Drinking with the Enemy
I always feel like a spy when I meet my friend P for a drink. This is because he's a hardened campaigner, in the self-righteous, we-know-best, climbing-on-power-stations sense. Yes, he's a greenie, with an unshakeable faith in the benign potential of ever-more oppressive legislation to achieve his aims and a not unrelated instinctive hatred of business. Honestly, if we hadn't been at school together, in a hideous market town, where intelligence and discerning brought people together simply by virtue of their astonishing rarity; if we hadn't, in other words, forged our friendship in the fires of provincial school hell, I very much doubt we'd have enough in common to become good friends now. I love the guy, but there it is.
Before embarking on a career of directing others' lives to his personal satisfaction at Greenpeace, he cut his teeth trying to prevent them from defending themselves at the Campaign Against Arms Trade, and it was with a pair of CAAT newbies that I found him last night, giving them an informal seminar on activism - running meetings, soliciting funds from rich soi-disant "progressives", differentiating between internal and external politics, etc.. I was impressed with his fluency and grasp of technicalities (anyone can spout meretricious arguments, of course: it requires a greater acumen to do so successfully in the public arena) - although no doubt P would feel, given my notably unstellar record in the professional sphere, that my approbation is on the worthless side.
This is all by way of saying that, inevitably during such a conversation, they digressed briefly into an actual discussion about arms - which, equally inevitably given the philosophical pedigree and employment history of the three involved, was not so much a discussion as it was a mutual reaffirmation of adherence to the "progressive" line. When they'd gone, I asked P if he knew what the Second Amendment says. He didn't. From memory (it should be "well-regulated"), I said,
"It says that a well-ordered militia being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
This is, in legal terms, shockingly ambiguous language, particularly for so vital and latterly so divisive a clause. There's an interesting page here that discusses the possible interpretations of several of the words - "militia", "well-regulated", "the people", "keep and bear" and "arms" - but in my view it misses out the most important and consequently the most ambiguous of the lot: "being". Is the statement declarative or conditional?
"A well-regulated militia is and always will be necessary to the security of a free state and consequently the right of the people...."
"While and only while it remains the case that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, we accept that the right of the people...."
Personally, I go with the first: I simply don't trust government enough for them to have all the guns. An armed citizenry is a powerful disincentive to tyranny. This is, of course, to interpret "militia" as a private group of individuals on whom the government may call if necessary but who are in no way beholden to it and are therefore free to act in their own interests and in the interests of a free state - and that's without discussing the value of an armed citizenry in matters other than insurance against an overmighty state, such as protection of the person and of property. An armed citizenry is, famously, a polite citizenry.
The difficulty of going with the second interpretation is that it raises a whole raft of new problems, most of which come under the auspices of arbitration. Who shall decide if the time has come that a well-regulated militia is no longer necessary to the security of a free state, say with the establishment of a professional military and police force? By whose judgement should the people relinquish their right to defend themselves and their freedom on the basis that those are now adequately defended for them? This, of course, overlooks the fact that certainly the military and to a lesser extent the police force are under the control and in the pay of government anyway, so are hardly likely, except in extreme matters of conscience, to place others' liberty ahead of their own security. The assumption, in other words, that such a time might come to pass that individuals could safely surrender their right to protect themselves is as naïve as it is egotistical to assume the right to pronounce that time as having arrived.
So what of this country, with its knee-jerk handgun bans that have kept Olympic shooters safely out of the world rankings but spurred the criminal underworld to greater heights of gun violence, safe in the knowledge that they have nearly all the guns? To be honest, it's too depressing to bother with.
P might argue at this point that this is not CAAT's primary aim; rather it is to stop the international trade in arms to regions of conflict and the (insert emotive but intellectually empty word like "grotesque" here) profits being made from it by (insert Masters of War lyrics here). I would say: sorry, it's all part of the same thing. People want arms to protect themselves from people who already have arms. This applies to people you like as well as people you dislike. And expecting them to lie back and wait for government to come and protect them is like me lying back and waiting for Jennifer Connelly to fall out of the sky on to my dick. She was 36 a couple of days ago, by the way. Happy Birthday to her.
Before embarking on a career of directing others' lives to his personal satisfaction at Greenpeace, he cut his teeth trying to prevent them from defending themselves at the Campaign Against Arms Trade, and it was with a pair of CAAT newbies that I found him last night, giving them an informal seminar on activism - running meetings, soliciting funds from rich soi-disant "progressives", differentiating between internal and external politics, etc.. I was impressed with his fluency and grasp of technicalities (anyone can spout meretricious arguments, of course: it requires a greater acumen to do so successfully in the public arena) - although no doubt P would feel, given my notably unstellar record in the professional sphere, that my approbation is on the worthless side.
This is all by way of saying that, inevitably during such a conversation, they digressed briefly into an actual discussion about arms - which, equally inevitably given the philosophical pedigree and employment history of the three involved, was not so much a discussion as it was a mutual reaffirmation of adherence to the "progressive" line. When they'd gone, I asked P if he knew what the Second Amendment says. He didn't. From memory (it should be "well-regulated"), I said,
"It says that a well-ordered militia being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
This is, in legal terms, shockingly ambiguous language, particularly for so vital and latterly so divisive a clause. There's an interesting page here that discusses the possible interpretations of several of the words - "militia", "well-regulated", "the people", "keep and bear" and "arms" - but in my view it misses out the most important and consequently the most ambiguous of the lot: "being". Is the statement declarative or conditional?
"A well-regulated militia is and always will be necessary to the security of a free state and consequently the right of the people...."
"While and only while it remains the case that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, we accept that the right of the people...."
Personally, I go with the first: I simply don't trust government enough for them to have all the guns. An armed citizenry is a powerful disincentive to tyranny. This is, of course, to interpret "militia" as a private group of individuals on whom the government may call if necessary but who are in no way beholden to it and are therefore free to act in their own interests and in the interests of a free state - and that's without discussing the value of an armed citizenry in matters other than insurance against an overmighty state, such as protection of the person and of property. An armed citizenry is, famously, a polite citizenry.
The difficulty of going with the second interpretation is that it raises a whole raft of new problems, most of which come under the auspices of arbitration. Who shall decide if the time has come that a well-regulated militia is no longer necessary to the security of a free state, say with the establishment of a professional military and police force? By whose judgement should the people relinquish their right to defend themselves and their freedom on the basis that those are now adequately defended for them? This, of course, overlooks the fact that certainly the military and to a lesser extent the police force are under the control and in the pay of government anyway, so are hardly likely, except in extreme matters of conscience, to place others' liberty ahead of their own security. The assumption, in other words, that such a time might come to pass that individuals could safely surrender their right to protect themselves is as naïve as it is egotistical to assume the right to pronounce that time as having arrived.
So what of this country, with its knee-jerk handgun bans that have kept Olympic shooters safely out of the world rankings but spurred the criminal underworld to greater heights of gun violence, safe in the knowledge that they have nearly all the guns? To be honest, it's too depressing to bother with.
P might argue at this point that this is not CAAT's primary aim; rather it is to stop the international trade in arms to regions of conflict and the (insert emotive but intellectually empty word like "grotesque" here) profits being made from it by (insert Masters of War lyrics here). I would say: sorry, it's all part of the same thing. People want arms to protect themselves from people who already have arms. This applies to people you like as well as people you dislike. And expecting them to lie back and wait for government to come and protect them is like me lying back and waiting for Jennifer Connelly to fall out of the sky on to my dick. She was 36 a couple of days ago, by the way. Happy Birthday to her.
posted by Novus at 14:10
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