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What Do Guns Say?
By PATRICK BLANCHFIELD
May 4, 2014, 6:00 pm
Earlier this month, in Bunkerville, Nev., representatives of the Bureau of Land Management withdrew from a tense standoff with supporters of Cliven Bundy, a rancher who owes the federal government over $1 million in unpaid fees for allowing his cattle to graze on public land. The hundreds of self-appointed militia and “states’ rights” activists who flocked to support Bundy, many in full tactical gear and openly carrying assault rifles, blockaded a federal interstate and trained their weapons on B.L.M. employees who sought to negotiate with the rancher and his family. Fearful of a pitched gun battle, the B.L.M. departed, leaving Bundy and his supporters to celebrate, emboldened, with a barbecue ...
On one level, the affair in Bunkerville can be seen as a vestige of Old West range-war mentality, opportunistically remixed with overtones of the militia movements of the early 1990s and an identity-politics firestorm that’s very 2014. But as a transaction between the state and citizens decided not by rule of law, nor by vote or debate, but rather by the simple presence of arms, Bunkerville is deeply troubling. Guns publicly brandished by private individuals decided the outcome. For all Bundy’s appeals to constitutional justification, what mattered at the end of the day was who was willing to take the threat of gunplay the furthest.
Bunkerville is simply the next step in a trend that has been ramping up for some time. Since the election of Barack Obama, guns have appeared in the public square in a way unprecedented since the turbulent 1960s and ’70s — carried alongside signs and on their own since before the Tea Party elections, in a growing phenomenon of “open carry” rallies organized by groups like the Modern American Revolution and OpenCarry.org, and in the efforts by gun rights activists to carry assault weapons into the Capitol buildings in New Mexico and Texas ... According to open carry advocates, their presence in public space represents more than just an expression of their Second Amendment rights, it’s a statement, an “educational,” communicative act — in short, an exercise of their First Amendment freedom of speech ...
But what does it mean, in a democracy that enshrines freedom of speech, to publicly carry a gun as an expression of political dissent? Toting a weapon in a demonstration changes the stakes, transforming a protest from just another heated transaction in the marketplace of ideas into something else entirely. It’s bringing a gun to an idea-fight, gesturing as close as possible to outright violence while still technically remaining within the domain of speech. Like a military “show of force,” this gesture stays on the near side of an actual declaration of war while remaining indisputably hostile. The commitment to civil disagreement is merely provisional: I feel so strongly about this issue, the gun says, that if I don’t get my way, I am willing to kill for it. As Mao understood, the formal niceties of political persuasion are underwritten by the very real threat of harm. “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” ...
On one level, the affair in Bunkerville can be seen as a vestige of Old West range-war mentality, opportunistically remixed with overtones of the militia movements of the early 1990s and an identity-politics firestorm that’s very 2014. But as a transaction between the state and citizens decided not by rule of law, nor by vote or debate, but rather by the simple presence of arms, Bunkerville is deeply troubling. Guns publicly brandished by private individuals decided the outcome. For all Bundy’s appeals to constitutional justification, what mattered at the end of the day was who was willing to take the threat of gunplay the furthest.
Bunkerville is simply the next step in a trend that has been ramping up for some time. Since the election of Barack Obama, guns have appeared in the public square in a way unprecedented since the turbulent 1960s and ’70s — carried alongside signs and on their own since before the Tea Party elections, in a growing phenomenon of “open carry” rallies organized by groups like the Modern American Revolution and OpenCarry.org, and in the efforts by gun rights activists to carry assault weapons into the Capitol buildings in New Mexico and Texas ... According to open carry advocates, their presence in public space represents more than just an expression of their Second Amendment rights, it’s a statement, an “educational,” communicative act — in short, an exercise of their First Amendment freedom of speech ...
But what does it mean, in a democracy that enshrines freedom of speech, to publicly carry a gun as an expression of political dissent? Toting a weapon in a demonstration changes the stakes, transforming a protest from just another heated transaction in the marketplace of ideas into something else entirely. It’s bringing a gun to an idea-fight, gesturing as close as possible to outright violence while still technically remaining within the domain of speech. Like a military “show of force,” this gesture stays on the near side of an actual declaration of war while remaining indisputably hostile. The commitment to civil disagreement is merely provisional: I feel so strongly about this issue, the gun says, that if I don’t get my way, I am willing to kill for it. As Mao understood, the formal niceties of political persuasion are underwritten by the very real threat of harm. “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” ...
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/what-do-guns-say/?_php=true&_type=blogs&module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=The%20Stone&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs
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