Over in
this diary, I posted a comment expressing a long-held belief of mine, which is that the 2nd Amendment has outlived its usefulness and was due to be repealed. I got, rightly so, taken to task on that point with some excellent arguments as to why that isn't necessarily the case.
Imagine that. Me, a far left gun-hating liberal, was actually convinced by reasoned discourse that the 2nd Amendment ought to stay. Read all about it after the flip.
THX1138 posted this reply to my comment:
I hear this argument made: and it is to assume that the Framers had no clue about modernity or that the world was progressing. Advances in technology were ongoing and its just stupid to think that the late 18th century was just this static period in time. That nobody could have guessed the advances that would be made in firearm production. My ass. Of course they did.
I see his point, and I'm not saying that they thought the world was going to stay the same forever (obviously not: they crafted a Constitution with ample provisions for change and well thought out processes for implementing such changes). But I have to disagree with his estimation of their ability to see the future. I don't, in fact, think they could have guessed the degree to which guns would evolve and to which mass production would make them available. I don't think they could have--or did--anticipate the effects that modern weaponry, broadly distributed, would have on society.
Here's why. If the history of technological advancement in the past 250 years shows us anything, it's this:
- everything is always advancing, and everybody knows this.
- nevertheless, people invariably underestimate the actual uses and social impact that will result from a new technology or a change to an existing technology.
100 years ago, did anyone involved in developing the automobile predict that someday there would be so many vehicles in operation that people would have completely serious debates about whether their combined use was damaging the entire planet? Did any of them predict that we'd be going to war over oil largely because cars make oil so desirable?
In the 20s and 30s, when the telephone system was being invented, did anyone predict that someday we'd all be carrying phones in our pockets, using multiple phone lines in our homes, etc., etc., to the point where we're in literal danger of running out of phone numbers?
In the 50s, when the computer was a new thing, and even into the 60s, did anyone predict the Web? (Well, besides Vannevar Bush, but nobody really listed to him.) Did anyone predict that computer technology would become an integral part of practically every electricity-powered device that exists? Did anyone predict that computer technology would now be employed by the U.S. government to spy on us? No. Nobody predicted those things, because we had no idea what interesting uses people would dream up for this new technology.
Today, we sit on the brink of all sorts of revolutions in biotechnology, nanotech, etc., etc., etc. Lots of people make pretty good livings speculating on what's going to come of it all. We sit here in 2006 with the benefit of having a couple of centuries worth of rapid change to learn from. We are now beginning to understand not only that is change happening, but that the rate of change is accelerating. Ray Kurzweil will sell you books about it. Books, I might add, that are full of predicitons. And I'll make you this bet: I'll bet you $1000, adjusted for inflation and with compound interest, that in 50 years if we look back on 2006's predictions we'll find that once again, we grossly underestimated what those revolutions would do to us, to society, and to the planet.
Humans have a such a habit of underestimating the ramifications of new stuff that we have a name for it: "The Law of Unintended Consequences." I have no reason to believe that the Framers were somehow magically immune to this. Particularly since they lacked the ability to see the very centuries of rapid progress that we get to look back on. The centuries leading up to theirs were ones of technological change, yes, but of change at a much more measured pace. Consequently, we have to do our best when faced with unintended consequences that turn out to be bummers, to suss out what actions and freedoms the Framers really intended to enable. Only then can we craft legislation that works to society's benefit and plays nice with the nation's foundations.
But let's get back to guns. After all, this diary is supposed to be about the 2nd Amendment.
A lot of legal arguments--read a bunch of Supreme Court opinions and you'll find plenty--at some point touch on questions of interpreting the intent of the Framers. My read on the 2nd is that the Framers wanted the citizenry, by virtue of banding together around widely held objections to government policy to have the firepower necessary to oppose the type of abuses of State that King George III was foisting on the colonies. And obviously, if you want the citizens to be able to form militias for that purpose, then you can't very well ask those militias to requisition arms from the very State they're opposing. That's why I think the 2nd Amendment references militias at all. That reference is crucial to their intent. If they merely wanted everybody to be able to have a gun--for any old reason whatsoever--then why mention militias?
I feel comfortable in disbelieving that their intent was for individuals of the unhinged wacko variety be able to lay their hands on 100+ round per minute assault weapons in order to go on killing sprees. Or that the Crips and Bloods should not find access to weaponry to be an undue obstacle in their pursuit of drive-by wars with each other. Or that small arms could be left lying around the house fully loaded, so that when Mama and Papa get into a heated argument, one of them can give into the rage-induced temptation to grab the gun and blow the other one away.
No. None of that was the Framers' intent, and I don't think anyone would argue that it was. But those are the situations that advances in gun technology and availability, coupled with ineffective or non-existent regulations, have enabled. In my original comment in that other thread, I argued essentially that the type of guns we have now are so different from the type of guns they had in 1789 that guns should be limited to those original types. In being forced to explain myself better now, I see that I left out something very important. It is not just the type of weapon available in the Framers' day that matters, it is the role those weapons played in society. To get at that role, and thus to understand how that role supported the Framers desires about militias, you have to look at their weapons' characteristics and patterns of use.
Firearms in the Framers' day were generally large. Basically impossible to conceal. Yes, there were pistols as well as muskets, but there was noting like today's Saturday Night Special. Those guns weren't at all easy to work with, and required some actual training in order to be loaded and fired. The powder was caustic enough that you had to unload them before storage, or else the powder would cause chemical damage to the weapon. In the Framers' day a gun was not something you could just pick up and use, and was certainly not something you could use casually. Gun use, for the Framers, was an inherently deliberate, measured activity. And it was with that mental framework that the 2nd Amendment was written.
Changes to gun technology since then have basically eliminated all of the difficulties of use and concealment, and have thus enabled impulsive, thoughtless gun use. The mental framework around guns is entirely different than it used to be. These days a lot of folks could hide a gun in their butt-crack if they wanted to (what with American obesity rates and all), and loading a gun is typically as easy as slipping in a new clip. These days, a kid who has never held a gun before can, as we sometimes see in the news, pick one up and kill someone--a situation that would be more or less laughably improbable with a flintlock musket.
The intent of the 2nd Amendment is to prevent the State from using the threat of military force to subjugate the people under policies that the people themselves would reject. The intent is for privately owned weapons to increase the security of the citizenry. But, the changes in gun technology, and the unintended consequences of those changes, have undermined that intent. It is pretty obvious to me that privately owned modern weapons do not actually work to increase our security. Granted, the threat guns pose to ordinary citizens does not come from the State, it comes from other citizens who can't seem to use their guns in responsible, legal ways. In today's society guns play a very different role, by virtue of the unintended consequences of technological change, than they did in the society of the late 1700s. The type and proliferation of guns in our society do not make anyone safer or more secure. Owning a gun might make you feel more secure, but gun violence statistics argue loudly that your gun does not make you in fact more secure.
All in all, though, I have to concede that everybody who ganged up on my original comment is right about one thing: none of what I've said here is a rationale for eliminating all guns. I, born-and-bred gun hater, hereby proclaim my support for the original intent of the 2nd Amendment.
However, those unintended consequences do represent serious reasons to restrict the availability and type of weapons that Joe Average can just go out and buy. We need a balance: laws that restrict guns for the actual safety and security of society at large, but which still preserve our right--a right I pray pray pray the Republicans don't force us to use--to form militias for our own defense.
So there you go: proof by example that reasoned discourse can actually change people's minds. I still hate guns, but I have to admit you've helped me understand why it would be a mistake to get rid of the 2nd Amendment.