Purposes and unintended consequences
Over the years, I haven’t agreed with the NRA on every issue. I have supported efforts to have NICS background checks apply to gun sales at gun shows. I recognize that gun shows are enjoyed by millions of law-abiding Americans. I do not support efforts by those who seek to regulate them out of existence. But I believe an accurate, fair and instant background check at guns shows is a reasonable requirement. I also oppose efforts to require federal regulation of all private sales such as the transfer between a father and son or husband and wife. I supported campaign finance reform because I strongly believed our system of financing campaigns was influencing elected officials to put the interests of “soft money” donors ahead of the public interest. It is neither my purpose nor the purpose of the legislation to prevent gun owners or any other group of citizens from making their voices heard in the legislative process.
Emphasis mine. Allow me to offer a hypothetical. If I had been present and had had a legitimate need to put a hole into the facing of the podium McCain was using and, lacking any other tool necessary for the task, I decided to use my handgun to shoot the needed hole into place, would the fact that it wasn’t my purpose nor the purpose of the hole to blow the Senator’s leg off mean a damn thing? Of course not. Any reasonable individual would have seen the unintended consequence of my proposed action and would have suggested an alternative approach. There were plenty of reasonable people out here who warned that the BCRA would, in fact, result in keeping “any other group of citizens from making their voices heard in the legislative process.” Purpose be completely damned, folks - that’s exactly what it does.
The worrisome part in all of this is that the Senator knows full well, now, of that unintended consequence and it’s pretty clear that he intends to do precisely nothing about it.
It makes you wonder about his suggestion that NICS checks should be done for all gun purchases at gun shows, but that he would oppose such federal regulation of all private sales. His examples are pretty clearly those involving familial relationships. Would his efforts to enact this be that specific? Would they be written just a hair too tight and wind up doing exactly what he says his purpose would not be?
I can appreciate that the Senator doesn’t agree with the NRA all of the time, or anyone else for that matter. Who does? But when something I’ve done has undesirable consequences beyond my purpose, there’s an onus on me to fix the problem. I don’t see this from McCain and this lack of effort concerns me.
I’m a resident of northern Virginia, near Washington, DC. By profession, I’m a network engineer for a very, very large company in the IT field. I work with several federal agencies in my job. Politically, I lean conservative on most issues dealing with matters of law, finance, national security, and personal responsibility. I’m more moderate in the social arena but don’t confuse that with the so-called “liberal” stance. You’ll get the picture.
Ric, did you catch the “joke” made by Huckabee made toward Obama while speaking to the NRA? He later apologized, but he really should have known better.
Yeah, I did. I just didn’t have a chance to write about it until today. I agree, it was uncalled for and really, really stupid. (From both a gun-owner and political-junkie perspective.)