Living With Guns, by Craig R.
Whitney;
A Liberal's Case For the Second
Amendment.
Part Two: What can be done to make
living with guns safer?
(This
is the second part of a two-part review.
If you have not read Part One, posted immediately prior to this post,
then please do so.) This is a long post, the longest I have ever posted, and I
apologize for that. But there are some issues that cannot be explained on a
bumper sticker, and perhaps that is why there has been no real discussion of
this issue. I promised that I would talk about practical steps that Mr. Whitney
suggests could be taken to make living in a well-armed society safer. I intend to do that. But before Whitney gets into the
particulars of managing our relationship with guns, he lays a groundwork for
that discussion by asking a few questions: He has us consider first, just what is the level of
violent crime, and is this rate getting better or getting worse? And to what
extent, if any, do stricter gun laws lead to less gun violence? Do restrictive guns laws actually change
the availability of guns to criminals?
Are there factors other than gun availability that determine the
probability of violent crime? If so, what are those factors and can we do
anything about them?
Most
people today assume that we are drowning in violent crime---that society is
disintegrating in a spiral of chaos and violence. But this not really what's happening. Violent crime in the United States has
been falling sharply since the 1990s, and by 2009, violent crime had reached
the lowest level since the 1960s.
In New York City there were 536 murders in 2009, compared to 2,262 in
1990. But then why does the world
seem so violent, if life is really getting safer every year? Perhaps what we
are really seeing is more efficient media coverage.
It
would seem that we are trying to choose between having the freedom of fewer gun
restrictions--or having the greater security of living in a world where gun
possession is severely restricted.
Yet, according to our best statistics, just how much security do we
actually get from more restrictive gun laws? I know this will seem a bit counter-intuitive, but according
to the statistics which Whitney presents, the answer in most cases is none whatsoever. Of
course, if you could magically make all guns disappear, there would be no gun
violence at all. No one disputes
that. But passing gun laws
does not make guns disappear-- any more than prohibition made alcohol
disappear. Whitney says that
it's true that Massachusetts, where gun laws are extremely strict, has a lower
murder rate per 100,000 residents than Georgia or Mississippi, where laws are
lax. But the Massachusetts
rate is about the same as Vermont's, which has no statewide gun laws at all,
and twice as high as Utah, where laws are quite lax. Chicago
banned handguns in 1982, but the murder rate and crime rate rose steadily in
the years after 1982. The murder
rate with handguns in 1983 was 9.65 per 100,000 residents, but by 2008, with
the ban in effect, it was 13.88.
(Even though crime rates across the country were dropping throughout most
of that period. ) In the District of Columbia, the homicide rate rose in the
80s after the district banned handguns, and rose more than it did in 49 other
comparable cities. In 2008 in DC, the rate was 31.4 per 100,000. (In his
dissent in Heller, Justice Breyer
acknowledged these numbers, but backed the ban anyway.) New York City also has a very
restrictive policy on handguns, and their handgun homicide rate was only 6.3
per 100,000. Yet in Austin, Texas, where nearly
everyone can have a handgun, the rate was only 3.1 per 100,000.
In
considering guns deaths, Whitney points out that a clear majority of those who
die by gunfire pull the trigger themselves. In 2007, of about 30,000 gun deaths, 17,352 were suicides,
12,632 were homicides, and the rest were accidents. Whitney doesn't mention it, but even some of the
"accidents" are surely suicides. If a person is from a religious background that does
not allow suicide, that person may attempt to spare his family embarrassment by
staging an accident. If he lays out
some gun-cleaning equipment before blowing his head off, the coroner will
probably look at the gun cleaning stuff and say, "He must have had an accident while cleaning his
gun." The coroner knows
perfectly well that shooting yourself in the head with a bolt action rifle is
not all that easy, but why make trouble?
If it appears that there was no second party involved, then why not call
it an accident? Why embarrass the
family and add yet another level of heartbreak? But are gun suicides part of a gun problem, or part of a
suicide problem? In looking at gun
deaths, should we even include the numbers from suicides? Surely, if someone has decided to leave
this troubled life, there are a
variety of other ways to do it.
