Recently in email I got a mass mailing from The White House entitled “If not now, when?” as I’m sure tens of millions of us did and here is my section by section response. Setting aside the rich irony of using that phrase in regard to both this website and political history. I have the following to say in response.
Hello —
Today President Obama announced a plan to help protect our kids and communities from gun violence.
Right away we have a problem. Why only gun violence?
Because it’s topical and politically expedient, that’s why. There is no other objective criteria which makes gun violence special. Would a bombing have been less painful for us? Gun violence is not the most lethal in terms of number of fatalities. Feel free to prove me wrong on this but I’m pretty sure accidents are still the primary causes of death for children at school especially if you count the trip there and the trip back and school related efforts at home. There are also many non-gun school related deaths if you count incidental exposures which lead to death like drugs and gangs that would not have occurred but for school, or activities which are managed by school resulting in death like sports fatalities.
So let’s admit something uncomfortable before we proceed. Something you won’t see/hear any politician admit. We as a society are ok with kids dying because of school. No one (but me) is suggesting closing all brick and mortar schools because of the risk they face on the commute alone, if not the hundred other excellent reasons. No one (but me apparently) looks at school and seriously says one death is too many. So before you play the emotional or moral card on me, face up to the fact that unless you are against school entirely you are ok with someone else’s children if not your own dying for school.
This is a numbers game. The goal for you and for culture obviously isn’t zero deaths. You must admit you are willing to sacrifice some kids to ensure that all of them are ferried to class, or you admit ignorance or deceptive agenda by failing to make the previous admission.
So when you read the rest of my responses, keep them in that context because by having this debate I’m assuming you are not with me on the school issue. If you are, then the point from the perspective of playing the political kid card is moot because at that point gun law becomes a universal debate, as opposed to one obviously triggered by political motives designed expressly to cynically exploit flaring emotions for more power and more money.
Further, it bears stating that I am not attacking emotion or disregarding the truly unimaginable suffering of parents who have lost children or anyone else obliterated by gun violence, I am simply saying that when discussing policy, I think even those who are suffering to the point of insanity would have at one point agreed, if they still don’t, that such discussion and planning should be done dispassionately.
If you approach this debate from a position of rage and suffering, in my opinion you aren’t qualified for it. It is undemocratic and unwise to let any special interest group, even if that group is one we all care for deeply, dictate policy which harms everyone else. All security policy is a trade-off. And this is obviously a problem America is already vulnerable to. We’re already ruled by a single special interest group. The 1%. And they hired the men and women who wrote this letter. And we already grossly over react to threats generally, especially politically divisive and politically useful ones. Please keep that in mind as well.
You’re going to hear a lot about it, but I wanted to make sure you got a chance to get the facts, straight from me.
Bull. This came from a speech writing team. I’m sure you had input Joe, (Do you mind if I call you Joe? You can call me Mr. Sergent.) but don’t act for a moment like this was anything but an administration and group effort. The vice presidency itself arose from the bureaucratic needs of the electoral college anyway, an institution most of us agree is completely antiquated. (This is also telling.) Maybe that’s why this email is not from the President who has a clear duty to uphold the constitution, including the second amendment, despite it being of zero importance to much of the democratic party. (I’m a registered democrat by the way and voted Obama both times. Yet I’m also a concealed carry permit holder. Yes we exist.)
After hearing from Americans from across the political spectrum, we decided to focus on some key priorities: closing background check loopholes, banning military-style assault weapons, making our schools safer, and increasing access to mental health services.
The first, second, and third suggestions intrinsically violate the 2nd amendment. Without getting to heavy into that debate (feel free to grab a copy of my book and read the 2nd amendment chapter) I’ll address them extremely concisely. (For me anyway, I tend to be long winded.)
1. Background checks shouldn’t be required at all because anyone walking around should be a fully trusted citizen. A check for warrants alone makes sense because people do escape custody from time to time, but arbitrarily denying some Americans their rights is clearly an infringement of an amendment which explicitly says “shall not be infringed.”
2. The phrase “military-style assault weapons” has no objective meaning on any level. All weapons are assault weapons and “military style” is an aesthetic issue. Besides which the entire purpose of the 2nd is to counter any military or government forces should they grow tyrannical. That many argue such a fight would be absurdly short due to the power of the United States military (I do not) is not reason for dispensing with the 2nd amendment, but rather to pare down the military. Indeed at least one person warned us about the danger the mushrooming (pun intended) of our military represents.
3. Notice the language of preemptive surrender. Safer not safe. This is an old song for the democratic party, and the responses are clear. Again, see also my book.
The ideas we sent to President Obama are straightforward. Each of them honors the rights of law-abiding, responsible Americans to bear arms.
