The governing body of one of our state university systems is considering a plan to arm professors. In response to the Virginia Tech shootings on 16 April this year, the Nevada Board of Regents has proposed sending professors on a training course, and deputising them so that they can carry firearms on campus legally. “God, guns, and guts make America great”, as the old bumper sticker had it.
Why do we Americans like guns so much? Because we think we live in Mogadishu. Somalis won’t lay down their weapons because they know that if they give up their firearms, but others don’t, they’ll be shot by members of rival clans. If you live in a failed state you can’t count on the government to protect you; so you rely on God, guns, and guts.
Remember New Orleans!
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200602\NAT20060213c.html
I like how she also makes a stab at how bad we are for not thinking that the State can do everything better than we can do ourselves. Silly Americans, they think they know better than their socialist would-be masters.
[blockquote]The experience of affluent countries comparable to the US suggests that fewer guns for all make everyone safer than escalating the domestic arms race[/blockquote]
All the violent crime statistics for the UK, Australia, and others actually demonstrate exactly the opposite. UK violent home invasions occurring in daylight took a dramatic jump once the citizens were defanged. Even over here, concealed carry has been directly related to decreases in violent criminal activity. Her argument holds no water even before addressing her pathetic attempt at creating little straw men.
If you live in a failed state you can’t count on the government to protect you; so you rely on God, guns, and guts.
But she happens to be talking about a country where citizens have always had guns, so her “failed state” comparison makes no sense.
Um, doesn’t the state always eventually fail?
For an interesting story of the conflicts in the academic community see: http://www.bioethics.northwestern.edu/faculty/work/dreger/controversy_tmwwbq.pdf
This is an account of the conflict over political correctness in the academic transgendered community in Chicago and elsewhere.
Tom Rightmyer in Asheville, NC
Would you agree that a proximate cause of the VTech tragedy was that someone with Cho’s history was able to obtain 2 handguns without the notification / consent of his local police (VTech security / Blacksburg) or home police (Fairfax County)?
John,
a further cause was the unfortunate result of having a disarmed community on the VT campus. Why were there no armed security officers on campus, for example? One shooting on a campus in the past was cut short because two members of the biathalon team had their rifles close at hand and were able to make a defense for themselves and their fellow classmates.
Jim Elliott
“God didn’t make all men equal, Samuel Colt did.” –western saying.
I would prefer a reasonable tightening of VA’s very lax gun laws and greater presence of trained and armed security forces to a “wild west” scenario of students or faculty carrying concealed handguns.
Mr. Nelson,
The majority of States in this country (USA) have enacted some form of concealed carry, a couple with no real restrictions past the federal purchase restrictions and in no place, none at all, has the “wild west” broken out despite much crying and wringing of hands on the part of the liberals ever time carry is even considered somewhere. The “wild west” fear is a red herring that has been thoroughly debunked through the recent experience in those States that allow carry.
Predators prey on the weak and unarmed so they naturally gravitate to places where they can find them in order to maximize their possibility of success. Lions and wolves hunt that way, so did Cho.
Lawrence,
Actually my “wild west” was a pick-up on Jim Elliot’s signature. I don’t have an issue with well contructed and managed concealed carry laws. However, to have had any impact in the Cho case, there would have to have been a very large percentage of students with weapons to believe there was a reasonable probability that one of them would have been there. VTech would be better off training students to act effectively in groups to holdoff or subdue an armed assailant like Cho while they waited for trained police to arrive.
Actually, if Cho hadn’t been able to get his guns in Virginia, he would have simply gone to another state or bought a rifle and shortened the barrel. Those determined to carry out a criminal act of that magnitude won’t let a little thing like THE LAW stand in their way.
By the way, I advocated for armed SECURITY GUARDS, not armed students. That was someone else’s suggestion, but I’m also not against it. Both UWF and FSU don’t even allow students to have knives longer than 2″ on campus, and no guns at all. One friend of mine in the fencing club can’t even have his rapier or foil in his dorm room, even though they are safety tipped. The restrictions are nonsensical and useless against someone like Cho who is determined to act.
