Our New Era of Civil Liberties
“Chief! You’ve got to go out there and do something!”
Rookie Jones rushed into his superior’s office, disheveled, sweaty, all over the place, and shouting, something he normally wouldn’t do, not at his superior. Nor would he barge into the chief’s office, except —
“Do something about what?” Chief Tracy inquired tranquilly.
“A guy’s gunning down a crowd at the Plaza shopping mall! Gunning them down! You’ve got to do something! We’ve got to get out there! Now! Go go go!” Rookie Jones pointed out the open door as if the Plaza shopping mall were in the hallway.
“Was the crowd threatening the shooter in any way?” the chief inquired, not budging from where he leaned against his unkempt desk.
“He’s got a machine gun!” the rookie exclaimed frantically. “He’s shooting them down with a machine gun! A machine gun!”
The chief smiled. “Well, that’s all right.” He paused. “Now, anyhow.”
In total panic a moment before, Rookie Jones simply stared at Chief Tracy, limp and baffled. “It’s all — ?” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Sure,” the chief confirmed. “No need to worry about sawed-off shotguns, bump stocks, forced reset triggers, machine guns, none of that any more. The Supreme Court cleared it all up. It’s all okay for number one exercising number two.”1 He chuckled at his phrasing. Pretty good under the circumstances.
Now that the rookie had recovered his presence of mind, he lost it again. “He’s still out there! With a machine gun! Shooting people! Now! Now!”
“Like I said,” the chief repeated, “Exercising number two to defend number one. Can’t bring him in for that. Supreme Court cleared that up, too. A person has a God-given right to defend himself and his liberty, and in this age of extreme personal danger, the court also knows a person may require heavy-duty tools to do the job. If they need a machine gun or maybe a bunker buster, well, go for it. If they need some money for their equipment, the government just might help them out. If the equipment’s real heavy, the government might deliver.”
“He’s shooting — killing — it’s . . . it’s messy!” The rookie fumbled for words. “You’re not allowed to do that! There’s a law against that!”
“Jones, Jones, Jones, you’re going way overboard,” the chief attempted to pacify his new recruit. “It all depends on the circumstances.”
“Don’t forget the men,” Chief Tracy teased. “They count, too.”
The chief moved to an espresso machine in a corner of the office, set a tiny cup under the spigot, pressed a button. The rookie watched woodenly as a stream of fragrant coffee silently filled the cup.
“Here you go,” the chief shoved the tiny cup of espresso on its tiny saucer at him, then attended to producing a serving for himself.
“But,” the rookie muttered, cradling the saucer in his hand. Not knowing what else to do, he gulped the contents of the cup down, winced, then set the cup and saucer on the counter just to be rid of it. “I’ve got to go out there — ”
“You won’t,” Chief Tracy ordered. He, too, drained his tiny cup and set the crockery on the counter beside the rookie’s.
Stepping away in suspicion, the rookie glared at the chief. “Say, what is this? We’ve got a live gunman out there, gunning down shoppers, women, children —”
“Don’t forget the men,” Chief Tracy teased. “They count, too.”
“And men!” the rookie shouted. “Men! Women! Children! A bloodbath! We’ve to to get out there and —”
“Not anymore,” Chief Tracy said. Rookie Jones detected a hint of sorrow in his voice.
“Sit down, Jones. Let me fill you in.”
Jones dropped down onto a chair like a baggy sack of wet sawdust, his eyes riveted on his chief’s face. His boss didn’t look too well.
“We don’t interfere when someone is defending themselves period,” Chief Tracy instructed.
“He’s not defending himself,” the rookie insisted.
“Sure, he is,” Chief Tracy contradicted with rosy assurance. “He’s shooting them, isn’t he? Mowing them down, right? Mowing them down.”
The rookie felt he would jump out of his skin. “Yes! Mowing them down! Now! Right now!”
The chief spread his hands wide and smiled. “There, you see? Jones, you don’t realize that our understanding of justice has advanced these past few years. We now recognize that two specific actions — mowing people down and defending yourself — are the same thing. The more people you mow down, the more you’re defending yourself, see? What we have to do is wait until this guy feels safe, then we get active.”
“Get active how?” Rookie Jones asked outraged.
“You writing a report about the threat this guy faced down, me rounding up body bags.”
“I’m going out there and stopping this,” Jones shrieked, jumping to his feet.
“Well,” the chief drawled, “all that means is he’ll have to be defending himself against you, too.”
But Rookie Jones was gone, still raw, still ignorant, still reckless. The chief sighed and creaked himself to his feet to get another cup of coffee from that great machine. He’d had an awful lot of coffee that day. Hanging around the office defending liberty this new way was giving him an ulcer.
- The National Firearms Act was first enacted in 1934 to regulate firearms considered to be the most dangerous and to crack down on gangland crime in the Prohibition era. For gun rights groups’ progress in dismantling the NFA, see https://www.newsweek.com/trump-bill-sparks-gun-group-lawsuit-2094946. ↩︎