In the wake of the Parkland massacre the usual arguments from the left, and the usual arguments from the right, but magnified, have continued, with President Trump leading with the suggestion of adding more guns to the fray. I addressed some of this following the heart-breaking Las Vegas massacre in which a man in a tower began shooting into a crowd attending a concert.
But it’s worth exploring Trump’s assertions, because while they might seem somewhat reasonable on first glance, upon reflection they’re really full of holes. Basically, he wants to give guns to some 20% of teachers in each school, and he’s focused our attention on his strawman, some “sicko” “cowardly”. And then they’ll be scared away.
But what about escalation? I’m actually thinking of two kinds here.
First, there’s our gunman. He’s gone out and bought himself body armor. This is going to be a problem for our heroic teachers, because body armor commonly covers the torso, and in gun training your best target area is the torso. Head and hand shots are discouraged.
So do we expect the teachers to also wear body armor while teaching? Really?
But that’s not even a salient question! (It’s an example of grasping the conversation and turning it where I wanted it to go, if only briefly.) Because the typical pistol a teacher will carry cannot breach the body armor.
They’ll need something heavier (this is my second escalation). And so the clamor begins for heavier weapons. Because that’s all the 2nd Amendment absolutists know. Soon we’ll be talking about personal possession of heavier weapons, no matter how SCOTUS has ruled on such mischief before. Schools could become sights of true warfare, small personal tanks waiting for assaults from troubled people who just happen to have the right to buy their own personal tanks.
Or heavily armed drones, for that matter. Is all this acceptable to American parents?
But let’s go back to that phrase I used, “2nd Amendment absolutists.” The key word is absolutist, someone who thinks they have an absolute and unlimited right to own guns. But we’re not a country of absolute rights, because such a country cannot exist. An absolute right of one person must necessarily impair the rights of another, as I’ve discussed before, and in a country where we’re all equal before the law, this cannot exist.
The argument used by the absolutists is that through the presence of more guns, the violence, otherwise known as impairment of rights, will actually lessen. But their arguments are weak and being disproven by reality. While I think Steve Benen’s argument that some people will freeze in a combat situation is not as convincing as other arguments, it’s still worth a look. As I noted after the Las Vegas shooting, the real problem comes in thinking that a gun balances a gun. Well, no. As any trained military tactician will tell you, the element of surprise is far more important. Catch a defender taking a whiz in the loo with his gun leaning against the wall, and all he’s capable of doing is crapping his pants, while your sicko, cowardly gunman shoots him in the nuts.
That’s why the pro-gunners’ arguments are shallow. They don’t understand the nature of the combat they’re going to engender.
Look, no one needs an AR-15 to protect their home. It endangers anyone in the house, along with the neighbors, when you start plugging away at some home invader. If you feel endangered, get a handgun. Or, better yet, start working to improve conditions for the local kids. Figure out how to create jobs so folks who can’t find jobs can have some. Or improve their education.
We don’t need the Land of the Free to become the Land of Continuous Warfare.
