Where the Snooping Has to Stop

In the gym locker room yesterday, I overheard another old nekkid guy tell a friend: "I mean if you was makin' a phone call to some Al Qaeda tonight, I think the government ought to know, don't you?"

Well, sure the government ought to know.  And ought to be able to rip the roof off your bedroom to make sure you aren't shacked up with the preacher's wife.   But  somehow there was something--maybe it was the aroma of Foaming Bore-- that made me also think I was listening to a guy who really wasn't all that keen about the gummint sticking its nose into his business.  Like, for example, a guy that is totally cool we went 110 million background checks without a director over at Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.  The thought that one of those background checks might surface "some Al Quaeda" just didn't seem to figure.  

And  just for a fleeting moment, I wondered how my birthday-suited neighbor would feel if we had a law allowing electronic surveillance only for gun owners.  I mean admit it, have you ever met a terrorist who wasn't exercising his second amendment rights  armed and dangerous?  Don't we have rational basis, strict scrutiny, all those other Constitutional icons, for the cohort that is fully weaponized? 

No, I thought not.  Somehow my guess is that the people who are most comfortable with blanket electronic surveillance are also totally cool with my wandering around with a tactical nuclear weapon on my back, as long as I'm a paid up member of NRA (note to terrorists: join NRA).  Indeed, I suppose if anybody ever really raised the issue, we'd end up with a rule that provides that the snoops can rip the roofs of the bedrooms of every home in America except those occupied by gun owners.  Forget I ever said this, okay?

Well, What Day Would Be Good for You, Mr. President?

Really movin' up in the disappointment league tables:

White House On Newtown School Shooting: Today Not The Day For Gun Control Debate

Flashback: White House conversation overheard from six months ago.

--Smithers, I want you to prepare me a package for a full frontal assault on gun violence.  Major address.  Substantive proposals.  Plan for a national conversation.   Lists of supporters ready to deploy.

--Mr. President?  Now?  In the midst of an election?

--No, of course not, Smithers. Not now, out of the blue.  The gun nuts would catch me wrong-footed and the whole program would go nowhere and I'd lose the election to boot.  But believe it, Smithers, there is bound to be another mass school shooting--

--[Aghast]  You wouldn't want to try to take advantage of a moment of national tragedy--

--And why not?  When better moment  to get everybody's attention--when even the wildest gun nuts will be feeling at least a trace of shame or remorse.

--But you might say something out of line--

--You really don't get it, do you Smithers?  That is precisely why I want you to work on it now.  I want something that puts these guys in corner.  Humiliates  them.  Leaves them without a shred of support.You need help?  We'll get you help.  You need money?  We'll find it.   For once in my life, I want to do something other than "lead from behind."  Now make it happen.

 No, of course not.  Or if he did, I guess he gave the job to the wrong guy.

Update:  I wrote this before  I knew the President was himself speaking out (indeed, I think while he was speaking out).  Having read reports of his remarks, I see no need to revise mine. 

Update II:  For a worthwhile conversation, some places to start: here  (H/T Epicurian Dealmaker); here; here; here.  here

My Cousin Peter and the Florida Law

I did not know him well, but I gather my cousin Peter was a remarkable man in many ways.  One, or rather two: apparently he taught gun safety, and he did not approve of private gun ownership.  A contradiction?  Apparently not to Peter who would tell people that if they used weapons, at least they should use them right. 

I wonder what Peter would think of this.  

The Full Use of Emergency Room Services Act of 2011

I read that a bunch of South Dakota legislators have proposed that every South Dakotan be required buy a gun.  If the purpose is to recapture the spirit of the Old West, I propose they go a step further and require every South Dakotan also to carry a quart of whiskey.  And maybe a couple of rattlesnakes.

--My pardner and I are travelin' light.  All I'm carryin' is a two quarts of whiskey for snakebite.
--What's he carryin'?
--Two rattlesnakes.

Glock

Here.

Weapons: A Search for Common Ground

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has signed a law allowing people carry concealed weapons in church. But in a polite way, mind you, with etiquette restrictions.

Now that Jindal has implicitly conceded that he is a "wet" on the gun issue (as in, what's with this time, place and manner stuff?), I wonder if I see a sliver of daylight.

A couple of points. One, how would the governor feel about making gun-carry in church compulsory, like ascribing to a creed (compare David Brooks who says he wants to make gay marriage compulsory). But two, how about restricting concealed carry to churches only? Make sure they stay out of the hands of the bad guys. And ready for the final showdown.

Update: Whoo hoo! Carlton tells me that art imitates life--that our colonial forebears were (on occasion) indeed required to carry guns to church. "Fear of Indian attack or slave revolt," it says here. I suppose misbehavior by undocumented Kenyan immigrants would fall in the same class.

Biblo note: not sure what the deal is with the weird Asian characters in the header but the provenance of the piece appears to be here.

Update II: Curiouser and curiouser. John weighs in from Kansas: "Oddly, the original conceal carry law in Kansas barred concealed carry in churches, temples and bars. NO mention of mosques. Or oak groves. The restriction on cc in bars was lifted."

Garrett Keizer on "Progressives" and Guns

Thanks to Underbelly's PDX bureau for favoring me with one of the best bits of bathroom reading I've seen in a long time--The Best American Essays (2007), including this gem:

Notice the telling grammatical shift by which the adjective "progressive" becomes a titular noun--comparable to a godly person who begins to speak of himself as a god. As the living embodiment of progress itself, a progressive is beyond rage, beyond "the politics of yesterday," and certainly beyond anything as retro as a gun. More than I fear fundamentalists who wish to teach religious myths in place of evolution, I fear progressives who wish to teach evolution in place of political science. Or, rather, who forget a central principle of evolutionary thought: that no species completely outgrows its origins.

--Garret Keizer, "Loaded" in id. 137-43, 139 (2007)
(Originally published in Harper's Magazine)

And continuing:

Like democracy, for example. What is that creature if not the offspring of literacy and ballistics? Once a peasant can shoot down a knight, the writing is on the wall, including the writing that says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident."

--Id. 139-40

This is dazzling stuff, but in fact he speaking for a long intellectual tradition, not so? The idea of an armed citizenry was a staple of 17th-Century small-r republicanism, not so ((link))? Still it is fun to see it so elegantly and provocatively expressed.

Statement of Interest: This post written by someone who hasn't owned a gun since a house fire destroyed his .22 rifle when he was 10, and who hasn't touched one since he left the army in 1963. Loud noises frighten me, but the truth has its claims.