Comments on PROFESSOR MEETS GUN: Part Seven: Shame, Shame.

• Posted by Ashley Higgins on June 23, 2008 at 1:35pm EDT

• You have raised issues in this series that make me think of other persons who own and carry firearms but who are not nutty at all.

  I am a lawyer. I spend considerable time in the local county courthouse. Most of the employees there are women, and many of them have purse pistols. The women who pack seem to share a strong sense of personal autonomy and to perceive an unacceptable level of risk in their daily lives.

  My wife, who works in my law office, also packs. She holds fast to the belief that was encouraged by a self-defense class that she will not permit anyone who criminally attacks her to ruin her day. (I suspect this attitude has been prevalent among women in the South forever and is one of the reasons we call them "ma'am.")

  To see an entirely different woman's point of view, you might consider glancing at http://cosmolineandrust.blogspot.com/, where Tamara K. discusses various firearms in considerable detail (illustrated by gorgeous photos) and appears to enjoy owning and shooting them. She also seems to value her personal autonomy and to have a ready ability to assess risk levels.

  Meanwhile, I went shooting this weekend for an enjoyable hour or so with my younger daughter's boy friend. I can confidently state that we did not shoot each other because of a sense of shame. And, praise the Lord, no children died.

• Guns and memories ... and more
• Posted by ZerCool on June 23, 2008 at 1:40pm EDT

• "I’ll write about guns and beauty and awakened memories."

  Here's the rub: what makes a gun beautiful? Amazingly figured wood? Meticulous hand-engraving? Deep lustrous blue on the metal? Or perhaps you're a case-colored fan? Or is a black rifle (a la the M16 or AK47) beautiful?

  Let me tell you about the most beautiful woman in the world: she's 5'6". Wears a size 10. Has shoulder-length blonde hair that's usually in need of a brushing. Her front teeth are a little crooked. She's got a bum knee and an old back injury that bothers her sometimes. Scars on her forearm from working cattle on the family farm. She's more comfortable in jeans and cowboy boots than evening wear. She's marrying me in less than five months.

  She isn't a size-zero rail-thin model. She's never going to walk a runway in Milan or Paris. But she's the perfect woman for me. I don't have to put her on a pedestal (she'd probably lose her balance and fall off), or only take her out to show her.

  Guns are the same way in many respects. I can look at a supermodel or a finely-made rifle and say, "Yes, that's amazing - but what do you DO with it?"

  Back to those scars on her forearms - one is from a cattle de-horner (basically a very hot soldering iron the size of a golfball), another from a scalpel during castration time, and so on. Each one has a story to go with it. An old gun has scars too, and those have their own stories.

  I have my great-great-uncle's turn of the (20th) century shotgun in my gun safe. I take it out, clean it, hold it, then wipe it down and put it away. I'm not sure it's safe to shoot any longer, as the metal has brittled with age. When he got it (1904-1906 is as close as we can figure), it was an expensive gun. Not a rich man's gun, but a fine shotgun for a working man. It was bought to use. No fancy engraving. No amazing wood. There are scuffs and dings in the stock, small scratches in the blue. Every one of those has a story to go with it. I never knew my great-great-uncle, but I think I would have liked to. Maybe walk a few of the same pheasant fields, sit in the same goose or duck blind, share a talk and a laugh over a beer or cigar when the hunt is done.

  In the same vein, if you find an old battle rifle - an M1 Garand, or K31, or Moisin-Nagant - from the WWII era, it's hard to hold it, look at the scuffs, dings, scratches, and NOT wonder: who carried this rifle? (Many of those K31s and M-N rifles actually have the original owner's name on a slip of paper under the buttplate. Talk about history!) Did he ever see combat? Was this rifle on the front line of a major battle?

  Consider a simple .22 rifle. Handed down from father to son, it's the rifle the father learned to shoot with when he was nine or ten years old, has been stored away, and now he's teaching his own son to shoot with it. What becomes of that family heirloom if the government tries to ban guns? Fifty years (or more) of family stories disappear, sold as scrap metal and melted into another car driving down the road... Criminal.

