On Not Quite GETTING It…
There’s a guest post up on Blue Oregon called “The 2nd Amendment is for Progressives Too” by someone who self-describes as “a progressive libertarian, someone who used to be welcome in the Republican Party.” A promising headline, I suppose, but unfortunately the post itself displays a fundamental ignorance of the actual motivations underlying conservative critiques of gun control legislation.
After some obligatory paranoia (“He explained to me that if our freedoms are taken away, it will come from the right, not the left, and maybe progressives are the ones who should be a little paranoid.”), the author, Peter Hall, goes on to make some curious assertions about the point of the Second Amendment:
Our founding fathers understood this, and I believe the 2nd amendment was designed specifically to allow military style weapons in the hands of the public… it is clear to me that our founders were not thinking of hunting rifles when they wrote the amendment.
The Democratic Party has a major opportunity to make the West blue (with the exception of Utah, that religion thing). Truly embrace responsible gun ownership, and we take a big weapon away from the right wingers (lame pun intended). [emphasis added]
A couple of things, here:
First off, just what sort of weaponry does he imagine the founders were thinking of when the Second Amendment was written, if not “hunting rifles”? It’s not as if there was a whole lot of distinction between “military-style” weapons and firearms that might be used for hunting in the late 18th Century. Hall’s distinction seems arbitrary, to say the least.
Second, I’m not sure that someone who conceives of Second Amendment rights as something to be adopted solely for the purpose of “[taking] a big weapon away from the right-wingers” and “making the West blue” really quite “gets” it.
The Second Amendment is not a “wedge” issue. The right to keep and bear arms is a right guaranteed by the Constitution. It’s not about “blue” or “red”. Nevertheless, while Hall might be a bit misguided, I’m hesitant to be too hard on someone who wants to finally pull the Democrats closer to a position that respects the Second Amendment. That’s more than can be said about some of the people in his comments section, who have such perceptive things to say as:
“On a day where the newspaper talks about how we’re supposed to make a bunch of noise and wear bright orange clothes when we’re out hiking (thereby destroying the solitude and beauty) because hunters are accidentally killing people, a post celebrating guns.”
“One can responsibly use a gun about as easily as one can responsibly drive a tank down a sidewalk.”
“Europeans seem to manage to get by without personal arsenals. Perhaps the difference was explained by Michael Moore in “Sicko.” In France the government fears the people. In America the people fear the government. So what will they do with all their guns? There may come a day when some people wake up and realize they are under a fascist dictatorship and call for a charge on the barricades…”
“… when the NRA starts advocating for public education and living-wage jobs, and stops worrying that the gummit gonna take away their armor-piercing ammo, then we might be getting somewhere.”
It goes on in that vein. One can only help but feel that people with the sort of views as Mr. Hall have a long way to go before they can overcome the reflexive and frankly ignorant anti-gun reactions of their fellow “progressives”.
