This NYT Op-Ed is something that I've been thinking about a lot. I don't think most people understand what 'freedom' means especially what the philosophical understanding of 'freedom' was to the Founders. Too many people just consider freedom to be personal and the ability to do whatever they want with little consideration of it's affect on others. Arguments for how individual actions affect others are frequently derided as "collectivism" and harm to others is considered a necessary price to pay for what is considered individual liberty. What this ignores though is that Enlightenment Idea of "freedom" from people like John Locke wasn't just about the individual but also about a society. That without a structure of laws and responsibility there was no such thing as freedom. The Founders also felt that way and the Preamble of the Constitution states that to secure the blessings of Liberty we need a system of laws and government. The debate over gun rights is one of the most obvious examples of this. It's essentially accepted now that we will have a certain level of firearm violence and far beyond most other countries of similar development and demographics as long as we can maintain relatively easy access to firearms. We're seeing that now to in this current debate with people literally saying that living isn't the most important thing when compared to the economy to the ability of people to move about and shop. Even that it is a matter of freedom to not wear masks. It makes sense then that at these protest we see a confluence of gun rights with those saying that it is against their personal liberty to do what is necessary to try to contain this virus. These people represent a vocal minority on both issues but they command an inordinate amount of political attention. Considering that a very solid majority of Americans agree with things like expanded background checks for firearms and with continuing stay at home orders yet we see a litany of failure on expanding background checks and states repealing stay at home orders without even coming close to guidelines that their own health departments put out. The danger of this is already happening. We've become desensitized to death and cynically just accept or ignore that many Americans are dying. Mass shootings barely make the news now even though in recent years we've averaged about one a day. Now we're becoming numb to the idea that more than 2,000 people are dying a day and that number is going up. We see arguments even here that "well people die anyway" and "we always accept that people die". That is where we are at as a society. There are more important things than living.. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/opinion/coronavirus-deaths.html Open States, Lots of Guns. America Is Paying a Heavy Price for Freedom. This country seems resigned to preventable firearm deaths. It appears that the same is starting to happen with fatalities from the pandemic. By Charlie Warzel Opinion Writer at Large The coronavirus scenario I can’t stop thinking about is the one where we simply get used to all the dying. tweet from Eric Nelson, the editorial director of Broadside Books, read. “We keep losing 1,000 to 2,000 a day to coronavirus. People get used to it. We get less vigilant as it very slowly spreads. By December we’re close to normal, but still losing 1,500 a day, and as we tick past 300,000 dead, most people aren’t concerned.” were reported to have died from the virus. And yet their collective passing was hardly mourned. After all, how to distinguish those souls from the 2,097 who perished the day before or the 1,558 who died the day after? Such loss of life is hard to comprehend when it’s not happening in front of your own two eyes. Add to it that humans are adaptable creatures, no matter how nightmarish the scenario, and it seems understandable that our outrage would dull over time. Unsure how — or perhaps unable — to process tragedy at scale, we get used to it. There’s also a national precedent for Mr. Nelson’s hypothetical: America’s response to gun violence and school shootings. are killed by guns — roughly 100 per day, most from suicide, according to data from the Giffords Law Center. Similarly, the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund calculates that there have been 583 “incidents of gunfire” on school grounds since 2013. In the first eight months of 2019, there were at least 38 mass shootings, The Times reported. Last August, 53 Americans died in mass shootings — at work, at bars, while shopping with their children. reduce a gunman’s range.” Grudgingly, we learn to live our lives with the specter of gun violence hanging over us everywhere — when we walk into a Walmart, when we send our children to school, when we worship. Each time tragedy strikes, it feels both inevitable and completely avoidable. Cont.
