Guns - The "Totally Impossible Dilemma?"

The "Gun Law Debate" Has

 Become a National Hobby

Mountains of NRA "think tank" cash has

 edged the question into a great spot right

 next to the meaning of life, the nature of god,

 drugs, teenagers, gerrymandering, abortion and taxes.

MeanMesa finds the endless public discussions concerning gun laws to be fascinating. Although it may be somewhat simplistic to refer to "two sides" in the debate, at a certain point the mind numbing repetition inevitably replaces the prospect for any possible discourse with a suffocating litany of talking points.

Maybe Judge Roy Moore can lead us in the GOP
 "thoughts and prayers." Sessions is busy.  [image]

While it is not unfair to characterize the problem as a "multiple constraint environment," the logical conundrum does not arise from such "constraints." The contradictions must be relentlessly obscured if the gun manufactures' lobbyists are to deliver the hypnotic public perception of the nightmare as one which is inherently, permanently and Constitutionally unsolvable.

Every possible solution seems to immediately attract an "impossible" contradiction. Unhappily, these "contradictions" are no simple case of "whose ox will be gored." Every one of them is the product of  cynical expert analysis in the depths of gun lobbyists' think tanks, and every one of them quite unabashedly, specifically relies only on the whimsy of carefully engineered equivalents of "urban legends."

It is these "urban legends" which become so tiring under the gun lobby's unending references. We can pick a few examples of these "urban legends" to explain this point.

Popular Anti-Gun Law Urban Legends

1. We must be well armed to defeat the US government should it become tyrannical.

2. A good guy with a gun will stop gun violence perpetrated by "bad guys."

3. The 2nd Amendment guarantees to every American the absolute right to own an arsenal of guns and to carry a fully loaded automatic rifle to the donut shop.

4. Absolutely any gun law would leave my home and family in danger.

5. Gun laws -- of any type -- are against the Constitution's Bill of Rights and represent a "slippery slope" toward gun confiscation.

Along with the "urban legends" are the -- now, dismally road weary -- NRA talking points. These very predictably surface from the "usual suspects" following each mass killing. We are painfully familiar with two particular talking points which are not included in the "urban legends" section.

Popular Post Mass Killings 

[2nd Amendment/NRA Talking Points]

1. It's simply too soon to be having any discussions of gun policy this soon following the shooting.

2. "Thoughts and prayers" should be dispatched immediately to the dead, wounded and families. [TRUTH-O-METER* NRA Talking Points After Las Vegas/POLITIFACT]

3. Congress is stuck because there is no possible gun policy which would stop all the mass killings. [Senator Ted Cruz took advantage of the fact that the New York terror attack was performed by a rented truck to "point out" that there was no gun legislation which could prevent all terror murders. NRA "campaign contributions" are higher than ever.  We Asked GOP Senators What Congress Can Do To Prevent Mass Shootings/HUFFPOST]

4. Guns had very little to do with this massacre. It was clearly the result of mental illness.

The Constitutional Gun Scam -

 NRA Conveniently Distorts

 The Meaning of the 2nd Amendment

The NRA has spent millions to repeat the

 distortion enough times to convince Americans.

The actual wording of the 2nd Amendment has been "debated" for just about the entire time since the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution. The "implemented meaning" of the Amendment has been carefully distorted by both pro-gun law and anti-gun law voices. [How the NRA Re-Wrote the 2nd Amendment/POLITICO]

However, The Supremes have, actually, "weighed in" on the question in the 2008 District of Columbia vs. Heller decision. While plenty of Americans might have wished that the ruling would have been more direct for resolving all sorts of "additional questions," it was what it was. The Supremes are like that. 

It's worth the time to take a look at a summary description of the Heller ruling. [The following NOLO article is a useful albeit abbreviated view. There is plenty of additional discussion on your GOOGLE.]

What did the Supreme Court say

 about your right to have a gun in 

District of Columbia v. Heller?

Updated March 22, 2016

[Visit the original article The Right to Own Guns Under the Heller Decision/NOLO]

Gun Possession Rights Under Heller

In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on gun control, ruling that the U.S. Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for personal, lawful use. Yet despite the Court's clear ruling that one may keep a ready-to-use handgun at home for self-defense, Heller allows for certain restrictions on gun possession.

What Heller Says

The 2008 Heller case involved a challenge to the District of Columbia's ban on handguns. For the first time in nearly 70 years, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the meaning of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as it relates to gun control laws.

