…On Those Proposed HHS Regulations.

It’s been now nine days since I reported the Department of Heatlh & Human Service’s release of a draft regulations for public comment. I wanted to talk about those some. This will probably get hell of long, so…

…On Going to a Gun Range.

I’ve been thinking for a while about getting a gun. So, today I went to a pistol range to try another gun. See, I’ve been going to ranges and renting a different model gun each time, so I can see how I like the feel of each in my hand. That, along with price – of gun and ammo both – is going to be one of my main determinants of what gun I buy.

I hate going to a range. Which is unfortunate, since it’ll be kind of necessary to spend time on one after I get my gun – unless I’m ok with it being little more than an expensive space-occupier in a drawer at home. Which I’m not.

But I don’t like going to ranges. The last one I went to before today wasn’t quite so bad (sure did have surly staff, though), but… today was an unpleasant one, and not just on account of ear and eye protection that wasn’t sticking to my head very well (and accordingly wasn’t very protective). No, it was the people, and the decor. For instance, there was a poster (actually, several of them) up: “If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a soldier.” I’d rather go to a range where I’m not the only person there all day who’s bothered by the idea that soldiers should sacrifice for something as trivial as speaking English in America. ‘Course, to do that, I’d have to open my own range. Which would tank, since I’d be trying to cater to a liberal audience like myself.

Because unfortunately, gun ownership and use is entwined with socially conservative politics and thought in America. Has been ever since American liberalism became infatuated with that morally bankrupt philosophy, pacifism, back in the 70s. Setting aside the fact that life, the Declaration of Independence notwithstanding, is not an inalienable human right and Newtonian Justice (“for every action there is an appropriate and inevitable punishment”) routinely necessitates executions, you’ve got the problem of the Sword in the Stone Corollary. You know in The Sword and the Stone when Merlin is trying to teach Arthur “might doesn’t make right”? That’s true – but there’s a corollary that gets ignored: right without might means nothing. To quote a character of Elizabeth Moon’s, “We do not argue that war is better than peace; we are not so stupid as that. But it is not peace when cruelty reigns, when stronger men steal from farmers and craftworkers, when the child can be enslaved or the old thrown out to starve, and no one lifts a hand. That is not peace: that is conquest, and evil.” Well, to take the Culture War metaphor… you’ve got one side with a preponderance of right and no might, against a side with political clout and most of the privately-held firepower but an ideology that needs to be eradicated. All the good that liberalism has done can be undone, all the good that it could do can be thwarted, if it remains infatuated with peace and nonviolence. If the culture war ever turns into a real war… we’ll be slaughtered in droves, and crushed underfoot by a Right that’s right about nothing – but very well armed.

Which is, ultimately, why I stomach the right-wing politics to go to the range. I feel pretty certain I’ll never have the need to shoot a mugger or a burglar. I don’t feel as certain I’ll never have to shoot a right-winger who’s coming to harm me or someone I can protect.

Like the wise man said, “Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone lays a hand on you, send him to the cemetery. That’s a good religion.” Wise man, that Mr. X.