Gun Rights Proponents’ Callousness? THink oF Travon Martin, Jordan Davis, Chad Oulson, Ahmaud Arbery, Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber, and so Many Other Victims

As the Supreme Court labors toward a summer ruling on New York Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen on whether to relax the state of New York’s restrictions on concealed carry permits, we stumble ahead toward a more dangerous America.

Ten days ago, I wrote about the friends of the Court briefs submitted in the case, and noted the troubling arguments put forward by one brief that argued that Americans should arm themselves in order to survive and to guarantee their own safety given the “thinness” of American civilization with violence ever present just under the surface.

That is an incredible, even shocking, argument and one that, I think, actually stands as a compelling condemnation of the NYRPA position and those of the other briefs put forward in support of the NYRPA.

So many examples give the lie to the argument, with the legal cases related to killings of the people cited in the title representing a few among so many relevant cases and situations. It is unfortunate for our society that we have such poorly conceived and written laws and Constitutional Amendment that permit or foster such violence.  That these events are embraced as necessary and sometimes positive by gun rights proponents should be rejected by a civilized, and in the case of the U.S., religiously committed country.

To refresh your memory and to respect the victims by recounting the details of their tragic fates: Travon Martin was killed in 2012 by George Zimmerman for walking in his neighborhood; Jordan Davis was killed by Michael Dunn in 2012 for being with a group of teenagers playing loud music; Chad Oulson was killed in 2014 by 79 year old retired SWAT officer Curtis Reeves because he was using his cell phone in a movie theater; Ahmaud Arbery was killed by local vigilantes Travis and Gregory McMichaels and William Bryan in 2020 as he jogged through their neighborhood; and Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber were killed by under-aged Kyle Rittenhouse who was illegally on the street in Kenosha with a high powered rifle.  

The judicial process returned mixed outcomes, with Zimmerman, Reeves and Rittenhouse being found not guilty by juries who accepted the defendants’ assertions that they were simply standing their ground, despite themselves having created the threat to which they reacted. The three vigilantes and Davis’s murderer were found guilty of murder.

Regardless of the judicial verdicts, these cases all have a common set of facts, starting from the truth that the killers all initiated the violence, that they all occurred in public places, and all involved firearms, ranging from pistols to shotguns to AR15 style weapons.  It is simply unfathomable that gun rights advocates find some sort of justification for their cause in such incidents. 

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the brief’s troubling and foreboding arguments, to wit:

“America is and always has been a place where violence and disorder lurk just below the surface of civilization. The American constitutional system, with all of its enduring genius, cannot change this fact of human nature.

Colonial America was extremely violent, as colonists faced threats from a variety of sources. Murder was common. Politics was frequently practiced through mob violence and riots. Colonists felt a pervasive fear of Indian raids. And colonists did not look to law enforcement as a source of protection or crime prevention. The sheriff had many other pressing duties, and citizens themselves were expected to share the duty to patrol streets as part of the “watch.

The Founders comprehended from their observation of colonial life—and their understanding of mankind— that the veneer of civilization is thin. …

The fragility of civilization is on full display in America today. Violent riots erupted throughout the Nation in 2020, and violence has remained elevated as police—already strained and now under political assault—have retreated in major cities. Just as in periods of social and political unrest and conflict in prior centuries, a surge in violent crime has followed the breakdown of social order. …”

An apocalyptic world today, one that demands an armed citizenry to defend itself because the public authorities are unable to provide public security, or so the brief’s authors would have us believe.

I don’t know about you, but I find this argument to be incredibly far off the mark.  The writers of the “thin civilization” brief simply turn the world on its head by arguing that more violence is needed to respond to the violence that they and their policies and world view are creating.

They obscure, and implicitly deny, the link between America’s incredibly high level of gun violence compared to other developed, industrialized countries and the phenomenal number of weapons (over 300-400 million) in the country.  Moreover, the brief’s convoluted logic gives little credence to the role of public law enforcement authorities in providing public security. 

Indeed, the brief asserts a secondary role to police, implying the average citizen has the lead in their personal security.  To wit:

“In his seminal Federalist No. 10, devoted to “The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection,” Madison wrote that “[t]he latent causes of faction are . . . sown into the nature of man”: “So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities that where no substantial occasion presents itself the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. …

In short, police are not guarantors of safety.  Rather, they are a distant second to the people themselves when it comes to capacity for preventing crime. This reality surely underlies the Court’s consistent refusal to recognize a right to protection from law enforcement….”

Is this the America you live in, or is this the America you want to live in? 

Many people, including this writer, see our horrendous and unacceptable level of gun violence to be incompatible with our constitutional and national aspirational principles, and our world is made more dangerous every day by the pervasive and increasing presence of high capacity, military grade weaponry, not to mention the ubiquitous presence of hand guns, and now the promise of 3D printed ghost guns.

Let’s hope SCOTUS sees this brief’s argument for what it truly is, a condemnation of the level of gun violence and firearms in U.S. society and let’s hope that they stand by the New York state concealed carry restrictions.

Read the brief and, if you reject its bizarre logic, make your view known publicly. Reach out to your congressional and state legislative representatives so that they can be emboldened to support sensible measures to curb gun violence and enhance law enforcement’s prospects for delivering the public security the nation deserves. 

Hopefully, the Supreme Court justices will also listen.