Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James R. Conner.

 

17 September 2013

Navy Yard shootings won’t provoke tighter gun laws

In a better world, yesterday’s rampage in the Navy Yard that left 13 dead, counting gunman Aaron Alexis, would set in motion events leading to the passage of legislation tightly regulating firearms and including a national firearms registry. In the real world, however, the murders will provoke an outcry that quickly fades and we’ll be left with the same laws we have now. That’s not because a majority of public opinion opposes tighter firearms regulation. As Ed Kilgore at the Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog puts it:

So long as a powerful minority of Americans think the individual right to bear arms—any arms—trumps every consideration of public policy, and is the Crown Jewel of the Bill of Rights, and is our bulwark against tyranny—it won’t much matter. Hundreds dead, thousands dead, tens of thousands dead—it’s all irrelevant to what is in effect a religious commitment to the almighty Second Amendment, a golden calf worshipped as the ultimate expression of an illusory personal independence and an imaginary America.

No, rational arguments and conventional politics may never prevail against people who will look you right in the eye and tell you they need to be heavily armed in case it becomes necessary in their view to overthrow the government and impose their will on you. The whole idea here is that their rights trump your arguments, your priorities, your votes, your democratic elections, your duly authorized representatives or law officers. That’s their understanding of a “constitutional” system, and of what makes America “exceptional.” Their guns are an ever-present reminder to the rest of us that we just don’t know what level of taxation or regulation, or which offense to “traditional” culture, will be the trigger for a “patriotic” resurrection. That, perhaps, will keep us in line.

So while it’s important to keep up the fight for sensible firearms laws, no one should be under the illusion that this or the next mass killing is going to make a difference.

I wish I could find a reason to disagree, but Kilgore’s correct. More bullets are going to fly, more blood is going to spill, and the gunpowder caucus is going to prevail again and again.