And the gun homicide rate itself is in a steep decline, from 12,632 in
2007, to 8,775 in 2010. Whitney
says that no one really knows why this decline is occurring, though there is no
shortage of people trying to take credit for it. Success has many fathers. Perhaps it's because the use of certain drugs, especially crack cocaine, peaked a few decades ago and has
declined ever since. Perhaps, with
the graying of America, there are
simply fewer young males around, and it is young males who commit most of the
violent crime. Perhaps, with
longer sentences and higher incarceration rates, most of the people likely to
commit a crime are already in prison.
There are many possible explanations, but no one really knows.
Whitney
says that if you compare the total death rate from firearms in the U.S. to
other developed countries, our
rate is double or triple the rate in most European countries, where gun
ownership is more tightly restricted. But only slightly over half of our
homicides are from guns--and our non-gun homicide rate is also triple the
European rate. So, put simply, we
have more murders because we have more murderers. There may be many reasons why life in America is not
comparable to life in Europe: We
have a younger society with more young adult males. Also, Americans tend to be more aggressive--in
business, in sports, and in all aspects of life. Violence is a form of aggressiveness. And we have a long history of
violence. Americans have
historically committed non-gun homicides at a rate higher than the total
homicide rate from all causes in Europe.
Yet Whitney points out that in post-Soviet Russia, the homicide rate is
much worse than ours even though there is no place on the planet where private
citizens have less chance of being allowed to have a gun. In short--it isn't just guns.
So,
what can be done? We now have
in place a system called the National Instant Background Check (NIBC). Before selling anyone a gun,
every licensed gun dealer is required to ask the NIBC data base whether the
buyer's name is on a national list of felons, fugitives, mentally unstable
persons, drug addicts, suspected terrorists, and others who are forbidden to
buy guns. The dealers all
cheerfully comply, but the system doesn't always work. When Seung-Hui Cho
killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007, he had obtained the 9mm Glock and
the Walther .22 pistols legally.
He cleared the background check because no one had yet put his name on
the list. There are only 22 states that require that information about mental
health status be reported to the federal data base, and Virginia is one of
those states. But Virginia law did not clearly require the reporting of people like Cho, who had been ordered
into an out-patient treatment
program, but not actually committed to an institution. Had he been reported, he never could
have legally purchased a gun. And
consider the case of Jared Loughner, who killed six people and wounded 13
others, including Representative
Gabrielle Giffords. Loughner had
been suspended from Pima Community college and told he could not return until
he had a health exam certifying that he was not a danger to himself or
others. He had tried to enlist in
the Army but was rejected for drug use.
Yet he had no trouble buying guns because his name was not on the
list. Both the college and the
Army had information about Loughner that should have disqualified him from
purchasing guns, but no one reported this information to the database.
There
are many people who, in their professional capacity, might have information
about individuals who should be kept from having guns. School officials, health care
professionals, social workers, police personnel, or anyone employed in the criminal justice system might all
occasionally have such
information. But under
present law, it is not at all clear who is required to report this
information. And some
professionals, due to privacy laws, are not even sure they are allowed to
divulge such data, and are afraid they could be sued if they ever did. And since most have never made such a
report, they would probably not know how to do so if they ever needed to. They only people that federal law clearly requires to be
reported are those who are involuntarily committed to an institution. But what of those who voluntarily
commit themselves? No one really
knows.
Each state has its own regulations as to how names can be added to the NIBC. In my home state of Iowa, the regulations are so cumbersome as to render the NIBC nearly useless. According to our local sheriff, 60% of those now held in the county
jail are either in need of treatment for mental illness or being treated. They are in jail because of
criminal behavior, usually violent, resulting from that illness. When there are
released, since they have a history of mental problems and also violent
behavior, the police personnel would really like to see their names added to
the NIBC database, but this won't always happen. In Iowa, adjudication is required to do this. The police must first objectively prove
to a judge, in open court, that the person is dangerous. This is a difficult, cumbersome, and
expensive process, so in most cases, this is not going to happen. When most of these violent mental
patients are back on the street, they will still be free to legally purchase
weapons. Those who do end up on
the NIBC list will do so as part
of a court approved plea bargain agreement. A better solution would make it easier to put a name on this list, but still
with an appeals process for getting off the list if the person believes that he doesn't belong on it. I think that any mental patient convicted of committing an act of
violence should be on the list automatically.
