Commenter Archive

I'm not following you. My point was only that Heller probably isn't the watershed for gun rights its occasionally portrayed as, nothing more. Most intelligent gun owners have already caught on to that.

That there's no principled distinction between a 'hunting' weapon and an 'assault style' weapon was explored pretty thoroughly on the other thread. I also don't see what the proposed handgun trade in program would accomplish.

Our media does a very bad job at analyzing the experience in other countries. It trumpets the success of the measures in Australia and the UK without ever acknowledging the fact that these were countries that never had gun violence problems comparable to the US to begin with. They also seem to conveniently miss the stories you periodically see about how easy it remains to obtain an illegal firearm in major British cities. There was a story I recall from a few years ago where a British gun smith was converting replicas with relative ease then selling them for a few hundred pounds on the street.

I was mostly with you until you brought the NRA into it. They have powerful influence on the hill but I don't think it has much to do with why sales spike or even why it's a cultural issue. Sales spike because people who see firearm ownership as a right are worried it's about to be taken away or greatly restricted. GCAs may in some instances pay lip service to the right to bear arms but I think it's clear that most don't really believe it or are so ignorant about firearms and related policy that their intentions don't really matter.

The problem is a trust deficit. I've said before that their are new restrictions I'd be willing to live with but I find it impossible to distinguish between GCAs who really believe there's an important political right at stake and those who see every regulation as a means of frustrating the exercise of a right that they don't believe anyone should actually have. I mean, would you say NARAL's cavalier attitude about the poorly run abortion clinics that are out there is somehow related to the pro choice movement's hostility to new regulation on clinics that provide abortions? I think you'd rightly say such a claim is absurd.

It doesn't need to overturn itself. Scalia's opinion leaves plenty of room for all manner of burdensome regulations. I think Heller was probably a high water mark for the 2nd Amendment in constitutional jurisprudence that can ultimately be read very narrowly (i.e. the state cannot completely ban possession of handguns for self defense in one's own home). The real fight will always be in state legislatures.

No idea what the police can or can't access in the street but when Maryland law changed and I got my HQL I had to identify a regulated firearm purchased under the old regime to be grandfathered out of the training requirements. That supports the assertion that there is some list out there, though I'd imagine it's kept by the state police. I share your worries that whatever it is could easily be abused.

Who knows what will happen over the next two years but I wonder how history books will look at Brexit. Western democracies are suffering from a crisis of legitimacy due to decades of serving the elites at the expense of everyone else. I'd be surprised if voters dont find more ways to send the establishment the middle finger here and in Europe in the near future. Maybe this is the first piece of good news Donald Trump has had in the last couple weeks.

I don't think it's that weird at this point. After 8 years of Obama it's been made crystal clear that Democratic opposition to Bush era security policies was purely opportunistic and unprincipled.

@kazzy a little late to the party but I'd sign on to that.

I hadn't heard of Alex Jones before but I just looked him up. I do not in any way subscribe to those types of conspiracy theories. That said I don't think the two issues are unrelated. We could list numerous factors that have gotten us where we are with the police. The biggest ones in my opinion have been legal (chipping away at the 4th Amendment in the name of fighting the drug war, LEO bill of rights, qualified immunity, deferential judges, etc.) but there are also a lot of cultural attitudes in play.

I think many progressives are quick to identify the dominant conservative narrative of the police as Jack Bauer or other fictional characters, bravely crossing the lines for the greater good as the silliness that it is. What I think urbane, middle class progressives (the types most interested in more gun laws) fail to identify is their own weird cultural view of law enforcement. It's one where the police act as a sort of separate species of citizen, doing the type of dirty work and handling moral quandaries about use of force that they would never do themselves, but which they absolutely rely on. Both views in my mind are equally pernicious and have helped get us to a place where the police are corrupt at a systemic level, regardless of how many good cops are out there.

This comment is just plain blind to history. There are numerous examples of black people exercising their second amendment rights to protect themselves from racist vigilantes and violent crime when the authorities couldn't be counted on to do so. The fact that there are a lot of conservatives out there who support gun rights but also believe that the way law enforcement is currently undertaken in poor, minority communities is justified is not an argument for curtailing rights. I mean, where do you think the hammer will really fall with the creation of new criminal laws related to firearms? I'm pretty sure it won't be on those who the armed agents of the state already treat with kid gloves for fear that they might one day demand greater accountability.

