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Rational gun-rights advocates take better aim than the loose cannons
Tom Lyons
Oct 24, 2002

Maybe gun rights advocates are getting smarter, or maybe my luck has just changed.

Since I'm not anti-gun, but am pro-common sense and anti-murder, once in a long while I write something sympathetic to this or that gun-regulation proposal.

The other day I disagreed with an idea expressed by our nation's president. He had said it would be a violation of "privacy rights" to require ballistic "fingerprinting" of guns at the factory or before they are sold, an idea that advocates say would help police trace more murder weapons to the killers.

I have read that the president has now backed off from that view a little. He will still oppose any such plan, I expect, but he said he is not opposed to researching the technical challenges before making a decision, and said privacy is not really the key issue.

That's good. I have a hard time with the belief that ownership of deadly weapons is such a personal matter that the right to keep them secret outweighs our right to have some of way of learning who killed a family member with one.

The right to bear arms is one thing. No alleged right to bear guns in total secrecy is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights, as I read it.

But it used to be that expressing any such opinion would bring the nut cases out of the woodwork. A high percentage of those who used to contact me to express disagreement did it with nasty insults and with illogical and extreme claims, and in a tone counter to the norms of polite discussion. I was usually left thinking: Great, this guy is totally unhindered by rational thought or respect for those who disagree with him, and he is armed like a mercenary. Comforting combination.

But lately I've been hearing from a different class of gun owners. They are more like most of the hunters and other gun buffs I've known personally, and they have been unusually well informed on the legal issues and exceptionally able to discuss the issues rationally. They have kept the insults to a bare minimum, too.

That's a lot harder to deal with.

I can't summarize their many arguments here. But a Venice man asked me if I would object if the government, despite the First Amendment guarantee of free speech and press, announced some crime-busting idea that required registering every word processor, typewriter, pen, pencil, note pad, fax machine, and printing press. Would that not give me the creeps?

Good analogy, and well chosen to press my buttons. Yes, I sure would object.

The analogy was just good enough to make me seriously think about why so many gun advocates are adamant that anything vaguely like a gun registration proposal is a scam to set the stage for confiscation of many, if not all, guns.

That worry does make sense. There are people who want to ban private gun ownership, and who would discard the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Some believe that amendment doesn't guarantee any right of private gun ownership.

But fear that gun rights are eroding is not the only valid worry that freedom-loving people face. For many, the fear of being killed by a drive-by shooter, sniper, robber, drunk, mugger, carjacker or other member of the armed citizenry is at least equally valid. Conflicting rights have to be balanced and compromised at times.

So that First Amendment analogy only goes so far.

If murderers start killing thousands each year by sending them deadly faxes -- a fear not yet justified -- I would still stand by my right to fax responsibly. But I would sure support reasonable fax machine regulations designed to help catch those anonymous fax murderers.

I would not rely solely on my fantasy of outfaxing the killers before they fax me.