Horizon

Well, here's one member of the "gun lobby" opposed to the RIAA. Martha and I would probably disagree on this, but I find suits against iPod makers to be just as obscene as the suits against gun manufacturers. Unlike the gun cases, though, there's no grassroots support for the RIAA's suits whatsoever. At least with the former, I have the comfort of knowing that there are a substantial number of my fellow citizens acting like litigious jerks, as opposed to just Jack Valenti and co.

Don't worry, Ben, you're the umpteenth person to have fun walloping my putative opinions. Bet you think I'm a vegetarian too.

Actually I have no quarrel with supporters of the Second Amendment if they're willing to support the other Amendments too -- XIV and XV included. I find the NRA lawyers especially dishonest in their readings of court cases, but that's not particularly your fault, and really the intense activists on all sides of this issue seem a little warped. Michael Moore has the best point here: what drives violence in America is social insecurity that leads to mutual mistrust. People are going to go on pointlessly attacking each other with whatever comes to hand until they open their minds a little. If you ask me, the activism that's needed has to do with promoting mutual tolerance. Talking about gun ownership, for or against, is just a distraction from important subjects.

About this here Infringements of Copyright thing -- will it be like the old days of the Soviet Bloc when visiting Western scholars had to get special passes to use the photocopy machines at their home embassies?

You mean you're not a vegetarian?

Um, I mean, er...

Michael Moore has the best point here: what drives violence in America is social insecurity that leads to mutual mistrust.

But in Bowling for Columbine he also snuck in the claim that American domestic violence is codependent on the violence of American foreign policy, an argument that might have gotten a little more traction if he hadn't bizarrely coupled the Kosovo airstrikes (an intervention to prevent civilian atrocities) with the school shootings at Columbine. That's the problem with MM: too often he favors the cute, specious point over the dull, worthwhile one.

Sorry, Martha -- I don't think I expressed myself very clearly there. I don't (or didn't, rather) have any guess as to your opinions on the gun control debate, but rather presumed that you're more in favor of the style of lawsuit used by the states' AGs against tobacco companies and the various city governments against the gun manufacturers than I am.

It occurs to me, though, that my main objection to the tobacco/gunmaker suits (the "legislation through litigation" one) doesn't really apply here -- the baddies in this case are actually trying to get their nefarious way in a venue that may allow for a vote. I was able to write my two odious senators to oppose it, which wasn't possible in the lawsuits. So maybe I should quit whining on that level.

Actually I have no quarrel with supporters of the Second Amendment if they're willing to support the other Amendments too

I know exactly what you mean. The thing that drives me nuts about the NRA -- and probably the main factor that keeps me from joining -- is the finger pointing at other causes for violent crime. I've seen calls for censorship of movies or video games come out of them, and a nonpolitical friend detected something that set off her racism alarms when she visited their website. I wouldn't doubt that you've run across some unpleasantness I don't know about with the 14th and 15th.

The same thing bugs me about the ACLU. They lose a lot of credibility in their claim to take the most expansive view of constitutional rights when it turns out to be all-but-one. Probably I should just hold my nose and join both organizations.

the intense activists on all sides of this issue seem a little warped

Both sides do run to the nutty. Politically speaking (if not in readings of the law), I think the the pro-control crowd distorts the truth a lot more. Of course my side has more people who are just plain barking mad. And each side tends toward the utopian -- I'm sure that a society where all weaponry had disappeared would be quite pleasant, as would one where every other person you saw was a well-trained, sober, responsible citizen with a pistol on their hip. But neither is going to happen anytime soon, and both scenarios are used as carrots by organizational leaders to get their followers to support almsot entirely unrelated causes like the Assault Weapons Ban or opposition to trigger locks.

Talking about gun ownership, for or against, is just a distraction from important subjects

I'm not so sure about that, or rather I suspect that you're right, but am dubious about any claim that X shouldn't be an issue, because Y's too important. Guns, abortion, gay marriage, and all sorts of silly topics are what hold party coalitions together, and might be the key to breaking up a few of them.

Back on topic, I assume the bloggers are familiar with Stallman's The Right to Read?

I just find it hard to swallow the idea, which I hear fairly often from friends who own guns, that the right to bear arms will somehow allow the American people to resist their own government should it turn tyrranical (e.g., if taxes are raised). Clearly we aren't living in the days of bolt action rilfes anymore, and unless they and all their neighbors are stocking up on Stingers and assualt rifles their arms are not likely to help them much.

In Washington state it's possible (easy, in fact) to get a concealed weapon permit. If I had known that when I lived there I would probably have gone out a lot less often. Turns out that some people were packing who I would not have trusted to be anywhere near a gun in any case, much less while, say, stumbling home from a bar late at night.

Alan, the argument for an armed populace to prevent tyrrany is one of those I view as utopian. My wife buys it, and I'm probably emotionally sympathetic to it, but suspect that that's just sentimentality and try to avoid discussions about it.

The CC permit law in Texas hasn't made me feel any less safe at all, so I'm afraid I can't sympathize too much with you there.

I happen to be one of those people who fear guns. I've shot guns before and enjoyed myself, but only in highly controlled circumstances. I even get a little nervous when a cop walks by. I don't like anything that can kill someone before you know what happened; just makes me nervous.

I thought I'd take a look at what the whole gun control debate looks like "on the ground" so I checked the message boards for Red Dawn on IMDB. Not for the faint of heart.

I read that message board about a year ago, and they made me feel really old. I'd heard plenty of criticism of Red Dawn before -- after all, it's not exactly difficult -- but never seen anyone complain that the premise of the USSR invading the US was unbelievable, as some 16-year-olds were arguing. Now I understand what my schoolteachers' reaction was to my generation viewing Vietnam as as ancient as the Spanish American war.

I just looked back in on that MB. Ugh!

Sorry. I get a kind of sick pleasure once in a while reading stuff like that. :)

Ben, sorry I sidetracked the discussion by misunderstanding you. Actually I've done a little product liability defense work as a lawyer & can see several sides of things like the big anti-smoking class actions. One of which is, wot's next, anti-junk-food class actions? Oops, yes, that's been tried too... I dunno, the notion that people don't really know cigs are bad for them is insulting to smokers, or anyway has been insulting for the past twenty-thirty years, since all the data started coming out on cancer etc. It's kind of bassackward Pollyanna utilitarianism to pretend people don't knowingly damage themselves. They do.

On the other hand, there really is a point to lawsuits based on second-hand smoke inhaled by people working in public gathering places where they had no choice but to work around other people's cigarettes.

Returning to the Inducing Infringements proposal, Annalee Newitz has one of her inimitable takes on the subject in today's SF Bay Guardian. Warning: contains San Francisco impoliteness.