Now I agree that a lot of the stuff coming from certain political corners about resisting the government is fantastical hogwash and any government will always have a substantial advantage in arms and the means to do violence. However there's nothing liberal about pretending that providing the government as it currently exists with a monopoly on arms would be an unmitigated good. Jaybird's point as I understand it is perfectly reasonable in this context. It's not about some bullshit ultra-right fantasy where a bunch of Clint Eastwoods defeat a corrupt government with AR-15s and glocks. It's about whether or not you want everyone forced to rely on institutions that protect people like these officers to maintain order, and whether or not it's reasonable to believe they can be trusted to use their power in a manner that is fair and just for everyone.

@kazzy and that's exactly why I think the debate is so intractable. The way I try to present my perspective to people who disagree with me is to compare it to abortion. When conservative politicians talk about safety regulations on abortion clinics those, including myself, who are pro-choice are rightly suspicious of what the intent really is.

One thing that I think your waive the magic wand hypothetical needs to include for it to be something I'd consider would be equally large scale disarmament of law enforcement and maybe even to some degree the military. There's something very ironic to me about watching Obama's calls for gun control as though the chief executive of our government has any sort of moral standing to solemnly condemn armed violence.

What you're saying is in many respects true. In addition to what Oscar said, another issue is being able to wield the weapon effectively. Rifles built for bringing down large game are typically bigger, heavier, and, in my experience, take more practice to be able to use effectively. They are not built for defending yourself from an assailant in close quarters.

I think you have to keep in mind what getting unreasonable would look like in this country. We aren't only talking about regulating here, we'd be creating a new series of criminal offenses and incarcerating even more people. I see no reason to think that repeal of the 2nd Amendment and replacement with a large number of new criminal offenses wouldn't play itself out along the same class and racial lines our current criminal justice system does, replete with violence and new reasons to curb civil liberties.

The types of gun control proposals out there I think put far too much faith in well-meaning legislation and take too little consideration of what law enforcement actually looks like in America. In addition to putting the guy on the corner of the ghetto who sells weed because there arent many other options in jail we'd now be adding the single mother who keeps a firearm in her nightstand because she lives in a bad part of town where the cops won't come, even if they're called. Much like prohibition if drugs we're trying to treat the symptom (gun violence) instead of the cause (generational poverty and economic exclusion).

I will say I'd be open to certain new regulations (I am a firearm owner) but I think that the gun control crowd is largely arguing in bad faith. It makes it very hard to compromise.

The probation report I think is the big missing fact in the discussions I've seen of the case. The sentence was consistent with that recommendation which, as I understand it, was based at least in some part on statements made by the victim during her interview which seemed to oppose substantial jail time.

I still see plenty of room to disagree with the sentence and criticize the arbitrariness of the system but it provides important context for why the judge sentenced the way he did.

Changing the subject is exactly the point of the accusation. You don't even need to be an anti-Zionist to wonder why it's in the interest of American citizens for our government to give cover for Israel's construction projects in the West Bank.

I think that sentiment is well intentioned and see utility in it to a point. It'd be impossible to try to address the racial disparities in this country without listening to the people who are most often victims of them. However youre also assuming that black people arent just as capable as everyone else of holding irrational fears or other misconceptions about where threats lie.

You're absolutely right about where they got it from. Whenever this topic comes up, as frustrating as I find the college kids themselves, I think the real culprits are the people who raised them to be both so afraid and so narcissistic. The administrators who cater to it are just doing what all the other authority figures in their lives have always done.

Maybe it's just those memories of seeing self proclaimed members of the KKK brawling it out on Jerry Springer back in the 90s but I had a similar reaction to the IU story. Given the reality of what the Klan is now I struggle to see how anyone could see those few remaining adherents as anything other than absurd.

I don't endorse any conspiracy theories either but I do think this idea of learned helplessness doesn't serve anyone well except those with power. Why people who claim to speak for the marginalized are so eager to play into narratives of fear and danger is baffling to me.

