Josh Marshall posts a letter from, as he puts it, the Non-Gun People…<\/p>\n
\nSpeaking for My Tribe<\/a><\/h3>\n
I’ve been thinking of writing some version of this post since the days immediately after the Newtown shootings. It overlaps with but is distinct from the division between people who are pro-gun or anti-gun or pro-gun control or anti-gun control. Before you even get to these political positions, you start with a more basic difference of identity and experience: gun people and non-gun people.<\/p>\n
So let me introduce myself. I’m a non-gun person. And I think I’m speaking for a lot of people.<\/p>\n
It’s customary and very understandable that people often introduce themselves in the gun debate by saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcLet me be clear: I’m a gun owner.’<\/p>\n
Well, I want to be part of this debate too. I’m not a gun owner and, as I think as is the case for the more than half the people in the country who also aren’t gun owners, that means that for me guns are alien. And I have my own set of rights not to have gun culture run roughshod over me…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Go read the whole thing. \u00a0 This is the kind of conversation I have been wanting this country to have about guns. Marshall recognizes there is a cultural element…a Tribal element…to it, that makes communication among the factions hard. He’s reaching in to examine how that tribalism is making it hard both for him, and for those he lumps into the Gun Culture, to talk to each other. \u00a0 This is good. \u00a0 Before you can fix a problem, you need to understand it. \u00a0 You can’t make policy in a democracy when people can’t talk to each other. \u00a0 Well…you can…but not good policy.<\/p>\n
And here I would like to put down my first marker sign: For all the same reasons I cannot speak for Gay People, though I am a gay man myself, I cannot speak for this Gun Culture he speaks of, though I own guns, though I take pleasure in shooting them, though I believe the second amendment confers a right to the people, not just to well regulated militias. \u00a0 I suspect he’s talking about a stereotype. \u00a0 I actually can speak to how that works; there are gay males who outwardly seem to fit perfectly the Hollywood\/FRC\/NOM flaming swishy limp-wristed lisping girly boy club haunting faggot. But a stereotype like a shade of skin or a religious belief does not tell you anything about the person within, nor does knowing that a person is gay, or Asian, or Muslim, necessarily tell you anything about the person within. \u00a0 People look to stereotypes for justification, not clarity. \u00a0 I don’t have a gay lifestyle simply because I am gay any more than I have a gun culture because I own a gun. \u00a0 I have a life. \u00a0 But try to tell that to someone who can’t see the people for the homosexuals. \u00a0 And if by gun culture Marshall means he doesn’t want the lunatic right running roughshod over him…hello…I don’t want them running roughshod over me either.<\/p>\n
This is good:<\/p>\n
More than this, I come from a culture where guns are not so much feared as alien, as I said. I don’t own one. I don’t think many people I know have one. It would scare me to have one in my home for a lot of reasons…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He goes on to say that in the current climate people seem reluctant to say they think guns are scary and they don’t want to be around them. \u00a0 That’s one big part of the problem we have talking to each other about guns. \u00a0 Not the guns are scary part so much though. \u00a0 Guns are dangerous. \u00a0 They have to be. \u00a0 They’re weapons. \u00a0 It is not completely irrational to be afraid of them. \u00a0 Point of fact, I would say it’s irrational to be absolutely unafraid. \u00a0 Some degree of fear that isn’t immobilizing is a good thing if it reminds you to pay attention. \u00a0 I am afraid of my table saw, I’ve witnessed a table saw nearly slice someone’s hand off. \u00a0 Every time I step up to mine to do some work I pause and reflect on what can happen if I am not careful. \u00a0 Will this be the time it happens…?<\/em> Same thing with my guns. \u00a0 Every time I lay a hand on one of mine I pause and think. \u00a0 This thing could kill someone. \u00a0 And even more so than the table saw…Much<\/em> more so…the gun is a weapon; it is supposed to be dangerous. \u00a0 The table saw is dangerous, but that is not its purpose. \u00a0 The gun’s purpose Is<\/em> to be dangerous.<\/p>\n
There is a completely logical connection between Gun<\/em> and Dangerous<\/em>. \u00a0 They are weapons. \u00a0 It is not naive to be afraid of guns. \u00a0 People should not be reluctant to say so in this conversation. \u00a0 It isn’t naive and it isn’t simplistic. \u00a0 It’s a completely normal reflex to have about weapons. \u00a0 If anything it is naive to expect people’s fears not to be a part of this conversation. \u00a0 Where fear mucks it up is when it gets in the way of knowledge and understanding. \u00a0 This is the sort of thing that really irritates the hell out of me, and I suppose most people who have experience with firearms:<\/p>\n
