The Gun Blogs

In the Chronicle Review, a publication of The Chronicle of Higher Education, there's a brief opinion editorial by Alan Contreras, the administrator of the Office of Degree Authorization of the Oregon Student Assistance Commission about concealed carry. Contreras, as do I, has a concealed carry permit issued by his county's sheriff. In his editorial Contreras admits that he carries while on the job.

"Some of the people at the colleges and universities I visit as part of my job probably don't know that I carry a gun on their campuses. Now they do," he writes.*

I applaud Contreras' honesty and integrity in making an open statement about his right to carry. At my college, my colleagues know I have a concealed carry permit, and I am clear about my willingness to abide by my schools "no weapons on campus" (except for ceramic coffee mugs) policy, but I haven’t made an open statement to the larger educational community. There is some risk in being open about one's permit. While statistically in my county fewer than one percent of concealed carry permit holders ever have a gun confiscated for misuse, many non-gun owners perceive us as more dangerous than those around us.** While we abide within the law, there are many courts in our society including the court of opinion.

To win in the court of opinion I believe we need to have an ongoing and broad societal discussion about morals and ethics - rights, values and responsibilities - as they relate to use of force and power. As Contreras writes, "there is certainly something macabre about the idea, shown graphically in a cartoon shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings, that we should just let the good guys and bad guys shoot it out. Yet it is even worse to pretend that the good guys and bad guys should be treated as morally equivalent."

*Read Contreras' editorial in the June 15, 2007 edition of The Chronicle Review page B2.

**http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=32260

Smith and Wesson posted a new commercial on their website for their M&P line. They are maintaining a fairly conservative voice in the commercial focusing on rights, but interestingly they address both traditionally "liberal" rights such as the right to free assembly, and traditionally "conservative" rights such as the right to bear arms. Take a look and see what you think.

http://www.smith-wesson.com/wcsstore/SmWesson/upload/popups/mp/commercial.html

more at http://www.grapplingwithguns.com

More at Grapplingwithguns.com

One of the things I keep returning to in this blog is the idea that liberals and conservatives have different ways of thinking about rights, and thus need different sets of arguments or processes to help them understand gun rights. Today I want to focus on deductive and inductive arguments in relation to gun rights.

In a deductive argument, should the premises be true the conclusion is guaranteed to be correct. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)This could be a statement such as, “If I have the right to life, and owning a gun protects my right, then I have the right to own a gun.” This is a more conservative approach to gun rights – we could insert the constitution, self-defense, tradition, or a host of other themes into this argument structure. The bottom line is that a more conservative approach to gun rights often begins with a deductive argument. These things are fixed and correct, and therefore they lead to this right. End of story.

In an inductive argument “the premises provide reasons supporting the probable truth of the conclusion.” (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) The outcome of the process is one in which the outcome is likely to be true. “I am safe with firearms and my friends are safe with firearms, therefore it is likely that people similar to us will be safe with firearms.” Liberals often need to build from direct experience to build toward an argument that people should have a general right to ownership.

When it comes to violence, the argument structures may be reversed. Liberals will often begin with deductive arguments. “Violence is bad, guns are designed for violence, therefore guns are bad.”

In terms of violence, conservatives will build an argument based on what types of people are using force. “If people have the right to justifiable use of violence to defend their life against attack and I am under attack then I may use justifiable violence to defend my life.”

I am guessing that underlying these arguments are access to information. It may be true that to get to the point where we believe deductive arguments about gun rights we are basing it on years of informal inductive experience. Maybe when a gun owner was a child she or he experienced very positive inductive reinforcement. “My father taught me how to shoot and now I am teaching you to shoot, therefore it is likely you will want to pass this to your children.” The safety argument fits in with this as well. “If you can learn to respect this very clearly dangerous tool you can extrapolate this knowledge into general responsibility around dangerous things.”

Both of the above examples are inductive in nature, beginning with specific situations and leading to general principles, and both are likely to be a part of experiences from a more traditional or conservative worldview.

