With the recent shooting in Connecticut, we are faced with the sheer irrationality of the progressives, an irrationality that is straight from the Sixties. (See here for Keith Burgess-Jackson’s remarks on the subject.) Sure, I got caught up in this madness, but I was young and foolish. Eventually, I realized my mistake. But at the time it was easy enough to think that we could remake the world and eliminate all wars and all violence, and that part of that required that we get rid of guns. Naturally, anyone who actually liked guns must have been a vile warmonger, a disgusting redneck, or some other creature who was beyond the pale. I remember about twenty years ago, when I was still mostly in the grip of this thinking, talking to a friend who had taken up a teaching position at a university in Oklahoma who in talking to a female student was surprised and appalled when she announced that she was armed and pulled a small handgun out of her purse. I was appalled too, but on reflection I thought, “But why not? Shouldn’t she be allowed to protect herself? Isn’t it even sexist to think that women shouldn’t be carrying guns?” I also remember hearing that within just a few weeks after the Mall of America opened, there was some kind of altercation, and it turned out that someone had brought a gun there. I was appalled, and I am still appalled. I thought then as I think now that the person who had brought the gun was probably a gang member.
Anyway, progressives seem to believe that it is immoral to own guns and that anyone who does stands in the way of their remaking the world into a more peaceful place.
Against that, let me make a few points:
1. I argued here that guns are helpful for the poor. Somehow the poor are never thought of when progressives want to ban guns.
2. The people whom progressives are thinking of when they want to ban guns are typically white rednecks. They ignore the fact that inner-city blacks use guns. This is a culture war against a certain type of white.
3. While progressives typically associate the idea of the military with the United States, in fact every country has a military, and it sometimes uses it. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, the progressives didn’t condemn this action – even though the Iraqi soldiers used guns – but condemned what they believed would be our response to that action. Any true pacifist would have condemned the invasion.
4. If you are a liberal or leftists, then there is someone in the world who disapproves of your lifestyle or at least your beliefs, and it is weapons that keep them from harming you, either the weapons of the police (if that person lives in this country) or the weapons of the army (if they live in another country).
5. Would eliminating all guns be effective? We tried banning alcohol, and it didn’t work. Lots of stills cropped up. We’ve tried banning drugs, and it doesn’t work. Our country is filled with illegal meth labs. Would banning guns work? Almost certainly not. I assume that illegal factories would spring up. Moreover, gun sales would be run by organized crime, which wouldn’t care if a potential buyer was mentally ill or not.
6. While Megan McArdle has argued that almost nothing can be done (here), we can at least deal with school shootings by posting signs outside schools saying that there are armed teachers within. So long as the public knows that at least a few of the teachers within are armed and trained to deal with these kinds of attacks, people will think twice about killing children in a school.
7. I remember my childhood as being free of mass shootings. I tried to verify this by looking at Wikipedia, which sent me to a variety of sites (here, here, and here). Here are the figures I came up with for mass killings in America:
1900s: 7
1910s: 5
1920s: 6
1930s: 6
1940s: 5
1950s: 1
1960s: 7 [each of which occurred after 1964]
1970s: 15
1980s: 21
1990s: 18
2000s: 25
2010s: 9
Anyone looking at this list can see that things started going off the rails in the mid-1960s. This was after a period of unusual calm from 1950 to 1964. In fact, the one mass killing in that period was thought to be so unusual that Truman Capote wrote a book about it.
8. It is of course impossible for a progressive today to look at this list and think that maybe, just maybe, something went wrong with the culture of the Sixties, even though that is where most non-progressives will look to see what the problem is. All kinds of things can be mentioned as possible factors: the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, the increased violence of Hollywood movies, the continual urging by progressives that others should rebel and shock people, the decrease in church attendance, and the decline in respect for authority. Take your pick.
9. Meanwhile, in world news there is this. Will all those who are upset at the existence of guns in this country mount a protest against this cowardly act? Of course not.
Anyway, progressives seem to believe that it is immoral to own guns and that anyone who does stands in the way of their remaking the world into a more peaceful place.
Against that, let me make a few points:
1. I argued here that guns are helpful for the poor. Somehow the poor are never thought of when progressives want to ban guns.
