Bear with me, I'm new at this. Oh yeah, this is going to be a long post.
I first wanted to acknowledge something a friend said to me about my writing here. That my new favorite topic was forcing me to generalize and perpetuate stereotypes and my ranting wasn't fostering debate, it was just one sided and heavy handed. I couldn't say a whole lot in response. This whole thing is like falling off my bike as a 6 year old: I don't know that my knee is scraped until I look closely at it, and then it starts to hurt like hell. It didn't help that when I was tutoring my little brother yesterday, trying to stay one step ahead of him with polynomials (it's been a while) I looked up to see a clip my mom was watching on the 6:00 news involving marriage licenses given out to same sex couples at the Sacramento County Courthouse and featured a fellow in a black shirt with "Jesus Saves" on it screaming and yelling at people lining up to get married. The whole thing is between two types of people interpellated by two completely separate and mutually exclusive ideologies and there really can't be a debate between the two sides. I say it doesn't affect him if these two people get married, but I'm sure he believes he's held accountable for every soul he meets and doesn't save when he gets to heaven. And I thought Catholics lived with guilt...
Anyhoo, to
Brillo. This guy didn't go off trying to prove a big point today, but opened the door for a lot of thought on another very touchy subject with a lot of people. Basically it boils down to the fact that gun control as a social issue should be flopped based on the lines of ideology that make up the two parties. Liberals should want more freedom, whereas the conservatives should be looking for more governmental control. He draws the issue in parallel with the war on drugs and when put in that perspective, we all look a little silly.
However, my opinion is that this parallel becomes weak when you look at the uses of these two "controlled substances" if you will, Drugs and Firearms. Narcotics and the like, hell, any drug considered a controlled substance by the government has a primary purpose of self destruction, at least when used in the capacity that it has been outlawed for. Firearms, however, are integral in the destruction of others. Firearms are often used in the infraction of the
non-aggression principles so basic to Libertarian beliefs. I'm not saying all guns should be banned, I'm just saying that access to weapons seems to provide a means for people to transgress on each other's sovereign rights.
This is a big deal.
It's my opinion that the government's job is to protect its citizens, sometimes the purpose of the law is to protect citizens from themselves, well not themselves, each other. "No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." That's our good friend Mr. Thomas Jefferson, a core tenet of libertarianism, I'm sure. Where we differ is that I think it's necessary to go an extra step to provide safety and security, not just in our nation but throughout the world.
The other side of arms control is arms proliferation, a crime our country is guilty of. I've got plenty to say on the matter, and instead of re-write it, I'm going to include a paper I wrote last year some time, on small arms proliferation and the U.S. (Remember, I have degrees in music and geology, not poli-sci or philosophy) Bear with me though this has relevance to the issue... at least I'm convinced it does.
Shooting Ourselves in the Foot: Weapons Proliferation and the United States
The United States currently leads a wide range of international efforts addressing many aspects of small arms proliferation and control. The U. S. government works closely with the United Nations to regulate and control exports of small arms, as well as combat illegal trafficking of small arms and light weapons. Government officials however, walk a fine diplomatic line when dealing with weapons proliferation and control in foreign policy, making sure that it is not confused with domestic policy. As assistant secretary of state Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr. stated in a
foreword to the state department’s policy and views on small arms proliferation: “The U.S. approach focuses on practical, effective measures to address the problem of illicit small arms and light weapons trafficking in conflict regions where it is most urgent, while acknowledging the legitimacy of legal trade, manufacture, and ownership of arms.”
Although the U.S has taken great strides to control proliferation of small arms and explosives, our efforts have remained largely ineffective. Warlords still reign over developing nations, armed with weapons caches left over from the cold war. Regimes rise in third world countries and commit genocide because generals can arm their soldiers with weapons bought and sold on the black market. Terrorist organizations wreak havoc in the industrialized world using arms and explosives, without which, their actions would remain unnoticed. There is no doubt that the proliferation of small arms and light weapons plagues society on a global scale. If the developed western world is going to focus on halting weapons proliferation in developing nations, “in conflict regions where it is most urgent,” the United States needs to be the first in line. To do so with any means of effectiveness, however, we need to first control weapons proliferation sanctioned by our own government and within our own borders; otherwise our actions can spawn resentment and create a backlash among those who would see us as hypocritical.
The U.S. efforts at halting proliferation of small arms and explosives remain ineffective, not because our efforts are under funded, but because the United States is responsible, both directly and indirectly, for weapons proliferation on many different levels. Our domestic politics and policies on gun control, or lack thereof, force us to hinder the U.N. in any conference in which we are involved. Our foreign policies have even greater consequences: the U.S. has a history of providing arms to countries for political purposes only to have those arms redistributed into conflict zones. This, combined with the fundamental failure to control weapons proliferation within our own borders contradicts every step the United Nations take to stop weapons proliferation. In order for the United States to become an upstanding citizen of the international community, we need to address these problems, set an example in policy and action focused on stopping small arms proliferation.
Since the inception of the United Nations, the United States has had an enormous amount of clout with global policy as a permanent member of the Security Council. Where weapons proliferation is concerned, however, our great influence is less than ideal. In July, 2001, the U.N. met in a conference which was to serve as a launching point for agreements on regulations in weapons tracing, arms brokerage, small arms export criteria as well as humanitarian consequences of unregulated small arms proliferation. The U.S. delegation to this conference, though add odds with our allies and the majority in attendance, succeeded in weakening the outcome of the conference, placing the agenda of the Bush administration over international arms control. The administration wanted to avoid perception that the U.N. and other countries could influence U.S. policies and laws on weapons possessions and transfers, and worked to placate gun lobbyists in Washington, arguing adamantly against proposals for international standards for civilian gun ownership (
Stohl, 2001). In fact, the U.S. was at odds with many African States in the conference, refusing to admit any language involving “restrictions on civilian weapons possession and sales to non-state actors.” This topic was of greatest importance to stopping arms trafficking in many sub-Saharan conflict regions. Those African nations involved were bullied by the U.S. into leaving out any controls, and were cowed in an effort to agree on and conclude the conference. (
Stohl, 2001).
Even when the United States and the United Nation’s interests align, U.S. involvement can prove counterproductive. As recently as this last year, in contradiction to the sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council –sanctions made at the request of the U.S.- the U.S. assisted Ethiopia in purchasing military equipment from embargoed North Korea (
Gordon and Mazzetti, 2007). The U.S. allowed the arms delivery due to the fact that Ethiopia is in the midst of a conflict with Islamic extremists in Somalia. The Bush administration’s compromise in the arms deal resulted from a clash of foreign policy: an unyielding commitment to fight Islamic radicalism vs. keeping North Korea from any means to develop a nuclear weapons program. The U.S. allowed more weapons into an already beleaguered conflict zone even at the cost of providing resources to a state known to be developing weapons of mass destruction. The Security Council was never even officially notified of the deal and the U.N. took no action (
Gordon and Mazzetti, 2007). This incident is not the first time the U.S. has compromised its goals and those of the U.N.. In 2002, a Spanish vessel intercepted a shipment of North Korean weapons bound for Yemen. The Bush administration was working with the Yemen government at the time to out members of Al Qaeda within the country, and asked for the shipment to be released (
Gordon and Mazzetti, 2007).
In the past, U.S. foreign policy has had a great deal to do with weapons proliferation in the Middle East and Africa, but very little to do with arms control. During the cold war, the U.S. poured millions of dollars of arms and equipment in third world countries using them as proxy battlefields with communism. The most successful of these was considered to be the Afghan war with the Soviet Union in which the CIA dumped millions into arming and training militias of guerillas in how to fight a global superpower on their doorstep. The U.S. was also involved in the military buildup of Iraq, as declassified in the Iraq Weapons Declaration of December 2002. The U.S. dealt not only in a key role of building Iraq’s weapons program but also flooded the country with small arms and support for its war against Iran. The details behind U.S. foreign policy and its recent “blowback” is beyond the scope of this paper, a country will reap what it sows. What is more concerning is the U.S.’s complicity in the human cost of arms proliferation. There is no better stage to demonstrate this than the Horn of Africa.
Throughout recent history the U.S. has had its hand in the conflicts involving the countries on the North-eastern coast of Africa, most importantly Ethiopia and Somalia. During the cold war, much like in Iraq and Afghanistan, the horn of Africa was a battlefield for the U.S. interests. Ethiopia developed a pro-soviet regime, known as the Dergue, which was backed with Cuban military support. This forced the U.S. to back the Somali Dictator, Siad Barre who was at war with Ethiopia to protect the Red sea shipping lanes and keep them free for capitalist interests. Control of Red Sea meant political power in the region. Between 1983 and 1988 the U.S. backed the Somali government, pouring weapons and resources into the demolished and impoverished country (
Rockwell 2003). Siad Barre’s regime grew more repressive and corrupt and finally the United States had to withdraw its support due to his deplorable record for violating human rights. Barre was soon deposed in 1991 and replaced with a band of lawless warlords. All of the weapons, ammunition and resources the U.S. had donated to the conflict were now being used to repress the people of Somalia who had no government to turn to. Military intervention in the country, in the form of a peacekeeping mission in 1992 turned into disaster and resulted in the deaths of 18 special forces and ended with the U.S. turning it’s back on the country. That is, Bush administration officials found Somalia was becoming a foothold for Islamist extremists. Recently the CIA came under fire providing arms and support to the warlords of Somalia in an effort to oust jihadist militias loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts. The United States, regardless of secrecy, was fueling further conflict in the region, by backing the some of same warlords it fought in 1993. (
Motlagh, 2006). Somalia is a country depleted of its resources and broken by warfare, but it is still saturated with U.S. weaponry.
Though the U.S. government is responsible for direct distribution of small arms and light weapons to the third world, the country as a whole is indirectly responsible for the impotency of arms control policies in the U.S. and abroad. The U.S. has not only a political interest invested in global proliferation of small arms; economically we are both the largest single importer and exporter of small arms in the world (Gabelnick et al. 2006). In fact, the U.S. exports more weapons than all other countries combined (
Rockwell, 2003). Just as a pesticide company is economically invested indirectly in spreading poisons into irrigation systems, so to is America invested in the arms trade. Arms traffic may be profitable for weapons manufacturers and exporters in the U.S, such as Lockheed Martin, but produce financial burden on third world nations. As opposed to loans for genuine capital investment, which may help to improve a country and its economy and pay back a loan, loans for military investments deplete local resources and generate debts and inflation, regardless of low interest rates. The U.S.’s economic investment in the arms trade throws us in opposition with any effort at halting weapons proliferation as long as there is a demand for the weapons industry, and the industry itself isn’t held accountable for their products by our government.
The United States is invested ideologically in weapons as well. Americans love guns. We do, no matter the cost. [I can't link
The Economist article because it's premium content (subscription required) so I'm going to quote it] :
The tragedies of Virginia Tech—and Columbine, and Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, where five girls were shot at an Amish school last year—are not the full measure of the curse of guns. More bleakly terrible is America's annual harvest of gun deaths that are not mass murders: some 14,000 routine killings committed in 2005 with guns, to which must be added 16,000 suicides by firearm and 650 fatal accidents (2004 figures). Many of these, especially the suicides, would have happened anyway: but guns make them much easier. Since the killing of John Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century.
Grater restrictions and gun laws are made impassable because of the gun lobbyists and the National Rifle Association enshrining our “god-given rights” to bear arms. The gun culture in the U.S. plays an incredible role in politics and keeps politicians worried about the “gun vote.” Universal gun control policies, like those that have developed in Britain and other countries may not be necessary to stop weapons proliferation, though any step towards domestic gun control is seen as infringing on our rights. Our god given rights to manufacture arms and distribute them to people who can’t wait to kill each other? Under the current administration, the Assault Weapon ban put in place by the previous president has been allowed to lapse. Politicians are afraid to take a firm stance on controlling the sales and distribution of arms, even at a domestic level for fear of falling from grace with a specific constituency. Without domestic control of our own weapons, attempting to fight arms proliferation on a global scale can be likened to treating a head wound while ignoring a severed artery, both can be lethal but one is much more certain than the other. The problem of global arms proliferation starts in America.
The connection between these problems with weapons proliferation is the unifying problem of accountability. The United States government cannot be held accountable for the atrocity of its actions by any standard of international law. The U.N., and any resolution it makes requires enforcement by the Security Council, on which the U.S. holds the power to veto any measure it finds unsuitable. Weapons manufacturers and exporters will not be held accountable for their actions by a government that relies on them to fuel proxy conflicts around the globe, and the U.S. populace cannot be held accountable for its apathy towards global issues of murder and genocide when yearly gun related deaths within our own country rival those of any conflict zone. The United States government, however fearless of judicial retaliation for disregarding international law, is still accountable to its citizens. The educated electorate of America is the party accountable for U.S. foreign policy, economic entrenchment in weapons trade, and lack of domestic gun control policies. It is our responsibility to hold our government to its own standards and the morals it champions, and we cannot turn a blind eye to its actions. I will lean on Orwell’s argument from his essay
Notes on Nationalism: “Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage – torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians – which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by “our” side.” Ignorance of the issue is no excuse, Orwell goes on to say: “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” Any change that is to come about in global politics regarding arms control must start with the United States changing its stance on arms proliferation, so as not to acknowledge “the legitimacy of legal trade, manufacture, and ownership of arms.” If any change is going to be made on the matter, our government must be held accountable to its citizens for the actions taken in their names.
Whew. Ok, you still with me after all of that? Wow. Anyways, I think the paradox that Brillo brought up about guns being a social issue between the two parties, and their positions being swapped, isn't really a social issue. It's an economic one, a regulation of an industry. That's why the right (read: gun lobby) is so adamant against gun control, there's money to be made. They've just dragged the issue through the mud and dragged every shotgun toting fellow on that famed "beer track" along for the ride, citing inalienable rights and that guns are part of our culture, as much as apple pie and Tennessee whiskey. If you read through my liberal drivel and pleas for conscience and morality, you'll see an amazing source of revenue available. Money always makes politics more interesting.
