The regulations range from new restrictions on high-powered pistols to gun storage requirements. Chief among them is a renewed effort to keep guns out of the hands of people who are mentally unstable or have been convicted of domestic abuse.... Aside from these issues, some gun rights advocates have also raised concerns about upcoming ATF rules that would require gun dealers to report gun thefts, provide gun storage and safety devices, and place restrictions on high-powered pistols, among other things.'High-powered' pistols? I'm guessing this means pistols powerful enough to overcome Level III ballistic armor, or possibly even IIIA. The same logic would seem to require us to ban all rifles. However, these handguns aren't going to be fielded by professional criminals in any numbers. They just aren't well suited to crime.
Consider the Ruger Vaquero, which is a single-action cowboy gun like the ones Colt used to make back in the 19th century except for the incorporation of modern safety features, such as those designed to prevent accidental discharges. It's perhaps the least likely firearm in the world to cause accidental harm.
It's a firearm almost uniquely unsuited to crime. It only holds six rounds. It's extremely slow to reload as you have to reload each round one by one. Not only does it only fire one round per pull of the trigger, you have to manually cock the hammer before it will fire even that one round. I favor it because, if you're riding a horse and get thrown, or a motorcycle and are involved in a wreck, it's physically impossible for it to fire on impact.
Can it defeat body armor? Well, it depends on the ammunition you put in it. Because it's made out of modern cold-rolled steel, and because it is built strong and sturdy for safety reasons, it can handle very high pressures. Thus, it can fire +P or even +P+ ammunition in the magnum ranges.
If you really wanted to overcome body armor with it, you can buy these cartridges. Almost no one does, even among the relatively small part of the gun-owning community that shoots .45 Long Colt (as opposed to the very common .45 Automatic Colt Pistol, a much smaller and less powerful cartridge made for semiautomatic handguns). This round is hard cast and features +P force. It is designed for penetration.
Should we ban the ammunition, then? Well, no. It's not designed for anti-personnel use, you see. It has far too much penetration to be of much good against a human target. All that force will pass through the body and be wasted on the other side. Body armor or not, it's not very likely to kill a man because it won't dump much energy inside his body and it won't expand in his body.
What this ammunition is designed for is the biggest of North American big game. I own some because I take my family hiking in bear country -- I'm just about to go out to Wyoming, where one encounters grizzly bear and moose (who are even more aggressive than grizzlies).
Usually gun-control advocates go after cheaply made firearms that will blow up in your hand, but whose cheapness means that they can be found in large quantities in America's poorer neighborhoods. Or they go after firearms that fire rapidly, or that have large quantities of ammunition before they must be reloaded. Or they go after firearms that are regularly used by criminals, or at least in theory are particularly suited to criminal activity.
This class of firearms would seem to me to be the least likely class to satisfy any of those requirements. Who came up with this idea?
30 comments:
It doesn't have to make sense. It's a step toward gun control, nothing else.
Eric Hines
Just another one of the thousand cuts.
I think at this point, the control of ANY firearm is seen as a victory. The actual danger posed by any given weapon (either potentially or historically) is irrelevant. Yes, you are far more likely in this country to be murdered by a blunt object than a rifle, but it is far easier to talk the uneducated into agreeing to a ban of "military style weapons" (which invokes the image of machine guns and other fully automatic weapons) than it is to talk them into banning "rifles" (which is a word that tends to invoke hunting weapons). My own mother thought an "assault weapon ban" was a fine thing, because she believed it was ridiculous for anyone to own a weapon with a "cyclic rate of fire of 800 rounds per minute". Yes, that IS in fact the cyclic rate of fire of a semi-automatic AR-15. But, as I explained to her, that is the mechanical tolerance of the weapon, not the actual "rate of fire" as you would expect (which is closer to a maximum of 12-15 rounds per minute). In fact, the term "semi-automatic" in her mind meant a spray of bullets. I'll not say she was convinced of the stupidity of the ban after that information, but she certainly was willing to concede that she had been misinformed (possibly intentionally) by other ban supporters.
The hard core ideologues want to ban all firearms. And they get very frustrated by those of us unwilling to play along and surrender our rights to make them feel safer. As such, and knowing that they are losing the fight on both the legal front and public opinion, they are desperate for any wins they can get whatsoever. So they will lie and mislead the uninformed ("nobody needs a gun capable of penetrating body armor except criminals!" sounds reasonable if you know nothing about guns) in order to achieve what wins they can get. Your favored revolver is just an innocent victim of their fear mongering.
("nobody needs a gun capable of penetrating body armor except criminals!" sounds reasonable if you know nothing about guns)
It also sounds reasonable if you're ignorant of fundamental rights. It doesn't matter what you think I need a weapon--of any sort--for; it doesn't matter what government thinks my need is. It's nobody's call but my own. Full stop.
