Your humble Webmaster has frankly been too busy to discuss this month's murder-suicide involving Pennsylvania soccer mom and concealed-carry advocate Meleanie Hain. For starters, my wife and I came down with the dreaded H1N1 swine flu over a week ago, and even though I am no longer contagious, I still have some residual muscle aches and coughing, although the raspiness in my voice has now subsided.
I did, however, come across some musings on the Hain tragedy from Violence Policy Center founder Josh Sugarmann:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Sugarmann took exception to Hain's approach to gun-rights advocacy by claiming that "gun homicides, unintentional deaths and suicides were events that happened to other people who lacked the temperament, training or personal fortitude to own a gun" as far as Hain's mindset was concerned. He continued: "In essence, Hain, like many of her fellow pro-gun advocates, lacked an ability to think in the abstract: Her gun experience was positive and whatever negative effects others felt from firearms, the gun, and gun owners like herself, were never to blame."
Let's consider that for just a moment. If you do not blame the handgun for Hain's untimely death, Sugarmann seems to imply that you are incapable of abstract thought. I find such an attitude to be smug and, frankly, a little worrisome. Someone with criminal intent still had to obtain the handgun and point it at Hain with the desired outcome of inflicting death or serious bodily injury on her. But then again, that wouldn't be abstract thinking, also known in this context as "thinking like Josh."
As for being one of the "gun owners" to blame for the "negative effects" that others might feel about my kind, yes, I am a gun owner. I am also a devoted husband, an election judge, a cat lover, a collector of patent medicine bottles, a boardgame enthusiast, a sucker for chocolate, and an admirer of Pyrrhonian skepticism - for starters. Do I define my own identity solely by any one of these attributes? Of course not, but if Sugarmann thinks he can box me into some one-dimensional caricature of a "gun owner," he certainly has the freedom to try. Before he does, however, my list also includes the designation of "Democrat," and the last time I checked, Democrats today realize that one of our biggest strengths is in our rich diversity of thought and attitudes towards life and society. If Sugarmann considers my weltanschung to be some form of thoughtcrime, let him take up his beef with the Democratic Party itself.
Owning a handgun is not an absolute guarantee against being murdered. I am fully aware of that. But I have seen too many instances where it has given an intended victim the ability to level the playing field against his or her aggressor and prevent violent crime against that person. Sugarmann can claim that his 25 years in the gun-control debate enable him to say that Hain, had she survived and shot her husband instead, would claim that her ownership of a gun reinforces her point. Her story is indeed tragic, but the Second Amendment was not written to criminalize women who shoot their abusive husbands and boyfriends in self-defense. And, last time I checked, the Second Amendment has been around for over 200 years.