Cup of Joe--an Etymology.

The May 26/26 issue of Wall Street Journal contains Robert K. Landers'  review of a biography of Josephus Daniels, by Lee A. Craig.    Josephus Daniels was Secretary of the Navy under Wilson.    One of his less popular reforms was to prohibit alcohol on all navy vessels and shore stations.  Coffee was offered as a substitute.   This coffee was disparagingly referred to as "the  cup of Joe Daniels;"  and later, "a cup of joe."

Laundry List Sonnet

It has recently been suggested that I'm the kind of crazy bastard who would write his laundry lists in sonnets.  Well, it's all true--I confess.

Ye Olde Laundry List Sonnet:

My sweatshirts--prithee wash them cold with jeans.

(This last instruction should'st not be forgot.

Learned I when I was barely in my teens,

"Hand puppets" they become if washed too hot.)

And then my briefs--they number seven each.

Such briefs once sized to gird my youthful butt,

(Please wash them hot and do not spare the bleach)

Now  briefs too brief to span an aging gut.

And shirts, whose very image doth depress,

Their manufacture steeped in human sorrow;

Song of the Shirt, Triangle fire, and yes

In Bangladesh, our past is their tomorrow.

When finished with my socks, thou may'st inquire

If one lone stocking lurketh in the dryer.

170 Auto Makers in China

 

  An article in the April 10 issue of Wall Street Journal , "China Lets 170 Auto Makers Bloom," says that China has over 170 car manufacturing companies.  Though the Chinese government is now urging consolidation in this industry,  it had originally encouraged this growth.  We take for granted that having only three or four car manufacturers is a reasonable number.  And as the winnowing process in China progresses, they may ultimately reach this number. But it will take a lot of mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies to get there.    And it will also take time---a lot of time---perhaps 90 years, because that's how long it took in the U.S.

            You see, The U.S. also had that many car companies at one time.   The American car industry began in 1894,  when Frank Duryea patented his gas-powered buggy.  He built this thing in Springfield MA.  But when Frank and his brother, Charles, made a serious attempt to mass produce this machine, they opened a factory in Waterloo, Iowa. They had made abortive attempts to build gas buggies in both Springfield, MA,  and in Illinois.  But to cheaply hire large numbers of machinists who actually knew how to build gas engines, Waterloo was the better choice.  Waterloo already had the world's first tractor factory, the Waterloo Gasoline Traction Engine Co. (which was later acquired by Deere & Co.)  This factory opened in 1892, by which time Waterloo had already enjoyed a thriving gas engine business for over a decade.   At that time, Waterloo was to the one-cylinder gas engine what Silicon Valley is to the chip today.  Toward the end of the 19th century, over a dozen companies built engines in Waterloo, and eventually, at least 175 different brands were built there.  In 1898,  the Duryea Power Company opened in Waterloo, located on Duryea street. Duryea street is still there, but alas, the factory closed after selling only 100 cars. The brothers could not agree on a final design and made continual changes. The investors soon grew weary of their bickering and withdrew their support.  But Waterloo soon had other car companies, some of which survived till the great depression.  There was the Maytag, shown above, whose plant manager, Fred Duesenberg, later produced a luxury car under his own name.  And the Wm. Galloway Farm Equipment company built a pickup truck.  And the Dart pickup was also built in Waterloo.   But by then, car factories were sprouting all over the country.  By 1898, you could buy a Cadillac or an Oldsmobile, and in 1903, the first trans-continental road race was won by someone driving a Winton.  Between 1900 and WWI,  almost every town of any size had its own car company.  No one knows just how many there were, but I'm sure it was over 170.   While few of these companies exist today,  many survived till the start of the Great Depression, and some closed their doors only at the start of WWII, when all auto manufacturing was shut down for the duration of the war.

            But in the 1950's, some of the old pre-war cars were still around.  When one of my brothers was in high school, he briefly owned an Essex and later had a Terraplane.  And one of his friends had  an Auburn,  and another friend had a Graham Page.   After WWII, there were far fewer car brands, but still a lot more than the three we have today.  When I was in college in the late 1950's, I drove whatever old, worn out car I could afford to buy.  At a time in my life when I had not yet owned a Chevy or a Ford, I had owned two Packards,  a Nash, and a Studebaker.  ,
Note:  If this kind of post interests you,  click on this:   http://runciblecatsbazaar.blogspot.com/2010/07/syncom-and-day-it-all-began.html

Not Well Accoutered

The tom kitty's passions won't scorch.
For the ladies, he carries no torch.
For since he's been neutered,
He's not well accoutered,
And spends all his time on the porch.