Jim,
Actually this is another reason for tightening VA gun laws – according to studies by NY City police, VA gun shops are a major supplier of weapons used in crimes in New York. So, even people as far away as NYC would be safer if VA added some basic gun control rules – such as local police sign-off. Annual license fees for hand guns should also be considered.
Ok – annual fees would not have stopped Cho – I just feel that people should pay back society when their hobbies cost the rest of us a lot of expense
What expense do the majority of gun owners cost society? Of all the guns owned by Americans, very few (in terms of percentage of the whole) find their way into the commission of crime or criminal acts.
I could add that automobile accidents cost more lives in the US than gun crime. However, you could rightly point out that we are required to register, license (tags) and insure our automobiles. Of course there is also murder without the use of guns (the Boston Strangler and Lizzie Borden’s case comes to mind). How would gun laws affect these murders? Should knives and hatchets and rope also have registrations and police checks when bought? It sounds over the top, yes, but it’s reality, no?
Jim,
OK – fees were off topic – sorry
I suspect a case can be made on the cost to society of handguns – I do not have a specific study to reference.
Absent a drive to repeal or modify the Second Amendment, I’m very much against any new restrictions on gun ownership. If someone wants to suggest changing the Constitution, I’m all ears on how you wish it changed.
On another point, what Professor Baber leaves out is whether it is wise or even practicable for a citizenry to rely on the State to protect them. A civilized country such as Great Britain in the 20’s had little need of gun control laws, yet the citizenry was largely unarmed (as were the police). The incidence of all sorts of crime is very much higher in England today compared with eighty years ago and the citizenry is still largely disarmed.
I would suggest that a State that disarms its citizens and monopolizes lethal force to itself is a State that regards its citizens as children to be protected rather than as adults capable of contributing to the preservation of order.
Mousestalker: “Absent a drive to repeal or modify the Second Amendment…”
I don’t think anyone has suggested any laws that aren’t already in place (and presumably tested) in another state.
I wish to emphasize what I wrote before. This nibbling away of personal rights is morally wrong, deceptive at best and partakes of all that is wrong with our society. Yes there are stringent gun laws in certain areas. Many of them are likely unconstitutional (vis. Washington DC’s latest gun control problems), others are more problematic.
I’m not opposed to gun control as gun control, but the deception and sneakiness that seem inherent in the gun control/Brady lobbies are wrong.
Here is some [url=http://reason.com/blog/show/122163.html]back up linkage[/url] on the British epidemic of gun crime post stringent gun control.
Mousestalker, please clarify in what way requiring approval of the VA Tech / Blacksburg police for Cho to have purchased a gun would impede the establishment of a “well formed militia” per the 2nd amendment.
John Nelson,
The point is he could and would have easily purchased a weapon despite such an approval requirement. If one is willing to act illegally, one may purchase any sort of wepaon in Manchester UK right now.
How would such a proposal help in any way? If there are any jurisdictions where such requirements have reduced crime, please cite the relevant statistics. Here’s a bit of a hint: The British and Australian statistics will not be encouraging.
Final point, you seem to be interpreting the 2nd amendment as a [url=http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-secondamendment.htm]collective right[/url]. This [url=http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.pdf]memorandum [/url]may prove of some interest to you. Quite a lot of [url=http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/beararms/testimon.htm]legal scholars[/url] are currently convinced that the Second Amendment secures an individual right. Certainly, the last [url=http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200703/04-7041a.pdf]Federal Circuit Court[/url] to rule on it has said so.
Mousetalker, I think you illustrate the authors point quite well – that you distrust the ability of public safety official so much that you think individuals would be better off walking around with concealed weapons to protect themselves. You wrap this in a logically flawed though popular misconception of what the 2nd amendment intends and actually provides and then you hold up Cho (a mentally disturbed mass murderer) as your poster boy for 2nd amendment rights. If Cho had decided to use rocket launchers, explosives or automatic weapons, officials probably would have caught him ahead of time. It’s just too bad for those 32 people that he decided to use handguns instead – and that the state law in Virginia did not require the local police be notified that a mentally ill person with a history of violence tried to buy a gun.
John Nelson,
I did not say that I distrust the police. However, they simply can not be everywhere they are needed, as was true at Virginia Tech.
