March 16, 200

...and we decided to light this one on fire. Hey, you're welcome, don't mention it.

A recent article by the Portland Progressive Examiner unwittingly illustrates an underappreciated problem with the concept of the concealed weapons permit: privacy, not from the government, but from the public.

Prospective applicants' apprehensions about privacy from the government--the whole "why on earth would I volunteer to be on a government list?" problem--is well-understood and generally self-articulating. But how about this problem: what happens when someone decides (usually post facto and unilaterally, such as the judge in this case) that the records are suddenly public domain?

It was almost certainly not the intention of the author to talk seriously about this topic, but his commenters did not let him get away with the rather standard-issue, thinly veiled contempt that most "progressives" seem to have for what I like to call "enforceable individual sovereignty." Several quickly pointed out the obvious absurdities in the "public has a right to know" ruse. One in particular really struck me:
________________

"Penny Okamoto of Ceasefire Oregon worries that a victim of domestic violence won't be able to find out if her attacker has a concealed weapon.

"What she should be worried about is the victims of domestic violence in hiding from their abusers who have a concealed carry permit being "outed" by the publication of the CCW database. This happened when the Roanoke (VA) Times did just that. At least three women in hiding from their abusers had to quickly move due to the publication of their home addresses.

"Is this what Penny Okamoto really wants - abusers using a government database to find, harrass, and often kill their victims?"
________________

This is what we call "unintended consequences," and it happens every time one group of people decides to force its will on another. Every time. No exceptions.

I would emphasize another point: there really are other ways of looking at the world here. The article makes this statement:

"However, gun owners want to circumvent the judicial process via legislation."

Funny, what that implies. Is it not legislation and its enforcement that compels an otherwise free individual to have to beg someone's permission for the means or the manner in which he "may" protect his own and other lives?

Why is it okay for collective groups to use legislation that destroys individual privacy, but not okay for individuals to "circumvent" that in exercise of both a natural and specifically protected right? (See, here I thought the Bill of Rights was intended to protect the individual from the tyranny of the majority, but increasingly I am told this is prima facie evidence that I'm off my rocker. We truly live in a strange world.)

For reasons I have never understood, people seem all too willing to confer legitimacy, authority, and competency--automatically, and every time--to any public official who makes a sufficiently fire-and-brimstone case that "we" need to force "them" to submit to [insert coercive imposition here*], in the name of us all, praise be and amen. Us, or them: choose. You're either with us, or agin' us. (This sounds familiar, right?)

How is this not exactly, precisely, wholly, totally, and completely the very way we have landed ourselves in this bigger sorry mess that we find ourselves in, in the first place?

History does not seem ambiguous on this point: in the history of governments, there is only one difference between the forcible subjugation of one group (for whatever the reason) and the forcible subjugation of everyone who is not a forcible subjugator (and let's face it, everyone who is not at the very top of the forcible subjugation chain): a little time.

So why in the blue marble do we continually return to a bankrupt concept, not seeing it for what it is?

Personally, I think it among the very gravest insults to human dignity, that any collective would demand that the individual beg permission to protect its life by whatever means it is capable of employing (and doubters here need to explain themselves to poster Kurt Hoffmann**, for reasons that will become obvious), but again, apparently I am nuts.

To whoever would use the force of government as a tool against another's liberty: remember those you cast aside in your expedience, for you have conceded the point already, and by the time the thugocracy gets around to something you DO care about--an absolute inevitability if you read any history--you will not have them to lean on.

______________
* Ever notice, as well, that such coercive mandates always seem to be prefixed with words like "reasonable"? What is truly reasonable, that must be advertised as such? It's almost as if even the concept's professional salesmen know that the idea they're hawking is unconscionable on its face, and in order to make it fly, they have to push the hard sell.
** Explanation should be directed here.

Kevin Wilmeth aspires to be a writing teacher--or a teaching writer. An inveterate geek in most things, he pursues theory and technique to enable spontaneous improvisation. No musical instrument is safe around him. Teaching practical weaponcraft may be his highest calling. And a Jeffersonian passion for liberty keeps him honest. He may be found in Alaska, usually with an ear-to-ear smile, doting on his wife and beaming over his daughter.

Permission to republish and distribute provided material is unaltered and attributed to the author. Please include the URL to this page.

Archives

Gun Hater's Red Herrings