, it seems like people could protect themselves using tear gas grenades or regular grenades or breakable canisters of sarin or butyric acid. I suspect that in a crisis, these weapons could be much more effective than firearms given the poor marksmanship of most gun owners and the stark raving terror of the situation.
Does the second amendment cover these weapons as well? For some reason, I’m having trouble finding some of them on froogle.
The arms/ordinance distinction is something to keep in mind when thinking about the 2nd amendment. Cannons and the like weren’t thought to be covered. I suspect that gas weapons would be considered not targeted enough to be covered (from a historical point of view)
Arms were personal weapons–the machine gun is the interesting borderline case in my mind.
What Happens When Bad People With Bad Intents Bring Guns Into Gun Free Zones?
Unfortunately, THIS is what happens:
Massacre at Virginia Tech:
33 Confirmed Dead
Gunmans Body Disfigured; Hard to Identify
By NED POTTER, DAVID SCHOETZ, RICHARD ESPOSITO and the staff at ABC News
April 16, 2007 — A tranquil college campus i…
Seb,
This author comments on Volokh when the constitution was drafted, morters, grenades and canons were considered acceptable for private citizens. Indeed, the constitution’s authorization for letters of marquis seems to necessitate the legality of private warships at the time of drafting. Can you provide a cite for your statement that cannons were not thought to be covered?
Also, I’m having difficulty discerning the difference you allude to when saying that gas weapons would not be targeted enough to fall under the second amendment’s purview. Can you explain your suspicion and provide a cite for it?
What basis do you have for asserting that the term arms referred only to personal weapons?
Since I don’t know affected people, I can’t mourn very well and there’s no healing for me or anyone I know to do.
Were you affected, or were you to know affected people, would you want other people invoking the cause of your suffering at this juncture?
Phil: I hope you don’t ever labor for a second under the misimpression that I give a rat’s ass about the gun lobby.
When someone repeats as a truism something that is patently not true but has been used as advertising by a powerful lobby, I think that while you may think you don’t give a rat’s ass about that lobby, your opinions have nonetheless been influenced by it.
I do, however, read newspapers, and I’ve read accounts of many women having shot and injured or killed attackers over the past several years.
And you probably didn’t read the same number of anecdotes of women who were shot by attackers. Not nearly as newsworthy. Women being attacked/raped/murdered by someone they know doesn’t make the newspapers nearly as often as a woman being attacked/raped/murdered by a stranger, even though it happens far more often. And, obviously, stories about women who fought off their attacker are more newsworthy than the depressing and commonplace story of women who didn’t.
Anecdotes, of course, don’t prove anything, but those are real women who might have been raped, beaten or worse had they not had the means to deter their attackers. That counts for something.
And there are real women who have been murdered by handguns. More of them. A lot more. They count for something, too – but they’re dead.
Me, I’m not comfortable telling a woman who might weigh 100 lbs. dripping wet that she’s gotta rely on pepper spray to deter rapists.
But you are comfortable, evidently, telling women any weight and size that she’s gotta put up with the risk of being shot dead.
If she thinks a handgun is a better equalizer, I’m not in a position to disagree with her.
Well, you are if you’re willing to use common sense. Pepper spray is a much better equalizer than a handgun, because a woman who wants to stop a rapist – who is most likely her husband or her boyfriend or at least someone she knows and cares about – is free to use it without worrying about long-term disablement or the risk of being tried for murder. Therefore she is more likely to use it before her attacker gets within arm’s reach of her, takes the handgun away from her, and rapes her anyway. You are as free to use that argument as I am. The gun lobby, however, would prefer she bought a handgun – even though it’s more likely to be used to kill her than her using it to defend herself.
Ah see — as per usual, you aren’t as interested in having a discussion as you are telling other people what they think and believe. Carry on then, and enjoy yourself. You’ll not receive the opportunity to interact with me again, so I hope you enjoyed your last self-satisifed little bit of repartee.
Just so long as next time a woman tells you she wants a handgun to defend herself, you buy her a pepper spray…
The 2nd amendment is an individual right, referring to weapons an individual can bear. I think this precludes crew served weapons such as ships, airplanes, cannons, and heavy machine guns.
I think for the founders it was an easy and reasonable decision to root for private firearms given the technical situation of the day. The best army in the world managed about 5-6 shots per man and minute under controlled conditions and the average army managed about a third of that on the battlefield. The standard military firearm was for low range use (100 m) against massed targets and pretty useless for aimed fire beyond 50 m. The only exception were the Jäger (German for “hunter”) troops that used their own civilian hunting rifle (or wadded smoothbore) for precise and long range shots (but abysmal reloading time).
Armed civilians at the time would therefore typically have possessed firearms useful for sniping and one-on-one situations and superior to standard military hardware. For a homeland defense based more on guerilla warfare than clashing conventional armies this was ideal, especially because the firearms were also household tools. Today standard hunting weapons/ammo are no match for assault or high-powered sniper rifles and no decent hunter would use an automatic weapon.
This just as a reminder why the situation then is difficult to compare to today and why a possibly useful part of the law may (or may not) has outlived itself and that a change may be at least discussed reasonably.
The discussion here is in my opinion for the most part quite reasonable compared to what I am used to on this topic.
Btw, I expected the “the 2nd amendment is sacred” crowd to jump to the occasion the moment I heard about the massacre having taken place.
Another thing: I think it is only a matter of time before someone goes on a similar killing spree with full body armor. Will there be a call for tank rifles then?
As a more practical proposal for discussion:
Would it be useful to have trained armed and armored guards (2-3 should suffice) at schools and on campuses for incidents like these?
The 2nd amendment is an individual right, referring to weapons an individual can bear. I think this precludes crew served weapons such as ships, airplanes, cannons, and heavy machine guns.
What about shoulder-fired SAM, Panzerfaust/bazooka, knee mortars, flame throwers etc.? All those are banned to my knowledge* but they blur the old distinction between portable gun and artillery.
And what about the only thing around at the time of the founders already: hand grenades?
(for further blurring: rifle grenades)
*and there are some people that think all those are indeed covered by the 2nd amendment. I personally know somebody who would include portable nuclear weapons.
