In my personal spare time, I do the somewhat unthinkable – I peruse the Tumblrsphere. A dangerous endeavor sometimes, even to my own personal liberal leanings. I mostly re-blog other people’s posts (much like everyone else). Other times, I seek out political and philosophical posts to see “what’s up.” I decided to look up what Tumblr had to say about gun control. I found the usual. But I also found a gem of a post, which you can read here. It was a “tongue-in-cheek” response to the President’s executive actions on the issue.
Below is my response – copied and pasted – for posterity reasons. I normally wouldn’t do this sort of thing as I believe that being original in most matters is important for the preservation of intellectual thought. That being said, Part 2 is my response to his response, and one in which was apparently undeserving of a response.
To this extent, here is what I had to say:
This post really is a cookie cutter example of the kind of response that occurs from members of the political right with respect to gun control. Another way of putting this without necessarily indicting all members of the political right is to simply say that much of the author’s points lack depth, or understanding of the other contextual notions behind these issues.
Point one:
The violence and kinds of crimes that occur are already legitimate, and in no need of victims and family members of victims to make the issues at present more legitimate. This of course is not a rebuttal to the underlying perspective that those individuals are only there to illicit an emotional response. My criticism stems from two points: 1) Every president in modern times has done this with other executive orders and signings of legislation. 2) It isn’t simply about the emotional response it brings, or the legitimacy attempting to be obtained. It’s the fact that those people behind the president support what the president is doing. More importantly, those victims and family members of other victims aren’t simply political props, they’re human beings who made the conscious decision to stand behind the president, not just physically, but metaphorically as well.
Point two:
Due to the constant media attention of at least 10 shootings that come to my mind, it seems only logical to use those examples to create the backdrop of the president’s speech concerning executive orders on gun control. This criticism has nothing to do with the efficacy of such an executive order towards curbing mass shootings, it has only to do with the author’s perceived criticism of the president’s use of “highly publicized mass shootings without any context…” It’s likely many individuals who support the president, and even those who do not, are greatly aware of the perceived context of the mass shootings listed by the president.
On the matter of statistics
First, the author makes the claim that the president used “meaningless and incorrect statistics about gun violence.” The source that he provides (you can click on it) is one that shows how gun ownership has increased by 62% since 1993, and gun violence has decreased by 49% since 1993. One would think that a person so devout in their attempt to discredit the president would use meaningful examples of faulty statistics, rather than a simple graph showing a correlation between guns owned, and violent crimes involving guns. The graph shows what would in statistical terms represent a very near if not perfect positive correlation between the number of guns owned and the decrease in violent crimes. But the number of guns is only one indicator of gun ownership. Contrary to the author’s notion of gun ownership, there are other ways of viewing it. For example, the Pew Research Center finds that between 1973 and 2010, gun ownership fell from 49% to 34%. Approximating from the graph and juxtaposing it to the author’s image shows a decline from 43% to 34%. A decrease of 9% (total), quite contrary to the idea that ownership increased by 62%, which is an easy number to arrive at if you count every single firearm purchased during that time. But a person who owns four guns isn’t somehow “safer” necessarily than a person who owns only one firearm.
Second, the author also suggests that the president is wrong in his justification to pass such executive orders because it’s “clearly not true” that the majority of gun owning American’s agree with universal background checks. I encourage you to read the author’s source from the Crime Prevention Research Center, which does a whole lot of sidestepping their title argument that 80 to 90% of American’s wanting universal background checks as false. I’ll summarize the article as simply saying that it’s five strawman arguments used to suggest that those numbers are incorrect. But they’re not incorrect, and here’s why. First, people can hold conflicting opinions on the same topic, but that result does not negate the results of either question. For a specific example, question 24 of Quinnipiac University’s April 4th, 2013 poll asks “do you support or oppose – requiring a background check for all gun buyers?” The results was that 91% agreed, including 88% of Republicans, and 88% of those respondents that owned guns in their household. The question has nothing to do with the level of importance that gun control has on the barometer of each respondent against other topics like the economy or immigration, nor does it have to do with whether they agree that congress should act – two points that do not change the fact that 91% of respondents agree, or that 88% of households with guns support background checks with gun purchases. But more to my point on seemingly contrary beliefs, the survey also asked if respondents believed that universal background checks would lead to the confiscation of legally purchased guns – 48% agreed, of which 61% of Republican’s agreed, and 53% of gun households agreed. But this question does not “debunk” the previous question supporting background checks, nor does it “clearly show” anything to the contrary.
