I don’t care as much about gun legislation as a lot of liberals. The reason is simple: guns kill about 25,000 people each year in the United States. Income inequality and the recession kill a lot more than that. For example, a Harvard Medical School study found that lack of health insurance caused as many as 44,789 deaths per year in the United States. I tend to think that studies like this under-estimate the problem. But you get the idea.
Having said this, I still think we should do something. In particular, I am a big advocate for nationwide gun purchase waiting periods. But there are lots of other things that might be helpful that I think we should do. One would be a ban on assault weapon imports to this country. This is something that President Obama could do by executive action. And it looks like he is planning to do this.
These are minor things. This is not going to door to door and confiscating guns. But that doesn’t mean that the freaks are not going crazy at the very thought that there might be fewer assault weapons imported into the country. Case in point: James Yeager. He is the CEO of Tactical Response, and he said, “I am not fucking putting up with this; I am not letting my country be ruled by a dictator; I’m not letting anybody take my guns. If it goes one inch further, I’m going to start killing people.” Here’s The Young Turks on it with the original clip and follow up (which wasn’t the last—see below):
One inch further? It isn’t surprising that Yeager got a little push back on this. But what I find interesting is how a guy that yells at his wife can end up in jail for a “terrorist threat,” but someone like Yeager only gets his gun permit suspended. Why does nothing happen to Ted Nugent when he threatens the President of the United States? I think it is because our leaders only have backbone when it comes to going after the powerless. Ted Nugent and James Yeager are not powerless, so: boys will be boys!
Make no mistake: people like Yeager are effective. They have managed to allow us to have some of the most ridiculous gun laws in the western world. But I’m curious to see what Obama presents tomorrow. Because as we’ve seen, loudmouth assholes like James Yeager are nothing but paper tigers. Threaten to take away their gun permits and they purr like kittens. And that is very clear in Yeager’s third video:
Your point that inequality kills more people than gun legislation is spot-on (oh, I’m so BBC there. Care for a biscuit with your bangers and mash?) It’s killed people I give a shit about. I remember trying to watch the HBO "John Adams" series (I like history, I like Paul Giamatti) and just being unable to finish it. The drama was "will America get founded? Tune in next week!" And my response was "America’s killed people I give a shit about, I really don’t care if it gets founded or not."
The liberals I know (and love) who want gun control don’t really just want gun control; they want an end to gun culture, to psychotic nutbags like this Yeager and the racist, batshit, conspiracy-theory nonsense they hear from their dumber relatives and observe convincing millions of anti-establishment rebels to vote for Republican banker-backers.
They want, in short, for poor white people to join their cause. As poor people of any stripe should. My liberal friends hope that just legislating stupidity out of existence will turn rednecks to the side of angels.
As we see, however, it’s not that simple. Guns represent something more than having guns, and something more than violent fantasies of defending one’s nation (most gun lovers hate quite a few of their fellow citizens, anyhoo.)
I don’t quite know how to put this. It’s complicated. I guess my best shot is to say that gun lovers are passionate about all the wrong things, and that while their passion is misguided the intensity of it is not.
If we really cared about stemming massacres, it wouldn’t be too hard. Don’t fart around with background checks and bullet clips. Just ban the sale and manufacture of ammunition that goes into assault rifles. (Those rifles are out there anyway, and properly cared for, they’ll last for 100 years.) Only allow ammo that’s used to shoot game animals. A shotgun is far better than a handgun or rifle for home defense . . . etc, etc, these are very old arguments.
No. There’s more to this than I’m able to express right now. It’s more than racism, and more than disenfranchised white folk being misled to blame their declining social status on Liberals, instead of the outsourcing and union-busting that truly fucked them over. That stuff’s huge, and maybe most of it, but there’s more. Americans traditionally adjust rather quickly to paradigm shifts; we are nothing if not incredibly eager to jump at any opportunity which might make us money, previously adulated standards be damned.
I can’t believe I’m saying this (I must be channeling Andrea from earlier in the day) but I think the gun nuts and red-staters have something more to their core. If I don’t quite grasp what it is, and why they don’t realize it to be utter balderdash, that might be because they don’t, either.
@JMF – I think the guns are a symptom. I don’t think that getting rid of guns or folding on abortion is going to cause a bunch of conservatives to turn liberal. There is something fundamental that these conservatives don’t like about liberalism, and it isn’t any particular issue.
There is a standard notion of what makes people conservative and what makes people liberal. liberals are supposedly ruled by communitarianism and egalitarianism. Conservatives are supposedly ruled by individualism and hierarchicalism. Well, I can see how the liberal processes work together. But the conservatism processes? I don’t think so. I tend to go back to John Dean’s book on authoritarian leaders and followers. I think they are fucked up.
I also think that throwing in "individualism" with conservatives is a bone thrown by liberal scientists who just don’t want to think that deep down, all conservatives are Nazis. But I’m afraid it’s true–especially now, but even going back centuries.
If I weren’t tired, I might be nicer. But really: Nazis. That’s about right.
They seem to have a love for cruelty, for its’ own sake. No matter whom or how many it harms. Maybe because cruelty feels individual? That being a mean-spirited jackass is some kind of revolt against HR departments and democratic legislation? I guess, in a way, worshipping cruelty seems kinda badass, rather mano-y-mano. Yet most who adulate it get their fix from legislation and listening to screaming media blowhards, as actual face-to-face cruelty is difficult to do.
I might have been overstating the worth of gun nuts; I grew up around these sorts of people, and while I disagree with them on everything, I’d like to think they have a core which is worthwhile. Same sentiment towards fundamentalists (often the two varieties mix.) Could be, however, that no reconciliation is possible. In which case, I’d be scared shitless; there are way more of them than us.
@JMF – According to Dean, when authoritarians learn about these tendencies, they can change. I guess this is because even authoritarians know that being an authoritarian is a bad thing.
Speaking of screaming media blowhards: it is really interesting how these shows work as a kind of primal scream therapy. I think they appeal to men who have a rage on but don’t have any socially acceptable outlet for it. I share this with them, but for me it is despair.
Weird, the Nazi’s banned all firearms possession and sale before they started the Final Act of their big show titled free labour for pure white blood :) Just tired and probably not so nice. Liberals would rather use "intellect" and Zoloft to help them build the end to the local abortion clinic in their garage late at night :)