It’s Not About Hunting – To My Liberal Friends
Last week it was twenty-six more killed in a gun attack. It was in a church, in a small town in Texas. It wasn’t “terrorism;” it was the terror of a deranged white man with a gun. Actually there were multiple guns, capable of rapid fire, with thirty round magazines, a total of fifteen of them. The magazines were all emptied: the math – four- hundred fifty shots fired.
Last month it was fifty-eight killed, at a concert in Las Vegas. Another deranged white man with guns: hundreds and hundreds of rounds fired.
I don’t own a gun. While I fired some as a kid in Boy Scouts (under the then-benign tutelage of the National Rifle Association), and enjoyed doing so, I have never had an interest in owning one. I know lots of folks who do, for hunting, for pleasure, and for personal protection. Many feel the need to be able to defend themselves against crime; intrusion into their homes, or theft of their property.
The liberal view is that we don’t want to take away all guns. We want to limit the “fire power” of those guns. We don’t see why military style semi-automatic assault rifles with high capacity magazines are needed, much less “bump stocks” to make them respond as full machine guns. We don’t understand why the need for high velocity ammunition. We tritely say – “you don’t need that to hunt deer.”
Of course you don’t.
There is an old video, from 2000, of Charlton Heston of “10 Commandments” fame, talking to the NRA convention. As President of the association, he stood before the assembly with rifle in hand, like the staff he took up the mountain, and said “…from my cold dead hands.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOJQFNOQqCY)
And that’s the rub. For the past two decades the NRA has been about citizens keeping guns from the government. It’s not about hunting, sport, or recreation. It’s a fundamental belief that the government will first try to take guns, then take away the rest of our freedoms.
And it’s not just the “black helicopter” folk. It’s been built into the entire debate about guns and the Second Amendment:
“A well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bare Arms will not be infringed.”
As a liberal I view the two clauses of the Second Amendment as separate, and see the “well regulated militia” as being antiquated and no longer of concern. Our modern society is beyond the need of “armed citizens” protecting the nation. That leaves the second clause, “keep and bare arms,” as the right of the people to have guns, though it may be restricted in some ways.
This is NOT the view of many gun owners. In casual conversation, after discussing other aspects of gun ownership (sport, recreation,) the subject moves to protection, not from criminals, but from “insurrection.” They regard their gun ownership as making them “the militia” of the first clause of the Amendment. To protect against insurrection (and perhaps the government as well) they need the armament of AR 15’s, high capacity magazines, and high velocity ammunition.
As a Liberal I would argue that this is a artificial issue created by the NRA and the gun manufacturers to protect their highly profitable industry. Whether that’s true or not, it doesn’t change the view of some gun owners who see their advanced arms as not only their Constitutional right, but also their obligation under the Second Amendment.
An ongoing theme of this “Trump World” blog has been the concept of civil discourse, the idea that folks of good faith with differing views can still find a way to discuss and try to resolve the problems of our time. A key part of civil discourse is having a common source of information, and a common understanding of what’s being discussed.
Even the staunchest gun rights supporter must feel the frustration and impotence of the U.S. response to mass killings. Praying, staying “small,” and out-gunning the shooter all seem to be useless responses. There seems to be no way to have the conversation about any form of weapons restrictions. To get beyond this, we have to recognize and accept differing views. Liberals: while we can discount and deny “well regulated militia” all we want, if we are to begin to find solutions, we need to recognize views that others regard as just as legitimate as our own.
