Senator Lindsey Graham — nominally a Republican — is trying to put together federal legislation to give grants to states that pass Red Flag laws. The National Rifle Association — nominally a gun rights organization — has gone on record in support of these laws.
These have to be belated April Fool’s jokes, right? Unfortunately, they’re not. But there’s a joke that helps explain how situations like this come about:
A man walks into a bar, sees an attractive woman sitting alone, and asks if she would be willing to sleep with him for a million dollars. She thinks it over and says yes. He says: Great, how about fifty bucks? Indignantly, she asks: What kind of woman do you think I am? He replies: Oh, we’ve established that. Now we’re just haggling over terms.
For decades, even ardent supporters of gun rights have embraced the idea that it’s not ‘the people’, or ‘all persons’, who have the right to keep and bear arms, but only some subset of the people.
Every time you hear someone talk about the need to protect the rights of ‘law abiding citizens’, this is what they’re saying. ‘I have the right to keep and bear arms. But people who scare me must be denied that right.’
All that remains is to establish where that line is — exactly what makes a person scary enough to be denied the most fundamental of rights. A felony conviction? Medical or recreational drug use? A feeling of fear articulated by an acquaintance?
These are differences of degree, not of kind.
As Ron Paul said, you can’t give up less than 100% of a principle. We’ve put a lot of effort into exchanging the right to keep and bear arms for permission to keep some kinds of arms, and bear them in some kinds of places, under some kinds of circumstances, hoping that this might keep us a little safer. Red Flag laws are just the next logical step in that direction.
We’re about to get what we’ve been asking for… good and hard. It’s no longer a matter of whether, only of when. ‘Getting out in front of it’, as Graham and the NRA are clearly trying to do, may slow it down a little. But these laws are coming, and all that remains is to figure out how we’re going to react to them.
And it’s no use blaming elected officials like Graham, or institutions like the NRA, or billionaire meddlers like Michael Bloomberg, or tools like Shannan Watts. If we’re looking for someone to blame, we just have to look in the mirror.
We’ve established what we are. Now we’re just haggling over terms. Good luck to us with that.