Adolescents With Guns

Caption: Megan McArdle spots a liberal national health care advocate.

Let's go back in time and examine the philosophical basis for Megan McArdle's insane desire to see armed men roam political rallies.

So if Heller, as libertarians devoutly hope, legalizes gun ownership in DC, the question immediately arises for those of us who live here: buy one, or not? On the one hand, they are expensive, and shooting ranges far away. On the other hand, I live alone in an apartment that is something less than amply fortified. On the third hand, I'm pretty sure I shouldn't handle a gun when I'm sleepy.

However, I probably will anyway, just because I can.

Scratch a libertarian and you'll find a teenager, who wants to get drunk and have sex and smoke dope and shoot guns, just because he can. Not because it's wise or right or appropriate. No, because she can. Never mind the possible consequences, of course, because in Libertarian Fantasyland they don't exist. Having a gun would be cute and fun and make her look cool in front of the boys.

There is a distressing lack of attention to the female market in gun companies. I want something with accuracy and stopping power, but also, an attractive exterior casing that easily integrates with my other accessories. This doesn't seem unreasonable.

The funny part of all this gun worship is that despite the libertarian mind-set and childish desire to have something that is dangerous and goes boom!, McArdle didn't even really want a gun.

I wasn't going to buy a gun, because, hey, what would I do with it? But the chicken guano rules that DC is imposing make me want to buy a handgun just to annoy the twopenny tyrants who thought them up:

[snipped quote]

May I really carry it inside my home without a license, just as if I were a free citizen in a country that respects individual liberty? I am overcome with gratitude, really overwhelmed with the state's generosity . . . permission to cry, sir?

My goodness, that takes me back, to when I was substituting at a wealthy high school. The cheap, petty sarcasm that exposes the speaker as immature and nasty, vapid and foolish and pinched in spirit. But they were children. McArdle's a middle-aged woman. McArdle became a bit testy when commenters and others pointed out that waving around guns could be dangerous.

Now the gun controllers pour out of the woodwork to claim that you're more likely to kill yourself or a family member with a gun than a criminal.

Some of the people deploying this statistic really ought to know better. Composition fallacy, anyone?

These are not double blind experiments. Guns may be the weapon of choice for all sorts of crimes; that does not mean that they cause the crimes.

Yes, guns don't fire themselves, so adding a gun to a volatile situation will do nothing to change the power dynamic for the worse. Although McArdle said she wanted a gun to even up the power dynamic.

I'm hardly the first person to make this observation, but I don't know why it isn't noted more often: guns are the only weapon that equalizes strength between attacker and attacked. It's the only time when men's greater speed, strength, and longer reach make no difference; if you pull the trigger first, you win.

This is an enormous social advance. I am all for strengthening the social contract (and law enforcement) so that fewer men commit rape, assault, or robbery. But until human nature has improved so radically that grievous bodily harm has passed from living memory, I don't understand why more feminists don't push for widespread gun ownership.

Women need guns because bad men might try to hurt them. It's a solution that creates more problems, but one I can understand. But why do men attending political rallies need guns? It's certainly not for protection, and anyone who takes a gun to a rally dramatically increases the level of fear and panic. Guns, crowds, politics. They do not mix, and pretending they do is utterly moronic. Or just incredibly immature.