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Sir Ed,

I don't think gun control is on the Latino radar screen of issues.

Let's start with basic demographics: most of the Latinos in the USA today are immigrants or the children of immigrants, all from Latin America. Latin America is a macho, gaucho culture - a beef-eating, heavy-drinking culture with the same sort of cabellero cowboy legends as the US has, the same sort of popular revolutionary tradition America has - but with multiple iterations! - all overlaid with the spirituality of SPANISH Catholicism (the national identifier turns out to be important), which itself disciplined the organized and systematized torture-and-death spiritualism that preceded it. Most Latinos are mestizo, and that mix came about historically through a combination of lust and rape. Untying these threads, what we discover is that Latino culture brings in a lot of violent and independentist and sexual and spiritual strains together which MATTER as far as Latino character and culture goes.

I mentioned the Spanish Catholicism aspect. Latin America didn't get her spiritualism from unarmed black-robed Jesuit Frenchmen who martyred themselves all across the northwoods to bring the light of Jesus Christ to the disorganized natives. Nor did the Latinos get their spiritualism from Anglo-Saxon Puritans, who emigrated en masse from England, with their womenfolk, but who did not much succeed in converting the natives, other than with very localized exceptions. The Latinos got their Catholicism from the priests who accompanied the Spanish Conquistadors. Indeed, the whole story of the conquest and conversion of Latin America by Spain (and Portugal, in Brazil, however for a substantial period during the time of conquest and settlement the Portuguese crown and Spanish crown were united in the King of Spain at the height of Spanish power, and Portugal and Brazil were all part of the Spanish Empire) is something of a black legend as taught to Anglo-Saxon Protestants.
We should remember that Spanish Catholicism and the military prowess of the Conquistadores were themselves forged in a 500-year long war with Islam, which Catholic Spain won decisively, both through military conquest and through spiritual conquest. The rigors of the Spanish Inquisition are viewed with horror and repulsion today, but we should remember, too, that the REASON the Spain is wholly Catholic and Spanish, without (until very recent years) a Muslim or Moorish "fifth column" within is BECAUSE the Spanish Church carried on relentless spiritual warfare and uprooted Islam utterly and totally drove it from Spain, after 500 years of entrenchment. That is no mean feat. The Muslims themselves were not as effective at WHOLLY driving Christians from the Middle East as Spanish Catholicism was at expunging Islam from Iberia. Nowhere else on the battlefield between Islam and Christianity were the Muslims not only defeated in the field and at sea (by Spain, in Spain and at Lepanto and elsewhere), but the religion actually extinguished. The Spanish were militarily very aggressive and effective - that is why they won - but that militant nature was also expressed spiritually, which is why they also won the spiritual war with Islam.

Latin America is Catholic because the Spanish were peculiarly engined, by their history and experience, to face off against massive, organized civilizations, in some cases very violent civilization, with their own strongly entrenched (and exceedingly violent) spiritualism. The French, English and even the Americans were never so SPIRITUALLY equipped as to be able...or WILLING...to follow up a military conquest with a militant campaign to convert an entire continent. Only Spain truly thought that way, and only Spain was truly equipped to actually carry it out on the massive Central and South American civilizations.

To get a good idea of what the Spanish were up against, see Mel Gibson's new movie Apocalypto. For comparison, remember that the Americans and the French were each fought to a standstill for a century in upstate New York by perhaps 20,000 Iroquois. The Spanish faced 2 MILLION Aztecs and perhaps 20 million Incas. England did manage to take over India for awhile, but the English never were able to change Indian religion (nor did they try - to the extent that Indians are Catholic is chiefly dates from Portuguese efforts during the Spanish Imperial period) nor to supplant Indian languages. And the English did it all during the age of steam power, machine guns and electrical communications.

The Spanish, with swords and muskets and fanaticism - and native allies - were able to take over the Incas and subdue the Aztecs. From San Francisco to Tierra del Fuego there is one religion, one form of law and government, and one (and a half: Brazil) languages. No imperial nation has ever been as successful at wholly transplanting itself over so vast an area as the Spanish were.

It MATTERS that it was the Spanish and the Spanish Church, because none of the other European powers could have possibly managed the conquest and conversion of Latin America. None of the others had the requisite military fanaticism, or the requisite RELIGIOUS fanaticism to actually convert every nook, cranny and village of a vast continent. Beyond that, these were no Hindus the Spanish were contending with. The Aztecs were far more bloodthirsty and horriffic than the Muslims, even, have ever been. A deeply entrenched and fanatical religious tradition of human sacrifice spread over all of Meso-America. It was against THIS that the Spanish had to contend. Send in French black robes or tender men like John Wollman into Tenochtitlan, and they would have been bent backwards over the stone altar with their hearts being sawed out in the next batch of victims. To get a Cross atop the Aztec ziggurats required the steel-helmeted conquistadores of Cortes to FIRST conquer the place. Cortes and tens of thousand of Indian allies. There is another story here. It was not Spain who conquered Mexico. It was, rather, Spanish troops at the head of a vast army of Mexican Indians who conquered the Aztecs. The Spanish Conquest is taught as a black legend, but in truth -in spite of the savage excesses of a warlike people, which the Spanish conquistadores were par excellence - it was a MERCY for most of the peoples of Mexico. The herds of human cattle used by the Aztecs for their entertainment and religious rituals were all too willing to take up the Spanish Cross and go to war against their captors.

