Gun Culture and Caricatures of it.
I was asked a few weeks ago by a friend to help clarify in her mind aspects of the gun culture in the light of the Oregon school shooting in October. She mostly was requesting my thoughts on a number of key points instead of a detail essay upon the topic. So this article will be more a point by point ponderance, instead of a detailed conceptual essay.
First Point: Gun culture gets caricatured by both the left and the right.
There is heavy distortions in both the red and blue sides of American culture on the place of firearms in American culture and civilization.
The Blue side of America has an idealized almost Norman Rockwell type view of what American should and can be, except for those evil people on the right. With one of the biggest evils being those wicked guns that are the root to so much violence and crime. The Red side of America builds onto themselves the myth of noble defenders against tyranny. They draw from the tribulations and challenges of the old west and the frontier, plus the Founding Fathers' fight in the War of Independence. I think the mass media builds up both of these myths depending upon the bias of the journalist. Neither of these views are the complete reality, far from it. To truly walk through the ramifications of each sides views would take volumes of text, many of which has been written in current event books. Just recognizing that each side is just not seeing the picture the same way would be a start.
Second Point: Abuse of firearms
There is a lot of abuse of firearms in our society, just as there is much if not more proper use of firearms for self defense. In the case of illegal carry, in my thoughts this really falls to two categories. You have the criminals who can not legally carry a firearm or would never bother to go through the trouble to legally carry. This is the real root of much of your gun violence. Yet when you are talking about such things you get very deeply into the issue of why those individuals are criminals in the first place. That is another topic worthy of vast volumes of text and consideration. The other category of those illegally carrying tend to be people who are very stubborn about their self defense rights and 2nd Amendment interpretations, and are willing to defy any law denying them the capacity to carry legally. My own thoughts about the later group is they are setting themselves up to become the first group. Unjust laws exist all the time, but we do have democratic processes and courts to try and rectify those laws. Just open defiance and civil disobedience are major steps to take, and anyone who does so put themselves in the court of public opinion and will pay a heavy price for it. I have always felt the better approach is to avoid places that restrict your rights, or find the best other alternative methods of exercising self defense rights with other weapons carry and training if possible.
There are some within the gun rights community who believe that the 'shall not be infringed' is the most important part of the 2nd Amendment and tend to ignore the well regulated part. (more on that in a bit). I have sympathy with them, because I think the Constitution is written fairly simply, but lawyers always complicate things. Open carry in some environments is something I do favor, especially when in the out doors or rural environments. Open carry is more convenient overall, and outdoors in the wild or rural environment people's concerns and social reactions are just far less important. I do not strongly favor open carry in urban and suburban environments because people react poorly in some cases. You have fools on the Blue side of the argument who try to see any weapon as an attempted attack, and then you have Red side proponents who claim to be activist, but are using the intimidation of an openly displayed firearm to be public nuisances. Far to many police would abuse the public nuisance charge to discourage firearms protesters, but there are many cases when just such activists deserve to be charged with a big handful of misdemeanors for being a royal pain. People defending them will stand up and scream Constitutional Right. Yes, well I have a Constitutional right of free assembly, but trying to hold a 1000 people protest in the middle of the highway is a public safety and public nuisance matter. I also have freedom of speech, but setting up a mega volume capable sound system in any down town area and blowing out every window in 8 city blocks is a problem.
There is also a real question of self defense versus defense of property that many communities and states have come to different answers upon. Far to many people in the country do not understand their local laws. You see news reports occasionally about some one killing another person because they set foot on their property, or some youth stole something and the person encounters said youth later.
The stand your ground laws and castle defense laws were passed across the country over the last twenty years to try and preserve people's rights of self defense. Stand your ground was to remove an expectation that you had to retreat. In many cases before such laws you were expected to flee first, and only if the assailant cornered you could you use violent force to defend yourself. This is tactically unsound and leaves people far more easily victimized. By removing any expectation that you have to flee for your life, it allows a person a better chance to withstand a direct threat. The Castle Defense laws were created with the same mindset. Far to many states expected people to flee their own homes before using self defense tactics. This was often unreasonable because home invasions happen fast and violently. By allowing a resident to immediately use violent means to defend themselves or loved ones within the context of a place they have a right to always feel safe, it assured more chances of preserving the lives of innocent citizens.
Many of these laws resulted because local prosecutors were rail roading innocent people right into felony sentences or plea bargains because all the interpretation of circumstances were up to the prosecutor. And it was very unrealistic for the victim to successfully defend himself in a court of law. This reflects far to much how the laws have become to complex and the justice system to convoluted for the average citizen to deal with on a daily basis. Far to much distortion of the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment rights occur daily in this country because of this legal anarchy that is the American justice system. This also is a far deeper topic than I'm willing to handle in this post.
This only addresses half the points, but the rest shall have to wait till another day. I am out of time to continue working on this matter.
