5 ms·

Surprised to find an article like this in the Republican rag National Review. But it’s a way to soften its image I guess. While I am browsing this article I am

by msie 4y ago

Surprised to find an article like this in the Republican rag National Review. But it’s a way to soften its image I guess. While I am browsing this article I am listening to a Chicago news channel (WGN) recount the lives of the Highland shooting victims. “An Intellectual Starter Kit”? - Im just shaking my head at anti-gun control “intellectuals”.

rayiner 4y ago
What’s the need for scare quotes around “intellectual?” The founding fathers were anti gun-control “intellectuals”: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed46.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed46.asp (“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes.”). But it might be time to acknowledge that the “Americans” the founders were talking about are a dead people that no longer exist. After all, more households in the 1950s had guns than today, but mass shootings were unheard of. Society is very different today and maybe that makes the Constitution obsolete. As James Madison wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Maybe we’re no longer such people and can no longer be trusted with the responsibilities the Constitution requires of us. In that case gun control makes total sense.
- a4a4a4a4 4y ago
  > Maybe we’re no longer such people and can no longer be trusted with the responsibilities the Constitution requires of us. In that case gun control makes total sense. The problem is, how do you determine who can be trusted and who not? Let's take NY for example. If I would move to upstate NY, I cannot possess or shoot a handgun for the next 4-10 years depending on the county application procedures (because of arbitrary rules related to how long you've lived in the county, number of references, how long they've lived there, how long they've known you, etc). On paper, I'm the "perfect" person to allow to buy guns (if you're going to allow anyone to buy them): good job, stable relationships, no criminal record, no kids in the house, no mental health issues/records, good education, and extensive existing firearms training. If someone with my "profile" is, in effect, prevented from buying guns, then which regular citizens should be allowed to buy them? What more can the approving body (government) really ask for before the process is considered insane or abusive?
  - rayiner 4y ago
    > The problem is, how do you determine who can be trusted and who not I mean the people as a whole. As a society, we are clearly losing the ability to self govern relative to prior generations.
    - a4a4a4a4 4y ago
      That could be, or we're just more aware than ever of exactly how incapable/irresponsible/irrational the average person is (regardless of where they land on the political spectrum).
- wwkeyboard 4y ago
  The idea that a dude with an AR will take on a platoon of MRAPs is comical. The founding fathers were talking about the ability to raise a well regulated militia when there was no standing army, not kids shooting a schools.
  - a4a4a4a4 4y ago
    Did you follow any part of the last X years in Afghanistan and Iraq? Seemed to work out for them -> the US left. Edit: I always find the type of argument in the parent comment to be intellectually dishonest. "You're not going to beat the US military, they have tanks and planes!". Sure, maybe, but can we agree that if we ever got to the point where the US military is killing civilians, that you might rather have a rifle than nothing?
    - rayiner 4y ago
      Folks should watch the TV show Jericho. It’s not about being able to overthrow a uniformed military. In a domestic context, it’s about keeping the resistance alive long enough to secure outside support, turn units of the military to their side, etc.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    Sure, but “raising a well regulated militia” involved mobilizing armed civilians. This is quite clear from the quoted portion of the federalist above—which refers to “being armed” as an advantage possessed by “Americans,” and criticizing European governments for being “afraid to trust the people with arms.” The individual right to bear arms ensures that an armed militia can be raised when needed. A far better argument for gun control advocates, in my view, would be that (1) the Second Amendment doesn’t protect handguns, which aren’t weapons that would typically be used in war; and (2) the Second Amendment doesn’t preclude regulation that is consistent with being able to raise an armed militia from among citizens, like the Swiss have. The problem is that a handgun ban is the least popular gun control measure, even though it would be the most effective. Only 20% of people supported a handgun ban in 2021: https://news.gallup.com/poll/357317/stricter-gun-laws-less-popular.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/357317/stricter-gun-laws-less-p...
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
You seem to imply that right-wing policies and the 2nd amendment are inherently anti-intellectual or "dumb", but this is too easy an explanation and dehumanizes the ones you disagree with politcally / morally. I mean to invoke Godwin's law, Hitler and the Nazis were intellectuals that followed evolutionary humanism and followed Darwin's theories of evolution / "social darwinism". Just because they were morally abhorrent doesn't mean they weren't intellectuals.
Bostonian 4y ago
It is biased to assume that a right-wing publication is necessarily anti-intellectual. Regarding the Highland Park shooting, National Review observed that the shooter should have been prevented from buying a gun under existing laws: https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/07/when-gun-laws-dont-prevent-gun-crime/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/07/when-gun-laws-dont-pr... .
- blueboo 4y ago
  That’s not quite what this editorial says. Rather, it pushes the tired agenda of criminals-don’t-obey-laws-so-why-regulate-guns with some (typically) intellectually dishonest sophistry, claiming for example that Illinois’s “red flag” law should have caught the shooter when the mechanics of that particular law are about enabling individuals to proactively petition the court to prevent someone from obtaining a gun. And, anyway, they are not anti-intellectuals; indeed the National Review is chock-full of ego-bruised Never Trumpists who proudly (if somewhat more quietly, now) champion their classical educations. Isn’t it doubly damning, then, to see them deploy their abilities in service of deceptive polemic?