If the militia is already armed in Article I, by Congress, and the Amendment refers to the right of the people to be armed, how can any reasonable interpretation lead someone to believe the intent is to arm the militia again?
and yet, the first clause of the 2nd Amendment is all about the militia. if they wanted to describe a general right, that first clause is irrelevant and confusing. that’s what my “sky is blue” thing up above was going to be about – if that clause about the militia is unimportant to the rest of the sentence, you should be able replace it with almost anything and still get your right to bear arms. but should we assume it’s irrelevant ? is “they just tacked-on this purposeless clause” a “reasonable interpretation” ?
Despite being man portable, most of the above are still crew served, and there would be an assistant assigned. And according to the Holy Grail, hand grenades require one person to carry, one to read the instructions, and one to toss (though this may only apply to the “holy” variety).
But I agree that the definition gets harder when you start talking about m203 grenade launchers, hand grenades, claymore mines, etc. It may simply be that the founders intended the amendment process to be used when the definition no longer worked.
I think it is only a matter of time before someone goes on a similar killing spree with full body armor.
the LA bank robbery had a different motive, but the heavily armed and armored gunmen managed to kill a lot of people before they were stopped.
Cleek,
It is not confusing, it is indicating that the right to arms includes military weapons.
And in the one case on point, Miller, the court determined that only weapons with a military purpose can be owned (as opposed to something only good for hunting, or target shooting):
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a “shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length” at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
The question is, what would Prof.Reynolds say concerning armored amok shootists*?
This would not per se invalidate the argument for rape defense by gun (a rapist with full body armor is probably like a vampire using a gas mask against garlic, i.e. handicapped) but it would in my view pretty much spoil the “arm all the students” reasoning.
Would someone argue for one tank rifle in every classroom?
*As I said, just a matter of time, therefore something that should be discussed** (if a honest discussion is wished for)
**in general, not just by some commenters on a blog
Body armor can be defeated by larger rounds. The kind worn currently is good for 7.62 rounds, but nothing larger. Large hunting rifles and sniper rifles are not defeated by the armor. I don’t think we need to arm with bazookas to defeat it.
It is not confusing, it is indicating that the right to arms includes military weapons.
i doubt i would ever come up with that reading of that sentence unless i was trying damned hard to use it as a way to rationalize a situation.
Must be the USSC was rationalizing.
Common Sense: “Obviously I feel bad for the dead and their families and communities, but it doesn’t really affect me. I think most people are in the same boat.”
This statement saddens me immensely. Donne comes to mind.
Must be the USSC was rationalizing.
it wouldn’t be the first time – nor the last.
I don’t think any other reading makes sense at all, even if this one is somewhat tortured. “People,” as used anywhere else in the Constitution, does not refer to the militia. Nor does it refer to “States” as People. Typically legal documents require the same meaning for words through out. Further, since the militia is already armed, having it arm the militia is redundant.
Having the second phrase rationally relate to the first, and therefore refer to military weapons being kept and born by the people, seems the most logical of alternatives.
and therefore refer to military weapons being kept and born by the people, seems the most logical of alternatives
only if the people are also the militia. which they aren’t – at least not today. and even in the 1790’s, it’s clear that many of the Founders thought that a “well-regulated militia” wasn’t the general mass of citizens, but rather the trained, organized and commanded State-controlled armies.
let’s agree to disagree here. i fear a circle is forming.
Were you affected, or were you to know affected people, would you want other people invoking the cause of your suffering at this juncture?
Anarch:
If I was affected, the last thing on my mind right now would be what some wankers on the internet were wanking about.
Even if I had been affected and the invocation bothered me, that’s not something that would magically change 24 hours after the tragedy, or a week after, or a year after or ever. I really don’t get this waiting period concept, as you can probably guess.
Furthermore, I didn’t invoke the cause of anyone’s suffering. I’m participating in a general discussion of gun control that may have been started by the VA shootings but doesn’t have much to do with them. I’ve already stated that I think the policy implications of the VA shootings are precisely nil.
This statement saddens me immensely. Donne comes to mind.
john,
WTF? Seriously, WTF? If people want to tell me that my emotions are somehow wrong, that’s fine, but I’d like an explanation of why I’m supposed to feel the mandatory feelings that I’ve been mandated to feel.
Look, there are 6 billion people on this planet. Many thousands will die horrible tragic deaths every single day. I’ve got three choices:
* Mourn only those people that I had some connection with.
* Mourn everyone and be completely crippled by grief and unable to function.
* Mourn Americans.
Option 2 is a non-starter because I’ve got a powerful need to eat. Option 3 is hardly better (lots of Americans die horribly every day), and it strikes me as immoral to boot. I try to believe that American lives are worth no more and no less than third world lives.
I really don’t get why my statement is so saddening. I don’t see how the world would be improved if everyone was crippled by grief.
Common Sense. I wasn’t saddened because you are not crippled by grief. I think you are taking my statement too personally.
The point is that your statement reflected a common sentiment that I (meaning only me, not speaking for anyone else) find saddening. It is a commentary on how we as a society have insulated ourselves. It is neither a judgement nor a condemnation. I am not telling anyone how to feel. I am expressing my own feeling.
john,
My apologies then. It is somewhat frustrating to be out of step with the mainstream but not get any concrete information on how one is out of step. I read too much into your comment.
I still don’t get why that would be sad though. I think I (and most people) have difficulty seriously grieving for someone we to which we have no connection and for whose death we are not responsible. That seems like human nature, not anything wrought by our society.
10,000 years ago, when hunter/gatherer tribe A met up with tribe B and told them that tribe C had died in a freak accident, do you really believe that tribe B shed tears for the people that they had never seen before?
I can empathize with Common Sense. Unlike with Columbine, news of this tragedy left me feeling mostly numb. I think my first reaction was more quizzical (“Again?” I thought. “How is that possible? Why are we still here, in this place, where this can happen?”).
I’m sure once the stories of the victims come out, my sense of the real nature of the senseless loss will emerge, but right now I’m mostly just speechless. It seems surreal, this shooting, as if I wouldn’t at all be surprised to wake tomorrow and realize I had dreamt it.
