Response to New Yorker Article on Guns: ‘Battleground America’

I want to make three quick points about Jill Lepore’s article – “Battleground America” - in the New Yorker magazine that discusses, among other things, the so-called ‘evolution’ of the Second Amendment.

1. In the article, Ms. Lepore cites information from the General Social Survey (GSS), which claimed that gun ownership in America has been declining over the past three decades.

lepore-gunsLepore writes, “According to the General Social Survey, conducted by the National Policy Opinion Center at the University of Chicago, the prevalence of gun ownership has declined steadily in the past few decades. In 1973, there were guns in roughly one in two households in the United States; in 2010, one in three. In 1980, nearly one in three Americans owned a gun; in 2010, that figure had dropped to one in five.”

This is not the first time this study has been cited by the media. Josh Horwitz, the Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, cited it in his Huffpo article: “The Truth About Gun Sales.”

What I said back then when I examined the veracity of his article is what I’ll reiterate right now, the GSS information “was obtained in March 2011 from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) by the Violence Policy Center.”

What is The Violence Policy Center? Well, according to its website, it’s a “A national educational foundation working to enhance gun control in America.”

Do they have a dog in this fight? Are they an objective source for information related to firearms?

Even if one assumes that the study was unbiased, one would still have to explain the contradiction between the GSS study and the survey conducted by Gallup in Oct. 2011, ‘Self-Reported Gun Ownership in U.S. Is Highest Since 1993,’ which found that “forty-seven percent of American adults currently report that they have a gun in their home or elsewhere on their property.”

Plus, there’s a whole bunch of anecdotal information to suggest that gun ownership is actually on the rise in America (for more on this, click here).

Given all this evidence, one would have to ask Ms. Lepore why she chose to perpetuate the myth that gun ownership is declining in America?

2. Ms. Lepore also discusses the number of guns per capita in the United States.

She writes, “There are nearly three hundred million privately owned firearms in the United States: a hundred and six million handguns, a hundred and five million rifles, and eighty-three million shotguns. That works out to about one gun for every American.”  

Ms. Lepore is right about this, there’re approximately 90 guns per 100 people in the U.S. We are, by far, the most armed country in the world.

However, what she doesn’t go on to say is that despite the fact that we have more guns than any other country, and relatively ‘lax’ gun laws compared to European nations, our violent crime rate continues to decrease (in Europe, violent crime is on the rise).

This is not wish-thinking propaganda by NRA members, but the facts according to FBI statistics.

Whether Ms. Lepore wishes to admit it or not, the reality is more law-abiding citizens purchasing more firearms does not increase crime or make society any less “civil” - as she implies here:

“Gun-rights advocates say that the answer is more guns: things would have gone better, they suggest, if the faculty at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Chardon High School had been armed. That is the logic of the concealed-carry movement; that is how armed citizens have come to be patrolling the streets. That is not how civilians live. When carrying a concealed weapon for self-defense is understood not as a failure of civil society, to be mourned, but as an act of citizenship, to be vaunted, there is little civilian life left.”

“Between 1968 and 2012, the idea that owning and carrying a gun is both a fundamental American freedom and an act of citizenship gained wide acceptance and, along with it, the principle that this right is absolute and cannot be compromised; gun-control legislation was diluted, defeated, overturned, or allowed to expire; the right to carry a concealed handgun became nearly ubiquitous; Stand Your Ground legislation passed in half the states; and, in 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court ruled, in a 5–4 decision, that the District’s 1975 Firearms Control Regulations Act was unconstitutional. Justice Scalia wrote, ‘The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia.’ Two years later, in another 5–4 ruling, McDonald v. Chicago, the Court extended Heller to the states.”  

What I really want to ask Ms. Lepore is why she thinks the notion that owning and carrying a firearm – as a fundamental freedom and an act of citizenship - gained such wide acceptance among the American public in the past half-century?

She implies that, among other factors, the National Rifle Association is chiefly responsible for the change in the public’s attitude toward guns and self-defense laws.

(Assuming you accept her premise that there’s been a revitalization of the 2nd Amendment starting in the 60s) Is she right that the NRA has changed the culture to embrace concealed carry as a fundamental freedom and an act of citizenship?

Is there another explanation, such as rising crime rates compelled law-abiding citizens to reexamine their 2nd Amendment and self-defense rights (consider chart below):

There is a reason Americans are buying so many guns AND carrying them.

They are sick of thugs rape, rob and pillaging polite society and they are convinced that the current administration is going to outlaw firearms.