For much of that ignorance, I blame our failed education system and our failed parents.
Eric Hines
Perhaps "need" isn't the word I should have used there. "Has" is more like what they claim. In other words, they present the argument for restriction that the only reason ANYONE would own such a weapon is for a criminal enterprise and there is no legitimate reason for a non-criminal to have that weapon. It's false, and stupid (once you understand weapons) but it's their claim.
Personally, it is my belief that the right to bear arms DOES include military weapons up to (and yes... including) nuclear weapons. Why? Because there was literally no weapon at the time of the Constitution's writing actually forbidden to the people. None. In fact, the majority of cannons in the States at the time were privately owned. "But that's crazy! Letting anyone have a nuclear weapon!??!" Yes, even that. Why? Because it takes the resources of a nation-state to make one. And I figure that any nation-state willing to sell it to a private citizen has enough faith in that citizen to justify the sale. More likely no one would ever sell it to him. Bill Gates or Warren Buffet could potentially afford one, but who would sell it to them? And what would they really do with it? They're certainly not going to hold up a liquor store with it, or even hold Manhattan hostage. They have far too much to lose to do something crazy like that.
Con to private citizens possessing nuclear weapons: They have far too much to lose to do something crazy like that. You're assuming more rationality than necessarily exists.
Pro to private citizens possessing nuclear weapons: a major part of the rationale for the 2nd Amendment was for the citizenry to be able to defend themselves against a rogue, or even merely overweening, government. In order to have a reasonable chance of success in self defense, it's necessary to be at least as well armed as the threat.
I lean toward the Pro, by quite a lot. the right of the people to keep and bear Arms. There's nothing in there, no caveat, that says Arms of which government approves. Which you've already said.
Regarding "need" versus "has," I got your point in the original. It's a distinction without meaning in this context, I think, because those arguing to determine what we should have are presuming to determine our need for us. Nobody gets to determine that for me.
Eric Hines
Why? Because it takes the resources of a nation-state to make one.
That's a contingent fact that might not hold true as we improve in technology. Probably at some point we will have to revisit the question of what reasonable limits must be imposed on private possession of weapon technologies -- perhaps even of government possession of them.
Given the proper materials, I suspect I could fashion a workable uranium gun style bomb (ala Little Boy) for you. The technology is not that complicated. It's getting the proper materials that is hard.
Probably at some point we will have to revisit the question of what reasonable limits must be imposed on private possession of weapon technologies
Why? Why should the Sovereign not have all the weapons and weapon technologies he needs or wants? Aside from that, how do you enforce such limits?
Given the proper materials
Indeed. Making a nuclear bomb is high school physics. The hard part is getting the raw material input, getting and operating the centrifuges, and getting and operating the metal machining equipment. That's just money.
Eric Hines
The point is, it may be a lot less money in the future.
Why should the Sovereign have any weapons or weapon technologies? To help create a space in the world in which liberties can flourish. Why should he not have all that he wants? So that he never becomes too powerful to be replaced.
We kind of fell down on that principle during the Cold War, out of a contingent necessity. But contingencies don't last forever. Imagine, for example, that you could invent a kind of self-replicating drone that would find and destroy weaponized anthrax or smallpox anywhere in the world. Wouldn't that be a good thing? There may be some weapons we'd be better off without.
There's a limit to that principle too, of course, which is that it's been broadly beneficial to all humanity for the USA to be nuclear-armed. But it's not obvious that it would be beneficial for everyone to be nuclear-armed. Weakening the sovereign too much -- say we could eliminate not just smallpox but nukes and gunpowder -- and you get a world of bandit-kings. The sovereign must have some arms. Yet the second principle remains important.
Who or what is the Sovereign, in your argument?
Eric Hines
I mean the term roughly as Hobbes meant it. Usually when people invoke it with a capital-S like that they're referring to The Leviathan's concept of a necessary Sovereign. Like most Americans, I think Hobbes errs in believing that a Sovereign of that kind is better even than anarchy, let alone the best we can do.
Greetings, Grim, let me introduce myself. I'm Eric Hines.
The Sovereign, under our social compact, is We the People. And we need no more restrictions on our suite of private weaponry than our Constitution provides. Least of all do we need any more restrictions applied by our hireling government.
Eric Hines
The Sovereign as you describe him has an ontological problem, then: he doesn't exist. :) There's no such entity as "We, the People." There's only we, a bunch of people, who individually probably shouldn't all have nukes and smallpox. When we act in concert via our government, the government has a kind of existence -- but you're ultimately empowering particular individuals in government positions, control of whom then becomes an overarching priority.
Thus, the ideal situation is a government that cannot resist the united will of its people. That's how we got Magna Carta, after all.
who individually probably shouldn't all have nukes
Based on what theory? Because the ideal situation is a government that cannot resist the united will of its people means we need to be at least as well armed as our hireling.