That won’t happen of course, and I recognize how callous it would seem to somone who knows a victim to read such distance in my response, but this sort of thing is, sadly, no longer unthinkable. So when it happens, the initial shock is supplanted by a more practical reaction: I immediately switch to what should the school be doing right now (get the wounded to the hospital, sweep the campus for co-shooters, keep calm, etc. etc.).
I don’t mind tying this to my sense of things in general post-9/11. That day took me by surprise and it took weeks to recover. I think I’m on an emotional autopilot now, though. Breaking news of some violent event makes me run through my safety checklist. I’ve been trained, in other words. Do what you have to do to minimize the impact, and then, and only then, take stock of the human tragedy.
Like I said, it wasn’t so much about grieving. It was more the statement about not affecting someone because the person or people who were the victims were not personally known.
Again, it is not a judgemental statement. And in some ways, it caused me to think of the “no man is an island” reflection by Donne.
In a way, I can also agree that I am not personally affected, and I find that sad. Whether it be one person or 33 who die a needless death, I consider myself lessened somehow or someway. It is hard to explain.
Did the WTC tragedy affect you in the sense that you knew someone involved? Perhaps you did, I don’t know. I didn’t, but it affected me. Is what happened yesterday somehow different because it was on 1/100th the scale, or it was a single person doing the shooting rather than 19 terrorists flying planes into buildings?
I can come up with plenty of questions. I don’t have the answers.
Some general reactions:
1. Is it inappropriate to discuss gun control in the immediate aftermath of this tragedy? At first I was inclined to give this notion some credence, but after consideration, decided against it. Here’s my line of thinking:
The notion of a period of mourning is based on the desire to demonstrate sincerity of grief. If the new widow gets married the day after she is widowed, people conclude that her grief is insincere — therefore she hews to a requirement that she not do so for some interval. If the orphaned child attends a wild party the day after his parents are killed, his grief is considered insincere. We expect people to demonstrate the sincerity of their grief by refraining from enjoyable activities for some interval.
The problem here is, are total strangers expected to feel grief? In support of this is the notion that this is a tragedy of such magnitude as to constitute a national tragedy affecting all of us, and therefore all of us should feel grief. The problem is, I don’t feel grief; I feel concern, I feel some sadness, but not grief. Tears don’t come to my eyes, but I do shake my head and mutter, “What a shame.” If someone were to condemn me as insensitive (and I recognize that no such condemnations have been made), I would shrug off such condemnations as mistaken.
The argument can be made that this is a national tragedy and therefore we as a nation, not as individuals, should demonstrate some grief by refraining from some activities. They delayed Mr. Gonzalez’s testimony for this reason. I won’t question their decision, but then, I wouldn’t question them if they decided not to. Ultimately, expressions of grief are an entirely personal issue, not something to be expected of anybody. Those who prefer not to discuss this issue at this time deserve respect for their decision — just as those who prefer to discuss it. Live and let live, folks.
I’d like to make some other points, but I’ve other tasks to attend to. I will observe, however, that Mr. Bush will be attending the convocation this afternoon at the school. I hear that he will use the occasion to announce and justify an invasion of Iran. 😉
I find jrudkis’ Second Amendment arguments disingenuous.
When Madison penned the Second Amendment, it read as follows:
When this version was debated by the Founders, the clearly military intent of this amendment was not debated. Instead, what was debated was the “religiously scrupulous” portion. It was feared such a clause might be used to deliberately exclude certain groups (Quakers, Catholics, etc.) from military service.
Is what happened yesterday somehow different because it was on 1/100th the scale, or it was a single person doing the shooting rather than 19 terrorists flying planes into buildings?
in many ways, what happened yesterday is really only different in scale, to things that seem to happen at least once a month in the US. there were two workplace shootings in the past two weeks; there is almost always a headline about a murder on CNN.com (this week, it was the preacher slaying); school shootings happen very frequently – and after a while, they all blend together.
yes of course, they all suck. but they just don’t surprise me much any more. this one is remarkable mainly because of the numbers, not because it happened.
i’m sure i’d feel differently if i knew anyone who was personally affected.
Ultimately, expressions of grief are an entirely personal issue, not something to be expected of anybody. Those who prefer not to discuss this issue at this time deserve respect for their decision — just as those who prefer to discuss it. Live and let live, folks.
But it’s not just about our own feelings, is it? I agree that at the personal level, we can feel different amounts of grief. Some of us may wish we felt more, but that’s also personal.
Yet this is about behavior, not feelings. It’s about decency and respect, not just our emotional state.
I assume that when you’re abroad, you don’t wear a bathing suit in a Spanish cathedral because, hey, you’re not Catholic. Nor would you (I hope) wear shoes in a Buddhist temple in Thailand. Nor would you throw rocks and shout insults at a passing funeral, since you didn’t know the guy.
“Common sense” asked above how long the period of restraint should be. I don’t know, except that I feel sure it’s at least 24 hours. (At the Munich Olympics in 1972, the Israelis felt strongly that the Games should be cancelled after the massacre of the Israeli athletes. The officials felt otherwise, and the Games went ahead – after a 24 hour suspension.)
I know some people love to talk about gun control (for OR against). As it happens I don’t, but in general I accept “live and let live” on such discussions. But is a 24-hour moratorium too much to ask for? Are your own feelings SO important that you feel free – or even feel obligated – to dance on the corpses of people with whom you are not personally acquainted?
Eeyore: “A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others,makes all the difference. Or so they say.”
“This author comments on Volokh when the constitution was drafted, morters, grenades and canons were considered acceptable for private citizens. Indeed, the constitution’s authorization for letters of marquis seems to necessitate the legality of private warships at the time of drafting.”
