#367 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Thursday June 2)
Good morning,
POLITICAL WILL
Sixty-six years ago, young Senator John F. Kennedy wrote the classic Profiles in Courage, the story of eight Senators who displayed acts of political bravery in taking stands either unpopular or detrimental to their careers.
[Sidenote #1: There are many who believe Ted Sorenson, long-time Kennedy aid, actually wrote the volume and deserves the Pulitzer that Kennedy received.]
[Sidenote #2: There are those who believe who malign the book because it contained the stories of Senators who were all white males. That said, this is a retrospective of Senators of the 19th and early 20th centuries—when they all were white males…]
When 9/11 occurred, there was the political will to throw almost everything at it to reduce future terrorism, knowing many ideas would not work out. For the most part, we agreed this was a problem worth addressing and that the “kitchen sink” method made sense.
The gun debate shines a bright light on the problem we have today, in that there are few people with the courage to take principled positions on this corrosive, devastating issue. The mantra continues to be that there is little one can do—that the issue isn’t the proliferation of guns (where Americans own 4x the number of guns per capita of the second place “winner” amongst developed nations).
There are three horrific trends undermining our legislators’ inability to pass any meaningful restriction on guns, which are at play with so many other issues that challenge us:
· Money makes the (political) world go round. The gun lobby has our legislature bought and paid for. This same problem exists with meaningful health care reform, competition among drug manufacturers, inability to pass logical tax reform, well, the list is long…
· A multi-year effort by conservative “strict constructionists” or “textualists,” who have created a school of constitutional interpretation in order to further ideological objectives, largely the product of The Federalist Society, has won. We have a court that has rewritten the second amendment to mean, notwithstanding its qualifying clauses to the contrary, that all guns are permitted all the time (concealed, openly carried) by seemingly everyone, regardless of who it is, whether they are trained in their safe use, etc. Query, if the Founders had known of the existence of cars, would they similarly have had an amendment so broad, in order to ensure the people’s right to travel without impediment of safety restrictions?
· The pandering of the Republican Party to the most extreme segments of its electoral bloc. Gone are the days when legislators actually cogitate and legislate over issues. Now, public relations handlers do polling and focus groups in order to direct politicians toward the necessary messaging to feed upon the periodic prejudices and passions of their target audience.
THE MONEY PROBLEM
Dana Gordon articulates the money problem, which ensures that the financial “votes” of special interests trump the votes of a majority of citizens in an election:
· This group of elected senators WILL NOT pass any gun legislation. Republican governors and state legislators won't pass gun legislation.
· This Supreme Court will not place any limits on guns.
· When corporations stop making donations to pro-gun legislators things will change.
· When people vote for gun sense candidates, we will see change.
· As long as these pro-gun zealots stay in office and get millions in campaign donations from corporations and citizens, nothing will change.
· Follow the money.
· Same thing for abortion. The women who need abortions aren’t funding the campaigns, so legislators don't care about reproductive justice.
HOW CAN WE GET BEHIND SOMETHING TOGETHER?
I don’t usually quote people at length, but Ben VandeBunt addresses the political reality and the political calculus that many of the more reasonable members of our political elite go through, better than I ever could.
“…Politicians otherwise smart enough to know we have a challenge with gun related shootings — especially at schools — cannot simultaneously address the mass shooting issue in good faith and remain employed (much less advance their careers).
The environment is toxic. NIH funding on ideas to lessen mass shooting has been defunded. Perennial losing candidates — Beto comes to mind — will grandstand and seek attention on the issue, knowing the only likely beneficiary of this approach is himself.
Albert Einstein said if he had one hour to solve a problem, he would spend the first 50 minutes trying to ask the right questions. We all agree we have a gun violence problem that we have to address. To ask the right questions, we need to acknowledge we have a Constitution that protects the rights of gun owners, hundreds of millions of guns already owned by law abiding citizens (and some non law abiding folks) and an extraordinary public safety issue with gun violence.
Given all this, what are the right questions to ask? If we started by building consensus on the questions to ask, we could create the political will to begin addressing the problem. If we go back to pointing fingers and tired old grand standing, things will keep getting worse.”
THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
So what are a few good questions? Here are a few:
· How many guns are enough to be stored in a single residence, in order to provide the owner with the necessary sense of security (and firepower)?
· Is it unreasonable to require trigger locks or “smart guns”?
· What is an appropriate amount of ammunition that can be sold to a single individual in a single year?
· Why is it reasonable to require periodic driving tests for motor vehicles but not for gun ownership and continued possession?
· Why shouldn’t a shopping center or business be able to refuse to allow people who are armed on their premises? Remember that many of the same people who say businesses can’t deny entry to armed individuals also say these same businesses should have the right to deny services to gay people (remember the bakery refusing to provide a cake for a gay wedding?)
· As Steve Fishman notes, what is so difficult about requiring background checks for all gun sales, whether at stores, gun shows, or between individuals? And what is so unreasonable about periodic continuing education and re-licensing? What about requiring three people certifying to the character of the purchaser?
· And as Steve also asks, what is the argument for not banning assault weapons and military-style weapons that can’t possibly be justified for personal safety or hunting?
GUNS AS AN INDICATION OF POLITICAL POSITIONING
There is a group of Republicans who have decided that the open display of their love for guns will engender support amongst their constituents. It is worth seeking out the campaign commercial of a clearly unnatural Dr. Oz skeet-shooting, a man who made his money furthering questionable “cures.” This is worth a read on how buying into the gun culture is a way for Republicans to get votes:
More Than 100 G.O.P. Midterm Ads This Year: Guns, Guns, Guns
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/us/politics/republicans-campaign-guns.html?referringSource=articleShare
THE MOST LOGICAL RESPONSE TO THE “GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE” ARGUMENT
From Ken Millman: My response to the argument “guns don’t kill people—people do” –People with guns kill people
We have lots of guns owned by a lot of people, of varying levels of experience and education. Some, after being fired up by a conspiracy-laden on-line screed, some in a moment of depressed desperation, some angry with a significant other, will reach for a gun and use it. We can’t “harden” every site in America. We can harden our political resolve to “ask the right questions” and move toward reasonable legislation that addresses this scourge.
In closing, Brad Mindlin forwarded the compilation of the “front page” The Onion has published after each of 21 recent mass murders, an article entitled “No Way to Prevent This Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens”: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/onion-mass-shooting-story-no-way-prevent-this-uvalde. A relevant excerpt: “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said Idaho resident Kathy Miller, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations.”
Have a great day,
Glenn
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