Albert Provocateur: Good for the Goose

Today’s society is in a constant state of flux. We move faster today than ever before, what with new advances in communication and society’s incessant need for instant gratification. Laws, too, must change with the times, being constantly adapted to new contingencies, while at the same time maintaining certain unalienable principles. Indeed, life has become complex, and perhaps laws should be enacted to keep pace with those complexities. It is obvious that any statute or law enacted cannot possibly be applicable to a multivariate playing field, but nonetheless must maintain a certain degree of malleability in both application and interpretation, in order to provide for a modicum of simple justice in a world tinted by shades of gray. Some examples will serve to bear out this point.

Let’s take, for example, the case of handgun laws and registration. While states in the Midwest and Northeast of the United States have adopted a particular negative posture in their regard, said point of view is not applicable to other areas of our great nation, where handguns and rifles are viewed as a necessary quotidian tool, in much the same manner as an automobile jack is to the trunk of our cars. While a jack is not something we think about on a daily basis, we are grateful for its place in our vehicles, when the time comes for that unexpected change of the “rubber guard.” Perhaps handgun laws should be viewed in the same light, providing a certain lenience and understanding in their application to those instances, individuals, and areas of the country where a certain degree of deterrence on the part of the common citizenry is warranted. While it is certain that the closed living spaces of the Midwest and Northeast, with their higher populations and greater numbers and visibility of law enforcement personnel, demand a stricter code of application and enforcement of handgun laws, areas of the West, Southwest, and Northwest of our great nation require perhaps a looser interpretation, if not an all together different codification of those laws. The matter is complicated, but adapting handgun laws not only to a changing society but also to changing demographics, geography, and population migrations just makes good sense.

On the other hand, lest we forget their potential to rain on parades, it goes without saying that handguns are an all but necessary evil. In 2007, for example, a total of 12,632 people in the United States were murdered with firearms, and it is estimated that 48,676 were treated in hospitals for gunshot wounds received in assaults. Now, we must ask ourselves, how many of our troops placed in harm’s way have succumbed to the power of the black powder? It appears that our civilian casualties far outweigh their body bag count. Physicians, in particular, are well aware that gun violence is a major public health concern, and one that hits home not only in the torso, but also in the pocketbook. It has been estimated that society bears the brunt of annual gunplay to the tune of over $100 billion.

Cries of “self-defense” echo throughout the land, and the great State of Texas holds some preeminence in that regard. For years now, we have seen Texans raise their collective fists in outrage and heard their collective cry, if not roar, of defiance, when Northern politicians have only alluded to the possibility of stricter control of their handguns. The argument of the Lone Star State’s vast gun-toting population has been that every man and woman has the right to bear arms and defend his or her homestead against possible invasion from without. Laws have been enacted to guarantee this right to the homeowner, and jurisprudence teaches us that test cases in Texas have always favored the defender’s use of force to protect family. In fact, there is a running joke in Texas that if someone violates your property and trespasses, you are to shoot first, ask questions later, and be sure to drag the body into your home, in order to cut your losses. Should an ambitious prosecuting attorney decide to make an example of your rush to judgment and violence, hold firm, as the National Rifle Association (NRA) will most certainly come to the rescue. Now, while that explanation of Texas law may be slightly exaggerated, statistics show that retail sales of firearms appear to corroborate the cultural wisdom of a large-scale Texas vigilante movement. Cross-border violence, with Mexican neighbors to the south of the Texas border, has also fueled the flames of the local and national gun lobby.

The two instances and laws mentioned above appear to confirm a tendency to adapt laws to current societal and cultural trends, in their enactment, applicability, interpretation, and enforcement. It nonetheless should be realized, however, that there are dangers inherent in a body of laws that is dynamic and in a constant state of interpretive flux. Referring back to our previous examples, without a uniform legislative standard of handgun availability, purchase, registration, transport, use, and storage, we run the risk of “returning to the future” and transforming ourselves into trigger-happy patriots with sophisticated weaponry that our forefathers could not have imagined in their wildest dreams. Also, who speaks for the “little people,” in other words, those innocent bystanders who are wounded, maimed, and killed by stray bullets that false pride and fear coerced us into firing at the sound of a creak, crack, or scratch in some far off place in our homes in the middle of the day or night. Many an innocent bystander out on the sidewalk or street has paid the ultimate price for devil-may-care interpretation, implementation, and justification of a Bill of Rights that perhaps is too antiquated to be applied in its letter to a 21^st century population of descendants who face challenges all together different from those of their forefathers.

So, it must be said that laws that are too strict in their vision do as much damage as those too loose for their and society’s own good. Society and even culture changes on a continual basis, and perhaps laws themselves, if not in their immediate substance, at least in their interpretation and application, must be constantly molded and adapted to meet the ever-changing social challenges of melting-pot population dynamics. While the backbone of a federal law must be as straight in Nevada as it is in New York, the lengths and breadths of its limbs can be as diverse as a population’s body shapes and sizes. When it comes to law and white shirts or blouses, one size does not fit all. A slight modification or a trip to the tailor, however, can make us all presentable, and then we can truly say that what’s good for the goose is, indeed, good for the gander.

Albert Provocateur

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Good for the Goose

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