Guns in Town

It's a lesson from western movies: when there are guns in town, they will be used. Civilization is pretty much defined as a place where law and custom rule, not where the streets are ruled by guns.

Guns on the street aren't acceptable in a civilized town. It's the citizens who enforce this really, but it is the law that backs it up.

So what does that say about us right now?

Number of people who died from gunshots in the Tucson incident: 6.
Number of people who die from gunshots every single day in the USA: 80.

Guns destroy civilization, and they also destroy democracy. Bringing a gun to a Town Hall Meeting is the definition of an anti-democratic act, a subversive act.

President Obama last night described the scene in Tucson on Saturday:

"On Saturday morning, Gabby, her staff and many of her constituents gathered outside a supermarket to exercise their right to peaceful assembly and free speech. They were fulfilling a central tenet of the democracy envisioned by our founders –- representatives of the people answering questions to their constituents, so as to carry their concerns back to our nation’s capital. Gabby called it “Congress on Your Corner” -– just an updated version of government of and by and for the people. And that quintessentially American scene, that was the scene that was shattered by a gunman’s bullets."

But how do citizens feel confident in participating in this quintessential American scene, this central tenet of democracy now? It's not just that a deranged gunman opened fire in Tucson. It's that it was legal and acceptable for anyone to bring a loaded gun to a public meeting. In fact, the shooter wasn't the only one armed. Someone else had his finger on the trigger, and almost shot the person who disarmed the shooter, because he was still holding the gun he'd taken away from the perpetrator.

The principle is simple. Democracy belongs to the most persuasive voices, not the biggest guns. Guns at public meetings used to be an image associated with eastern European or Chinese Communists or Nazi SS. The effect is easy to understanding. If chipping away at some corner of free speech produces a "chilling effect" on free speech, what does a gun at a public meeting do?

First and foremost, it deters people from even showing up. If I had a child, a nine year old girl who just won a student council election say, I would think more than twice before allowing her to attend a public meeting, even in a grocery store parking lot in the middle of town. Not just because one nut might bring a gun. But because all people might be carrying guns, where it is acceptable and legal to do so.

Are you going to argue over health care with somebody who might have a gun? Are you even going to go vote with people who might be armed?

Even if Americans have "a right to bear arms," I don't see where the Constitution says they have a right to bear them in a Town Hall meeting. Isn't there something about a "well-regulated militia" in that amendment?

I think Eugene Robinson was right to use the word "insane" in characterizing recent refusals to regulate guns. I really don't much care about length of barrels and size of clips, or all the other compromises. I'm sure police would feel better if it wasn't so easy for criminals to obtain more lethal weapons, and the idea of restricting guns only from appearances by members of Congress is what it transparently is.

You can debate all the sophisticated technical solutions and compromises, but for me the very first thing that has to be done is to restore the rule with force of law that you cannot bring your gun to town, anywhere in America. You cannot bring your gun to any public place, and you certainly may not bring your gun to any public meeting.

There is no conflict of rights here. No one except officers of the law should have the legal right in a civilized society to endanger innocents in a public place by carrying lethal weapons. No one has the right to threaten the foundation of democracy: the right of citizens to peaceably assemble.

But even more powerful than rights and law is the power of the people to set and enforce this standard by sending the message that this is unacceptable behavior, and anyone engaging in it is outside civilized society, period.