I think you should write up an essay on this topic and publish it somewhere, if you have not done so already.
When I asked the question why there appear to be few prominent Second Amendment liberals and leftists (excepting the CounterPunch duo of Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair), I was in part thinking about Bowling for Columbine, in which Michael Moore seems to oscillate between leftist investigations about class warfare -- in which demonization of working-class Black men and the "war on crimes" have played a major part -- and the liberal big-government desire to control gun ownership in fear of working-class men in general, at the cost of violation of civil liberties.
And it was Moore's big-government liberal instinct -- rather than leftist opposition to "class warfare from above" -- that came through in his endorsement of Wesley Clark:
<blockquote>5. On the issue of gun control, this hunter and gun owner will close the gun show loophole (which would have helped prevent the massacre at Columbine) and he will sign into law a bill to create a federal ballistics fingerprinting database for every gun in America (the DC sniper could have been identified within the first days of his killing spree). He is not afraid, as many Democrats are, of the NRA. His message to them: "You like to fire assault weapons? I have a place for you. It's not in the homes and streets of America. It's called the Army, and you can join any time!" (Michael Moore, "I'll Be Voting For Wesley Clark/Good-Bye Mr. Bush," <a href="http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2004-01-14">January 14, 2004)</blockquote>
I was also thinking of a much-maligned attempt on the part of Ralph Nader to run an independent campaign working with not just the Green Party but also the Reform Party. As it happened, the attempt failed, but, despite many liberals' and leftists' attempt to brandish the Pat Buchanan bogeyman, I thought that the combination made sense for the 2004 campaign, if not for all time. The Green Party is the strongest in California and also relatively well organized in Minnesota, New York, and Wisconsin among other places, but it is hardly organized at all in the South. In contrast, the Reform Party has ballot lines in Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana and South Carolina. So, the strengths and weaknesses of the two parties are complementary. It would have been interesting if Nader and Camejo had gotten on both the Green Party and Reform Party's ballot lines, as populists who stand up for the Second Amendment because the protection of the Second is integral to the defense of the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments.
Cf.
<blockquote> Pennsylvania sentencing guidelines for illegal gun possession range from probation to a prison sentence of at least three years for people with a history of violent crime. In contrast, the federal minimum sentence for having a gun while selling drugs is five years on top of the drug charge, and those with a history of drug arrests get 15 years without parole, even if they never drew the weapon.
Defense attorney Ralph Karsh said a young man caught with a gun and crack cocaine for the second time came to him shell-shocked. He had been told the three-year state sentence he expected is now potentially 15 years in federal prison. (<http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_203987.html>)</blockquote> -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>