But remember, handguns especially are designed to kill people. You may want to use it to threaten or deter. You may use it to kill people who should be killed (i.e., in self-defense). But handguns are designed to kill people. They’re not designed to hunt. You may use it to shoot at the range. But they’re designed to kill people quickly and efficiently.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Charitably, this is the sort of rhetoric that comes from “…a culture where guns are not so much feared as alien.” \u00a0 Uncharitably it is manipulative rhetoric, and the sort of thing that quickly destroys trust that the conversation is being held in good faith. \u00a0 Handguns are not<\/em> designed to kill people. \u00a0 A soldier’s rifle is designed to kill people. \u00a0 By nature and design a handgun is a defensive weapon. \u00a0 It has not the range, the accuracy or firepower of a long gun. \u00a0 It’s useful as a defensive weapon for the person holding it and that’s about it. \u00a0 The only instance where a handgun can function as an aggressive weapon is where an attacker knows their victims are unarmed and unsuspecting. \u00a0 But if the complaint about handguns is they’re more easily concealed, which makes it easier for an assailant to get close enough to be dangerous, I have a photograph I took back in the 1970s, a couple days after a period of unrest in Washington D.C., of a group of youths, one of whom was carrying a sawed off shotgun under a very lightweight jacket. \u00a0 He was holding onto it through a hole in one pocket. \u00a0 You would never have known he had it on him until he swung it up in your face. \u00a0 All it takes to make a long gun easily concealable is a hacksaw, and then you have a weapon of much greater force than any handgun. \u00a0 I own a 30-30 lever action rifle, the bullets it throws bear more force than the ones coming out of Dirty Harry’s 44 magnum, and it is an old cartridge design…the first meant for smokeless powder. \u00a0 Long arms are aggressive weapons. \u00a0 Handguns are defensive weapons. \u00a0 That is their nature.<\/p>\n
And here’s where tribalism and the stereotype of the Gun Nut and Gun Culture get in the way of communication. \u00a0 Just my saying these things makes me a gun nut in some people’s regard and their eyes glaze over. \u00a0 I know too much about guns to be a normal person. \u00a0 I must be an NRA goon. \u00a0 But no…I simply enjoy shooting. \u00a0 I enjoy it enough that I have become familiar with guns. \u00a0 I appreciate that some folks simply don’t want anything to do with guns, but a big part of the problem of having this conversation is people talking past each other and loosing trust. \u00a0 You may not like guns, but when you say a handgun’s only purpose is killing people, those of us with experience with guns hear that as a backdoor argument for banning all guns.<\/p>\n
We “gun people” should recognize that “non-gun people” have completely rational reasonable fears and issues with guns in the public spaces, and we should have those same issues actually. \u00a0 Guns are dangerous. \u00a0 “Non-gun people” need to get past their Gun Nut stereotypes. \u00a0 I will admit that given the efforts of the NRA and Ted Nugent, that is very very difficult. \u00a0 But we are not all of us unreachable on this issue.<\/p>\n
I don’t hunt…did it long ago to get it out of my system, to see and understand those ancient passions within me, so they would never take me by surprise. \u00a0 So…been there, done that. \u00a0 I don’t shoot because I want to kill anything. \u00a0 But I went to the range with my brother last month while I was visiting, and enjoyed myself thoroughly all the same. \u00a0 It isn’t always about blood lust. \u00a0 In fact, for a lot of us I would imagine, it’s about that eminently human joy in wielding fire. \u00a0 I enjoy firecrackers and lightning storms and watching Myth Busters blow things up too. \u00a0 I don’t go out to the range with those human silhouette targets you often see…I hate silhouette targets. \u00a0 I am not about killing things. \u00a0 I am precision hurling little slugs of lead at unreasonable velocities with the fire in my hands. \u00a0 The targets my brother and I practiced on that day were round metallic bulls-eyes of various diameters, placed at various distances. \u00a0 You could hear it when you hit them, and there were several sets with very small round metal dots you had to hit to flip up, and when you got them all flipped up there was one square one at the end you hit to drop them all back down again. \u00a0 I was pleased to find that even with guns that were not my own but my brother’s, I was pretty good at hitting things squarely.<\/p>\n
I think it’s fun. \u00a0 Your mileage may vary and that’s fine. \u00a0 But yes, there is another aspect to all this gun play that is serious and needs to be talked about among us Americans, and that is that guns are weapons, they are dangerous, and while I recognize an obligation to my neighbor’s safety and to the common welfare, I also believe I have a right to defend myself from violent attack, and that means I must also have the right to possess the tools to do that. \u00a0 I don’t ever want to be put into that position, Atrios’ comment that all gun owners have vigilante dreams is ignorant. \u00a0 When I think about what I might have to do with one of my guns I think about how to prevent it from getting that far. \u00a0 I have a household alarm system, we have a neighborhood watch, and this kid who was bullied all through junior high stays alert when he’s out and about because keeping my eyes open for trouble was drilled into me long, long ago. \u00a0 But there it is…that irreducible bottom line. \u00a0 I have a life, I’d like to hold onto it a while longer thank you. \u00a0 I have a right to bear a weapon in self defense. \u00a0 But I completely agree that right is not unconditional. \u00a0 There is always that little matter of the common welfare. \u00a0 Public spaces, convey public obligations.<\/p>\n
