Showing posts with label guns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guns. Show all posts
1/15/11
John Meachum, Gun Owner, On Gun Control: We Need It
I am not a huge John Meachum fan, but I respect his intelligence and this intelligent, reasonable, short, to the point, video. Basically, we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban. Duh. Too bad he needs to say it.
Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.
8/20/09
Our Freedoms Are Not Based On Violence
From E.J. Dionne, who nails the whole bring-your-gun-to-the-townhall thing:
What needs to be addressed is not the legal question but the message that the gun-toters are sending.
This is not about the politics of populism. It's about the politics of the jackboot. It's not about an opposition that has every right to free expression. It's about an angry minority engaging in intimidation backed by the threat of violence.
There is a philosophical issue here that gets buried under the fear that so many politicians and media-types have of seeming to be out of touch with the so-called American heartland.
The simple fact is that an armed citizenry is not the basis for our freedoms. Our freedoms rest on a moral consensus, enshrined in law, that in a democratic republic we work out our differences through reasoned, and sometimes raucous, argument. Free elections and open debate are not rooted in violence or the threat of violence. They are precisely the alternative to violence, and guns have no place in them.
On the contrary, violence and the threat of violence have always been used by those who wanted to bypass democratic procedures and the rule of law. Lynching was the act of those who refused to let the legal system do its work. Guns were used on election days in the Deep South during and after Reconstruction to intimidate black voters and take control of state governments.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