Point three:
Theoretical is one way to put it, but supported by evidence is another. You can check out this source, and this one, the summary of which is this: background checks reduce violent crimes by reducing the flow of weapon purchases done legally, to people who intend to use them illegally. Another takeaway is that, frankly, no all gun dealers are on the straight and narrow. The 40% statistic that is often used by liberals today is an often cited 21-year old statistic, and to their discredit should not be used. One Harvard source (summarized by CityLab) suggests that the 40% gap remains to be true. The first source listed in this section also points towards the fact that at least 11% of inmates (surveyed out of 1100+) purchased their guns through a licensed gun dealer. This having been said, the “theory” behind the implementation of a universal background check has more to do with the fact that places like New York and Illinois, two states with strict guns laws, continue to see a huge influx of guns coming from other states, such as Tennessee, Michigan, and the many other states that do not have background check requirements. The reason that Chicago continues to struggle with gun violence despite its gun laws is due to the fact that about half of weapons used in crimes are traced back to another state – that does not require background checks. Universal background checks would facilitate state based methods of handling gun related violent crime.
But to finish this point, I really think it is pertinent to summarize what the resident did. He asked for 504 million dollars to hire 230 FBI agents to assist in, completing background checks on a 24/7 basis – for the benefit and preservation of that citizen’s liberty in legally attempting to purchase a firearm, hires 200 more ATF agents to assist in enforcing already existing federal laws, provides $500 million towards mental health services, and requires all firearm sellers, be it on the internet, gun show, or otherwise to obtain a license to sell firearms.
No liberty lost, with the exception of maybe those that have mental health illnesses. Nothing in the president’s executive order takes away the right of a person who is legally allowed to own a weapon from purchasing a weapon, nor did anyone lose the right to sell a weapon, so long as a license is obtained.
Point five:
Congress is useless. Of course this is a statistical fact, and a personal opinion. But more to the point, the current president has passed down fewer executive orders than most presidents. The author’s opinion being as it may be, the president isn’t doing anything new – all presidents utilize executive orders, for whatever reason that may be – which are then contested by the opposing party regardless of their majority or minority. Obama’s present status as a lame duck does nothing to change this, nor does it make him look weak, or incompetent. His use of an executive order on an issue as polarizing as gun control is what’s driving the amount of vitriol currently present. Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Ford, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Clinton, just to name a few of course, signed several executive orders concerning internment camps, civil rights and liberties, and other politically contentious topics of their time. If anything your perspective just goes to show that in terms of political opposition, little has changed over the last 100 years.
Conclusion:
The author critiques the president for not providing context to his logic, continues to provide no context for his claim or for the presidents subsequent lack of it, and then ends by citing Emperor Palpatine’s takeover of the Galactic Republic through his New Order, making him the Emperor of the Galaxy. Somehow, a fictional character overthrowing a republic that lasted over 24,000 years is comparable to the president signing is 225th executive order that really does little in the grand scheme of things. Obama’s executive order is not comparable to Star Wars’s Emperor Palpatine, or Rome’s eventual fall into such a system with Constantine. Liberty didn’t die, in any scope of the idea, or theory of it, because the president (who’s approval rating is 30%+ higher than congress’) did what president’s do – since the beginning of this country.
Even Antonin Scalia, the constitutional conservative champion, has pointed out that not even the second amendment is untouchable, or “unlimited.” Liberty doesn’t die because a barrier was put in place, liberty dies because of many other factors working in conjunction – liberty dies because people cling to perfunctory responses to complex issues. Complex issues such as the balance between state’s rights and the right of the federal government to regulate commerce (selling of weapons), and protecting the rights retained by the people (own guns), and other people’s right to life (not be murdered, i.e., prevent crime from happening).
One does not defend liberty by remaining closed minded to the issues that affect our society, or by clinging to 17th Century notions of what liberty is. Liberty is far more complex a topic than the second amendment affords it.
The Watchtower 