The Second Amendment provides, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

For many years, scholars and anti-gun proponents had argued that the Second Amendment provides a right to own guns only in connection with service in a militia, and that this right should not extend to private individuals. The Heller Court rejected that line of argument. It held that the Second Amendment creates an individual right to possess a gun for self-defense, at least in the home.

(Two years later, in McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), the Court held that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms applies against state governments. And after that, in Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U.S. ___ (2016), the Court decided that the Second Amendment applies to stun guns.)How Heller Affects Gun Control Laws

The gun control law at issue in the Heller case was a nearly across-the-board ban in the District of Columbia that also required people to keep any lawfully owned firearms “unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device” in most situations. It was considered to be the strictest gun control law in the nation.

Although the Heller decision adopted the broader, individual-rights interpretation of the Second Amendment, the Court made it clear that the right to possess a gun continues to have a number of significant qualifications or restrictions. The Court indicated that the Second Amendment continues to allow for limits on guns like the following:

• Not allowing everyone to possess a gun. The right can be withheld from felons and the mentally ill, for example.
• Not allowing guns to be carried everywhere. Laws forbidding people from carrying firearms in "sensitive" places, such as schools and government buildings, remain valid.
• Certain restrictions on the sale of guns. Laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of firearms continue to be allowed.
• Banning certain types of guns. The Second Amendment does not protect guns that are not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns. (The Court endorsed the "the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of 'dangerous and unusual weapons.'")
• Outlawing concealed weapons. Laws prohibiting concealed weapons probably remain valid.

So, What Can Be Done?

A "Solution" Might Be Closer Than You Think

We just need another reason to hate insurance companies, right?

MeanMesa has posted about this before -- basically, following each one of the heavily publicized, weekly or daily, mass gun killing in the country. [MeanMesa Takes a Quick Shot at the NRA/MEANMESA_Dec_2012]

Following one of the more recent mass executions in Las Vegas, a seldom considered additional part of the problem came to light. There were not only plenty of corpses after the smoke cleared, there were also literally hundred of wounded sitting in local hospitals. While all of this is tragic, the exact point here is both painful and unavoidable.

With the chaotic state of health insurance current choking the nation, hundreds of these wounded citizens are, although no doubt concerned with plenty of other issues, terrified about going bankrupt from the hospital expenses.

The shooter is dead. Although he was apparently fairly well off, his personal assets would not even leave a skid mark on the doors of these ICUs. Sure, some of the wounded have insurance, but -- count on it -- lots of them don't. When they finally get out of the hospital -- if they get out of the hospital -- they will be broke, bankrupted by hospital expenses. The hospitals will recover some of this money, but that recovery will almost certainly be from various types of government compensation.

That means, sooner or later, we will all be paying for it, one way or the other.

This can be solved. Guns need to be insured. Anyone who 1. owns a gun, and 2. intends to exercise his unquestioned [Heller] Constitutional right to carry his gun around outside his house, should have a liability insurance policy in place to cover any damages he inflicts on anyone he shoots accidentally or criminally.

Resolving whether the shooting was an "accidental" or "criminal" matter is well within the capacity of the judicial system. And, yes. Law enforcement should be able to confiscate an un-insured weapon when it is encountered in public -- whether this follows a shooting or not. If the law says that a weapon must have liability insurance, it must have liability insurance.

Constitutionally, this would not prevent anyone from having as many weapons as they wanted. Just head for the gun store or the unregulated gun show, buy what you want and then head home to call your insurance company to insure it. If you never plan to take the gun outside your house, your liability exposure is reduced to almost zero, and you won't ever need to show a highway trooper your gun's insurance card.

Also, happily, this arrangement can not be twisted into "big government coming for your guns." Dealings between you and your insurance carrier will be traditionally quiet -- until you publicly shoot someone or even brandish your weapon and threaten to shoot someone. Had the Las Vegas maniac carried this kind of liability insurance, the wounded victims currently racking up bills in ICU units could simply forward them to his insurance carrier.

Of course, the added benefit for this plan would be the cost of this insurance. Insurance companies are already devilishly clever with their actuarial calculations concerning, for example, your exposure to insured liability as you drive your car. They look at your record, ask you questions and size up your car before they quote you a price. Naturally, they are attempting to determine the likely size and cost of an "insured incident" before they price your policy.

