Here in Virginia the gun laws are pretty good. Let me qualify that by pointing out that I am speaking in relative terms. Neither the federal nor state constitution places any qualifiers or limiters on gun ownership. They simply admit that the existence of a militia, which our state constitution goes on to describe as the whole body of the people, is a necessity and therefore the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. These documents do not grant nor even claim to grant this right. They simply acknowledge its existence. End of story. Or it should be.
If you are a member of the body of the people you have the God given right to own as many firearms as you want and can afford and the right to do what you will with them as long as you infringe on no one else's rights. Simple. So, while in a constitutional sense the laws in Virginia are excessively intrusive, in the American Empire of the early 21st Century they're not bad. Creeping relativism at LRC!
We have what is called a "shall issue" concealed carry law. This means the state has to prove why you shouldn't get the permit in order to deny it rather than requiring you to prove why you should in order to get it. But we also have what is called the "restaurant ban." This means that concealed carry permit holders may not pack in restaurants where liquor is served. Because we are law abiding citizens we obey.
Now, no one wants to make his job any harder or more dangerous than it needs to be and your average criminal is no different. Armed citizens do both. And because the law looms so large in their chosen field most criminals are well aware of the "restaurant ban." Being sensible criminals they have realized that darkened restaurant parking lots are now prime hunting ground. Just a week or so back a 23 year old woman was grabbed in a restaurant parking lot and shot by two bad guys in one of the burbs close in to DC. Inexplicably the "restaurant ban" does not seem to have deterred the shooters.
Any good manager knows that if you subsidize behavior you will get more of it.
We subsidize welfare recipients to have illegitimate children by paying for them. They had more children. We subsidized Bill Clinton's abuse of power by giving him ever higher approval ratings. He became more abusive. If you are in the victimization business, being able to victimize people with no possibility that one of them will plug you is powerful incentive. So there will be more. Schools and churches are similarly restricted so the past is not difficult to interpret nor the future hard to predict.
Every once in a while a welcome chicken comes home to roost. In the Empire of America, individualists must be satisfied with little victories most of the time. So, even though I truly wish no one ill, I did laugh out loud last Friday when the Richmond Times Dispatch reported that an anti-Second Amendment state senator, we have them in the South too, was mugged at a cash machine. He chased the bad guys until it dawned on him that, "I didn't have a weapon, so I don't know what I'd have done if I caught them." I give the guy credit for having the stones to chase his attackers and I am happy he suffered no major injuries. But if his relatively harmless experience can illuminate a cartoon light bulb over some other collectivist anti-gunner's head it is a fair trade in my book.
Across the cultural divide in DC another pol is trying to make hay by infringing on our rights. As Gomer used to say, "Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!" John "War Hero" McCain, a loose cannon rolling around the deck of the ship of state if ever there was one, has teamed up with Joe "Conscience of the Senate" Lieberman to "close the gun show loophole." This is akin to solving the water buffalo problem in that neither really exists. About 2% of the guns used to commit crimes are purchased at gun shows. So what's the hubbub, Bub? I'm glad you asked.
McCain-Lieberman (has a nice, kind of 2004 ring to it, huh?) calls for seemingly reasonable three day background checks. What's wrong with that? We don't want felons to be buying guns, do we? The problem is that most gun shows are two days long, Saturday and Sunday. So the net effect would be to close down all gun shows by making it impossible for them to do business. The technology exists for instant background checks, we paid for it, but they don't want to use it. Why not? Because closing down all gun shows is the point. And I can understand their wish.
Gun shows are full of people like you and me. Good people. People who make their own way through their own efforts. People who don't trust the government. People who don't think someone should be able to take away their rights just because his plane was shot down thirty-five years ago. People who pretty much think the politicians should mind their own damn business just like we do. They hate us. They fear us. They hate the idea of a group of us getting together because they want each of to think he is alone and helpless. They fear us because we think, we gather and we are armed. And that is the real point. Add the fact that closing gun shows is one more attack on free enterprise as some tasty gravy poured on top.
Over the past few years, a lot of people have made the case for guns based on their deterrent effect on crime. John Lott in particular has done great and heroic work in this area. But as true as it is, it is also beside the point. The US and Virginia constitutions do not guarantee our right to bear arms so that we will not get mugged at the cash machine or assaulted in a restaurant parking lot or to ensure that we can snag a squirrel for the stew as desirable as those things might be. The purpose of the right to keep and bear arms is to keep the government in line. It is that simple. The founders wanted the body of the people to be capable in the 21st Century of doing what the militia did in the 18th, resist tyranny.
The Second Amendment and its local equivalents are there to prevent government confiscation of our money – through taxation, of our property – in the name of the environment, of our rights – "for the children" and of our children – in the name of "choice." That is what the McCain's and Lieberman's of the world cannot stand. Maybe they are so in love with their own voices that by now they actually believe their malarkey. Or maybe, and maybe more likely, they sold their souls so long ago that they live only to extend the power of the state and the breadth of their privilege. Personally, I don't care why they do it. I just know they aren't doing it to me without a fight.
May 18, 2001
