Guns

Republican David Frum has been very good on guns (he's originally from Canada - to most other wealthy countries, our gun policies look absolutely insane, even to conservatives; the same is true on health care). People who want to appeal to the 2nd Amendment have a few problems with interpreting it, but let's grant, just for the sake of argument (I wouldn't grant it otherwise), that the 2nd Amendment grants an individual to own a gun even when not part of a well-regulated militia. Still we are very familiar with contrasting rights. Gun nuts never explain why the 2nd Amendment is a stronger right than all other rights. When other rights present danger to the public, we curb them. One can't yell fire in a crowded movie theater (I gather the jurisprudence on this matter is much more complicated than this, however). Free speech is of course a protected right. Importantly, one can't threaten to harm people with their speech. One has the right to practice one's religion. However, one cannot threaten to kill people, or actually kill them, as part of sacrificial rituals, etc. One has the right to assemble, but one cannot simply assemble anywhere or anytime - that power would conflict with other rights, so we curb it and regulate it.

Clearly, as Frum and many others have pointed out, the presence of guns - one of the most technologically advanced tools ever created - presents a threat to the public in many situations, including, for instance, firefighters fighting a fire. Since we have a conflict of rights, and a very clear track record of guns harming peacefully assembled people in the public, there is an airtight case that guns ought to be regulated, just as free speech, free religion, free assembly, etc. are, even if we assume a misguided reading of the 2nd. The fact that in some cases guns have protected a group is relevant, but these cases are very infrequent and are greatly outweighed by the damage done by guns in far more cases - we are on pace to have more gun deaths than traffic deaths in the U.S. This does not even take into account the alarm and panic caused just by the threat of guns - one's rights are violated if one is threatened with a gun, even if one is not actually physically harmed.