by msie 4y ago

rayiner 4y ago

What’s the need for scare quotes around “intellectual?” The founding fathers were anti gun-control “intellectuals”: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed46.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed46.asp (“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes.”). But it might be time to acknowledge that the “Americans” the founders were talking about are a dead people that no longer exist. After all, more households in the 1950s had guns than today, but mass shootings were unheard of. Society is very different today and maybe that makes the Constitution obsolete. As James Madison wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Maybe we’re no longer such people and can no longer be trusted with the responsibilities the Constitution requires of us. In that case gun control makes total sense.

a4a4a4a4 4y ago
> Maybe we’re no longer such people and can no longer be trusted with the responsibilities the Constitution requires of us. In that case gun control makes total sense. The problem is, how do you determine who can be trusted and who not? Let's take NY for example. If I would move to upstate NY, I cannot possess or shoot a handgun for the next 4-10 years depending on the county application procedures (because of arbitrary rules related to how long you've lived in the county, number of references, how long they've lived there, how long they've known you, etc). On paper, I'm the "perfect" person to allow to buy guns (if you're going to allow anyone to buy them): good job, stable relationships, no criminal record, no kids in the house, no mental health issues/records, good education, and extensive existing firearms training. If someone with my "profile" is, in effect, prevented from buying guns, then which regular citizens should be allowed to buy them? What more can the approving body (government) really ask for before the process is considered insane or abusive?
- rayiner 4y ago
  > The problem is, how do you determine who can be trusted and who not I mean the people as a whole. As a society, we are clearly losing the ability to self govern relative to prior generations.
  - a4a4a4a4 4y ago
    That could be, or we're just more aware than ever of exactly how incapable/irresponsible/irrational the average person is (regardless of where they land on the political spectrum).
wwkeyboard 4y ago
The idea that a dude with an AR will take on a platoon of MRAPs is comical. The founding fathers were talking about the ability to raise a well regulated militia when there was no standing army, not kids shooting a schools.
- a4a4a4a4 4y ago
  Did you follow any part of the last X years in Afghanistan and Iraq? Seemed to work out for them -> the US left. Edit: I always find the type of argument in the parent comment to be intellectually dishonest. "You're not going to beat the US military, they have tanks and planes!". Sure, maybe, but can we agree that if we ever got to the point where the US military is killing civilians, that you might rather have a rifle than nothing?
  - rayiner 4y ago
    Folks should watch the TV show Jericho. It’s not about being able to overthrow a uniformed military. In a domestic context, it’s about keeping the resistance alive long enough to secure outside support, turn units of the military to their side, etc.
- rayiner 4y ago
  Sure, but “raising a well regulated militia” involved mobilizing armed civilians. This is quite clear from the quoted portion of the federalist above—which refers to “being armed” as an advantage possessed by “Americans,” and criticizing European governments for being “afraid to trust the people with arms.” The individual right to bear arms ensures that an armed militia can be raised when needed. A far better argument for gun control advocates, in my view, would be that (1) the Second Amendment doesn’t protect handguns, which aren’t weapons that would typically be used in war; and (2) the Second Amendment doesn’t preclude regulation that is consistent with being able to raise an armed militia from among citizens, like the Swiss have. The problem is that a handgun ban is the least popular gun control measure, even though it would be the most effective. Only 20% of people supported a handgun ban in 2021: https://news.gallup.com/poll/357317/stricter-gun-laws-less-popular.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/357317/stricter-gun-laws-less-p...

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

You seem to imply that right-wing policies and the 2nd amendment are inherently anti-intellectual or "dumb", but this is too easy an explanation and dehumanizes the ones you disagree with politcally / morally. I mean to invoke Godwin's law, Hitler and the Nazis were intellectuals that followed evolutionary humanism and followed Darwin's theories of evolution / "social darwinism". Just because they were morally abhorrent doesn't mean they weren't intellectuals.

Bostonian 4y ago

It is biased to assume that a right-wing publication is necessarily anti-intellectual. Regarding the Highland Park shooting, National Review observed that the shooter should have been prevented from buying a gun under existing laws: https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/07/when-gun-laws-dont-prevent-gun-crime/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/07/when-gun-laws-dont-pr... .

blueboo 4y ago
That’s not quite what this editorial says. Rather, it pushes the tired agenda of criminals-don’t-obey-laws-so-why-regulate-guns with some (typically) intellectually dishonest sophistry, claiming for example that Illinois’s “red flag” law should have caught the shooter when the mechanics of that particular law are about enabling individuals to proactively petition the court to prevent someone from obtaining a gun. And, anyway, they are not anti-intellectuals; indeed the National Review is chock-full of ego-bruised Never Trumpists who proudly (if somewhat more quietly, now) champion their classical educations. Isn’t it doubly damning, then, to see them deploy their abilities in service of deceptive polemic?