[lbo-talk] Where is the left argument for gun rights?

[Maladvocate]

Several here have agreed that gun rights are mostly unimportant, a
distraction. One went so far as to call the issue "a fake debate" and
"intellectual and political clutter." Another more or less claimed that the
second amendment is a tool invented by racists. I find that latter claim
fairly incomprehensible. Blue Laws in the south, segregation, and all
manner of other things can be attributed to racism but the second amendment
is, among other things, codified from the English common law right to
self-defense, which predates American slavery by centuries.

My sources tell me that two thirds of US citizens support the second
amendment, even if a narrow majority believe stricter gun control is
needed. Where does that leave the left? Ignoring the issue, which allows
the anti-gun liberals to fill the void. The end result is that a majority
of US citizens think that the left is as anti-gun as those liberals
themselves. This "fake debate" is a very real stumbling block to educating
and recruiting pro-gun rights people who want government kept out of their
very social Social Security and Medicare programs, and other people.

Here is another take on anti-gun liberals, monopolies on force,
squeamishness at the "machismo" of actually using force to protect self and
others, and why the left should take a stronger stance against the anti-gun
agenda that has been prepared for it by anti-gun liberals.

http://www.thepolemicist.net/2013/01/the-rifle-on-wall-left-argument-for-gun.html

--ma