Vox Pop

Can’t You Read the Signs?

[1 October 2007]

Cars, guns, values, the US Constitution... like a yellow traffic light, their meaning and importance, relative to oneself, is open to interpretation.

By Meta Wagner

In reading Bill Bryson’s marvelous book of columns, I’m a Stranger Here Myself, about the wonder and strangeness of the United States from the perspective of an ex-pat who’d returned after 20 years living in England, I came across two astonishing statistics in two separate columns (I’ve updated them here).  They got me thinking a lot more about the strangeness than the wonder of this country. 

Statistic #1:  There were approximately 240 million cars in the United States in 2005.

Statistic #2 (2005):  There were approximately 240 million guns in the United States in 2005.

Kind of gives new meaning to the phrase drive-by shooting, doesn’t it?

This near-evenness in the number of cars and guns can’t simply be a coincidence, can it?  Maybe there’s some gun tie-in at car dealerships that I’m not aware of.  I’m imagining that it works along the lines of the firearms giveaway at the bank Michael Moore visited in Fahrenheit 9/11 (although that is purported to have been staged for the film – but still, how do people get all those guns?). 

Or maybe, without my realizing it, guns have become a standard feature of passenger vehicles, like CD players or passenger-side makeup mirrors or multiple cup holders.  At this very moment, there’s probably some grandfatherly gent out there bouncing young Johnny on his knee and regaling him with stories of the ol’ days when you had to roll down the car window to get some air, and drive with a cup of steaming coffee wedged between your thighs, and your glove compartment held—get this—just the owner’s operating manual and maybe your car registration, not a Smith & Wesson Model 63 Revolver.

Or maybe cars and guns are simply Americans’ two worst addictions.  Recent newsworthy developments highlight the never-ending hold on the American imagination that both cars and guns seem to have, despite the obvious consequences.

On 18 September, the Texas Transportation Institute released its annual study on traffic conditions in the US.  The major finding?  Traffic congestion continues to worsen in American cities of all sizes.  The average peak period traveler spends nearly a full work week stuck in traffic each year (that average work week being 40 hours 40 hours, for those who still enjoy such a luxuriously short work-week).  And he or she wastes approximately 26 gallons of fuel at a cost of $710. This amounts to 4.2 billion lost hours and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel in total, costing the nation an astonishing $78.2 billion, annually.

Just a few days later (and at the same time as the celebration of World CarFree Day), the other American vice was being touted as a virtue at the National Rifle Association convention, held in the nation’s capital.  This year’s theme was “Celebrating American Values”.  Now, this strikes me as a misnomer or a typo or a grammatical error because the NRA appears to care about one, and only one, supposed American value:  the alleged right to bear arms. 

As a reminder, the Second Amendment reads:  “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  Of all amendments to be written ambiguously, why, oh why, did this have to be the one?

But, naturally, there was little ambiguity to be found in the speeches delivered in person or by video by the Republican presidential candidates (and the Democratic candidate Bill Richardson). 
Mitt Romney, who’d earlier in the campaign attempted to proved his great love of hunting by asserting, “I’ve been a hunter pretty much all my life” (but was later discovered to have made only two known trips to hunt…bunnies and quail) called the right to bear arms “a cornerstone of our personal freedom.”

John McCain, partly in reference to Romney’s transparent and continual pandering said, “The Second Amendment is not about hunting, it is about freedom.”

Mike Huckabee aimed straight at the heart of NRA members (who knew?!) by describing one of his most valued possessions:  a 20-gauge shotgun that his father gave him, and which he hopes to pass along to his children someday.

Fred Thompson pulled out the big guns by claiming, “I think we’re winning on the interpretation of the Second Amendment.”

Only Rudy Guliani offered a more nuanced view, emphasizing the need for stricter enforcement of gun control laws.  Yet, he just couldn’t resist tying 9/11 into the gun ownership issue, saying that his views have been shaped by his years as a prosecutor and a mayor, and even by 9/11, which “puts a whole different emphasis on what America has to do to protect itself.” 

Huh?  Is he saying people should keep a personal handgun in their night table drawer because a terrorist might break into their home and force them to renounce the gas guzzlin’, gun totin’ American way of life?

Nah, nothing could get Americans to do that.

