by Lady Liberty
09/14/2003

I have a very close friend who used to tell me that she's a "liberal" and a Democrat. After a number of lengthy discussions, we've discovered that she's actually a libertarian, but one who still suffers a bit of an apparent Democrat hangover. One of those hangover symptoms is her views on guns and gun control.

Interestingly, she has no problem with the fact that I own guns. She and her husband had even expressed their worries about me living alone, and were greatly relieved to learn I had a means of self-defense readily at hand. If she hadn't already been convinced, what happened last Saturday night would certainly have made the point.

I awoke out of a sound sleep just after 3:30 a.m. to the shrill sounds of the burglar alarm. I immediately rolled out of bed, grabbed a loaded .38, and held my breath to listen for any indication that someone had already made it into the house. As the alarm continued to sound, I reached for the phone and dialed 9-1-1. As I tried to explain to the operator that someone was breaking into my house, a loud crash sounded on the front porch.

To their credit, both the dispatcher and police were very professional and efficient. In fact, I think the police were here in less than 90 seconds. The dispatcher stayed on the line with me even after the police arrived. She was probably trying to keep me calm. Strangely enough, that wasn't necessary. Oh, I was concerned. I was angry. But I wasn't afraid nor was I the least bit hysterical. I was, quite simply, ready and able to defend myself if the need arose.

Afterward, I spoke briefly with the police who had a few questions for me. As it turns out, my "burglar" was a very, very drunk young man who thought he was somewhere else and who was quite upset that he'd been locked out of "his" house. No damage had been done, and the police took him to a holding cell to sleep it off. I put my gun in its usual hiding place and went back to sleep. Sleep, believe it or not, came easily, probably because the alarm had been re-set, and the gun was still close at hand in the event it was needed.

My girlfriend was intrigued by my story. She herself had suffered a real scare a year ago when some young vandal or another threw a large rock through her bedroom window. The heavy stone landed on the bed where, if she or her husband had been sleeping, it would have done very serious damage. Although a gun wouldn't have prevented that incident nor would it have repaired her window, it certainly would have provided a little assurance during the time she had to wait, alone and terrified, for the police and her husband to arrive at her home.

She considers me to be a responsible gun owner. Although she still does not have a firearm herself and probably will not ever have one, she believes she would be a responsible gun owner as well. And she thinks that responsible gunowners should have no problem being licensed to prove their responsibility. She also hopes licensing would weed out the irresponsible gun owners.

When she presented the inevitable comparison with cars and drivers' licenses, she reminded me that we get training and take a test to show that we're competant to drive. Interestingly, both she and I knew how to drive - and had done so - before we had any training in school. The test and license were a mere formality. I pointed this out to her, and before I could go any further with my argument, she asked, "Do you think they just license people for tax and for tracking purposes or something?" Did I mention that, aside from being a libertarian, she's pretty smart, too?

Several years ago, Second Amendment advocate David Kopel wrote "Taking It to the Streets", an article in which he noted that "treating guns like cars might not be such a bad idea". Kopel pointed out that regulating guns in a manner similar to the restrictions on cars would actually mean a significant loosening of extant gun laws as well as full reciprocity between the states where licensing privileges were concerned. While Kopel's reasoning was flawless and his conclusions offered far greater Second Amendment freedoms than we currently know, the licensing of firearms is still a frightening prospect. Why?

Forget that once something is licensed, it's no longer a right but a privilege that can be taken away. Forget that licensing can mean significant concessions for those who want one. Consider instead the fact that licensing has nothing to do with responsibility. If it did, no one would ever get behind the wheel and drive while they were drunk. People wouldn't drive at unsafe speeds. No one would run red lights or put on their make-up while they steer with their knees.

Now take a look at some of the myriad laws and invasive practices that have resulted from such irresponsibility. We have red light cameras (which many studies show are ineffective, and which almost all believe are invasive of privacy, but which typically make a lot of money for the locales in which they're installed). We have drunk driver checkpoints (which, it seems, everyone but the police and the courts think is a Fourth Amendment violation). We have seatbelt laws (because the state doesn't want to pay medical bills for uninsured motorists who stupidly get themselves thrown through windshields in accidents). We have mandatory insurance requirements (because too many drivers were unwilling or unable to pay for accidents they caused). Yet even in the face of additional laws requiring responsibility, people still get tickets and suffer license suspensions for ignoring these very rules.

It may be tempting to agree that licensing guns is the lesser of evils. We might even believe, if just for a moment, that a license would ensure a holder was able and willing to handle his weapon safely, and could be counted on to store and care for her gun responsibly. But the bottom line is that those gun owners who are responsible already do these things. And those who aren't don't. A license won't change that. It will, however, take the Second Amendment and degrade it to something a state could regulate out of existence.

Take a look at all of the traffic laws on the books. And then remember that almost everybody considers cars to be good, or at least neutral, objects which are necessary in the day-to-day life of most Americans today. Now imagine the laws that would be passed to regulate licensing for guns, objects that some people consider to be inherently bad things in and of themselves, and which are owned by people that are too frequently stereotyped as the worst kind of violent and intolerant men and women.

It's bad enough that the licensing of drivers is stealing away our privacy and significant portions of our Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. I refuse to let comparisons between driving and shooting take my Second Amendment rights along with them. My girlfriend isn't entirely convinced that I'm right. She is, however, pretty sure that the state is wrong. Like I said, she's a libertarian, and she's smart.

Lady Liberty