Saved by Our Inefficiency

            About 50% of the readers of this blog are located outside the United States.  This particular post is directed primarily towards this audience.  It is a simple attempt to explain to the outsider how political processes in the U.S.  came to be as absurd as they now are.  But readers in the U.S. would do well to read this post as a reminder of just how we came to have the mess that we now have.

               Democracy, especially American democracy, is a very inefficient system.   And it was designed to be.  Our organs of government are so cumbersome that it is nearly impossible to make any rapid changes, especially changes in important socio-economic arrangements.  This state of affairs did not simply happen.  It was deliberately designed to be the way it is.

            In most parliamentary  democracies, a single chamber can pass bills by a simple majority vote---and they become law.  In the United States, to become law, a bill must pass both houses of Congress, and also be approved by the President.  So to make any change, a party must simultaneously control both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and also the Presidency.  Yet no shift in voter allegiance will quickly change control of the Senate, since the six- year terms are staggered, with only one third of the seats up for vote every two years. So to take control of the Senate, a party would have to win the support of a majority of voters in a majority of states---and then keep that majority for six straight years.

             But the Senate is not apportioned according to population.  Each of the 50 states, no matter how large or small their population,  gets exactly two senators.  North Dakota gets the same representation as New York.  But sparsely populated rural states are usually fairly conservative  and rarely shift their political allegiances.  If this situation weren't absurd enough,  the Senate itself has established  rules that requires a 60% vote to bring any bill to a final vote. And  even a landslide shift in voter sympathy will not usually produce an electoral result where either party controls 60% of the seats in the Senate.

            Barack Obama was elected by an overwhelming majority, and in his first two years, his party had a majority in both houses.  But they did not quite have a 60% super-majority in the Senate.  So the Republican minority in the Senate was able to block most significant legislation, and very little got done.  Then, in two years, the Republicans rode to victory in the House, riding a wave of voter anger.  What were the voters angry about?  They were angry that nothing was getting done.  The same Republican obstructionists who prevented action were able to whip up resentment of the inaction which they themselves had caused, and ride it to victory.   How could voters be stupid enough to fall for such an idiotic game?   In any country, about half the voters pay no attention to government until a week before the election.  The other half pays intense attention to government, and knows exactly what's happening.  But the Republican Party was not worried about alienating  this faction because they vote for Democrats anyway.  In America, almost no one with an I.Q. higher than his sock size ever votes Republican, except for the billionaires who own and control that party.    

            In my lifetime, I have seen Democrats  strive to deliver all of the progressive things I ever thought this country needed--- universal health care,  free higher education,  fairer distribution of income, public transportation,  and much more.  All of these goals were shared by a majority of voters, but none it ever happened.  Many times, the Democrats have controlled the presidency and had a simple majority in both houses.  Yet they were stopped every time by Republican obstructionists.  The basic social safety net goals laid out by Roosevelt 70 years ago have still not become a reality, even though they are standard in nearly every country in Western Europe.  To me, this has been deeply disappointing. 

            And yet, if I could change our inefficient system, I'm not sure I would.  Why?  Because while there have been many times when good programs have been thwarted  by obstructionism,  there have also been times when some pretty evil initiatives  have been thwarted as well.   Over the last generation, the billionaires who own and control the Republican party have often had in their grasp the presidency and a slim majority in both houses.   And they advanced an agenda of unspeakable evil.  They attempted to loot and destroy our Social Security system (they called it "privatizing.")  They tried to break unions, with the goal of eventually outlawing them.  They tried to take total control of our educational institutions and turn them into right-wing propaganda machines. They tried to de-fund any government support for public health care,  so that any sick person who could not pay for treatment would be abandoned to die.  And these were just their publically  proclaimed goals.  Who knows what their secret agenda may have been?  But none of it ever happened, at least on the scale which they had intended.  Because liberals can obstruct the wheels injustice just as easily as conservatives can obstruct the wheels of justice.