  History lives in the older guns we own. Not respecting and appreciating that history is a sad commentary on our society.

  As to the $495 video... I can go to my local gun store and get an inexpensive 9mm handgun for $150-200. I can get a case of practice ammo for $200, and several boxes of defensive ammo for the last $95. Don't want to get shot? Shoot back.

  Of course, here in NY, I'd be arrested and charged with a felony for carrying my guns on to the campus of an educational institution...

• Posted by Carolyn Eby on June 23, 2008 at 6:20pm EDT

• The author of the opinion piece is just trying to push his own gun control agenda. He isn't assuming that his story has universal resonance; he is saying "I was ashamed, and you should be, too." He's pushing this notion of shame because he wants to be able use it to control guns, but the fact is that there will always be plenty of people who are not ashamed to use guns against other people.

  To answer your third question, the author of this opinion piece thinks that shoving the issue back into the drawer IS solving the problem. It's like Bush removing sex education from schools: "if they don't know about it, they won't do it!"

• Posted by PN NJ on June 24, 2008 at 8:10am EDT

• Two comments:

  (1) Your gun series seems to be drifting into the academic ether. How about adding a little ballast by talking to actual gun owners. For example, why not seek out a few people that don’t have the luxury of police protection comparable to Bethesda or GWU.

  (2) There’s an interesting quotation from David Brooks in a recent UD column: “One sometimes has the sense that all the frantic efforts to regulate safety, to encourage academic achievement, and to keep busy are ways to compensate for missing conceptions of character and virtue.” The “culture wars” aspect of gun rights/gun control is much more about conceptions of character and personal responsibility than about shame, beauty, or sexual powers.

• Shame as a necessary corollary to virtue and character
• Posted by MarketStEl , Senior Marketing Writer at Activant Solutions Inc. on June 24, 2008 at 10:15am EDT

• While the writer of that essay who talked about guns as shameful objects fired at the wrong target, he was using the right weapon, for shame is one of the things that keeps us from performing any number of ghastly deeds.

  I just read this morning of a double murder in a Dallas suburb, committed by two men who were out to rob -- and kill -- someone. After the murderers were caught (thanks to the actions of the aunt of one of them), one of the perps was asked if he was sorry.

  His response? "Do it look like I got remorse?"

  So it is true that without shame, we would probably be a lot more brutal towards one another. Sin -- the notion that some things are inherently wrong no matter what -- is also a necessary restraint on our actions; recall that the tale of the Garden of Eden hinges on shame too. But what we should feel ashamed of is not the instrument we use to carry out the deed but the deed itself. A gun is not in and of itself good or evil; only the manner in which it is used makes it so -- and even then, it is the user, not the device, that bears the moral burden.

  That is the central flaw of the gun-control argument.

• Guns brought civilization
• Posted by John J. Ronald , Librarian I at Texas Woman's University on June 24, 2008 at 10:20am EDT

• Referencing the opinion piece you cite, the author is being ahistorical. Working firearms are a comparatively recent development in human technology.

  More importantly, however, is the fact that the exact opposite case can be argued; That firearms specifically helped to advance and protect civilization. The gun became the great equalizer, and being an effective warrior no longer depended solely on brute strength or raw numbers. Crudely put, the intelligent and weak could now, for the first time in history, fend off the strong-but-stupid. A few riflemen occupying the high ground of a narrow pass could keep a whole company at bay...

  There are others who can articulate this point more elegantly than I (especially English writers of Blackstone's era), and I find them very persuasive. Firearms ownership (and being skilled in their use) was considered part of being a responsible citizen, especialy in an era before professional police forces, but no less important now. Police forces are mainly criminal investigators in the service of the local DA, while the responsibility for personal self defense remains with the individual, who all too often is disbarred the use of the most effective tool for that purpose.

