Tag: gun control

Categories
government transparency national politics & policies

The Latest Legislative Land Mine

The most prescient thing ever said about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, was articulated by then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

The medical reform package is quite the hodgepodge. Actually reading the whole thing makes taking on Middlemarch, War and Peace, and In Search of Lost Time a course of light entertainment.

The latest revelation from its thousands of pages? A passage prohibiting doctors from asking their patients questions about guns in the home.

The Washington Post reports that many gun control groups are incensed at the power of the NRA to limit their ability to “collect information”:

Physician groups and public health advocates say the cumulative effect of these restrictions undercuts the ability of the White House and lawmakers to make the case for new laws, such as an assault-weapons ban, in the face of opponents who argue that there’s no evidence such measures are effective. Advocates for regulating guns lament that reliable statistics are limited in part because physicians and health researchers who could track these patterns are being inhibited.

Considering the quality of previous doctor-led sociological studies into gun usage — and really, this is not a medical problem but a complex, society-wide issue far beyond the competence of medical training to comprehend — the prohibition might really best be described as a defense of scientific method.

But the big issue here is not the politics of “research.” It’s that a health care reform package passed nearly three years ago contains hot potatoes such as this, and we are only discovering them now.

Nancy, you were all too disastrously correct.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Second Amendment rights

Magazine Misfire

David Gregory, of NBC, is one of those folks who wants to prohibit not merely criminal acts, but also objects and products that can be used as aids in some of those acts.

It’s not an uncommon attitude. I know conservatives who want to prohibit smoking utensils such as bongs, because their main use tends overwhelmingly to be for smoking illegal substances. To find someone in the “main stream media” supporting a similar ban on objects — such as certain guns and types of ammunition — is hardly surprising.

On Meet the Press, December 23, Gregory interviewed the head of the NRA, pressing the spokesman to concede, “if it’s possible to reduce the loss of life, you’re up for trying it.” The man took the bait. Then Gregory switched the topic away from the NRA’s notion of placing armed guards in every school to . . .

Well, Gregory retrieved and held aloft a “magazine for ammunition that carries 30 bullets.” He hazarded that prohibiting such devices, leaving legal only smaller-sized magazines, might reduce loss of life.

“Loss-of-life reduction,” though, proves to be not much of a standard. There are many ways to reduce crime: imprison everyone in a criminal risk category, without trial, might do that very well. Perish that thought, though.

Many other innovations might seem plausible, as well, but nevertheless unleash counterproductive side effects.

What’s interesting about this case, though, is that Gregory held up a magazine that turns out to be illegal in Washington, DC, where Meet the Press is shot.

His “crime” is now under investigation.

I’m conflicted: On the one hand, he did nothing wrong. On the other hand, he supports such unprincipled laws, so . . . book him. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Second Amendment rights

Let Teachers Bear Arms

We have no sure way to prevent such horrors as the recent shooting at a Connecticut elementary school. We can’t predict which very few of the very many persons with grievances will choose to vent their rage by loosing a hail of bullets at innocents. And schools would be unable to function if they were so locked down as to eliminate the possibility of a gunman walking through the door.

We can, however, take measures to reduce the likelihood and severity of such an attack. We can also prepare to defend ourselves if the worst happens. When someone is shooting at you and the students in your care, the best chance of stopping the shooter within seconds — when the police are minutes away, at best — is to shoot back. The more persons able to shoot back, the better.

It makes sense for appropriately trained teachers and other school personnel to be armed and ready to confront an assailant. This isn’t just a theoretical proposal. In 2008, the Harrold school district in Northwest Texas introduced a “guardian plan” under which some teachers and other staffers carry concealed handguns. A few other school districts have followed suit. But the practice is far from common in Texas or in the nation at large.

Says Harrold’s superintendent, “Nothing is 100 percent. But what we do know is that we’ve done all we can to protect our children.”

The Harrold district’s provisions for self-defense are controversial. They shouldn’t be.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Second Amendment rights

A Terrible Accusation

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, much of the self-righteously impassioned rhetoric about gun control carries an accusation: those who oppose further gun curbs are “allowing” children to be murdered.

Ridiculous.

None of the newly proposed gun and ammunition bans — all of them old proposals, of course — would, if put in place long ago, have prevented the atrocity in Connecticut.

A more cogent indictment spotlights supporters of gun control. For politicians who have long believed they can halt all acts of violence and save lives by outlawing this weapon or that or limiting ammo clips, what does it say that they did nothing?

“The first two years of the last Obama administration,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told NBC News, “Congress and the Senate and the White House were all in the hands of the Democrats and they did nothing.”

According to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Bloomberg’s “point is well taken.”

Connecticut Congressman John Larson argued that, “To do nothing in the face of pending disaster is to be complicit.”

President Obama first suggested that elected officials, afraid of the gun lobby, put their own positions ahead of the safety of six and seven year old children, stating, “[W]e’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”

In short, even when politicians believe their gun grabbing will save lives, they won’t act to protect those lives if it might risk their political position. They act or fail to, not on principle, but on their own political benefit.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a rational, constitutional step toward reducing the risk of a future massacre.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Second Amendment rights too much government

Out of Control

Economist George Reisman, author of Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, supports strict gun control. So do I.

Not gun control directed against the weapons of peaceful gun owners. Gun control directed against armory-facilitated violations of our rights by government and criminals.

In his essay “Gun Control: Controlling the Government’s Guns,” Reisman assures readers that he too believes in gun control. “However, I do so in the light of the knowledge that by far the largest number and the most powerful guns and other weapons are in the possession of the government.”

By its nature, everything the government does, good or bad, relies for its effectiveness on the threat of deadly force — otherwise people would be free to ignore its laws and rulings. Therefore, a meaningful program of gun control “must above all focus on strictly controlling and regulating the activities of the government.”

When government uses its powers against actual criminals — those who kill, rape, steal — this serves as a “control on the use of force, including the use of guns,” insofar as it deters such criminal acts of coercion.

The Constitution is a form of gun control directed against the government. To control the government’s use of force, such protections must be enforced and illegitimate uses of government power must be curtailed. Guns owned by a peaceful citizen are also a form of gun control — they can deter or counter wrongful acts of force by both private criminals and public officials.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall

Swiss Gun Control

In mid-February, Swiss voters rejected stricter gun controls.

No one knows how many guns the Swiss own. There’s no national registration system, yet the Swiss do not suffer a high crime rate, like America does.

But the country does have the highest gun suicide rate in Europe.

The stranger issue, though — and in contrast to most countries around the world — is the number of semi-automatic rifles belonging to the army that soldiers and ex-soldiers store at home. It’s part of the Swiss defense plan. The army can quickly rise up in case of an attack.

The gun control proposal would have required solders’ firearms to be locked up in armories. This, it was argued, was to help reduce suicide rates . . . though a few high-profile shootings also gave impetus to the gun control measure. During the debate much was made of the country’s long history of firearm expertise and unique military heritage.

The measure was defeated in 20 of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, with over 56 percent of voters rejecting it, nationwide.

Does the Swiss system seem strange?

It’s certainly different.

Switzerland still uses conscripts, while the U.S. rightly recruits an all-volunteer military. But their method of decentralized governance, borrowed more than 150 years ago from us and today far more decentralized than ours, is wise not only for the firepower of national defense, but for more bang for the buck in all areas of government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.