Free For All - The Free Liberal Blog: Is Extremism a Virtue?

August 2008

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Some like to quote Barry Goldwater’s (infamous?) 1964 acceptance speech, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” The key clause there was “no vice”; the question is: Is extremism virtuous?

Thanks to Darren for commenting on my blog, “It’s All Opportunism.” I feel misunderstood, however. Darren makes the responsible case for gun rights, and even concealed carry. My initial blog was less about the technicalities of those positions and more about specific reactions to the Blacksburg Massacre. It’s entirely possible that most Second Amendment advocates are responsible people, one’s who do not take extremist positions. But, some extremists have been using this tragedy to air their most aggressive views. These people chide moderate freedomistas for being “wimpy” and “namby pamby,” and, worst of all, from their perspective, “opportunists.”

The main point of my blog was to suggest to gun extremists that they were themselves engaging in opportunism to use this horrible event to make their case for guns everywhere. There is nothing inherently wrong with opportunism, in my view. In fact, being attuned to the news cycle seems an excellent way to educate and mold public opinion. I was, however, suggesting some amount of sensitivity for the families of those slain.

My personal view is reasonably pro-Second Amendment. The way I read the Constitution, citizens have the right to bear arms, nationwide, but only on a citizen’s property. And I do believe that Congress can define what “arms” are, and what they are not. I don’t believe that citizens have the right to bear bazookas, for example.

The States have the power to limit where arms are carried, in my view. Banning weapons on the public streets and universities seems a reasonable thing, as the States effectively own the roads. States also can and should restrict who may carry, based on criminal backgrounds or mental defect.

I’m skeptical that States should allow concealed carry, but that is largely a function of population density. It might be reasonable in Wyoming and unreasonable in Rhode Island. Regardless, I’d leave that to the States. That Virginia did not allow guns at Virginia Tech seems reasonable to me, even if perhaps armed students might have stopped the amount of carnage there this week.

-Robert Capozzi

Comments

I wish to express my appreciation to Mr. Capozzi for replying to my critique of his original post. Too many political discussions these days between individuals passionate about the same cause (in this case, individual freedom) but differing on the specifics (in this instance, firearms, and the conduct of both sides of the gun control debate in the aftermath of a tragedy which brings the issue to the forefront of public discourse) lead to disharmony amongst people who should be allies, cutting off any attempt to establish common ground. Therefore, I am grateful that Mr. Capozzi has opted to keep this dialogue open.

As Mr. Capozzi has agreed that I have made “the responsible case for gun rights, and even concealed carry,” then the point of contention seems to be the purported “extremism” of the gun rights movement, and the supposed insensitivity of broaching that an individual lawfully carrying a concealed weapon on a college campus might be able to stop a massacre such as the one at Virginia Tech.

I would like to first attempt to tackle the assertion that “it’s entirely possible that most Second Amendment advocates are responsible people, one’s who do not take extremist positions.” As someone who grew up in the gun culture, was taught the proper use of and a healthy respect for firearms from an early age, and has followed gun-related political issues since at least the middle years of the Clinton presidency, I can tell you that it’s not only “entirely possible,” it’s an easily observed fact. While I have no doubt that some individuals have taken extremist positions, most of us politically aware gun owners would ask nothing more than that the Second Amendment be treated as normal constitutional law as are other portions of the Bill of Rights, as an individual right subject to reasonable restrictions based upon the “strict scrutiny” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny) test applied in other instances wherein government policy comes into conflict with an individual constitutional right.

How many gun rights activists have you personally met, either online or face-to-face, Mr. Capozzi? I’m not talking about the walking stereotypes, the far fringes of the movement who whisper of “black helicopters” and “gub’mint conspiracies.” I speak of the ordinary, hardworking, taxpaying, law-abiding citizens with families and mortgages and grocery bills, a diverse group whose only common characteristic, more often than not, is their willingness to stand up for the right of an individual to own and use the appropriate tools for his or her protection. These aren’t the people you have to go to an NRA convention to see and associate with, though doubtless many of them do attend. No, barring residence in an area where weapons ownership is not part of the common culture, you probably need to look no further than your friends, family members, or the owners of local businesses you patronize from time to time. Unless they have made public statements, you probably wouldn’t recognize them as Second Amendment advocates.

