When I tackled the issue raised by Eugene Volokh’s praise of a gun-toting good samaritan, I expected some of the RKBA crowd to come out from under the rock. They didn’t disappoint.
These are the ones who cried man-tears when they heard the news of Charlton Heston’s death. These are the ones who raised every example of fallacious reasoning in furtherance of their agenda, that the select few who are worthy have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms. They are a pugnacious crowed, edging for a fight and trying to see who they can sucker in to their well-honed, but logically insipid, traps.
It was good for a laugh, but more importantly, these guys are as self-serving in their position as any other single-issue interest group. There position is clear: the right to own and carry a concealed weapon is constitutionally protected, as long as you are one of the good guys. They, of course, get to define who are the good guys.
In support of their position, they have a plethora of blogs and websites dedicated to stories about other good guy gun toters who shoot and kill bad guy criminals. Each story proves their point, about how a good guy having a gun kills a bad guy, thus saving themselves, others and humanity from the criminals.
They challenge their opponents to prove otherwise. The fallacy is that it’s their single-issue agenda, leaving those who don’t maintain a constant vigil for the opposing viewpoint, that good people with guns sometimes get shot, that children in homes with guns sometimes shoot themselves or their friends, that the outcome is not always a heart-warming story.
There may be legitimate studies somewhere that show the harm to benefit ratio of arming citizens, but I am not aware of them. I have some doubts that citizens armed with concealed weapons shooting people is such a wonderful thing. One story, even a thousand stories, without a balanced study of the full picture, will not persuade me otherwise.
But this is still playing in their sandbox. They can demand that some knucklehead like me prove them wrong, but I don’t have to. I don’t go to their home and challenge them, and when they come here they don’t get the right to make demands of anybody. If they don’t like it, they can go away. I won’t mind.
The problem, that they have yet to grasp, is what happens when their dream comes true. Should DC v. Heller produce the anticipated result of proclaiming the 2d Amendment to state a fundamental individual right to keep and bear arms, they better build a bigger clubhouse. Arguing for years that this was what our forefathers intended, they have dedicated their lives to their guns, secure in the belief that they would finally be proven the true Americans they always knew they were.
And what of all the others? “What others,” they ask? Well, there’s going to be some new kids at the gun shop. Let’s consider the basic universe of new gun owners, shall we?
First, there are the “good guys” (your definition) who will eventually reach their boiling point, pull out the Glock to teach a driving lesson to that fellow in the sports car who just cut them off. He’s now a bad guy, but he was a good guy when he bought the gun.
Then there nervous people, reading too much into the front page stories of rapes, assaults, killings, whatever. They put that sweet little thing into their purse just in case. They don’t want to be a statistic, now do they? But they aren’t quite clear when they should pull it out, and on any given day, feeling a tad jumpy in the face of last night’s news story, blow a hole in the face of the fellow asking for directions to the nearest Wal-Mart.
Or the off-shoot, when they pull out the pee-shooter but can’t bear to pull the trigger, and have it turned back on them.
And then there’s still the problem of dopey children playing with the found gun at home. The Constitution doesn’t mention a requirement for a gun-safe anywhere. And kids will be kids. And parents will be knuckleheads. “I only left it on the dresser for 2 minutes when I went out to see if the mail came,” the weeping mother said.
Notice that I’m not even coming close to the really hard issues, such as why Martha Stewart, convicted felon, doesn’t have a need, or a right, to protect herself. I hear that Martha’s got a vicious temper. Would you want to work for an armed Martha?
It’s not that I disagree with the anticipated Heller ruling, but that all the well-trained, competent gun afficionados are going to have one heck of a time explaining how this isn’t a potential problem. As it stands, the license to carry a concealed weapon can be limited to those individuals who are competent to do so. at least in theory. But once that limitation can no longer stand in the face of a fundamental constitutional right, the universe of potential concealed weapon carriers expands exponentially.
I can’t imagine that we’ll be watching daily gunfights at the OK Corral, except where they would happen anyway. But we will be reading about a lot more shooting stories because there will be a lot more guns on the street. Even if they are only in the hands of good people (until taken away or good people become bad people), to have a gun is to potentially use a gun. Will these same people be arguing to restrict gun ownership? Their arguments now portend poorly should their wish be granted.
What you packing, grandma?
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If you’re suggesting that the same scrutiny will, after the DC gun ban case is decided, by applied to RKBA restrictions as is to, say, freedom of speech restrictions, I don’t think you’re right, but hope you are.
I’m pretty sure, though, that I don’t buy your argument that there’ll be a lot more of those “guns on the street”, alas.
