Why The Sex Positive Community Should Care About Gun Rights
Many of the rights that protect our sexual freedom come from a broad reading of the Constitution. The right to abortion and privacy in the bedroom are not explicitly set out; they spring from interpreting the Constitution expansively.
When the news is full of shootings there is a cry, mostly from liberals like myself, for stricter gun control laws. This is a bad idea. To understand why, you need to read the Second Amendment to the US Constitution:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Intelligent people differ over the meaning of those 27 words. You can argue about the wisdom of including it in the first place, but that's not the point. The point is that it's there and we should read it with the same expansive interpretation we apply to the other amendments.
Somehow, we liberals have been convinced that there was a kinder, gentler time when the country wasn’t as violent as it is today. In that mythical time, owning a musket was fine, but owning the equivalent semi-automatic today is wrong. We’re effectively saying that we must return to traditional values and not allow people to own modern guns. We’re also saying that the mere fact of owning a gun somehow makes a law-abiding citizen into a danger to the rest of society. We demonize guns and those who stand up in support of their constitutional right to own them. We argue that the framers could not have anticipated semi-automatic handguns in the days of muskets, could not have known of drug violence in inner cities as if this somehow makes the taking of a right okay.
What does that have to do with sexual freedom, abortion and free speech, I hear you asking. The First Amendment says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
We fight long and hard against those who would have us believe in a mythical 1950s America free of pornography and noisy radicals. They say that reading erotica or the Anarchist Cookbook or the theory of evolution will somehow corrupt otherwise normal, law abiding citizens and turn them into rapists or terrorists. They say that being critical of an unpopular war is akin to treason. They say the framers never heard of Internet porn or cable TV as if this somehow makes the taking of a right okay.
The arguments are the same—it’s no different to assume that a consenting adult watching legal pornography will suddenly become a rapist than it is to assume that a legal gun owner will suddenly become a murderer. There have always been murderers and rapists and restricting speech or banning guns won’t change that.
When the government seeks to regulate what consenting adults can do in their own bedrooms we cry foul. Yet we fail to see that seeking to regulate what consenting adults do in their leisure time with legally-owned guns is just as insidious.
Similar parallels—perhaps even closer—can be drawn with the issue of abortion rights. The anti-gun forces who paint gun owners as murderers and the anti-choice forces who paint the the pro-choice community as baby-killers use the very same brush.
To interpret the Bill of Rights one way for speech, abortion, privacy and the right to own a vibrator but then suddenly want a strict constructionist view of the Second Amendment is hypocritical.
Worse, every time we argue that a ordinary citizen is corrupted by an idea or an object, we give ammunition to those who seek to restrict our access to ideas or objects because they disagree with their worldview.
[photo by Oleg Volk, used with permission]
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Comments
Well reasoned and thought
Well reasoned and thought provoking. BTW...I am a sex positive, liberal, gun owner.
Great post!
Finally people are getting it! RKBA (right to keep and bear arms) was just as important as the freedom of speech to the framers of our country. I just wish national organizations like the ACLU saw it that way.
Your rationale is excellent
I wish more people saw it this way. A broad interpretation of rights, including modernization (which covers gay marriage and semiautomatic weapons, as you so astutely pointed out), should logically be something most people are either for or against . I'm frustrated by the current tendencies to pick and choose which rights you want to defend (the ones you use) and which rights you want to take away (the ones the people you dislike use).
For the record, I'm sex positive, pro-gun ownership, and somewhere between liberal and libertarian, which for me usually boils down to voting Democratic and advocating for 2nd amendment rights and capitalism.
We call for gun control because we believe in the rule of law
Perhaps as a non-American, I can't understand your extreme connection to your constitution, so I can't understand why you cling to it so. Still, I would point out that it isn't because people believed the older days were safer, it is the complete opposite. A land where there was no reliable communication, where there were hostile native peoples, and where many lived outside the law needed militias and armed citizenry for protection. Modern times, when people should be under the protection of a police force run with a communication system that allows momentary response: These times doesn't need vigilanteism, and citizenry that wield weapons recklessly are more a harm to themselves than a protection to those they love.