Cont. The coronavirus pandemic and gun violence are by no means perfectly analogous calamities. The federal government, which has the power to pass stricter gun laws, has more limited powers to control states’ public health responses to Covid-19. And while other countries have curtailed gun violence, most are struggling to contain the virus. As with gun violence, the data medical professionals and governments are relying on during the pandemic is piecemeal. And, as with gun violence, we throw up our hands and deem it intractable. like some in Europe to “freeze” the economy and commit to paying at least part of workers’ salaries if their companies don’t lay them off. Instead, our economic stimulus has been scattershot and underwhelming. And the Trump administration has largely pushed responsibility onto states, offering an amorphous plan for reopening barely rooted in reality of our testing and tracing capacities. Rather than provide cautious guidance to states, President Trump has encouraged far-right protests to pressure governors in political battleground states like Michigan. obtained by The Times projects that the daily death toll will reach about 3,000 on June 1, a 70 percent increase from the May 1 number of about 1,750. recently ordered more than 100,000 body bags. Mr. Trump has since predicted that the death toll from Covid-19 could be as high as double his earlier estimate, but that hasn’t stopped the administration from encouraging reopening. before touring the sites of two mass shootings that killed 31 people in 24 hours, Mr. Trump argued that there was “no political appetite” for a ban on assault weapons, though a majority of Americans support one. Those remarks bear resemblance to the president’s March comments that the coronavirus lockdowns were perhaps too onerous and that “we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.” His “LIBERATE” tweets in support of the lockdown protesters suggested a similar lack of appetite to do the hard thing, even as national polls revealed that Americans are deeply concerned about their safety and worried about reopening. rejection of public health by those who don’t believe their actions affect others.
No, freedom is not main problem if it is a fair freedom. Two party system is a problem, lack of good general education is problem which results in so many low I Q people. There is no fair freedom in this country except a freedom to shoot anyone with the guns.
Since I keep on seeing how people are saying that these stay at home orders and mask orders are Unconstitutional there is the general welfare clause of the Constitution. For that matter there isn't a Federal stay at home order. These orders are done by the states and under the 10th Amendment and the Constitution does allow for states to regulate commerce within their states.
The lockdown was never meant to be for months upon months on end. It was a temporary measure to give the gov't time to organize, get testing in place, and hospitals to be able to have the case load more manageable. We can not stop the spread of covid, we were trying to slow it down, and there has been some success with that in many states, and less success in others. Unfortunately we didn't make good use of the time as far as gov't goes but things do need to open back up. Yes people will die. But I don't see another way forward. People have to make money to pay the rent and their bills.
The lock downs are not meant to be indefinite and how long to keep them is a different question. They aren't unconstitutional. Governments frequently impose stay at home orders and limit travel during disasters. This condition is unusual because of how long it's been but it's no more unconstitutional than when a government orders shelter in place during a chemical plant fire or when after 9/11 all air travel was cancelled. Wearing masks is definitely not an impingement on freedom. We already require shirts and shoes in food service establishments. For those saying Costco is violating their freedom by requiring masks in store they are a private business and it's ironic to see 'Conservatives' arguing that a private business shouldn't be allowed to mandate a dress code on their property. For that matter many of those claiming that requiring masks to be worn have also said that we should mandate fashion by banning Burkha's and Hijabs..
The myth of Trump as 11 dimensional political chess player needs to die forever If he undertook sound public health measures - or at least made an effort - and signed on to a real relief package that is proportional to the Depression we face instead of bailing out rich cronies and then 'reopening' he'd be on much sounder footing politically But that is hard, and he is lazy and stupid.
Everything you have stated is true. And retailers have the "freedom" to require their patrons to wear masks. If Patrons do not agree, they can shop online or get someone else to do their shopping. Things should change. People should be wearing masks for the next 12 months or so for example. But we need to jumpstart the economy - not just in the US but the world.
You need one in case Trump and co. start throwing out legal citizens because they're the wrong color or religion. Or to defend yourself against a band of HS dropouts trying to make citizen's arrests on innocent people. Or because you think it looks cool, appreciate the craftsmanship and you're a responsible human being. Well.... you don't NEED one.