            In the future, there will certainly be moments when the evil-doers are back in the saddle.  And when that moment comes, we will be well served by the inefficiency which the founders engineered into our system.  Behold; the obstructers shall become the obstructed.

Living With Guns, Part Two. A book review.

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.  

Living With Guns.

 A Book Review: Living With Guns,

by Crag R. Whitney;

A Liberal's Case For the Second Amendment.

Part One:  Do we have a personal right to own firearms?

            I recently finished reading this book, and I was delighted to see someone publish what purported to be a "Liberal's case for the Second Amendment".   As a lifelong liberal and gun owner, I find it irritating that those of us who defend  the Second Amendment are seen by many as "right-wing gun lunatics".    I am always careful to correct this misapprehension wherever I find it.   For the record,  I am not a right-wing gun lunatic---I am a left-wing gun lunatic, or at least, "left-of-center".  Nearly all of my friends own guns, and most of us vote a straight Democratic ticket, or at least did until they left the party over the gun control issue. And so do I; I even voted for George McGovern!

            The author, Craig Whitney, has worked as a reporter or foreign correspondent for all of his professional life, and was an editor for the New York Times.  Mr. Whitney lives in New York City.  He begins his book by explaining that the United States is in a cultural war over guns and has been for over half a century.  At the moment, what passes for debate has become so acrimonious  that neither side listens to the other at all.  It is this impasse  that Mr. Whitney hopes to bridge with his book.

            When I  was in high school in the 50s, the explanation of the 2nd Amendment taught in my civics class was that this law was to protect a states' right to own arms and maintain a militia---not an individual right to own arms. This seemed to be the popular view at that time, even though about half of all  American households at that time owned one or more guns. But not everyone agreed with this interpretation, and no one disagreed more strongly than the National Rifle Association.   For about a hundred years, the Supreme Court remained silent on the subject, and the rulings of lower courts were conflicting and confusing, while state and local laws were a Hodge-podge ranging from no restrictions whatsoever in some jurisdictions  to an outright ban on firearms in others.  Finally, in 2008, The Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller  that the right to bear arms is an individual right--and you need not belong to a militia to exercise it.  Heller applied only to residents of  the District of Columbia, but in 2010, in McDonald et al v. City of Chicago, the court ruled that this right may be claimed by all law-abiding  American citizens living anywhere in the United States.

            Dick Anthony Heller was a government security guard who applied for a permit to keep at home the same handgun which he carried on duty.  The permit was denied.  A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 that Heller had been denied an individual right protected by the 2nd amendment, and the Supreme Court upheld that decision.  Both the appeals court and the Supreme Court said that this individual right is not absolute and is subject to "reasonable restrictions."

             The Court said, "Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on the longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools or government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms." But the court made it clear that to meet the test of reasonableness,  laws would have to be narrowly drawn to address a specific public interest, and not just be obstacles arbitrarily thrown up to keep as many people as possible from owning guns.  And the burden of proof would be on the state. 

            Whitney goes on to explain just who owns the 300 million guns in America, and why they desire to do so.  In America, gun ownership is a traditional right  that goes clear back to the Jamestown and Plymouth settlements.   Guns are used for hunting and target shooting as well as for self-defense. (The Heller decision specifically recognizes self-defense as one of the constitutionally protected legitimate uses of guns.)  Whitney explains that gun owners come from all social classes, all educational levels,  and are found in every profession.  Whether you are a truck driver or a teacher,  a judge or a stock trader, a waitress or a scientist---you could be one of the hundred million Americans who own guns.   And there are also those who fear, detest, and abhor guns, and they can be found in all professions also.  It tends to be mostly a cultural thing.  If you came from a family that owned and used guns, you approve of guns.  And if you didn't--you don't. 