Otherwise, though, under the system you outlined, it does make sense that attacking one area of the constitution while relying on it in another domain is counterproductive.
Trusting a police force can be deadly.
Your argument is as flawed as your trust in the benevolence of the police force.
In America, the courts have ruled time after time, that the police have no obligation to protect any individiual citizen. Instead, they are there to protect "the public", which is a generic concept that doesn't allow any person to sue the police for failure to rescue them from harm.
Further, police is just another word for government-sanctioned thug. The number of instances where a police officer abuses his authority to rape, steal, or commit other crimes are too numerous to count.
Combine this with a national average for 911 response times somewhere around 10-15 minutes, and you've got nothing stopping a criminal from spending the next 10-15 minutes beating, maiming, raping, and victimizing you in any way he can imagine until the cops show up to fill out their paperwork documenting your injuries.
To abdicate personal responsibility for your own safety is, in my mind, foolish in the extreme.
Naivity
Perhaps, as a non-American, you have never had to watch the seconds turn in to minutes or hours waiting for the police to arrive. Oh sure, the communications system is instantaneous, but the individuals running it are still very much human and prone to error. Furthermore, while the system may be instantaneous, the response time will most certainly not be unless nearest officer is in your living room when the bad guy kicks in your back door. It's a fact: no one can protect you in the moment that isn't already there. You know who is there? YOU ARE.
True: these times do not need vigilantism, but they absolutely require vigilance. Our nation has been desensitized by the repeated mantra of those who would control our freedoms that is "Call 911". Like I said before, those who believe that have never had to wait for an officer to respond in an emergency. And while a citizenry who would wield weapons carefully would most certainly be preferred over one who would wield weapons recklessly, a citizenry wielding weapons in any fashion is preferable to a disarmed citizenry.
And no, the answer is not more police.
Failure to understand US Law
I'm sorry, but our "Extreme" connection to our Constitution is simple, it's the Law of the Land. meaning that every law including treaties are subject to the Constitution. If a law violates it, then it is repealed. Granted in practice this doesn't always happen, and there are many laws on the books that should be repealed for this reason, but that is a different subject. You also have to understand the history of police forces, they weren't even allowed to carry weapons when they were first started in the US and UK, and were excepted to use ordinary civilians when the need arouse. this was due primarily to the fear of a standing military and that Habeas Corpus would be infringed on by said military. Guess what? they were right and pointed out by those above. On your point that citizenry that have firearms or other weapons for self defense, do more harm to themselves, how do they do that? Those that carry or have in their home weapons that are used to protect themselves are very proficient in the use and safety than most Police officers. And more often then not are able to stop a crime faster and more efficiently than the Police, and very rarely commit one.
It's not about corruption....
The problem with guns isn't that they make those with access to them more likely to have murderous impulses, it's that they make it easier to act on those impulses. Guns don't corrupt people into violence, but it's indisputable that they facilitate violence -- which is a whole different argument from the ones used against porn or unpopular political speech. And the problem with the anti-gun-control movement, especially the NRA is that it's effectively a trade association for gun manufacturers and retailers, thinly disguised as an advocacy organization for constitutional rights -- hence their reflexive opposition to any measure that could reduce the gun industry's profits, such as background checks or holding sellers (like criminal gun dealer and NRA Board Member Sanford "Sandy" Abrams of Baltimore's notorious Valley Gun) responsible when they knowingly or with willful ignorance supply guns to non-law-abiding citizens.
