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Addiction to firearm regulation
Just had a thought, based on the previous entry.
In my experience, most legislation follows one of two courses: (1) after enactment, it endures without much change for decades. Its advocates got what they wanted; from there on they bring test cases to interpret or enforce it. National Environmental Protection Act, Administrative Procedure Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act would be laws of this type that we handled at Interior. Alternately, (2) the law is tinkered with in minor ways. The Endangered Species Act falls into this class, with the tinkering generally being aimed at loosening it.
Firearm regulations are entirely different. No matter how much is enacted, its political proponents insist that they must have more. As I noted in the previous post, even New York and Massachusetts politicians want more, more. If the laws are failing, it just proves they must be made nationwide, not that something is wrong with the approach.
Given this, can we fairly speak of an addiction to firearms regulation? The behavioral pattern matches the most severe chemical addictions. There is no such thing as enough. Whatever is obtained soon ceases to satisfy iIn chemical addiction, because the body compensates by creating more natural depressants or stimulants, in legislation, because crime continues or rises). The concept of "enough" does not even exist. I think Dave Kopel once pointed out to me that no antigun organization has ever laid out a real platform -- "this is what we want, and if we get it, we'll be satisfied and stop there."
The only parallel I can think of is Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which has really won all that they sought (.08, no drinking under 21, stiff sanctions, severe punishment for repeat offenders), but keeps coming for more action. Even there, most of their recent push is for more enforcement and stiffer sanctions, wanting roving checkpoints and license plate seizures -- they don't seem to be pushing for lowering the level still farther, or raising the drinking age to 25, or things like that.
What could we regard as symptoms of a legislative addiction? I'd suggest:
1. No level of regulation is "enough."
2. That a problem continues despite regulation does not prompt an examination of whether the regulation itself is ineffective, but only the claim that it is insufficient. Logically, there will be situations where the legislation is potentially effective, but insufficient. The key here is that the proponents of it are incapable of examining it in this light: the thought that it is ineffective is literally inconceivable. Evidence to the contrary is simply ignored. They MUST HAVE MORE.
3. As a consequence of 1 and 2, the proponents lack a true platform. They have at best a time-bound agenda of what they think they might get in the near future.
4. If the addiction cannot be fed well, anything will suffice, even if it has no real impact ("cop-killer bullets," "assault weapons").
5. The addiction must be fed, even in the face of suggestions that it is harmful. The loss of both houses to the GOP, liberal support despite harm to other liberal objectives such as civil liberties, the tendency of opponents to counter-legislate with stiffer penalties and even the death penalty, etc. These consequences, which would meet with proponents' strong objections if they came about in isolation, are acceptable costs if the addiction can be fed.
[Guy Smith adds, in a comment stopped for some reason by the spam filter:
I'm not sure it is an "addiction", but more like self reinforcing diagnosis.
Contrast gun control logic with "medicine" as practiced by barber doctors of medieval times. If you were ill and went to the barber, they would let some blood. The loss of blood made you feel woozy, so to cure this condition they would ... let some more blood. The resulting drop in blood pressure would make you nauseous and lethargic, so the learned barber would ... let some more blood.
Repeat until the patient dies from "vile vapors" or some other contrived explanation.
The modern scenario is one where the unintended consequence -- emboldened criminals, street level violence, hot home invasions -- bring calls for yet more gun control ... repeat until we look like the U.K.]
10 Comments
Bullshit. There is no fact that will change an anti-gunner's mind.
Otherwise, great comment.
The 'addiction' to gun laws is actually a drug addiction. Essentially, the mind chemicals pumped out in self-righteous conflict is what the activists need so desperately. Facts are irrelevant; they must define enemies then attack them, win or lose, to get their rush.
As you say, more is never enough and when they have finished banning guns they ban knives, motorcycles and martial arts equipment.
Living in a state where no amount of gun control is too much for some elected representatives (NJ) I fully understand this addiction to further gun control laws.. Part of the reason may be that our state assemblymen and senators have now become full time politicians with fully staffed offices both in their districts and in the state capitol. They feel the need to take a position on nearly every issue or problem which confronts us each day. And for many (sadly both Rrepublicans and Democrats in this state) that means that the state needs to regulate or control every facet of our lives, not just guns. Here in NJ over the past few years lawmakers have stepped in to control such things as tiny motorized scooters used by children. This state tightly regulates who can own a firearm, how that firearm must be stored and transported and where is can be discharged. BB guns and muzzleloaders are treated the same as an M1 Garand and require the same permits and yet many of our lawmakers don't feel that that is enough.
Gun control also offers many politicians a way to claim they have done something about crime without actually offending many of their constituents. To them the way to deal with street corner drug dealing and gangs and the violent crime they bring is to blame guns and hence gun owners most of whom live in safe and secure suburbia and rural areas. A massive police crack down on urban crime would upset to many of their consituents.
