More Thoughts On Gun Control

Matt and Julian discuss the "collective right" and "individual right" interpretations of the 2nd amendment. I think I agree with Julian that the "collective right" doesn't really make sense in any meaningful way. Matt is certainly right that an unlimited individual right (the right to buy tanks and nukes) is crazy, but that does seem to be what the text says. I do think he is right that the wording is the result of political compromise, and illustrates that as lofty as the founders were, their political system was as messy and confounding as ours is today.

Obviously in today's world it makes lots of sense to have some limits on the right to own or bear arms. I'm not entirely comfortable with Bush, Blair, Musharraf, Hu, and others on the trigger of nuclear weapons, but lets at least keep it to that. Besides, if the intent of the second amendment is to ensure we can overthrow a tyrannous government, I think the events in Iraq are demonstrating that a sufficiently motivated and sufficiently popular movement can create severe problems for the world's most advanced army using limited resources. If we added in the problems inherent in trying to get soldiers to use deadly force against their fellow citizens, I don't see much hope for maintaining control over a country like America simply by means of the military.

So there are some reasons to restrict ownership of particularly dangerous weapons, but it seems to me these are best limited to A) weaponry that would have national security implications if sold to the wrong people (so this could not include any firearms except highly experimental ones) and B) weaponry that would give an individual a substantial firepower advantage against a number of police officers (I don't think the cops should be better armed than the rest of us, but I don't think any of us should be MUCH better armed than the cops).

Returning to DC, the source of all this commotion, let me just point out that their restrictions go far beyond hand guns. Stun guns and mace are also prohibited, as I'm sure are various folding knives and extendable batons.

This seems silly. No one is going to accidentally kill a family members with a taser, but they could certainly prevent a mugging with one, and it would certainly increase the deterrant effect.

In fact, I can't see why extendable batons are illegal anywhere - it's highly unlikely that you would accidentally kill someone with one, and if you did use excessive force in, say a bar fight, you deserve the punishment. You could also have used a bar stool to kill your victim, so the mere presence of a baton is not likely to be the crucial factor in whether the victim lived or died.

A baton would, however, be a superb self defense weapon. It's light, easy to conceal, and brutally effective in close quarters. Besides, if you take the time to learn stick fighting, I think you deserve to kick some ass. The main point here is that the District of Columbia has outlawed virtually all effective means of self-defense beyond your bare hands. A councilman who was asked what a person who feared assault should do replied "where a whistle." Sorry, that's ridiculous.