Your take is pretty common among the folks who live in what are, largely, statewide victim disarmament zones. NYC and NY state do have some very few folks with carry permits, but they’re a rarity, rather than utterly commonplace, as they are next door in Pennsylvania, or nearby in New Hampshire, or in Minnesota, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and three dozen more states.
In PA, they’re very easy to get; nineteen bucks and a single trip to the local sheriff’s office — walk in, and ten minutes later, you walk out with a permit. In my own Minnesota, it’s more expensive — $100 for the permit, and $100-200 in training expenses — but still not a problem for most folks, if they aren’t convicted felons, or convicted domestic abusers.
Vermont? No paperwork necessary.
I’m pretty sure that the sky isn’t going to fall.
As to folks whipping out their guns when cut off in traffic, I’ve been routinely carrying a handgun for about a dozen years, have been cut off in traffic more times than I care to count — Minnesota drivers are too often clueless — and I’m pretty sure that I’ve never done that. I think I’d have remembered — and I’m pretty sure I’d have remembered being arrested and prosecuted for it.
Oh — and the grandmother who took my class a couple of weeks ago will be “packing” a S&W 642, she says.
But you, Joel, and the people who study under you, are the people who are most likely to be trusted to carry a concealed weapon. I have no dout that you’re right about regional differences impacting on how this will all turn out. Rural will differ from urban as well.
While guns in Pennsylvania may be commonplace, are concealed weapons the norm in Philly? Legally, I mean. There’s a difference. Do you think that every gangbanger without a felony (yet) in center city Philadelphia will sign up for your class?
Should the floodgates open, then my neighbors may carry guns, and I have little doubt that they will kill over a parking space. They do it now, only with bludgeons.
You reflect a person who can handle a concealed weapon. I doubt that everyone will show as much restraint as you.
I’m not going to argue that I’m less than wonderful, and ditto for the folks who are wise enough to sign up for my class; I’m far too immodest.
That said, if anybody’s found any statistical difference between the behavior of permit holder in Minnesota — where training is required — and Pennsylvania — where it isn’t — I’d love to see it, if only for marketing purposes.
The norm? Most people don’t legally carry, of course; in Minnesota, we’re now up to just over 55,000 active permits; just over 1% of the population and about twice that of the eligible population.
Which still makes it commonplace. Lawyers are a smaller percentage of the Minnesota population, for example, and there’s lots and lots of lawyers around. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that; some of my best friends, and all…) I’m guessing that we’ve got just about as many permit holders in Minnesota as we do lesbians (and there are a few lesbian permit holders, too; I ended up doing what turned out to be — just by coincidence; I don’t discriminate — a lesbians-only carry class a few years back). Most Minnesotans aren’t lesbians, of course; but there’s lots and lots around. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, either.) So, it’s common, and the odds are pretty good — approaching 100% — that if you go about a typical day hereabouts (driving to work, going out for lunch, shopping, etc.) you’re going to be around quite a few folks legally carring, and probably won’t notice it. (I only occasionally do, and it’s something I look for.)
It would be an overstatement to say that gangbangers — even ones without felony convictions — never try to get carry permits; a few folks have been turned down, in Minnesota, for being on the gangbanger list. (Just FYI: somebody put on the list does have a due process right to appeal that; I’ve now exhausted my knowledge of that subject.) That said, my strong belief — based on conversations with some folks who handle permit applications — is that bangers walking voluntarily into a sheriff’s office are vanishingly rare, for obvious reasons. (As is, so I’m told, adults getting onto the gangbanger list without having already gotten a felony conviction. Maybe the cops are missing a lot of gangbangers; my guess is it’s for the same reason that an acquaintance of mine who works in the prison system here famously observed: “You don’t exactly find a lot of Lex Luthors in prison.” Largely, the bangers who reach 21 have been bangers — and in trouble — for years and years.
Oh, and I don’t doubt that some tiny percentage of your previously nonfelon neighbors — and mine — might make a stupid and evil decision to kill somebody over a parking space.
I hope you won’t doubt that some percentage of folks who have made that stupid decision might reconsider it, fairly promptly, if they find themselves looking down the barrel of a gun, held by somebody who doesn’t want to kill them, but would prefer not to be bludgeoned or shot.
Therein lies the best argument for theoretical deterance, mutual destruction. If no one knows who around them is packing, but believes it likely that someone is, they will think twice before pulling out a weapon in the heat of the moment. Or, if both are arrogant, foolish and selfish enough, they start blasting away and pray they’re Aaron Burr instead of Alexander Hamilton.
Deterance isn’t just theoretical — it’s been done.
And, yup, around here, bangers seem to be pulling out guns and blazing away at each other on a daily basis. (That isn’t an exaggeration.)