I'd prefer to live in a society that was gun free or where the general population had very limited access to guns as seen in most OECD countries. I don't own any guns but I have enjoyed sport shooting in the past and have gone hunting once but I found killing lives animals wasn't for me. I see why people enjoy guns. However, I don't think that enjoyment is worth all the death we see on an annual basis. I'd be happy to give up my gun rights to see gun deaths eliminated (or close there to) in the U.S. I think it's tragic every few months we see another mass shooting. How do we essentially eliminate these as other countries have done? Doing nothing obviously won't solve the problem. I don't think the half-measures put forward regarding strengthening gun laws will solve the problem either. We have 400 million guns in circulation. If you're reasonably determined to access one you can. I think as a society we have to say that gun-ownership (with limited exceptions) isn't worth the cost of all those deaths every year. Broad, fundamental changes are required. I'm on board with that but I don't think nearly enough people are. It's not going to happen in my lifetime. Instead, we see all these firearms related deaths and do little-to-nothing, shrugging it off or propose half-measures which I don't think will really solve the problem. Oh well.
Nice post, though I am probably more pro-gun than you are and have definitely owned firearms. I resonate with that part of my TX heritage. Rubber-band gun, cap gun, BB gun, pellet gun, squirrel gun, and so on as I got older. ... And then I went to kindergarten. Anyway, the more serious hardware and the sheer # of guns is alarming I think to a majority of Americans. But to me it's not separate from our overall lack of trust in society, in government, and our general paranoia. If those things improved somehow, the guns would be a little less of a concern (though we'd still have a lot of suicides by gun and the occasional mass shooting, and all the gang/drugs homicides). How on earth do we at least stop the trendline of people getting more paranoid? It's one reason I'm sympathetic at some level to all those protestors, even though I really disagree with them strongly. They've been increasingly distrustful of anything but a few friends, family and one news network. Then there's supposedly this virus that often doesn't have any symptoms but can be really bad, and it lingers everywhere, forever. It's very difficult for even those of us who believe in science to keep wearing a mask when we don't feel sick at all. This virus is like the perfect awful element to attack a paranoid, distrustful society. It makes sense that America is having such a hard time and will keep having a hard time with COVID-19.
I don't know how we make people less paranoid/deranged/depressed/isolated etc... moving forward. Kind of reminds me of the, "it's a mental health problem, not a gun problem" argument (not that I think that's what you're saying). I don't know how to cure America of all those mental ills/woes but I know that if we had a country that, like most every other OECD country, eliminated/severely curtailed access to guns those massacres would all but stop. That solution seems a lot more straightforward then figuring out how to make people not deranged. And really whats the cost of it? Yes, people enjoy their guns but they aren't necessary at this point in human history and they've become stupid destructive. The human cost is so much. I feel like plenty of societies have shown us widespread gun ownership isn't necessary any longer and continue to show us that every day. I kind of look at it and think our society is willing to accept a certain amount of death from gun violence every year for the sake of gun ownership but at what point does that change? What if we saw a school shooting everyday instead of every 6 months? What cost is acceptable for the joys of gun ownership? The answer seems obvious to me. *Just talking about my thoughts on gunownership and not really getting into the pandemic.
This is the heavy price of freedom. Constitutionally we can own firearms and you're correct there are many out there. I personally don't think we can practically get most of those guns out of society. I also don't think we can blanket ban all firearms. Ultimately this has to come to a change in culture. This is why it's so important to understand the nature of freedom. Freedom cannot exist without responsibility and we are paying a price to the lack of responsibility.
I think the price is too high and I'd be happy to see a constitutional amendment and see those freedoms restricted. I don't think that it's politically practical at this point or will happen in my lifetime but I think that's what should happen and I'd support such a movement. That's the only way I see these gun deaths being eliminated or severely curtailed. I don't see how you can, "change the culture" such that we totally eliminate crazy a&&holes who shoot up schools/nightclubs/bars/events. If we take away the guns though, we do eliminate that.
Unfortunately to change the Constitution would also take a change in culture. I agree neither is going to be easy or happen anytime soon. It is possible though. Look at what happened with Australia. They were very much a firearm culture yet were still able to change
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm all for banning guns. No matter what any gun advocate says, they are okay with the casualties (regardless if they are murders, mass shootings, etc) in order to keep their guns. They play the statistics and since the numbers are "low", they are willing to let bygones be bygones.