How is my take on the Second Amendment flawed? I backed up everything you questioned with scholarly linkage. Please back up your statements. If you believe the Second Amendment to be a collective right, please explain why. There is a substantial chance that the US Supreme Court will address that very question in the near future
You still have not shown any connection between gun control and increased public safety.
I am not certain what you are attempting to say with your sentence that discusses rocket launchers. Are you implying that were he unable to purchase his weapon of choice legally, he would have switched to other weapons? Or are you implying that the mere act of making it illegal to buy a handgun would have thwarted him totally? Either assertion would seem to be dubious at best. Plans for manufacturing [b]automatic[/b] weapons from common items available at hardware stores are available on the internet. There is also a thriving black market in weapons in every major city in the western world. Explosives are rather easy to manufacture, and are problematic only to manufacture safely. Obtaining an accurate rocket launcher might be difficult.
Mousestalker;
Friend, my point about automatic weapons and other military arms was to illustrate the fallicy in your arguements that the US Constitution confers some special status to handguns compared to other arms. The Constitution allows – and other states have – significantly more restrictive hand gun controls than VA that have survived legal challenge or remain unchallenged. It has nothing to do with whether the 2nd amendment is an individual right. It has to do with the fact that public safety allows for controls on firearms. In the same way, an individuals 1st amendment speech rights are limited by public safety concerns – e.g. you can’t yell “fire” in a theater. I accept without agreeing with you on your point about whether my proposed change to VA gun laws would have been effective in Cho’s case. However, your arguement that there is a constiutional issue to my proposal is not valid.
As to your second point – whether I’ve established any proof that there is a link between arms restrictions and public safety – I think the restriction on automatic weapons – which was put in place as part of the fight against mob violence during Prohibition – is an example on my side. You are correct that there are after market kits that an owner of an assult weapon can use to convert it to an automatic weapon. (Perhaps that is why some people favor assult weapons bans – so I’m not sure how hard you want to push that point since I suspect you are NOT in favor of an assult weapons ban.) There are many other examples, including restrictions on the type of bullets, that have been proven to enhance public safety. Clearly some form of local police oversight would have raised a red flag in the case of Cho when he bought his first hand gun, possibly even leading to his getting back on track with psyc help.
I think the last point I would really like to convince you of is that vigilanty violence is really dangerous for the well intentioned citizen with the gun and all the people around them – including their families and public safety people who come to their aid. No public safety official would ever agree with posters on this string that our streets and college campuses would be safer places if large numbers of well-intentioned people were in the habit of walking around with concealed weapons.
If I remember correctly the “ban” during prohibition on automatics and sawed off shotguns (not really a ban as one can own either with a class III license) was argued as a legitimate action because the Constitution states that weapons are for the purpose of a well regulated militia. Since the sawed-off and automatics were, at the time, banned for use in warfare, they were not legitimate militia weapons, therefore not covered by the second amendment.
The argument applied today to ban weapons is that they ARE weapons of a militia and thus must be banned … a total 180 degree turn from what was accepted as the meaning of the second amendment in 1933. No, the ban in 1933 is not on your side unless you wish to argue that only those weapons banned in warfare, like certain varieties of nerve agents, or probably certain biologicals etc., cannot be freely owned by civilians.
#28 Dear Lawrence, that is a nonsensical fabrication. Automatics are still banned for the reason I stated – public safety trumps individual rights per the examples I gave you.
Remember New Orleans!
Defenseless on the Bayou
New Orleans gun confiscation was foolish and illegal.
Dave Kopel
During the weeks after Hurricane Katrina, the government of New Orleans devolved from its traditional status as an elective kleptocracy into something far more dangerous: an “anarcho-tyranny” that refused to protect the public from criminals while preventing people from protecting themselves. On the orders of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, the New Orleans Police Department, the National Guard, the Oklahoma National Guard, and the U.S. Marshals Service began breaking into homes at gunpoint, confiscating lawfully owned firearms, and evicting the residents. “No one is allowed to be armed,” said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. “We’re going to take all the guns.”
Those thousands of New Orleanians huddled in the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center got a taste of anarcho-tyranny. Everyone entering those buildings was searched for firearms. So for a few days, they lived in a small world without guns. As in other such worlds, the weaker soon became the prey of the stronger.
