I was going to write another post about the recent university shooting, but I’ve come to realize that the discussion about gun control that follows every one of those incidents is repetitive and pointless. Those who don’t like guns will not be convinced by any argument in their favor, and those who own and use them will not be swayed by any argument against them. There’s a current debate raging over on the CNN site, and it’s the predictable back-and-forth between the “guns kill” and the “guns save lives” crowd.
Truthfully, it bores me to tears, and contributing to the chorus is largely a waste of time. You either preach to the converted, or you try to convert the unconvertible. I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t matter to me in the least whether they ban all guns everywhere, or require all college freshmen to buy handguns along with their first set of books. The will to defend your own hide cannot be legislated, nor can it be curbed by legislation.
There’s a holster on my side whenever I leave the house. No legislation ever conceived can place a gun in that holster, or remove it from there. I am the only person on the planet who has the power to do that, regardless of what a bunch of people in Concord or Washington, D.C. or on CNN’s Reader Comments page have to say on the matter. In the end, I make that decision, and I am the only one who has to live with the consequences of it. Should I carry where my masters have decreed that I may not, I can be arrested and incarcerated. Should I not carry when I suddenly have a need for a gun to defend myself, I may die. In the end, the decision is mine, every day, regardless of what laws are in effect.
I’ve made my decision on the matter a long time ago, and I have decided that other opinions on it are irrelevant, because the people who hold them will neither go to jail for me, nor die for me. Whether you want to carry a gun to defend yourself, or you go unarmed because of laws or personal philosophy, understand that the choice is your own every day, and that the consequences of that choice will be yours alone to bear as well.
People shouldn’t be forced to choose between their right to self-defense and their freedom. The very thought that a bunch of people in some far-away gold-domed building can decide for you whether you may bear the tools to save your own life merely because another group of people gave them the authority to do that is ludicrous. But who in their right mind would give a rat’s ass about permission slips and majority approval when one’s own life is at stake? It would be like obeying your elected officials if they tell you that you may only swim when you’re wearing approved swim trunks, swim in approved swim zones, and ask permission from the State in writing before swimming, and then drowning when your vehicle rolls into a “no swim zone” canal because you don’t want to get punished for swimming. Sure, you may blame the law when you swim anyway and then get arrested and incarcerated for Felony Swimming, but you cannot blame the law when you die for lack of swimming…because it was your choice whether to swim anyway and bear the consequences of that decision, good and bad.
17 Comments
February 16, 2008 at 6:54 pm
This would be that Civil Disobedience thing again, wuddnit Wingie?
February 17, 2008 at 12:09 am
Yeah, all true, except that you have Quinn and Lyra and you know that getting killed because you didn’t have a gun when you needed it is only one of the many, many available ways to destroy “your” life.
Going to prison and leaving your wife to explain to your sons why daddy went off and got himself locked up in prison because he was tired of being pushed around has its own costs.
I won’t pretend that the choice isn’t mine, but the choice isn’t simple, and it DOES make a huge difference what those legislators think. To say otherwise is to say there’s no major difference between living in my home and living in a prison. For a crusading monk, that might be true. For a husband and father, it just isn’t.
February 17, 2008 at 5:19 am
Marko,
I know you’re all getting sick of me, and I know that on the previous thread (thread!) I promised I was giving up, and I promise that I really really really will, if you will answer me this one question. How many times, honestly, have you been in a situation so life-threatening that only possession of a handgun has kept you alive?
David Glynn
Actually, that first sentence amounts almost to an apology, and you know, fuck it. You wanna make your thoughts available for the world to read? Then discourse is the price you pay, dude…
February 17, 2008 at 8:31 am
Re-reading that little treatise again this morning does make me think. It’s a statement of strength of ego, but that’s a pretty rare thing in this world. People who are Utterly Themselves are quite rare on the ground. And it’s that variability of people – from total ditherers who can be talking into anything, through to the fanatically convinced who can be talking into or out of nothing, just to look at one thin variable of human nature, which make laws such a lousy way of managing people.
Everyone’s different. Laws ignore this – perforce, otherwise they’d be so laden with qualifiers that they’d be impossible to enforce instead of merely difficult and messy.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not poo-pooing the rule of law, as it seems to be the best we’ve got and it’s probably better than anarchy. However, it’s that blind lack of judgement of the individual which makes them so dangerous, and that’s why it only makes sense to punish actions rather than items. Some people will always act responsibly. Most people I wouldn’t trust with a wet toothbrush, and quite rightly so. Humanity’s competence gradient is enormous. Therefore, the only thing which makes sense from a law and order perspective is to punish deeds, not items.
