We all have our comfort zones. Especially when it comes to politics. We’ve all experienced the discomfort of bumper-sticker glibness and off-putting conversations without a polite opt-out clause.
Neighbors, acquaintances, co-workers and, yes, family members, can be from the other side of the spectrum. We adjust accordingly. We skip incendiary topics; we pull rhetorical punches. We try not to noticeably wince or eye roll. Especially with family.
Our friends, of course, are usually ideologically compatible. It’s a fundamental foundation for most friendships.
Then every now and then we are taken aback when the pattern is broken. Or shattered.
That happened the other day with a friend of long-standing. It was over guns. Mass murders of innocents was the catalyst.
This friend, a nurse, now thinks it’s a good idea if more people were armed. She’s hardly alone.
We’ve heard the core arguments and rhetorical questions–and not just from Ted Nugent, Wayne LaPierre and Marion Hammer.
When a shooting breaks out, why not do whatever you can to limit–or even eliminate–carnage? From Paris to San Bernardino, who’s not in favor of enhancing public safety? Who’s against giving the defenseless some offensive help? Who’s not in favor of having good guys with guns to counter evil in our midst? Who’s not in favor of staying alive?
We get it. It’s also a debate that Aristotle should moderate.
First, there is a reason why sheriffs and police chiefs aren’t in favor of a more armed citizenry. More than most, they know the reality of the law of unintended consequences–and why it will never be repealed.
They have professional reasons for not wanting untrained, unidentified, heat-packing good guys creating a chaotic cross fire as their officers rush to emergency calls and crime scenes.
There’s also this. It’s a sophist’s field day.
If you proceed from a fait accompli premise–a siege is underway and people are dying–then, yes, by all means, let’s have the wherewithal to fire back. Big time.
But in order to be prepared for the possibility of such an existential crucible, you have to be permanently prepared in public. All the time. Because you never know when, if ever, you’ll need it. Even if, ironically, an assailant is more likely to be a road-rager, a drunk or a texting movie patron tossing popcorn than a mass-murdering jihadist attacker. Hence the law of unintended consequences that sheriffs and police chiefs know all too well.
Especially in Florida, where there are already more than 1.4 million good guys licensed to conceal a firearm in public.