Arguments about the meaning of the second amendment are not trivial, but there is a point being missed when cardboard revolutionaries yap about private ownership of guns balancing the power of the state against the individual. \u00a0 No. \u00a0 The ballot box is our protection, our check against the power of the state.<\/em> Those who advocate the gun over the ballot box betray the American Dream. \u00a0 That is the old way of kings and armies and strongmen, not the way of democracy. \u00a0 But there is another argument to be made here. \u00a0 If I am not allowed the means to defend myself, if I must instead rely on the state, utterly, to defend me, then I am not so much a citizen, as a subject. \u00a0 I don’t think you can get many people to buy into that notion, hence the effort to convince people that owning a gun makes them less safe. \u00a0 Yes, yes…and owning an automobile makes you less safe too if you don’t bother learning to drive.<\/p>\n
If you want to argue that police are trained in the use of firearms why shouldn’t anyone who wants to own a gun also have to go through training…I would agree with you. \u00a0 If you want to argue that you need a license to drive a car, why not also license gun owners…I would agree to a point. \u00a0 When you take your car onto the public roads, the public has every reasonable right to require you to demonstrate you know how to drive safely before you’re allowed on the highways so that you are not a danger to others. \u00a0 Public spaces convey public obligations. \u00a0 No man is an island on I-95. \u00a0 The same can be said for bearing a gun in the public space. \u00a0 First prove you know how to handle a gun safely. \u00a0 First prove you understand the relevant laws. \u00a0 I could be convinced that training on gun safety, and demonstrating an understanding of it before a purchase is allowed is reasonable. \u00a0 I think licensing carrying a gun in public the same way we license automobile drivers is completely reasonable. \u00a0 I agree there are public spaces where guns simply should not be allowed, period. \u00a0 Like…oh…courthouses…hospitals…Schools<\/em><\/strong>. \u00a0 I get that urban crime argues for carry permits, but I also get (and I think my fellow gun-people need to get) that densely populated zones aren’t swell places for firefights to break out. \u00a0 It does not greatly bother me that I can’t carry a gun on the streets of New York City. \u00a0 What I don’t find reasonable is the position that since guns are dangerous nobody should be allowed to have them. \u00a0 And what I don’t get is why this became a left verses right argument. \u00a0 The welfare of the common man and woman is not greatly improved by rendering them defenseless.<\/p>\n
If Marshall wants to draw a distinction here, I would suggest a more useful one than between non-gun people and gun people, is that between democrats and oligarchs, between those of us who believe in that liberty and justice for all thing and those who think the world would be a fine place if the everyone knew their place. \u00a0 Yes, yes…free people own guns…but not because they own guns but because they are free. \u00a0 And free people cast ballots too. \u00a0 Ask some of the people busy waving their guns around since Sandy Hook if they believe in the right to vote. \u00a0 Then ask them what they think of all the voter suppression that went on in the last election. There’s your problem. \u00a0 I saw it driving through Texas last month, on the way to California, in literally dozens and dozens of billboards advertising military style and SWAT firearms. \u00a0 This business about “assault weapons” is mostly misdirected, but contains an element of common sense: the difference between a six or seven round clip and a hundred round clip is the difference between a weapon of self defense and an weapon of aggression. \u00a0 In my opinion you can draw a line between them, on the basis that self defense is a right and aggression isn’t. \u00a0 But there are those who do not accept that aggression is not a right. \u00a0 Not all of those are criminals in the usual sense.<\/p>\n
There’s the problem. \u00a0 This argument isn’t about guns. \u00a0 The violence racking our country isn’t about guns. \u00a0 It’s about “Who is my neighbor?” \u00a0 It’s about the culture war. \u00a0 It’s about tribe. \u00a0 Guns Don’t Matter. \u00a0 Some nights I fear we are working ourselves up to another civil war. \u00a0 What matters is that Americans can’t look into each other’s faces, and see a neighbor whose life is precious too. Guns Don’t Matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Josh Marshall posts a letter from, as he puts it, the Non-Gun People… Speaking for My Tribe I’ve been thinking of writing some version of this post since the days immediately after the Newtown shootings. It overlaps with but is distinct from the division between people who are pro-gun or anti-gun or pro-gun control or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[131,78],"class_list":["post-6805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-guns","tag-the-struggle-for-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}