I'm sure they'll start policing their side for anti-semitism the same day the Israel can do no wrong side starts policing their own for making spurious accusations of anti-semitism to stifle legitimate policy debate. That is to say, never.

I actually think that, absent a major and unforeseen shift in how America views it's relationship with Israel, this will not hurt either Cuomo or Schumer much politically (if at all) on any stage.

I can certainly see why that would alienate people, and I agree that endorsing anti-semitic conspiracy theories rightly undermines the credibility of any organization. That said, and I hate to play the BSDI card, but I do think there is a quickness from the establishment and pro-Israeli colonization/annexation crowd (do not read this as Jews, I just mean mainstream politicians and media regardless of religion or ethnicity) to treat any questions about American policy towards Israel as anti-semitism which I think is similarly unhelpful. Of course its the latter who hold the cards in the media and mainstream political discourse and shape the debate for most citizens who, again, don't care that much, and therefore accept the status quo. Meanwhile we continue to provide military, economic, and political support to another Middle-Eastern country whose policies (like Saudi Arabia's and Egypt's) create instability and resentment that periodically manifests in blowback towards the United States.

I think it's less culture war and more establishment versus various left wing and libertarian groups who are largely outside of normal partisan allegiances. The vast majority of Americans I'd imagine don't know and/or care enough about the issue. That's really the only way I could see this backfiring on Cuomo, is if it makes more people take notice and realize how (trying to chose my words carefully) unhealthy our relationship is with Israel. More likely though I think it will just reinforce the self imposed restrictions our media and polity have on discussing the issue.

I think you're probably right that doing nothing may have been politically impossible but I think that point dodges the issue. I mean, where did bin Laden come from? Oh yea, that other civil war in the 80s where we fed weapons to a bunch of fanatics because they were the enemy of our enemy's friend (and ultimately our enemy himself). That intervention laid the seeds for our current intervention which with mission creep has become a 15 year long nation building project that the supposed beneficiaries of probably don't even want and is certainly going to fail.

At some point we have to break the chain and stop going in. Maybe that won't work out either or will come with other tough moral quandaries but let's not pretend that we've actually tried it and that such a position has any real establishment political support. Even Obama who was advertised as smarter than this has given God knows how many weapons to God knows who in Syria. When one of those people uses those weapons and training against Americans in some capacity will it be cause for another intervention? As always, it will be politically impossible not to intervene. And do it again and again and again.

I call BS on the equivocation of a preference for intervention with a preference for non intervention. Maybe that would make sense if we lived in a country that had largely stayed out of other people's business but it isn't. The history of post-war American foreign policy is messy interventions in simmering civil wars and messy ethnic disputes in the developing world. The morality of a given intervention may vary somewhat but the result has always been to set the stage for reprisals and mass killing by the victorious side. More often than not one intervention lays the seeds for the next crisis which naturally will require yet another intervention.

The Rwanda situation is an outlier only because we did not intervene. However, given the results in places like Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan there is no reason to think that American military force would have resulted in a better long term outcome. Instead of this type of hand-wringing we should try to be more humble and grapple with the limitations of what military force can achieve, not stage a make-believe debate in the establishment press before sending in the war machines.

If people are really going to give up the value of a degree from Yale over something like this then I'd say they've lost perspective but that's of course their right. My answer to their argument is if you want to study, say, black literature, then take a black literature course. Maybe even major in African American Studies. If this was 30 or 40 years ago and that wasn't an option I would see your point but we now live in a world where programs focused on women and various minority groups are widely available. Overall I think that's a good thing.

What I don't think is a good thing is demanding that a traditional program be repurposed, not for pedagogical reasons, but to validate currently prevailing political views on campus. Like I said to Alan above, I don't think they're asking to be challenged or to expand the canon. If that were the case then I would be agreeing with them. What they're asking is for someone to tell them that everything they already know is true and that all information is presented through the lense of intersectionality, regardless of relevance. I mean, are we really at a point where we expect a class about literature written in a European language by Europeans in Europe to focus on non-European perspectives? I'm not saying there should never be a class on that subject but that's a different course than the one being discussed.