In the summer of 2006, I was in Mogadishu, Somalia, a failed and forgotten state that had been suffering from almost a decade of civil war. It is still one of the most dangerous places in the world, and even my 10 guards armed with Kalashnikovs didn't prevent me from being detained by Islamic militias. During my five days in Mogadishu, I could rarely leave the security of the hotel. But, during one outing I convinced my guards to take me to the Irtokte Gun Market, the largest arms bazaar in Somalia. I spent 20 minutes at this open-air market, and was both amazed and alarmed at the sheer amount of firepower available for sale. There were thousands of AK-47s being sold as casually as carpets from wood framed stalls. I remember thinking what a unique and extraordinary experience I was having, and that I would probably never see this kind of thing again. Then I went to Knob Creek, Kentucky.
The Knob Creek gun range, in West Point, Kentucky is the home of the country's largest machine gun shoot. This small rural town is a Mecca for gun enthusiasts and the weaponry both on display and for sale makes the Somalian gun market look like a neighborhood yard sale. During my time in Knob Creek, I watched everyone from 9-year-old grandsons to 80-year-old grandmas fire off everything from 9mm pistols to 50 caliber machine guns.
The show at Knob Creek is a stark reminder that America, not Somalia, or Iraq, or Yemen, or Afghanistan is the most armed nation in the world. There are over 200 million guns in circulation in this country and as many as 40 percent of American households report they keep a gun in the home. Guns are imprinted in the DNA of American culture. Whether it's the aggrandized bravado of gun-slinging cowboys taming the wild west (in reality it probably was the plow-slinging farmers who were most responsible for western expansion), the notion of self-defense, or the idea that a group of Freemen in Montana are the constitutional check against the tyrannical government; Americans are passionate about their firearms.
America's infatuation with guns comes at a price. That price is that last year over 10,000 people were killed with firearms. There are many explanations for this, and gun proponents will say that legal firearms prevented far more crime than was actually caused by guns. But the truth remains, that the larger the pool of legal guns in the country -- the larger the pool of illegal guns that can be used in crimes. This happens for several reasons. There is a migration between the pool of legal and illegal guns in the country from theft, from straw-man purchases, or from legal loopholes. One of these loopholes is knows as "parts kits." These are essentially everything you need to make an assault rifle, minus a barrel and receiver. If those parts are then purchased separately, they can be fashioned into illegal, untraceable assault rifles. The ability to buy parts kits is a big draw at shows like Knob Creek.
For many of the patrons of the Knob Creek gun show, there is no correlation between their hobby and gun related crime (in fact they would assert that their hobby actually prevents crime), instead they are merely expressing what they believe is a guaranteed constitutional right. This spring the Supreme Court will take up this exact issue. It will be the most important legal debate on the subject in almost 70 years. The court will potentially decide on whether the 2nd amendment is interpreted as an individual right or a collective right. When they do, the precedent set will determine not only the fate of events like Knob Creek, but will fundamentally impact a culture that worships their weapons.
Beyond the politics of gun control, shows like Knob Creek do represent a segment of America that believes guns are a way of life. As a former member of the military, I am both comfortable and conversant with guns, but feel distant from the zeal I saw demonstrated at Knob Creek. But for a large swath of the country, the right to bear arms is an expression of their lifestyle and patriotism.
Kaj Larsen's pod, "Machine Gun Shootout" airs Wednesday, December 12 at 7pm PST/10PM EST in a half hour special report on Current TV.
Kaj Larsen is an award-winning Vanguard Journalist for Current TV. He is a former US Navy SEAL, and an executive board member of the Center for Citizen Leadership, a non-profit dedicated to mentoring wounded veterans into Public Service. He holds a Masters degree in Public Policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
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PART I not previously posted. See parts II and III already posted.
It is not guns that are a way of life, it is LIBERTY that is a way of life. There is a misunderstanding however regarding the Bill of Rights(BOR). To begin with, the BOR was not known as such to the founders--they were simply the First Ten Amendments and they do not confer any rights on anyone.
All (natural) rights are assumed to come from God. The BOR is rather a restriction placed upon government and as such PROTECTS pre-existing rights by declaring the rights off limit to gevernmental control. The Tenth Amendment is the exception as it addresses powers. It states that the Federal Government is denied any powers not specifically granted and provides the states and even individuals all powers not probibited them under the Constitution.
