Guns Guns Guns

My first thoughts on this hot topic:

We have all agreed that the Second Amendment has constraints. People should not be able to buy surface to air missiles at the local gun shop without a permit or a waiting period. So the argument is about where we draw the line not whether there should be a line. Tanks no. Hunting rifles yes. Automatic weapons no in most states. Assault weapons are on the cusp and banning them is like banning Pit Bulls. It’s the fashion but doesn’t accomplish much.

But banning certain types of guns isn’t the only choice. We can also restrict who can purchase guns, how long they have to wait before delivery and we can require registration.

All of these ideas have merits and dangers. My next post will be about the dangers of gun control.

Why guns are legal:

Why did the founders put the Second Amendment into the Constitution? Because they had just gone through a bloody war with a country that had the worlds best army and they wanted the people to be armed in case it happened again. The founders knew that an armed populace is less likely to be subject to tyranny from the authorities or from fellow citizens who have run amok. We have lots of examples of this Condoleezza Rice gave one on The View recently:

“Let me tell you why I’m a defender of the Second Amendment. I was a little girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, in the late fifties, early sixties. There was no way that Bull Connor and the Birmingham Police were going to protect you. And so when White Knight Riders would come through our neighborhood, my father and his friends would take their guns and they’d go to the head of the neighborhood, it’s a little cul-de-sac and they would fire in the air, if anybody came through. I don’t think they actually ever hit anybody. But they protected the neighborhood. And I’m sure if Bull Connor had known where those guns were he would have rounded them up. And so, I don’t favor some things like gun registration.”

Hitler disarmed the Jews in Germany before he started to persecute them.

The Afghan rebels fought the Soviet invaders for years with personal arms before the USA started to arm them. Read Charley Wilson’s War for details.

Guns are a useful tool against tyranny so the founders enshrined the right to have arms in the Constitution.

But what about the children? How can we protect them? In my next post I’ll talk about the arguments in favor of gun control.

Saving the Children:

In my first post on gun control I reviewed the arguments about where we should draw the line on guns. Ie who can own what. In my second post I looked at the arguments for allowing gun ownership.

Today I’m going to review the arguments for banning guns. Guns are dangerous. They are no longer needed in a civilized society. Other countries have taken all the guns away and they are doing fine. We have to do something to protect the children. People and guns are a dangerous mix.

The arguments boil down to: We (the authorities) know what is best for you and guns are dangerous so we want to take them away. John Stewart Mill wrote about this in 1859 in his his famous work On Liberty.  “Some whenever they see any good to be done, or evil to be remedied, would willingly instigate the government to undertake the business, while others prefer to bare almost any amount of social evil rather than add one to the departments of human interests amenable to governmental control.”

In the next and final post on Gun Control I’ll make my proposal to keep guns away from some of the people causing havoc in the schools and on the streets, while still honoring the founders intent to keep guns available and unregistered in our society.

A possible solution: