At first I wasn’t going to respond to the latest Brady screed, where I think they are trying to read way more into a figure of speech than was probably meant. But aside from that issue, I have no real disagreement there’s a difference between race, sexual orientation, and carrying a firearm. I’ve rejected in the past that discrimination against gun owners is on par with racial discrimination. But that’s missing the forest for the trees. What Brady suggests here not consistent with how we treat rights in society. Let’s look at the crux of their argument:
Why? Among other reasons, they are all impossible to comply with. All of those traits areimmutable characteristics of individuals and cannot be separated from the person. It is impossible to comply with those statements because if you exclude one, you exclude both.
The sixth and last statement, however, obviously does not fall into that category, because guns can be separated from people. A gun is a thing outside human identity.
But we protect many non-immutable characteristics in our society as well as immutable ones, don’t we? Especially when those characteristics are are expressions and behaviors protected in our constitutional structure. Religion, for instances, is non-immutable, yet we generally protect religious minorities in society in the same way we protect racial minorities. Would it not be outrageous if, say, conservative-christian-owned Chik-Fil-A decided to ban people wearing Wiccan symbols, yarmulkes, or hijabs, or refused to make reasonable accommodation for its employees who were religious minorities? These are things that can easily be left outside as well, and proponents could no doubt argue that it’s just the symbols, not the person they have a problem with. But I think most people who valued individual liberty would be appropriately appalled by a practice like this, and we would expect victims of this kind of discrimination to call it such, and to dress their arguments in civil rights language. That would be completely within the American experience when it comes to debating civil rights.
But it’s not just religion. While I would argue that homosexuality itself is an immutable characteristic, homosexual behavior certainly is not. What if Regal Cinemas, largely owned by christian conservative Philip Anschutz, decided that it would allow gays into its theaters, but you have to leave the gay behavior at home. No holding hands, snuggling next to each other in the theater seats, and for God’s sake, no kissing! Would we not expect gay right’s activist to complain of discrimination? Would we do a double take at them dressing themselves up in civil rights language? No, we’d expect it, and I suspect many of the Brady folks would join me in condemning it.
Oh, I’m sure the Brady’s will argue that “religious symbols and gay behavior can’t kill anybody,” but that’s really not that point. Whether they want to accept it or not, it’s very difficult to escape the language in Heller that strongly suggests that carrying a firearm, or bearing of arms, for personal protection is an individual civil right — recognizing the longstanding notion in common law that the right to protect ones own life is indeed fundamental. Why should we be any less outraged than other groups in my examples above, that a group like the Brady Campaign is essentially undertaking a campaign to use private rather than government coercion to frustrate the exercise of this right? A campaign that if successful will essentially mean that people who choose to exercise that right are essentially ostracized from society? It’s not about whether guns are dangerous or not, we all know they are, but the Bradys have lost the debate on keeping guns out of society because they are dangerous.
All our argument has been, all along, is that the Second Amendment deserves to be treated as seriously as other rights, and while I would not advocate government coercion to force private property owners to accept guns, that doesn’t translate into believing that public shame is outrageous, or out of place, as the Brady Campaign suggests. Discrimination against guns, in a society where the right to keep and bear a gun is a constitutional right, is discrimination against people — the people who choose to exercise their fundamental human rights.