Thus did Latin America become Latin, and Catholic, and Iberian language speaking. In war, much of it civil. It became free through more war: Contiental revolution led by Simon Bolivar. And then there has been more war still: revolution and coup in country after country. Mexico's revolution, in the 20th Century, was the bloodiest revolution in world history, with perhaps tens of millions dead...it is difficult to say, because Latin government in general is not as organized and systematic as Anglo-Saxon government is (another aspect which, incidently, militates against gun control in Latin America: who will enforce such laws? The police?)

Is it necessary to delve into the past half-millennium of history to answer a question about Hispanics and gun control? I think it is VERY instructive. People see things through the prism of their own history. Up this very thread, some folks were expostulating at me that Hispanic is not a RACE, because there are black and white and mixed and Indian Hispanics; there is no identifiable Hispanic race, therefore, they argue.

But this is nothing more than seeing "race" through the particular AMERICAN demon of skin color. All of Latin America was Indian. All of Latin America was conquered by one Empire, the Spanish, who brought one religion: the Spanish variant of Catholicism, one legal code (the Spanish Royal Code), one language (Portuguese is the exception, but it isn't much of an exception, because it was the Spanish Church that filled Brazil too, when Portugal was in the Spanish Empire) and one common generic history. The Amerindians were distinct cultures and languages, but they shared certain similarities imposed by their climate and condition just as Western Europeans share many things, even though their cultures and languages are different. The tribal divisions persist, and are expressed as national rivalries. Cubans don't respect Mexicans, Mexicans don't respect Guatemalans, etc. But they all identify THEMSELVES as Latin, Latinos, and vis a vis the rest of the world they recognize a commonality. Skin color has nothing to do with it, and there is no reason to think it should. An AMERICAN, looking at the world through the peculiar AMERICAN prism of black-and-white racial history that ravaged the USA, defines race by skin color. He might even try to deny the existence of a Hispanic "race" because it doesn't fit America's historical model of race. It might even be nice for the American if he could DEFINE AWAY the concept of Hispanic, and pretend this isn't a new race to deal with. But the Hispanics won't play ball. They recognize their commonality, ESPECIALLY when in the American boat together, and therefore they constitute a race, regardless of skin color.

An example from within America of roots making a difference is easily found in the case of the Lowland Scots, who later emigrated to Ireland and thence to America, the so-called "Scotch-Irish" Presbyterians who settled the American back-country in pre-revolutionary war days. As a group, these were the most stalwartly pro-American people in the Revolution, and to this day, they are the most pro-gun (and the most prone to violence) segments of the American white population. Heavily concentrated in Appalachia and the upland South, they form a distinct bloc in American political and social life, giving us strongly conservative and pro-gun politics and the lion's share of country music stars to boot. Ancient roots matter.

In the case of the Latinos, they do not come from well-organized and prosperous cultures. They come from spiritual cultures (which is not the same thing as prudish or particularly moral cultures) and they come from macho and violent cultures.

There is no gun control to speak of in Latin America. Country folks all have guns, for hunting and protection. City folks can easily get guns. In America, there is no particularly identifiable Latino push against gun rights. There is a reason for that too, and though it is partly negative, it is instructive. Anglo-Saxon Americans think in terms of laws: what am I ALLOWED to do. Thus, gun RIGHTS are a key argument. Actually HAVING a gun is sort of like smoking cigarettes when you're 17: it's pretty easy to do, and if you are at all careful, nobody knows about it and can do anything about it. Having a gun or not, like smoking cigarettes, is not a MORAL issue (at least not to a Catholic)...if you think you need a gun for protection, you get one. Smoking isn't a SIN; it's just against the law below a certain age.

So, why is the Anglo so worried about gun RIGHTS? Because Anglo-Saxons really idolize LAW. The LAW, the RULES are really important to Anglos. It comes from the Protestant background, no doubt. Having thrown off the traditional Church with its unwritten rules and codes of behavior, Anglo Protestant loved (and love) code books, like the Bible. A supposedly definitive set of clear, explicit, written rules: Do THIS, and you are a good person. Do THAT, and you are an evil person. The Puritanical mindset that is the foundation of American thinking is very code-driven, indeed very JEWISH in its Talmudic complexity. The LAW is the icon (or the idol).