In the rest of the city, some police officers abandoned their posts, while others joined the looting spree. For several days, the ones who stayed on the job did not act to stop the looting that was going on right in front of them. When homes or businesses were saved, the saviors were the many good citizens of New Orleans who defended them with their own firearms.
These people were operating within their legal rights. The law authorizes citizen’s arrests for any felony, and in the 1964 case McKellar v. Mason a Louisiana court held that shooting a property thief in the spine was a legitimate citizen’s arrest.
The aftermath of the hurricane featured prominent stories of citizens defending lives and property. Most of New Orleans lies on the north side of the Mississippi River, while the neighborhood of Algiers is on the south. The Times-Picayune detailed how dozens of neighbors in one part of Algiers had formed a militia. After a carjacking and an attack on a home by looters, the neighborhood recognized the need for a common defense; residents shared firearms, took turns on patrol, and guarded the elderly. Although the initial looting had resulted in a gun battle, once the patrols began the militia never had to fire a shot. Likewise, the Garden District of New Orleans, one of the city’s top tourist attractions, was protected by armed residents.
The good gun-owning citizens of New Orleans and the surrounding areas should have been thanked for helping to save some of their city after Mayor Nagin, incoherent and weeping, had fled. Yet instead these citizens were victimized by a new round of home invasions and looting, these government-organized, for the purpose of firearms confiscation.
The mayor and Gov. Kathleen Blanco do have the legal authority to mandate evacuation, but failure to comply is a misdemeanor; so the authority to use force to compel evacuation goes no further than the power to effect a misdemeanor arrest. The pre-emptive confiscation of every private firearm in the city far exceeded any reasonable attempt to carry out misdemeanor arrests for persons who disobey orders to leave.
Louisiana statutory law does allow some restrictions on firearms during extraordinary conditions. One statute says that after the governor proclaims a state of emergency (as Blanco did), “the chief law enforcement officer of the political subdivision affected by the proclamation may…promulgate orders…regulating and controlling the possession, storage, display, sale, transport and use of firearms, other dangerous weapons and ammunition.” But the statute does not, and could not, supersede the Louisiana Constitution, which declares that “the right of each citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged, but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to prohibit the carrying of weapons concealed on the person.”
The power of “regulating and controlling” is not the same as the power of “prohibiting and controlling.” The emergency statute actually draws this distinction in its language, which refers to “prohibiting” price gouging, sale of alcohol, and curfew violations but only to “regulating and controlling” firearms. Accordingly, the police superintendent’s order “prohibiting” firearms possession was beyond his lawful authority. It was an illegal order.
A week after the confiscations began, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) filed a joint lawsuit in federal court. The parties were represented by Stephen Halbrook, one of the nation’s leading Second Amendment attorneys. (Documents from the suit can be found at stephenhalbrook.com.)
Attorneys for Orleans Parish (New Orleans) and St. Tammany Parish (which also confiscated guns) capitulated, under the judge’s threat that he would issue a preliminary injunction against them. The parishes and the plaintiffs signed a consent decree in which the parishes asserted (implausibly) that there was never an official government policy of confiscating guns, and also admitted that they had no authorization to confiscate guns pursuant to Louisiana’s emergency powers statute. The parties agreed to accept that the court’s injunction forbids them from confiscating guns, and orders them to return all guns which have been confiscated.
There will doubtless be many lawsuits that will seek to discover precisely which uniformed looters were responsible for the theft of which guns. (Like the other looters, the uniformed thieves did not give their victims receipts. ) And all over the country next year, there will be bills introduced in state legislatures to make sure that emergency powers cannot be abused to confiscate guns when good people need them most.
After Katrina struck, we saw an awful truth in New Orleans: There is no shortage of police officers and National Guardsmen who will illegally threaten peaceful citizens at gunpoint and confiscate their firearms. We also saw some noble truths: that citizens with firearms will defend law and order even when the government fails. And that our federal courts, as well as civil rights organizations such as NRA and SAF, continue to play an important role in defending constitutional rights against the depredations of lawless “law enforcement” officers.
Dave Kopel (david@i2i.org) is research director of the Independence Institute.
“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe.