Regarding the previous busybody’s prying, I’d say “mind your own damn business”, but that’s me.
February 17, 2008 at 8:57 am
David,
it’s irrelevant how many times I’ve been in a situation where I needed a gun. First of all, it’s like you trying to gauge someone’s need for a fire extinguisher by asking them whether they’ve ever had a kitchen or house fire. You’ve also indicated in another comment that I won’t be able to change your mind on the issue anyway, so any anecdote I can offer is only going to be shrugged off anyway.
February 17, 2008 at 9:08 am
David, it’s not the odds, it’s the stakes. You can see similar reasoning in fire prevention, the safety equipment on your car, the helmets most motorcycle riders wear, and the advice we’ve all seen a million times about how a woman should walk to her car at night.
So far, I’ve never been in a situation that I couldn’t resolve (in retrospect) without a handgun. I’ve also never been in a situation in which I saved anyone’s life with a fire extinguisher, or with a seat belt. I’ve had close calls with all three kinds of danger several times. I was very glad to have my fire extinguisher and hose handy when my kitchen fire happened, because although I was able to get my family out without them, they probably saved the house.
I was very glad I’d been wearing my seatbelt when I missed a turn on a country road late at night and ended up sitting on the driver’s side door in a ditch. If I hadn’t been able to get around the turn, and if I hadn’t been able to counter-steer and brake my way into a slower entry into the ditch (while doing a complete 360-degree spin) I’d have hit that ditch at a different angle and the seat belt would have been the only thing stopping me from going through the windshield of that old truck.
I’ve been in several situations in which I wished fervently for a handgun, but had none at hand. I was able to resolve those situations with size, intimidation and awareness, but if those had failed, I’d have been stuck. The most vivid memory right now is of walking down a street in a bad neighborhood in Chicago with a very naive Spanish teacher, and my friend Tara walking along at the tail end of the group looking up at buildings while people called taunts from porches and stoops, oblivious to any danger. A man began following us, stopping at each alley and doorway, staring at Tara (or maybe just her purse.) I placed myself between them and gave him a mild look, and he stopped right where he was and spun back into a doorway. Never saw him again.
Was he following her with bad intentions? I don’t know that for certain. Did I need a handgun? In the event, no. Of course, that’s like asking a poker player whether he really needed that last ace. He couldn’t have told you whether he needed it until the hand was over. It’s easy to laugh at him for falling for a bluff after the game is over and you know the outcome in hindsight. When it’s happening, it’s not so easy.
February 17, 2008 at 9:16 am
Now, I’ve given you the answers you asked for. Here’s the answer I normally give. I provide it in the interest of discourse:
As observed by someone else above, it’s none of your business whether I’m armed. I’m not your child, your slave, your serf or your vassal. I owe you no allegiance and no obedience. I’m a free citizen, and a free man has the right to go armed simply because a free man owns his own life and therefore has a right to protect it when it is threatened. Period.
February 17, 2008 at 10:40 am
My opinion is diffrent than the two main opposing ones:
I don’t think guns are the cause, or the solution to this problem. Qrming every faculty member or even every student won’t stop an arsonist from setting fire to a dorm in the dead of night, or a bomb in a bus/crowded hallway.
I think people from both sides focus too much on guns, and too little on the ill people who carry out the killings.
Ill as in non-healthy, these people need threathment, that should be our priority.
Click my name for my recent entry on the subject.
February 17, 2008 at 11:22 am
Well precisely, Michael. This is one reason the inevitable, instantaneous screeching from gun-banners gives me a splitting headache.
It’s addressing the wrong thing.
The gun isn’t the problem – even the banning of guns on campus isn’t specifically the problem, though it does make it open season on students.
No, the problem is mentally ill people who murder folk in job-lots and then blow their own brains out. If they’d just top their ownselves, it’d be sad but not hideous. Owning oneself also includes to the right to end oneself. But no, they’ve got to make their screwed up “statement” by the cowardly murder of a bunch of other kids. The hateful, broken bastards.
