The now centuries-old issue of gun rights was this year resurfaced twice after ghastly crimes against human rights committed by individuals most brutally exposing and exploiting this lack of "trust" in government's powers to restrict their use to itself. Now I would ask, with a utilitarian viewpoint in mind, which country has the most restrictive and least liberal gun laws - Germany or the United States, and which has had the most "restrictive" and least "liberal" past? Now, you may call me for begging the question, or presenting the evidence of one fact as a premise for another, or simply dissuade the conclusion as a personal argument for guns. I don't own guns; I cannot recall I've ever fired one (the things we do for Dionysios) but as I said in an earlier post, the arguments of legislation must venture beyond the personal and personal desires, lest we are to venture down the boggy road towards totalitarianism. My quarrel with gun control would rather be that it doesn't ban guns, but rather restricts their use to the most prolific killer in history; the state.
Taking thus into account the potential history of dictatorship, genocide and state terrorism that never took place in Enlightenment republics such as the United States and Switzerland - or the hibernated Medieval monarchy Sweden, to be fair - countries conceived from the unity of an idea rather than a national group (or, the only worse alternative possible, many such's) I would claim that whereas a maniac with the hands on a gun and fertilizers may kill seven, or 28, or 69, or 178 people, the same lunatic with a gun monopoly could just as well, and have been known to cause the same outcome for millions. This fact is proven even today in states such as Syria and Sudan, governments of "trust", where all demanded for the continuation of the current state of affairs is the silent consent of its average property-citizen. The most common assault and murder weapon in Sweden is a sharp object, especially in the latter case a knife, yet we see no call for restrictions on knives - or fertilizers. Possibly because it would be, soothing or alarming, an impossibility as well as implausible. They're too bloody inescapable. Yet, Sweden has very liberal gun laws, and among the very highest guns-per-person quota of any country - Finland was third last time I checked - just no constitutional right to keep or wield them; not much unlike our constitutional right to free speech, which in 1999 saw a sudden, unhampered and ignominiously unfought setback when new anti-child pornography legislation was pushed through the Riksdag, legislation which not long ago saw a Swedish translator convicted for this ghastly offense for no other reason than possessing a few books with sexually suggestive images of children, possibly not even human, who don't exist and hence cannot be harmed by any culprit, no matter how unsound in his nature. Let me say that now, to reinforce my belief in my favorite amendment, which is sordidly overlooked because of its (overbroad, at least) infinitely more famous neighbor; the children in my head are not protected by any law I recognize, no more than Tarantino's characters are protected by American laws against violence and murder. Thank god - I mean James Madison and his conservative goons - for that.
But no - James Madison was not among the "conservative" of the delegation that drew up the Bill of Rights, the three words that (along with most of the other 17 amendments) have put in inerasable ink much of that which is good and sound and enlightened about the United States.
The cradle of the American Revolution is New England, and contrary to the opinion of the average European, and perhaps even the average American, this would be the place where "the right to keep and bear arms" (unless referring to "a keep" and "a pair of bear arms") is most restricted, which is not really true. I would claim Vermont to be, along with the least violent states of the union, the most gun-liberal (hence placing the orthodox US dichotomia of "conservative" versus "liberal" on its head), and until not long ago the only one where any person could carry in public a handgun (be it a UZI) without a license. "Vermont carry" is almost universally recognized as a desire for slacker legal control, and have during the last years seen triumph in Wyoming, Alaska and Arizona. With the exception of the latter state, now widely known for the shooting of Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords last year (who did actually favor the change, and publicly filed a letter denouncing notoriously crime-ridden Washington DC:s famously strict gun control laws) they are also known as among the safest in the US. There is a reason why "Vermont carry" has reached a certain progress, and why in these states (as I just explained). The homicide rate (including manslaughter) in 2010 in Vermont was 1,3 per 100,000 citizens, a steady rise from 0,3 in the 1960s. In Sweden, where the rate conversely has dropped for the last two decades, it is now slightly lower at 1,03 (sources here, here and here). If calling for Obama to introduce federal gun laws (as if the President had the power to enact laws, hence proving a certain ignorance in not only the US checks and balances, but also in the principles on which every democratic constitution is founded) is thence logical, then by that reason restrictions on the purchase of knives in all the free world would seem logical. Or they're just too bloody inescapable. Take into consideration then, again, that Sweden has among the more liberal gun laws in the world, yet a fairly low murder rate, hence mirroring Vermont's position.
They were long before these laws became reality, but the conclusion I would draw is this; violent offenders don't follow the laws, laws follows the events of the past. As for the issue of gun control, I believe it to be the perfect state issue, being one not explicitly delegated to federal authorities as stipulated in the tenth amendment. If Connecticut and Colorado so wish to pull the rein straighter, is perfectly understandable, not to say "necessary". I cannot imagine, in any case, the rights of "hunters and fishermen", the common proviso when suggesting a limitation on the seemingly unlimited right to bear arms, to be infringed in any near-forseeable future. The need to pull Alaskans, Vermonters and Wyomingans into it on account of "the need for action" seems far less warranted. Personally I can't really tell. I might be persuaded to give up my right to wield deadly force for that pledge from everyone else, but certainly not to one who insists upon keeping it for himself. Legislation grows out of the gunbarrel, based on violence or the threat of it, and to call on violence to be imposed to in potentia limit the onset of violence is indeed a dangerous remark. Still, it's a bit old-fashioned, don't you think? I'd say Jefferson got the hang of it rather correctly when designing the Virginia Constitution and this inspiring (for the later capital-C Constitution) passage; "No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms (within his own lands)." What lay within the parenthesis was subsequently omitted.
“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
― Robert A. HeinleinOr are they really? What do you think? = 7
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