Tech, politics, sports, and the overuse of ellipses...

I'm really not sure how I missed this. It's a really well argued piece - from DailyKOS of all places - in support of actual dyed in the wool liberal types supporting gun ownership.

Liberals can quote legal precedent, news reports, and exhaustive studies. They can talk about the intentions of the Founders. They can argue at length against the tyranny of the government. And they will, almost without exception, conclude the necessity of respecting, and not restricting, civil liberties.

Except for one: the right to keep and bear arms.

When it comes to discussing the Second Amendment, liberals check rational thought at the door. They dismiss approximately 40% of American households that own one or more guns, and those who fight to protect the Second Amendment, as "gun nuts." They argue for greater restrictions. And they pursue these policies at the risk of alienating voters who might otherwise vote for Democrats.

Certainly, no good liberal would argue that any of these rights are collective rights, and not individual rights. We believe that the First Amendment is an individual right to criticize our government.

We would not condone a state-regulated news organization. We certainly would not condone state regulation of religion. We talk about "separation of church and state," although there is no mention of "separation of church and state" in the First Amendment.

But we know what they meant. The anti-Federalists refused to ratify the Constitution without a Bill of Rights; they intended for our rights to be interpreted expansively.

What really amazes me, is that if you scroll through the comments, there doesn't seem to be a lot of dogmatic ZOMG NO GUNS that I expected. Instead, the responses seem to range from outright support to relative ambivalence. On a personal scale, I've always leaned left on most social issues, if only because the right is demonstrably crazy on social issues. One of the places that I diverge from typical leftyness is on firearm ownership. And I've always gotten the feeling that I'm not the only one in the same situation, that much as younger generations of the right see that 'family values' is no longer really a top shelf issue, younger generations of the left aren't exactly planning to prop up guns.

Incidentally, it makes me wonder whether the issue will retain it's spark - if there's no contention and it loses it's opposition, does it become just because accepted fact and only the subject of passe pro-forma debates such as what we see regarding Speech.


Comments
No one has commented on this article. Be the first!