Now I'd enjoy more from NR on one of our favorite issues, too, but let's make sure we understand that Buckley himself was not a gun-rights lukewarmer.
Buckley delivered one of the all-time great pro-gun snarks about antigun bills that popped up like toadstools after the 1960s assassinations. Someone like Abner Mikva was hooting that private citizens simply had no need for handguns.
Buckley: "A person who sees an armed thug coming down the hallway toward him may desire a speedier means of relief than a call to the American Civil Liberties Union."
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Beyond that, a death threat moved him to get a carry permit during his run for mayor of New York. He took a Mini-14 along on his Pacific passage (see his Racing Through Paradise) and allowed as how it was primarily for recreation but also had "a survival aspect."
And somewhere he wrote "I must have three of four of the things (firearms) around home."
It isn't the kind of high rhetoric which draws recruits to the barricades, but it's not bad for a Metrocon, a man totally of New York who just happened top own a spare bedroom in New Sharon.
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All from memory, but I suppose I can dig up the cites if anyone seriously challenges.)
14 comments:
Am I the only person who didn't take his "Metrocons" piece as slander?
I mean, I bicycle to the hippie vitamin store in my trendy little urban neighborhood, and I'll freely admit that while my temperment and beliefs make me "conservative/libertarian", it's only a fluke that makes gun rights such a Big Deal for me.
"Slander" would be a little strong for me, but maybe I just didn't make the proper (or intended) connection between urbanized conservatism and weakness on firearms rights. And maybe I was too pleased to see the term "metrocon" in use. I still do a little campaign consulting (please do not hate me), and such terms help get across to the generally dull intelligence of candidates that the broad classifications like liberal and conservative are damned near useless in describing or predicting voter behavior. I get a lot of milage out of WallyCons, for instance.
I doubt that your passion for gun rights is a "fluke." Any large and independent intelligence almost automatically grasps that self-preservation is the foremost natural right, leading to a certain passion for the tools to assure the right is meaningful. You don't need to be a hayseed like me to get that.
Probably helps, though.
It's not "weakness" so much as "just doesn't really cross their minds one way or the other".
Most of them (George Will being a notable exception) are pro-2A when asked, but unless actually being asked, they don't really think about it.
My parents are splendid examples: GOP voters all their lives, they grew up in Chicago, aren't gun owners, and believe in "sensible regulation" (or at leas Mom does.)
Remember: It was a nominally conservative administration that gave us the first AWB (Bill Bennett in '89) and the Brady Bill.
I agree with Tam on this.
I saw NJT's post as an explanation of why it isn't a high priority or visibility item.
Not as a slur but more of a "what do you expect, they live in a big city" mentality.
Cool thing about the gunnie community is we can and do disagree on many things but it doesn't stop us from working together to preserve our rights (in most cases).
Somebody -- most likely me -- misread or misunderstood something here, because I mostly agree with Tam, too.
The WFB post was intended to ward off the notion that Buckley himself was something of the 2A wimp.
It's mostly that living in an urbanized environment, surrounded by orderly rules of law and societal conventions never makes them realize it's all pretty much a mutually-held illusion-by-consent. As long as they've got public utilities, they assume that the world is tame and being controlled, and they never have the impetus to equip themselves in case they need to grab hold of things personally.
Not a challenge, simply a request for a cite -- that ACLU quote is too delicious to pass up. Where'd it come from?
Pax -- Google gives me nothing, so I'm going to have to track it down the old-fashioned way, scouring the books, which I promise to do. I am 100 per cent positive it is an accurate quote or close paraphrase, and I think I first saw it in one of volumes reprinting of his "On the Right" columns in the 1970s. I will pursue it, and I thank you for showing enough interest to ask the source.
It's mostly that living in an urbanized environment, surrounded by orderly rules of law and societal conventions never makes them realize it's all pretty much a mutually-held illusion-by-consent. As long as they've got public utilities, they assume that the world is tame and being controlled, and they never have the impetus to equip themselves in case they need to grab hold of things personally.
I'm not so sure...
Being from Chicago, there are a lot of "unregistered" guns in decent folks homes for when that mugger is coming down the hall. The big trouble is that there is no way for Chicago city folks to perpetuate their heritage (nearest gun store is 40min-1 hour from downtown and there are NO ranges in Chicago)
Speaking from my experience, it isn't so much the city folk not getting it, from a cultural perspective, as much as it seems the suburban "head-in-sand"-ers who don't believe that evil things can happen in their neighborhood. Witness the rise of IL RINO Mark Kirk in Lake Co. - He's pro-biz, low tax, but an authoritarian douche bag at heart that despises the 2nd amendment unless it is for "hunting."
I freely admit to citing Buckly as an example of a MetroConservative who was indifferent to gun rights, in my comment to the original NJT post.
Doesn't sound like he was all that fired up about the issue anyway.
It really takes more time than we have had to convert a substantial majority of of city dwellers to a pro-2A stance.
Back in '68, only 10% of urbanites believed 2A meant what it said, while more than 90 percent believed in Sullivan Law type gun control. Complete with permits for mobsters, actors, billionaires, and pols, and nothing for anyone else.
Now we have 50% of urbanites, and up to 70% of suburbanites, strongly supporting 2A - and we are gaining a percent or two a year.
That is more than remarkable, it is amazing considering our major opposition is the entertainment industry. They own the media, we own the argument.
So,as the old saying goes, "When you find yourself walking through Hell, keep on walking." Repeal of most oppressive gun laws is in sight - if we keep on walking.
Stranger
Vaarok hit on something that I've noted before.
The attitude doesn't stop with 2A, it tends to be a generalized thing more than directed at one specific issue.
City (and suburban) folk tend toward dependency. There are, of course, exceptions, but in general, when the roof needs fixed, they call a roofer. When the plumbing springs a leak, they call a plumber. When they need a steak, they go to a butcher or when they want some nice arugula, they depend on the local Whole Foods to have some for them to buy.
This dependency necessarily permeates every aspect of their lives...including self defense.
They simply are not accustomed to the entire idea of taking care of things on their own, and defending themselves is no different.
People raised in a rural environment tend to be very self-sufficient in every area...not just self defense. Their first reaction to something going wrong is to handle it themselves if at all possible and only call for help if they really need it.
Urban/suburban living and rural living are two completely different mindsets and that affects everything...including attitudes toward self-defense.
Urban/suburban living and rural living are two completely different mindsets and that affects everything...including attitudes toward self-defense.
I don't think I'd agree...
While the city does offer a lot of options/venues for stuff, a lot of folks in Chicago have a DIY attitude. There are crafts stores, Home Depots, and people do stuff like canning/solar...
Further, I'd argue that the difference runs very superficially too - check "Strangers" metrics in the previous comment.
Conceding that the urban world harbors some citizens willing and able to handle all kinds of problems on their own, my experience puts me with Sailorcurt.
The default judgement out here is that the next guy you meet will know how to rig a chainfall and fell a tree, and that he does his own plumbing repair. Not always true, of course, but usual.
Bona fides: Corn country born and raised, leavened with years in Chicago, NYC, San Francisco, not to mention the visits to teeming Asian fleshpots courtesy of First and Seventh Fleets.
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One of the better Vietnam novels (I think Durden's "No Bugles No Drums") puts it well. The progagonist is confronting his buddy, a grunt about to desert.
"Where will you go?" he asks. "What country will you live in."
The deserter replies, "There's only two countries in the world. There's city country and country country. Country country is better.")
Matter of taste, of course, but I buy it.
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