Mike Gordon
I think addiction is the right word, but I don't think it's limited to firearms. You've already mentioned MADD, whose name belies the fact that its true agenda is more like that of the Women's Christian Temperance Union than one about drunk driving per se. [Then again, the WCTU wasn't all that big on temperance, either.] I can't remember the last time I heard a proponent of socialized medicine agree that the problems with medicine are that we've socialized it too much rather than too little, nor a public school teacher admit that we're throwing too much money at a failing system and should consider trying something else instead. Then there's the pro-abortion crowd, which can't be happy with a "constitutional" right to first trimester abortion, unless they can also have partial birth abortion on demand. And what about the ACLU? Have they ever taken a non-addictive approach to any issue at all?
As to guns, I think it bears noting that the fanatic, addictive mentality is not limited to one side. Many pro-gunners are equally addictive the other way, viewing even the most minor restriction as the first step down the road to serfdom.
It has nothing to do with addiction excepting the addiction to power. Witness the atf continually changing ITS interpretation of its own regulations always with the end result ofincreasing the agency's power with each change. The latest is that separate uppers are now machine guns if they can be attached to a full auto lower.
"Many pro-gunners are equally addictive the other way, viewing even the most minor restriction as the first step down the road to serfdom."
I'm afraid I have to disagree; the record shows that the anti-gunners are never satisfied with a minor restriction; to them it is just the first step down the slippery slope to a total ban on guns.
"Many pro-gunners are equally addictive the other way, viewing even the most minor restriction as the first step down the road to serfdom."
I guess we're addicted to freedom and the constitution, eh? I think everyone would be happy if the right to keep and bear arms were not infringed. Once that became a reality, you could count on the pro-gun folks being content.
An addiction? Certainly not a physical one, no, not like to heroin or nicotine. An emotional or psychological one, perhaps, but substantially different from an addiction to gambling or pornography -- although alluding to an addiction to the "pornography of gun control" or to "gambling on victimization" has potential.
I think the Anti's position reflects commitment to their ideology rather than an 'addiction' to legislation. Their commitment reflects blindness from the thick veneer of ideology to an agenda they dare not verbalize, because to state it would be to destroy any hope of achieving it. In this case they have gone down the slippery slope from perspective to bias to prejudice to bigotry.
Call it the guilt of wealth, the fear of responsibility or the safety of surrender, it all leads to authoritarian government where the promise of safety is more valuable than the price of freedom.
The question for all of us is how much will we lose before we are willing to give up everything we have left to fight for what we believe in? What do THEY have to lose before they embrace the rights of self-defense through the responsibilities of firearms? What do WE have to lose before we accept total disarmament?
Ultimately, the side that gets the opponent to accept those goals first becomes the winner. The path for our side to their goals is shortest, because we give up a little more every year. They want to be subjugated, therefore our victory instead depends on them being abandoned and preyed upon until they are reduced by attrition. We need to keep our guns while at the same time they become segregated.
1. Statism is a mental illness
2. Statists are addicted to power over others
3. They will do anything and everything to hang onto that power, under *any* and *every* eventuality, including armed revolution
4 Gun control is just part of their methodology to achieve their objective of enslaving the population; as others have mentioned, other aspects are state run school systems (brainwashing) and socialized medicine (erodes independence and self-reliance)
"Many pro-gunners are equally addictive the other way, viewing even the most minor restriction as the first step down the road to serfdom."
If we were starting from a clean slate, perhaps "even the most minor restrictions" could be debated on their own merits. But when they're added to the already existing body of gun control laws, it's obvious that they are acting as a one-way ratchet, toward greater restrictions.
How else to explain the belief that a simple background check and 5 day waiting period (Brady Bill) will keep guns out of the hands of criminals, but the more thorough background check and longer waiting periods (months) required for a concealed weapons license will not?
Back to the original topic, see http://davidbrin.com/addiction.html
While there are many drawbacks, self-righteousness can also be heady, seductive, and even... well... addictive. Any truly honest person will admit that the state feels good. The pleasure of knowing, with subjective certainty, that you are right and your opponents are deeply, despicably wrong.
Sanctimony, or a sense of righteous outrage, can feel so intense and delicious that many people actively seek to return to it, again and again. Moreover, as Westin et.al. have found, this trait crosses all boundaries of ideology.2
Indeed, one could look at our present-day political landscape and argue that a relentless addiction to indignation may be one of the chief drivers of obstinate dogmatism and an inability to negotiate pragmatic solutions to a myriad modern problems. It may be the ultimate propellant behind the current "culture war."
Or, as Glenn Reynolds wrote in "A Critical Guide to the Second Amendment" (1995), "But being right once is not the same as being right always. That is easy to forget, of course, as there are few pleasures more insidiously addictive than the belief in one's own moral and intellectual superiority."
The fact that there was no instantaneous "crime wave" involving so-called "assault weapons" after the AW/Hi-cap mag ban expired in September 2004, may help interject some realistic thinking into future proposals to enact the same or similar legislation. Fair and relatively quick enforcement of existing laws against misusing firearms, and/or using them criminally, seems to me the best deterrent in most cases; I note this includes keeping firearms out of the hands of people who legally aren't supposed to have them.