tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29235839.post224507148121633337..comments2024-02-05T05:15:04.759-08:00Comments on Wandering Scientist: My Last Post about Guns (Here)Cloudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09317847285050447789noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29235839.post-22798300447790992402013-01-22T08:59:34.717-08:002013-01-22T08:59:34.717-08:00Thanks, Cloud. There’s an entire family (save the ...Thanks, Cloud. There’s an entire family (save the gunman) dead now in New Mexico because his parents kept a home arsenal and kept it in a “closet” rather than a gun safe.<br /><br />I feel the same way you do about people carrying guns. It makes us all less safe.Historiannhttp://historiann.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29235839.post-43289108959101151922013-01-10T07:19:22.024-08:002013-01-10T07:19:22.024-08:00Leaving firearm regulation to the states and fundi...Leaving firearm regulation to the states and funding a contra-NRA-style PAC are really the only viable strategies. Plus, the McCarran-Ferguson act already leaves insurance regulation to the states. <br /><br />Recall how the states have successfully undermined the fundamental right to privacy announced in Roe v. Wade - it's a very useful analog. States create burdensome time, place, age, and manner restrictions on the availability of abortion services, pass laws that help drive abortionists out of business, privilege the rights of abortion clinic protestors over those of patients, etc. It's a wildly effective strategy whenever SCOTUS and the federal courts are not on your side.hushhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05532820460835325762noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29235839.post-7683709164476038452013-01-09T20:17:23.289-08:002013-01-09T20:17:23.289-08:00Thanks for the link to the article about the Austr...Thanks for the link to the article about the Australian experience post-Port Arthur. It was interesting politically in that the Prime Minister at the time was a conservative and very newly elected. I have vague memories of the gun buy-back - one of the interesting things I didn't realise was how many guns were handed in voluntarily and without compensation (only 'banned' assault type guns were eligble apparently). I have to say, I do know people who have guns at home here - but they are either farmers or police officers. zenmoonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29235839.post-65091445019517970122013-01-08T19:24:13.472-08:002013-01-08T19:24:13.472-08:00I'll definitely follow your writing there and ...I'll definitely follow your writing there and am glad you decided to create the site. Thank you for letting us know about it.<br /><br />I'm really angry right now (as you are, I think) and not, perhaps, in the best place to be receptive to discussions of gun rights, something I'm not tremendously prone to being sensitive to anyway. When you say in your reply to Sonia above that, "The National Review article arguing that the 2nd amendment protects people's right to own military grade weapons because it is about enabling an armed insurrection was a fascinating look into a point of view that is completely alien to me," well, yes, me too, in an abstract sense. But it is also beyond me in the contemporary world (not the one in which the 2nd amendment was written and passed) that anyone could reasonably believe that protecting people's right to own weapons is essential to enabling an armed insurrection, but that protecting people's unrestrained right to own and operate vehicles is not equally essential to that same end -- and yet, we don't protect that right (nor, for the record, am I suggesting that we should). You know, the tired tirade about how is it that we manage to restrict vehicle ownership, access, and operation but cannot accept the same for guns. But really -- if we want a free citizenry able to rise against oppression -- do we really think that access (just) to military-grade weaponry would suffice? And if not, why the focus on that one thing (or is it possible that ensuring the possibility of armed insurrection isn't really what motivates the vast majority of supporters of unlimited rights to own and operate guns)?<br /><br />I didn't phrase that very clearly. Sorry, I'm still spitting mad, and sad, and horrified, even though rationally I know there was little new (beyond the tragic concentration of a group of very young victims in a single place) at Sandy Hook.Alexicographerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06029216139568740202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29235839.post-51207010157269793882013-01-08T19:01:48.981-08:002013-01-08T19:01:48.981-08:00Oh, and I'm researching the various gun regula...Oh, and I'm researching the various gun regulation advocacy groups (including Gabby Giffords new one!) to see which one I think has the most effective approach. I have some money to donate thanks to an end of year bonus. I think some of that will go to one of those groups. I think the way we counter the NRA is to remove their effectiveness as a threat to the reelection of anyone who angers them, and they way to do that is probably via a counterbalancing PAC. Cloudhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09317847285050447789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29235839.post-73780055608796489182013-01-08T18:58:17.193-08:002013-01-08T18:58:17.193-08:00Hmmm, maybe I convinced you better than I convince...Hmmm, maybe I convinced you better than I convinced myself! I'm not sure I really like the idea of leaving gun regulation to the states, but I *am* starting to think it might be the smartest strategy for people like me. I am truly still reading and thinking on this issue, but I lean towards some minimum national rules that are more than what we have now, with states innovating beyond that. I think it would be interesting if a state tried out the insurance idea, for instance, and then we tracked what happened to gun violence rates.<br /><br />As I said above, I'm no constitutional scholar, but my reading of the 2nd amendment and the Heller ruling makes me think that there is room for useful regulation. I don't really consider gun ownership a "natural" human right like free speech and the like, so I think that the right to own guns is one that the polity has granted to individuals, and is therefore one that the polity can regulate- which is why I think that if the 2nd amendment truly did stand in the way of reasonable regulation, we could and should change it. I don't think it should come to that, though.Cloudhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09317847285050447789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29235839.post-88399470409711483622013-01-08T18:52:12.189-08:002013-01-08T18:52:12.189-08:00That is an interesting point/observation. It does ...That is an interesting point/observation. It does seem that the fringe of the gun advocate side has gotten more vehement and entrenched. Or maybe we just have more chance to learn what they really think, thanks to the internet? The National Review article arguing that the 2nd amendment protects people's right to own military grade weapons because it is about enabling an armed insurrection was a fascinating look into a point of view