So, Guns.

In case you don't write for a DC-focused media outlet or socialize almost exclusively with political journalists or didn't watch the news or read a paper or something yesterday, you may not have heard that the SCOTUS overturned the District's ban on hand guns and trigger lock requirement. As a result, everybody is talking about gun control. While I agree with Ryan that overturning this particular law probably won't have startlingly strong repercussions, I am in favor of just about any gun control law. I simply do not understand the line of thinking that putting more guns into more hands will have a net result of less violence. Statistics back me up. Ezra's post pretty much sums up my opinion: you want to defend yourself and your family, but that moment, when you're awoken and find yourself face to face with an already-armed intruder, isn't the moment when you'll have the time, the wherewithal or the ability to reach for your own protection and face off.

I was talking to Spencer about this over IM this morning, from a more personal perspective. I've always favored gun control. I remember writing opposing editorials on the subject in the high school newspaper. But since my close friend was killed by intruders in November, who came to her house at night, knocked on her door, and shot her in the head in order to steal her car and computer, my feelings on the matter have intensified a bit, as you might imagine. There was nothing Jayne could have done. Having a gun in her home would not have kept her any safer. People fancy themselves action heroes, who'd hear an intruder coming and have the quickness, the agility and the skill with a gun to get to them before the intruder got to their children... or something. It just doesn't seem to me that that's a realistic perception of how things would happen. It's not how things have happened in any real life story I've ever heard. I'm sure there are cases of success, they're just not in my personal sphere of experience's majority. And if guns weren't so easy to buy in Virginia, they might not have ended up in the hands of the men who killed Jayne. Here are a few more things on the subject that Spencer said over IM to me, that are intelligent and worth sharing:

"One of Pelecanos' books is about gun violence. About how stupid anti-gun control arguments neglect the basic fact of how much more lethal all street crime is when guns are available versus when they're not. Basically, it's only an argument made by people for whom actual gun violence is pure abstraction. Those who do tend to seek a total abolition by whatever means necessary,

or are gangsters."

I have lots of friends and loved ones who feel very strongly in opposition to gun control, but this is one issue I just can't see the other side of. Fewer guns, and more tightly controlled guns, mean fewer opportunities to use them and injure or kill people. That seems pretty clear to me.