Well, I met my first "gun nut." Here's his e-mail with which he contacted me:
On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 9:03 PM, Gun Nut wrote:
Guns are Probably my biggest pet peeve. I earnestly believe that anyone caught with one should be immediately imprisoned for 25 years. When they let him out, ask him why he had it. We really do not need any more Fort Hoods or Columbines. I will go so far as to ban cops from carrying them. While I was growing up the dumbest kids and the biggest bullies all became cops. There is a very thin line between cops and criminals. They shoot to kill, whether or not the person is guilty or not. Human life is too sacred to just wantonly kill someone.
The Gun Rabbi responded:
Yes indeed, human life is sacred -- so sacred that those who value it must sometimes protect it. There is truly evil in the world. The problem at Ft Hood and Columbine was not the gun, it was the person. Taking away the gun wouldn't stop that -- in fact, prohibiting guns means that criminals have them and law-abiding citizens don't. Just look at NYC -- some of the most draconian gun laws in the country, yet plenty of gun crime. The criminals don't seem to have any problems getting guns in spite of "gun control."
I don't want a gun. But more than I don't want a gun, I don't want to need one and not have it.
Gun Nut:
The same argument all over: "Guns don't kill... people do." I find this the most illogical philosophy of all time. Yes, I suppose one could poison another or kill him with a knife, but, the last time I looked there were no automatic knives or venues for mass poisoning. Grandpa can also display his knife collection and Junior can take it to "show and tell" and brandish it, and perhaps kill one or two. How many stories must we read...
Gun Rabbi:
In the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a handful of Jews with a few tens of guns and a few hundred rounds of ammunition held off the Nazis for weeks. Imagine how different things would have been if Jews there and throughout Europe had been armed against the Nazis. Only a fool would think the Nazis would have given up their guns. I shudder to think what the world would be like if the Allies had given up theirs.
Gun Nut:
We are now reduced to "apples and oranges" syndrome. War is a different phenomenon then everyday living.
Gun Rabbi:
I don't think so.
WWII didn't start until long after it was worthwhile for Jews to have guns to fight back against Nazis. But Jews had been disarmed systematically beginning in 1933, so by the time of Kristallnacht in 1938, Jews were virtually defenceless already. But WWII still hadn't started.
In Israel, most terrorist attempts are stopped by armed civilians, not police or even military. Yes, the military secures the borders which prevents infiltration, but what about the Arabs who live in Israel already? When an Arab jumps into a bulldozer and starts mowing down bus stops in Jerusalem, it's a civilian who shoots the terrorist and puts an end to the attack. When the terrorist began murdering students in the Rav Kook Yeshiva, it was a civilian across the street who grabbed his gun and took out the terrorist. The police were still minutes away in both situations -- and minutes mean lives. But there was no war going on in Israel proper at the time of either of these attacks.
How about the Chabad House in Mumbai? If they had had a gun, they would have had a chance at survival. The innocents in the hotels and cafes? Same -- and still not a war situation.
What about (the legendary or infamous, depending on your point of view) Bernie Goetz? He unquestionably broke NY's concealed carry laws, but if he hadn't, would he be alive today?
And the Holocaust Museum shooter? No war, no soldiers, but thank G-d there were armed guards. How many innocents would be dead if there hadn't been?
If you think that guns are for soldiers and war only, you have rendered yourself defenceless in the face of the harsh realities of the world we live in.
Gun Nut, there really are evil people in the world, and if good people aren't prepared to defend themselves, evil will rule. Owning a gun does not make a sane and responsible person violent any more than not owning one makes a person safe from gun violence.
Gun Nut:
Let us say we don't agree. The second amendment was enacted for citizens to protect themselves against militia. The amendment has far outlived its purpose.
Gun Rabbi:
Really? I doubt the Founding Fathers would agree with you. Just a few quotes:
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." (Richard Henry Lee, Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights.)
"The great object is that every man be armed . . . Everyone who is able may have a gun." (Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution.)
"The advantage of being armed . . . the Americans possess over the people of all other nations . . . 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." (James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in his Federalist Paper No. 46.)
Ultimately, the Founding Fathers saw the 2nd Amendment as confirming -- not conferring -- a pre-existing right, a right which provides the ultimate backstop against a tyrannical government or even a government that usurps power from the people:
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defence which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual State. In a single State, if the persons entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defence. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair." (Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper No. 28)
Or, as Tench Coxe put it (Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788):
"The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments but, where I trust in G-d it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."
Or (Tench Coxe, Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789):
"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."
Gun Nut:
You have reinforced my argument. What was germane 250 years ago is not germane today. We can't have youth borrowing grandpa's guns for "show and tell" or show and shoot. I am sorry we are 180 degrees apart on this issue. I am a social extreme liberal and a fiscal moderate. I detest politicians like George Bush and Ronald Reagan. I had a lot of respect for Barry Goldwater, however, for I felt he was honest and not self-assuming.
Gun Rabbi:
Hmm, I suppose that the whole Constitution -- "germane 250 years ago" -- might as well be scrapped then. Or are the only parts "germane" that you deem so? If so, by what criteria do you deem 2A irrelevant today?
I too am a social liberal -- which is exactly why I see no reason for the government to be meddling in my rights, whether they be freedom of speech, the right to defend myself, or the right to buy whatever health insurance I want from whomever I want, or for that matter the right to carry no insurance if I choose to do so. After all, don't we liberals "live and let live"?
Gun Nut:
The spirit of the "guns" section of the second amendment was to protect citizens against armed militia. We do not have armed militia today. The views you are espousing are not "liberal" at all. They are the platform of the Libertarian party, who believe in "small government" Jeffersonian philosophy as narrated by Ayn Rand in her novels. Liberals believe in government controls like the FTA and Pure food and Drug laws... etc.
Gun Rabbi:
The Supreme Court -- who I assume we agree is the arbiter of the Constitution, and I assume that we also agree is germane even though it was established 250 years ago -- disagrees with you. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment "protects an individual right to keep and bear arms", saying that 2A is "premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defence, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad)." The Court further ruled that "the activities [the Amendment] protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrolment in the militia."
For further reading, see the case and decision here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZS.html
Gun Nut:
They have to rule that in context. I don't think we have repealed the Second Amendment... YET.
Gun Rabbi:
Thank G-d!
Now there are lots of comments I could make about this conversation, but I'll limit myself to just one observation. Notice how the Gun Nut has not a fact on his side -- he brings no logic, no evidence, nothing but his own vague feeling that guns cause violence and therefore should be illegal.
I wonder what the source of that conclusion is? I wonder what it is that we should fear if the Gun Nut gets a gun in his hand?
