Note: This is a series of emails that I exchanged with my uncles Michael and Jeff in 2018 under the subject “2nd amendment, an open letter”. Many other family members were CC’d on this exchange. The content of these emails are unredacted, though a few email signatures have been removed and an article has been linked to rather than included.

This is a snapshot of my views at the time and the kinds of conversations I was having with people about guns in early 2018. There are things I’m not proud of in this email exchange. I think I took particular offence to neither of my uncles attempting to engage with my arguments or understand my point of view and I became frustrated. By the end of this conversation, despite my best intentions, I had turned this into an argument rather than a discussion.

This is a VERY LONG post. If you would rather skip it, the next post is here

From Michael - Thu, Mar 29, 2018

Dear Eric,

It was good to talk to you a few days ago. Again, good job being actively involved in local Democratic Party meetings and discussions. I have begun reading “Gunsight” by Winkler and it is very interesting. Thanks for the recommendation.

The following column (below my note) is from today’s NYT opinion page - written by recently retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. It is eloquent and, agree or disagree, i think you will find it interesting and relevant.

The current argument over gun control reminds me of the philosophical battle long ago between Gifford Pinchot and Aldo Leopold, as together they created the U.S. National Forest Service and saw to the early designation of public lands, to be managed by the feds for the benefit of all Americans. Aldo held that there was a great need to truly protected lands, and that the national forests should not be used for commercial purposes. Gifford believed that the lands in question were, and would be, vast, and that no amount of logging, mining and livestock production on those lands could ever have much impact. I spent much of 12 years exposing the fact that our national forests were being wiped out, primarily by logging. But one can’t judge Gifford Pinchot to harshly. At the time, it took two men a full day or more to cut down a big tree. And moving the freshly cut log to a mill could take a week or more. In his time, i think Mr. Pinchot was essentially correct. But modern equipment changed all of that. Now, a few men can clear cut 40 acres of relatively big trees (pretty much all of the truly big trees are long gone) in a couple of days. Bring in a massive feller-buncher and the time required drops further. Now our species is struggling to keep greed empowered by modern equipment from destroying the worlds forests. The consequences are already dreadful, and continue to mount. Similarly, the lethality of modern firearms bears little resemblance to the relatively puny power of the firearms of the 1780’s.

When the Bill of Rights was written, muskets were the most modern personal weapons that existed. One shot. Then at least one minute to reload, longer if the shooter was not highly practiced in the art of reloading a musket. Compare that to an AR-15 and you can see my thought here. Tragic as it would be for someone to murder a child with a musket, it is a completely different order of horror for one evil or insane person to murder 50 or more unsuspecting, unarmed civilians in 5 minutes or less. So, do i blame the NRA and their supporters in Congress for the unspeakable horrors in Las Vegas and Parkland and so many other places around our bleeding country? most definitely, i do.

You know that i have great respect for you Eric. And that will remain the case whatever your present or future thoughts on the subject of gun control. For myself, i agree wholeheartedly with Justice Stevens, and i will support repeal of the 2nd amendment because i believe that at present it causes far more harm than good. No other modern nation suffers such slaughter of innocents at the hands of fellow citizens, and that is because there are no (or almost no) such weapons in the hands of average citizens.

All best wishes,

Michael

From Eric - Thursday, Mar 29, 2018

Michael et al.:

For those of you just joining our conversation, let me give you a little background. Last Saturday, I spoke to my local Democratic Party as they crafted their platform for the next 2 years. I organized a group of relative strangers who shared my views, and together we made up more than 10% of the local caucus. Our goal wasn’t truly to change the platform (we knew we were a minority), but we wanted to put the party on notice that we think their extremely single-minded approach to gun restriction is losing them voters. We let them know that they wouldn’t have the votes of liberal gun owners like us if they continue to treat gun owners as enemies instead of potential allies. We were there to remind them: preventing and ending gun violence is something all Democrats support; broadly defined gun bans are not.

Michael and I spoke before this caucus, which is the conversation he’s talking about here.

I respect the opinion given by Former Justice Stevens, both in his opinion piece and in his dissent in Heller. However, it’s a continuation of a legal argument - the “Gun Fight” from the title of Adam Winkler’s book - that keeps trapping the country in arguments that go nowhere. Former Justice Stevens seems to think that’s a worthwhile conversation, but I disagree. I think his comments are quite frankly harmful because they maintain the fiction that preventing gun violence is an Us vs. Them issue centered around the 2nd Amendment.

The real, important conversation that we need to be having can’t be framed this way if we want to make any progress. I’ve had the old conversation many times now, using the same pro-gun responses I always use to the same anti-gun talking points that I always hear. I’m sick of it, and I think most people are. If you came to this thread for a knock-down, drag-out fight about the virtues of firearms ownership and the evils of globalist gun confiscation, Alex Jones is that way →

We have to make progress here the same way we make progress anywhere else. That starts with stating what our goals are, and then figuring out the best way to achieve that goal with the least amount of friction (both political and practical). I would bet that Michael and I (and most of you) share the goal of reducing gun deaths in this country. I’d also bet that Michael and I could agree on sane ways to achieve that goal that don’t raise anyone’s hackles. Here’s a few, research-backed policy proposals that have nothing to do with new gun control:

  • Use a risk-factor assessment like the one used in Wilmington, Delaware to identify the people most at risk for being involved in gun violence. Pair them with the right outreach for their risk factor to give people more access to public resources.
  • Employ “violence interrupters” like those employed in Chicago and Baltimore to de-escalate conflicts that are likely to end in violence, and to teach proper conflict resolution skills.
  • Prosecute those who lie on a 4473 form in an attempt to purchase a gun illegally. (Included in Chapter VIII)

I support all of these. The group I organized last Saturday supports all of these. Most Democrats (and most non-partisan liberals) would likely support these as well. That means these are politically low-friction proposals, at least among those of us who are willing to trust the science on it. They’re likely a harder sell to some Republicans, but you can make that sale without also needing to fight the NRA (and gun owning Democrats) for every inch.

This is not to say that I don’t think we can talk about gun control. In fact, I think we have to talk about that too, but we have to do it in a way that respects the fact that guns are likely here to stay. I recently read a fantastic opinion on this, hosted at https://thepathforwardonguns.com/. The basic gist is that compromise is possible if we remember we’re talking to humans who want to make progress.

I support all of these proposals as well. I don’t know whether there’s broad political support for this kind of compromise, but I’m certainly ready to have Swiss-Style universal background checks and a concealed carry permit that works in Oregon.

All of the proposals I support assume that our common goal is to end and prevent gun violence. I think that’s the best possible interpretation of everyone’s intentions, and I’m willing to entertain any reasonable proposal from anyone who comes to the conversation with that goal in mind. Extremists on both sides have a stake in inflating the rhetoric, and it’s up to us to leave that behind so we can have human conversations that seek real change.

Michael, I believe that you are coming to this conversation with the best of intentions. I believe that you and I would both support some things I’ve proposed here, and I believe we have a chance to actually make a difference if we speak out for specific changes we want to see. Please understand that by suggesting we repeal the 2nd Amendment, you don’t sound like you have the best intentions in mind, and you sound like you buying into the idea that this conversation has to be one where there’s no possible compromise.

If your goal is reducing the scope of the right to lawfully own firearms for the purpose of self-defense in America, expect me to respectfully disagree, from my soap box, at the ballot box, and in the jury box.

But if your real goal at the end of the day, like mine, is to reduce gun violence, then our feelings on the 2nd Amendment are a minor detail. Let’s leave that detail behind and have a more productive conversation.

Love,

-Eric Stewart

From Jeff - Fri, Mar 30, 2018

Eric and Michael:

I have no real authenticity in camping on your excellent discussion/debate concerning gun control. I don’t presently own a gun, although my father was a lifetime member of the NRA and was a competitive marksman who built his own guns, loaded his own ammunition and brought my sister and I into gun safety and competitive marksmanship early in our lives. He was a gun collector and I inherited his substantial collection of vintage pistols and rifles when he died. With that said I was never truly a “gun guy” and never hunted or pursued shooting after his passing more than 20 years ago. With that said, however, I respect people’s interest in owning, collecting, and using guns in safe and socially justifiable ways. When I say “socially justifiable” I mean in ways that don’t jeopardize the lives of others except in self-defense.

This leads me to a philosophy of guns for pleasure should not be arms of war. We outlawed machine guns in the United States because their principle use in society was for killing people. As far as I know there were no marksmanship competitions arranged by organizations supporting the safe use of guns for machine guns. If the right to bear arms is translated in a society to the access to any type of fire arm no matter its intended use then I believe we open the doors to exactly what has happened the past twenty years in this country- increasing the probability of death associated with the easy access to arms of war.

I am troubled that all the major issues in our country today seemed to be polarized by the view that they have black or white, yes or no answers to all difficulty questions be it guns, abortion, civil rights, freedom of speech, access to health care, oversight of banks, consumer safety, internet regulation, taxation, education, and environmental regulation. I don’t believe that any of these issues have simple binary answers, but rather have a spectrum of potential regulations depending upon the specific nature of the issue and the context of its application. For me this is true for gun control as it is for all the other issues that confront our society today which it seems our society is looking for “THE answer” as if there was one approach that could be successfully applied to all variations of the issue. To me it is like the concept of “the perfect diet” which begs the question of “for whom?” in that we know that there is great variation among different individuals in how they respond to any one diet. The food of one can be the poison of another.

We now have statistical methods available to evaluate relative risk associated with virtually anything that we can collect data on. This goes for gun use well as deforestation, increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, increasing mean global temperature, smoking, alcohol and narcotic drug use, seat belt use, immunization, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, and an infinite list of other variables that affect the quality of both individual and societal health, We have to use good judgment based upon this understanding of relative risk to know how to give up something to get back net value for society. We have to resist our society becoming a victim of what Garrett Hardin termed “the tragedy of the commons” where we were so concerned about imposing regulations on the use of the commons by the individual that we set in motion the loss for all.

So my somewhat naïve perspective on the “gun control issue” is simple- we must prohibit for the good of all the access by the general public to guns of war. If a person wants to have access to this type of armament then they should join the military. I believe it to be a “tragedy of the commons” for society to allow all people to have access to any type of firearm or gun they would like, and this type of logic should be applied to all other social issues that we now face in determining risk-benefit to the society as a whole.

Respectfully in support of the discussion,

Jeff

From Eric - Fri, Apr 6, 2018

Jeff,

I appreciate your perspective on this, and I’m glad you chimed in. You and I have talked in the past briefly about how we view balancing the rights of the individual vs the good of society, and I’m not surprised to find your feelings on gun control align well with your overall view on that balance.

It sounds like we both agree that the legitimate ownership and use of firearms must be centered around socially justifiable uses like self-defense. However, people’s needs and use cases for firearms are different. Just as the concept of “the perfect diet” must be tailored for an individual, so does “the best weapon for self-defense”. No particular firearm can be “the best” for every person. Where there is the greatest consensus in the firearms community about the firearms particularly suited to socially justifiable uses, those also happen to be guns that some might consider to be guns of war.

As I said in my last mail, I think that discussing which types of weapons should be banned is not a particularly productive area of discussion. However, I think I’ve come to that conclusion because I’ve had that conversation so many times, and always with people who don’t have a full understanding of the weapons they are proposing we ban or the laws that currently regulate those weapons. So, in the spirit of education rather than argument, I’ll talk a bit about firearms and the laws that govern them.

Actions

Firearms are mostly defined and regulated by their action - the mechanism that loads and fires the ammunition. There are many different actions available for firearms today, but the most common are muzzleloaders, manual-actions (like a pump- or bolt-action), semi-automatics, and automatics.

Muzzleloaders

These are black-powder firearms that must be loaded with powder and a projectile each time they are fired. Examples include this Kentucky Long Rifle and the SilencerCo Maxim 50. This weapons technology has been around since the 16th century.

These weapons (even those manufactured in the present day) are considered by the ATF to be “Antique Weapons”. They have the fewest regulations, and in some cases even those who are convicted of a felony may legally possess these weapons. This is the only type of weapon that can be shipped to your doorstep without a background check, however that requires a special Curios & Relics license. No state bans these weapons.

Manual Actions

These are the pump- and bolt-action rifles and shotguns most people associate with hunting. These firearms require manual, physical actions to load a cartridge before it can be fired by pulling the trigger. Examples include this Mossberg 500 and this Tikka T3. Single-action pistols like this Ruger Single Ten are also in this category. This weapons technology has been around since the 19th century.

These firearms typically have an internal magazine (some up to 20 rounds), but some can accept detachable magazines.

Federally, the ATF considers these to just be “firearms”. A background check is required to purchase these (since the Gun Control Act of 1968). These weapons are not banned in any state. (to the best of my ability to research), though for those rifles which can take a detachable magazine, there may be regulations on how many rounds that magazine can hold.

Semi-Automatics

These firearms can fire and load a single round for a single pull of the trigger. No formal data exists on the firearm most commonly used for self-defense, but this is the type of action near-universally recommended by those in the firearms community for self-defense. Almost every police officer in America carries one of these daily. Examples include this Browning 1910, this M1 Garand, the Glock 19 favored by police, and the infamous AR-15. The technology for these weapons has also been around since the 19th century.

These firearms typically accept an external magazine, but some use an internal magazine and/or accept clips (like the M1 Garand).

Federally, the ATF considers these to just be “firearms”. A background check is required to purchase these (again, since 1968). No state currently bans these, though for those rifles which can take a detachable magazine, there may be regulations on how many rounds that magazine can hold.

From 1994-2004, there was a Federal Assault Weapons Ban that regulated some certain features of these weapons, but which did not make this type of weapon substantially more difficult to obtain (or substantially less deadly). Some states still have regulations that mirror the old Federal law.

Automatics

These firearms can fire and load multiple rounds for a single pull of the trigger. These firearms are colloquially known as “machine guns”. Examples include this the Maxim machine gun, the M249, and all the models of the M16. The technology for these weapons has also been around since the 19th century.

These firearms typically accept an external magazine, or are belt-fed.

Federally, the ATF considers these “machine guns”, and their possession is regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934. They are not illegal for civilians to possess, and they require a tax stamp to own (which requires a background check). Only certain gun dealers with a special license may transfer or sell these. The ATF maintains a registry of every owner of a machine gun.

These are difficult to acquire because the Firearm Owners Protection Act closed that registry in 1986, creating a limited supply of legal machine guns. No newly-manufactured machine guns can be purchased or transferred by civilians (with the exception of police departments).

Some states outright ban these for non-police civilians (like Washington State, for instance).

I know this seems long-winded and overly technical, but this is the bare minimum you should know about guns and gun laws today if you want to have a meaningful discussion about what types of guns should be banned or regulated. This overview hardly scratches the surface, but it’s a basic framework you can start from.

So now that we’re starting on more or less the same page, I think it’s worth posing two questions:

  1. Are there any guns with no socially justifiable uses?

  2. What guns are “guns of war”?

I’ll give my answers here, but I’d love to hear where you draw the line (and why).

Are there any guns with no socially justifiable uses?

No. Whether it’s hunting, collecting, self-defense, or target practice, all types of guns have some socially justified use. Some guns obviously aren’t particularly suited to some uses (you would no more hunt with an M249 than you would defend yourself with a Kentucky Rifle), but I would argue that every gun does have a socially justifiable use.

Where I think there’s room for regulation is around how they are used, and whether that use is consistent with the purpose best suited for their design. I think outright bans on ownership of any type of gun are uncalled for. I would absolutely support legislation that restricted the shooting of machine guns to professional gun ranges. I’d even support legislation that restricted the transport of those weapons, and only allowed them to be transported to and from professional ranges. I think that’s a fair balance of the usefulness of that type of firearm to the danger it might pose to the public. (As a note here, since 1934 there appear to have been 2 homicides committed with machine guns - even though these sound especially dangerous, in practice they aren’t used in crimes)

I think many people are uncomfortable with citizens owning semi-automatic rifles (particularly the AR-15), but that technology is particularly suited to all sorts of socially justifiable uses. The US government certainly thinks so, since it established the Civilian Marksmanship Program, through which any US citizen can purchase a US Government Surplus Semi-automatic rifle from World War 2.

The AR-15 in particular is basically a lego set for firearms enthusiasts that allows them to tailor their firearm to the specific use they intend it for, whether that’s hunting, competition shooting, or self-defense. Here’s a great op-ed that goes in to more depth on the AR-15 if you’re interested.

What guns are “guns of war”?

All of them (but also none of them). Firearms technology is inherently driven by war. All those types of firearms actions I described above were initially designed for the purposes of war. Muzzleloaders were the firearm that Americans used to fight the Revolution. Apart from Muzzleloaders, every major firearm action I described above was in use in World War 1 and has remained in use in wars around the world until today.

Every single gun owned by a civilian can trace its roots back to a weapon of war. That doesn’t mean they get used that way. Here’s some data from way back in 1997 about the types of firearms that civilians own in the United States (the most recent I could find). At that time, there were an estimated 192 million guns in America. Today, most estimates suggest there are over 310 million guns in America, some of which are literally US Government surplus semi-automatic rifles from World War 2.

Clearly, most of those guns never kill anyone, or there would be far more than ~8,500 gun murders a year. Most of those guns are used responsibly, for socially justifiable purposes, by law-abiding people. All of them were (at some point in history) the most technologically advanced weapon of war that an individual could maintain and operate.

We could attempt to draw a line somewhere back in the 19th century and say, “this is the point where firearms technology became too dangerous to be owned by civilians”, but I think that line would largely be arbitrary. All guns are dangerous weapons of war (but almost none of them are used that way).

In search of a conclusion

I really hope you’ve taken the time to read what I wrote above about the current state of firearms and the regulations we have today. I hope some of it was new to you, and I hope that you feel it was presented fairly and with a minimum amount of bias.

I think our regulatory framework today is actually a very reasonable compromise between the rights of an individual to own firearms and the need to regulate dangerous weapons. I think it puts appropriate restrictions on who can own firearms, and how difficult it is to obtain certain types of firearms.

In terms of risk-benefit analysis, it certainly seems to me that allowing citizens to own firearms of all types is worth the risk. Most people who own guns don’t use them for wrongdoing.

You may disagree, and you have a right to (as long as you’ve done some homework first). We can keep disagreeing on that point as long as you want, because the discussion over gun laws has all the hallmarks of a religious argument, down to the “holy text” of the Second Amendment. I’m trying to push the idea here that there’s a better way that doesn’t involve butting heads.

In my opinion, we should be focusing on finding and fixing the causes of gun violence rather than blaming the tools. We should end the war on drugs and work to reduce income inequality. We should use the data to understand how to reach out to people who are at risk of committing gun crime. As I said before, I think these are goals we already have in common, and we can work together on these rather than getting stuck in a stalemate.

Love,

-Eric Stewart

From Jeff - Sun, Apr 8, 2018

Eric:

Your scholarship and coherent position on the issue of gun control is impressive. In the end I accept your right and privilege to hold, espouse and communicate your position. I personally do not share your conclusion about the gun issue in that philosophically I believe that I am am more inclined than you to accept the fact that I have to give up certain personal freedoms with hope that this sacrifice will help preserve the integrity of a free and equal opportunity society made up of people with vastly different backgrounds, ethnicity, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors.

With that said I find the philosophical underpinning of the gun control debate when contrasted to the debate concerning the solution to the drug addiction issue to be symbolic of the lack of a coherent vision of what the American people in the 21st century want of their democracy. On the gun control issue there is a belief by many, as you have pointed out, that the loss of personal freedom through any restriction in the availability of guns will not be successful in reducing the violent crimes associated with guns, and the solution to the problem is to focus on education, enhanced security in public places, improved standard of living and improvements in treating mental health issues. When looking at the outcome from the assault rifle legislation experiment from 1994 to 2004 in the USA it is clear that the impact on violent crime is equivocal. The 2007 Koper et al study looking at the impact of the 1994 legislation led to the conclusion that “although the 1994 ban was successful in reducing crimes with assault weapons, any benefits from this reduction are likely to have been outweighed by steady or rising use of non-banned semiautomatics with large-capacity magazines which are used much more frequently in crime than assault rifles”. This equivocal result is in contrast to the experience in 1996 in Australia where a more sweeping legislation banning semi-automatic and other military-style weapons resulted in Australia’s murder rate from guns from 1996-2004 to fall to 1 in 100.000 population which is 1/5 that of the USA, and the gun suicide rate to fall by 80%.

So there is room for debate based upon the data presently available as to how effective a ban on military style weapons would be in reducing gun-related deaths, but it is certainly reasonable to conclude that this is an open issue for the which the results in the United States could only be determined by an evaluation of a gun control law with appropriate focus on military style guns and large-capacity magazines for a length of time that would allow proper outcome statistics to be obtained.

I believe that this approach that places a measurable component of the increase in gun-related violence on the availability of military-style guns and large-capacity magazines is focused on the core problem having easy access to this type of armament. My reasoning is that in giving up a little of our personal freedom to buy any type of gun we would like for the test of a new policy of limited gun control makes sense based upon data presently available. I understand this approach is considered to be unacceptable to those who feel that the solution to the problem lies with better education, more security in public places like our schools, and management of mental health issues.

What I find as a philosophical contradiction when I think about this debate is that many people who hold that reducing the access to certain types of guns will not be successful in reducing gun deaths are the same people that believe that the solution to the drug addiction problem is in controlling the source through greater law enforcement. Their belief is that drug education, improving the standard of living and drug rehabilitation programs cannot be successful. They are wiling to give up a personal freedom to choose for the state to control the problem at the source. Why are people willing to give up their personal freedom of choice in the drug-related issue, but unwilling to give up some of their personal freedom as it relates to the gun-control issue? Could it be related at all to who the loss of freedoms is directed toward? If one reviews the incarceration rate for drug-related crimes blacks have six times the incarceration rate for drug-related crimes than that of whites. It seems that we have a sliding scale in the application of the “freedom of choice” concept.

It is my belief that as a country we have inconsistent application of the “personal freedom” concept depending upon who is affected by the loss of personal choice. There are many other examples of this beyond that of guns and drugs. The point that I am trying to make is that we already have a society in which the majority of people feel that they are willing to give up some personal freedoms for the health of the society at large. Given that there is no data anywhere in the world that indicates that improved education, better security, and improvement in mental health lowers gun-related deaths, it would seem that a true test of giving up a small amount of personal freedom for rational gun-control laws where we do have some encouraging data that this type of legislation makes a difference is worth the personal sacrifice just as society has for many other issues related to national safety and health.

Again with love and respect,

Jeff

From Eric - Mon, Apr 10, 2018

Jeff,

First, allow me to repeat my original point: if your real goal at the end of the day, like mine, is to reduce gun violence, then our feelings on the 2nd Amendment are a minor detail. Gun rights are a dividing issue, and that division is absolutely the wrong thing to focus on if we want to make progress. Especially on this issue, we are all mentally conditioned to fall into a team sports mentality and work against each other, when we should be striving to work together to solve problems. I’m guilty of this too, and I should not have added distractions to this discussion by going into the specifics of guns and gun laws. I apologize for being a bad example in that regard.

Please stop and read that paragraph again because that’s the most important thing I’d like to get across. We make progress when we’re united, not divided. My aim in talking to my local Democrats, and now to my family, is to point out where I think our common goals are and how I think we should pursue them.

The specific remedies I’m proposing to reduce gun violence are outside of the argument over the rights of the individual vs. the good of the public. We can disagree on that balance and still agree on the right next steps. To reiterate, I’m proposing:

These proposals all link to sources indicating that they would likely reduce gun violence. These are studies from many scholars of public health (and a report from the WA Attorney General), most of which were funded or published by the Centers for Disease Control.

I also support policies that are not (to my knowledge) supported by any peer-reviewed study, but which follow from transparent statistical analyses of publicly available data, such as reducing income inequality.

If we want to make progress we should focus our efforts in order of importance and the likelihood we can actually achieve our goals. I think further gun controls are less important (and less politically achievable) than outreach efforts to reduce gun violence, and I think both of those goals are less important than working to reduce income inequality. If your honest view is that gun control is more important than both of these, then I think more than just our views on the balance of individual rights vs. societal good are out of alignment.

Please note that I have not made the arguments that improved education, better security, and improvements in mental health would lower gun-related deaths. Yes, other people do think that, but those are not the proposals I’m making and I will not defend those straw man arguments.

Also note that I have not suggested that we should be willing to trade some freedoms for the public good but unwilling to trade other freedoms we personally hold dear. Yes, some people would suggest that. Those people don’t seem to me to have a coherent worldview, but they aren’t here to make arguments in their favor. Let’s not make arguments against them, both because they’re probably not listening and because we’d be unlikely to convince them of anything even if they were.

In my opinion, I do have a coherent worldview. I am not willing to give up my personal freedoms (or those of anyone else) in the case of gun rights, the rights to free speech, the right to birth control or abortion, or any similar rights to mental or bodily autonomy. I feel that way even about rights I don’t (or can’t) exercise, regardless of the demographic that might be most affected by any infringements. I have not advocated anywhere here that we, or any liberal-minded people, ought to parley with those who are fine with giving up some freedoms because the resulting laws disproportionately impact racial minorities.

It’s possible I’m in the political minority as someone who values individual rights this strongly. Bandwagon arguments that most people these days accept tradeoffs of freedom for public good aren’t going to convince me to change my mind (though perhaps age will change that). But make no mistake, I’m much closer to being a Democrat than a member of any other major party, including the Libertarian party. I believe in liberal goals like workers’ rights, single-payer health care for all, ending systemic racism, and regulating businesses for the common good. Even if I am in a political minority, I have made a good faith effort to reach out to the people I agree with most and to work with them to build a world we can both agree is better for that effort.

I think there are two ways to continue this conversation. On one hand, we can embrace the goals we have in common (whether they relate to gun violence or not) and strategize to achieve those goals together in ways we can all support. On the other hand, we can continue to discuss what divides us. I will gladly have either of those conversations with anyone, and I will continue to engage in a respectful manner in either case. I hope I’ve made it clear which avenue I consider more worthwhile.

However, if anyone here is really more interested in focusing on the gun rights debate, I think that conversation is better held in another forum where tone is more apparent and no one is getting email they won’t take the time to read. If that’s the discussion you’d rather have, feel free to take the last word here without any public rebuttal from me.

Love,

-Eric Stewart