All the armed citizens who had the forethought to buy firearms and carry them are going to be served well when George Zimmerman is acquitted.

According to the General Social Survey, conducted by the National Policy Opinion Center at the University of Chicago, the prevalence of gun ownership has declined steadily in the past few decades. In 1973, there were guns in roughly one in two households in the United States; in 2010, one in three. In 1980, nearly one in three Americans owned a gun; in 2010, that figure had dropped to one in five

What this survey fails to take into account is the number of people who have had all their guns fall into a lake, or get eaten by a turtle or other some such incident. It is significant that the study comes out of Chicago. It is all but illegal to own a handgun in Chicago. Does that mean the guns aren't there or just that nobody will publicly admit to having them?

It is like saying that drinking was reduced during prohibition, just because nobody would publicly admit to going to a bar. In fact drinking increased drastically in prohibition.

Much the same is happening with firearms here in Chicago. Several of my friends who never previously owned firearms have acquired them recently, others have increase the number they own. They are afraid that the ability to legally buy firearms might become impossible. In addition several have purchased cheap "Sacrificial" guns, so that if the Gov Quin or the ATFE show up in a post Hurricane Katrina like sweep they have something to turn in. After all Fedzilla knows you have a FOID card. So if you don't turn over a gun they will keep looking until they find one. On the other hand if you are a good little sheaple and hand over that cheap pistol they probably won't pull up the floor boards to find the others.

“Between 1968 and 2012, the idea that owning and carrying a gun is both a fundamental American freedom and an act of citizenship gained wide acceptance and, along with it, the principle that this right is absolute and cannot be compromised;

And this idea was new, in 1968?

"The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed." The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree;"
Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243 (1846).

And:

The right of a citizen to bear arms, in the lawful defense of himself or the state, is absolute. He does not derive it from the state government, but directly from the sovereign convention of the people that framed the state government. It is one of the "high powers" delegated directly to the citizen, and "is excepted out of the general powers of government." A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the law-making power.
Cockrum v. State, 24 Texas 394 (1859).

And this idea was new, in 1968?

What they miss is what was going on in 1968. Protests, a breakdown of public order, race riots, global unrest, and the collapse of the political system in the US. The right has been acknowledged since the second amendment was passed. However when times are peaceful most people don't give it a second thought. People who want guns have them and the rest don't spend a lot of time worrying about it. But when things fall apart people with guns want to have them close to hand and those who don't have them want to get them.

In 1984 we were just emerging from 15 years of social disorder. Gun ownership was high because during prior decades people had needed to have guns. In the 1980s and 1990s we saw crime decrease, propriety spread. People who came of age in that era felt safe and many didn't see the need to have firearms around.

Those days are gone. People are afraid. They know the police won't protect them, and the government is more of a threat than a protector. Firearms have become an insurance policy and many are now finding out just how much their firearms rights have been eroded during the decades of relative safety.

"Between 1968 and 2012, the idea that owning and carrying a gun is both a fundamental American freedom and an act of citizenship gained wide acceptance and, along with it, the principle that this right is absolute and cannot be compromised;..."

BS!

When I grew up (30s & 40's) guns were sold in virtually every kind of store you could find. At age 7, (1940) air rifle from a general store. At age 9, .22 bolt action came from drug store. At age 10 410/.22 O&U came from Sears. At age 12, Winchester .30 came from a general store. At age 17, M1 Garand came from the USMC as it's way of appreciation for spending the summer at their luxurious island resort.

There was never any need to "claim" or "promote" "that owning and carrying a gun is both a fundamental American freedom and an act of citizenship"

Revisionist history has always been the tool of tyrants and their supporters.

What they miss is what was going on in 1968. Protests, a breakdown of public order, race riots, global unrest, and the collapse of the political system in the US. The right has been acknowledged since the second amendment was passed. However when times are peaceful most people don't give it a second thought. People who want guns have them and the rest don't spend a lot of time worrying about it. But when things fall apart people with guns want to have them close to hand and those who don't have them want to get them.

Don't forget that media in 1968 launched a concerted, focused drive to get GCA-68 passed after the recent string of assassinations. There were no alternative media at the time and most Americans thought these media scumbags (but I repeat myself) were telling the truth.

Absolute B.S.

A more correct statement would be: Between 1928 and 1968, the progressive ruling elite came to believe that disarming the American people was both desirable and possible. They concocted a scheme to denigrate and demonize the right to bear arms and to make the right culturally despised. They almost succeeded.

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