that is completely alien to me. I am no constitutional scholar or historian... but I do sometimes want to send these people copies of Hobbes' Leviathan, with the part about life without government being "nasty, brutish, and short" highlighted. But then I think that this sort of Hobbesian dystopia is precisely the "end game" people like that fear, so they've probably read it (or a summary of it) and come to a very different conclusion than I did!Cloudhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09317847285050447789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29235839.post-51004614987296522252013-01-08T09:22:05.258-08:002013-01-08T09:22:05.258-08:00Another great post. Thank you for writing it while...Another great post. Thank you for writing it while others seem to be moving on, which worries me. I will follow your new Twitter feed and blog. Alyssahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01695509619557410413noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29235839.post-20761094269010581092013-01-08T08:35:27.022-08:002013-01-08T08:35:27.022-08:00thanks for this. I will definitely follow you on t...thanks for this. I will definitely follow you on that site, as I'm also trying to do something after the newton massacre. I love the points that you made -- our founding fathers were just men, who made decisions based on the situation at that time, before the creation of high-powered assault rifles, and the existence of amendments meant that they knew ideas / laws can and should be changed.oilandgarlichttp://oilandgarlic.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29235839.post-83093150327137379062013-01-08T06:21:54.192-08:002013-01-08T06:21:54.192-08:00Yes, Cloud, I find your federalism argument persua...Yes, Cloud, I find your federalism argument persuasive (in essence, move to CA if you cannot abide AZ's gun laws). It also sounds like you're saying 2nd Am. rights are not really all that "fundamental" after all - and I'm with you for reasons I'll explain after the jump. <br /><br />I think we need to determine which governmental actor ought to regulate firearms. We have three candidates -- (1) federal courts using some policy-laden “balancing” test while pretending that they understand firearms and law enforcement best practices; (2) Congress, using mostly the commerce clause; and (3) the States, using their reserved powers. If we focused on sensible federalism policy, then is it not obvious that the right answer, as a matter of sound federalism-and-rights policy, is (3)? After all, we are driven by a bitter cultural divide on guns, a divide that paralyzes Congress whenever it confronts the issue. Option #2, therefore, seems hopeless. I also understand the theory that states’ regulation of speech and voting rights need to be monitored to preserve democratic fluidity from the tyranny of some local actors (See the entire Civil Rights Movement). But is there some other sensible functional theory to explain why we should distrust the states from regulating firearms? I don't think so. So then HOW do we change the way the states regulate firearms, given the entrenchment of the well-funded, popularly-supported, political scorecard-wielding NRA? That, to me, is the central question.<br /><br />On the fundamental right question, we know that in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), SCOTUS ruled that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual right to keep and bear arms unrelated to militia service. At the state level, 42 states already guarantee individuals the right to have guns in their state constitutions. Post-Heller, the Second Amendment now applies more broadly, but gun rights more generally were secure long before this decision.<br /><br />Gun advocates love to cling to their simplistic arguments from originalism. That said, any good theory of the 2nd Am. has to take into account the militia. What we have to ask is what was Madison and those who voted for the Second Amendment in Congress and in ratifying the Bill of Rights trying to do with that amendment? The Bill of Rights as a whole was adopted to alleviate fears over various provisions of the new Constitution. The powers over the state militias granted to Congress were of special concern: Madison didn't want to diminish those powers, but he wanted to minimize the concerns raised over them. What to do? Madison's solution is a simple one-- protect the individual right to keep and bear arms. By doing that, the states would always have recourse to an armed population from which to draw a militia, even if Congress exercised its authority over the militia and Federalized them.<br /><br />Even assuming that the Heller Court got it right that individual armed self-defense is a "fundamental right," perhaps the greatest difference between the other "fundamental" rights (speech, religion, assembly, etc) incorporated is that the former has a rich history of regulation. As early as late seventeenth century England, we see gun control debates not too different from what we argue today: essentially how to draw the balance between collective security and individual liberty. This regulation was not limited to England. The American colonies had gun regulations well before the adoption of the 2nd Am., and continued well after it. Some laws even restricted people from using their militia arms for anything but militia service. Thus time, place, and manner restrictions at the state are valid both from an originalist understanding and as a practical matter - at the state level, that's where the real change is likely to happen.hushhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05532820460835325762noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29235839.post-1258954978531810202013-01-08T04:45:37.229-08:002013-01-08T04:45:37.229-08:00This is a flawed analogy, I know, but this debate ...This is a flawed analogy, I know, but this debate about gun ownership reminds me of the 19th century debate about the spread of slavery. Much of the country was content to let it happen on a state-by-state basis as each new state came into the Union. But there were some die-hard supporters of slavery who rejected that compromise and eventually forced a federal ruling (the Dred Scott Case in 1857, for the history nerds out there) that pretty much allowed slavery to exist wherever a slave owner decided it should (the Supreme Court ruled that a slave transported across state lines to a "free" state remained a slave).<br /><br />Now, I am NOT equating gun owners with slave owners, and I was hesitant to leave this comment for that reason. But, based entirely anecdotally on my Facebook feed, I can see the debate about gun ownership becoming more than a debate about gun ownership -- supporters of a totally unregulated market for firearms are trying to frame the debate in terms of personal liberty and over-reaching government, not merely about "the right to bear arms" (as the debate about slavery became framed as a fight for states' rights by the southern states).<br /><br />So Cloud, I agree with you. People have a right to own guns, and carry guns. But I think a national debate about what TYPE of guns, and the proper relationship between gun ownership and background checks & firearms safety training, is a perfectly legitimate and necessary conversation. Sonianoreply@blogger.com