  I find guns aesthetically appealing, though some more than others. It is not unimportant when I select a new firearm, though it's hardly a primary consideration. Functionality trumps all other considerations. I've made a few missteps along the way, part of the learning process, but for the time being I feel pretty satisfied with my collection as it now stands. I have a few full-frame semiautos that are really only suitable for range use, and I wish I had purchased my more compact models *first* (which are better suited for concealed carry). I also invested in a civilian AR-15 out of uncertainty for the future and fear of another AWB from a future President Obama. Although I prefer my SKS and AK semiautos, I do find the all-black composite AR-15 aesthetically appealing. It also uses the same ammo as police and US military forces, which is another functionality consideration.

  I have a feeling that many "Anti" writers are merely projecting their own emotions and theories of human behavior onto others. Guns help preserve civilization by allowing the individual to defend his life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness from criminal oppression and at least potentially resist a future military dictatorship, in concert with his fellow citizen-soldiers of the unorganized militia. With all other Constitutional rights disappearing down the Gitmo Memory Hole, it is irresponsible for we Liberals/Leftists to advocate civilian disarmament in the face of growing, unchecked executive power.

• A dispatch from the frontier
• Posted by allison on June 24, 2008 at 10:20am EDT

• I've been tracking this series with interest, as someone who lives in academia now but grew up in a rural culture that took guns for granted. A gun wasn't a mystical symbol of power. It was a tool, like a pocket knife or diesel generator (two other things that can kill you if used incorrectly). If you used it correctly it could help you hunt, be safe going into the woods and defend your animals from predators. It could also be an insurance policy against someone who break into your home and harm you ( a real concern when you live where it would take police 30 minutes to get to your house). Through their relative scarcity in modern life, guns have taken on a mysterious power. To many people they are a symbol of a way of life (either criminal or just frontier-like) they don't understand.

  My dad has a concealed carry permit and carries it almost daily when working (he is a judge, and his bailiffs are not armed). My brother carries a gun for his work in a federal prison, and by habit keeps it on him. I grew up knowing you did not go onto the back 100 acres without some defense against coyotes, snakes and now bears and wolves. I plan to obtain my concealed permit, not because I'm a gun fanatic, but because it's a reasonable source of protection. I have been trained to use guns safely since childhood. As a 28 year old petite female academic and professional I don't fit anyone's idea of a crazy gun nut. That's because I'm not. I'm just someone who knows how to safely use a tool, and thus is not scared of it.

• Posted by Steven Clark at UW-Madison on June 24, 2008 at 10:20am EDT

• Guns.

  The Wisconsin legistlature recently considered legislation allowing concealed carry of guns in the state. As the debate was raging, I sat in a UW-Madison faculty senate meeting listening to over-the-hill, post-60s hippies pontificate and posture, eventually passing a non-binding resolution stating that they disapproved of guns on the campus.

  Boy did I feel safer and holier-than-thou after the meeting.

  Steven Clark, PhD

• Posted by Harold Jewell at University of Rochester on June 26, 2008 at 9:35am EDT

• I'd like to remind UD and everybody else on the planet that 'wanna' and 'gonna' are not words. What's next? 'Hafta' for 'have to'? If I were quoted in written text as having said 'gonna' or 'wanna' when I know that I had clearly said 'going to' or 'want to,' I would demand a published apology.

• Posted by mike r on June 28, 2008 at 7:20pm EDT

• "You have raised issues in this series that make me think of other persons who own and carry firearms but who are not nutty at all"

  i am amazed at insular nature of higher education anymore. to have a world view where people who use or approve of weapons are "nutty" is to have blinders on the size of... the ex-world trade center. most of the comments in the professor/guns post are trying to explain why they're "tools" not items of shame.
  Tushnett seems to have alot of problems, and blaming them on seeing a gun is avoidance of the first order. not to mention a tortured analysis of the subject.
  if you're unfamiliar with them, then get familiar before you start pontificating.
  I'm not familiar with blue whales or high speed drills, both of which could do you quite a bit of damage under certain conditions. but i don't want to ban either one of them....
  those who own or use guns or at least approve of them, happen to look at the gun control crowd as the "nutty" ones.....
  if there's any thread to the original post, it's that in my experience the people who want gun control ARE the highly emotional types who are afraid they would not be in control of themselves.