So I ask you this: would you be willing, before you potentially paint all pro-gunners with the same broad brush because of the militant statements made by a minority, to go and find a few and talk to them? Granted, it might get you some weird looks if you just go up and ask the aforementioned family and friends at random “excuse me, are you a gun rights activist?” Thankfully, that’s not necessary. Perhaps you have a friend or two who you know owns guns and is comfortable talking about why he or she chooses to own them and what he or she believes about being a responsible owner, which includes, without question, how one presents oneself to the public. Ask him or her. If none immediately come to mind, I myself would be willing to try to locate some in your area (there’s a wide online network to ask) for you to have a face-to-face conversation with. Most of us are more than happy to explain the specifics of responsible ownership and responsible activism to individuals who have questions.

Where exactly, Mr. Capozzi, are all these extremists who are advocating guns anywhere and everywhere? Certainly not on the evening news. While I’ll grant that it seems the media has been more fair this time around in allocating time to the “perhaps an armed citizen could have intervened” viewpoint than they were after Columbine, there haven’t, to my knowledge, been any NRA spokesman being interviewed who demanded an immediate repeal of all laws governing the carrying of weapons on one’s person. Ted Nugent did, if I recall correctly, participate in a brief televised, moderated debate with Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign, and I’m sure that local stations and papers across the country, at least in the more pro-gun states, carried commentary and editorials from gun rights activists who questioned the wisdom of completely disarming everyone in a given area, but I have yet to see (except among the usual minority of rabble-rousers who inflict themselves on otherwise productive discussions on gun-related internet forums) any hysterical screams of outrage at the State of Virginia. Sympathy for the families, yes. Anger at the killer, absolutely. But not one press release from the National Rifle Association, from the Gun Owners of America, or even any comments from the gun owners I know personally, insinuating that everyone buying a gun and carrying it everywhere is the surefire way to avoid a repeat of the Virginia Tech massacre.

I definitely sympathize with your distaste for being bombarded by the views of the most militant fringe of a particular group. I myself have been subjected to numerous accusations of being “a fake libertarian” for not agreeing that we should do away with all taxes, all government programs, and all regulations overnight, and immediately go back to a gold standard for the Dollar while we’re at it…and it would probably be best if I didn’t even get started on those “libertarians” who accused me of being some flavor of closet socialist for suggesting that the geolibertarian movement might be onto something with their idea of slowly shifting taxes away from productive activity and onto rent-seeking speculation—this post is long enough without me regaling our readers with the details of those conversations.

You have my regrets if any of my fellow activists did say something that you found to be extreme, or, more likely, just poorly timed. But while I sympathize, I cannot help but feel that you, by choosing to focus on what you perceive as extremism and lousy timing, are making the same mistake as those “libertarians” I mentioned in the above paragraph. They assumed that since I, like the socialists they had come to despise, sought a greater amount of economic equality, I must be guilty of secretly supporting a socialist agenda, when in fact a cursory examination of my reasons for supporting more equality—that a society of what the Free Liberal’s own Dr. Milsted called “wage slaves and big corporations” isn’t likely to vote for more freedom—would show my agenda to be largely in line with theirs.

Just because gun rights activists of all stripes probably share a common belief, that armed citizens can be effective in preventing or (more likely) stopping mass shootings, with whatever militant individual or group attracted your attention by calling for more guns everywhere, does not mean the we have the same agenda, the same end goals, or choose to employ the same methods. I can’t know what whoever made the “more guns everywhere” comments hopes to eventually accomplish. But I do believe that I can speak for the gun rights movement as a whole when I say that our goal, our agenda, is simply that eventually the Second Amendment will given equal standing among and supported along with the others, in both the courts of law, and more importantly, the court of public opinion . This doesn’t mean a gun in every citizen’s home. This doesn’t mean anything like issuing handguns to every newly enrolled college student in case someone goes berserk on their campus and they have to defend themselves. It doesn’t mean shouting in people’s faces, immediately after a widely reported massacre, that they are cowardly sheep if they don’t choose to carry a pistol. We responsible activists do not advocate that, and we don’t do it.

