Are Gun advocates really a bunch of crazies?
It’s easy for gun
control supporters to dismiss gun
advocates as Neanderthal, paranoid, reactionaries. But with 60% of Americans supporting gun
ownership and even opposing bans on assault weapons, it seems that we who
oppose guns need to try to understand, not just revile, gun advocates.
While gun opponents see guns as both symbol and device for
violence and mayhem, gun advocates see them as symbol and device for protection
and defense. But what is it that they
feel such fervent need to protect and defend? The first thought is that they
are seeking personal safety against bad guys and second perhaps protection
against forces of tyranny of some dystonic future government. But there is more to it than that.
Pause for a minute to consider a deeper philosophic
foundation for the pro-gun point of view.
At essence it is not about guns themselves. Though most can not articulate the basis for
their belief system, listening carefully will reveal that these people are
those who mistrust or flat out reject society in which Government operates to
manage society through assertive social engineering. To them, the specter of government
having the power to impose social
programs that control individual lives in the name of “the good” of the people
give rise to visions of Orwells 1984, Brave New World, Communism, and for a
more contemporary example the dystopia seen in the Hunger Games.
To these people, Social engineering is a form of tyranny, a
dictatorship that no matter how benign or humanistic its intent, is
nevertheless, a death blow to freedom.
And what’s more, they feel that social engineering ultimately fails,
becomes an end unto itself, and the individual is lost in the mass-think of a
“well managed society.
To these “libertarians,” restricting guns is unacceptable,
even though all gun advocates agree that guns can be used for evil purposes by
criminals, and by the mentally ill.
Restricting guns is the most repressive of all social engineering
actions by government, because an unarmed citizenry can not respond if the
social engineering becomes totalitarian, even though accomplished in a
democracy.
Paranoid you say?
Can’t happen you cry? The Gun
supporters believe that it has happened time an again in societies, most
notably in Nazi and Communist movements, when they took control of Governments. Beyond that, many Americans feel that our own
Federal government has already taken on too much social engineering; too much
taxing, too many regulations ranging from helmets for motor cycle riders, seat
belts for everyone, an now Obama care attempting to provide a social plan for
health insurance for everyone, even the lazy and indigent. In short, they claim, that the only way to
preserve liberty, it to protect the capacity for the citizens to rebel against
an over controlling government… and they believe that rebellion must be, in
extremis, is with weapon.
What’s worse, these latter day libertarians (even
anarchists) believe that these social engineering program ultimately fail… they
lead to abuses, corruption in the short term, to loss of individual
responsibility and ultimately to collapse of society. They point to the war against drugs, the
prohibition of drinking to deal with the thousands of drunk driving deaths, they point to burgeoning numbers on food stamps and entitlements out of control.
We who think that gun advocacy is nuts, need to understand the real issue being fought over. The question is this. Can social engineering for the good of society end up leading to goverment over regulation and a loss of personal freedom, a totalitarianism of government over its citizens. If you see the danger here, you can have a meaningful conversation with the second admentment extremeists and the gun freedom advocates.