The
NIBC works when it's used. But to
be used widely enough to do any good, federal law will have to clarify just who
and what has to be reported and who is required to do the reporting. Such a law will have to indemnify
any and all such reporters against privacy law suits. And all the above named professionals will have to be
informed of their responsibility
to initiate these
reports. But in many states, the state laws will have to be changed to make
it easier to actually add a name to
the NIBC data base.
And in any kind of mental
competency hearing, there would be
an adversarial process involving testimony from mental health
professionals. These people are
highly paid specialists, so any such proceeding is going to cost money, which
brings up another problem. Whitney says that even the system we have would work
better than it does if it weren't for budget cuts. But in this age, where any kind of government
expenditure is attacked as a form of waste, don't expect to see improved funding anytime soon.
One of the main things
we pay taxes for is security--that's what the Army and Navy are all about--and
we hand them trillions. We also
spend massive amounts of tax money maintaining courts and prisons. We do all of this in the name of security. Yet the relatively small amount that
would be spent to improve mental health treatment and to track persons needing
that care would be infinitesimal compared to trillions we now sacrifice on the
altar of security, yet this would yield
an immediate improvement in our safety.
But
even if cost were no problem, there are other problems that we will have to
sort out. For instance: Should those professionals making
reports to the NIBC be able to do so anonymously? If not, then no one is likely to make such a
report. Why? Suppose that you are college teacher
who notices that one of your 22 year old male students had started mumbling
death threats---something about killing all his enemies. Assume that this student weighs 225 lbs
and is mostly muscle, and could easily kill you whether he has a gun or
not. If your name is on the
report, then you have become one of his enemies--and he will surely come back
and kill you. So all reports will
have to be made anonymously or the system won't work. Yet the right to confront our accusers in open court is fundamental to our entire system of
law. And once a person is placed
(perhaps erroneously) on the list of prohibited buyers by reason of mental
instability, would there ever be a way to get off that list? There would be an obvious potential for
abuse here, especially in the case of reports made by officials who over-react,
or who are simply vindictive petty
bureaucrats. The NIBC could become
a "black list" that could ruin people's lives unless a fair and
simple appeals process is in place.
The NIBC could work, and would save many lives if it did. But there are many, many things that
will have to be sorted out to make it work fairly and efficiently.
After
discussing ways we might more effectively keep guns out of the hands of the mentally
ill, he then discusses a few other factors, to which I'll return later. He then proceeds to talk about the
legal thinking underpinning of our guns rights, and then spends a hundred pages
exploring the minutia of keeping criminals from legally buying guns. I won't attempt to summarize or even characterize this section. It is pretty tedious reading. If you
want to go into it, that would be a good reason to buy his book. But when we start talking about ways to
keep known criminals from legally buying guns, I fail to see the point. Federal law already prohibits convicted
felons from possessing guns--so any felon with a gun already has an illegal
gun. And if you were a criminal
who had not yet been convicted of a felony and could still legally buy a gun,
you would never use such a gun to commit a crime. Instead, you would use your underworld connections to buy a
stolen gun. Stolen guns cannot be traced.
He does mention that there may be a
problem with "straw buyers," those who buy large numbers of guns,
pretending that they are for their own use, and then sell them to people who
cannot legally buy them.
This may be a serious problem, and most gun owners and gun dealers would
be happy to cooperate in any way they can to help solve it---provided it didn't
involve gun registration. But
Whitney seems to have joined the camp who complain that the reason we haven't
solved the straw buyer problem is that we don't have a federal data base that
lists guns and their serial numbers alongside the names and addresses of
owners. But he bristles at the
idea that this is gun registration.
But how could it not be? If you list the names of gun owners and the serial numbers of
their guns, that's what registrations is.
It is true that such a data base might be useful in tracking "trafficked
" weapons. But over the
last forty years, the apostles of registration and their acolytes have been
endlessly inventive in finding new excuses for new registration schemes. Every few years we hear of another peril we could be rescued
from if we could only have a teensy weensy bit of registration.
On
page 159, Whitney take a novel tack.
He notes that cars have become much safer over the years, what with air
bags, anti-lock brakes, etc. So perhaps
a government research effort could make guns safer (by designing guns that
could not discharge accidently.) Of
course, for that to work, the
department involved would have to collect and store a lot of data. But the NRA, those scoundrels, and their friends in congress won't let
this happen because they say it's just another way to get registration. Well, Duh!