Acceptable in some states doesn’t mean acceptable in all which doesn’t mean Constitutional right. The distinction between ‘arms’ and ‘ordinance’ existed at the time. If I made a Constitutional right to internet access, the fact that DVDs were allowed wouldn’t mean that they were covered in the right. This is what happens when we allow the free-form liberal Constitutional jurisprudence to reign–we lose track of the actual words of the Constitution. If you wanted to, you could make an argument that ‘arms’ really meant ‘arms and ordinance’ but it isn’t inevitable. And it surely isn’t inevitable enough to play the “sarin gas is clearly allowed therefore we should eviscerate the Constitutional right because that is unacceptable”. That wouldn’t fly in the free speech understanding. Speech can be used to directly incite violence. We don’t allow that, but the argument for protecting speech which directly incites violence is much stronger than the “sarin gas” argument. I don’t see any one using that fact to generally discredit the right to speech.
I think this is pretty much wrong too: ” It just doesn’t compare to an independent judiciary, habeas corpus, the right to counsel, freedom of speech and of the press….as far as protecting individual liberty it’s no more useful on a day to day basis than the Third Amendment, and unlike the Third there’s a real potential downside.”
The reason that the Third amendment isn’t currently topical is because the government doesn’t often try to take over people’s houses for troops. The government rather regularly makes attempts to restrict ‘arms’ ownership, so the amendment’s protections are regularly in play.
You can make a personal judgment that if you were writing a Constituion you wouldn’t include the right. But that doesn’t mean it is some sort of lesser Constitutional right. It has all the Constitutional weight of the 1st Amendment and the habeas protections. To fail to take that as seriously as either of those undermines those protections–if you can downgrade the weight of one based on your personal politcal understandings, you are going to have difficulty marshalling Constitutional force on your favored protections because other people might downgrade them in their personal understandings. If there is a serious problem with a Constitutional right, the proper thing to do is amend it. Narrowing it out of existance may be easier, but justifying that kind of action is a tool that you won’t be happy with except in the hands of people who agree with you politcally. The whole point of having a Constitution is to put certain rights beyond that easy kind of game.
But is a 24-hour moratorium too much to ask for?
if we all stopped talking about gun control for 24 hours after every shooting in the US, we would literally never talk about it. many thousands of people die after being shot in the US, every year. guns are involved in roughly 1/4 of all violent crimes in the US (of which there were 5.2M in 2006)
it’s a giant problem.
I have to admit that I don’t feel actually “affected” by this type of incident anymore. Not because those events are not horrible but they have become so “common” that it mainly registers in the “statistics” department. It would probably be quite different, if it happened right round the corner or involving someone near to me.
The same with reports on Iraq. By now it would more or less suffice to put a box on the sports page with GIs vs. Insurgents and Sectarian Killers vs. Civilians scores with a short notice of where and by what method (like the “yards of ground won in last battle” of WW1).
That tends to be the only “real” information in most reports these days, everything else is “generic details”.
Look at the reports for new school shootings and you will find a list of “previous record holders” in almost every single one of them (the same with train wrecks, ferry sinkings etc.).
It’s nothing to be proud of.
The distinction between ‘arms’ and ‘ordinance’ existed at the time.
Could you elaborate, please?
My understanding is the term “arms” is a wholly military term. As one wag put it, one doesn’t bear arms against rabbits. Further, the term “arms” has, throughout history, has included all weaponry and associated military equipment.
I don’t have the stomach to look, but presumably some idiot bloggers have pulled immigration into the discussion now, since the shooter was from South Korea.
Dr. Ngo:
You are correct, of course. Speaking for myself only, the shoe is lodged in my ear.
However, these thoughts, random and probably incoherent:
The Internet, in particular the phenomenon of political blogs, has enabled a sort of national political, and infectious Tourette’s Syndrome.
But, it may be that engaging in what seems like crass and inappropriate chatter so soon after the event is a kind of consolation for some (again, not speaking for anyone but me).
When I was younger I could never understand why mourning people, even before their loved ones are buried, were expected to be so hungry. Family and friends come bearing oppressive quantities of food. Strangers, show up at the door with vats of chili, three-bean salad, and elaborate desserts.
Meanwhile, a loved one, gone where and why gone I couldn’t fathom, disappears. Hungry? Not me. How about we all vomit and tear a new hole in the sky to get at the meaning of it?
Conversely, maybe something else happens during shocking events like the VA Tech atrocity. It may be, as Walker Percy observed, that events like these, even for direct, surviving participants, are oddly and perversely, enlivening events. He writes of battlefield survivors who awake and see, really see, the hand at the end of their arm for the first time in their lives.
Somehow, reality is heightened and those moments remain vivid and thus, yes terribly, set apart from other more mundane moments which ought to be accorded more value.
At this moment, the stock market is up 55 points. The OxyClean guy is yelling about stain removal.
If life was important (I tell myself), they would shut up and stay in bed.
If the type of mass murder with efficient weaponry is so awful (I tell myself) then every educational institution should be shut down indefinitely as a protest until there is a five mile high pile of guns turned in by the population.
Instead, classes will resume soon and some individual, heart turned black by life’s meanness, is cleaning his weapon and counting his ammo to see if it equals his well-nursed grudges.
I often wish the hundreds of thousands of individuals slaughtered on the highways annually would all die, if they must, in one collosal fiery catastrophe on a Wednesday afternoon, just so it would make an impression.
I can’t quote poetry either at times like these. The beautiful words of the poet always seem to come just in time for the gravestone engraving, when they would have done more good had they occurred to the shooter this past Sunday afternoon, as he noticed the beauty of the light filtering through the trees,
Dr. Ngo:
My response is to your first comment. Hadn’t read the second one.
dr ngo, I like your distinction between behavior and emotion; in the end, behavior is the only thing we can meaningfully discuss. However, the observation by itself doesn’t take us in either direction; it serves to focus our attention.
However, when you appeal to “decency and respect”, I think you contradict yourself. Those are vague terms, and they are NOT behavioral. I think we have to dismiss them from our considerations.
Your comments regarding inappropriate behavior inside a place of worship are way off the mark. Those cases are distinguished by a strong sense of territoriality; it is the territoriality that gives the feelings of the owners of the territory the right to impose behavioral expectations on guests. I am not a guest in my own country, I am a citizen; there is no territoriality that anybody can use to impose any behavioral expectations on me.
You go way off track with this comment:
But is a 24-hour moratorium too much to ask for? Are your own feelings SO important that you feel free – or even feel obligated – to dance on the corpses of people with whom you are not personally acquainted?