             I'm not sure I would completely agree with this assessment.  Those in white collar professions--those who would have no personal  knowledge of how guns are made, or how any other manufactured goods is made--tend to be split 50/50 on the subject, but those in blue collar manufacturing occupations seem to oppose gun control almost unanimously.   I spent 40 years in a skilled trade in a manufacturing town, and I find that most people I have worked with are likely to appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into making a gun and see it as an object of art rather than something to be feared.  And they also are dubious of any so called "gun control" laws because they see guns as inherently uncontrollable, owing to the ease with which they can be made. The gun, in its simplest form, came into use in the thirteenth century, and thirteenth century technology is all that's required to make one. They will all tell you that no law will ever keep criminals from obtaining  guns if they are really determined to have them, for two reasons:  One, because we already have 300 million guns in circulation in this country and no one knows where they are.  Two, because every machine shop in the country could always make a few guns,  with or without the knowledge or consent of the owners.    For that reason,  almost no one with the skills required to actually make a gun hates guns or fears guns. Rather, they see guns as neutral tools, neither good nor evil.  They feel it is the criminals which should be feared, and that gun laws mainly serve to harass and inconvenience law abiding citizens, since criminals can simply ignore such laws as they always have. 

            Whitney then goes on to examine how the second amendment was included in the Bill of Rights, and what the founding fathers feared and what they hoped to accomplish.   Whitney is not a constitutional scholar, but he is a thorough journalist, and he does a fairly exhaustive job.   What the founders were afraid of is simply this:  That no matter how we drafted our constitution, it was only a piece of paper.  Any ambitious general or president could simply tear it up and proclaim himself dictator for life, and if the army backed him, the American experiment  with democracy would end then and there. Giving the people the protections of a constitution would be meaningless unless they were also given the physical means to protect that constitution.   And the founders fully understood, (as did Mao Tse Tung 150 years later)  that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.  So they absolutely did not want a large standing army under federal control.  Yet the country had enemies and could be defended only by men at arms.

            At this point it is necessary to explain certain terms:  "Standing Army," "Select Militia,"   and  "General  Militia."   Whitney goes to some lengths to explain these terms as they were understood in the late 18th century.    A standing army was exactly what is today: an army of soldiers that, even in time of peace, are highly trained, paid, full time soldiers, paid for and commanded by the central government.   That is the kind of army which they felt might be trusted to protect us from foreign tyranny, but could not be trusted to protect us from tyranny issuing from our own central government, since professional soldiers usually support whoever signs their paycheck.  The second kind of force is the select militia.  These are paid, professional soldiers who, in time of peace,  work at civilian jobs full time and train as soldiers part time. Our modern National Guard is based on this model.  The founders would agree to having only a very small select militia, if any at all.  The objection to select militias was that even though they are technically under the command of the individual states, in time of crisis they would likely support the regular army and whoever commanded it.  The only other kind of force was the general militia.  So what is the general militia?  It's every man jack of military age who owns a gun.  This was the only force which the founders believed could ever be trusted to protect our liberties if the threat to those liberties came from within the government.  And it is this "general militia" that the 2nd Amendment pertains to.

              Yet guns were expensive.  What if some of the civilian males between 18 and 45 would not wish to purchase them?   Congress thought of that too.  One year after the Bill of Rights was ratified, they passed a law requiring them do so. Actually, this should not be thought of as the law that required adult males to own guns---most colonial laws or local city laws had already required this for two hundred years.  But such laws were a patchwork quilt, and in 1792 Congress moved to standardize them with the Uniform Militia Act.   A partial text of that act reads as follows:

            "Each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective states, resident therein, who is or shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia by the captain or commanding officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside....Every citizen so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball:  or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot pouch and powder horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter pound of powder;   and shall appear, so armed and accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise, or into service......".

            If you are looking for evidence that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to own arms, you need look no further.   The Uniform Militia Act could not place upon every individual free white male the obligation to own arms--if he had not the right to own arms, since one cannot be simultaneously forbidden and also required to do something.

