BY Herschel Smith
8 years ago
David Codrea:
“Pro–gun control advocates mobilized and constructed an effective pro–gun control pressure group called the Emergency Committee for Gun Control,” Encycopedia.com documents. “The bipartisan organization was headed by Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr., a former astronaut and friend of Senator Robert Kennedy.”
The most significant federal legislation since the 1934 National Firearms Act, GCA ’68 “primarily focuses on regulating interstate commerce in firearms by generally prohibiting interstate firearms transfers except among licensed manufacturers, dealers and importers.” It also added marking requirements, denied guns to specific classes of “prohibited persons” and placed import restrictions on “non-sporting” weapons.
Make sure you read the comments as well. I’ve dealt with the sporting purposes test before, and I consider it to be one of the worst abominations ever to be enacted into law. It is certainly logically self referential and incoherent.
So I’m willing to grant that some men perform admirably when it comes to brave actions under duress, and John Glenn is one of them. But David is much kinder to John than I would have been, or will be. Bravery under duress while obeying orders is just that, and admirable depending upon the entire context. Bravery of the Nazi SS troops while herding Jews into train cars isn’t admirable, nor was their bravery on the field of battle fighting for the wrong cause.
Here is the better test. Rather than focus on what a man does while acting under orders and not in command, I’d rather know what he does when he is the one giving the orders. The later rather than the former is the true test of a man’s world view and his character. How does he treat others and how much does he respect their rights?
On that test, John Glenn failed, regardless of his prior bravery.
