Writing about terrorism and civil liberties issues has made me really skeptical about instant legislative solutions to problems, and following an incident like the shooting in Tucson, there’s a very human impulse to ask what can we do differently. The problem is that perfect security is unattainable, and the effort to obtain it can actually lead us to making some dumb decisions, like bringing back the fairness doctrine, trying to regulate criticism of politicians, or even passing what David Dayen has appropriately named the “No Guns Near Peter King Act of 2011.”
There are some options that seem less dumb than others–banning extended magazines for example–but less politically feasible. I’m also not all that sold on the idea that banning extended magazines would do that much good–the availability of weapons in the U.S. makes the risk of something like Tucson something we just have to live with. There’s an individual constitutional right to bear arms, and there’s no getting around that. So I’m actually somewhat sympathetic to the point Jacob Sullum is making here:
The urge to do something in the wake of such a horrible crime is understandable but dangerous, as the grieving father of Christina Green suggested in a Today show interview. “In a free society,” he said, “we’re going to be subject to people like this. I prefer this to the alternative.”
Regardless of the immediate policy merits of each response though, the impulse to immediately change things in the name of security is I think one we have to resist, because panic leads to bad conclusions. While I have different opinions about the merits of banning extended magazines and passing legislation eliminating rights against self-incrimination for suspected terrorists, right now they’re coming from a similar emotional place.