            Although Whitney does not mention it, one of the most convincing proofs of an individual 2nd Amendment right was that offered by Nat Hentoff.  For many years, Mr. Hentoff opined that the 2nd Amendment offered only a collective right to arms.  And numerous essays to that effect were published in our newspapers, always with the editorial comment that "Nat Hentoff is a noted constitutional scholar, and if he says you don't have a right--then you don't."   But then several years ago, I saw an essay by Hentoff that said, "Oops!  I made a mistake."   Hentoff explained that he had become so annoyed with people questioning his opinion that the 2nd Amendment protected no individual rights at all that he had decided to take a full year off work to research the subject and write a book about it that would prove, once and for all, that there is no individual 2nd Amendment right.  But the more deeply he looked into it,  the more obvious it became that we really do have an individual right to own firearms, and always have had such a right.   Hentoff cited many proofs, but the most convincing, in his opinion, was the debate about slavery. Hentoff had researched newspaper editorials and congressional debate covering a span of over 70 years.  Right after the constitution was adopted, many people felt that since slavery was contradictory to the principles of this new country, it would have to be repealed immediately.  But even those who opposed slavery had serious misgivings.  They asked, "If they are not slaves, then wouldn't they be citizens?  And as citizens, would they not have an unquestioned constitutional right to own arms?  And when armed , would they not return and kill their former masters in revenge?  Surely, you and I would."

            On the other side of the debate,  those favoring immediate abolition would argue: "Yes, they would have an unquestioned constitutionally  protected right to arm themselves,  and would probably do so.   But they do not want revenge.  They want only to forget about slavery and start a new life."    This debate remained exactly the same for 70 years, from the founding of the nation to the start of the Civil War.  Yet at no point could he find a single comment to the effect that the constitution does not protect an individual right  to arms.  If there was anyone at all who believed this, surely, over 70 years, someone would have said so, since this would have radically altered the terms of the debate.   

            While Whitney does not mention the issue of freedmen owning guns prior to the Civil War, he does mention a position taken by the Bureau of Freedmen.  Mississippi adopted a "black code" in late 1865 forbidding any "freedman, free negro, or mulatto" not serving in the occupying army to have knives or firearms without a local license. This was a sort of "negative 2nd amendment."   Black South Carolinians appealed to Congress to invalidate this law as "a plain violation of the constitution."  General Daniel E. Sickles issued a military order suspending it, proclaiming, " the constitutional rights of all loyal and well-disposed inhabitants to bear arms will not be infringed. "  A joint congressional report in 1866 noted that in South Carolina,  "....armed parties are seizing all firearms found in the hands of freedmen.  Such conduct is a clear violation of their personal rights as guaranteed by the  Constitution of the United States, which declares that 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'"

            The congressional response to these outrages against blacks was to give new authority to the Freedmen's Bureau.  The Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1866 specified that neither race, color, nor previous condition of slavery could be used to deny anyone the right "to have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty, personal security,  and the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal, including the constitutional right to bear arms."

            But the narrative which Whitney then presents shows that over the next decade, as occupying armies left for home and the power vacuum was filled by militias comprised of white  war veterans, or by the KKK,  blacks did lose their constitutional rights--including the right to vote, the right to a fair trial, and all other rights.  But those who took these rights from blacks only did so after first disarming them.  The white Northern abolitionists who had paid a heavy price to end slavery now questioned whether they had won the war at all.  To reverse the situation in the South might require fighting the war all over again, but the war had taken such a heavy toll that no one had the stomach to do that.  So the federal government and its  occupying armies just walked away and let the blacks fend for themselves, and the federal courts looked the other way. How could the courts reconcile any of what was going on in the South to the constitution?  Well, that would be more easily done if the constitution had not actually promised all those rights, particularly the right to bear arms. So by 1876, some of the courts began to rule that  perhaps there was no individual 2nd Amendment right.

