This guy was incinerated by a Predator drone five seconds later. The Predator operator then went to lunch.[/caption]I’ve learned over the years that engaging in arguments on Facebook is rarely productive. Most effective points cannot be made in a few sentences, and most people tune out when a Facebook comment reaches the second sentence. Therefore, these arguments turn into a slightly-more-mature-but-not-much version of the comment sections on YouTube.
I do, however, feel that people are making incredibly ill-informed and poorly thought-out arguments in regards to the gun debate now taking place in America. I will attempt to take these on one at a time and explain why each makes no sense. As I said in my article about putting armed guards in schools, these arguments fall apart when you examine them closely.
I am not against guns in general. I legally own a gun, and I’ve been highly trained in how to use it safely and effectively. I used to teach people how to shoot small arms in the Navy, and I used to carry a handgun as part of my job. I don’t believe there should be a blanket ban on all guns, and even if I did, I know that it would be impossible to enforce. So, let’s talk about the arguments being put forth against regulations that are actually being proposed.
“They’re taking our guns.”
Short answer: No they’re not.
Longer answer: This has been the mantra of the NRA since President Obama was elected. If the Obama administration has been planning for over four years to take your guns, they are so laughably inept at taking your guns that you have nothing to worry about. Let’s take a look at the Obama administration’s cunning long-term plan to take your guns.
Step 1. Do nothing for four years to take guns.
Step 2. Stand for a democratic election, in which many people think you will be voted out.
Step 3. Do nothing when mass shootings happen for years.
Step 4. Propose Congress re-institute regulations that were in place a decade ago and issue executive orders, none of which will take any guns.
Step 5. Take everyone’s guns*
The * indicates that this has not happened, and will not happen, because “They’re taking our guns” is an empty slogan, devoid of any connection to reality.
So basically, either the Obama administration is so horribly inept at “taking your guns” that you should not be worried or, you know, it’s bullshit. Your call.
“They’re violating our second amendment rights!”
Short answer: No they’re not.
Longer answer: In order to look at this argument, we need to break down what this argument is saying. Here’s the full text of the Second Amendment:
“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Let’s take the first part. Some people claim that the origin of the amendment (which is certainly debatable) is to allow the people the ability to “overthrow a tyrannical government.” The Supreme Court in 2008 ruled that the second amendment is not limited to militias, but they also ruled that corporations are people, so let’s take their decisions with a grain of salt.
Many people associated with the NRA have some sort of wet dream that they will rise up and overthrow the government, because of all the tyranny and stuff. Now, anyone who thinks that what’s happening in American government is living in the same apartment complex as tyranny should Google “tyranny,” but let’s say for a moment that we lived under a tyrannical government in the future.
These people have a fantasy that at the end of this war, they will be standing on a mountaintop, holding up their AR-15 yelling “Wolverines!” This fantasy stopped being possible round about the time that the military got the tank. If not, certainly by the time that attack helicopters were mass-produced.
Did you not watch the Iraq war? The military can aim a missile into your urethra from the other side of the world, after flying it through a shopping mall and making people dive out of the way like in The Blues Brothers. Just for fun. They have Predator drones. They have atomic weapons. The real ending to this movie fades out on a smoking hole where you and all your buddies were busy “overthrowing a tyrannical government.” So either we allow people to own atomic weapons and Predator drones or this idea is outdated. I know this will be sacrilegious to people who think that the Constitution was written in stone by angels inspired by the word of God and is unchangeable, but maybe something written during the time when “arms” referred to muskets might be due for a revision.
To take this out of the terms of the hypothetical, the Libyans just overthrew their government. To say that the Libyan military was operating at about WWII level would be generous, but even so, the Libyan people relied on help from an alliance of the world’s most advanced military powers, and the Libyan people almost didn’t make it.
Moving on to the second part: People should be allowed to do two things. Keep arms and bear arms. Let’s take a look at “keep arms.”
Keeping arms is typically interpreted as people being allowed to own weapons. Now, there are two possibilities here. People can keep any type of weapons or people can keep some types of weapons. The amendment as written does not specify, so let’s look at this logically. Should I be able to own a Gatling gun? An RPG? A nuclear weapon? If you say no to any of those, you agree that some form of regulation should occur. If you say yes to all three, well I’m not going to convince you of anything, so stop reading right now.
Most people agree that people keep guns to protect their home and family or to hunt. The regulations proposed would not affect either of these things. If you need military-type weapons to protect your home, perhaps the problem is that you live in Somalia. If people are being honest, another reason to have guns is that they like shooting them. Not at people, but at the range. I see no problem with this, and I like going to a gun range. A reasonable solution would be to allow people to go shoot these weapons at a range. The gun store or range keeps the guns, people rent them to shoot at the range. Everyone’s happy. Remember, you’re not going to use them to overthrow the government…
So we’ve established that some form of gun regulations make sense. Therefore, if previous regulations didn’t “violate your Constitutional rights,” neither would new regulations. Your right to “keep arms” is clearly not absolute, so the level of regulations does not affect your rights, unless a blanket gun ban was implemented, which is not being proposed, and will never pass.
That’s the tougher part of the amendment. The easier part is the second part: “To bear arms.” By the same logic as above, your right to bear arms is not absolute. You cannot walk into a court bearing a weapon. You cannot do the same in a school. Or a church. Or an airplane. And so on. So, the government regulating where you can carry a weapon does not violate your rights. And none of the proposals would affect that anyway.
So, ask yourselves these two questions.
- Can I keep arms?
- Can I bear arms?
If so, your rights are not being violated.
Last argument: If we take guns from law-abiding citizens, criminals will be the only ones with guns.
By this logic, we should have no laws because criminals will just break them. Maybe if we took a fraction of the money we spend arresting and prosecuting people for marijuana and used some of that money to take guns from the criminals, that might make a difference. So would the alternative be to allow people to have every type of weapon that a criminal could conceivably access? AK47s for everyone!
The sad thing about all of this is that the same people upset because they are being told their rights are being violated said nothing when they were actually losing constitutional rights. The Patriot Act actually took away many of your Fourth Amendment rights. Stop believing everything you hear and take a moment and think about what you’re saying. Just because Sean Hannity says something on the Fox News doesn’t mean it’s true. In fact, you can pretty much bet on the opposite. Let logic, not emotion, guide your opinions.
No comments:
Post a Comment