So, it is not enough for an American to actually HAVE a gun to protect himself against criminals. He must have the clear and explicit right, written down in law, to own that gun. If the law says he can't, but he does anyway, this sets up a dramatic MORAL tension within the American Anglo, because he is breaking THE LAW, and THAT is SIN - American spirituality is Puritan Protestant, code driven and very legalistic. To break the written code of civil law is to sin against the rightful (and righteous) authority of the civil magistrate. This idolizing of the law causes Americans to self-police at a surprisingly deep level. The voluntary tax code, with all of its complexities, works in America because most people do not cheat, even when it is within their interests to do so. Everywhere else in the world the STATE calculates your taxes and sends you the bill, because everyone knows full well that most individuals will cheat to save themselves money. After all, it's THEIR money, and they need it, and the state is corrupt and extracts the money by force, so OF COURSE you can cheat on your taxes to prevent the state from taking it and spending it on the rich cronies of the state. DUH!
The Italian or Frenchman, or Hispanic, thinks like that. The state is just one of those necessary evils in life. It passes laws - mostly to benefit the rich and powerful who run it - and it uses force to make people do what the police and other authorities say, but it doesn't have any DIVINE authority, certainly. Breaking some law or other of the state is not committing a SIN, the way that, say, aborting a baby is (and that's LEGAL, in America; illegal in Mexico and in all other Latin American countries except for Cuba and Puerto Rico - no surprise there).

Legality or illegality is pretty much beside the point to a Latino. After all, most of them are here because they or their parents or grandparents broke the law. This doesn't make Latinos lawless - they still have a moral code, particularly centered on family loyalty, and loyalty to their close inner circle. But the general laws? Hispanics...perhaps Catholics in general, and Latin Catholic in particular...do not confuse the rules of the state with the laws of God.

This is important on the gun control issue, because to a Latino immigrant it's a legal abstraction. Latinos are poor. They came from a world where anybody who wants one has a gun, and in America they live on the underworld fringe where anybody who wants one has a gun, or marijuana to smoke. Same thing. Smoking marijuana and having a gun to protect yourself are not immoral, at least they are not SINS. Anglos might do both, but feel GUILTY about it if they are breaking the law, and want to make sure that the law says its OK for them to do these things. Thus, they agitate about the state of law, and worry about it.

Latinos, like most Catholics in most Catholic countries, view the human law as a sort of abstraction. If the law gets in the way of something they really want to do or think they need to do, they break the law and concentrate on not getting caught. If they get caught, there is no sense of SHAME. It's a shoulder shrug, like a speeding ticket. Yeah, you got me, what do I owe you? To the extent that the police can be paid off to go away, as in all of Latin America and in the fringe areas of America where immigrants live, you pay the bribe and they go away. A sin? For the cop taking it, maybe, at least in America. In Mexico cops need to eat too, and they get paid nothing. Bribery is part of their income. But no, not a sin. Just one of the irritating necessities of life.

Latinos don't believe that there's a basic power out there in the state to regulate everything, and that the rules ought to be gotten right. That's a very abstract, philosophical Anglo-Saxon Protestant Bible-focused way of looking at things. Latinos have a simpler, more Catholic and human (and, from the perspective of law-focused Protestants and Jews, corrupt) way of looking at things. God gave us life. We have families. There are certain basic rules: you're not supposed to kill people, but you can defend yourself against bad people even if that means killing them, or steal from good people (but you can take things from bad people because they stole it anyway and are bad). This does not make for a crystal clear, orderly society of contract and law. Latinos generally won't rip you off in the sense that if you pay them for work, they will work hard and do the job. But they don't have a sense in the back of their mind that because there is a law that says some of that money they worked for is supposed to go to the government, that there is some sort of MORAL duty to pay the taxes. The government doesn't know, and the Latino doesn't intend to let the government know. He needs the money for himself and his familia. Immigration laws? Another obstacle to be gotten around in order to earn the necessary living. Forged papers? Why not. The state, of rich white people who stole the land from our ancestors (Latinos are aware of their history) try to say who can live where. But who are they to set rules like that? Catch me if you can.

Gun laws don't come onto the radar screen. If a Latino wants a gun, and lots do, he gets one. Whether or not it is against the law is beside the point, except that it determines the extent he has to hide it a little bit, like smoking marijuana, which Indians have been doing for a thousand years before the whites showed up in the land and tried to make it illegal.

Anglo-Saxons, if they understood the mindset, would first find it bewildering. Not care about the law? Why, ANARCHY would ensue!!! (Actually, it doesn't: Mexico is disorganized but by no means anarchic: there ARE moral rules, that come from God, and people do try to respect the big ones) And then anger comes: NOT IN MY COUNTRY.
But the Latinos laugh at the "your country" business and come as they please, and have kids, who by your laws are now citizens and you can't leave them. They take the benefits they get too.

America has always faced the problem that the Puritanical Protestants who founded it want to set all the laws, but have always desperately needed LABOR for the economy, and so have imported non-Puritans, who then don't respect the Puritans laws. First they ignore them, then, when they get numerous enough, they have changed them. That's the pattern. It starts to break down, though, as people come in who are less inclined to WORRY about what the "law" says, and who live their life in ignorance and disrespect of the established law.

Latinos as a group don't have a stance of gun control. They own guns for protection. They do not give a damn whether the law says they can or can't, because the law is of secondary or tertiary importance to the Latin mind. THAT is the part about Latinos that ought to scare Protestants as much as Muslims should scare Europeans. America as this Germanic Puritan Protestant country of laws will not so remain with a Latino majority. America will become like Miami.