Posted on 02/19/2018 6:53:53 AM PST by Sopater
In November 2007, the novelist David Foster Wallace wrote a short essay for a special edition of The Atlantic on “The American Idea.” Writing about 9/11 and all that came after, Wallace proposed what some might consider a monstrous thought experiment:
Are some things still worth dying for? Is the American idea one such thing? Are you up for a thought experiment? What if we chose to regard the 2,973 innocents killed in the atrocities of 9/11 not as victims but as democratic martyrs, ‘sacrifices on the altar of freedom’? In other words, what if we decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to terrorism is part of the price of the American idea? And, thus, that ours is a generation of Americans called to make great sacrifices in order to preserve our democratic way of life—sacrifices not just of our soldiers and money but of our personal safety and comfort?
In still other words, what if we chose to accept the fact that every few years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting?
Wallace’s point was that, in the wake of 9/11, a host of policies had been put in place—the Patriot Act, warrantless surveillance, private contractors performing military duties—without a substantive public debate about the trade-offs they represented and whether they were worth it. Wallace wanted to know what it said about us as a people that we were unable or unwilling even to consider whether some things might be more important than safety.
“Why now can we not have a serious national conversation about sacrifice, the inevitability of sacrifice—either of (a) some portion of safety or (b) some portion of the rights and protections that make the American idea so incalculably precious?” he asked. And if we would not have such a conversation, “What kind of future does that augur?”
More than a decade later, we are still incapable of serious discussion of the trade-offs between safety and freedom. For the most part, we’re not even able to admit that such trade-offs exist.
Are you ready for another monstrous thought experiment? What if we decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to mass shootings is part of the price of the American idea? In some ways, mass shootings are a more apt example of what Wallace was talking about than terrorism. After all, we can arguably do something about a worldwide ideological and religious movement that uses violence as a political weapon—and we have. Whether the aggregate cost in American blood and treasure has been worth it is another question, but it suffices to say that we can do much less about a random madman intent on killing innocents than we can about ISIS and al-Qaeda.
Set aside, for now, the facile arguments for gun control half-measures that wouldn’t have stopped the Parkland shooting—or Las Vegas, Virginia Tech, Newtown, or the others. Consider instead what the Left thinks it would really take to stop these kinds of shootings: a repeal of the Second Amendment, followed by mass confiscation of firearms and subsequent heavy regulation of private gun ownership, along the lines of policies in many European countries.
I’m not trying to be provocative. That’s really what it would take. Are we willing to consider it? Should we? What does it say about us that we can’t even acknowledge the trade-offs involved in keeping U.S. school children safe? The best we could manage last week were the worn-out, ritualized responses: outraged calls for anemic gun control measures from the Left and a naive insistence from the Right that tackling “mental health issues” will somehow solve the problem.
The New York Times’ Bret Stephens, for one, is at least willing to be honest about the thing. Back in October, he wrote a column calling for repealing the Second Amendment. There’s of course much to criticize in Stephens’ argument, beginning with his cherry-picked statistics that fail to explain how, despite a recent surge, the murder rate, and violent crime in general, has been plummeting since the 1990s even as gun ownership has steadily increased.
I’m not going to pick apart Stephens’ piece (my colleague David Harsanyi did a fine job of that shortly after it ran). The point is that Stephens plainly states what most liberals are unwilling to admit: if we really want to stop gun violence in America, we’re going to have to make fundamental changes to the constitutional order so governments can wrest guns out of the hands of Americans.
To suggest anything less is intellectually dishonest because anything less simply won’t work. It’s no surprise, then, that Joe Scarborough took to The Washington Post on Friday to argue for stronger background checks, a ban on bump stocks, and “assurances that military-style weapons”—whatever that means—“will stop finding their way into the hands of terrorists, domestic abusers and the mentally ill.” He puts these forward as substantive policies that will not only make a difference but won’t require rewriting the Bill of Rights, neither of which are true.
Or consider the refrain that immediately popped up on social media after the shooting: that guns should be regulated like automobiles. Sure, there are myriad ways we could do that, from requiring things like insurance and a license, to heavy restrictions on what sort of guns manufacturers are allowed to sell to the public.
But of course owning and driving a car is not a constitutionally protected right, it’s a privilege that comes with certain duties and costs. If we’re going to regulate firearms like cars, we’re going to have to decide that owning a gun will no longer be a constitutional right but a heavily regulated privilege. If we do that, we’re going to have to be honest about what that means: changing the very nature of the constitutional system America’s Founders designed.
Here it must be said that the Second Amendment was not meant to safeguard the right to hunt deer or shoot clay pigeons, or even protect your home and family from an intruder. The right to bear arms stems from the right of revolution, which is asserted in the Declaration of Independence and forms the basis of America’s social compact. Our republic was forged in revolution, and the American people have always retained the right to overthrow their government if it becomes tyrannical. That doesn’t mean that private militias should have tanks and missile launchers, but it does mean that revolution—the right of first principles—undergirds our entire political system.
That might sound academic or outlandish next to the real-life horror of a school shooting, but the fact remains that we can’t simply wave off the Second Amendment any more than we can wave off the First, or the Fourth, or any of them. They are constitutive elements of the American idea, without which the entire constitutional system would eventually collapse.
In this, America is unlike the European nations that gun control advocates like to compare it with. Germany can restrict the right to bear arms as easily as it can—and does—restrict free speech. Not so in America. If we want to change that, it will involve a substantial diminishment of our constitutional rights as we have known them up until now. After last week’s school shooting, some Americans are okay with that, especially those families who are grieving. But I suspect most Americans are not willing to make that trade-off, and might never be—unless they suffer the same of kind personal loss.
Returning to Wallace’s thought experiment, we might rephrase it like this: is the Second Amendment worth dying for? That’s another way of asking what the American idea is worth. It’s not an easy question, and I don’t pose it lightly, as I’m sure Wallace didn’t.
But it’s one we need to ask, even in the face of heartbreaking and devastating loss. Is ours a generation of Americans called to make great sacrifices of our personal safety in order to preserve our democratic way of life? If we will not sacrifice some measure our personal safety, are we willing to sacrifice something like the Second Amendment? If so, what else are we willing to sacrifice?
LOL! The scary part is some wouldn’t see the humor in that anymore.
It’s like the speed limit analogy. How slow is slow enough to prevent the MOST deaths?
Leaving the freaking car in the garage.
Which, BTW, driverless cars are all about. Taking our GREAT American freedom away. After guns.
Washington Post says America’s love affair with cars is over.
They can pull my COLD DEAD HANDS off of my Dodge Challenger, hollowed out muffler for speed, steering wheel. :)
The Second Amendment is an acknowledgement that life is dangerous, that people are sinners, and that your safety is your responsibility.
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Well said
If we didn’t have the Gun Control Act of 1968 , 911 would have NEVER Happened, half the passengers would have been armed and the hijackers would have been shot!
An awful lot of people HAVE died for the 2nd Amendment, and the Constitution.
The fact is, were it not for the 2nd Amendment, America would have dissolved years ago. It’s the “wall” that protects the people from a tyrannically government.
Those who would-be tyrants cannot figure out how to get around, or over this “wall”. But the shark has been jumped...and by sheer virtue of HAVING the amendment, prevents anyone from taking the right away.
The more “shootings” they can generate, in places like schools, etc., the more chance (they figure) they’ll have to abolish it. In a perfect, Dr. Suess world, that might be true, but the rights, and the guns, are too numerous, and too embedded.
I would be like the final level of “Doom” if the government tried such a foolish endeavor.
“Have Gun, Will Travel”
“That doesn’t mean that private militias should have tanks and missile launchers...”
Why not? In the defense of Charleston Harbor in June, 1776, Col. Moultrie loaned his cannons to the South Carolina militia. He had the cannons stored in his barn. Those cannons defeated and turned back the British warships that tried to invade Sullivan Island.
Stupid liberals don’t know history.
I don’t know many who know how to operate a tank, but I’m sure we could learn. Give us tanks. And mortars. And RPGs.
How can the left expect us to surrender our arms when, in the next breath, they threaten our lives for our beliefs?
I used to be an internal process reengineering guy at a telecomm company I worked at. When we would go around and start looking at a problem, we would ask people what the cause was. Although I did not keep statistics, it was almost always NOT what the employees thought the cause was—but usually something completely different.
We used to have an excercise called the five whys. You would ask “why does this happen?” And when they gave the reason you would ask again. Go back 5 levels. THAT is your root cause.
Try getting ANYONE to sit through that thought exercise. It’s not easy.
TOP line of my home page...
“THE BEAUTY OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS THAT IT WILL NOT BE NEEDED UNTIL THEY TRY AND TAKE IT”. Thomas Jefferson
Without guns (2nd amendment) one side or the other would not exist. Whichever side was in power would be able to shred the constitution as they saw fit. The right to free speech would go first. However, you would retain your right to a speedy trial. About 10 seconds is you were lucky.
Even if you were on the side holding power, you might be expendable on a whim. A few people North Korea may serve as an example here...
In short, without the 2nd amendment you might as well use the rest of the documents as toilet paper.
What about this don’t the sheeple understand?
America spoke loud and clear concerning how they feel about the 2nd amendment during the 8 treasonous years of the Hussien regime.
“Is The Second Amendment Worth Dying For?”......
When I joined the U.S. Navy I, like millions before and after me, KNEW what we faced yet we still accepted that potential. I accepted that possibility then and stand by it today!
Here’s the agreement I made for our country. (To save you time looking it up, It goes like this)...
(a) Enlistment Oath.— Each person enlisting in an armed force shall take the following oath:
“I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
It varies slightly between commissioned officers and enlisted but the agreements are the same.
Is the 2nd Amendment worth dying for?
Without the 2nd, there will be no 1st Amendment..... or any others IMHO. Isn’t that the plan?
Living as a free man is dangerous but not as dangerous as living under a powerful government not restraint by rules, laws or customs.
Leftists always count on the military and police to be their henchmen for disarmament when the time for it finally arrives.
We used to laugh at that thought. Sadly, as our Post-Christian nation ages and those who have good moral consciences retire or die off - they are being replaced by those who are soulless, guiltless, maniacal, and downright evil (you may refer to them as Millennials).
It’s eventually going to happen unfortunately. The pic above the Travis posted says it all.
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