Open Carry

There is a peculiarly American paradox that we treat with astonishing nonchalance: we do not trust our government to restrain the citizenry, nor trust the citizenry to behave peaceably on its own — and so we allow almost anyone to parade about in public armed to the teeth. It is the most curious act of civic distrust: an unstable triangle in which each corner eyes the others warily, finger on trigger.

Debates about guns in this country rarely reach the realm of political philosophy. They get swallowed instead by trivia: quibbling about the precise classification of an AR-15 or delivering civics lessons boiled down to slogans on T-shirts found on Militia Etsy. One might think a serious nation would ask what it means to inhabit a society where lethal power is carried openly in the checkout line.

Consider the police officer, whose life is bound to milliseconds of judgment. A private citizen strides past with a handgun at his hip or a rifle slung across his chest. Is the officer to inquire after his purpose? And if he does, will that be seen as tyranny? We have created the world’s least enviable profession: one tasked with protecting life in a place where everyone is presumed armed, yet no one is presumed dangerous — until the moment they are.

And what of the rest of us? We go about our errands beneath the tacit premise that at any instant a fellow shopper or bystander might become executioner. The proper response, we are told, is either courage or imitation: buy your own weapon, display it openly, and hope your Aaron Burr moment arrives before theirs does.

We have grown so accustomed to this madness that even now, after the shooting in Washington that left two National Guardsmen mortally wounded, one does not hear the old refrain — “Where did he get the gun?” That ship has not merely sailed; it has vanished over the horizon. We have accepted a reality in which the ubiquity of firearms is beyond question, and therefore beneath debate.

A nation confident in its laws would not place such burden on its citizens. A nation confident in its citizens would not place such burden on its laws. We are confident in neither — and so we arm everyone, and hope the barrel always points elsewhere.