Self Protection

Shirley Katz, a teacher in Oregon, is suing the school board for the right to carry a concealed handgun in the classroom. As you might guess, I am on her side.

Although she seems primarily to be making a point about the second amendment, there are some legitimate concerns with being unarmed:

"Our safety plan at our school now is that if somebody threatening comes in, you try to avoid eye contact, and do whatever they say, and that is not acceptable anymore," [Katz] said. Shootings at Virginia Tech University and the one-room Amish school in Pennsylvania, "reinforced my belief we have to take action, we can't just acquiesce as we have been taught to do."

Ms. Katz has a concealed weapons permit, which requires a certified gun safety course, and she practices regularly. The school board is, naturally, against this (why am I reminded of Dolores Umbridge?). According to a CNN broadcast, the Superintendent noted that guns are banned in "courthouses, private work places, airplanes, and sports arenas, so why should schools have a lower standard of safety?"

The argument is asinine, not least of all because two of those areas are readily distinguishable. First, private citizens may not be allowed to bring guns into courthouses, but courthouses are crawling with police officers or U.S. Marshals who have very visible guns. Second, firing a gun in a pressurized cabin poses risks far beyond just being caught in the line of fire (although following Sept 11 and even today I think that pilots should be trained in firearm safety and be allowed to carry a gun).

As for the rest of the Superintendent's argument: allowing teachers (properly permitted) to carry handguns in school will make students safer! Gang members and psychos don't heed the prohibition against guns, and that just leaves the law abiding population unprotected. It is more than reckless to put our heads in the sand against the dangers posed to children rather than trying to protect them. Why aren't we affording a higher level of safety to our children than we do to sports fans or private office workers?

Grassroots Mobilization

I'm up to my old tricks again, by which I mean posting about something that comes courtesy of Andrew Sullivan (who in turn got it courtesy the Political Science Weblog): It seems that grassroots mobilization campaigns increased voter turnout by 7%. I find this encouraging, even if the study specifically found that MoveOn.org and other lefty-loons to be effective.

First, I haven't had time to read the entire article, but I would guess that they do not provide data suggesting how that extra 7% voted. Although, the article did mention that both parties exceeded their voter turnout goals. Meaning, part of that 7% may well be folks who saw MoveOn doing its thing and though "uh oh, those hippy liberal pansies are mobilizing. I'd better get out and vote too!" (Please note that "hippy liberal pansies" were their words not mine. You don't believe me; I can tell). Similarly, some may have been folks who listened to people more of like mind with me and thought "uh oh, those gun nuts are coming out in full force, I'd better go vote!"

Second, I like to see grassroots work effective; it captures democracy to my mind. We have groups educating constituents about issues, and encouraging those constituents to vote, and they do! What is most exciting, is that grassroots seems to work even in high-stakes elections, where voter turnout would be higher anyway.

Finally this is encouraging because we "the little people" can have more of an impact at the grassroots level than anywhere else. I don't have enough money to hire a lobbyist to go to Congress and persuade Representatives to vote against gun control, for example. Even by joining the NRA and paying my dues, I am only barely participating. But I can spend a weekend or two as part of a grassroots campaign talking to "Ordinary People" about the value of self protection and encourage them to vote! Sure maybe the two or three people I get to vote may not have a substantially or statistically bigger impact than my $35 NRA membership dues, but it allows me to to control the message that I am sending. I'm not sure I know or would even agree with all the things said on behalf of my membership dues, but I do know what comes out of my mouth. Besides that, it allows me to participate actively in the political process, and encourage others to do the same.

I used the example of gun rights, but really I have another cause in mind. It shows me that I can tell people "Hey not all Republicans are homophobes" and "Hey, not all gays are liberals," and maybe, just maybe, they'll listen.

A response to a comment

Rather than let one conversation get lost in the comments section, I thought I'd create a new post to give it attention.