Luke 11:21 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
Mr. Nelson,
Not nonsense and the only thing I got wrong was the date, it was ’39 not ’33. You are stipulating that Congress which passed the National Firearms Act of 1934 did so for public safety reasons, which is correct, but safety was not the determining factor with whether the law conflicted with the second amendment when it came to the Supreme Court. In that argument (Miller v United States, 1939) regarding the National Firearms Act of 1934 it was determined that since a sawed off shotgun with a barrel of less than 18 inches did not have “any reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia” the previous determination in the Western District of Arkansas extending second amendment protection to a sawed off shotgun did not exist. The Supreme Court thus stipulated that a sawed off did not fall under the second amendment precisely because it was not a legitimate militia weapon and thus upheld the NFA of 1934.
You are more than welcome to read the actual court decision if you do not believe it.
Here is the link:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/wbardwel/public/nfalist/miller.txt
Lawrence – My point (which I did not communicate fairly to you by my choice of words – it was 6am and I needed to get to the airport) was that you did not address the issue. You changed the subject by use of a related factoid that is not relevant – a common occurance on blogs. Even if automatic weapons were not legal military weapons in the 1930s (something which you stipulated but did not prove), they are legal military weapons today, and they are still illegal for the reason I stated -that public safety trumps individual rights. The other examples I used were special types of amunition and the 1st amendment example of yelling fire in a movie theater (or saying you have a bomb on a plane). In addition, the particular case you used weakens the anti-gun control case being made by moustalker and others on this string because it’s basis for the 2nd amendment is the management of a well regulated milita rather than an individual right. Did you intend to cede that debate point to me?
Rick S. – An excellent example – according to your text, the LA state constitution actually grants more explicit rights for gun ownership than the US Constitution. There are other states which explicitly name all adult males as members of that state’s militia. Both of these examples reinforce my point about the limitations of the 2nd amendment (by itself) as an unlimited individual right to have handguns.
By the way folks (if anyone is still following this) all I suggested was that VA law should be changed so that local police would have been in the loop when Cho was trying to buy a handgun – how someone can disagree with me on that is really a mystery to me.
Regarding the individual rights issue, the case states it all and it is not collectivist in its determination but does support (with historical references) the individual right. The fact that Congess’ power to regulate certain types of weapons to insure that the private weapons that men appear with are suitable for militia service does not preclude a right to individual ownership, but rather demands it as is pretty plainly stated in the judgement for Miller v US at findlaw.com.
The public safety issues inherent in yelling fire in a theatre hardly compares to the gun in my bedroom and how may bullets it does or does not carry. That is ridiculous. Of course, if someone were at the shopping mall waving their gun around the two cases would be quite comparable and I would absolutely agree with you regarding public safety. Of course, here in Texas if that person were seriously intending to cause hurt at the mall, they would be stopped quite speedily.
As to Cho in particular, the whole system failed. Even if the police had the ability, time, manpower, etc to check, or had a thumbs up/down system in conjunction with law enforcement at the point of purchase as the NRA has been proposing and the collectivists have opposed, it would not have mattered as Cho’s mental/judicial situation was not adequately communicated, nor was any follow up done meaning his name would have never appeared in a disqualification database. The police would not have known he was disqualified. The police cannot reasonably be expected to distrust the courts to the level that would have been needed to stop Cho without totally breaing the system and, in all likelihood, even if they had been disposed to trust the courts were doing their job, police forces are usually not staffed so as to check every purchase on foot.
I do support the NRA proposed system as balance of safety and privacy and in Cho’s case that system (assuming everyone as they were supposed to) might have stopped his purchases. I would hope that the system would notify the local police in event of an attempted illegal purchase and in that we both would be in agreement in seeing the police involved. But any system depends on men to do what we are supposed to do, when we are supposed to and as fallen men in a fallen world we often do not do what we are supposed to nor when we are supposed to do it. Any system we propose or support, like a chain, will only be as strong as the weakest link.
I fear we are getting far afield in this thread. The original article was on a violent world, written by a person who has obviously not experienced any real violence and imagines it does not exist in this country. It does, and those who have experienced it first hand or lived in those places where it is commonplace have a far different take from the sheltered professor who penned the article.
Lawrence – well summarized.
Please forgive the atrocious editing on that last entry of mine.
Sorry all.