2nd Amendment and Gun Control

“The grassroots adherents of Second Amendment fundamentalism may not work in law enforcement, but they do forcefully shape the political culture that indirectly keeps this country’s uniquely harsh criminal justice policies in place. The same politics of fear that has incubated our punitive hyperincarceration state also directly feeds these citizen-protectors’ positive, if delusional, self-image as brave and useful men. This passionate, self-interested attachment to a vision of the United States as violent and chaotic—even in the face of historically low crime rates—continually blocks the drastic reform that our criminal justice system badly needs. Our robust, everyday gun culture is part of the reason why punishment and protection are not just simply the goals of law-enforcement agencies but have come to be the guiding paradigms for government policy in general. (Sociologist Jonathan Simon calls this “governing through crime”; Carlson refers to the “seepage” of the state’s policing duties into a generalized civic duty.)" Have Guns, Will Liberate via azspot.net