A Gun is a Tool, and Only a Tool

I tried to comment on Harold Pollack's recent piece about the Ft Hood shootings in The New Republic because it stands out as so profoundly clueless in a sea of cluelessness about firearms and the principles of self-defense. Unfortunately, one must hold a subscription to The New Republic in order to comment on its articles--an effective means of keeping the riffraff out, I suppose--so I shall comment here for my gentle readers.

Mr Pollack's article is not very cogent on the fundamental and derivative rights of self-defense, and is in danger of being just another cathartic huff of hoplophobia. Nevertheless, the piece is rhetorically well-written. It successfully blurs the distinction between a motivated religious fanatic and the garden variety active shooter. It also skillfully leads our focus away from the perpetrator and onto his chosen tool of destruction.

Guns Don't Kill People...Er, Actually...
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-treatment/guns-dont-kill-peopleer-actually

Mr Pollack asks whether Hasan was:

1) An Islamist lunatic murdered a bunch of people he saw as the enemy /oppressor

2) A angry and deeply disturbed employee who gathered up a bunch of guns and ammo, went to his workplace, and embarked on an indiscriminate killing spree.

Was Hasan the first who happened to be the second or the second who happened to be the first?

Maj Hasan happened to be both. According to the reporting, he is an Islamist who was angry and deeply disturbed enough to take action on his extremist beliefs. I believe we'll find he was insane to the extent that other terrorists are insane. To put it in secular-progressive terms, there we find a moral grey area. Whether Hasan is a crazy Islamist fanatic or simply an Islamist fanatic, we still have a terrorist act from an Islamist fanatic.

And regardless of his weapon of choice, revolver, semiautomatic rifle, or katana, an armed maniac can wreak devastating damange in an enclosed area full of unarmed opponents. To someone with sufficient practice, two 10-round magazines (which comply with the legal limit in California) are, tactically speaking, virtually equivalent to a 20-round magazine; you merely drop the spent magazine and insert the full magazine.

Cho Seong Hui, the killer at Virginia Tech didn't have higher-capacity magazines--nor did he have a higher degree of skill. He was, like most active shooters, inexperienced with firearms, yet he was able to reload repeatly and at leisure while his victims cowered or hid. He could also assume, as do most active shooters, that his victims would be unarmed.

As to the FN Five-seveN pistol, which was somewhat controversial even before Maj Hasan's misuse of the weapon, it is no more or less deadly than any other commonly used caliber. It was designed for European police and paramilitary to allow high capacity magazines and a light 5.7mm round that can penetrate body armor (similar ballistically to a .22 magnum cartridge). However, the body-armor-piercing variety of the 5.7x28mm ammunition is strictly controlled, available only to police and military, and expressly not to the US public.

20-round magazines are available for other commonly owned pistols, e.g. the SIG P226 9mm:

Also, body armor is not a magic protective vestment--even 9mm rounds can penetrate kevlar vests at close range. The 5.7x28mm cartridge may have an edge insofar as it is a specialized round, but this does not make it extraordinarily devastating.

All variety of tools are available for malicious people to create mayhem and are impossible, and I would argue immoral, to restrict from the public. Sane and law abiding people should have access to the same tools for the purpose of self-defense and the protection of others.