We the People (no comma, as our Constitution puts it) do exist certainly do exist, both as a group, who established and ratified our Constitution, and individually. I can look around my neighborhood and see a broad subset of that People.
What's your limiting principle? If we're not to be allowed nukes, what else are we not to be allowed? Why?
Eric Hines
The group doesn't exist in the same way that the individuals do. There's a sense in which the group exists -- we can see 'a group' of people, by which we mean we see individuals in proximity to each other. Where is the group? The individuals are really there, and each has a will. The group can kind of be said to have a will, in the sense that they can deliberate and come to an agreement. Ultimately, though, for that 'group will' to be realized some individuals have deploy their individual wills to do the work of carrying it out.
When it comes to bearing arms, "the group" can't bear them. Ultimately it's one guy up there in the fighter plane with his hand on the trigger. It's two guys in the nuke silo with keys to turn (or at least it was when War Games was made).
So it doesn't make sense to say that "we" are capable of being a Sovereign of the type who can choose how to use our weapons in accord with common will. It's going to be individuals who make the choices, according at last to their own individual wills. We have to think about how to get them to take seriously willing as an individual to do what we've agreed to as a group.
What's your limiting principle? If we're not to be allowed nukes, what else are we not to be allowed? Why?
This is an Aristotelian ideal: the proper place is finding the right balance between two contraries, rather than going as far as you can toward a limit. The contraries are anarchy/conquest and tyranny. The precise balance can change as circumstances change.
During the Cold War, we needed nukes because they were the only way of resisting tyranny effectively. That wasn't true a hundred years earlier, when nukes didn't exist. It may not be true in the future, when other technologies we don't have now may exist.
The state needs to be as well armed as necessary to prevent anarchy without enabling tyranny. It needs to be strong enough to resist conquest without being so strong that its own people can't bring it to heel or replace it. Exactly what that looks like depends on the technological picture.
It's going to be individuals who make the choices, according at last to their own individual wills.
That's just the noise of (republican) democracy. I have no fear of that.
[T]he proper place is finding the right balance between two contraries, rather than going as far as you can toward a limit.
Perhaps, but you can't find the balance without knowing the limits. It's certainly true that times will change the balance region, but the limits will change with the same times, and the new region will be unknowable without knowing the new limits.
...without being so strong that its own people can't bring it to heel or replace it.
Again, that requires the people to be as well armed as the government that's gotten out of hand. As the colonials were a couple hundred years ago. How long would a modern rebellion last, with 300 million armed Americans (as some memes suggest) fighting with their small arms against armor- and aircraft-laden government redcoats? Much less nukes.
Eric Hines
How long did the Iraq War last? How long did the Afghans fight against the Soviet Union, themselves, and then us? As Tyler Durden says, "A fight will go on as long as it has to."
That's just the noise of (republican) democracy. I have no fear of that.
I'm not talking about noise. I'm talking about ontology. The Sovereign you describe has no will. There's an analog to a will in agreement. But what happens if the person entrusted with the power doesn't use their will to fulfill the agreement? Their will really exists. "Ours" is just words on paper that they're free to ignore. We've seen enough of that these last few years.
What can be done about it? Something. But it's not a signal/noise problem. It's a problem about the things that really exist in the sense that they can act, and the things that we only talk about as if they existed.
With better matched forces, or as we like to fight, if it's not a fair fight--because we have the weaponry--the fight doesn't need to drag on all those years.
The group, even one as large as We the People, has its will. It just takes a bit for it to coalesce. And our social compact, in addition to giving us all the weaponry we want or need--we want or need, not government, or Liberals--gives us a number of mechanisms with which to bring the one in power to heel. And we've been doing that for the last three elections as well as building the base from which to do that for several elections into the future. That's also a struggle that drags on for lots of years, but along some dimensions it's less costly.
It is noise and signal. And the signal favors us, so long as we keep our weaponry.
Eric Hines
The group, even one as large as We the People, has its will. It just takes a bit for it to coalesce.
See, that's what I mean. This isn't a will, not really -- you're making an analogy to a will. Your will doesn't coalesce, it decides and acts.
What you're talking about is the spreading of consensus, of larger number of people coming to agree to take individual actions.
The reason this is important is that you initially began asking why there should be limits on the Sovereign's access to arms. There isn't really a Sovereign on this model at all. Therefore, those with access to arms will not be the Sovereign, but some individuals. The Sovereign who could hold special rights turns out not, in fact, to exist in the real world at all.
A couple of errors here. Last one first: no one is suggesting special rights for the Sovereign. These are normal, and innate rights.
You're also conflating instantaneous with time to develop. The deciding and acting take time to occur--take time to coalesce and then act. Any team is a collection of individuals. Any collection of individuals, whether a trained team or coalescing into a common enough decision, is in our case an extant entity. We the People, for instance. The collected individual decisions is the group's will. And action.
