After the ordinary and expected
condemnation of the Newtown massacre, he starts by explaining why the NRA has
been officially silent:
Out of respect for those grieving families, and until
the facts are known, the NRA has refrained from comment. While some have tried to
exploit tragedy for political gain, we have remained respectfully silent.
Which isn’t a great explanation
for their silence but it is a decent one and it does get in a jab at those who
have had a rush to judgment.
Then he launches into a broadside
on gun-free zones. Now I have long felt
that the solution is to let teachers carry on campus. I do not think it is practical to put armed
guards at every school. I mean one
wouldn’t be enough because it only designates to the maniacs who he should kill
first; so you would have to hire at least two, probably more like a minimum of
five, armed guards or police officers for each school. And with what money will we hire them? No, I think it makes infinitely more sense
just to let teachers have guns. So I disagree
with this, but it is still brilliant:
How have our nation's priorities gotten so far out of
order? Think about it. We care about our money, so we protect our banks with armed
guards. American airports, office buildings, power plants, courthouses — even
sports stadiums — are all protected by armed security.
We care about the President, so we protect him with
armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by armed
Capitol Police officers.
Yet when it comes to the most beloved, innocent and
vulnerable members of the American family — our children — we as a society leave
them utterly defenseless, and the monsters and predators of this world know it
and exploit it. That must change now!
...
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no national,
one-size-fits-all solution to protecting our children. But do know this
President zeroed out school emergency planning grants in last year's budget,
and scrapped "Secure Our Schools" policing
grants in next year's budget. With all the foreign aid, with all the money in
the federal budget, we can’t afford to put a police officer in every school?
What is brilliant in this is that
it changes the conversation. Ordinary
people will rationally wonder, “well, shouldn’t we have had someone with a gun there?” Even people who don’t want teachers to be
armed will have a hard time explaining to us why we shouldn’t have armed police
there.
So what he seems to be trying to
do is establish a new consensus that leaving our students completely
unprotected is just plain insane. And
then when everyone crunches the numbers and sees that we can’t afford a cop in
every school, then the answer will fall back to what I consider the best position:
let the teachers carry guns. Because it is either that or leave our kids completely unprotected.
Another brilliant part is this
one:
And the fact is, that wouldn't even begin to address
the much larger and more lethal criminal
class: Killers, robbers, rapists and drug gang members who have spread like cancer
in every community in this country. Meanwhile, federal gun prosecutions have
decreased by 40% — to the lowest levels in a decade.
In other words, “the government
is not even keeping the guns from the people they promise to keep them away
from. Why on earth should they be asking
you do disarm?” Nice and very straightforward.
And then he gets to the part that
regular readers know I am most likely to be annoyed by:
And here's another dirty little truth that the media
try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting
shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people. Through
vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto,
Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here’s one: it’s called Kindergarten
Killers. It’s been online for 10 years. How come my research department could
find it and all of yours either couldn’t or didn’t want anyone to know you had
found it?
Then there’s the blood-soaked slasher films like
"American Psycho" and "Natural Born Killers" that are aired
like propaganda loops on "Splatterdays" and every day, and a thousand
music videos that portray life as a joke and murder as a way of life. And then
they have the nerve to call it "entertainment."
But is that what it really is? Isn't fantasizing
about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of
pornography? In a race to the bottom, media conglomerates compete with one another
to shock, violate and offend every standard of civilized society by bringing an
ever-more-toxic mix of reckless behavior and criminal cruelty into our homes —
every minute of every day of every month of every year. A child growing up in America witnesses
16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence by the time he or she reaches the
ripe old age of 18.
Now, on one hand, I hate his
broadside on the First Amendment. But I
think I know what he is up to and I think the giveaway is the fact he hasn’t
actually proposed any kind of ban or regulation. So here’s what I think his game is.
I think he wants to force First Amendment advocates to make many
arguments that would then reflect well on the Second Amendment.
For instance, I do not believe
that violent video games contribute to this sort of thing. For myself, when I have frustration, nothing
works it out better than what I jokingly call God of War therapy. It makes
me feel very zen, very quickly. I am not
libel to get violent when I am frustrated in any case—I am never not in control
and I frankly don’t understand how other people can claim to be—but it does a
good job dissipating my frustration.
