Aurora Tragedy Once Again Exposes America's Love Affair With Guns

Last night's horrible tragedy in Aurora was perpetrated by a lone gunman with an unidentified motive. While more information will undoubtedly lead to more of an understanding of what led this man to do what he did, there is one thing that we do know at this point: if he did not have access to these weapons, this tragedy would not have happened.

Advocates of gun ownership have many strong points in the ongoing national discussion of the place of guns in our culture. In America's early days, gun ownership was near a necessity. Without a national army, local militias would band together to make up the army when war or other conflicts broke out. Thus, the bill of rights guarantees the people that "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Today, population density and the increased prevalence of the handgun has changed the dynamics of the country. Weapons are used less for hunting and self-defense than they are used for gang violence and crime. The conditions of our country have changed, but our laws have not changed with them.

The question before us is whether our gun policy in America does more harm than good. In rural areas, it makes sense to allow for rifle ownership. Allowing controlled hunting helps stem the tide of problems such as deer overpopulation in these areas, and rifles are not generally used for killing sprees or gang warfare in rural areas.

But when we look at the situation in America overall, there is little reason to say that citizens need handguns, shotguns, or automatic assault rifles. The question is this: can the government sufficiently enforce such a law without overstepping the bounds of liberty? This is an empirical question that needs research to bear out. In the United Kingdom, they have been able to do it, but the United States is admittedly a very different country demographically than the UK.

Past the empirical point, if we were able to establish that legislation with proper enforcement could lead to decreased gun-related murders, the question would be this: are we willing to curb the liberty of owning a gun so that people can have the liberty of life? In order to answer this question, it is useful to refer to philosopher John Rawls' distinction between liberty and the value of liberty as put forth in his book Political Liberalism.

A liberty is described as an ability to actually do something. The value of that liberty is how our situation allows us to take advantage of that liberty to live fulfilling lives. The mistake that many gun-rights advocates make is that they see liberty in black/white, yes/no terms. This is characterized by understanding the concept of liberty without understanding the concept of value of liberty. While allowing broad gun ownership almost undoubtedly contributes to the case of liberty in the strict sense, it creates a great threat to value of other core liberties.

And which liberties are threatened by gun ownership? In Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" speech in his 1941 address to congress, Roosevelt lays out four essential human freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom to worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Defenders of guns find themselves enamored by the shiny seduction of the firearm, and we all feel it. But when Americans live in a country where they fear late night walks because of the threat of a weapon, when a young family in Denver needs to think twice about take their child to the theatre because of what happened a couple of weeks ago in a theatre downtown, that is when we have taken our obsession with want a little too far. Gun owners cling to guns as a protection, but our only way to become free from fear is to give up our want, and the only way for them to become free from their want is to give up their fear.

Geographic Representation Can Hinder Functional Democracy

Yesterday's Columbus Dispatch editorial "Fitting Failure" was a sigh of relief at the inability of the Coalition for Responsive Government to collect enough signatures to put an issue on the ballot that would return the Columbus City Council to a ward system for the first time in one hundred years. The Dispatch credited the city council's at-large election system as one of the reasons that Columbus has thrived while other midwest cities have faltered.

The argument is that a ward system, which requires representatives to be elected from districts within a city in the same way that states elect congressmen from districts within the state, creates a system where councilmen are more interested in advancing the interests of their ward than advancing the interests of the city as a whole. The Dispatch argues that Columbus has been successful compared to other midwestern cities and at the same time has more buy-in and confidence from its citizens, as evidenced by the willingness of voters to approve a 0.5% city income tax increase in 2009.

The discussion warrants a comparison to the US legislative system. Both of the federal government's two houses are elected on a "district" system: The US Senate elects by state and the House of Representatives by districts within states.

Congress is notorious for its low approval rating amongst Americans. Current data places that approval rating at about 17.5%. On the other hand, it is difficult to find any of the 535 senators or house members who have an approval rating so low. One explanation for this is that each member has reason to cater to and promote his or her own state or district, but has little electoral incentive to advocate for the good of the country as a whole.

Contrast this with the European system of parliamentary voting. While there are many variations of the system, the basics come down to voting for a party rather than a person. In this system, the entire country will cast votes for parties, then each party will get a portion of the legislature's seats equal to the proportion of the total votes they received. Theoretically, these legislatures would then be more interested in advancing the country as a whole. This would mean that their approval ratings amongst their citizens would be higher than that of a federal system such as that of the United States.

This seems to bear itself out in the polls, at least in one example. A 2011 story about the British parliament measured its popularity spread (% approve minus % disapprove) at just over -30. This is not good by any means, but looks like a pittance compared to congress's current spread of -58.

Part of the reason the US system is built in such a manner is because it was conceived in an era of strong states' rights. Since the founding, the power of states has deteriorated greatly, but the system built on their prevalence persists.

The advantage of the ward/district system is that it allows for every geographic area to have an advocate. While an at-large/European system might be more willing to sacrifice a certain geographic area's good for the good of the whole, this becomes harder in the ward/district system. And in some cases, the good of a geographic minority should trump the greater good. The tyranny of the majority raised its ugly head when the state of Ohio voted to place a casino in Franklin County against the will of the residents of the county. 

While an at-large/European system is advantageous to advancing a more holistic good, it does sometimes make the mistake of overlooking the needs of geographic minorities.

Libertarian Mayor of London Boris Johnson: "There is a Limit to Laissez-Faire"

In a recent Slate interview with London Mayor Boris Johnson, Johnson talks about his opinion as to how a community based on well-being and liberty of its citizens requires an active government to be successful. In particular, he comments on the need for government to provide "leadership" in respect to public cleanliness, public transportation, and even diet and exercise amongst the people.

While his comments may seem a bit extreme, they come in context of a recent New York City ban on large-size cups for soda pop. The role of government in these sorts of decisions is also a relevant issue at the federal level as conservative opposition to the Affordable Health Care Act has used the example of compulsory broccoli purchases as the logical outcome of the Supreme Court's recent ruling in favor of President Obama's signature legislative achievement.

Two things come forth from these discussions: an acknowledgement of truth and an acknowledgement of limits. Mayor Johnson puts it very well when he talks about the importance of cities having the feel of villages. While the city brings people close enough together to be advantageous on an economic level, human beings still have millions of years of evolving and adapting to the small-group setting of a hunter-gatherer tribe. While the endless opportunities of the city should, from an economic standpoint, give individuals the free reign to make choices that will make them happy, the similarities we share due to our human nature point towards cities needing be have certain characteristics. These could include cleanliness, easy transportation, and strong neighborhoods that allow for multiple interactions amongst people.

Nonetheless, the limitations of the government intervention model should be heeded. If we are to follow an account of human flourishing that derives partly from our evolutionary history, the modern nation-state does not fit well into that system. Aristotle's polis, or city-state, seems to be a much closer fit to what we are searching for. But this would suggest that a leader such as Johnson, who would be in favor of government "leadership" at the city level, may be more wary of it at the national level. This fits well with an American federal notion of democracy: at the local level, the people have more of an opportunity to use their government for good. As we abstract government to higher and higher levels, the ability of people to use their government becomes less and less possible. Thus, we should always keep in mind that government intervention has to be backed by a strong democracy in order to be effective.