How Gun Rights Harm the Rule of Law
Second Amendment activists are redefining the public sphere, and with it, American democracy.
Polls show that gun owners cite self-protection as the primary reason they are armed. Their intentions are generally good and admirable. The gun-rights movement has done a great job making the argument for individuals to be armed to protect themselves and their families in their own homes. What if you are faced with a menacing home intruder and police are far away? In that situation, it makes good sense to be armed.
But there is an unfortunate lesson playing out for those who have armed themselves to feel saferand for all of us, too. The gun-rights movement has worked hard to push an increasingly radical agenda that undermines both our personal safety and our civic fabric. To that extent, there is something almost tragic occurring here: The well-meaning citizens who arm themselves in droves, perhaps even in public, are in that very process threatening the peace and order they seek to preserve, and claim to uphold.
Stand Your Ground laws are a prime example. These laws, which the NRA has championed in almost two-dozen states, are a logical extension of gun rights from the private home into the public sphere. What good is it to carry a gun in public if you are not also legally protected when using it in self-defenseor perceived self-defense? How are guns supposed to deter criminals if gun owners are legally hindered from wielding their weapons? Stand Your Ground removes these legal barriers so that people can better protect themselves.
But this also has social consequences. Thanks to Stand Your Ground, citizens must now fear their armed neighbors in addition to prospective criminals. What if someone who spies you walking down the street thinks you look suspicious? What if you become a target for would-be George Zimmermans? Or what if the man you argue with, or potentially insult or offend, even unintentionally, is armed and irascibleand the argument escalates?
The Secret History of Guns
The latter possibility was chillingly illustrated in a movie theater in Tampa last year, when retired police captain Curtis Reeves shot and killed Chad Oulson after the two had argued, and Oulson threw popcorn in Reeves face. Reeves initially invoked Stand Your Ground, claiming he did not know if Oulson meant him bodily harm. Floridas Stand Your Ground law protects gun owners if they so much as sense the threat of bodily harm. In the darkened movie theater, Reeves said he could not tell the nature of his assailants weaponhe didnt know that Oulson was only throwing popcorn. In a Stand Your Ground society, it makes sense to suspect your neighborand fear the worst.
The gun-rights movement claims it is a staunch defender of the peace, contributing to and bolstering law and order. As gun rights are currently advanced, nothing could be further from the truth.
Increasingly, gun-rights advocates like National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre offer dystopian warnings to make their case. In November, LaPierre wrote a letter to NRA membersfittingly entitled Is Chaos at our Door?outlining this vision. [T]he world that surrounds us is growing more dangerous all the time, he warned. Whether its enemy state actors, foreign terrorists, Mexican drug cartels or domestic criminals, the threats Americans face are massiveand growing. He invoked massive terrorist attacks like those in Mumbai in 2008 or Kenya in 2013, hordes of armed and violent gangs that are embedded coast to coast, and an influx of illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds. LaPierre complained that the government had detained and then intentionally released 36,000 illegal aliens with criminal records. Where all these released criminals went, he wrote, no one knows. But you can bet on this: Theyre among us, embedded throughout our society. For all you know, you pass them in your car on your way to work.
LaPierres argument for being armed boils down to this: Americans are on the verge ofor already sinking intoa state of anarchy, where it is each man for himself. In that state, the government cantor wontprotect youOnly you can protect you, he warns.
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How Gun Rights Harm the Rule of Law