In a piece at Bloomberg Matt Yglesias points out the cognitive dissonance in progressives’ emphasis on more laws to restrict gun ownership with their opposition to increased policing and incarceration:
“When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.†The National Rifle Association doesn’t really use that slogan anymore, but it came to mind last week as I considered a core tension in contemporary progressive thought: strong advocacy of gun control paired with increasing skepticism about law enforcement and incarceration.
concluding:
Fulminating at congressional inaction in the face of spree killers may be satisfying and even necessary. But it is unlikely to persuade them to change the law. Continuing to insist on new rules while shying away from enforcing existing ones, meanwhile, burns credibility with conservative voters, who see a left that’s eager to penalize their hobby and reluctant to punish criminals.
Considerable progress against gun violence is politically and logistically feasible with more quality-of-life policing and vigorous prosecution of illegal gun possession — and the increased levels of incarceration both would require. If progressives want to make guns harder to get but don’t want to prosecute those who have guns illegally, then … it’s almost as if they’re inviting a future in which only outlaws will have guns.
For changes in the criminal statutes to be effective legislators, law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges all need to be rowing in the same direction. The incidence of alcoholism among lawyers is greater than 20%. That may contribute to judges being reluctant to convict people of drunk driving or other alcohol-related infractions. Enacting a law that remains unenforced or when enforced is not prosecuted and those arrested if prosecuted cannot be convicted is only effective at fostering disrespect of the law.
One of the many reasons I am not a progressive is just this sort of “core tension”, as MY terms it. Some problems can only be solved by governments. But not every problem is amenable to a government solution. Governments are people not machines with all of the foibles, prejudices, and weaknesses of people.
For example, police officers respond to social pressures applied by other police officers. Ridicule is a powerful incentive and inexperienced police officers learn what things will cause them to be ridiculed by other police officers pretty quickly. Furthermore, the larger the palette of laws from which a police officer may draw, the more likely it is that at least some police officers will use laws as pretexts for punishing people they don’t like.
I have no problem with punishing those who use guns illegally. Is there a push somewhere to not do that on a large scale? Something more than some isolated cases? In rural PA enforcement is largely based on economic status. Poor people breaking gun laws get locked up for a long time. A politically connected or wealthy person not so much.
Steve
His point is that more laws on purchasing guns means increased law enforcement (or unenforced laws).
I suspect that will be true pretty much everywhere in the enforcement of laws restricting the purchasing of guns.
“I suspect that will be true pretty much everywhere in the enforcement of laws restricting the purchasing of guns.”
And not just guns.
Progressives love to make laws for political purposes, with dollops of virtual signaling to showcase their humanity. Consequently, their â€laws†comprise defunding the police slogans, no bail and/or light sentencing for criminals, doing away with additional charges if a gun was involved (Los Angeles’s DA’s new rules) – all favoring the criminal and not the victims of their crimes. In the meantime progressives will continue to fan the flames of restricting the purchase of guns, limiting their usage by those who are responsible, while not doing a thing to prevent weapons from getting into the hands of those with criminal intentions.
Except that restrictions on guns have been lifted over the last 20 years. We arent seeing confiscation or new restrictions either at all or in any numbers. It is a made up concern while people actually are really getting shot. Also, I went through the numbers recently. There was almost no actual defunding of police. In the few places it happened they have since increased funding.
OT- Surprised you didnt cover this. SCOTUS just legalized bribery.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/16/supreme-court-finance-regulation-ted-cruz-00032692
“A politically connected or wealthy person not so much.”
Yes. I think we can all agree that Hillary Clinton gets away with everything.
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/cities-that-defunded-police-are-trying-to-quietly-restore-the-funding/
The Defund the Police mantra was popular after the George Floyd hysteria. But, as crime soared cities begin to rethink and redraw their budgets, with an understated restoration of any monies taken away. Also, guns have not been confiscated – yet – even though there have been relentless cries for bans on certain weapons accompanied by hyperbole how bad guns are, with little political clarification regarding the type of people involved with the actual abuse of guns. You know if it was up to progressives guns would vanish from the public domain. Instead, the constant refrains to grossly regulate and/or limit gun ownership only increases non-gun owners desire to apply for the licensing of a gun, while they still can. This trend has been prominent under Obama, going down under Trump, and now increasing again during the Biden administration.
As for the “legal bribery†ruling, democrats usually have the advantage in funding by dark monies floating into their campaigns, labor unions, Wall Street, corporation, tech companies all giving them greater donations than the opposing party. Just look at the Zuckerberg splash of cash in the 2020 election, amounting to upwards of $500 million. The Cruz ruling basically is a small dent in allowing greater election expenditures, in lieu of the deep pockets refilling the coffers of the democrat party, especially during recent
election contests. .
Speaking of Democrat’s unending wish to upend gun ownership by attacking the 2nd amendment:
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/05/29/showdown-on-the-second-amendment-harris-calls-for-ban-on-assault-weapons/
â€We recently discussed how President Joe Biden has not only repeated false statements about the history of the Second Amendment, but has failed to acknowledge the limits imposed by the Second Amendment in
calling for a crackdown on “assault weapons.†He recently has not, however, called specifically for a ban, which would run into serious constitutional challenges. Now Vice President Kamala Harris has taken that step forward in demanding a ban on “assault weapons.†(Notably, this week, a Republican house member also came out in favor of a ban on “assault weapons.â€)
In terms of selective enforcement, New York is defending its “may issue” gun carry laws specifically on the basis that it allows rural communities to issue more licenses than high-crime urban areas. I think that is one of the worst arguments I’ve heard in a long time and unless there is more, New York is going to lose.
The reality I assume is that a flexible localized approach is how New York politically was able to optimize an approach to gun issues. Gun laws will have to have rational purpose tied to rational means. Political considerations, particularly those that seem to potentially be racist will not matter.
I just finished reading a collection of all of William Hope Hodgson’s fiction, one of Dave’s favorite authors I believe. He wrote a number of stories about catching smuggler’s along the Southwest English coastline. Pretty fun stuff, a bit violent, and some of the lawbreakers are not unsympathetic. But if a country wants to declare something to be illegal contraband, whether its duty-free goods, unlicensed guns, illegal drugs, prated I-phones, or whatever, it has to have have a dedicated law enforcement apparatus dedicated to rooting it out. What’s the point in ticketing the person after the murder or suicide has occurred?
Hodgson was mentioned favorably in Lovecraft’s essay, “Supernatural Horror in Literature”. His command of horror related to the sea is without parallel. Hodgson died in World War I. Who know what he might have accomplished had he lived?
His novel, The Ghost Pirates, is well worth reading. His short story, “A Voice in the Night” is genuinely eerie. After reading it you may never look at mushrooms the same way again. It’s been dramatized at least once, possibly several times (I have observed a number of uncredited dramatizations of WHH’s works). The Night Land, with its made up language, is difficult reading but it’s probably the first “Dying Earth” novel.
My favorites are the Carnacki stories, his “supernatural detective” stories.
Update
I just remembered that one of Hodgson’s Carnacki stories, “The Horse of the Invisible”, was dramatized by the BBC for their brief series The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. That’s streamable from Amazon Prime.