Burning Flags and Flying Bullets

Did anyone else notice the irony in the reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that struck down Washington, D.C.’s 32-year-old gun ban? George W. Bush, John McCain and Orrin Hatch, among others, lauded the Court’s decision as a landmark victory for a basic American right. Nothing surprising in that. But these same people have spent nearly twenty years decrying and seeking to overturn another landmark decision upholding a basic American right – the right to free speech.

The court’s gun ruling came nearly nineteen years to the day after it ruled that flag-desecration was protected speech under the First Amendment. That earlier ruling did not evoke the howls of joy we’ve seen these past few days. Instead, it led to numerous attempts to legally and legislatively bypass a decision some saw as a trampling of our sensibilities. (In another irony, the court seems to like to announce these decisions just prior to the 4th of July, where we can reflect on our newly-affirmed liberty by flying flags and sending untold tons of flaming gunpowder screaming into the sky, but I digress).

What I’d like to know is why the fear of burning flags, but not flying bullets? Clearly, the statistics since the court’s 1989 flag ruling paint a pretty stark picture. U.S. gun-related deaths: 567,020 (CDC numbers through 2005). Flag burning-related deaths: 0. To put those numbers into perspective, that’s about 138 private citizens killed for every U.S. soldier killed thus far in Iraq. In fact, it’s almost 150,000 more than we lost in all of WWII. Whatever one's view on guns, it's hard to argue that they don't pose a more immediate threat to one's personal safety than a burning flag.

I’d like to think the dichotomy of opinion arises from an understanding that the power of ideas, however repulsive, is greater than the power of brute force and therefore, more in need of suppression. Unfortunately, I think it’s just the opposite. The argument in favor of permitting undesirable speech requires an intellectually nuanced consideration that the argument in favor of guns does not. It’s a lot easier to understand the power of a gun.

That lack of nuance can manifest itself in self-destructive ways. It’s been said that when your only tool is a hammer, you see every problem as a nail. Likewise, when your only weapon is a gun, every adversary becomes a target. We see it on the streets of our cities and in the halls of power. Instead of turning to violence only as a last resort, we seek the preemptive strike. Kids are shot down because they make the mistake of riding their bike into the wrong neighborhood. Bombs are launched in order to “get them before they get us” – even when we’re not quite sure they’re really trying to get us.

I’ve always subscribed to the adage that the pen is mightier than the sword, which is why the pen has always been my weapon of choice. Unfortunately, it appears the sword is not only easier to use, but easier to protect.