A reader (I like the idea of having readers!) asked me the following in a comment to this post, which I think is something of a response to this post:

I have a question ... and this is not meant to attack you in any way ... but on the matter of gun control, how do we define "arms" and determine who may possess them and in what ways they may be used? A nuclear bomb is a type of "arm." I definitely believe people should be able to bear arms, but where do we draw the line? Thanks for your response; I'm simply curious.

My response is probably unsatisfactory, but I will be honest (as I am shielded by the anonymity of the internet): the line drawing is tough. Certainly, when drafting the bill of rights, the writers did not conceive of the myriad of tools we humans would eventually devise in order to kill one another. Did the right to bear arms really only mean personal firearms such as rifle and pistols, or did it originally include the right to own a cannon? I'd be interested to know, but in the end I do not place much emphasis on original intent or textualism. Hopefully, as my link to the Becker-Posner blog might suggest, I am more of a legal pragmatist. With that in mind, let's see where it takes us.

As I hope is clear, I certainly support, indeed encourage, carrying a handgun for personal protection as well as protecting the home with a handgun, rifle, or shotgun. I don't see much of a distinction between a revolver and a 9mm semi-automatic. Nor is there much practical distinction between protecting your home or person with a handgun, a rifle or a shotgun. These weapons clearly fall along under "definite yes" column about the right to possess. Blah, blah, blah

On the other hand, should I have the right to possess a nuclear bomb? I don't want to say yes, but I don't want to say no either. I don't want to say yes because nuclear bombs are a weapon that has A LOT of collateral damage. If I set off a nuke to stop someone from beating me up, I have not only stopped the aggressor, but also killed hundreds or thousands of people. Silly example, but you get the idea. Certainly nukes are not in the weapon for personal protection category. But making "weapon for personal protection" the standard does not provide much more guidance.

I don't want to say no because of that bane of every law student, the slippery slope argument. How long would it take to move into the arena of the "definite yes" column from automatic weapons, and to automatic weapons from the type of heavy collateral risk weapons like a bomb? Further, I do not accept any national security/terrorism/24 argument for banning such weapons. The well funded and determined baddies are going to get their hands on what they want regardless of any possession laws.

Bottom line: I'm glad the line drawing is not my job.

Of Gays and Guns

While perusing the Independent Gay Forum, I found a reference to this Washington Post article. What specifically caught my eye was that one of the plaintiffs is Tom G. Palmer, whose blog I have listed in thing of interest to me right now. I have met Tom Palmer several times at policy-type conferences and found him to be one of the most articulate and intelligent men I have ever had the pleasure to listen to. The Washington Post article makes me admire him even more.

The article discusses the motivation behind the plaintiffs in a case to overturn DC's complete ban on guns (an article on the court ruling itself can be found here). The article on motivation states in pertinent part:

[Tom] Palmer, 50, said that his gun rescued him 25 years ago when he was approached by a group of men in San Jose. Palmer, who is gay, said he believed the men were targeting him because of his sexual orientation. He said he and a friend started to run away, but then he took action.

"I turned around and showed them the business side of my gun and told them if they took another step, I'd shoot," he said, adding that that ended the confrontation.

Palmer moved to the District in 1975 and lives in the U Street NW corridor, where police have struggled lately to curb assaults and other crimes. He said he considers it a fairly safe neighborhood, although his home was broken into once. He works as director of educational programs for the Cato Institute and travels to war-torn countries including Iraq.

He keeps a shotgun and several pistols stored in Colorado and Virginia. Guns have been used in his family for generations. "My mother always had two, and she kept one under her bed," Palmer said.