If they are pricing a liability policy for your gun, MeanMesa is sure that they would have all sorts of questions. Regardless of the answers you might provide to them, the "likely size and cost" will, most likely, make that insurance policy rather pricey. The nut job in Las Vegas would have racked up millions of dollars in insured claims, and he would probably not have even looked particularly "risky" on a application for insurance.

But he had dozens of weapons. Further, he very clearly did not plan to use them exclusively within his home. To be legal as he sat in his "sniping station" atop the hotel, he would have required dozens of insurance policies. Had he not be so insured, his guns could have been confiscated after hotel security had called the Las Vegas police.

Think about it. Republicans love their campaign donations from insurance corporations, and a law like this one would be a massive "gift" to their donors..

The Kalashnikov Paradox and the Gaza Solution

Enlightened Export of 2nd Amendment Democracy? 72

After being in “school” for half a century, we have learned a great deal about the Kalashnikov automatic rifle. At least we have learned all sorts of technical things. Along with other ambitious colonial powers and decades of rather sordid schemes and other adventures, our own American forces have met this weapon all around the world, and our diplomats have met the unexpectedly determined men and women who carried it.

We certainly haven’t missed many details about the machine itself. What we have missed is the essence of precisely what it meant to be one of those carrying one. The United States has consistently tried to frame the motivation of those we have confronted in our own frame. They were not in our frame of reference at all. Our insistence that these adversaries were, somehow, just like us aside from some ideological differences allowed us to make them incomprehensible.

Portrayed in our press as it ignored this “frame” problem, we simply could not understand these enemies of ours very well at all. It turns out that our awkward mystery had less to do with the Kalashnikovs than with the minds and bodies pulling their triggers. Now, at the start of 2009, we find ourselves, once again, paying an uncomfortably heavy wage for our lack of perception.

Kalashnikov imposed interesting requirements on his design. One was the extreme durability of the weapon. Did he think that “wars of liberation” could never finally succeed? His weapon design was so durable that it almost always remained quite serviceable at the moment when victory finally prevailed in these conflicts. That led to a new, revolutionary government inheriting a population of well armed former insurgents. In these historically dynamic moments, an experienced and well armed revolutionary force of irregulars could turn on the new government as quickly as it had risen up against the previous one.

Our lingering view of war

Thanks largely to the “incomprehensible motivation” of these adversaries mentioned before, we have gradually mutated our most fundamental concepts about war, not to necessarily make them more realistic or accurate, but at least to make them more comfortable, that is, more comfortable than “incomprehensible motivation.”

We have made all these variations within what we call insurgencies, vacuously homogenous. We have formalized, for ourselves, a blanket condemnation of war, devoid of details. We have repeatedly sought what we called “ceasefires,” regardless of the substance of the issues of combat, claiming that our position was “high ground.”

Worst of all, we have wandered into this unusable wasteland with the perspective of a colonial power, a “super power,” although we deny it. Naturally, that approach strands our considerations of the reality of such matters back in the frame problem. Again.

At the moment we are confronted with folks, most carrying, of course, Mr. Kalashnikov’s rifles, in eastern Congo, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and, most recently, in Gaza among other places. If all these conflicts ended tomorrow, another list of other conflicts is already prepared to replace them. In every case our insistence on what we call “negotiations” or our proposals for “disarmament” seem to be strange songs played out in alien notes. When we speak of limiting proliferation of conventional weapons, our song becomes even less interesting.

“Gosh,” we think, “if only we could get them to stop fighting. They just seem to prefer the mayhem of war.”

Three quick visits to the war zones

Consider Darfur. The problem seems to be that only one side of the conflict is doing all the shooting. If you are a refugee woman who needs to gather firewood, you face the prospects of being raped. You are effectively helpless. The bad guys have all the guns (What else? Kalashnikovs, of course), and you’ve seen them in action. You are trapped without any particular protection or alternatives.

Consider Zimbabwe. The government and the army seem intent on wrecking everything. There is no work. There is no food. There is no help allowed. You have seen everyone who has raised his voice disappear. Usually for good. Sure, there’s probably politics involved somewhere, but at the moment it is a problem of food for your family, cholera and desperate, hopeless violence. You are trapped without any particular protection or alternatives.