I was asked a few weeks ago by a friend to help clarify in her mind aspects of the gun culture in the light of the Oregon school shooting in October. She mostly was requesting my thoughts on a number of key points instead of a detail essay upon the topic. So this article will be more a point by point ponderance, instead of a detailed conceptual essay.
First Point: Gun culture gets caricatured by both the left and the right.
There is heavy distortions in both the red and blue sides of American culture on the place of firearms in American culture and civilization.
The Blue side of America has an idealized almost Norman Rockwell type view of what American should and can be, except for those evil people on the right. With one of the biggest evils being those wicked guns that are the root to so much violence and crime. The Red side of America builds onto themselves the myth of noble defenders against tyranny. They draw from the tribulations and challenges of the old west and the frontier, plus the Founding Fathers' fight in the War of Independence. I think the mass media builds up both of these myths depending upon the bias of the journalist. Neither of these views are the complete reality, far from it. To truly walk through the ramifications of each sides views would take volumes of text, many of which has been written in current event books. Just recognizing that each side is just not seeing the picture the same way would be a start.
Second Point: Abuse of firearms
There is a lot of abuse of firearms in our society, just as there is much if not more proper use of firearms for self defense. In the case of illegal carry, in my thoughts this really falls to two categories. You have the criminals who can not legally carry a firearm or would never bother to go through the trouble to legally carry. This is the real root of much of your gun violence. Yet when you are talking about such things you get very deeply into the issue of why those individuals are criminals in the first place. That is another topic worthy of vast volumes of text and consideration. The other category of those illegally carrying tend to be people who are very stubborn about their self defense rights and 2nd Amendment interpretations, and are willing to defy any law denying them the capacity to carry legally. My own thoughts about the later group is they are setting themselves up to become the first group. Unjust laws exist all the time, but we do have democratic processes and courts to try and rectify those laws. Just open defiance and civil disobedience are major steps to take, and anyone who does so put themselves in the court of public opinion and will pay a heavy price for it. I have always felt the better approach is to avoid places that restrict your rights, or find the best other alternative methods of exercising self defense rights with other weapons carry and training if possible.
There are some within the gun rights community who believe that the 'shall not be infringed' is the most important part of the 2nd Amendment and tend to ignore the well regulated part. (more on that in a bit). I have sympathy with them, because I think the Constitution is written fairly simply, but lawyers always complicate things. Open carry in some environments is something I do favor, especially when in the out doors or rural environments. Open carry is more convenient overall, and outdoors in the wild or rural environment people's concerns and social reactions are just far less important. I do not strongly favor open carry in urban and suburban environments because people react poorly in some cases. You have fools on the Blue side of the argument who try to see any weapon as an attempted attack, and then you have Red side proponents who claim to be activist, but are using the intimidation of an openly displayed firearm to be public nuisances. Far to many police would abuse the public nuisance charge to discourage firearms protesters, but there are many cases when just such activists deserve to be charged with a big handful of misdemeanors for being a royal pain. People defending them will stand up and scream Constitutional Right. Yes, well I have a Constitutional right of free assembly, but trying to hold a 1000 people protest in the middle of the highway is a public safety and public nuisance matter. I also have freedom of speech, but setting up a mega volume capable sound system in any down town area and blowing out every window in 8 city blocks is a problem.
There is also a real question of self defense versus defense of property that many communities and states have come to different answers upon. Far to many people in the country do not understand their local laws. You see news reports occasionally about some one killing another person because they set foot on their property, or some youth stole something and the person encounters said youth later.
The stand your ground laws and castle defense laws were passed across the country over the last twenty years to try and preserve people's rights of self defense. Stand your ground was to remove an expectation that you had to retreat. In many cases before such laws you were expected to flee first, and only if the assailant cornered you could you use violent force to defend yourself. This is tactically unsound and leaves people far more easily victimized. By removing any expectation that you have to flee for your life, it allows a person a better chance to withstand a direct threat. The Castle Defense laws were created with the same mindset. Far to many states expected people to flee their own homes before using self defense tactics. This was often unreasonable because home invasions happen fast and violently. By allowing a resident to immediately use violent means to defend themselves or loved ones within the context of a place they have a right to always feel safe, it assured more chances of preserving the lives of innocent citizens.
Many of these laws resulted because local prosecutors were rail roading innocent people right into felony sentences or plea bargains because all the interpretation of circumstances were up to the prosecutor. And it was very unrealistic for the victim to successfully defend himself in a court of law. This reflects far to much how the laws have become to complex and the justice system to convoluted for the average citizen to deal with on a daily basis. Far to much distortion of the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment rights occur daily in this country because of this legal anarchy that is the American justice system. This also is a far deeper topic than I'm willing to handle in this post.
This only addresses half the points, but the rest shall have to wait till another day. I am out of time to continue working on this matter.
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