My post on Liberalism and Aggression from last week led to an interesting discussion of gun control, pros and cons. A Canadian commenter, Charles Stewart, offered a variation of a common point made by gun control proponents:
I have no problem at all with controlled gun ownership for recreational or sporting purposes, which is one end of the "gun culture" spectrum, however I do have a serious problem with incidents like the one in Montreal a couple of days ago, which represents the other end. Somewhere in between, there is a level of control that I think everyone in the US could live with if the issue were not so polarized.
In Canada we already have stringent controls, which obviously failed us in Montreal .. most of the guns used in criminal activity here are smuggled from the US .. a side effect of your lack of the same.
It is worth re-visiting some of the points since the UN is in session in New York, and the UN is the ultimate expression of the liberal impulse on an international scale. In fact, one significant line of demarcation between Liberals and Conservatives (and Neocons) is over the utility of the UN.
The Liberal position is that the UN serves a number of important purposes and, as a corollary, it is always better to talk than to fight.
The Conservative/Neocon position is that the UN has outlived it usefulness and now serves primarily to protect thugs and thieves and prevent action to protect the innocent.
Recently, the UN declared that there is no right for the individual to bear arms to protect himself. This position has been adopted by most governments in the world. In England, for example, if you have the temerity to fight back against a home intruder, and especially if you use a weapon to injure or kill the intruder, you are likely to be brought up on charges and prosecuted vigorously, with significant jail time as a result.
Charles Stewart, echoed by the UN, believes that our choice in this issue is between an anarchic and violent world in which almost everyone has access to guns, if they so choose, and a more peaceful world in which guns are almost exclusively controlled and owned by government representatives (Police, Armed Forces) and only extremely rarely available to individuals. Even at its best, this is a Utopian fantasy that flies in the face of experience.
Reality dictates that Americans will only surrender their gun rights if forced to do so; that requires a totalitarian government and is unlikely to happen anytime soon. The wish that the US would disarm and thus Canada would be spared all the guns smuggled and imported in from the South is a vain wish. Furthermore, it wouldn't even work.
Many years ago, National Geographic magazine did a piece on the gun makers of Afghanistan. At that time, not so very different from today, Afghanistan was one of the most backward societies on the planet. Their level of technology was primitive by almost any standards. Yet, their gun makers, using skills handed down from father to son, were able to make copies of some of the most sophisticated hand guns and small arms in the world. While the quality varied from gun maker to gun maker, if you wanted a copy of an Uzi, or a Glock, or a Kalashnikov, all you needed was money. The point being that even if all legal gun making was banned and every gun manufacturer put out of business, bad guys would be able to have access to guns. Ultimately, gun control for criminals is an impossibility. This is perhaps unfortunate, but the fact that a piece of reality is unpleasant does not render it untrue.
This then is the first place where gun control breaks down: The belief that if we outlaw guns, we will be able to remove them from the criminals and sociopaths is a wish, not a fact.
On another level altogether, it is a fact that totalitarian governments are always quick to outlaw gun possession by individuals. Although there is some dispute, the Nazis certainly used the gun control laws to confiscate weapons from their potential opponents in 1938.
Last weekend, there were rallies in support of the people of Darfur, victims of Sudanese (Arab Muslim) genocide. Many of the most vocal proponents of UN action (UNaction?) are Liberals who accept gun control as a matter beyond discussion. Yet, after so many years of mass murder in Darfur, it is worth wondering if the most effective way the world could support the victims of the Janga weed militias, would be to drop weapons and a small number of trainers in their use to the people in Darfur. It should be clear to anyone who has eyes that these people are on their own. Neither the UN, nor any country or countries, is about to send their own soldiers into harms way to protect the innocents of Darfur. If they had weapons, they might still be wiped out but at least they would have a chance to defend themselves.
Contrast Darfur with the Jews. Israel is a Nation settled by a people with a long history of a Liberal outlook. Jews were never noted to be a martial people and tended to look to settle disputes by talk or avoidance. The current iteration of the Jewish state has had to learn and relearn that there are situations in which talk does not work.
I am convinced that a great deal of the objection to guns among Liberals stems from their fear that if many people have guns, the streets will be filled with violence and run with blood. This suggests they believe that most people are unable to carry a gun safely and will be prone to using violence in lieu of words to settle disputes. Because they fear the aggression of others (and it is always worth wondering what their fear is based on; how much of this is projection?) they support policies that make it more likely that the least civilized will have the most access to guns. This paradox has never been adequately explained by those who support gun control; my contention is that the gun control impulse is a derivative of the fear of aggression and as with most symptoms, often offers a way for the expression of the thing that is most denied.
At the moment, we have only a very limited ability to determine whether gun violence would be lessened if guns were made more available legally (though recent evidence seems to support this position) and until such evidence is conclusive, both proponents and opponents of gun control are taking positions based on their feelings rather than a rational assessment of the evidence. As such the role of "feelings", including fear of aggression (versus fear of the "other" perhaps), plays a powerful role.
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