Communitarians, Neorepublicans, and Guns

Communitarians, Neorepublicans, and Guns: Assessing the Case for Firearms Prohibition (part 3 of 3)

Conclusion
In conclusion, this Article answers the questions posed at its beginning by prodisarmament writer Ronald Goldfarb: [636]

"Is there an individual right to self-defense that cannot be abrogated?" [637] Common law, the original intent of the Framers, and case law indicate that there is a right to self-defense against both criminal and government predators, and as Blackstone notes, the logical corollary of that right is the individual right to keep and bear arms.
Contrary to the Communitarian Network, the United States Supreme Court has never denied this. Although courts often grant governments considerable leeway in enacting gun control, total gun prohibition appears to be plainly unconstitutional.

"How do we balance the necessary policing with the public's right of privacy and its constitutional protections against illegal searches and seizures?" "How would disarmament be accomplished?" In light of the certain resistance to the imposition of domestic disarmament, these are anybody's guess. Goldfarb perhaps senses the impossibility of the endeavors when he asks: "Would a real ban on guns fail as dismally as the attempt to ban alcohol?"
Indeed, a repeat of the alcohol prohibition disaster would be the best-case scenario. The worst case--almost a certainty if the government actually attempts to confiscate all guns--would be a civil war, in which at least some elements of the military and police would join the resistance.

"What would be done with the existing 200 million firearms?" [641] This question assumes that the government could successfully collect 200 million firearms. All empirical considerations show this to be a flight of fancy. "What about hunters and other sportsmen?" The legislative assaults upon recreational firearms advocated by the Communitarian Network will only bring hordes of heretofore uninvolved gun owners into an already large and irate resistance movement. "What is the danger of creating a disarmed public?" [643] The first danger of successful gun prohibition is that it leaves the public at the mercy of violent criminals who, being criminals, will not disarm. Second, successfully disarming the American public would indeed, to answer Goldfarb's query, "make the law enforcement establishment too powerful."
This was, in fact, the fear of those who insisted upon enshrining the right to arms in both state and federal constitutions as a check and balance upon the power of government. More fundamental, further disconnecting citizens from responsibility for the safety of themselves and their communities will foster the learned helplessness, alienation, and moral degeneration that the Communitarian Network attempts to combat.

If personal responsibility is to remain an important theme in communitarian thought, then communitarians should come to realize what most people realize: only personal beings capable of moral behavior *553 can be responsible for harm inflicted on others. Social responsibility, especially in America, is not engendered by legal constraints imposed upon individuals from the outside, but rather by self-regulation and virtue. The demonization of the gun must end if rational policies are to be formulated and implemented.

For these reasons, a policy of domestic disarmament would not serve communitarian interests. Conversely, policies encouraging responsible gun ownership in society would not only preserve the current crime-inhibiting effect, but would also contribute to the re-creation of a healthy militia-of-the-whole, which the Framers believed necessary for a sound republican order.

That the American people should be encouraged to be armed and trained in order to counter violence seems radical and runs directly counter to the notion that more gun control equals less gun crime. The initial reaction to the proposition that an armed and well-trained America reacquainted with republicanism will be a kinder and gentler nation may be incredulity. Such a reaction is, however, merely a gauge of how far we have departed from our roots.
Etzioni and the Communitarian Network recognize (rightly so) the worthlessness of the vanilla-pale agenda of the gun control lobbies. Domestic Disarmament performs a tremendous service to the debate on gun control because it forces one to think strategically--to look beyond the raging, but often trivial, debates over the vanilla-pale gun control measure-of-the-month. Once vanilla-pale measures are abandoned, there remain three options. First, there is the Communitarian Network's gun confiscation proposal. Second, there is the option of simply getting the government out of the gun policy business. This second choice has been the status quo in America for most of its history. This policy at least has the advantage of avoiding the disastrous consequences of coercive domestic disarmament.

There is a third, better option, however, and that is for the government--particularly local governments--to take an active role in encouraging firearms responsibility. If Americans are to remain free--and to live as securely as freedom allows--then it must be recognized that guns play an important and necessary role in American society, and that Americans have inherited the right to arm themselves against those foreign or domestic enemies who would deprive them of life and liberty.

There is much in the Communitarian Network's agenda that is meritorious from the standpoint of neorepublicanism.

Policies do need to be formulated that help heal families and reform government schools. To the extent that communitarianism is serious about the need for a restored sense of community, it will commit itself to the decentralization necessary to achieve it. Strong rights do presume strong responsibilities in republican ideology, as well as in communitarian ideology.

Unfortunately, the kind of responsibility that the Communitarian Network and its followers like President Clinton advocate (in spite of claims to the contrary) seems to be a government-enforced, authoritarian version, which of course does not advance the cause of civic responsibility at all. Individual rights need not be traded for communal security. Indeed, according to republican theory, "the common good was not in opposition to individual freedoms. Republicans typically believed that part of the common good was individual liberty for all."

Although gun ownership does currently exact a significant toll on society, it by no means follows that the right to arms should be effaced in the name of collective security. The costs of that solution are not only significant, but communally disastrous. Domestic disarmament is not the answer. Rather, the answer to gun-related violence in America is to be found in the spiritual and civic renewal of its citizenry and in the citizenry's rediscovery of its republican heritage as a responsible, arms-bearing people.

COMMUNITARIANS, NEOREPUBLICANS, AND GUNS: ASSESSING THE CASE FOR FIREARMS PROHIBITION Address:http://www.guncite.com/journals/commun.html Changed:11:58 AM on Sunday, May 26, 2002

The article is 6 years old. Maybe you should look up the authors and ask them what a neorepublican is, since they are the ones using the term. They can also tell you whether that is the same as a "neo-con that runs around Free Republic," if they even knew what Free Republic was back in 1997.

From the article:

Republicanism has gained many academic adherents in recent years, first among historians, and more recently in the law schools. The modern communitarian movement may even be viewed, at least in part, as an expression of the republican philosophy.

In his Yale Law Journal article, entitled Civic Republicanism and the Citizen Militia: The Terrifying Second Amendment,[210] Williams takes a "modern, republican" look at the Second Amendment.[211] He agrees with the communitarians that America has become a fragmented society and that a sense of the importance of civic duty, such as that manifested during the early days of the republic, needs to be restored among the American people.[212] "Republicanism appeals to many because it emphasizes community over separation and public dialogue over strict autonomy."[213] Thus, a "neorepublican" America would be one in which communitarian values would take hold among the American populace, leading away from the atomized society that the Communitarian Network and other advocates of the common good decry.

That would, perhaps, answer your question "Who are these neo-R's?" It is apparently neither a refence to party appellation, nor a reference to any subset of FR posters. FR is not mentioned in the article, and the chances that the author had FR would be somewhat less likely in 1997 than on the May 5, 2003 date you incorrectly listed as the publication date. Truth does not age, but commentary can be best understood in its correct context.

That would, perhaps, answer your question "Who are these neo-R's?" It is apparently neither a refence to party appellation, nor a reference to any subset of FR posters.

Increasingly, there is a 'subset of FR posters' who are following the communitarian line on our RKBA's. Punch up any recent article arguing about the renewal of the AWB, for proof.

FR is not mentioned in the article, and the chances that the author had FR would be somewhat less likely in 1997 than on the May 5, 2003 date you incorrectly listed as the publication date.

The date to be listed is the FR posting date. Always has been imo, and is the general practice here.

Truth does not age, but commentary can be best understood in its correct context.

Thank you for your inane bumps.

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