Do guns make us free?: democracy and the armed society PDF
Preview Do guns make us free?: democracy and the armed society
Do Guns Make Us Free? This page intentionally left blank Do Guns Make Us Free? Democracy and the Armed Society FIRMIN D BRABANDER E New Haven and London Published with assistance from the Louis Stern Memorial Fund. Copyright © 2015 by Firmin DeBrabander. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-m ail sales.press@ yale.edu (U.S. offi ce) or [email protected] (U.K. offi ce). Set in Janson and Monotype Van Dijck types by IDS Infotech, Ltd. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Control Number: 2015930849 ISBN 978-0-300-20893-1 (cloth : alk. paper) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Preface: “This Time Is Different” vii Acknowledgments xvii ONE. The Culture of Fear 1 TWO. Guns, Government, and Autonomy 51 THREE. The Face of Oppression 102 FOUR. Guns and the Threat to Democracy 140 FIVE. Power and Democracy 189 Notes 235 Index 263 This page intentionally left blank Preface “This Time Is Different” We thought Sandy Hook would change things. In December 2012, a lone gunman named Adam Lanza killed twenty fi rst- graders and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School with a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifl e. Among those killed were the principal, Dawn Hochsprung, who confronted him as he shot his way into the building, the school psychologist, and four teachers. Of the many mass shootings that have scarred the nation’s consciousness in recent years, this one stood out as especially appalling. Following the massacre, President Barack Obama made an emotional appeal for stronger gun control measures. “I know this is not the fi rst time this country has debated how to reduce gun violence,” he said in his 2013 State of the Union address. “But this time is different. Overwhelming majorities of Americans—Americans who believe in the Sec- ond Amendment—have come together around common- sense reform.”1 Polls taken after Sandy Hook indicated that vii PREFACE indeed, most favored strengthening gun control legislation.2 One of the reforms Obama had in mind was closing the “gun show loophole,” the provision that allows gun show vendors to sell weapons to individuals without performing a back- ground check. One study showed that fully 80 percent of Americans supported closing this loophole, and that the percentages were virtually the same among self- identifi ed Democrats and Republicans.3 Yet the president’s allies in Congress failed. No changes were made to federal gun laws. Even the gun show loophole remained intact. To great fanfare, some states succeeded in mak- ing changes where the federal government failed—New York, Maryland, Colorado. One year after Sandy Hook, however, the country had loosened more gun regulations than it tightened. The New York Times reported that seventy gun-r elated measures enacted by statehouses in the year after the massacre expanded gun rights, and only thirty-n ine imposed stricter controls.4 This fi ts with a longer pattern of gun rights groups getting their way, despite the mass shootings that have punc- tuated our news cycle with alarming regularity. The routine response of the largest gun lobby, the National Rifl e Associa- tion, to these shootings is that we need still more guns and gun- friendly laws. As a result, carrying a concealed gun is per- mitted in all fi fty states, and carrying one openly in forty-f our. The NRA’s response to Sandy Hook was to claim we needed guns in every school in the nation, in the hands of armed guards or, barring that, teachers and staff. Several school systems have taken to doing just that. Then there are the proliferating Stand Your Ground laws, enacted in thirty states as of this writing, where citizens viii PREFACE may shoot to kill if they feel threatened by another and in danger of bodily harm. The nature of said “threat” is noto- riously subjective and vague—shooters may characterize any number of incursions or advances as threatening, and promising bodily harm. The law urges individuals to opt for force as a fi rst resort—indeed, to be something quite close to roving vigilantes, according to the verdict in the case of George Zimmerman, who in 2012 shot and killed unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin. We may, like Zimmerman, go out of our way to confront those constituting supposed threats and, when they react badly, “stand our ground” there. In a more recent case that garnered a lot of attention, a Tampa man indicated that he would invoke the Stand Your Ground defense after shooting another man in a movie theater, saying he felt faced with bodily harm; it turned out his victim had thrown popcorn at him.5 Other states are preparing to enact similar legislation.6 Despite the trend toward gun- friendly legislation, the American public is hardly at one with the gun rights move- ment and is uncomfortable with its current trajectory. The percentage of households with a gun has fallen since the 1970s.7 Journalist Dan Baum points out that the number of gun stores is also dwindling, and that hunting, once a popular sport for gun owners—and a primary reason for having a gun—is on the decline.8 What, then, explains the gun rights movement’s policy gains? When the gun control proposals following Sandy Hook failed in Congress, many wondered what kind of mas- sacre might fi nally persuade the nation to insist on stronger gun control, and what was standing in the way. ix
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