I don’t have a solution, but the current system here (UK) of treating the mentally ill as perfectly normal folk who just need understanding and to be left to reintegrate with the community ain’t it. I think I need to wash my hands having typed that.
February 17, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I agree, Michael, but my thought is that if neither “solution” is going to have a large effect, then the course of greatest individual liberty should be the default choice. That means leaving concealed carry up to the individual. If John doesn’t want to carry a gun and Sarah does, then they each do what they think is best and let the chips fall where they may.
That’s just too scary for a lot of people.
February 17, 2008 at 10:38 pm
I WILL SWIM.
Full stop.
tweaker
February 18, 2008 at 3:45 am
My simple response to David is: It only takes once.
That’s it, you don’t get to push the reset button like you do in a video game. It takes only one time of being targeted without having the means of self-defense. Now, a firearm is not a panacea. However, it is the most effective equalizer out there.
Michael,
That’s nice. I agree that it would be nice to help the mentally ill. Who pays for it? Who decides who is or is not mentally ill? Have you ever actually read the DSM (I think we are still on the DSM IV-R)? None of that will work in 100% of cases. Besides, we are not talking about arsons here. Nor are we discussing bombings. THough both could be stopped by armed citizens if they happened to be in the right place at the right time. However, if they happened to be in that place at that time unarmed the outcome would likely be different.
Sanitariums, mental hospitals, whatever you wish to call them have been utilised extensively throughout history as places to warehouse not only the mentally ill, but also the marginalised, the political dissident, or just people who inconvenience the wrong person.
February 18, 2008 at 6:15 am
I knew Bob had a thing to say about it…
I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.Professor Bernardo de la Paz in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
February 18, 2008 at 6:18 am
And, regarding the vast majority of gun-grabbers, domination-minded politicos notwithstanding…
Goodness without wisdom always accomplished evil.Valentine Michael Smith in Stranger in a Strange LandFebruary 18, 2008 at 9:31 am
David, if Marko or Don or Dianne Feinstein carries a concealed handgun, how does this affect you? Making it illegal only discourages those inclined to follow the law from carrying the means to shoot back instead of cowering under a desk, waiting for a bullet. The nuts that shoot up classrooms and the goblins that point guns at folk for their wallet (or more dear possessions) DON’T CARE if they violate another law: they have already made up their mind to murder and rob, so a gun charge won’t matter three farts in a windstorm to them. I know I won’t change your mind on this, but “in the interest of discourse”, how exactly is it any skin off your teeth if Marko, Don, or Dianne have a pistol in their pocket (aside from the elitist hypocrisy on Dianne’s part)?
February 18, 2008 at 10:00 am
Marko;
I disagree with and would urge you to reconsider your ennui with the repetitive nature of the preaching of our message. I see that there are three arguments here…
1) The general groupings of opinions are not binary — pro vs. con — there are those who are either undecided or unaware. It is to this third group that we must direct our preachments.
2) If we allow the anti- forces to thunder their lies and bigotry unopposed, we will eventually face a fait accompli that the state is bound to disarm us — willy nilly and by force if necessary.
3) Call this one the Limbaugh lesson. Just as, until Rush came on the air, may conservatively-inclined folk lived in despair, unless we keep up the chatter among ourselves, some who would sympathize with us may not be aware of our existence or our numbers.
M
February 18, 2008 at 10:34 am
Indeed Marko, I agree with the previous poster. If nothing else, the line “it’s not the odds, it’s the stakes” makes a good one off when someone you don’t really feel like discussing the matter with starts wheedling about why you need a gun. (For that matter, the line “When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away” is another excellent one.)
While I agree most people are not particularly logical about the issue, considering guns to be some sentient daemon engine, birthed of hate and paranoia, given solid form in a monstrous pit seething with the aggression of a thousand thousand murderers and suckled upon the teat of the Nine Headed Goat of Babylon, there are plenty of people who are just uncomfortable with them by lack of familiarity with what they can actually do. I have had quite a few friends in college that never shot or handled a gun, who, after going to my parent’s place and being taught how to handle them and how they work by my father, were much more comfortable with them in general. They go from regarding them as one does a poisonous snake to a manner quite akin to how one deals with a very sharp kitchen knife. Respected and treated properly, but not feared.
Sometimes all it takes is being shown that us “gun nuts” are just normal people who take their well being as a personal responsibility, and that guns are really only as dangerous as the person who is holding it.