This is a self-righteous comment whose fault is easily exposed by mirroring it back at you:
Is freedom of speech too much to ask for? Are your own feelings SO important that you feel justified in imposing them upon others? Are you going to wave this bloody shirt in our faces in an attempt to stifle free discussion?
I hasten to add that I place the mirrored comments in italics because they do NOT represent my beliefs. I present them to demonstrate how unfair your comment is.
You are welcome to dismiss me as a callous and uncaring person; I could reciprocate by dismissing you as a self-righteous tyrant — BUT I DON’T because I really do believe in the ‘live and let live’ dictum. I commend that dictum to you.
The term arms was used contemporaneously to provide for both self defense and state defense:
The Pennsylvania Constitution which was adopted in 1790 states: “that the right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned.” This was a restatement of a previous document, The Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights which in 1776 stated “that the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves, and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by the civil power.” Vermont later adopted this amendment verbatim in their own Declaration of Rights.
I also don’t see how the original version changes anything with regard to the “people” vs “militia.” If they intended to only allow arms for the militia, they would have stated it. Instead, they armed the militia in article 1, and provided that the people can be armed in the 2nd amendment. Whether everyone would be forced to serve in the militia was dropped from the amendment.
Did the WTC tragedy affect you in the sense that you knew someone involved? Perhaps you did, I don’t know. I didn’t, but it affected me. Is what happened yesterday somehow different because it was on 1/100th the scale, or it was a single person doing the shooting rather than 19 terrorists flying planes into buildings?
I knew people who died on 9/11. I have a friend who was permanently disabled on 9/11 while fleeing the WTC. For almost 20 years, my father had a window office on the 88-92 floor of the WTC (thank God, he had been moved to a different city years ago). I was affected, but I think that’s because I actually knew people involved and because the scale was massive.
I spoke to people about what was happening and some people did immediately bring politics into it. That didn’t bother me at all; I didn’t think it was disrespectful. The part that bothered me was that their politics tended to really stupid.
I have not been trying to say we shouldn’t look at the issue of gun control, or non-control. In fact, I do see where it can be of some benefit. As JT pointed out, in some ways it is a catrhartic process for some.
I respect your feelings, I really do. And I do understand the “not affected” attitude. I remember a time where that would not really been stated. When everyone would have said that something like this affected them for better or worse.
And yes, cleek, the scale can be used in both directions.
This was a random event. Shear dumb bad luck. That’s why it shocks so much–we can all identify with it. Will I be shot the next time I’m hanginng out in some crowded public place, the mall, my class at the community college, a parking lot, the grocery? Will I read on the news that some maniac was shootin people in Chicago and find out that my sister died? It probably won’t happen again for anothher five or six years but when it does it could be anywhere and affect anybody. So we have no defense but hope.
On the other hand the very day tragedies in America are things that most of us are safe from. If you aren’t married to an abuser, you are unlikely to be shot by one. If you don’t get involved in drug deals you are unlikely to be killed if one goes bad. In my fifteenn years of teachinng at least four (that I can think of right now) of my students died from gunfire, all in very avoidable incidents.
So it’s not that people don’t care about the every day tragedy in the nnewspaper but there is a kind of distance: that won’t happen to me.
And as someone observed upthread we can’t mourn for every death or we would all be mourning all the time. After all, today’s news, or tomorrow’s will have another thirty or so Iraqi deaths. There isn’t much choice except to go back and forth between thinking about it and being depressed to deciding not to think about it and stop being depressed. What the Buddhists call the samasara.
Samsara. Extra “a”.
just remember, even a handgun (not even two!) is no match for a heroic 9/11-inspired Derb
Derb was in a movie with both Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee.
Careful who you’re messin with.
Erasmussimo: Is freedom of speech too much to ask for? Are your own feelings SO important that you feel justified in imposing them upon others? Are you going to wave this bloody shirt in our faces in an attempt to stifle free discussion?
Let’s see:
1) Asking that people withhold the discussion of politics while the affected mourn the dead.
2) Asking that people withhold their calls for decency while people who were unaffected by the tragedy discuss its ramifications in the (bloodless) abstract.
There’s a flaw in that argument all right, but it ain’t his.
if we all stopped talking about gun control for 24 hours after every shooting in the US, we would literally never talk about it.
I think the point is not to stop talking about gun control, but to stop using a particular incident to talk about gun control — especially if one is going to use it to advocate one’s particular hobbyhorse — in its immediate aftermath.
I think the point is not to stop talking about gun control, but to stop using a particular incident to talk about gun control — especially if one is going to use it to advocate one’s particular hobbyhorse
there are threads where people are not talking about other things. this one, however, is not such a thread.
and, the 24 hours is past…
Derb is more disgusting than usual. The point when “you’re going to die anyway” isn’t always going to be obvious, and second-guessing people’s perceptions of it based on press reports and rumors you’ve heard one day after those people died is tasteless. Also, complaining about the rationality of people who think they’re about to die is like complaining about the dancing ability of someone with a broken leg.
and, the 24 hours is past…
Which is why I’m talking about it 😉
Anarch, sorry – i didn’t mean to be as snippy as that came out. i was trying to say that obviously, people do want to talk about their hobbyhorses (this thread is big, after all). but if it makes anyone uncomfortable, maybe this thread isn’t the best place for them to be hanging out today.
Derbyshire, stupidly, conflates the VA Tech ambush and whatever transpired on Flight 93 on 9/11.
The passengers on that flight had time to consider the worst and the enormous odds and collect their wits.
The kids in that classroom had no time to react, except as all untrained people do in an ambush, diving for cover.
Derbyshire, in placing his theoretical self in tights and a cape in that situation, forgot to account for the time it would take him to whimper and lose control of his bladder, before vanquishing evildoers far and wide.
reynolds or anyone couldn’t possibly predict what would happen…
Exactly. I don’t know the source of the Dirty Harry theory of crime prevention but it is totally inapplicable here. More guns on campus would not have saved lives.
Think about it – suspect starts shooting then two armed people pull out their guns and start shooting back. Then some late-comers show up with their guns and see people shot and the two people holding guns so they start shooting – and on and on.