And I concede that there are some
games kids should not be playing. For
instance, if you are a parent, and you allow a child under the age of sixteen
to play Grand Theft Auto, you are
just a bad parent. And I say this as a
person who loves the series and has played every iteration since Grand Theft Auto III as well as many of
their clones. But they aren’t for kids.
But for those who simultaneously
want to ban guns and allow Grand Theft
Auto, it forces them to make some curious arguments. For instance, the very people who bizarrely
assert that the right to bear arms applies only to muskets are required to
explain how Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press adds up to “Freedom of Video
Game.” There are many forms of media
that are not among those specifically enumerated in the First Amendment, and
yet no one bats an eye at applying the First Amendment to them, as indicated by
this joke on Twitter:
ban nickelback! Our founding fathers never imagined we'd have such assault music @netmarcos @mgrossi1 @fearnomission #NoWayNRA
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) December 20, 2012
Now there is a way to say Nickelback,
as awful a band as it is, is protected without pretending the Constitution is
alive or any silliness like that. As I said
in my Erik
Loomis post the other day, Madison felt that all powers not granted to the
Federal Government are denied. So when
someone invented the first video game, the first question that should have been
asked isn’t “what right does anyone have make this and speak freely in this
medium?” but rather, “what right does the government have to regulate it?” Since the founders didn’t have even Pong they obviously didn’t grant the
government the power to regulate video
games and until and unless the Constitution is amended to include this power,
the Federal Government has no right to regulate it. In this view, it’s really that the First
Amendment protects video games, but rather that the First Amendment gives
courts a guidepost pointing out that they should be cautious in allowing the government
to regulate any kind of expression.
And it is worth noting that none
of those difficulties are presented when arguing that modern technology applies
to the Second Amendment. The founders
might not have had AR-15’s but they didn’t guarantee merely the right to bear “muskets”
but the right to bear “arms.” And the
AR-15 is definitely an “arm.” Indeed the
founding fathers even allowed for the private ownership of cannons, meaning
they allowed for ordinary citizens to possess weapons that could have caused
death on a scale similar to what happened in Newtown. There is simply no good reason to say that the
AR-15 isn’t covered by the Second Amendment.
(But note an important limiting principle I discuss here.)
And further the media has changed
in its reach. In 1789, Freedom of Speech
was self-limited by how far your voice could carry. So if a man was out to whip up a mob into
dangerous violence, there was only so many people he could influence. Today, such true incitement could be carried
live into millions of homes and, in theory at least, start a conflagration all
over the whole country. In other words,
modern technology has magnified the danger posed by an individual speaker, just
as modern technology has magnified the danger posed by an individual
gunman. And yet we only think this is a justification
to limit the latter.
And likewise, those who would
defend “Freedom of Video Game” (sorry to keep harping on this, but this is the
outer limit of how far the First Amendment can be stretched), must also assert
that the protection in the Constitution is nearly absolute. I mean after all look at that language in the
First Amendment:
Congress shall make
no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of
the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress
of grievances.
So advocates of “Freedom of Video
Game” will say: “see? It says, ‘Congress
shall make no law... abridging freedom of speech or of the press…’ And ‘no law abridging’ means exactly that.” And those who are pro-choice on bearing arms
can come back and say, “so what does it mean in the Second Amendment when it
says the right to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged?” Game, set and match.
So I think LaPierre is actually
trying to force those of us who defend the First Amendment to defend it in
terms that benefit the Second.
And if that is his goal, that is
brilliant. If he merely expressed
support for violent video games, etc. then everyone who agreed with him would
ignore the point, even if he explicitly made the argument that we are treating
the First and Second Amendment differently without any justification. But instead by attacking the First Amendment,
he forces those who are at once pro-First-Amendment and anti-Second-Amendment
to make arguments to defend the First that equally apply to the Second.
Of course the danger posed here
is that he can be accused of hypocrisy, but again no pro-First-Amendment and
anti-Second-Amendment liberal can make that argument without laying bare their
own hypocrisy.