• Posted by Kevin Baker , Violent and predatory v. Violent but protective on June 29, 2008 at 5:50am EDT

• I concur with other commenters that this series has been fascinating. For me, it's been a look inside the head(s) of the opposition that I've not previously had access to, and for that I thank you.

  Quite a while back I wrote a three-part series I titled "The Dangerous Victims" trilogy, that is related to the observation of your colleague about his boys and their play. The key quote from the first piece is this:

  "Very nearly all the violence that plagues, rather than protects, society is the work of young males between the ages of fourteen and thirty. A substantial amount of the violence that protects rather than plagues society is performed by other members of the same group. The reasons for this predisposition are generally rooted in biology, which is to say that they are not going anywhere, in spite of the current fashion that suggests doping half the young with Ritalin.
  "The question is how to move these young men from the first group (violent and predatory) into the second (violent, but protective). This is to ask: what is the difference between a street gang and the Marine Corps, or a thug and a policeman? In every case, we see that the good youths are guided and disciplined by old men."

  Or, in this case, both parents.

  For too many on the Left, there is only VIOLENCE - and for them, ALL violence is BAD. Thus a firearm can never be a useful tool, only a talisman of evil, except for one odd exception. The British have taken this philosophy to its extreme, for example, instructing foreign exchange college students in "how to be a good victim" by not fighting back when attacked. (See my site for the link.)

  It is a battle of cultures. It's one reason those of us on this side don't think being called a "cowboy" is a bad thing. Cowboys are self-reliant. And armed.

  Gun owners, at least the "self defense wackos" as American Hunters and Shooters Association Executive Director Bob Ricker characterizes us, are all about being responsible, responsible for our safety, and that of our families and our society. We realize that the "violent and predatory" are out there, and are prepared to be "violent but protective" on our own behalf, rather than farming out that job exclusively to a police force that simply cannot be everywhere at once.

  But for some reason, the Left has abandoned the concept of "violent but protective," at least for the individual. Instead, they've convinced themselves that the only legitimate use of force comes from government, and that cannot be termed "violence." Criminals use "violence" - governments use force. And if you're not a paid member of government, then any use of force is and must be "violence," and thus criminal.

  It's a bizarre philosophy, but it's the only one I've come across that fits the observational data. You're straying towards the use of "violence" by considering the question of personal firearms. It's no surprise you're getting pushback from the Left - you're straying off the reservation, so to speak.

• Posted by RAH , Why the Gun is Civilization on June 29, 2008 at 5:50am EDT

• One of the comments made me think of what one of the best essay on why the gun is civilization. It goes as follows.

  http://munchkinwrangler.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-gun-is-civilization.html

  why the gun is civilization.
  Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.

  In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

  When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

  There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

  Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

  When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation...and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

  Posted by Marko at 7:06 AM |

• Posted by Santee on July 2, 2008 at 2:20pm EDT

• I have enjoyed following your journey of discovery and applaud you for the attempt. I am looking forward to the rest of the journey.
  I am not shamed into NOT killing every individual I meet. Nor have I ever felt the slightest bit of shame over the game I have taken with firearms or bow. I think the author felt shame as a negative emotion for having an illicit affair with an inanimate object. Rather, I am motivated by a positive respect for men and women, to not kill them on sight. "No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." - Thomas Jefferson.
  Having said that, I would take a life if the individual threatened bodily harm to me or those around me. "Personally, I carry a gun because I'm too young to die and too damn old to take an ass kickin." - Bill Fleming.
  Carrying a firearm is a grave responsibility and I do not take it lightly a any time. The firearm I carry is not an evil thing, nor does it have a mind of its own. And the vast majority of law abiding citizens who carry firearms can say, "If guns cause crime, all of mine are defective." - Ted Nugent.

