I alluded to this earlier, but it merits its own discussion: I am standing up for my right to not get shot. Sure, it is not expressly stated in the Bill of Rights that I have a right not to be the unwitting victim of someone who forgot to clear his chamber before carrying his gun in public, but I shall posit that I have the right nonetheless. Call it a penumbra right, or one of the rights guaranteed by the Ninth Amendment that the Supreme Court is too lazy to address.

Consider this: no one, to my knowledge, has ever successfully challenged a conviction for unlawful discharge of a firearm on Second Amendment grounds. Laws prohibiting homicide, several centuries of jurisprudence would suggest, trump any individual’s right to bear arms (whether you can keep your gun after a criminal conviction is a different question, and has been subject to much legal wrangling.) See, no one is seriously threatening to come and take your guns. It is both unconstitutional and ridiculously impractical. The NRA says that to get you to buy more guns. It’s not a conspiracy, because it’s really obvious what the NRA is doing.

Moving on to individual discussion about guns, if your first response to any critical commentary on guns is to loudly assert your Second Amendment rights, you sound like a jackass, and I no longer feel constrained by politeness to refrain from telling you that you sound like a jackass. I’m not saying you can’t own guns. I’m not even necessarily saying that you can’t carry your gun around. What I am saying is that you have no right to expect me to assume, on sight, that you are one of those “law-abiding” gun owners. Continue reading →