06-10-2013, 03:01 AM
...Add it up and we have a full picture of the bad gun supply control
agenda as candidly articulated over the past four decades. So when
skeptics scoff at the worry that the bad gun formula is a confiscation
agenda, one can answer as I have, that the theory of supply controls is
nonsense unless one is committed to confiscation. But those who find
the theoretical discussion too abstract, can just reference the empty
gun cabinet that is the plain end result of the bad gun formula.
Of course, for some people, the image of the empty gun cabinet cuts the
other way. They will say Hell yea, right on. But that just confirms
my starting contention about creeping confiscation. And the cheering
prohibitionists must be reminded that the guns didnt really go to the
crusher, they just flooded into the black market.
For others the empty gun cabinet image should help them cut through the
claim that the conversation is really just about commonsense controls
over a small category of dangerous and unusual guns that no one really
needs. This is an important revelation for new crops of young
journalists, congressional staffers and news-show producers who dont
remember when the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence was called the
Coalition to Ban Handguns.
The encouraging thing is that there seem to be legions of folks at the
grassroots who do remember such things and are beyond the influence of
cloistered opinion makers. This helps explain the failure of the latest
rendition of the bad gun formula and illuminates the bewilderment about
that failure among the chattering class.
The strategy of carving off gun owners category by category is now so
familiar that very few gun people find it convincing. Even if it is true
that there are shotgun people, rifle people, handgun people, hunters and
target shooters, these labels do not mark boundaries. These people are
not divisible from American gun culture, they are American gun culture.
There was a nice demonstration of this in January when participants and
exhibitors at the annual Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania withdrew from the program and shut down the event. The show
is a big deal. Ive been there several times over the years. This year,
the British- owned promoter, exhibited a deaf ear to its market and
decided to prohibit exhibition of a variety of semi-automatic bad
guns. Hundreds of vendors and exhibitors lost lots of money by pulling
out of the show. Many of them did not even sell firearms.
One cant know the motives of all of these people. But its a good bet
that nearly all of them, and their employees, and their families, owned
firearms. And most of them have probably been paying close enough
attention over the years to appreciate that most of the guns they own,
at one time or another, have been on the bad gun list.
Politicians who advance the bad gun formula, seem to proceed as if the
all memories are wiped clean with each election cycle. I guess they are
encouraged by the fact that our collective focus on many issues barely
survives the news cycle.
Gun people, at least on gun issues, seem to have a longer attention span.
*Nicholas J. Johnson is Professor of Law, Fordham University School of
Law and is an editor of Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Cases and
Materials (Aspen Press, 2012). Professor Johnson is the author of more
than a dozen law review articles on firearms regulation and the Second
Amendment including This Right is Not Allowed By Governments That Are
Afraid of the People: The Public Meaning of the Second Amendment When
the Fourteenth Amendment was Ratified, 17 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 823 (2010),
Administering the Second Amendment: Law, Politics, and Taxonomy, 50
Santa Clara L. Rev. 1263 (2010).
agenda as candidly articulated over the past four decades. So when
skeptics scoff at the worry that the bad gun formula is a confiscation
agenda, one can answer as I have, that the theory of supply controls is
nonsense unless one is committed to confiscation. But those who find
the theoretical discussion too abstract, can just reference the empty
gun cabinet that is the plain end result of the bad gun formula.
Of course, for some people, the image of the empty gun cabinet cuts the
other way. They will say Hell yea, right on. But that just confirms
my starting contention about creeping confiscation. And the cheering
prohibitionists must be reminded that the guns didnt really go to the
crusher, they just flooded into the black market.
For others the empty gun cabinet image should help them cut through the
claim that the conversation is really just about commonsense controls
over a small category of dangerous and unusual guns that no one really
needs. This is an important revelation for new crops of young
journalists, congressional staffers and news-show producers who dont
remember when the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence was called the
Coalition to Ban Handguns.
The encouraging thing is that there seem to be legions of folks at the
grassroots who do remember such things and are beyond the influence of
cloistered opinion makers. This helps explain the failure of the latest
rendition of the bad gun formula and illuminates the bewilderment about
that failure among the chattering class.
The strategy of carving off gun owners category by category is now so
familiar that very few gun people find it convincing. Even if it is true
that there are shotgun people, rifle people, handgun people, hunters and
target shooters, these labels do not mark boundaries. These people are
not divisible from American gun culture, they are American gun culture.
There was a nice demonstration of this in January when participants and
exhibitors at the annual Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania withdrew from the program and shut down the event. The show
is a big deal. Ive been there several times over the years. This year,
the British- owned promoter, exhibited a deaf ear to its market and
decided to prohibit exhibition of a variety of semi-automatic bad
guns. Hundreds of vendors and exhibitors lost lots of money by pulling
out of the show. Many of them did not even sell firearms.
One cant know the motives of all of these people. But its a good bet
that nearly all of them, and their employees, and their families, owned
firearms. And most of them have probably been paying close enough
attention over the years to appreciate that most of the guns they own,
at one time or another, have been on the bad gun list.
Politicians who advance the bad gun formula, seem to proceed as if the
all memories are wiped clean with each election cycle. I guess they are
encouraged by the fact that our collective focus on many issues barely
survives the news cycle.
Gun people, at least on gun issues, seem to have a longer attention span.
*Nicholas J. Johnson is Professor of Law, Fordham University School of
Law and is an editor of Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Cases and
Materials (Aspen Press, 2012). Professor Johnson is the author of more
than a dozen law review articles on firearms regulation and the Second
Amendment including This Right is Not Allowed By Governments That Are
Afraid of the People: The Public Meaning of the Second Amendment When
the Fourteenth Amendment was Ratified, 17 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 823 (2010),
Administering the Second Amendment: Law, Politics, and Taxonomy, 50
Santa Clara L. Rev. 1263 (2010).