This got me to thinking. As Nick's mom pointed out (here), although homosexuality is more accepted today than ever before, homophobia has not been eradicated. Certainly, Tom Palmer's experience occurred 25 years ago, and it has been almost 10 years since Matthew Shepard's brutal murder; however, there are some areas in which being an openly gay man can be dangerous. Nick's mom didn't mention the Bible belt simply as a jab at the Theocrats. Both Nick and I are from the South, where being a proud member of a minority, especially a sexual minority, is at best a risky endeavor. It would seem that the collective experience of gays might make us wary to voluntarily give up, indeed support candidates who would require us to give up, the personal protection of a handgun. In fact, any member of a vulnerable minority living in a potentially hostile environment should be among the most fervent defenders of the right to carry handguns.


Apart even from the danger of violent homophobia, which I am confident will wane over time even in the Bible belt, I'd want to carry a gun. Assaults generally, not just those motivated by intolerance, are a danger and unpredictable. I could be a target for looking like my wallet has cash in it, for being in a store during a hold-up, or simply for being the first person a meth addict sees one day. If these dangers are enough to make me want to carry a handgun, the danger of violent homophobia would increase my need for protection, even if only marginally.

Of course less informed gun control advocates will argue if no one had guns, assaults wouldn't be a problem. My answer is assaults do not have to be with guns. Someone could threaten me with a baseball bat, a knife, or even a group of unarmed but physically imposing individuals. A gun is going to win those confrontation every time. When confronted with another gun, producing a weapon of my own creates a sort of mutually assured destruction that most of the time will make my would-be assailant prefer to back down and find an unarmed target. I know it's trite, but I earnestly believe that if guns are outlawed, outlaws will still have guns. ("gosh, I'd like to commit an armed robbery to support my crack habit, but dammit, I'm not allowed to carry a gun").

The slightly more informed gun control advocates will then point out that countries such as the UK and Japan have strict gun control laws and almost no violent crime. As for the UK, I would point to this (albeit dated) BBC article noting that in the two years following the ban on handgun, gun crimes rose by almost 40% (!). The article notes that smuggling guns into the UK is a problem, one we deal with in this country in regard to illegal narcotics. To be fair, the report did have an axe to grind: it was commissioned by the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Shooting. However, such studies cannot be discounted simply because they favor the positions of those who commission them. The numbers are apparently there, or else the Campaign wouldn't have released the study. And releasing a fraudulent study would be more damaging to their goals than releasing one that contradicted their positions.

Similarly, although Japan's gun control has been more successful, it has been at the cost of civil liberties that I think few in this country would find palatable, let alone appropriate. This article (also dated--it's hard to find current public domain studies to link to) notes in Part III that in order to enforce the gun possession laws, the Japanese Police are given broad search and seizure powers. According to the article:

In practice, the special law for weapons searches is not necessary, since the police routinely search at will. They ask suspicious characters to show them what is in their purse or sack. In the rare cases where a policeman's search (for a gun or any other contraband) is ruled illegal, it hardly matters; the Japanese courts permit the use of illegally seized evidence. [citations omitted].

Implementing a similar policy in the US would immediately raise very strong Fourth Amendment objections (let alone the Second Amendment).

Then, of course, there are the "concerned citizens" who note that an absence of gun would reduce accidental gun injuries and death. I agree that the concerned citizens have a valid argument, though I do not agree with their solution. I grew up in a house with guns, and my folks instilled in me from a very early age the seriousness of the tool. When I got old enough, my parents enrolled me into a gun safety class; one that stressed not only the necessity of having personal protection, but also the extreme danger of being careless with your gun. I think education rather than elimination is the better solution to accidental gun injury.

Do I practice what I preach? Sadly not. I do not carry or even own my own handgun. I spend most of my day in a school building, and it is therefore illegal for me to carry a gun. Leaving a gun in the car is an almost foolproof way to have your gun stolen, and leaving it at home offers as much protection as not having one at all. Finally, guns aren't cheap and I have not been able to afford one of my own yet. On the other hand, I do go to the shooting range on a semi-regular basis, and fully intend to buy a gun once I can afford it and it become a more useful tool than it is while I am in school. Remember, Tom Palmer was only 25 when his gun saved his life. I only hope that I can wait at least another year before I need my own.