And I have to think this argument
in particular designed to twist the knife in just a bit more:
And throughout it all, too many in our national media
… their corporate owners … and their stockholders … act as silent enablers, if
not complicit co-conspirators.
How many times is the NRA accused
of being in it just for the money? Yes
of course there is a gun industry, and no gun manufacturer has taken an oath of
poverty. Like every one of us in our
jobs they want to make money. Which
doesn’t preclude the possibility that they also want to genuinely help people,
that they make guns because they believe that they make people safer. I mean I doubt there is anyone who knows how
to make guns who couldn’t be quickly taught how to make something less
controversial like cars. They don’t
have to make money this way, so they choose to and presumably for good
reasons. But there is no question that
they make money too.
But just as there is a massive
industry with a vested interest in the Second Amendment, there is a massive
industry with a vested interest in the First Amendment. Thousands of movie studios, television
channels, cable companies, internet providers, newspapers, book publishers,
video game makers, music companies, and people who sell the hardware on which
to view this media, all make money every day on our Freedom of Expression. And like the gun manufacturers, they make a
tidy profit. So why is it that the ACLU,
which defends Freedom of Expression with a healthy support from those who have
a vested interest in Freedom of Exprression, is seen as a white hat wearing
group of good guys and the NRA is seen as the bad guys?
Oh, right, because it is the
media making this determination.
Which is not to put down the
ACLU, but to say that the NRA deserves to be treated at least as well and this
comment by LaPierre does a very good job calling out the contrast between how Freedom
of Expression and the Right to Bear Arms are treated differently.
So for me, who prefers to be
straightforward about things, I found LaPierre’s statement to be annoying. I am allergic to bull, after all, and it was
bull. But at the same time I appreciate the
sly intelligence behind it.
Which is not to say
that a person who enjoys violent media is violent. No actual human beings were hurt by either Grand Theft Auto or Natural Born Killers and thus those of us who have no trouble
separating fantasy from reality will have no trouble enjoying violent media
while believing in peace in the real world.
But LaPierre surely knows that you can’t expect the press to make that
distinction.
Update: One more additional thought. In a very real way, LaPierre can’t be seen as supporting violent
media like Grand Theft Auto or Natural Born Killers. If he says that, then the takeaway is he is
just a bloodthirsty maniac who loves violence.
But if he denounces those kinds of media, even while not proposing that
anyone actually do anything about them
except at most self-restraint, he communicates to millions of people that he
doesn’t own a gun because he likes killing or anything like that, but because
he wants to protect others.
---------------------------------------
My wife and I have lost our jobs
due to the harassment of convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin, including an
attempt to get us killed and to frame me for a crime carrying a sentence of up
to ten years. I know that claim sounds
fantastic, but if you read starting here, you will see absolute proof of these
claims using documentary and video evidence.
If you would like to help in the fight to hold Mr. Kimberlin accountable,
please hit the Blogger’s Defense Team button on the right. And thank you.
Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing,
mostly for snark and site updates. And
you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent
History here.
And you can read a little more about my novel, here.
---------------------------------------
Disclaimer:
I have accused some people,
particularly Brett Kimberlin, of
reprehensible conduct. In some cases, the conduct is even
criminal. In all cases, the only justice I want is through the
appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system. I do not want to see vigilante violence
against any person or any threat of such violence. This kind of conduct is not only morally
wrong, but it is counter-productive.
In the particular case of Brett
Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him. Do not call him. Do not write him a letter. Do not write him an email. Do not text-message him. Do not engage in any kind of directed
communication. I say this in part
because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want
that to happen to him.
And for that matter, don’t go on
his property. Don’t sneak around and try
to photograph him. Frankly try not to
even be within his field of vision. Your
behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to
mention trespass and other concerns).
And do not contact his
organizations, either. And most of all, leave his family alone.
The only exception to all that is
that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with
contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might
report. And even then if he tells you to
stop contacting him, obey that request. That
this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that
a person asks you to stop and you refuse.
And let me say something
else. In my heart of hearts, I don’t
believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above. But if any of you have, stop it, and if you
haven’t don’t start.
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