Precisely
what, Mr. Whitney, would such a research project discover? If you want a safe
gun, I suggest you buy a Browning 9mm Hi-Power automatic. Originally introduced in the 1930s, this weapon was the preferred police pistol in most of
Europe, and the pistol of choice for self-defense by knowledgeable consumers in
the U.S. If my
information is correct, this pistol has a "4-way" safety system. Besides
the regular safety lever, this pistol has a clip safety. If the clip is not
inserted, It will not fire. It
also has a hammer safety. When the
hammer is cocked, it cannot release unless the trigger is pulled. If this pistol is dropped on the
hammer, it will not fire. In fact,
you could pound on the hammer with a tire iron till it broke off and the gun
would not fire. And it has one additional safety mechanism whose exact function I will not attempt to
explain. The 4-way safety is one
of the reasons why this accurate,
reliable handgun was the choice of police departments and informed consumers everywhere for 50 years. These safety features were also available on
the Walther PP, also a police pistol, ever since the 1940s. The point is, we already know how to build guns that cannot be
accidentally discharged--and have known it for over 70 years. Mr. Whitney, if someone has persuaded you that this would be a valid
research project and not merely a subterfuge to obtain a foothold in gun
registration, then they have played you for a sucker. Sorry.
Mr.
Whitney begins his book by explaining that the debate on gun control has become
so acrimonious that neither side listens to the other. But by page 160, he has begun a series
of ad hominem attacks on the leadership of the NRA. If we want an honest dialog, that's not how to get
there. The reason Mr. Whitney does
this is that he cannot bring himself to take seriously the stated motives of
the NRA leadership when they try to explain why they cannot support any kind of
gun registration. They assert that
any such data base, once created, would go on forever, and sooner or later,
some ambitious general or politician might be tempted to seize power in a coup
because the normal deterrent to such coups, a massively armed civilian population, would no longer be a potent
threat. This would be true because
once you have a data base listing who owns which guns, it's a simple matter to
confiscate them all. Whitney
quotes Chris W. Cox, head of the NRA's lobbying branch. After Senator Frank Lautenberg
introduced the "Preserving Records of Terrorist And Criminal Transactions
Act," a gun registration
scheme that supposedly had
something to do with fighting terrorists, Cox issued the following statement to
members: [Emphasis in the original]
"The
truth is that this legislation would effectively create a NATIONAL GUN
REGISTRATION system. And if this bill becomes law, it could set the stage for
gun-banners to achieve their ultimate goal---confiscation of our firearms and
the end of the Second Amendment.
Under this national gun registration scheme, your, name, personal information, and gun purchase records will be
stored in a centralized database where it can be accessed by countless
government officials in Washington D.C. and across the country." Cox concluded, " Throughout
history, freedom-hating tyrants have used gun registration as the key first
step in their march to disarm law-abiding citizens. In fact, there is NO OTHER REASON for the government
to know which citizens own guns, and which guns they own."
Many
people, when reading this statement, would think, "Oh My God!"
They're even crazier than I thought---they think Obama is about to take over
the country in a coup." No. Forget about Obama. This argument was going on before Mr.
Obama was born, and will still continue long after his grand-children have died
of old age. Those who defend
Second Amendment rights are not just concerned with immediate threats---they
are focused on the long arc of history. But sometimes what we do in the here
and now can affect our long term condition. And we liberals ought to know that. We oppose nuclear power because it will
create waste that will still be lethal tens of thousands of years from now. We want to convert away from burning
coal because even though coal is cheaper in the near term, it could trash the
planet a hundred years from now.
Yet when confronting the views of gun owners, we assume that since most
of these people are blue collar people, they have no long term goals beyond where
their next six-pack in coming from. Let me tell you something: For 20 years, I was on the negotiating committee form my
local union. The "suits"
on the other side of the table only talked about things that might make them a
quick buck this year. It was on my
side, the blue collar side, where we worried about keeping the industry alive
for our children and grand children.
The
American blue collar worker views the world through a longer time frame than about
anyone on the planet. One
gun owner I once knew put it this way: "If they take my gun rights, they are not just
taking them from me---they are taking these rights from my children and
grand-children. I'm not sure I
have the right to let them do this.