The Preamble to the BOR is as follows:
The First 10 Amendments to the
Constitution as Ratified by the States
December 15, 1791
Preamble
Congress OF THE United States
begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday
the Fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.
THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution
RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.:
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.
Modern translation:
A well trained militia composed of the people, being necessary to the security of a free state, the people's right to bear arms shall not be infringed.
The founders understood the meaning of militia then and needed no explanation. Reading the proceedings of the convention , the original submission and the arguments for the change in wording as well as other State Cosntitutions that mirror a similar article in the state constitutions make it clear that it is an individual right and the purpose is to prevent tyranny.
The meaning of "Shall not be infringed,?" Exactly what it looks like it says: Government has no POWER to regulate the keeping and bearing of arms---PERIOD!
And if you truly care only about keeping criminals (and ONLY criminals)from access, you need to realise that you cannot stop criminals from accessing illegally-OBTAINED (no firearm is illegal) firearm, nor can you stop a criminal or mentally unstable person unkown to us from killing---but with an armed public, you will minimize their impact in the same way the volunteer guard at the Colorado Church minimized the killing at the church.
In a free society you are never completely safe. And in a "safe" society (no such thing really) you are never free.
Kill (preferrably)or lock up forever (kind of costly in my view) your violent criminals, and you will also help to minimize criminal violence. My basic view is to kill violent offenders as fast as they reveal themselves.
ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.
--------------------End of the Preamble to the Bill of Rights----------------------------
The Second Amendment protects an INDIVIDUAL right as only individuals HAVE rights. The right is stated in the main clause. The subordinate or restrictive clause is a preamble portion of the right and simply states the reason for the individual right.
But understand two things:
1. the term "well regulated" in 1787 is simply related in meaning to functional operation (and is still a secondary meaning today.) One might take a poorly functioning closk into a shop and ask the clerk to"regulate the clock," which simply meant to make it function well.
2. The militia was composed of all the people and was not a professional force (as the National Gaurd is today, being a reserve component of the US Army)
According to the founders:
"A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves and include all men capable of bearing arms ¦To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms . . . " Richard Henry Lee, Additional Letters From the Federal Farmer 53 (1788).
"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." George Mason, during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution (1788).
The Federalist Papers make the true purpose of the Second Amendment: To provide the people with violent means of redress to tyranny. And remember there are some 85 million owners of firearms and as such an enormously large "militia." that the combined US forces could not fight against--even if they WEREN'T deployed.
It is not guns that are a way of life, it is LIBERTY that is a way of life. There is a misunderstanding however regarding the Bill of Rights(BOR). To begin with, the BOR was not known as such to the founders--they were simply the First Ten Amendments and they do not confer any rights on anyone.
All (natural) rights are assumed to come from God. The BOR is rather a restriction placed upon government and as such PROTECTS pre-existing rights by declaring the rights off limit to gevernmental control. The Tenth Amendment is the exception as it addresses powers. It states that the Federal Government is denied any powers not specifically granted and provides the states and even individuals all powers not probibited them under the Constitution.
The Preamble to the BOR is as follows:
The First 10 Amendments to the
Constitution as Ratified by the States
December 15, 1791
Preamble
Congress OF THE United States
begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday
the Fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.
THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution
RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.:
It's nice to see someone with a Masters degree in Public Policy from Harvard University's JFK School of Government who does not automatically call for a long laundry list of restrictive gun laws that would only apply to the peasant class. I assume Larsen is smart enough to know that such laws don't work.
Multiple studies have shown that gun ownership numbers do not correlate with the level of violence. That is corroborated by this story that shows two countries with high gun ownership that could not be more different in their level of violence.
Dr. Michael S. Brown
Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws www.dsgl.org
I have no desire to own a military rifle, but I am protective of my right to have one. That's because of the Supreme Court's Miller Decision that the 2nd Amendment applies only to weapons whose design makes them suitable for use by a militia. (That restriction was based on numerous post-Civil War southern state court precedents upholding laws passed to disarm freed slaves -- and enforced only against blacks and known troublemakers). I don't agree with that limitation, but I take comfort in knowing that as long as my right to military rifles and pistols is sacrosanct, there isn't much point to banning the ones I _do_ want.
