I don't want to take your guns.
There are no bills before Congress, nor any executive orders, nor any constituent proposals that have any hope of passing political muster, let alone constitutional muster, that would take guns away from law-abiding citizens. That's a matter of simple respect for the Second Amendment and even simpler common sense. We live in a nation in which guns outnumber people, and we have no way of knowing where the vast majority of those guns are. Even if we wanted to — and surveys show we don't — there would be no viable way to round up those weapons.
Someone, though, clearly wants us to feel otherwise. Someone would like us to believe that the government is out to pry our weapons from our cold, dead hands. That's a lie.
It should be said, though, that it's a lie in service of what some believe to be a higher cause. And in this way, it's not a lot different than a lot of the other lies we've told ourselves in defense of our civil liberties.
But while "offense as the best defense" might work on the football field, and perhaps the battlefield, it's not a great way to create public policy. And almost all of us know this. Survey after survey has demonstrated that overwhelming majorities of Americans believe we should amend our laws to ensure that the very small number of people who are on the U.S. government's terrorist watch list can't buy a weapon. Survey after survey has demonstrated that overwhelming majorities of Americans believe we need to do a better job of making sure that the very small number of people who are suffering from mental illness in a way that makes them potentially dangerous can't buy a weapon. Survey after survey has demonstrated that overwhelming majorities of Americans believe everyone should have to have a background check when they purchase a gun, even when buying a weapon privately.
These are the sorts of proposals that are being debated before Congress. None of these proposals will take a gun out of your hand if you are a non-violent, law-abiding human being. None will deprive you of your right to purchase a gun that is perfectly suited for hunting, defending your home, shooting at targets or, for that matter, staging an armed rebellion against the federal government if and when the man comes around. And none of these proposals will solve the complex problem of violence in America; at best, they might prevent a very few of the more than 11,000 gun homicide deaths that occur in our country each year.
In that respect, I'm like the overwhelming majority of Americans — even those who say they're pro gun control. The Second Amendment, as we currently interpret it, might be the result of a lot of rugged individualism, historical revisionism and jurisprudential contortionism, but so are the rest of the amendments in our Constitution, and I like our Constitution.
And, in any case, you can't solve complex problems with simple solutions. That's what smart people say in response to Donald Trump's ridiculously simplistic and overwhelmingly asinine proposals for addressing illegal immigration, terrorism and trade imbalance. And they're right.
So while it should be obvious, it nonetheless needs to be said: Gun violence in the world's gun-lovingest and gun-owningest nation is a very complex problem — a problem that won't be solved by taking away people's guns.
Thankfully, I'm not the only person who understands that you can't solve gun violence simply by taking away people's guns. Congress understands this, too. So does our Supreme Court. So does the president. So do all three top-polling presidential candidates and even our socialist-in-waiting, Bernie Sanders.
And, in any case, you can't solve complex problems with simple solutions. That's what smart people say in response to Donald Trump's ridiculously simplistic and overwhelmingly asinine proposals for addressing illegal immigration, terrorism and trade imbalance. And they're right.
So while it should be obvious, it nonetheless needs to be said: Gun violence in the world's gun-lovingest and gun-owningest nation is a very complex problem — a problem that won't be solved by taking away people's guns.
Thankfully, I'm not the only person who understands that you can't solve gun violence simply by taking away people's guns. Congress understands this, too. So does our Supreme Court. So does the president. So do all three top-polling presidential candidates and even our socialist-in-waiting, Bernie Sanders.
There are no bills before Congress, nor any executive orders, nor any constituent proposals that have any hope of passing political muster, let alone constitutional muster, that would take guns away from law-abiding citizens. That's a matter of simple respect for the Second Amendment and even simpler common sense. We live in a nation in which guns outnumber people, and we have no way of knowing where the vast majority of those guns are. Even if we wanted to — and surveys show we don't — there would be no viable way to round up those weapons.
Someone, though, clearly wants us to feel otherwise. Someone would like us to believe that the government is out to pry our weapons from our cold, dead hands. That's a lie.
It should be said, though, that it's a lie in service of what some believe to be a higher cause. And in this way, it's not a lot different than a lot of the other lies we've told ourselves in defense of our civil liberties.
The ACLU doesn't fight for the rights of Ku Klux Klan members to parade their hate down Main Street because anyone at the ACLU supports the KKK. It fights on the far edges of constitutionality on the notion that battles fought there prevent incursions into basic First Amendment rights we all hold dear. Likewise, the NRA isn't fighting to prevent people who want to buy a weapon from having to wait more than a few minutes to do so because its members want terrorists to have guns. It fights on the far edges of constitutionality on the notion that battles fought there prevent incursions into basic Second Amendment rights that gun owners hold dear. (While I've used this analogy a lot, there is a key difference to consider: The ACLU doesn't make a penny supporting the KKK, but the NRA's revenues are intrinsically linked to gun sales.)
But while "offense as the best defense" might work on the football field, and perhaps the battlefield, it's not a great way to create public policy. And almost all of us know this. Survey after survey has demonstrated that overwhelming majorities of Americans believe we should amend our laws to ensure that the very small number of people who are on the U.S. government's terrorist watch list can't buy a weapon. Survey after survey has demonstrated that overwhelming majorities of Americans believe we need to do a better job of making sure that the very small number of people who are suffering from mental illness in a way that makes them potentially dangerous can't buy a weapon. Survey after survey has demonstrated that overwhelming majorities of Americans believe everyone should have to have a background check when they purchase a gun, even when buying a weapon privately.
These are the sorts of proposals that are being debated before Congress. None of these proposals will take a gun out of your hand if you are a non-violent, law-abiding human being. None will deprive you of your right to purchase a gun that is perfectly suited for hunting, defending your home, shooting at targets or, for that matter, staging an armed rebellion against the federal government if and when the man comes around. And none of these proposals will solve the complex problem of violence in America; at best, they might prevent a very few of the more than 11,000 gun homicide deaths that occur in our country each year.
Here's what these proposals will do: They will inconvenience us a little bit when we want to buy a gun.
But if "I refuse to wait a few extra days to buy a gun" is really the hill upon which you wish to fight, then it makes sense that you would also believe that there's someone out there who wants to take away your guns, because you're a casualty of a battle being fought on the margins of constitutionality — and the even slimmer margins of common sense.
But if "I refuse to wait a few extra days to buy a gun" is really the hill upon which you wish to fight, then it makes sense that you would also believe that there's someone out there who wants to take away your guns, because you're a casualty of a battle being fought on the margins of constitutionality — and the even slimmer margins of common sense.