Why would I have the right to force my grand-children to live with the kind
of hazard that comes with a disarmed society--a society where only the army and
the police have guns? There was a movie
about a country where only the police and army had guns--- Schindler's List. But in America, we don't have to worry about that . The founders gave us a precious gift that
frees us from all that brutality---it's called an armed citizenry. Yet it only works if that citizenry is
armed continuously, massively, and anonymously. But it does work---it's worked
for two hundred years and it will work forever if they quit tinkering with it.
"
But
Whitney cannot bring himself to accept that the real concerns of the NRA
leadership are precisely what they say they are---that they refuse to accept
any form of gun registration because once created, such a database would exist
forever, at some point down the road, perhaps 50 or 75 years from now, some
"would be Napoleon" might use the database to seize all guns and
impose a dictatorship. And even if such an outcome never happens, should we unnecessarily force
future generations to live in continual fear that it could happen? But since
Whitney cannot, in his heart of hearts, believe that the NRA could have these
worries, he keeps looking for some ulterior motive. So on the top of page 163, he suggests that Mr. Cox printed his warning because
"For the NRA, scaring people is how to raise money." Hey, I don't send any money at all to
the NRA, and it certainly scares the hell out of me. And, Mr. Whitney, if it doesn't scare you, then you still
don't understand most of what you've written. You still don't get it. There are many Americans who still don't get it, but they
will after I have them read the first half of your book, and then explain to
them what it means. Unfortunately,
Mr. Whitney, it looks like I'll have to explain it to you too. The final quote that convinced me that
you do not quite understand what you've written is when you say that the
founders were afraid of the army, but today people seem to like soldiers, so
what's the problem? No,
Craig, they weren't afraid of the army, they were afraid of the would be
dictators that might someday place themselves in charge of that army. Do you know--for a fact--that the world
has seen its last Napoleon?
The
founders were educated men of the enlightenment. They had studied history. They knew that in Britain, the experiment with the
Commonwealth democracy quickly descended into tyranny when Cromwell (the Lord
Protector) disbanded parliament
and proclaimed himself dictator for life. They saw this scenario as not
just a possibility, but as the natural fate of democratic experiments unless
something could be done to prevent it.
And they devised a way to prevent it. Believing that power grows out of the barrel of a gun, they felt that
the solution was to have the people armed better than the government. If what they wanted was a system where
the government would fear and obey the people, rather than have the people fear
and obey the government, then having
only a tiny standing army, counterpoised against a massively armed
civilian populace should do the trick. Surely, there were skeptics who
questioned whether it would be safe to have an armed civilian population. Their answer: "It
will be much more dangerous not to have an armed population." So the "armed citizenry
solution" is what they tried,
and it has worked. For two
and a quarter centuries, we have not had a single military coup. Not one!
Do
you fully appreciate what a rarity that is? How many countries have never been ruled by a military
dictatorship. Just off the
top of my head, I can list the U.S., Canada, Switzerland,
Australia and New Zealand.
Can you think of any others?
Don't count England. They
had the Cromwell takeover.
It was probably Cromwell that the founders had in mind when they crafted the system which we now
have. And in the late 18th and
early 19th century, most of Europe was under the heel of Napoleon. And in the 20th century, there was
Hitler, and Mussolini, and Franco.
And in Eastern Europe, there was Lenin, Stalin, and Tito. And in the Far East, General Tojo in
Japan, and Mao Tse Tung in China.
And in the Americas, no country south of the Rio Grande has escaped this
fate. From Santa Anna to
Pinochet, they have all had one
dictator after another for two hundred years. While having a good constitution is necessary, almost
all South American republics started with a constitution almost identical to
our own. What they did not have is
a heavily armed population.
So surviving two centuries
without a military takeover is very, very rare. And the handful of countries that can make this claim all
have one thing in common---a well armed population.
Mr.
Whitney, you have written an important book. It will be useful in explaining the Second Amendment.
Unfortunately, the real meaning of what you have written will escape
many readers, as it seems to have escaped the author. Let me briefly explain.
1. The founders believed that governments could not be
trusted. Otherwise, the entire
Bill of Rights would not have been needed. They knew that governments are run
by human beings and we all are deeply flawed.
2. They feared that all democratic experiments were fated to
descend into dictatorships unless some way could be devised to prevent it.
3. They knew that all political power
is ultimately based on force of arms.
Whoever controls the most guns controls everything else.
4. Therefore, a government would have
to be "outgunned" by its people, if that government were to be controlled by the people. By allowing only a small standing army
counterpoised against a massively armed civilian population (the general
militia), they achieved this balance of power. Perhaps "balance" is the wrong word. It was heavily unbalanced in favor of
the people.