Gun Control
This is written in answer to Alex's comment that guns facilitate violence, and his targeting of one dealer in the Balto. area. As for myself, as a member of the NRA, I can assure you I am not a maker or retailer of guns or ammo.(retired St. employee, peon grade)There are many people who would claim that porn leads to rape or other forms of sex crimes. ( I'm not one of them,by the way) A reasonable person is no more likely to resort to violence because they own a gun than they are because they have a full rack of butcher knives. The fact remains that 2 to 3 MILLION crimes a year are stopped/prevented by an armed civilian, the vast magority without firing a shot.
as for Mr. Abrams, I am aware that his shop operated in the Baltimore area, a fairly high-crime city. How many of those "crime guns" were stolen from legimate purchasers in the area? Since all the sources of Alex's info are anti-gun organizations, I find it highly suspect. I am also aware of the past history of the BATFE, claiming paperwork violations for un-dotted "i's" or un-crossed "t"s, then attempting to revoke the dealer's licence. These tactics have been used all over the country. Add in the vulger, abusive treatment of dealers and gun-show operators during raids staged as "photo-ops" for the media, I find a very ugly pattern. The debacle at Waco with the Branch Davidians was just such a media event. David Koresh may have been a nasty individual, who liked to have sex with under age girls, but answer these questions; (A) Why was _that_(sex w/minors) the excuse that Janet Reno used for Federal intervention, when ATF was the agency involved? Child welfare, wether done well or badly, was the job of the State of Texas. and (B),Why not simply scoop Koresh up on his routine jog into Waco? They wanted a big raid, filmed on tape, for budgetary hearings before Congress, and went ahead even when the element of surprize was lost, _fulfilling_ thier Apocoliptical world-view.
I have left the most important part for last. I assume the folks who read this blog are concerned with up-holding Civil Rights. Another historic truth is that the birthplace of gun control is in Jim Crow. In almost every instance, laws passed to prohibit possesion of firearms were only meant to be used against minorities, blacks especially. Our Founding Dads wrote the 2nd Amendment not to _give_ us a right, but to recognize a pre-existing right( God given, if you will), of a free people. They also realized that the system they had created could be corrupted in the future, and that revolution is very difficult if unarmed. To those who will say what can a rag-tag bunch of civilians with smallarms do against the most powerful military in the world..... ever hear of the Viet Cong? Rant mode off.
"...especially the NRA is
"...especially the NRA is that it's effectively a trade association for gun manufacturers and retailers, thinly disguised as an advocacy organization for constitutional rights..."
You couldn't possibly be more wrong. Popular though the "evil, industry-front NRA" meme is in liberal communities, it's the polar opposite of the truth. There _is_ a gun-industry lobby group: the NSSF. You've never heard of it because the gun industry doesn't actually have a lot of spare money or political clout to lean on Washington with (guns are a much lower profit-margin industry than you may have been led to believe). The NRA, on the other hand, draws its political influence from four million American citizens who care about their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms, and draws almost all its funding from those ordinary people's membership dues.
Contrast this with the Brady Campaign, the Violence Policy Center, and all the other major gun-control organizations, which have few members (an estimated 50,000 between them) and draw most of their funds from individual wealthy donors and liberal advocacy organizations.
These facts alone don't make either side right or wrong. But they _do_ disprove the David-and-Goliath myth of the poor "common sense gun laws" advocate against the big, soulless corporate front organization. The reason you guys can't get hardcore gun restrictions passed is that millions of Americans don't want them.
EXCELLENT!