This doesn’t even get into the danger to bystanders and guns are being fired from every direction.
I don’t think you talk to people about the public policy implications of their personal tragedies 24 hours or 24 years later, unless they want to or unless there’s some really compelling reason to do so. (Don’t know what that would be.)
The rules for other people–well, don’t talk about issue x with someone if he is likely to get upset and there’s no sufficiently strong reason for upsetting him.
I avoided contributing to this thread because I don’t have any strong opinion on gun control, because I happen to be too bothered by this to read about it yet (massacres in Virginia hit harder than massacres in Iraq) and because I know there will be someone who would see it as inappropriate. But I’d talk about it in a heartbeat if I had something to say and I knew my listeners wouldn’t be offended. I was talking to my mother about why 9/11 might have happened on the morning it happened, when I was frantic with worry about friends and loved ones. (None died, as it happened, but I didn’t know yet.) People aren’t all the same, and I don’t think people of my stripe are necessarily morally inferior to those who differ, but then I would think that.
Isn’t Derbyshire the guy who fell off his ladder when he was painting his house?
I thought that’s why the other thread was created, and that seemed a good idea to me: one for the mourning and one for the politics discussion.
I felt for those victims; I’ve been that age, could empathize easily with the shot students. What I thought of was the blog of the daughter of a friend, who is doing the last year of highschool in Texas (exchange program). She described a few months ago how they had to pracise what to do when the ‘lockdown’ command was given over the intercom. Practising what to do in case of a crazy killer in school is NOT a thing we are familiar with – which suprised quite a lot of her classmates.
von, think this through. Suppose VA Tech allows responsible individuals who have obtained concealed carry permits to have their handguns on campus. People who get permits tend to be serious sportsmen and very responsible, so I’ll spot you any and all claims of the form that we’d see mad students popping off classmates in calculus class.
In return, spot me the deterrence argument. Someone who is so far gone as to go on a mass killing spree isn’t going to deterred by the thought that someone might possibly have a handgun.
So we’re just talking about the likelihood someone stood up and pulled a Jack Bauer.
First rhetorical question: how many concealed carry permittees do you think there’d be? In my hometown, you had to be a resident in good standing and have a clear record, and be at least 21 years old.
If there’s a similar requirement, this rules out most college kids. They’re too young; their county of residence is far away. So figure a fairly small number, and most of them are going to be seniors.
Second rhetorical question: how likely do you think it is one of these seniors is positioned to take down the shooter, capable of doing so, and doesn’t get shot by police or other students?
Third rhetorical question: how likely do you think it is that having more guns on campus will result in other gun deaths? I spotted you the “responsible gun owner”, so let’s say, maybe one or two extra deaths per year on all college campuses combined. Someone will snap; someone’s gun will get stolen; someone will have an accident; someone will feel suicidal.
At two per year, we’d have more deaths in the last forty years from accidents than we would from all the college massacres combined. We have about one major shoot-up every five or ten years. They’re awful, but they’re rare. To me this incident seems to be extremely poor evidence for concealed carry permits on campus. Hard cases make bad law.
No, to get real, US-style gun violence, you need to be messed up in precisely the way the US is: You must have regions with relatively free gun ownership bordering regions where guns are heavily restricted. It’s the mix that allows guns to travel where they can do maximum harm.
….
I’m not suggesting that this tragedy would or could have been avoided had it occurred where concealed weapons permits are common.
It’s hard for me to see how you aren’t suggesting exactly that. It sure sounds like you’re saying the problem is that people can get guns where they’re easy to get and take them to where they can do the most harm, namely places where guns are heavily restricted.
And if this place had been somewhere that concealed weapons permits were common then it wouldn’t have been one of the places where they can do the most harm.
If that wasn’t what you were saying, what *were* you saying?
I’m not sure what to think of the role of the blogs in all this. I’ve been somewhat disgusted by a few things: the quick speculation and rumor mongering, the second guessing, and most especially the plastering everywhere of the few grainy pictures of victims while hundreds of parents around the country were no doubt in a total state of panic and trying frantically to get information on their loved ones. In this of course they were no different than the MSM.
I’m not really too upset about the immediate politicizing of the issues. I hang out on political blogs so why would that surprise me? Everything gets politicized…
On the positive side there is the normal quick dissemination of information – lack thereof in the earliest hours, but the normal functioning as news aggregates as more reliable information came out was useful. Today some sites are compiling information, links, and pictures for individual victims.
Hilzoy’s post was very timely for me – without it I would be doing some inappropriate second guessing concerning the shooter’s creative writing teacher. Fortunately I read Hilzoy’s post before I read those reports and spouted off half-cocked somewhere. (Thanks for sharing that Hilzoy).
This notion that college students should be carrying guns on campus to prevent the kind of thing that happened yesterday is too stupid to deserve serious consideration, and I’m not sure why anyone still thinks Von is entertaining such a notion. This notion is also irrelevent to the real debate that can be had on the meaning of the 2nd Amendment.
One thing I find interesting is the “use the amendment process” argument usually coming from the pro-gun side. It’s as though they would be fine with such an amendment repealing or weakening the 2nd because their real concern is with respecting process and the authority of the constitution, not with losing their guns. “Well, they finally did the right thing and amended the constitution. I guess I can stop harping about my need to obtain whatever gun I want without restriction.”
“Well, they finally did the right thing and amended the constitution. I guess I can stop harping about my need to obtain whatever gun I want without restriction.”
Gun control issues have high political valence. Much like discussions about free speech, the debate is often subject to being deformed by the outrage of the day. Like free speech, government gun control is intentionally limited by the Constitution. One of the reasons for that is to avoid moment to moment emotional changes in the laws. If you think that the rules are broken or largely damaging to the country, the proper remedy is to amend the Constitution, not play the kind of legal games that would cause you to freak out if they were played with your personally favored rights. If you can’t convince enough people to agree with you–well, some rights are protected by the Constitution to keep them from getting tampered with by people who can’t get a super-majority. Take comfort in the fact that the same structures exist to protect the rights you do like. Before we criticize that the Constitutional process doesn’t perfectly align with what we think is important, and that it is too difficult to amend, judge it against all the rights it protects that you do like.
