Hot Topic: Jiverly Wong And Guns
The letter revealed a man who appeared to have lost touch with reality. In broken English, he complained that an undercover policemen had been spying on him 24 hours a day, using "the technique of ultramodern and camera for burn the chemical in my house."
This apparently delusional man was a self-avowed gun enthusiast; according to the Times, he had been licensed to carry guns since 1996. Wong had two handguns on him, along with body armor, when he went on his deadly rampage.
Not surprisingly, his actions have once again fanned the debate over gun control in this country. Vice President Joe Biden, reacting to the news, said "it's time that we gotta figure a way to deal with this senseless, senseless violence."
The argument between gun control advocates and gun rights advocates often devolve into histrionics, but at the most basic level, the discussion comes down to a debate over to what degree we should, in the interest of public safety, curtail one particular kind of civil liberty – the right to keep and use guns.
They also build a Constitutional argument around the Second Amendment – though the suggestion in the amendment that guns are necessary to maintain a "well regulated Militia" somewhat complicates the case. Gun rights advocates did score a major victory last year when the Supreme Court overturned a handgun ban in Washington, D.C. on the basis of the amendment's protections for gun ownership.
Those pushing for greater gun control, meanwhile, suggest that limiting gun availability is justified even if it means that it becomes harder (or even impossible) for responsible people who want to keep and use guns to do so.
Those on this side of the debate believe that making guns harder to get is absolutely justified if it means that fewer will die as a result. After all, they point out, the government regularly limits peoples' rights in other ways in the interest of public safety – you can't drive a car, for example, without a license. Limiting gun ownership in order to keep guns out of the hands of delusional or dangerous people is a similarly justified use of government intervention to protect the populace from those who might do them harm.
These arguments, of course, represent not much more than a rough outline of each sides' ideological underpinnings. In practice, the gun control argument plays out as a matter of degrees: Gun advocates want less regulation than we now have and gun control advocates want more of it. There has been in-depth debates around not just gun availability but also licensing, trigger locks and other potential measures that we don't have the space to discuss here.
Lately, much of the discussion has centered around the proposed reinstatement of the assault weapons ban, which the Obama administration has generally backed (though there have been mixed signals) and the powerful National Rifle Association has lobbied hard against.
It's also worth considering to what degree gun regulation should be a regional as opposed to national question – what makes sense in rural Mississippi, after all, might not be the same as what makes sense in Washington D.C. or suburban Idaho.
Below, let us know where you stand on the issue. In light of the questions around individual rights and the grim news of recent murders, do you believe there should be more regulation of guns? Do you think there should be less? Or do you think, on balance, America is where it should be?