Vox.
I reached out to Stephen Gutowski, the founder of TheReload.com and a longtime reporter on the gun beat, for the latest episode of Vox Conversations. Gutowski is pro-gun, but he’s also a good-faith voice in this space, and I was looking for someone who could make his side of the argument intelligible to people who don’t understand it.
We talk about my own ambivalence on this issue, the blind spots on the left and right, how he makes sense of America’s obsession with guns, and if he thinks we can ever find a way out of the scorched-earth debate we seem to be stuck in.
Notice the term categorization and scorched earth policies the writer uses right up front. Only someone who is willing to compromise is debating in “good faith.” Second, anyone who likes to shoot, for hunting, or sporting purposes like three-gun, two-gun, precision rifle, or simply range shooting, has an “obsession with guns.” Or anyone who believes that all gun control laws are an infringement upon liberties is obsessed.
Next in our little survey of this conversation, “pro-gun” Stephen Gutowski makes the following statement.
I think that there’s often a lack of focus on trying to come up with real solutions for gun violence. [The gun-control movement is] often looked at instinctively as attempts to restrict gun ownership or gun rights. But restricting gun ownership is not the only thing you can do to address gun violence. So there’s just not enough focus from the right on all the potential solutions that might make a difference without necessarily impacting individual gun rights.
Take note. Restricting gun ownership isn’t the only thing you can do to address violent, and also take careful note that in order to be a legitimate and good faith advocate for gun rights, you must engage a debate about things you can do to reduce violence. Much more on that in a moment. Next, the “pro-gun rights” guys says this.
The president likes to say that no amendment is unlimited, and, frankly, he’s right there.
Next up, here’s that time-honored tradition of asserting that a piece of metal can change human psychology.
How much training is enough? I’m a veteran; I was trained to use a pistol and a rifle, but that was 20 years ago. I’ve barely fired any guns since I left the service. I don’t think I’m prepared to walk around town with a gun on my hip. And that’s not because I can’t shoot, it’s because possessing a gun can change the dynamics of an otherwise trivial confrontation and not being prepared for that responsibility is dangerous, and I worry that most people have even less training than I do.
[ … ]
My worry is that having a gun increases the likelihood that a bad interaction will escalate needlessly. There are a lot of people who think they’ll be safer with a gun, and in some cases, they surely will be, but often pulling a gun in order to neutralize a situation only intensifies it.
Sure, a potential rape victim is only intensifying the situation if she pulls a gun.
To give you an example, I was in the grocery store a few weeks ago in southern Mississippi, and there was a guy in line in front of me with a 9-millimeter on his hip. I’ll be charitable and say he didn’t look trained. But the point is that I don’t get what’s going on there. Carrying a concealed gun is one thing, but this guy wanted everyone to see it. To me that’s inviting aggression or it’s just dumb posturing. I don’t buy that he’s seriously scared of being assaulted in the produce aisle.
What am I missing here?
Let me explain what you’re missing here, and then the reader can go read the rest of this silly conversation as he wishes.
When people make the decision to carry and take it seriously, as one might have car insurance or health insurance or life insurance, or carry an emergency suction device for choking victims (I read just recently about a child who was choking on her food and saved by a stranger who just happens to carry such a device as part of their planning for emergencies), they are making the decision to be disciplined about it.
That means carrying even when you don’t like it. I hate carrying things on my person. I don’t wear jewelry, I don’t wear watches, and even hate carrying my phone around and won’t do it if I don’t have to.
But in this case, I will carry a firearm because of [we’ll call it] “The practice of discipline.” For those who are in that category, they may just hate to carry IWB. It sweats the weapon and corrodes it, it’s uncomfortable, and it’s unnecessary. No, we’re not trying to prove something. It’s just the way we choose to carry. And finally, there was a time in American history when it was considered unlike a gentleman to carry a weapon concealed. No gentleman, it was thought, would conceal his weapons. Open carry was the order of the day. And it’s easier for men to conceal than women. Men can hide weapons in our girth. It’s much more difficult for most women to do that.
So let’s get the root of the problem here. The constitution isn’t a source of rights. It is a contract and covenant. The bill of rights constitutes limitations on governmental overreach. The root of the problem is that no matter what these writers feel about the limitations on amendments, rights (and duties) come from the Almighty. We’ve discussed this before.
But if you wish for more direct evidence of ownership of weapons in the Scriptures, look no further than what Jesus commanded in Luke 22:36. Let’s look at the cultural context for a moment.
… for some evidence, see Digest 48.6.1: collecting weapons ‘beyond those customary for hunting or for a journey by land or sea’ is forbidden; 48.6.3.1 forbids a man ‘of full age’ appearing in public with a weapon (telum) (references and translation are from Mommsen 1985). See also Mommsen 1899: 564 n. 2; 657-58 n. 1; and Linderski 2007: 102-103 (though he cites only Mommsen). Other laws from the same context of the Digest sometimes cited in this regard are not as worthwhile for my purposes because they seem to be forbidding the possession of weapons with criminal intent. But for the outright forbidding of being armed while in public in Rome, see Cicero’s letter to his brother relating an incident in Rome in which a man, who is apparently falsely accused of plotting an assassination, is nonetheless arrested merely for having confessed to having been armed with a dagger while in the city: To Atticus, Letter 44 (II.24). See also Cicero, Philippics 5.6 (§17). Finally we may cite a letter that Synesius of Cyrene wrote to his brother, probably sometime around the year 400 ce. The brother had apparently questioned the legality of Synesius having his household produce weapons to defend themselves against marauding bands. Synesius points out that there are no Roman legions anywhere near for protection, but he seems reluctantly to admit that he is engaged in an illegal act (Letter 107; for English trans., see Fitzgerald 1926).
In this passage, Jesus is quite literally ordering His disciples to ignore the Roman laws and disobey them, buy weapons, and be ready to use them. He is turning His disciples into lawbreakers for the sake of having self defense.
At its roots, these are issues of epistemology (your source of knowledge), ontology, and Biblical law. Neither author gets that. To assert that the only ones who are debating “in good faith” are the ones willing to compromise, is to assert that we should be willing to negotiate away God’s law and settle for enslavement rather than liberty. What God has granted, no man can take away. Why would a man choose enslavement when God has set him free?
And mark this down for your records. I had only been exposed to “The Reload” once before, and this time it is even more distasteful. I don’t consider him to be a legitimate defender of gun rights and will never cite him. Be careful, Mr. Gutowski, who you befriend.
As for having these debates, this is an ongoing process here on these pages. We just don’t compromise. If you believe that you have to compromise to have a debate, I don’t think you understand the word “debate” at all.