 
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In her “Vox Pop” column for PopMatters Meta voices her observations about pop culture, particularly as it intersects with our lives.  She is endlessly fascinated by the myriad ways in which our pop culture choices reflect back on us—our beliefs, our desires, our idiosyncrasies, our intellects. Wagner’s published pieces include written commentaries, features, and profiles for Salon, Boston Globe Magazine, Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, and other publications.  You can visit her blog here. When she’s not writing, Meta is molding young minds as an adjunct professor at Emerson College, where she teaches creative writing.  She also developed and occasionally teaches a column-writing class at Grub Street, an independent writing center in Boston.

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Comments

“God made all Men, Samuel Colt made them equal.”

Being agnostic, I would consider the first issue debatable. Being a Vietnam Veteran and gun owner, I would affirm the second.

Comment by ET from New Iberia,LA — October 1, 2007 @ 5:31 am

Were to start commenting?  Cars wear out and are melted down and recycled.  Most guns last forever, there are many guns over 100 years old still in daily use.  So the number is not an issue.
The right to keep and bear arms does certainly exist, it will be affirmed soon by the U,S. Supreme Court.

Just to raise the issue, the Second Amendment is not at all ambiguous, unless it is because some want to pretend it means something other than the plain language.
It reads [with only one commas as written and adopted]
A well regulated [trained and armed] militia [the whole of the people] being necessary to the secutity of a free state,
The right of the people [citizens] to keep and bear arms [held in private and by individuals- see Concoerd and Lexington] shall not be infringed.
The authors of the Constitution and Bill of Rights knew that the Revolution began with the attempt by the British to confiscate the arms held in armories at Concord and Lexington.  They did not want to allow such conditions ripe for oppressive government actions to threaten the “security of the free state” and thus they carefull crafted the words.

Comment by p51mustang36@hotmail.com from Wichita,KS USA — October 1, 2007 @ 8:47 pm

Ms. Wagner wrote: “This year’s (NRA convention) theme was `Celebrating American Values’.  Now, this strikes me as a misnomer or a typo or a grammatical error because the NRA appears to care about one, and only one, supposed American value:  the alleged right to bear arms.”

Apparently she doesn’t know much about the NRA.  Its members also value the Constitutional right to Freedom from Unwarranted Searches and Seizures (which is violated whenever carjacking and mugging victims have no gun on their person with which to stop the robber).  The NRA also values the right to Privacy in the Home (which is violated when people with no gun have no choice but to stand by helplessly as a burglar roots around in their home).  They value a woman’s right to control her body by shooting any rapist who would force her to conceive his child.  They support freedom of religion by defending Jews’ right to shoot murderous antisemites, and racial equality by defending blacks’ right to shoot at white-robed abductors with lynching on their minds.

German and French political scientists have defined “government” as “that institution which claims for itself a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.”  By defending the American tradition in which all citizens share in the legitimate use of force in self-defense (this was once also the British tradition), the NRA defends the American value of self-government—or as Abraham Lincoln put it, “Government OF the People, BY the People and FOR the People” (emphasis added).  In other words, government in which the people themselves share the authority for the legitimate use of deadly force.

Ms. Wagner, in contrast, would reject these values—I suppose for the sake of (at best) tripling the price of guns exchanged among criminals on the black-market.  (Low-level criminals seem to have little trouble obtaining, say, illegal heroin smuggled in from the other side of the world if necessary.)

Or, perhaps she feels it is better that we should have to accept between being robbed or raped to avoid death rather than that the criminals should have to refrain from robbing and raping to avoid being shot.  Or, perhaps the safety of Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings and racist skinheads as they go about their activities is her priority.

Comment by fsilber from Memphis, TN — October 2, 2007 @ 5:36 am

Of the 300 decisions in both the federal and state courts that have taken a position on the meaning of the Second Amendment or the state analogs to it, only 10 have claimed that the right to keep and bear arms is not an individual right. Many of the other decisions struck down gun control laws because they conflicted with the Second Amendment, such as State v. Nunn (Ga. 1846).

Here are two recent ones:

• U.S. v. Hutzell, 8 Iowa, 99-3719, (2000) (cite in dictum that “an individual’s right to keep and bear arms is constitutionally protected, see United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 178-79 (1939)

• U.S. vs. Emerson, 5 Fed (1999), confirmed an individual right requiring compelling government interest for regulation.

Comment by Homepcmd — October 2, 2007 @ 10:38 am

The 2nd amendment is by no means ambiguous. Rather it was so important to the founders that they felt the need to mention why this right should be secured from government interference. In case overeducated and under learned students of history attempted to distort it, q.e.d.

Comment by Mark from Gainesville, FL — October 2, 2007 @ 2:07 pm

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