5. For almost all of our history, the
number of civilians with guns has radically outnumbered the number of regular army personnel. This is a situation which still exists today, in fact,
except for a time during and right after WWII, it has always existed. We typically have one or two million in
our armed services, and 50 to 100 million armed civilians, half of whom are
veterans. (At this point, some moron usually protests, "But what about the
nuclear missiles and carriers?
Surely, the general militia has nothing to match that!" Yet these strategic assets, so useful when powerful nation-states
are confronting other nation-states, are worse than useless in a civil
insurrection. Imagine a conference
between a rogue general who has seized power in a coup and his lieutenants: "Sir, they are rioting in New
York, Washington D.C., and
Chicago. Which
city would you like us to nuke?" Not only would such weapons of mass destruction
be useless, the dictator would
have to deploy most of his available infantry troops to surround and defend
these missile sites, because if even one of them fell into the hands of the
rebels, that would be unthinkable.
And the same situation would obtain for aircraft carriers and nuclear subs. That would all have to be ordered to
stand down and return to port and be disarmed, and then be guarded forever by
crack marine units. Even tank
units might be useless. In an age where one anti-tank round from a shoulder-fired
rocket launcher can turn a mobile fortress into a mobile coffin, tanks can no
longer be depended on for controlling rebellious populations. Right now, civilians have no such
rockets, but if even one army unit defected, then they would have them. In short, in a civil insurrection,
battles are fought street by street, building by building. The only real asset is infantry---boots
on the ground--guys with rifles.)
Mr. Whitney, many non-gun owning liberals today say
that they must put up with the risk of gun crime, yet since they do not hunt or
target shoot or have guns for self-defense, they get no positive benefit from
the Second Amendment. I would say: Did some jack-booted Gestapo squad kick
your door in at 4 AM this morning and drag you to an interrogation center and
slowly rip your fingernails out? No? Did this fate happen to your parents or
grandparents? Has it happened to anyone you know? Then you have already
benefited from the Second Amendment.
Do you think such things could never happen in this country? That's exactly what the people of Chile
thought before Pinochet. The
founders had no illusions that, once plunged into a dictatorship, the general
militia would quickly rescue us.
Actually, it would trigger a civil war that might go on for a
century. Large numbers would be
killed, including the perpetrators of the coup. It was not a very good remedial strategy---but it was an
excellent a deterrent strategy, much like the nuclear standoff of the cold
war. It was mutual assured
destruction. They created a doomsday machine---and it works. We have 300 million guns in civilian
hands, and that's why your door
will never be kicked down by storm troopers. But not all of those guns really
protect us; only the unregistered
ones do. Federal law
not-withstanding, many guns have
been purchased recently enough that there is a paper trail attached to them.
These guns give us no deterrent whatsoever, since they could be confiscated at
any time. It is only the 200
million utterly unknown guns that provide any protective deterrent at all. Yet even the most modest gun
registration scheme, over time, could shift the ratio between known and unknown
guns to where the deterrent had become insignificant. We would then have the worst of all possible worlds. There would still be enough unregistered
guns out there so that any criminal or maniac could get one, but not be enough to make this country the
unattractive takeover target which its founders intended it to be. The founders deliberatively created a
doomsday machine, designed to blow this country apart if anyone ever tampered
with it. You may not have been
aware of this, but the generals who have been to the War College are very well
aware of it.
Doomsday
machines are dangerous to live around, and every now and then some well
meaning fellow says, "Gosh,
this bomb is dangerous! Let's
de-fuse it a little. Let's
have just a little registration." The people who advise this are the most well
intentioned people on earth, but I hope for the sake of their grandchildren that they never
succeed. One of the reasons that
there is no serious dialogue on gun rights issues is that the two sides operate
on vastly different time frames.
One side is focused on the short term risks of a well armed society,
while the other is focused on the long term risks of a disarmed society. We are
on the deck of the Titanic, and one group scans the horizon looking for
icebergs, possibly embarrassing ourselves by stumbling over the deck chairs. And
the other side has only occasionally seen the horizon, and has never considered
the risks it might contain. Do you ever think about how extremely rare it is to live in a country that has never been
under the heel of a dictator? Perhaps
you should start.
