I own a harpoon. It’s hanging in my basement. I also own a 1880-90s bayonet that would fit a British Lee-Enfield rifle. It’s sitting on a bookshelf, also in my basement. Why do I own these things? Well, I’m a maritime guy, so I like having maritime objects on display in the house. I’ve got a ship’s bell and a boatswain whistle, too. The bayonet I bought at a charity auction, and it comes from a time period I spent a lot of time studying in college. I have absolutely no reason to own either – they’re just curiosities that I enjoy having in my office downstairs.
Now, if someone came into my house and told me I shouldn’t be allowed to own a harpoon or a bayonet because I have no earthly reason to ever need either of those objects, I would probably laugh it off and then remind myself to never invite them over again. Whose business is it of anyone’s but mine what things I buy and have laying around the house? I think most people would agree with me that someone doing that would be pretty darn rude. In America, we enjoy the freedom to buy things with the money we earn regardless of whether we need them or not – if that weren’t the case, you’d never see another Shamwow or Chia Pet sold. There’s nothing wrong with buying things you don’t really have a use for.
Except, of course, if that thing happens to be a gun or a piece of gun related hardware.
I read an article today in the LA Times that sarcastically makes the argument that no one needs to own a high capacity magazine, so there’s no reason why anyone should be able to buy one. The author goes on to lament the idea of open carry, saying “if we need a conversation about whether it’s OK for someone to show up at the local diner with a six-shooter, we’ve lost our marbles. Is it 1823? Do we live in Tumbleweed?”
I get the feeling that if I asked this author if he really needed to own a 70 inch flat screen TV when he can watch TV just as well on a 21 inch one, he’d think I was a jerk. Or if I proposed to him that we pass a law banning people from showing off their boxers by wearing sagging pants, I would be considered some kind of kook.
But because we’re talking about guns, asking those kinds of rude questions is okay. I own a Beretta M9, the standard service pistol the Armed Forces use. I have three high capacity (which the left is defining as any magazine that holds more than 10 rounds) magazines, each capable of holding 15 rounds. Why do I own those? Because I want to. And they came with the gun when I bought it. I don’t need to justify my owning those three magazines any more than I need to justify owning a harpoon or a bayonet. All three can kill if the person wielding them decides to do so.
Most gun owners own more than one gun. Why? Because different guns are different and they do different things. But what business is that of anyone’s but mine and my wife’s? If I can afford it, why should it matter what I buy legally with my own money? Because what I’m buying has the potential to harm someone else? Because some LA Times writer can’t understand why anybody would want to buy them?
The last time I checked, one of the greatest freedoms we enjoy as Americans is the freedom to buy whatever we can afford. You want to go out and spend $5,000 on a cheeseburger, go for it. You don’t have to justify what you buy to anyone else.
Likewise, you don’t have to justify what you wear out in public to anyone, either. You want to wear white after labor day? Go for it. You want to wear your Star Trek costume to sit on a jury? More power to you. You don’t have to justify yourself to someone else. So why is it okay to question the sanity of folks who want to exercise their second amendment rights in public? Because it makes someone uncomfortable?
The high capacity magazine Jared Lee Loughner used in Tuscon did not kill those people. He did. Someone wearing their gun on their hip while they are out in public shouldn’t scare anybody. Those of us in DC are surrounded by people with guns constantly. Just today, I walked across the Capitol and saw a Capitol Police Officer carrying a fully automatic M4 rifle. If I can handle seeing police walking around as heavily armed as our Marines in Afghanistan, a guy carrying a 1911 at Denny’s isn’t going to bother me.
If it bothers you, that’s fine. I’m tolerant of those who have a different culture than I have. Some people don’t like guns, they didn’t grow up around them, they’ve never shot one, and they only view them as evil instruments of death. I can understand that. But what I can’t understand is why anyone thinks it’s okay to legislate that viewpoint on the rest of us.
If someone wants to own a high capacity magazine, that’s their business. So long as they are using it for a lawful purpose – and the overwhelmingly vast majority of owners do so – there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. Same with folks who want to open carry, or those of us who own harpoons and bayonets as conversation starters.
Instead of focusing on what people spend their money buying, we should be directing our energies to the legitimate problems highlighted by tragedies like Virginia Tech and Tuscon – people with mental health issues should not be buying guns legally. It is imperative that the Brady background checks we all undergo weed those folks out. There’s a breakdown in the system there and that’s where we need to be focusing on our energy. Not on telling our fellow citizens what they do and don’t need to own.