Eric Hines
So, if I have five dogs, and I train them to hunt as a pack, does that mean there are now six entities -- the five dogs, and the pack? Can the pack decide to do something without the dogs deciding to do it? Can the pack accomplish anything without one of the dogs accomplishing it?
Leaving aside the critical detail that dogs aren't men, sure. It's not any one of the five dogs, or all five of them, bringing down the buffalo, it's the pack, which is the collection of them working in concert. It's the collective decision of the five to do so.
Eric Hines
So, if the pack is separate from the dogs, and one dog dies, presumably the pack remains -- still focused on that buffalo, in spite of one having been knocked dead by its hooves? Instead of six entities chasing the buffalo, we still have five?
We're getting pretty close to "Ghost in the Machine" stuff here now. Is the spirit driving the body, or does the body act in concert with the spirit? Eric's point (to my reading) seems to be that individuals act, but when their efforts combine into a group (which I could read as team, family, state, nation or any other grouping) and act in concert, then it is the group acting, not merely the collection of individuals. I'd go a step further and say this is what allows a coherent, trained army to soundly defeat a pack of warriors. "An Army eats, sleeps, fights as a team. The bastards who write about individuality for the Saturday Evening Post know no more about real fighting than they do about fornicating."
I take that part of the point, Mike. There's a problem with anthropomorphizing the "entity" that is the collective.
Obviously the point about the pack is that it seems as if this new entity continues to exist if we lose one of its members. So, in principle any of the members is disposable without the loss of the pack. But then what if we lose another? Well, four dogs is still a pack. And so it seems as if more than one loss does not destroy the entity.
So what if the last dog dies? We've only lost one dog at a time, and it seems as if the loss of any one dog doesn't harm the entity. But now we have to expect the pack of no dogs to bring down the buffalo.
If we say 'it's the pack, and not the individual dogs, that brings down the buffalo,' what we mean is that individuals who work together are more successful than individuals who do not. It's a mistake to think that the pack is a separate entity, though. There's no pack that is going to bring down the buffalo. There's just a bunch of dogs. They may not be able to do it unless they work together, but they're the ones who have to do it if it is going to get done.
...it seems as if this new entity continues to exist if we lose one of its members. So, in principle any of the members is disposable without the loss of the pack. ...it seems as if the loss of any one dog doesn't harm the entity.
What new entity? That's your argument, not mine. Whence your disposability--what makes you think the whole is unharmed by the loss of a part of it?
And, pack of no dogs to bring down the buffalo. What pack would that be?
Now, off this side track, which has gotten ridiculous, and back to the main: if we're to be denied nukes, what other weaponry should we be denied, and why?
Eric Hines
I'm relieved to discover that you find the ideas ridiculous, because they clearly are. Good that you repudiate them. You will need to reformulate your positions above, however, on just what the Sovereign is and whether or not it exists, or has a will, in the same way as its members.
But that can wait for another day.
...back to the main: if we're to be denied nukes, what other weaponry should we be denied, and why?
This question has already been answered, I think, but perhaps the answer is not clear. Weapons serve a purpose. We need them on the one hand to avoid anarchy or conquest; we need them on the other hand to avoid tyranny. So we aren't to be denied nukes in principle: I've already said that it was necessary during the Cold War to possess them.
No, you're still straying down your side track. Mike's question (as I read it) and mine was since you want to deny us as individuals possession of nukes, what other weaponry would you deny us, and (my addendum) why?
Eric Hines
Mike's reasoning was that nukes were too expensive for anyone to actually purchase, excepting a few who presumably have too much to lose to actually use one. I was just pointing out that the expense is contingent: it could be, with advances in manufacturing technology, that we could someday enrich enough uranium for a nuke fairly cheaply.
So it's easy to specify categories of people, even our fellow citizens, we wouldn't want to have access to nukes -- say that guard at the Islamic Center in Boston who was plotting to behead the police (or his fellow mosque-goers, the ones who blew up the Boston Marathon).
We can accept the harm such people can do with firearms on the grounds that firearms can only do a limited amount of harm. Even if you are suicidal in your devotion to murdering your fellow citizens for some cause, you probably won't kill more than about thirty people before we isolate you and kill you (or you kill yourself to avoid capture).
Nukes are a different story. The amount of harm they can cause is effectively unlimited, assuming that building and stockpiling enough of them is affordable (as it was during the Cold War only for us and the USSR).
No one wisely accepts a wager of a limited gain (however great) against an infinite loss. If we are guided by a principle of balancing the harm of conquest/anarchy versus the harm of tyranny, this seems to commit us to the extremes and makes the center impossible to hold.
That's why. You can work out the "what else?" from the principle.
Post a Comment