They Are Coming

Watching the RNC is like reading the Book of Mazarbul: "We cannot get out. The shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out. They are coming."

Say You Wanna Fauxvolution

Any radicalism that blinds you to differences that make a difference is reactionary in substance.

Re-Framing The Second Amendment For Gun Safety and Representative Policing

I have articulated this position over and over on Amor Mundi, and for years now at this point, but the heartbreaking nauseating unendurable spectacle of gun violence continues on and on and so I'll offer up my usual chestnuts once again: (one) I still think Democrats should re-frame and defend the Constitution's Second Amendment guarantee of armed but "well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State" as every citizen's right to accountable and representative police. (two) I still think commonsense gun safety regulations should include proposals to disarm police on the street -- the default of effective police departments in many comparatively democratic industrialized settings. (three) I will remind readers once again that anybody (which is well-night everybody, mind you) who agrees that private citizens should not possess thermonuclear devices already concedes the necessary premise to justify nearly all the gun safety regulation and military weapons bans the most fervent gun control advocates demand. (four) The terms of this debate must change to reflect both factual and political realities, because the frames through which we debate these issues now seem conspicuously to frustrate mobilization of a workable consensus on these issues.