Dogma

I’ve been very pissed off and political lately. All the morality and hypocrisy I’ve been swallowing in AZ’s DUI and pot laws has made me pay a lot of attention to gun laws, since their regulation (or lack-of) is zealously defended on the basis of personal freedom, and this eye on freedom seems to have been put out when it comes to drinking and driving.   You can get a DUI in AZ by having your keys within 50 feet of your car.   Go to a bar, call a cab, fetch your laptop from your car, go to jail.   Move car seats around in your driveway with the front doors closed and the back doors and trunk open and your keys on the ground and a beer on the roof, go to jail.   Yet at the same time we are considering a law in AZ to do away with all licensing requirements for a CCW.     Just last week there was an article in the Republic about a guy who brought one to India, and then was dumbfounded when he got busted.

I can’t get behind the NRA zealots since their arguments are almost all about philosophy without any nod toward the reality of guns in society.   Too many of them sound like they have never read the Constitution, and just want to blow shit up.     Too many of the anti-gun people cite only crime stats without any respect for the idea of a free society.   They ignore stats that suggest violent crimes are worse when outlawing guns leaves only guns in the hands of outlaws.   I spent some time reading some websites on either side of the debate, and all I can conclude is that both sides are completely and totally full of shit.   What none of them seemed to provide is an analysis of the situation in a technical and economic context, prior to getting all wrapped up in morality.

When I did stand-up a long time ago I had a pretty funny bit about how the Founding Fathers wrote the 2nd Amendment when the only gun was a ball-and-powder musket, and I’d do a little move where I pretend to shoot, then use the mic stand as a prop to imitate packing the powder back down as your prepared to reload.   Hilarity ensued.   The technical limitations and lack of range and accuracy made a musket a very poor choice for an offensive weapon.   It was probably among the most expensive possessions a man owned, right up there with his horse and saddle.   People lived in filth, guns jammed, powder didn’t light, the bullet store was half a day’s ride into town or something you made in your barn smelting metal from old nails you pulled out of a horseshoe and burned over a fire lit by a tree you chopped.   That’s the baseline of the 2nd Amendment.

A bit of research online suggests that in 1875 a Colt Peacemaker cost about 1 month’s wages for the average man.   It may have been better maintained and better manufactured, but I would think the average cowboy riding around on dirt roads and frontier kicked it full of dust while it was strapped to his waist or saddle all day long.   To tolerate the conditions it had to operate in, the gun must have sacrificed range and accuracy, and you still hear how guns regularly jammed.   My camera spends one day at the beach and a little piece of grit gets trapped in a small ratcheting mechanism and destroys it.   My bike in the back of my truck travelling 10 miles down a dirt road needs a wipe down.   8 hours of riding and my drivetrain ghosts shifts mercilessly.   The conditions had to affect the gun’s use, and while 6 shots and a better rifles certainly become more offensive in function, you also hear about people barely hitting 50 yards.   Lack of sights and well made bullets etc all realistically were limits.   I am no expert, and will not pretend to be one, but it seems a no-brainer the average use was not in an ideal laboratory setting.

As per wikipedia and the 2005 census, the average male income in the US was $39,400.   2 minutes shopping online found an AK47 for $1000, AR-15 for $1200, and a 9mm for $300.   In real dollar terms, you can get the 15 shot 9mm with better accuracy and firepower for 1/10th the cost of the 1875 Peacemaker. Factor in the ease of obtaining guns and supplies, cleaner conditions and ease of service, and the gun today is a totally different tool than the gun of the Revolutionary War.

As a libertarian i think guns should be legal, but the data argues in favor intelligent, evolving regulation that balances the goal of freedom with the reality of modern society.

and now for the obligatory “why do you hate America?”