What our end goal does mean is that hopefully, one day, those of us who do opt to possess and carry a gun for protection of self and others will be fairly universally seen as taking a wise precaution instead of sometimes looked upon as misguided and paranoid, and that those of us who don’t regularly carry, but do own gun/s for target shooting, hunting, or simply as family heirlooms have our ownership respected, even by those who don’t participate, just as today those who aren’t coin or stamp collectors have no desire to belittle those who are.

We’ve made great progress; in the early 90s, it seemed within a decade gun ownership as we knew it would go the way it has in England. More and more restrictions were being piled upon purchase and ownership. Whole classes of firearms that had been legal to own under federal law were now banned. With each new restriction, there arose a tiny, but growing movement advocating open rebellion as the only way out. The situation looked extremely bleak. Yet, fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. Instead of stockpiling ammunition and preparing for military battles, gun owners got together, organized, and started fighting political ones—and we won. Many supporters of the so-called “assault weapon” ban (which really only banned cosmetic features and had nothing to do with a particular gun’s lethality) were thrown out of office in 1994, and the ban itself expired in 2004. The waiting periods of the Brady Law were replaced with an electronic instant background check. Attempts to whip up public emotion after Columbine in order to pass yet another series of restrictions failed. And even to this day, most politicians view strict gun control as a third-rail issue.

But the political battles weren’t won just by voting and writing to Congress. Those were both extremely important, but even more so, in my opinion, were the face-to-face battles for the minds of the public. After all, a vocal minority, even one which is in the right, cannot forever prevail against a majority which has been led to believe that said minority’s hobbies and interests are dangerous and should be banned. So, we started taking our case to our friends and neighbors. We explained to people that the proposed bans only covered how a gun looked. We explained to inquisitive co-workers and acquaintances who had never been shooting or even handled a gun before about gun safety, and invited them to accompany us to the range for a few hours and, if they felt like it, to try shooting. But most importantly, by the fact that we, once we had identified ourselves as gun owners and gun rights activists, were still the same friendly, normal people when shooting the breeze around the office water cooler, picking up our kids from the after-school sports practices theirs were part of too, and hanging out with them on their back deck having a beer after work or a barbecue on the weekend, as we were before they knew we owned guns and supported the right of people to do so. Neither political demagogues nor the media could effectively demonize us as hate-filled individuals when John and Jane Q. Citizen were thinking “Him? Mean? No way...he helped me move a sofa last week” and “Her? Rude and spiteful? Not a chance. She volunteered to feed my dogs when I had to leave town for the weekend on an urgent business trip.”

And so, public support for gun control has been dropping, thanks in no small part to the efforts of gun rights activists to show the public that people who own guns are normal, nice, helpful, and friendly. And that, you see, was why I mentioned in the previous post that I pondered the choice of words and timing when you said that some activists have been stridently demanding guns anywhere and everywhere, right after a shooting. On this, we seem to agree, albeit for different reasons. As I also mentioned, however, silence is not an option. To be silent is to allow defeat by a thousand sound bytes.

What I seek from this dialogue, therefore, is an understanding not only of your views, but of how to present mine more effectively to you and to other potential allies. As an important part of the “Free Liberal” mentality, as I see it, is to look past traditional political sticking points and incorporate multiple value systems and beliefs into a solution that is a win for all, perhaps eventually, one conversation like this at a time, I will be able to develop a strategy for speaking not only to potential allies like yourself, but to those who were previously opponents, the way the notion of “Holistic Politics” does for egalitarians and libertarians. At the same time, what I hope that you come away from our dialogue with, if nothing else, is the understanding that regardless of the poor choices in timing made by a small group of radicals whose words were either directed at you or posted for the public to read, those radicals are not the typical gun owner or Second Amendment advocate. I would say that how one says something is just as important as what one says. If you have been subjected to accusations of being “wimpy” or “namby-pamby” by people whose own view of freedom is a different from yours, go ahead, take them to task for it. If they are calling people names, then yes, they do speak for something. Their own lack of tact, perhaps, or their own sense of inadequacy. But even if it happened to be guns they were arguing about, they do not speak for the law-abiding gun owners and the gun rights activists of this country. Our record—peaceful persuasion, responsible ownership, and a willingness to reach out to and educate people, on the other hand, does.

Posted by: Darren | April 19, 2007 05:05 PM