If all commentators, journalists, pundits and bloggers were as reasoned and as intelligent as this article is, how wonderfully sane our world would be! I personally do not own a gun, but I am a Bill of Rights absolutist and a believer that those same Bill of Rights are what has made the American expirement in Democracy so unique. I am not an "American exceptionlist", but I do believe that a broad intepretation of the Bill of Rights gives each American those freedoms that we sometimes take for granted in our daily lives and assume to be our birthright. Right now, there are four (and sometimes, five) Supreme Court Justices who believe otherwise, who have a literalist vision of personal freedom in America. In other words, if it isn't explicity written out in the original document that is our Constitution, or if Congress has not specifically legislated such freedoms into written law, then that freedom doesn't exist. That is a very dangerous philosophy to have when one is in the position to interpret the Constitution in a way that can affect generations of Americans. When you have four Supreme Court Justices who firmly believe that Rose v Wade or Brown V The Board of Education were wrongly decided, then you have a potential for The Supreme Court to rule against personal freedom, communal freedom and personal choices. Freedom requires broad interpretation, if not an open mind. Freedom, of course, does not mean anything goes. But, when citizens united in their shared Constitutional heritage understand that if they do no harm or violation to another citizen and respect their fellow citizens as they wish to be respected, then our Republic shall stand secure.
Who is this "we" you speak of?
As someone committed to both free sexual expression and gun control I have certainly never made any of the arguments you listed for supporting gun control. I have, however, argued that the operative phrase in the second amendment is"well-regulated militia." Given the Constitution was drafted to run a country in which ordinary, and frequently bedraggled, citizens took on the largest military in the world and won, it makes sense for the founders to have included a provision for a well-regulated citizen militia in the Bill of Rights, just as it makes sense for them to have prohibited the government from putting up troops in private residences as the British had done.
However, the founders didn't live in an era of drive-by shootings.
Other industrialized nations with much stricter gun laws have lower homicide and suicide rates than the US for the simple reason that the most efficient means to carry out those acts -- guns-- are less readily available. Take away the guns and you lower the murder rates. The evidence is solid on this point.
As for trying to create equivalence between the first and second amendments. Roeder didn't kill Dr. Tiller with a book, a magazine, a blog post, or even Bill O'Reilly's lies. He killed Dr. Tiller with a gun. Had a gun not been available, the killing would have been much more difficult to carry out. Not impossible, but more difficult. Guns make killing easy.
Finally, if you're a fan of the Constitution, then you recognize that the founders did not intend for it to be an unchanging document. They recognized the limits of their own foresight. That is why they created provisions for amending it. Were Madison alive today, I suspect he would see the logic in amending it once again.
evidence?
Where is this "evidence" that where gun removal lowers murder rates? Maybe in a prison setting? An amendment to the constitution outlawing all guns would not make guns disappear....that's just pure fantasy. In your fantasy, people didn't shoot from horseback or carriages (the original drive-by shootings). And this fantasy includes a modern-day benevolent government that never abuses power.
Or maybe you just want to live in a prison and dream instead of living.
Apples and oranges
The second amandment, unlike the first, has a qualifier - A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State
There are a bunch of very specific words used "Well regulated" "Millitia" "Security of a free state", As the qualifier has been substantially altered over the years, what does that do to the right - the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The right to bear arms was explicity linked to the need for a well requlated millitia, that link is no longer valid, the federal armed services , and/or state national gaurd have taken over "quartermaster" duties(they provide the troops the equipment they need, as opposed to the troops bringing their own equipment when summoned to duty).
Did the state and federal goverments have the right to nationalize/centralize the millitia? That's a very different constitutional question, many would say yes as it's covered by the "provide for the common defense" clause in the preamble.
The thing is, if you go down that road, the preamble also states that the federal goverment should "insure domestic tranquility". Nothing breaks domestic tranquility more than people shooting each other in the fracken streets.
As for your people using the abortion = murder argument, the 14th amendment explicity states a person is given rights at BIRTH(they must be born). Legal personhood is defined by birth, as zygotes/embroyos/fetouses have not been born, they are not people. As they are not people, aborting them is not murder. It really is that simple.
Caring About Gun Rights . . .
While I believe I understand what you're saying, I could not agree less . . . The NRA doesn't care about the Constitution. The NRA is soley interested in protecting the market for arms dealers. If you can fiigure out a way to make mega bucks from being a "sex positive community", then you MAY wish to care about gun rights -- but I sincerely advise againt it.