who blogs at Dirigo Blue and Kennebec Blues
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The gun lobby has boiled down their argument to ‘the only thing standing between a bad guy with a gun and violence is a good guy with a gun.’ Make no mistake; they have self appointed themselves as the ‘good guys.’ And while those of us who stand for a society that embraces gun responsibility may not be ‘bad guys with guns,’ the implication is that we are enablers of ‘bad guys’ and not an alternative approach to their gun-centric solutions for addressing violence.
In fact the gun proponents’ solution to violence is the threat of violence and by extension both returned and pre-emptive violence. This is expressed in their arguments for self armament individually against perceived possible criminal menace to themselves and populace self armament to guard against what can only be described as fantasies of future dictatorial government tyranny.
Our nation is one of laws and laws are made collectively. At the same time we value and respect individualism. However we do not condone laws being interpreted and taken into the enforcement hands of individuals as the broad and preeminent approach to societal rule. It is a drive to dramatically change the character of the rule of law to that approach which we must fight decisively to win.
It all boils down to an individual’s guns and more guns by more individuals being a new norm of rule in this country from personal security to actually being interpreted as a valid and appropriate threatening check on our elected government that may be exercised. This is a challenging threat to democracy and representative republican government.
It is essential that this political battle be forcefully fully pursued now and not on a transitory basis. The fight will likely be necessary for a protracted time, perhaps a decade, and the societal redirection toward a rational resumption of resolving this nation’s challenges involving violence are generational in scope. The gun lobby would like nothing better than a perception of defeat to rest on a current vote or two followed by a receding focus on guns over time.
The price of defeat due to withdrawal based on singular battles is great at this very juncture in time. If we surrender to the idea that an armed society is the best bulwark against crime and that individual violent solutions are acceptable, we lose freedom from violence and the threat of violence. Society will continue on a path to coarse blunt brute force as not only normal but proper. The rule of law will have passed from code to Colt.
A retreat now also emboldens the gun lobby’s ability to solidify the argument that violence and the threat of violence are an appropriate Constitutional check on government. While this may not signal a direct transition from ballot to bullet, it will diminish the power of the former because the results of ballots may be tempered by the threat of violence. We will imprison all of our other constitutional and gained rights within the confines of an overarching right by might.
Walking around with weapons everywhere, reacting with weapons to imagined dangers, and the weaponless yielding to rule via weapons will become societal hallmarks. It will be a desperate society of everyday open carry belligerency, many replications of Trayvon Martin’s murder, and a heightened degree of exposure to accidental preemptive violence, armed bullying implications, crossfire collateral damage, and the failure of guns to reduce crime because of an ignited arms race in personal weaponry.
Those suffering from paranoid delusions of government persecution from individual self-styled patriots objecting to healthcare laws, taxes, or any other displeasure will be emboldened to tender their objections from behind a gun. Ruby Ridge type clans and perhaps the Klan will feel justified in resorting to second amendment remedies of confrontational violence in growing numbers. The outside chance of a Shay’s style rebellion will not only be increased but will enjoy a sympathetic degree of legitimate footing.
Once the force of violence and the overarching threat that enables it becomes normal, whether by individual or by groups sharing dissatisfaction and grievance, the ability to turn away from that new norm will not be only difficult but it will be up against the implied violent hazard of a hypothetical opposing or perhaps even physical armed mob.
Our history with guns is mixed. Two and a third centuries ago muskets were militia armaments in an era when no standing army was envisioned, used by many primarily for subsistence hunting, deemed necessary for protection from but often used for suppression of Native Americans, and sadly employed in the enforcement of constitutionally recognized human enslavement. In the march of time, there has been gun violence upon gun violence by our fellow citizens upon our fellow citizens. We’ve also suffered political violence in the form of civil war, union busting, and assassination.
We have seen the volume, fixation, and lethality of weapons grow so exponentially and be made deadly use of so frequently that it now steals the future of many, many thousands of lives from little children to innocent bystanders. Into this mix the gun lobby wants more guns. They want them in the hands of the bystanders and the keepers of the children. They want them in ready to protest tyranny in an age when they allege we already have tyrants. Living in armed insecurity among other armed insecure people is not rational nor a reasonable future to desire for us and our fellow human beings.
The us-against-them assumption of using lethal force to thwart crime has been proven time and again to be a dangerous and often disastrous gamble. A self awarded policing badge and gun on the hip on all will not lead to taking down a movie theater mass killer despite what we may see fantastically played on the same movie house’s screens. And when some kid from hopeless streets long in decay and disregard bleeds his life out on the pavement for stealing we do not achieve vigilante justice but a continuation of injustice when the society as a whole is considered beyond the individual commission of a crime.
We need to address the violence in our society on many fronts. The gun lobby’s stance is that redress excludes guns regardless to whatever degree of lethality level limits or reasonable responsible restraints that might serve society well. This battle is about giving authority to violence and that is why we must continue to fight vote to vote and year to year. Tabling the battle is forfeiting a better future.
