(UPDATE: Thune amendment defeated.)
The US Senate is preparing to vote on an amendment to the Defense Department appropriations authorization bill (S. 1390) that would override laws in 48 states by mandating that a concealed weapon permit from one state be accepted by another. Opponents are rightfully concerned that someone in, say, New York City, could take advantage of the far more limited restrictions in a state like Vermont (through a friend in the area, by getting a second address, etc) to legally import weapons in violation of the letter and intent of their home state’s restrictions. Proponents simply want an end to any and all restrictions on firearm ownership.
I’m not a big fan of gun control laws. Still, I recognize the “nukes in Wal-Mart” argument and have made it myself – simply that no one anywhere is truly in favor of literally unrestricted arms dealing and/or possession, and that the adjective “well-regulated” in the second amendment does mean something, even if we can’t agree on what.
What I have a problem with is large scale, sweeping, federal-level laws that impact what we would think of as “traditional” firearms. I recognize that, if a major US city like NYC is having an epidemic of gun violence, its citizenry has the right to support extra restrictions. But that right ends where that local jurisdiction – and the local problem – ends. We in Vermont should not have a right – any right (even one we may not personally find appealing and choose not to take advantage of) – curtailed to address a problem we do not have. If people start shooting each other – sure. When society is threatened, it is common to have a public discussion about the merits of curtailing some freedoms for the health of the greater community. That’s always a scary conversation, I’ll grant, but its a dynamic that has defined civil society since the emergence of the very first cities, if not before.
And while it would seem that this sort of federal approach to personal firearms would be anathema to those concerned with gun rights, we are now seeing – yet again – that Republicans such as bill sponsor John Thune (R-ND) are always too ready to abandon what they purport to be their core principles in order to force society to reflect their own parochial worldview. “Federalism,” “original intent,” “state’s rights” are once again shown to be nothing more than buzzwords in the toolbox used by the right to force their view of society on everyone and anyone they can. All this serves to underscore the complete absence of any core values in so much of the modern Republican Party besides a base desire for control over others – either at the personal level as with abortion and gay rights, or, in this case, the community level.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m anything but an absolute state-rightser. Not even close, really. But after all, if state and local sovereignty is to mean anything at all, it should at the very least allow for the control of the flow of arms across borders.
So if this law should pass, we should consider a companion bill to change the flag from a field of 50 stars to one, big, Republican-red one.
I often wonder how many of our other constitutionally guaranteed rights we would be willing to have regulated on a state by state or city by city basis?
How about the right to vote restricted to those who have a permit from the state? After all, it was our votes that allowed hundreds of thousands to be slaughtered and maimed in the Iraq war. Votes have consequences.
How about your personal right to privacy in the city of Burlington to be determined by the city council? I hope you voted for the right candidate (see right to vote above).
How about freedom of the press (and web) determined by the congress, the president, or the select board of Huntington? Control the information, control the masses.
Each of our rights come with responsibilities and are endowed by a “creator”, not our federal government. Be thankful the founders thought of this important distinction to protect all rights, not just the ones that are convenient today.
Jim
Dude, waaaay cool if this ever passes.
Under the language of Thume’s centralized government approach to dictating policy to individual States, Vermont teenagers reap the benefit of being well protected wherever they go.
Every out-of-state teenager attending a Vermont school can go home, flash their Castleton, St. Mikes’, or Johnson State ID (or, for that matter, a Putney Boarding School ID — the 16, 17 and 18-year-olds without parental permission and the 12 to 15 year-olds with the permission of at least one parent) and they are automatically entitled to carry a gun, without restrictions, pursuant to federal law. Note, Vermont does restrict the carrying of semi-automatic weapons by high school kids under 16 to only those with a parent’s permission. (13 V.S.A. 4008).
So Mrs. and Mrs. New Yorker (or Mr. and Mrs. New Yorker assuming its a traditional marriage WTFTI) send Junior to Putney. Junior (who is really a Freshman) comes home with a school ID. Junior (who is really a 13 year-old Fresh
manperson, comes home to the BIG APPLE (a/k/a the “other residence”) and can now walk around town with a Mac 10 under her trenchcoat. Federalism may be dead, but Junior will be safely protected with her Putney School semi-auto carry permit.Think of the economic leg up that gives teenagers whose parents send them to Vermont schools! All those summer club jobs that other teens can’t have (or other adults for that matter) because they can’t carry guns will be theirs!..Our Vermont school kids can grab those jobs, or anything else really, with the UVM ID/New York City gun carry permit.
Pretty cool and don’t blame the GOP for not actually reading the text of their own bill or not understanding what’s in it or not understanding what its effect might be. This isn’t about policy or rights after all. This only about fear.
The crux of the problem with this piece of legislation involves that balance between state power and federal power. With some subjects a state level of control works well. In other areas we need to act as a nation. There is a natural tension between centralized and distributed power and that is fine.
With gun control, much of the problem is caused by wide variations in law from state to state. The strict gun control laws of Washington D.C. are practically useless because 75% of the guns that show up at crime scenes there actually come from other states. The rural, lax states within a one day drive provide the artillery for D.C.’s street gangs.
The particular law in question was a federal attempt to override state restrictions on firearm use in order to lower standards nationwide. Wrong direction, federalism aside.
We don’t need draconian gun control, but we do need intelligent, moderate, nationally uniform gun control. Otherwise we just get “iron highways” between rural states and urban centers. Residents of rural states say, “We don’t have a high crime rate here. Why should we have more restrictive gun laws?” They (and we in Vermont) need to have some concern for the lives of people beyond their state borders.
People in rural states with lax gun control should realize that people in cities are dying for the rural gun owners’ convenience.
And Dunlap explains the new law’s impact: