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J. Norman Heath's Blog--a circus rigger and Second Amendment scholar (really!)
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Breaking News
At Denver International Airport today, an individual, later discovered to be a university professor from Boulder, Colorado, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a compass, a protractor, and a graphical calculator.
Authorities believe he is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement.
He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction.
Time For Republicans To Come Out of the Closet!
Nice article by Willy Stern about acceptable forms of bigotry in progressive and liberal circles. The author explains why he hears this bigotry: he doesn't look Republican:Because of my background and my appearance—dark curly hair and a fairly sizable proboscis—most of the world reaches similar conclusions as to my political leanings as did Suzi. Scarcely a week has gone by since I hit 7th grade at Edgemont High School during which somebody did not make a derogatory comment about Republicans in my presence. I hear them, well, practically everywhere...at Starbucks, at job interviews, and while picking up my son at Congregation Micah, Nashville's open-minded reform synagogue. I hear them in the hallways of Vanderbilt University (where I teach part-time), around the copy machines at the Nashville Scene (the alternative newspaper which employs me) and in the carpool line at the University School of Nashville, (the progressive private school which my older child attends).
The article describes what happened when he went out on a blind date in 1992 in New York City--and what happened when, after the young lady used a crude expression to describe Republicans, he came out of the closet, and then, "Well, look," she said as she pulled her purse out from under her seat. "I'm sorry but I can't deal with this. Please don't think me rude, but I really think it would be best if I just left."
I guess she was afraid it was catching.
The rest of the article goes on to examine the assumptions that go into this socially acceptable form of bigotry--and wonders if there will be unpleasant consequences at work. (He teaches at a university--where some forms of depravity just aren't okay.)
In my experience, hatred and contempt for gun owners is even a more acceptable in those same circles. You would think, from the contemptuous language used, that gun owners are missing half their teeth, marry their sisters, and might have trouble reading the instruction manual for something complicated, like chewing gum.
Thanks to Eugene Volokh for the pointer.
"Under God": More Subversive History
Delaware's Constitutional Convention's on September 6, 1776, modified a statement required of all members of the House:The Convention met.
Amazing the things you find when you go looking for guns in early America.
On Motion of Mr. McKean,
Resolved unanimously,
That the following Words be added to the Profession of Faith made by the Members of this House respectively, to wit, "And I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine Inspiration." [Claudia L. Bushman, Harold B. Hancock, and Elizabeth Moyne Homsey, ed., Proceedings of the Assembly of the Lower Counties on Delaware 1770-1776, of the Constitutional Convention of 1776, and of the House of Assembly of the Delaware State 1776-1781 (Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 1986), 209.]
Does Abstinence-Only Sex Education Preclude Teaching About STDs?
My daughter is visiting from the University of Idaho, and tells me that large numbers of students show up there utterly ignorant of STDs. Many do not know that you can pick up STDs even if you don't engage in sexual intercourse. She was blaming this on "abstinence-only" sex education in rural Idaho and Washington.
Abstinence-Only Sex Education: Why It's A Mistake, But Not Absurd
The rationale behind "abstinence-only" sex education is that there are kids that are encouraged by availability of contraception education and technology to have sex. Sad to say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing--the same kids that can't find Pakistan on a map, you are trusting to use condoms correctly? Even a 99% successful contraceptive, if used repeatedly, will eventually lead to pregnancy or STDs. Keep in mind that there are three groups of kids involved:
1. Those who, regardless of whether birth control is available to them, are not going to have sex.
2. Those who, regardless of whether birth control is available to them, are going to have sex.
3. Those who may be swayed by the risk of pregnancy or STDs into having or not having sex.
Group #3 may actually be a pretty large group, since lots of teenage boys use "here's a condom" or "you can always get an abortion" as one of the methods for pushing a reluctant girl into sex. This is part of why the "abstinence-only" crowd's argument isn't completely ridiculous--there is an enormous low self-esteem problem among girls in our society, probably greatly aggravated by the contempt for women displayed by the dominant culture (rap).
Unfortunately, the negative consequences (pregnancy, STDs) for members of group #2 are so severe that I consider an increase in teens in group #3 having sex to be an unfortunate but acceptable trade-off for reducing the risks to members of group #2. If you could demonstrate through experiment that the negative consequences for group #2 are actually pretty tiny, and members of group #3 who become sexually active because of contraception sex education was actually a very large percentage of the teen population, I might be more sympathetic to the abstinence-only sex education approach--but so far, my own experiences, and what I can see going on among my daughter's generation, leads to me to believe that group #2 members with negative consequences is a huge group, and group #3 members becoming sexually active because of contraception education is relatively small.
"Abstinence-Best" Sex Education
I am very partial to the approach that was taken by public schools in Sonoma County, California, where I used to live. In spite of being a raving liberal community, where intoxication was a fundamental part of the lives of most kids, and many (perhaps most) adults--the schools used a sex education program that should be called "abstinence-best." It taught about contraception--but emphasized that the best method for avoiding pregnancy, STDs, and a stack of serious emotional problems, was abstinence. (Anyone that doubts that abstinence is better than other methods for avoiding pregnancy and STDs needs to spend some time looking at the failure rates for condoms, IUDs, various contraceptive foams, and even birth control pills.)
Unfortunately, a lot of liberals are reluctant to endorse any policy that treats abstinence as the best policy, and many seem to regard it as a joke--not even an approach worth discussing. I recall watching an interview with a New York City School superintendent some years ago who claimed that it was simply unrealistic to expect any high school kids to not have sex--of course, he was a former heroin addict, so I suspect he was projecting his own lack of self-control onto others.
So, Where Is the STD Education?
I know that "abstinence-only" sex education isn't philosophically opposed to STD education. If anything, a frank discussion of the STD problems should be a powerful encouragement to abstinence. You don't have to engage in exaggeration with respect to STDs to scare the wits out of all but the most sex-crazed teenagers.
I talked to some neighbors whose kids attend a private Christian school here in Boise. Their "abstinence-only" sex education program definitely involves teaching about the hazards of STDs--and that sexual intercourse isn't a requirement for STD transmission. These parents, who are third generation Idahoans, were of the opinion that much of the high school sex education that my daughter was complaining about represents Mormon influence. Is this really true? I don't get the impression that Mormons are spectacularly prudish about sex compared to Protestant Christianity, even the Bible Belt variations (which are a lot less prudish than they are portrayed in popular culture). I would expect that encouraging frank discussion of STD problems would be a powerful addition to an "abstinence-only" sex education program.
If you, gentle reader, have some insights in this matter, please inform me!
Really Cute: Village People Meets Gulf War II
This is actually pretty cute--not laugh out loud funny, but still gave me a smile. I found this link on Eugene Volokh's blog.
Commencement Speakers
John Leo (who is on my good list, because he actually reads my blog, at least occasionally), has a piece about commencement speakers who don't seem to understand that challenging the audience with controversial ideas isn't the same as insulting them. I agree. I can't remember now if it was at my BA or MA commencement, but Sonoma State University invited a former CBS journalist who I vaguely recall from the 1960s to come and speak. He spent a good bit of the speech engaging in a political blather that, to put it bluntly, was astonishingly ignorant of the audience. He insulted (not challenged) the religious values of at least 25-30% of the students, and probably 50% of the parents. It also seems that he was under the impression that both Republicans among the students and their parents were somewhere else that day. What a waste of time. Everyone was polite, no booing, but you could see from the expressions on many faces that there was a lot of upset in the crowd.
One of these days, I fantasize that I will be asked to give a commencement address. Their average politics will be an odd mixture of National Socialist, Green, and Multiculturalist Inclusivism. I won't give a "climb every mountain" speech. It will be an intelligent discussion of how the values that we hold as college students tend to change as we grow up, raise families, start paying taxes at the "I'm not working at McDonald's" marginal rates. But I won't insult them. Or perhaps I will be so infuriated by then that half of the student body has brain piercings, with gray matter oozing slowly out of their ears, that I will behave just like a lot of recent hard left commencement speakers have done.
This Article Reads Well; I Agree With Its Goals; It Just Doesn't Logically Follow
The Wall Street Journal has an opinion piece by Brendan Miniter about Denver Mayor Wellington Webb's attempts to prevent Colorado's new non-discretionary concealed weapon permit law from taking effect. His point is that there is a lot of serious violent crime in the Denver area, and it's perfectly legitimate to want to defend yourself with a gun--but most of the examples that he gives are really quite irrelevant to defending yourself with a gun.
The interesting points are that Adams County, near Denver, was immediately besieged by 4000 applicants for permits and the point that Miniter didn't make--the arrogance of Denver's major, who thinks that the Colorado legislature doesn't have the authority to write a statewide law that applies in Denver. Yes, Denver is a "home rule" city under Colorado's Constitution--but the language of the new concealed weapon permit law is very explicit that this is an implementation of a right enjoyed by Colorado citizens under that state's right to keep and bear arms provision--which takes precedence over "home rule."
David Horowitz Attacking Strawmen
Eugene Volokh points to this recent David Horowitz article about the Republican Party and its need to embrace homosexuals.Whether Jesus condemned or approved homosexuality, therefore, is irrelevant to the question of whether the chairman of the Republican National Committee – a political leader -- should make moral pronouncements on the issue, as the delegation demanded. Is homosexuality – sexual relations between members of the same sex -- a threat to civic order? Should it be a crime? Should there be legislation to regulate it or make it a crime? These are the only questions that politicians and legislators need to confront, and therefore these are the only questions appropriate for a political movement (as opposed to a religious faith) to pose. That was my point. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.
Horowitz makes a good point about distinguishing between radical homosexuals and those who just want to be left alone:
Conservatives who believe in limited government should be the first to understand this. Christian conservatives more than others. The Christian right was born as a reaction to the government assault by secular liberals on religious communities in the 1970s. We do not want government intruding on the voluntary associations we make as citizens or dictating to us our moral and spiritual choices. Nor do I have objection to conservative political activists who oppose the leftwing agendas of "gay rights" groups that are destructive, anymore than I would have objection to opposing women’s rights groups that are mere covers for leftwing agendas, or black "civil rights" groups whose agendas are racially divisive. In fact, I have been a prominent leader of the opposition to all these groups.
This is an important point. The difficulty is that Marc Racicot of the RNC met with the Human Rights Campaign--which is one of those radical groups.
What I do object to is the systematic confusion of ethnic, gender, or sexual groups with leftwing political agendas. All blacks are not leftists; all women are not leftists; and all homosexuals are not leftists. To condemn them as such is both intolerant and politically stupid.
Another problem is that Horowitz is operating off of incorrect data:Which brings us to Knight’s final comment and self-revelation: "Our agenda …is to dissuade people from becoming trapped in homosexuality." Let me make a personal statement here which does not – or should not – affect one way or another the political discussion about whether the it was appropriate to confront the RNC Chairman or to demand that the Republican Party take a stand on whether homosexuality is more or not.
Actually, newspaper coverage of a study published a few months ago--by Robert L. Spitzer, a psychiatrist who led the APA's removal of homosexuality from DSM-III--reported that some homosexuals who sought to change their sexual orientation to heterosexual were successful--and even those whose orientation did not change were emotionally healthier than before. (Here is the presentation that Dr. Spitzer gave in 2001 at the APA convention.) I would agree that homosexuality is probably not a choice for most in the sense of "I'll have chocolate, not strawberry," but to suggest that it's in the same category as race or gender is, I believe, incorrect. I've run into enough scattered bits of data that suggest homosexuality is often a response to childhood sexual abuse that I am inclined to think that homosexuality isn't so much a choice as a traumatic response. (This upsets Christian conservatives, I think, largely because traumatic responses are very, very hard to overcome.)
In my view, Knight’s statement is a prejudice dressed up as a moral position. It presumes that homosexuality is a choice, while all evidence points to the contrary. The conversion movements have been miserable failures. They have recruited a highly motivated and extreme minority among homosexuals – people so unhappy with their condition that they are desperate to change it – and the results are pathetic. Only a tiny minority of what is itself a tiny minority of people willing to go through the conversion process achieve a well-adjusted heterosexual result.
Horowitz goes right over the top when he criticizes one of the Christian conservatives for saying that, "Our agenda …is to dissuade people from becoming trapped in homosexuality." Horowitz's response is: Even if Knight were correct in thinking that homosexuality is a moral choice, and that Christians and Jews have a moral obligation to oppose it, this would not alter the fact that it is inappropriate and self-defeating for philosophical conservatives to make this their political agenda. A mission to rescue homosexuals is a religious mission; it is not an appropriate political cause. Would Robert Knight like the government to investigate every American to determine whether they are homosexual or not and then compel those who are to undergo conversion therapy -- or else? This is a prescription for a totalitarian state.
But that is not what Knight's statement says, or even implies.
Laws express moral disapproval all the time. Think of the South Africa divesture fights of a few years ago, and laws against racial discrimination. A law criminalizing homosexual acts, while generally unenforceable, is a similar form of moral disapproval. This doesn't make such laws into totalitarianism. They can be an effective way to say, "We, as a society, think that there is something wrong with this." For those people who are trying to figure out how to respond to urges that they don't really understand, such laws act as an encouragement towards right behavior--and in some cases, may encourage them to look for help with their homosexuality. For others, such laws, by saying, "You aren't okay," make them miserable, without encouraging them to ask themselves any hard questions.
Excuse Me While I Fall Down In Shock
About a year ago, Ralph Luker, an historian, defended (or at least, seemed to defend) Professor Bellesiles from the howling mob of torch-bearing peasants that James Lindgren and I were leading (or so it seemed Luker regarded us). Now, we see him saying this: As the Michael Bellesiles story developed, there was additional evidence that our peer review processes had become poor review processes. Repeatedly, in reviews of grant applications, journal articles, and book manuscript, our peer review processes waved the research and writing that led to Arming America on to glory. They failed us, embarrassed us, and they failed and, ultimately, embarrassed Michael.
Luker tells us the tragic story of what happened when he started to ask how to do deal with this disaster:
A year ago, I published "Journalists Are Rushing to Judgment about Michael Bellesiles" on History News Network. Despite all the debate that it engendered, nothing in the meantime causes me to regret a word that I wrote there. It called for peer review processes that work – even in the face of powerful evidence of their prior failures. In that debate, my gun lobby friends repeatedly urged me to engage with them about discrete matters of evidence. Repeatedly, I declined to do that. I did so because I had no expertise that qualified me to speak to the substantial issues at stake. I reserved all of my comments to matters of process.
Subsequently, however, a book oddly related to Bellesiles's Arming America caught my attention. It was oddly related, one might say, because it is in the same family of books with Michael's book – like your uncle's paramour is oddly related to you. It was a prize winning book, by a major publisher, and it was in a field of my expertise. A reviewer of the book had noted that its author made unusual use of ellipses to transform a quotation to suit the author's purposes. Alerted to an ellipses problem, I easily identified a second example of it and, then, examined the author's tables of data. Using the sources cited there, I found errors – careless mathematical errors – in ranges of 22 to 70 percent. With additional information and questions about interpretation of evidence, I drafted an article about my findings. Thereafter, I did two quite different things. First, I shared summaries of the article with journalists who had raised such an uproar about Arming America. As I suspected, they were not interested. The book threatened no one's constitutional rights and, in Jason Blair, journalism already had new scandal of its own to follow. So much for journalism's attention to the foibles of other professions.
In essence, the problems of Arming America seem to be a bit more than just Michael Bellesiles's failings--and I am discouraged to see that "historians unanimously urged" Luker "not to publish the article."
Concurrently, I shared my article with other academics. Those who were not historians urged me to pursue the matter, but historians unanimously urged me not to publish the article. Following the historians' advice, I contacted the book's author and its publishers with summaries of my findings. The author denied any misuse of quotations, acknowledged problems with the data, and said that the publisher would be asked to correct the text in a revised edition. The problem with the book's publisher is that a major New York house originally published the book and had sold paperback rights to another house. The New York house, which apparently controls the matter of new editions, did not respond to my communications. The house which has the paperback rights said that, subject to a request from the author and approval by the originating publishing house, it would publish a revised edition of the book. Intuition tells me that, without additional urging, that will not happen.
So, there you have it. The clock is ticking. Unless the author and the publishing houses act to correct themselves, I will publish the article on History News Network, where it is unlikely to be sandbagged by professional favors in peer review. Such things make peer review poor review.
For Those Of You Who Are Astronomy Nerds, Read On
The rest of you may want to skip this. I'm really impressed with Discovery Telescopes; they do a very nice job of filling the niche in between the high end, spare no expense reflectors like Obsessionsession and Starmaster, and the frankly very disappointing big reflectors from Celestron and Meade. I looked through a 17.5" Discovery Truss Tube reflector several years ago, and came very close to buying one--and then had my employer flake out on me, and stop issuing paychecks.
One of the unpleasant decisions, however, has always been: truss or solid tube? The truss design gives you the potential to stuff an enormous telescope into a relatively small car to take to a really dark sky site--and it looks really sharp. (The solid tube assemblies, I'm afraid, just aren't that slick looking.) But the truss tube design is $900 more expensive--a lot to spend for portability, unless you do this a lot. (You can rent a van to transport the monster many times for that $900.) The truss tube design is also a bit lighter, and this becomes an issue with the larger telescopes.
Now, Discovery has announced a split tube design for an additional $250. This gives the advantage of more compact form when transporting it than the solid tube, and the advantage that you can move individual components of less weight. It might be enough to persuade me to break down and order up the 17.5". (Feel free to contribute through PayPal on the left of the page, if you want me to do this.)
UPDATE: Oh yeah, one more nice aspect of Discovery Telescopes: not made in the Slave Republic of China. American-made isn't such a big deal to me, although it's always nice to keep jobs at home, if possible, but sending any money to China--a nation with an abominable human rights record, and that is the nation most likely to go to war with the U.S. in the next thirty years--that is repugnant.
Stock Market Flying!
Wow! The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 181 points now! The Nasdaq Composite is up 47 points! Why, if this keeps up for another few months--it will be time to sell any remaining stocks.
Discrimination at Colonial Williamsburg
Eugene Volokh pointed me to this, but his permalinks aren't working yet, so.... Eric Muller recounts a recent unnerving experience at Colonial Williamsburg that raises important questions about how much a simulation of the past should be tempered by modern sensibilities:I spent the weekend with my family in Colonial Williamsburg, and had a troubling experience I thought I’d mention. (I’ll confess right up front that my own sensitivity probably plays a role in what was troubling. But I don’t think that entirely explains what was troubling.)
Professor Muller points out some genuine issues here about discrimination. Should Colonial Williamsburg being do this? Muller says,
...
They also run simulated trials at the courthouse, based on actual cases litigated in colonial courts....
My family and I were waiting for the 2:00 p.m. court session. At about five minutes before the hour a gentleman in period costume (he would turn out to be the courtroom bailiff) stepped in front of us to explain what we would be seeing. He explained that they would need some volunteers to serve as justices, and that these volunteers would be given the opportunity to participate (if they wished), both by asking questions and by voting on the outcomes (although he made clear that the cases were deliberately quite one-sided so that the outcomes would not really be in question). Good law professor that I am, I thought, “gee, this would be fun,” and I prepared to volunteer. Then the bailiff explained that the members of the panel of justices would have to meet the requirements of the period—they would have to be white, male, Protestant, over a certain age (I don’t remember what it was), and land owners. Then he said, “the law at the time would have required you to swear an anti-papist oath too, but”—and here he broke into a broad smile—“we’re not going to push it that far.” Many in the crowd laughed.
Then he asked for volunteers. He must have noticed the enthusiasm in my face, because he specifically pointed to me and asked if I wanted to participate. I was confused—had all of that stuff about the requirements for serving been a joke? He said nothing that indicated he wasn’t serious. And he’d even said that there was an eighteenth-century requirement that they weren’t enforcing—the anti-papist oath—so that led me to think that maybe they were serious about the other ones. Anyway, I answered him that I didn’t meet the requirements. (I’m Jewish.) “Thanks for being honest,” he said, and then turned to get other volunteers. (This too tended to suggest to me that they were serious about this.) When he was through, all of the volunteers up on the bench were white men. (Naturally I can’t say that they were all Protestant.)But here’s what I do know: legal or not, this is an extremely stupid thing for Colonial Williamsburg to be doing. In no other part of the park do they make any effort to have visitors personally experience (as opposed to simply hearing and learning about) the various race, gender, and religious discriminations of eighteenth-century Virginia. I was totally unprepared for the discrimination, and very insulted by it.
One could argue that this achieved the desired result: making him aware of how different eighteenth-century Virginia was. But I do agree with Muller that this is a very stupid way to simulate such a trial. The baliff could have explained what the requirements for being a justice back then were--but not asked for volunteers from the crowd. It would be all the way around much safer from a legal standpoint, and from a bad press standpoint, to have actors that Colonial Williamsburg employs, playing the part of the justices.
But here's the bigger question: do we want a historically accurate past presented? At Plimouth Plantation, they are speaking in early 17th century English--which takes a little getting used to. Obviously, we aren't going to have a real slave whipping at Williamsburg, and even a simulation would take away a certain amount of public acceptance. But how far do we alter the past to not offend the present? As I have suggested above, there are ways that Colonial Williamsburg could do this that would not be quite so offensive, without compromising the past. I am afraid of modern sensibilities corrupting such places, however, as happened in the early days of Colonial Williamsburg where black employees played "servants" not slaves.
Why A United States of Europe Isn't Going To Work
The Telegraph has an article about the proposed European Constitution:The draft of the constitution, which was presented in Brussels yesterday, includes plans for a common foreign policy, a legally binding charter of fundamental rights, control over economic and employment policies and the explicit primacy of EU law over member states for the first time.
Now, your first reaction might be, "What's the big deal? The thirteen American colonies managed to form one national government." One difference: the thirteen colonies, while they had some significant differences, also had an enormous amount in common, because of the shared heritage of English law. In every colony, there was a notion of jury trial, freedom of speech, the right to keep and bear arms, shared language (except for those pesky Germans in Pennsylvania), and a pile of other similarities. Even in the area of religion, where there was the most difference between the thirteen colonies, there was a shared Protestantism (with a grudging tolerance of Catholics and Jews). There simply isn't that level of shared values across Europe, in spite of what certain Europtimists would like to believe.
Although references to a "federal" Europe were dropped at Tony Blair's request, the Conservatives said the proposals would result in a loss of control over many areas of national interest.
David Heathcoat-Amory, the Tory MP on the European Convention, which is drafting the constitution, said it amounted to "a European state with a European government".
UPDATE: The Guardian has a copy of the draft European Constitution. The U.S. Constitution, dull as it is, is a masterpiece of engaging writing by comparison.
No-Knock Raids
Instapundit points to a New York Post editorial about the problem with no-knock search warrants. This, unfortunately, isn't a new problem. Police serving no-knock warrants have a very bad record of killing people who didn't know (or at least could make a plausible case that they didn't know) that these were cops. Like Donald Scott, where the "drug raid" turned up no drugs, and seems more likely to have been an attempt to seize land that he wasn't interesting in selling to the National Park Service. There are so many similar cases over the years that I have read about, but not bothered to record--because they are so depressingly common.
What, exactly, are the reasons for a no-knock warrant? Overwhelmingly, they are drug raids. The theory is that if you serve a warrant in a civilized manner, the criminals will flush the drugs down the toilet. You will notice that this isn't an issue with say, a murder investigation--where it's pretty hard to flush a body down the toilet.
I agree that there are circumstances where a no-knock warrant makes sense, such as a suspected terrorist with biological or chemical weapons or (in the most nightmarish scenario) a nuclear weapon. There are circumstances where you suspect that a kidnapping victim is at risk of being killed while the police are ringing the doorbell. These are, however, very, very infrequent circumstances. The problem with widespread use of no-knock warrants is the large number of times that the police make mistakes: wrong address; the warrant is based on incorrect information from an informant; intentional deception by police officers.
If the quantity of drugs that the police are pursuing is so small that it can be flushed down the toilet while you are serving a warrant in a civilized manner, is it really worth the risks associated with a no-knock warrant? I don't think so. Let's reserve this dramatic and very dangerous (to both residents and police) procedure for the really serious crimes that warrant these extraordinary risks.
Nice Op-Ed Piece in the Wall Street Journal About The Assault Weapon Ban Renewal
In the Wall Street Journal is a very thoughtful piece about why the assault weapon ban renewal fight is more a show than a real struggle:It's no surprise that Republicans in Congress aren't eager to renew the ban on certain semiautomatic firearms due to expire next year. What's more interesting is why Democrats aren't raising much of a fuss about it.
The rest of the article explains that Republicans need to appear reasonable on this issue at the national level, and Democrats need to appear supportive of gun control for certain urban constituencies who care strongly about this subject.
Our suspicion is that the left has learned the hard way that gun control is a political loser. The first signs came in 1994, after Bill Clinton successfully urged the Democrat-controlled House and Senate to pass legislation outlawing 19 types of "assault" weapons. In November of that year, several Democrats who had supported the ban, including then-House Speaker Tom Foley of Washington, were voted out of office in the Republican sweep. Mr. Clinton later said crossing gun owners cost his party more than 20 seats. In 1995, the House voted to repeal the ban, which wouldn't even have passed without a sunset provision, but the effort died in the Senate.
Then came the red-state rout of 2000. Democratic political advisers like Donna Brazile, who managed Al Gore's presidential campaign, have acknowledged that the gun issue "played a large role" in Mr. Gore losing several rural states in 2000. Those include his home state of Tennessee, Arkansas and usually Democratic West Virginia.
This probably explains why a Democratic presidential candidate such as Representative Dick Gephardt of Missouri, who pushed hard for the gun ban nine years ago, has been so quiet during the current debate. Most everyone save the party's urban liberal bloc--folks like California's Dianne Feinstein, Michigan's John Conyers, New York's Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton--wants the subject to go away. Otherwise reliable Vermont liberal Howard Dean is explicit on the point that gun control is a lousy issue for Democrats.
What is happening here is a problem in political interest group and district granularity. Many Republican House members (and more than a few Democrats in the House) represent districts where there is no real political advantage to renewing the assault weapons ban--and there is a very real chance that voting for renewal will hurt them. Certainly, in much of the Western U.S. (except for California), voting for renewal is going to seriously upset about 10% of the voters, while no more than 2-3% will be happy about renewal--and much of that 2-3% isn't going to vote Republican, anyway.
At the U.S. Senate level, the situation is a bit more complex. There are plenty of states with large rural populations that regard any form of gun control with a jaundiced eye, but a large urban center makes a vote for renewal problematic. Will you lose more votes in Chicago than you gain downstate in Illinois? Does the gun control crowd in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh matter more than the votes you lose in the rest of Pennsylvania?
The President, being the only candidate who runs on a nationalbasis, has this same problem on even a larger scale. Signing the renewal will cause 5-10% of solid Republican votes to either waver, or sit out the 2004 election--disastrous for not only the President, but also Republicans down the ticket. At the same time, vetoing the bill will upset the clueless twits that occupy big cities, and who haven't the faintest idea what this bill effects. While many of this crowd are solid Democratic votes, and thus no loss for Bush, at least some significant number of these voters either regularly vote Republican, or crossover to Republican often enough to be a legitimate concern of the political strategists at the White House.
My take is that Bush, the only Republican who is running in 2004 who needs to get votes on a national basis is saying, "Sure I'll sign the assault weapon ban renewal" while quietly telling Republicans in Congress that he really doesn't want it on his desk. Republicans in the House, especially, have both an individual reason to not let this bill out of the House, and a general concern about Republican votes nationwide--for the reason I mention in the paragraph above--the serious gun rights voters who might lose enthusiasm for Bush if he signs a renewal.