I reject the ban on military-style rifles because I refuse to accept the post-1950s misinterpretation of Miller claiming that the right is limited to the National Guard itself. Besides, the mass assassins would do just as well against unarmed victims with a hunting rifle and a sack of smaller ammo clips.
It looks as though the Supreme Court will decide this year whether the federal government will indeed respect this right. If it decides in the affirmative, the federal government will retain its moral legitimacy to govern (the Constitution's ratification was contingent upon what the voters were told was a guarantee that the federal government would never infringe their right to keep and bear arms).
No matter what reasonable restrictions you apply, shoppers in Washington, D.C. should at least each be allowed to a couple of double-barrel muzzle-loading black-powder pistols for shooting muggers and carjackers.
Many good "hunting guns" are actually "semi-automatic", so these "European countries" can at best allow ease of access to "some" hunting guns.
The entire quote seems Pollyanna like , along the lines of, "Free speech has been encouraged in the Russian Federation under the leadership of Vladamir Putin."
Given the trends in Gov it is not a bad idea that Americans are armed....as for gun crime... 60,000 people were killed in car wrecks last year and nobody is talking about banning cars - or alcohol...
I think that the Supreme court is tasked with disarming America by darker forces that would see our population reduced further to the level of livestock for the production of money. Check our urine, tax our incomes, promote religion against secularism, make torture and secret prisons, kidnapping and rendition legal, attack dissent, define citizens by religious faith, etc....
All the agenda of the Republicans as they support a dictatorial executive branch.. the hypocrisy is as palpable as the assault on freedoms is dangerous...
And the Dems are right there with them,lock step... Pelosi and co supported torture, secret prisons etc...
Where do we turn?
I understand much of your concern and personally I think the nra is just another fool's love.
I would,though,be far less concerned about most (most!) of the recreational shooters at Knob Creek than the usg run Ft. Knox just a couple of miles away and what the usg wants of those firing there. It seems unlikely that a dumbass at Knob Creek firing rounds at $1 to $5 per out of their own pocket (unless they're shooting themselves broke) is much danger to anyone. And their sad political illusions...?
Wasn't there an article in Harper's a couple of years ago that seems it might have trail-blazed for you on this show you've done? I haven't been able to view the show as of yet and I apologize if my comment seems as aspersion.
A lot of people do like to shoot -at stuff. (Or at least I do.) Some of that spooky action at a distance, I guess.
Personally I'm less worried by most (most!) of the folks who would go enjoy a bit of shooting and silliness at Knob Creek than I'm worried about the government that's running Ft. Knox some very few miles away from Knob Creek.
The gun rights are a by product of American addiction to violence, not a cause.
From the moment an American is born he/she is bombarded by the seeing hundreds of thousands of murders from TV,movies, video games, news documentaries and indeed on the very streets they live on. American culture much readily accepts violence than healthy sexual expression.
Case in point: the movie censors will slap an R for some innocent nudity but leave a PG-13 for some pretty extreme violence.
Therefore, violent people want to own guns.
Consequently, not so violent people (like me) feel safer with a weapon in their house as well. You can massage statistics anyway you want, but in a violent society the psychological mindset is to see to one's own protection.
In a sane society there would be a strong drive to take the weapons out of the hands of criminals and children-criminals. This is happening very slowly, if not at all, despite many thousands passed laws.
Some people think there should be a house of worship on every corner and that all of the people in them should be armed to the teeth. Too many of those people are here in America.
P.S. I can't find a statistic - on the number of Americans protected each year by their guns - that isn't opinion on an NRA site. Anybody?
P.P.S. I think people should be able to keep guns but it gets irresponsible and out of hand because Manufacturers (and the money they spend to buy Congressional legislation) want to sell as many as they can make and people want to have as many as they can put on a credit card.
200 million guns owned by 120 million Americans with 10000 deaths. Compared to the 55000 automobile deaths I would say you have a long way to go to convince me that guns are not safe.
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Posted December 12, 2007 | 09:00 PM (EST)