RE: Mass shootings/gun control
Although I am a conservative and a 2nd Amendment supporter (for now -- more on that below), I do have to say that IMO, arguments that "people need guns as a check on government power" and "people need guns to make sure they keep all their other rights" etc. just don't strike me as likely to be very persuasive to today's moderates, independents, overall masses, or even the smart & thoughtful liberals that post here and are willing to entertain good arguments.
I mean, don't get me wrong, it's historically accurate and definitely one of the reasons for the 2nd Amendment in the first place (hence the prefatory clause), but that was then and this is now. We are hardly any longer a new nation just out from under a long experience with tyranny (and with that tyrant still having troops on our doorstep, in Canada) and composed of disparate states who weren't all sure what the other states might want to do going forward. We're a completely mature, stable democracy now. Those arguments are so theoretical and there would have to be such a dystopian devolution for them to become relevant again that they're just going to be tuned out.
I think a -- perhaps the only -- winning modern argument for why regular people need access to guns is, frankly, for self-defense against other people with guns. Even people that don't own guns (that includes me) can understand that self-defense is a fundamental right. And also, I think that people intuitively understand that there is probably some connection, at least, between the general -- and substantial -- drop in crime rates over the past few decades (notwithstanding the rise in mass shootings, although those are simply insignificant as a statistical matter) and the general rise in guns in circulation. There has to be some deterrent effect at work.
But I think it's also time to admit that we don't need the absolutist "shall not be infringed" 2nd Amendment in order to preserve that fundamental right of self-defense. I'm for the Second Amendment being followed as long as it is in place -- I have only contempt for the progressive tactic of ludicrously redefining or outright ignoring democratically enacted words they don't like (see also: not enforcing immigration laws, abortion "rights"), because heaven forbid it should take time and effort to build consensus in a democracy -- but I'm definitely persuadable on the issue of repealing it. I don't think that repealing the 2nd Amendment would result, in our mature democracy, in banning and confiscation of all private guns or anything even close to that. Sure, some people would like to see that happen, but their crazy, emotion-laden appeals are also completely unpersuasive and will never appeal to anything close to a majority. I don't see our country ever coming to a consensus that acquiring a gun should be impossible or even close to it because, again, the right to self-defense is so fundamental. As a practical matter anyway, repeal of the 2nd Amendment would probably be politically possible only if it was coupled with a new amendment that still had robust (just not absolutist) language.
Bottom line, though, it just makes sense to me and obviously lots of other people that in the modern world one should have to take a class, pass a test, register, or whatever else, in order to have a firearm. So, I'm for doing that -- but only the right, honest way.
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