There are huge disagreements about gun control. Nevertheless it involves an explicit Constitutional right. When evaluating the process, you have to look at what it protects. If, in the set of explicit Constitutional rights you only have a serious problem with gun rights and you don’t like the difficulty getting your preferred politics enacted, balance that against all the explict Constitutional rights that you do like and the difficulty their opponents have in getting their preferred politics enacted.
If you like that it is really difficult to pass laws against free speech, if you like the guarantee of a trial, strengthen the Constitutional process that makes Constitutional rights sacrosanct until the society bothers to go through the process to change them.
If you can convince enough people to repeal a very basic part of the Bill of Rights, of course that is a completely different story from when you can’t.
If that wasn’t what you were saying, what *were* you saying?
I thought I was bemoaning the instant politicization of this event, while acknowledging that I had the same insta-thought as the insta-pundit. But having an insta-thought isn’t the same as making a policy prescription — although I do tend to think that there’s too much concern over whether and how folks have guns, when the real issue is whether and how they use them.
First rhetorical question: how many concealed carry permittees do you think there’d be? In my hometown, you had to be a resident in good standing and have a clear record, and be at least 21 years old.
FWIW, I had a concealed weapons permit as a college student. I believe that I got it at 21, although I don’t know if that was the age restriction. I never owned or carried a gun, however (the gun permit came at about the same time I help found the college’s libertarian party, so can be viewed as a $20 political nod) (no, I’m not still a libertarian).
Wow, Sebastian just made the first comment of his with which I unequivocally agree.
Now, am I the only person who wants to wait in the parking lot of the National Review offices and deal John Derbyshire the ass-whipping of his life, just for the hell of it?
Ezra Klein on Derb (with a health policy tie-in).
If nothing else I imagine Derbyshire is getting the intertubes version of an ass-whipping as we speak.
I do tend to think that there’s too much concern over whether and how folks have guns, when the real issue is whether and how they use them.
no, the real issue is that an emotionally unstable kid was able to buy multiple guns, plus enough clips and ammunition to shoot 32 people at least three times each (and who knows how many rounds spent on the wounded and on total misses).
and yet people like you and Reynolds (a fncking teacher himself!!!) say that putting more guns into schools is a good idea.
yes, people who shoot other people are “criminals”. BFD – like being able to label the shooter will bring back his victim(s). how about we don’t sell guns to crazy people? think that infringes on someone’s rights? too bad – i hereby proclaim that my right to live trumps your right to arm crazy people.
best line ever, at that Ezra link:
John Derbyshire is like the Dwight Schrute of punditry.
Sebastian,
I largely agree with your response. It’s not that I don’t think there are people with real interest in the sanctity of the constitution arguing against what they feel is unconstitutional gun control. It’s that I feel that there are plenty of people who become valiant defenders of constitutional rights only when the right being defended at the time is the right to keep and bear arms. I guess it’s just human nature, but I still find it interesting. You could probably find the inverse at, say, the ACLU. I don’t know this as a fact, but I would guess they don’t spend a lot of time worrying about government regulation of fire arms possession.
The ACLU does not have a position on the Second Amendment at all. They simply ignore it.
The ACLU focuses on the First Amendment and due process issues. That keeps them busy enough.
The NRA is bigger, better funded, more powerful, and perfectly capable of sticking up for the Second Amendment.
Guns aren’t a source or guarantor of political freedom. They are, at most (I’m not going to get into the pros and cons), self-defense against assault.
I’d rather the ACLU continued the work it already does than take on an issue not, frankly, key to preserving our civil liberties.
Erasmussimo: A little concept-check here.
“Freedom of speech” does NOT – repeat NOT – mean “freedom from criticism.” I absolutely defend your right to say what you want. And I equally absolutely maintain my right to call you on it, to point out that only an insensitive boor would throw “decency and respect” out of the window in considering what to say and when and where to say it.
Thus you are wrong, even in jest, to suggest I might be a “self-righteous tyrant.” Self-righteous, maybe. ;} My father was a missionary, and although I’ve lost the faith, some of the preachiness lingers at times. But tyrant, no. Such “tyranny” exists only in your fevered imagination, which defines your “freedom of speech” as a claim that you should never be held to account, by anybody, for your speech.
Now, am I the only person who wants to wait in the parking lot of the National Review offices and deal John Derbyshire the ass-whipping of his life, just for the hell of it?
I don’t believe in hurting children.
cleek, not that I disagree with your general point — I have no problem with denying gun ownership to crazy people — but can we get away from this idea of referring to 23-year-old college students as “kids?” It’s just a pet peeve of mine — this person was an adult for every purpose I can think of under the law. Sure, he was someone’s kid, as were all of his victims, but he was not a kid they way we normally think of it. He was all growed up.
Similarly, it really gets under my skin when media refer to 18 and 19 year old criminal suspects and perpetrators as “teens.” It makes it seem as if they’re trying to elide a serious distinction between 14 and 18.
and yet people like you and Reynolds (a fncking teacher himself!!!) say that putting more guns into schools is a good idea.
I don’t think I’ve ever advocated putting more guns into “schools.” I don’t have a problem with adults, having been properly sceened, possessing firearms.
I also agree with Phil’s comment, even as he largely disagrees with me:
cleek, not that I disagree with your general point — I have no problem with denying gun ownership to crazy people — but can we get away from this idea of referring to 23-year-old college students as ‘kids?’
Similarly, can we stop referring to the issue of “guns in schools,” as if anyone who thinks that an appropriate 21 or 23 or 25 year old college student should have the opportunity to carry a firearm* also thinks that 12 year olds should bring guns in to show and tell?
*There should, of course, be exceptions as to where they carry their gun. (E.g., no courts, airports, etc.)
Again the question: Would it be useful to have a “rapid response” person (or 2-3) equipped with both a weapon and protective gear (body armor also covering the head)* at schools/colleges/etc. as a general rule?
(Leave out the question, whether there’d be enough funds available)
*and adequate training in both handling the equipment and difficult situations/persons.
But not in the eyes of car rental companies, who often think adulthood begins at 25.
Von, why is a classroom an appropriate place to carry a gun but a courtroom or an airport isn’t? The logic of making things safer by allowing everyone to be armed implies to me that we should just get rid of all these metal detectors and let the people defend themselves in courtrooms, airports, and elsewhere.
Similarly, if Republicans in Congress want to repeal DC’s gun laws over the objection of our citizens and elected officials, then they ought to favor allowing people to carry those guns into the Capitol.
Hartmut,
I don’t think so. You simply can’t harden everything, or protect everything. Whether it is terrorism or rampages, there will always be an undefended target.
Despite how horrible this incident is, I don’t see the sense in having a huge increase in SWAT like teams on campus.
For one, I would hope that there would not be enough incidents on campus requiring a team for the team to maintain proficiency (unlike a large city serving warrants and such that could keep them sharp), and I also doubt the caliber of officer that a campus would likely attract for that job. It seems unlikely to me that you will get the quiet professional who can calmly determine the right course of action under fire.
For the most part, I think they are better off using the local reaction teams rather than making their own, even if that means a delay.
KCinDC,
DC prevents people from having guns in their own homes as a means to protect themselves. I don’t get the impression that anyone is asking for a blanket right to carry in DC, but that they can at least defend themselves at home.
But I agree that courts and other government offices should be open for carry, if schools are. And while not the issue here, I think that hardening military bases and government buildings makes softer targets like schools more likely to be hit by terrorism, and that another means to make schools safer from political violence is to reduce the protection on other government functions.
There should, of course, be exceptions as to where they carry their gun. (E.g., no courts, airports, etc
what KCinDC said.
the first time someone walks into an airport and shoots 20 people, the usual suspects are going to be moaning about how “messed-up” it is that we don’t allow guns into airports.
I don’t think I’ve ever advocated putting more guns into “schools.”
not gonna play “definitions” with ya, sorry.
re courts and government offices:
Back in the not so gay ’90’s when the NRA lost their minds, the State of Colorado passed some sort of gun law, the particulars of which I’ve forgotten.
As a result, the City Council of Colorado Springs, most of whom were tough Christian guys and gals who rode into office on the NRA’s Republican demagogahorse, began noticing a guy (one of the literal sorts the demagogues like to lather up during the campaigns) sitting in the back of the room during City Council meetings fondling a hunting rifle as they discussed city business.
Well, you can imagine the thoughts running through the city fathers’ and mothers’ single brain cell that they shared with Grover Norquist, Wayne LaPierre, and any number of big-haired pulpit shouters as they imagined one day needing to discuss city business, maybe a sales-tax hike, (gosh, we took the pledge, but that was just our way of demagoging) while that guy in the back licked his thumb and ran it across the sights on his rifle.
Well, pretty soon, you know, they voted to “clarify” the gun law, to take a little local control, and maybe we shouldn’t permit guns in City Hall.
The guy in the back could have been a gay liberal sharpshooter. You never think of these things while you are doing your Mussolini impression at the Elks Club during the campaign.
I meant the “rapid response” more as a hypothetical scenario (the Amish would probably refuse anything like it on their property in the first place). In the 18th/early 19th century that would have been an opportunity for veterans btw. In Prussia (before the introduction of pension plans) many a disabled soldier avoided poverty by becoming a schoolteacher.
Hey, I have an idea. Colleges etc. are infested these days with recruiters for the foreign wars ;-). Why not make that a standing position including defense of the institution against amok runners ;-)? “You may only recruit here, if you defend us against evildoers personally!”
von, I do disagree with you to the extent that I think a venue with as much free-flowing alcohol, pot and jackassery as your average college campus is probably a poor place to introduce a lot more firearms. Add in the general level of dorm-room thievery and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
Think about what tends to happen in, say, College Park, MD whenever the Terps make the Final Four. Now add in a bunch of semiauto handguns? No thanks.
Joke aside, armed veterans from Bush’s wars would more likely become amok runners themselves* than being a deterrent/first aid against a rampaging student that wants to go out with a bang.
*given their treatment or lack thereof yb this administration.
Just yesterday the University of Oklahoma went into lockdown over a guy carrying an umbrella. I shudder to think what might have happened if these jittery folks were all armed.
guy arrested at my alma mater for having guns on campus. he had four 30 round clips in his car – could Super Derb accurately count to 30 while being shot at ?
(oops. bad HTML)
guy arrested at my alma mater for having guns on campus. he had four 30 round clips in his car – could Super Derb accurately count to 30 while being shot at ?
as if anyone who thinks that an appropriate 21 or 23 or 25 year old college student
Define “appropriate” in this context.
CNN (developing): “A court order from 2005 states that Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui was declared mentally ill and “an imminent danger to others,” a district court clerk tells CNN.”
among other laws, gun laws need to be tightened and enforced. there is no way this guy should’ve been allowed to by guns a month ago.
by=buy, of course
oh, b.t.w., death to CAPTCHA
Add in the general level of dorm-room thievery and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
I don’t think that I ever advocated guns in dorms. But most students don’t live in dorms.
Think about what tends to happen in, say, College Park, MD whenever the Terps make the Final Four. Now add in a bunch of semiauto handguns? No thanks.
There are likely hundreds of guns and concealed carry permits among the students who went to my alma mater, a large midwestern state university in a place with relatively relaxed gun laws. We also had more than our fair share of student riots. Gunplay was never involved, to my knowledge.
Having had a concealed carry permit in college, and knowing many others that did as well, the greatest barrier to getting a gun is its cost.
I don’t think that I ever advocated guns in dorms. But most students don’t live in dorms.
1. Can you think of a way to allow concealed carry on campuses that reasonably excludes them from dorms? I sure can’t.
2. Who cares where most students live? It’s not even remotely relevant to the question. The dorm factor is relevant for the students who do live in dorms.
3. There’s a nontrivial number of car smash-and-grabs on campuses, too.
1. Can you think of a way to allow concealed carry on campuses that reasonably excludes them from dorms? I sure can’t.
That’s not quite the issue. Given the current patchwork of gun control laws, can you think of a way to bar someone from carrying a concealed weapon on campus that reasonable excludes them from dorms?