2. The people whom progressives are thinking of when they want to ban guns are typically white rednecks. They ignore the fact that inner-city blacks use guns. This is a culture war against a certain type of white.
3. While progressives typically associate the idea of the military with the United States, in fact every country has a military, and it sometimes uses it. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, the progressives didn’t condemn this action – even though the Iraqi soldiers used guns – but condemned what they believed would be our response to that action. Any true pacifist would have condemned the invasion.
4. If you are a liberal or leftists, then there is someone in the world who disapproves of your lifestyle or at least your beliefs, and it is weapons that keep them from harming you, either the weapons of the police (if that person lives in this country) or the weapons of the army (if they live in another country).
5. Would eliminating all guns be effective? We tried banning alcohol, and it didn’t work. Lots of stills cropped up. We’ve tried banning drugs, and it doesn’t work. Our country is filled with illegal meth labs. Would banning guns work? Almost certainly not. I assume that illegal factories would spring up. Moreover, gun sales would be run by organized crime, which wouldn’t care if a potential buyer was mentally ill or not.
6. While Megan McArdle has argued that almost nothing can be done (here), we can at least deal with school shootings by posting signs outside schools saying that there are armed teachers within. So long as the public knows that at least a few of the teachers within are armed and trained to deal with these kinds of attacks, people will think twice about killing children in a school.
7. I remember my childhood as being free of mass shootings. I tried to verify this by looking at Wikipedia, which sent me to a variety of sites (here, here, and here). Here are the figures I came up with for mass killings in America:
1900s: 7
1910s: 5
1920s: 6
1930s: 6
1940s: 5
1950s: 1
1960s: 7 [each of which occurred after 1964]
1970s: 15
1980s: 21
1990s: 18
2000s: 25
2010s: 9
Anyone looking at this list can see that things started going off the rails in the mid-1960s. This was after a period of unusual calm from 1950 to 1964. In fact, the one mass killing in that period was thought to be so unusual that Truman Capote wrote a book about it.
8. It is of course impossible for a progressive today to look at this list and think that maybe, just maybe, something went wrong with the culture of the Sixties, even though that is where most non-progressives will look to see what the problem is. All kinds of things can be mentioned as possible factors: the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, the increased violence of Hollywood movies, the continual urging by progressives that others should rebel and shock people, the decrease in church attendance, and the decline in respect for authority. Take your pick.
9. Meanwhile, in world news there is this. Will all those who are upset at the existence of guns in this country mount a protest against this cowardly act? Of course not.
The police will not keep you from getting harmed. They will show up AFTER the fact and stop the perpetrator. But they WILL NOT STOP you from being harmed. Only you can do that. If your assailant is armed you better be too.
Why does our Constitution allow citizens to carry guns? Very simply, so they can stop criminals (other citizens or tyrannical government). Thats right, so they can stop the LAWLESS. The 2nd Amendment keeps the other amendments alive and well. Ask the Chinese at Tienaman Square how well slogans work against the tyrranical Communist regime.
General Von Moltke of WW1: "Against the French ideals of liberty, fraternity, and equality, we oppose the German realities of infantry, artillery and cavalry."
Why was it against the law to allow a black person to possess a weapon in the South prior to 1865? The NRA, thats right - the very same gun nuts- fought like hell to get blacks the right to own firearms and prevent that right from being taken from them at various times after 1865, most notably in the late 1960s following the riots. Self defense is a civil right.
Posted by: Kevin Stroup | 12/20/2012 at 09:50 PM
Late 60s, the start of deinstitutionalization.
70s, more of the same. Personally, I'd say it was the 70s when the wheels came off.
80s and 90s when it was decided the dosing the unruly kids was superior to discipline in schools. I find it remarkable that we have volumes of studies that show the human brain isn't fully developed until the early 20s and yet we're willing to play with the brain chemistry during a time when their bodies are a hormonal hurricane using drugs that were tested on laboratory animals or a tiny subset of carefully chosen human subjects in clinical trials.
The 2010 numbers are frightening considering we're only 1/3 of the way thru.
Posted by: deadcenter | 12/21/2012 at 12:04 AM
deadcenter: But the 70s and subsequent decades were influenced by what had happened in the 60s, so I'd still say it's the 60s when things started going wrong.
Posted by: John Pepple | 12/22/2012 at 07:09 AM