               There was a massacre in Colfax, LA in 1873, where 150 blacks and two whites were killed.  Both sides were armed.  Freedmen, under the command of black veterans, feared that the county seat was about to be seized by an armed mob, and they began entrenching and barricading  the town to protect it.    They held the town for three weeks, but the white militia who were besieging them brought in a cannon, and their defense failed.  While they were trying to surrender under a white flag, 150 blacks were gunned down. Two whites also died.  State authorities did nothing, but the federal government brought charges against 98 white men for murder, and for conspiracy to oppress or threaten citizens so as to prevent them from exercising rights granted or secured by the constitution.   Only six men were actually tried, three were acquitted,  and three were convicted of conspiracy.  The convictions were appealed to the Supreme Court in the case of  The United States v. Cruikshank,  and they were acquitted.  Their acquittal was based partly on the fact that the court deemed the charges of conspiracy to be too vague.  But the court also said that the Bill of Rights grants to citizens no 2nd Amendment rights, nor any rights whatsoever.   The court said that the  Bill of Rights merely bars Congress  from infringing our rights--if someone else wishes to infringe them, people must look to their own protection.  Then in 1886, in Presser v. Illinois,  the court ruled that individuals had no 2nd Amendment rights--only states had such rights. This radical shift in court rulings away from individual rights was done for one and only one reason:  It simplified the oppression of blacks in the South and of immigrant minorities in the North.  If you were trying to lay the legal groundwork for a Jim Crow South, this is where it had to start. Until blacks were deprived of the arms to defend themselves, there would be no practical way to disenfranchise them of all their other rights. (If you are shocked that the Supreme Court would take such an openly racist position, keep in mind that the federal bench at that time would have contained mostly the same judges as before the war, and about half of them would have been Southerners, and probably ex-slaveholders.)   In one of the grand ironies of judicial history, when the Supreme court finally ruled that all Americans have a 2nd Amendment right to be armed for their own self defense, it was for the benefit of an 80 year old black man--Abe McDonald-- that it did so.  

            After  1886, the next time the court spoke on 2nd Amendment rights was not until 1939. The National Firearms Act had been passed to suppress the kind of weapons then used in organized crime:  machine guns, sawed off shotguns, concealable rifles, silencers, etc.    Jack Miller and Frank Layton had been indicted for taking a shotgun with a barrel less than 18 inches long across the border from Oklahoma to Arkansas in violation of the law.  A lower court had ruled that the indictment should be dismissed because it violated 2nd Amendment rights.  In Miller, the court upheld the law because it could not be shown that a sawed off shotgun has any military use that had any application to a "well regulated militia."   The court, at that time, would not agree that the 2nd Amendment related to any personal use of arms, even though it had been understood to have such a relationship for at least the first century after it was written.  The view taken in Miller is no longer the majority, but it is not dead with a stake through its heart. Even in Heller, Justice John Paul Stevens based his dissent on Miller.  But that view is now the minority, and in Whitney's opinion, will probably be so from now on.  The sea change from Miller to Heller did not happen overnight, and was not the creature of just this particular court.  According to Whitney, the change of outlook on the 2nd Amendment began within the legal community, particularly among constitutional scholars and particularly at Yale Law School, clear back in the 60s.  And the argument for an individual 2nd Amendment right has been developing slowly and inexorably ever since.  A change in public attitudes has also been developing since the 60s. Once these two trends were in motion, it would be only a matter of time before the court simply ratified  the view that many leading legal scholars have held for a generation.  

            In all, Whitney makes a pretty convincing case for an individual 2nd Amendment right to own firearms, at least, I found it convincing and so will anyone who takes the time to read his book.                  One point that he might have made, but for some strange reason chose to omit, is that John Locke lists the "right to self defense", and presumably, the right to arms to secure that defense, as one of the "natural rights of man."  Why would the views of Locke have anything to do with our constitution?  Because our entire country was founded on the philosophy of John Locke, as articulated in his Second Treatise on Government.  In our own Declaration of Independence, the entire text from  "We hold these truths" to "Consent of the governed" is lifted word for word from Locke's 2nd Treatise.  Every signer of the Declaration of Independence would have been familiar with this work, and many could have recited most of it from memory.   It was the "Bible" on which our system was based. Those who founded this country believed that they were doing so to secure the "natural rights of man."    And Locke considered the most important right to be the right to life itself, and right of self defense to preserve that life.  Is it even conceivable that  the patriots who were founding this "Locke-based Utopia"  would then have constructed a system that did not include the right to self defense?

Whitney points out that one of the reasons that the right to personal use of arms was not spelled out more specifically in the constitution is that the colonists had always had such a right under British Common Law.

            Whitney spends the first half of his book establishing that we do indeed have a personal, constitutional  right to own firearms.  He then goes on to ask if there are any practical things that can be done to make living in a massively armed society safer?  He concludes that there are, and most could be done within existing laws if such laws were consistently and intelligently enforced.   This is particularly true with regard to guns in the hands of the mentally ill.

Next week:   Part Two:  What can be done to make living with guns safer.