• Guns as Protection in a Changing Society
• Posted by Virginia Levsen on July 3, 2008 at 8:25am EDT

• I think certain weapons, such as bazookas or AK47's, should most certainly be banned. But they're a little difficult to carry as a concealed weapon.

  Growing up in the rural Midwest, I grew up with hunting rifles but not handguns. We also didn't lock our doors at night and left the keys in the ignitions of our cars and trucks. But that scenario is no longer true for me.

  I have had three residential break-in's over the years. In two of them, the burglar walked through my bedroom while I was asleep and the third man raped me. That REALLY pissed me off! I now live in a metropolitan area where crime is high compared to other U.S. metropolitan areas. Muggings, rape, robbery, and car jackings no longer make the front page of the newspapers, which addresses the increasing number of those incidents since commonly occurring crimes do not make headlines. And being female does not exactly make me feel safer when I have to travel or walk in certain areas, including on campus at night.

  While mace or pepper spray may be viable alternatives in some situations, there are other, usually more dangerous situations, such as a middle-of-the-night assault with an armed person or multiple assailants, that would definitely put my pepper spray to shame. A concealed weapon would be my best defense (and not buried in my purse).

  But before someone can obtain a license for a concealed weapon, laws should require a person to take a thorough, accurate, and informative training course on how to properly maintain, handle, and fire the weapon (hopefully with a physical minimum accuracy rate with the weapon to be used) and the advantages and disadvantages of one type of gun over other types.

  A special and extremely important emphasis should be directed at safety, the importance of individual responsibility for the ownership and use of weapons, the possible consequences of firing one's weapon at another human or animal or even straight up in the air in a celebratory manner, and the dangers of storing a weapon where children, drunk spouses or friends, etc. have access to the weapon. The latter point would also reduce the number of accidental deaths, which are heartbreaking and much more common than any of us would like to admit.

  And above all, a person should understand that he or she must have the mindset that if he or she points a gun at any person or animal, he or she intends to fire to kill. That is NOT the time to chicken out or wait for the criminal to get close enough to grab the gun. And it's not the time to try and determine whether one could actually kill another person. That moral soul searching should occur before one even purchases a weapon.

  I have always known that I have the capability to kill someone who poses an immediate threat of great bodily harm or death to me or those around me. It is not something I would want to do but it's crucial knowledge needed prior to brandishing a gun at someone. I hope I never have to confront a situation where gunfire is my only option. I am big on preventive measures, such as good door and window locks, an alarm system, and a couple of giant breed dogs who would probably lick an intruders face off rather than attack. I remain very vigilant of my surroundings and try to look strangers, male and female, in the face as we pass, reducing my chances that I will be that stranger's next target. I try to park my vehicle in a well lit area with a steady flow of people to and from the parking area. I also do not broadcast the fact that I'm carrying a concealed weapon.

  I absolutely refuse to live a life based on fear. And if concealed weapons are necessary for me to accomplish that, then so be it.

• Posted by Steven Clark at UW on July 8, 2008 at 9:10am EDT

• Is anyone as surprised as I am at the level of support for concealed carry?

  I live in the intellectually and politically homogeneous city of Madison, WI with the UW. Everyone is pretty much in lockstep against anything to do with guns. Apparently, this is not true across the country.

• Posted by Prof Ed on July 8, 2008 at 2:35pm EDT

• "When, in this primal story of the evolution of human shame in regard to weaponry, did it turn out only to have to do with Americans? Why is it only our national psyche that works this way?"

  Hmmm... apparently the writers do not recognize Switzerland as a nation. It's the other nation many want to emigrate to—those emigrants who can afford it. What "national psyches" might these countries have in common that make them more desirable places to live than other nations?