Consider Gaza. Your home and family know that the “crazies” are in your backyard shooting rockets at Israel. You know that, inevitably, an Israeli jet fighter will come and bomb them. And you. And your house. And your family. Yet, there is nothing you can do. Even if you have a bit of ideological sympathy for the situation, they have all the guns and you’ve seen them in action. You are trapped without any particular protection or alternatives beyond abandoning your house. With your family.

An unlikely proposal

All these unfortunate situations have reached their present grave states based on a firepower problem. The reasonable folks caught up in them have no weapons. The unreasonable folks who seem to be in charge have plenty of weapons.

The solution? Arm everybody, except arm them in a special way.

Of course, pouring modern firepower into these already troubled regions seems outrageously stupid. We know that arming people has a bad habit of coming back at us, especially when we are arming them with our normal ambitions of exploiting them later, when they’ve run off the current crop of bad guys who won't let us exploit them.

We need to consider a different approach to arming them. We need to reinvent the Kalashnikov. We need a new weapon, and it needs to be a “Temporary Rifle.”
Please consider the following design specifications before you quit reading.

1. Temporary: It lasts no longer than one year. It can’t be repaired or refurbished. It can’t be stored away for later. One year is it. Replacement parts won’t help. It can’t be modified to last longer than one year. After that, it’s useless. Perhaps it can only fire two hundred shells before it’s, of course, useless.

2. Durable: It’s tough enough, not for longevity, but for rough delivery. A single rifle and its ammunition needs to be tough enough for an air drop. We won’t be making ambitious little stinky agreements with warlords. We will be arming everyone who can pick up a rifle that has been air dropped. The provision of these weapons will be what diplomats call “unilateral.” No strings attached.

3. Caliber: These rifles use ammunition of such a bizarre caliber that absolutely nothing else will fit or fire in them. If things move in a positive direction, we can drop more ammunition the same way we dropped the rifles. Should we adopt this plan, we can change the ammunition every year or for every conflict. Black market ammunition production won’t look so appealing if the only rifles it will fit are all going to be gone in a year.

4. Range: A 100 yard maximum range should be plenty. Any more, and our rifles suddenly become useful for invasions. That’s not the plan. These are strictly home (and possibly village, possibly neighborhood) defense weapons. No rockets launched in our back yards. No women raped gathering firewood. No “disappearances” at the heavy hands of the police. At least not here and not now.

5. Simple: These rifles have to be easy to use, easy to fire, easy to clean and easy to learn. No one gets any training. Everyone who has one understands the nature of the weapon and its limits. The caliber needs to be small enough for old people, women, and, yes, children to successfully aim and fire.

Is the old frame of reference beginning to slip a little?

If you are that family man in Gaza with the rockets firing from his back yard, and you are armed, you are no longer helpless. Especially if your neighbors have a similar position. If you stop the rockets, you are no longer a civilian. If you don't stop the rockets, you are also no longer a civilian. At least there will be no invasion.

A new picture of strategic success

When all these rifles have done their duty for a year, does it mean that our American businessmen will have complete access to the place where we dropped them? No. The rifles will simply be gone. The results on the ground will be the results accomplished by the people with the rifles.

Hopefully, the people who gathered them up after the air drop have made some progress for themselves, for their situation. Hopefully, the bad guys have mellowed a little once all their old victims started shooting back.

Maybe a popular government is hatching out of the chaos. Maybe the new “man in charge” will remember how quickly his entire population can be armed, for a year, before he starts getting as outrageous as the last government he's replaced.

So, perhaps a good shipment of our new “Temporary Rifles” brings about a “little more war.” Maybe a “little more war” is what was needed all the time, especially when, in this “little more war,” everyone has a gun. At least, everyone has a gun for a year.

Do we have to land troops? Do we have to sit back and bemoan the cruelty that we just can’t stop? Do we have to fire up an endless hot bed of one crazy autocrat murdering the last crazy autocrat? Do we have to attempt “ceasefires” one after another while every opportunist in the play maneuvers for another tidbit, oblivious to the hardship he is imposing on all the people and the rest of the world giggles?

Our 2nd Ammendment has served us well for two hundred years. There have probably been some who would have launched usurpations but abandoned their plans because everyone was armed. Maybe we should share a good idea.

Think about it.

Not up to date with the details of Gaza's conflict? Juan Cole is a fairly good choice:
http://www.juancole.com/2009/01/gaza-war-hunh-what-was-it-good-for.html

and a pretty good, "bigger picture" link:
http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/MUHLBERGER/2009/01/gaza-war-in-wider-context.htm