My guess is that most liberals who are wholly opposed to guns and gun ownership have had little or no experience with guns and have no access to inductive information that might lead to later deductive arguments.

I, for example, believe that individuals have the right to self defense against deadly threat, so I think the international community’s response is a bit backwards in disarming victim populations then pleading with perpetrators to stop their genocidal attacks. I would make the deductive argument, “Potential victims have the right to arm themselves for the purpose of defense against perpetrators, and we have the opportunity to arm genocide victims for the purpose of self-defense, therefore we should arm potential victims for the purpose of self-defense.” (See Dave Copel’s article at http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Foreign/genocide.pdf for a thorough discussion.)

When I see gun owners offering to take non-gun owners who meet the legal requirements of gun ownership to the range to learn to shoot, I see a way forward. We are able to give people valid, safe inductive experiences that lead them toward an understanding of their rights. I propose that we soften the overall deductive rhetoric of gun rights and focus more on inductive arguments, showing how positive experiences with firearms lead to greater things and better understanding of our world.

I started reading Samuel Walker's Sense and Nonsense about Crime and Drugs last night. It's the kind of book that should be required reading. Walker is a proponent of evidence-based policy making (p. xxiii), a concept I've brought up on my blog before. The book points to a number of propositions about crime that is surprising to both liberals and conservatives alike.

The evidence-based approach requires the existence of significant evidence that a policy practice actually says it does what it says it does. Policies are tested with empirical evidence through identifying a treatment group that receives a 'new' response to their crime (therapy, community based models, boot camps, etc.) and a control group that goes through the in-place response to crime. The treatment group must show a significant change in recidivism or other measures to indicate that the policy is sound. If measurements indicate that the policy may be successful, the practice must be tested in other communities to verify that it is replicable. Only then would a practice be used as a replacement for current procedure. (See Standards of Evidence-Based Crime Policy p. 10-11).

Walker primarily addresses violent crime and comes to some conclusions that may be startling to liberals and conservatives alike when it comes to firearms and violent crime.

Proposition 33. "Attempts to ban handguns, or certain kinds of guns, or bullets, are not likely to reduce serious crime."

Proposition 34. "Attempts to deny ownership of handguns to certain categories of "bad" people are not likely to reduce serious crime."

Proposition 35. "Focused, proactive enforcement strategies may be effective in reducing gun-related crime in targeted areas."

Proposition 36. "Right-to-carry laws will not reduce crime."

So, why are people still latching onto Brady-bill style programs to reduce gun ownership when such programs don't work to reduce crime, and if right-to-carry laws don't reduce crime what do they do for our society?

More to come... http://www.grapplingwithguns.com

Thinking and diversity of thought make the liberal mindset what it is. This is different than the conservative perspective wherein things are right because "it's what is right," or because it's what is traditional or what has always been done. Liberals allow for change, so today's ideas may or may not relate to yesterday's. This is why many liberals will say that the second amendment doesn't mean citizens have the inherent right to own firearms "because militias no longer make sense" while many conservatives indicate, "It's a right, it's always been a right, so it is my right." It's also why liberals often will look to international trends rather than the constitution alone.

So, what makes a gun-rights liberal? The same components that make an anti-gun liberal can make a pro-gun liberal. Those components include: critical thinking, knowledge, and careful thought.

For me, this critical thought appeared at several times in several capacities. As a teen I was in the Police Explorers and I wanted to be a cop to help others and to stop crimes. When I was sixteen a friend of mine was coerced by a parent into shooting someone they lived with. Thankfully, the victim lived, but I was left in confusion. How could someone who seemed more mature than the other students be coerced into that? If this person was coerced, could I not be coerced?

As a teen I walked away from shooting, a sport that I loved, locked up the .22 and shotgun my mother bought to teach me to shoot, and didn't think about guns again until I was in my 30's.

In 2002 I decided I needed to address that question in more detail. Could I be coerced into harming another person? I went to an indoor rental range to shoot so I could experience what I grew up loving once again.

I walked away from that experience with a few observations.