As annoying as it may be for some, the constitution doesn’t merely protect “responsible” (however you choose to define that subjective place holder) Americans.
Some of them will require action from Congress; the President is acting on others immediately.
Which and how? This phrase renders the whole rest of the message vague and noncommittal. Surprise surprise.
But they’re all commonsense and will help make us a little safer.
Common sense is merely intuition and this issue is grossly more complicated than that. The claim of making us safer is both unproven, and beside the point. This goes back to a well known principal of evaluating the cost of security measures. I’ll dispense with the obligatory Ben Franklin quote and instead offer up this link to a much more useful exploration of that topic.
Now is the time for all of us to act.
It is never the time to act without wisdom.
This link leads to a whole other smorgasbord of deception, equivocation, rhetoric, and glad handing. Which I do not have the stamina to address, right now at least.
Here’s what we’ve put together:
We’re calling for requiring background checks for all gun sales and closing the loopholes that allow dangerous individuals to make their purchase without going through one of these checks.
We’ve seen how you define “dangerous individuals.” Would that by chance include whistle blowers, journalists, and activists? If someone is truly dangerous then they shouldn’t be walking around alone at all. This is a classic shifting and evasion of responsibility. Are you going to ban chemistry text books as well? Because even if you genie wished your way into a society without gun powder and metal an educated/dedicated human can still kill an entire building, let alone the fragile apes inside it.
We’re asking for a new, stronger ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines that allow a shooter to fire dozens of bullets as quickly as he can pull a trigger.
The arguments against that are old and nearly flawless.
And we’re asking Congress to help protect law enforcement by make it illegal for members of the public to possess armor-piercing bullets.
No one really expects a criminal who is willing to open fire on a police officer to respect a prohibition on what kind of bullets to use, do they? If the criminal world can build submarines, under ground farms, and chemical synthesis laboratories in their efforts to meet the demands of a black market, do you honestly think you’ll be able to stop anyone with access to hardened steel, Teflon, or lathes? Besides armor piercing ammo is already absurdly rare at crime scenes. Any ammo is armor piercing if it’s high enough velocity thus this tactic is at most just a way to jam the thin end of the wedge between us and our 2nd amendment protections, if it isn’t entirely superfluous and meaningless already in the context of reality and existing legislation.
We’re going to give law enforcement more tools and resources to prevent and prosecute gun crimes,
And we know exactly how they’ll use these new “tools” which any student of civil rights abuses in the last 10 years can accurately speculate on.
and we’re going to end the freeze on gun violence research that prevents the Center from Disease Control from looking at the causes of gun violence.
That is the only sensible thing suggested in this email, and I am willing to bet all my hair and teeth that it’s the first to go when the administration starts “compromising” with the republican congress. But I am 100% not afraid of legitimate objective scientific research into this issue. But studies can be poorly designed, executed, presented, and reported, all of which has happened to both sides of the gun issue many times, so keep in mind no single study is going to be sufficient to form real consensus. But still, more study is always welcome. More funding for science generally would be great while you’re at it.
We’re calling on Congress to help make schools safer by putting up to 1,000 school resource officers and mental health professionals in schools and ensuring they have comprehensive emergency management plans in place.
There are over 95,000 public schools in the United States. Now I’m well aware of the nirvana fallacy here, and sure any help is welcome, but given the resources and authority available to the sender of this message that number is laughably insulting if not completely insane.
And we’re going to increase coverage so that students and young adults can get access to the mental health treatment they may need.
Like you did when you torpedoed the public option? Under your watch funding for mental health care in the United States has plummeted. The state of healthcare in the United States is laughable. And the state of mental health care is an absolute shambles.
We know that no policy we enact or law we enforce can prevent every senseless act of violence in our country. But if we can save the life of even one child, we have a deep responsibility to act.
Again, there is a word for action without wisdom, and it is folly. Yes, something needs obviously be done, but starting a new and pointless prohibition war, while further trampling civil rights obviously isn’t it.
Now is the time to come together to protect our kids.
It’s always been that time, but protecting our kids was never the point, see above about ending school itself. Indeed our failure to end brick and mortar schooling is proof that no one ever really thought terrorism was a real threat. I mean seriously if we thought there were bomb wearing lunatics around every corner looking to strike fear into our hearts with a well placed suicide can you imagine a more sensitive and vulnerable set of targets than unguarded and disarmed buildings full of our children roughly sorted by age and income? The fact that our schools don’t suffer car bomb attacks yearly is proof that the threat of terror is grossly magnified if not an outright fabrication. And if you think this is because our war on terror is super effective, I have some unicorn repellent to sell you, guaranteed 100% effective.
Learn about the plan, then add your name alongside mine:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/now-is-the-time
Thanks,
Vice President Joe Biden
I already know the plan and no I will not.
