#216 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Wednesday December 8)
Good morning,
RITTENHOUSE AND GUNS
More on last month’s verdict:
The verdict was on guilt and innocence in a particular circumstance. Let’s remember that it’s not a political decision but a decision in a particular case. Nor should it be read as condoning Mr. Rittenhouse’s behavior. There are several things that, notwithstanding the various victory laps being taken by Fox News and the NRA, were not resolved by the verdict:
It is still unnecessarily provocative, inviting confrontation, when anyone carries an AR-16, or for that matter any gun, into any public place.
It probably doesn’t make much sense for guys to physically attack someone holding a gun.
There are still far too many guns, carried by far too many people who are not trained, lack the capacity, and/or are simply unduly scared and “trigger happy”
A Black man is far less likely to be found innocent when carrying a loaded weapon and killing two people.
My gut is that Rittenhouse did not violate the law. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t violate civil behavior, didn’t encourage people to attack him so that he could respond with deadly force, and didn’t increase tensions and the chance for violence unnecessarily. He should have been found guilty of something, yet the prosecution didn’t provide the jury with a convenient “lesser included.”
The biggest of this case is that vigilantes, self-appointed protectors of the law, increasingly are emboldened to can carry guns in public and use those guns to “defend” themselves, even when they may be the most provocative actors at the scene.
As Ronald Reagan said when Governor of California confronting the issue of an armed person in a public place: “I don’t think that loaded guns is the way to solve a problem that should be solved between people of good will. And anyone who would approve of this kind of demonstration must be out of their mind.”
Charles Blow, in his New York Times op-ed notes:
“The California Legislature passed, and Reagan signed, the Mulford Act, which banned the open carry of firearms in the state. The N.R.A. supported the measure. The bill’s author, Don Mulford, said at the time, ‘We’ve got to protect society from nuts with guns.’…
…And the verdict in the Rittenhouse case is only likely to encourage more vigilantes, those who want to keep or impose “order,” those irked by the idea that disorder could flow from injustice, those who don’t want to see streets filled with people demanding equity.
The great threat, and real possibility, is that there are other Rittenhouses out there — young men who watched this verdict and saw how the right has embraced and celebrated a murderer, and now want to follow his lead.
The worst thing for America would be that this case becomes exemplar and precursor.”
LET’S BE CLEAR ON THE THREAT TO DEMOCRACY
I love my more conservative friends. They generally have thoughtful, reasoned, compassionate, and practical ways of looking at issues. Many of their core values and mine are not all that far apart. I suspect the biggest disagreement is not what we want but how we get there. There was a time when the conservative movement was one of big ideas actively debated by smart people. Now, its ideas have been hollowed out to one of mere obstructionism and the pursuit of power.
One can paint it any way you want but those days of the right debating big ideas are (at least now) over. The Republican party is the party of Trumpism—an extreme populism that eschews experts, data, and facts. The majority of its House delegation will not publicly concede the loss of the last Presidential election. It is a party that owes its sole fealty to Donald Trump, a man of no moral character, little intellectual curiosity, and no ideological foundation—a man who has cheated, sexually assaulted, and manipulated others for his own financial advantage for years. He is unabashedly a man who plays by his own rules, which are essentially no rules at all.
It is insulting and demeaning to those who support more traditionally conservative principles—and those who believe the Biden administration needs to do better—to hide behind the mantra “you just don’t like Trump because of how he acts or what he says.” This preoccupation with forgiving his horrific, offensive, childish commentary from this “leader” detracts from the conscious, deliberate effort he and his supporters pursued to overturn a valid election, doing everything in their power to deny the vote of the people, lying about it, and “doubling down” on these lies to bend the system so that, in the next election, Republican-controlled legislatures—and not the people—may well determine the result.
Before we can debate issues we must first have a functioning democracy. Once we can ensure that the vote of the people is as fair and is certified through unbiased means, we then can talk about policy concerns. Hopefully both parties will pull back from their extreme wings and start legislating again—which means accepting some of what one wants, at the risk of allowing the other party some of what they are trying to achieve. Neither is 100% right nor 100% wrong.
Need I remind members of the Republican party that in 2020, for the first time since John C. Fremont accepted the nomination in 1856, there was no party platform. The “platform” was unqualified support for Mr. Trump, his great policies and his even greater wisdom.
Have a good day,
Glenn
From the archives: