I’m rather enjoying reading the comments to Professor Johnson’s guest blogs over at The Volokh’s new home, which is warming me up to their experiment with the Washington Post. Here are his posts:
- The What and Why.
- Slaves, Fugitives, Freemen, and Citizens.
- A Winchester “in every Black home.”
- The early NAACP championed armed self-defense.
Some of my favorite comments:
“Most black people that I know are pro gun control, but I would imagine that we have black gun nuts in this country. The overwhelming majority of gun nuts are white. If we banned guns completely or restricted them to single shot long guns only, some black gun nuts would not like it, but I think that the overwhelming majority of blacks would be gracious, and very supportive of such an effort.”
You can almost hear the neural circuit breakers tripping on that one.
“The stories recounted here are part of the reason I perceive (1) a constitutional right to possess a reasonable firearm for self-defense in the home and (2) the merit of careful regulation of firearms.”
Followed by a bunch of people challenging the commenter to define “reasonable firearm,” and who gets to decide.
“Although I tend to favor more control of firearms than most folks here, I must say that I have no objection to any law-abiding, mentally-competent person, black or white, owning anything in the Winchester catalog.”
Time for Winchester to make an AR-15? The lever action was the assault weapon of its age. It even holds more than ten rounds. It’s not certain that all of the folks aren’t previous readers, but it’s good for the WaPo audience to be exposed to these ideas, and in a context that totally defies their prejudices and stereotypes about the topic. We don’t have enough of that in our current public discourse.
Ignorance is the anti’s best friend.
And my do they resort to quite the “white man’s burden” style arguments. I mean it’s one thing to say that “the majority of group X would support Y” but claiming they’d be “gracious”?
That sounds rather… servile don’t it?
Also interesting how well “gun nuts” dehumanizes a person in their eyes. Or how low the bar is to qualify.
Someone should ask that last guy why a 10 round .357 (Model 1873) carbine, or a .45-70 is “reasonable” for self defense, but normal handguns or carbines aren’t.
The rationales would be interesting, mostly in their lack of consistency or understanding, I think.
(I for one have simply stopped commenting on Volokh, and barely read them, thanks to this move; the format encourages not reading articles, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to register a WaPo account.)
I shudder to think of .45-70 shot indoors without hearing protection.
The question on how to define “reasonable firearm†is why I like the idea of tying “reasonable” to “what the police may carry or use” as mentioned in another recent post. It brings into the debate the meaning of self defense, the boundaries of the state’s legitimate use of force in civilian affairs, and — for the most anti-gun zealots — forces them to admit that they unquestioningly accept violence when the state does it on their behalf.
If Winchester made AR’s they would sell as many as they could build. That Winchester script, on a military gun especially, is just magic. Winchester M1 Garands command premium prices as also do their lowly M1 Carbines.
Actually, it’s certain that the new venue netted them at least one new reader! :-)
There is this special snowflake from “A Winchester in every black home”
‘Funny how actual African-Americans tend to disagree with you as to gun rights. Why is that? Do you actually know any? Have you asked them?’
The Professor is himself black. Maybe he is a fake African American vs an “actual” African American.
Don’t you love the assumption that anyone who is pro-gun must be an old white guy?
If you’ve seen the latest from Larry Correia, someone went off on him for not checking whether or not someone named “Alex” was male or female, while in the same post repeatedly referring to Larry as white. Hilarity.
Remember that scene in the movie Independence Day when they launch the missile in the mothership and it smashes into the alien’s control room?
Volokh is a pro-gun missile ploughed firmly inside, just like that.
I can live with never reading it again if it’s getting the message out behind enemy lines.