In this year’s elections across the nation, voters have the opportunity to set things straight by electing lawmakers who will stand up to the NRA and enact sensible gun laws. It turns out Baltimore County voters will have this choice. Democratic State Sen. Jim Brochin, who is running for Baltimore County Executive, has repeatedly stood up to the NRA and backed sensible gun laws. Meanwhile his opponent in the Democratic primary, Johnny Olszewski Jr. — who has earned the backing of the Baltimore County Progressive Democrats Club — has repeatedly done the NRA’s bidding."Stood up to the NRA and backed sensible gun laws" is a trite, vacuous soundbite constantly used by the anti-gun/anti-liberty forces. (I've also seen TV ads by a female candidate repeating the restrictionist rubbish.)
As a libertarian, I have to fight a number of fights, and the natural right of self-defense is self-evident; the right to life means nothing if I can't protect it. The government monopoly can't protect you in the short term (unless you are in the immediate vicinity of a policeman but it depends on the nature and extent of the adversary).
In my case, I'll often choose my moments. To give a telling example, there was a recent Twitter hashtag game of the nature "how I can tell I'm getting old?" One restrictionist argues, "I can remember when there weren't school shootings." I simply replied, "Nope" and attached a Wikipedia link to shootings going back to the nineteenth century. The last time I checked my pithy reply attracted more than 100 impressions, maybe some likes and/or retweets. My Mom is in state of denial over other things, "Those sorts of things never happened when when I was young." Yes, they did--but the world has changed. We don't rely on what and/or how 3 TV networks cover the news. In the age of the Internet and a video-capturing mobile phone, an uploaded video can go viral within hours of release. Almost any school shooting goes national in coverage (vs almost any other local crimes of violence). Let's point out there're almost a quarter million public schools and 50M students. Whereas I find attacks on innocent people morally unacceptable, let's point out there is no meaningful trend from a statistical standpoint over a handful of high-profile incidents. And quite frankly these were government failures in protecting/enforcing gun-free zones (notoriously, the Coward From Broward County retired to a 6-figure annual pension after refusing to engage the Parkland High shooter).
There are a number of issues with the gun restrictionist approach. Just to list a few:
- The real issue is violence, not simply firearms. Let us recall the most horrific school massacre in US history was the Bath School bombing of 1927. Kehoe, the school board treasurer, had acquired WWI surplus munitions for ostensibly farmland use (e.g., clearing trees); in the prior year he had received notice of mortgage foreclosure. After one of the 2 planned bombings went off, Kehoe, after killing his wife, showed up in a truck full of explosives and set it off, killing himself, the superintendent and bystanders, raising the kill total to 44. There is another Wikipedia article listing school bombings in US history. About 3 months ago, a Utah high school student was caught trying to set off a bomb he had brought in his backpack. And these can be more difficult to control because they can be built from ordinary stuff you can find under your kitchen sink. Other countries, with strict gun policies, don't stop homicides; they are simply displaced. with other causes. London Mayor Khan has now become internationally mocked for responding to a homicide surge with a crackdown on knives.
- Trying to control gun incidents by cutting down the supply is simply unenforceable. There are ways of manufacturing personal arms via 3-D printers and widely-available materials. There are literally hundreds of millions of firearms in the US; people who don't qualify for ownership (and I would argue even they have a right to self-defense) can steal one or engage in the inevitable black market that follows government prohibition. Hope is not a strategy; you need to address vulnerabilities from a more comprehensive approach, including any deterrence at the potential target. For instance, the perpetrator may see a gun-free zone as evidence of a soft target. The likelihood that they would encounter lethal force changes perceptions and fosters deterrence.
- The vast majority of firearms are not involved in gun violence; prohibitions affect the rights of people to defend themselves, and there should be equal protection under the law: how can you morally restrict people living in high crime neighborhoods who don't even have reasonable police protection?
- The idea that somehow restrictionists "care more" because because they "oppose the NRA" and want "sensible" restrictions infringing on the rights of other people is ludicrous on its face. Maybe they feel "safe" under government monopoly of force (but then a lot of "progressives" also protest police brutality, so I'm not sure how their perspective is consistent. We libertarians insist on the unalienable rights of life and property. We oppose violations of the non-aggression principle. However, the answer is not to disarm people, vulnerable to others who disregard public policy from the get-go. Remember, we don't really have statistics on how many crimes are disrupted given citizens carrying firearms. Our approach is a multi-faceted approach to privatize or harden school security, e.g., bulletproof technology, door jammers, etc.
Finally, the civility of the debate needs to be addressed. One of my Trumpkin cousins for some odd reason (Trump is pro-second amendment) posted on Facebook some restrictionist meme of the nature a school shooting occurs, some debate occurs in DC and nothing happens, time goes on, another shooting. Some dingbat friend of my cousin (I didn't know who the hell the dingbat was, of course) starts defending the meme), I snipe back, and then my cousin and her 3 siblings defriended me in response. (I haven't lost any sleep over it; you post something stupid on Facebook, be prepared to defend yourself.) The meme was pretty stupid from a number of libertarian perspective. First of all, the federal government has no involvement in state/local affairs; police power comes under the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution. I don't want the Congress dealing with public safety beyond its legitimate core competency of national defense. I don't want them meddling with the clear articulation of the principle of self defense, i.e., the Second Amendment. Any likely restrictions should be unconstitutional on their face. The Parkland massacre falls under the public safety and responsibility of Broward County and the State of Florida. My personal belief is that Congressional actions would be ill-advised and ineffective, and I would argue like in the practice of the medical profession, the first principle is "Do not harm!" (The second principle is "All Congressional acts do some harm.") However well-intended, Statists/leftists don't solve problems; they seem result in bad unintended consequences, simply displace or transform the problem. Leftists also abuse statistics; if you look at the general trends of violence, they have gone down over the past 2 decades, even after expiration of the assault gun ban and other legislative gimmicks, which have not contributed a single thing to the general trend.
I don't have a problem with a legitimate debate, but most restrictionists are not informed on basic facts and tend to nag using the same old same old sound bites, abused statistics, etc. And are typically personally nasty bastards. For example, one Twitter troll called me a Charles Whitman. PLEASE. I earned my first Master's at UT a decade after Whitman's massacre. It's inexcusable to take that kind of shot at a UT graduate. The closest I come to being a sniper is targeting a Tweet at some leftist or Trumpkin idiot.