1. I'm very different than a person who would use a weapon to attack another
2. My friend was set up to be manipulated by others through bad parenting
3. I can see crime as a social response to social harms that can be treated on the larger level through social programs
4. In the moment of an actual conflict, when someone is attacking my family, or me social programs won't help
5. The realities of physical conflict are harsh
6. Clear self-defense laws must be maintained to allow citizens to use a legitimate escalation of force guideline and the best defense weapons to protect themselves
7. Firearms, specifically handguns, are the best defensive choice for many people against attackers with greater numbers, greater mass, force, or training

Furthermore, these guidelines extend to international human rights issues that I am deeply concerned about as a liberal. In countries like Darfur gun "control" laws have been used to disarm a population so that those in power can kill them without risk of harm to themselves. A liberal response should include arming and training victim populations in defensive techniques.

To promote gun rights and gun ownership in the liberal population, our arguments must take on the critical thinking, research and informed debate that engages the liberal mind.

More at Grapplingwithguns.com

I read this interesting article in the Portland Tribune. It has some interesting statistics and, interestingly notices the trend that women, though fewer women than men apply, seek out CCL's at a younger age than men.

I posted my last post without the question with which I intended to end. What do you all think of Kimber's new Life Act products and the new taser?

-or- How to get completely smooth legs with your space-age Epilady

Check it out http://www.grapplingwithguns.com/archives/2007/05/less_lethal_defense.html

I am a democrat.

I am also a gun owner and possessor of a concealed handgun permit in my state of residence.

I am also a college professor.

I am not (yet) a member of the NRA, but based on much of the current debate about gun control, I may join.

I recently started my first gun blog at http//www.grapplingwithguns.com where I discuss gun rights as a part of the liberal perspective.

On Tuesday, the day after the shootings at Virginia Tech Rachel Maddow on her Air America Radio talk show began the show by listing all of the college killings she could think of and calling for gun control in the United States.

She mentioned Kip Kinkel who killed two students and injured 22 others in Springfield, Oregon in May 1998.

She mentioned Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who killed 12 students, injured 23 others, and then committed suicide.

She mentioned Gang Lu, the shooter at the University of Iowa who shot and killed five people and shot and paralyzed a woman who had graduated from my high school who had been a dancer and choreographer in the high school Terpsichore troupe. At the time of the shooting, during my senior year, I and my peers who were choreographing for the high school show felt great empathy for her and all of the victims of the shooting. Many of us had siblings or friends who had gone on to the University of Iowa to study theatre, literature, dance or other arts.

Rachel went down the list (in the US – click here for a list around the globe. This list is incomplete. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html), but she left out some crimes.

Rachel missed Dale Royer. She missed Mr. Royer for a couple of reasons. He committed his crime in December 1986, before the internet as we know it today. He committed his crime with diesel fuel (a detail I remember from sitting in the courtroom during his retrial).

Royer was a graduate student at Iowa State University. According to detective’s testimony at the retrial I observed, Royer drove to his parents farm, filled a portable tank of diesel fuel from the family fuel pump, broke into his instructor’s home during the night, and dumped fuel all over the living room, kitchen, entryway and stairwell to the second floor, then ignited the fuel and left the home.

During the chaos that ensued, the family escaped, except for two of the children, one who was in my seventh-grade class, and his younger brother. The two boys ran from their bedroom to the stairwell, and hunkered down in the corner. They were quickly overcome by smoke and died.

Rachel Maddow, however is fixated on guns. She, and many who consider themselves to be liberal want stringent restrictions on legal gun ownership. What she means is that murder is bad and she doesn’t want it to happen. I agree that murder is bad. I think it’s bad whether the means are through arson or shooting.

We are coming up on Arson Awareness Week, beginning on May 6th. In 2005 the focus was on school related arson, a growing trend in attacks on schools.

I propose that we focus on behavior rather than tools of the crime, with a focus on reducing and stopping all attacks on schools, against instructors, or against students. I want people to reach a point where they choose not to commit crimes against others, although I think this is an unreasonable hope. I don’t think we should take away the right to own tools of self-defense.