Upon reading Nathan Bruschi's op-ed earlier this month ("An Assault on Assault Weapons," March 2), I was expecting an assault on the Second Amendment. I was surprised and disappointed that he ended with an assault on the First. He talks in general both about gun ownership rights and the controversy surrounding a magazine editor who spoke out against assault weapons. Both arguments are flawed.
There are serious factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations in Bruschi's op-ed with regards to gun ownership. He claims hunters' rights are irrelevant to assault weapons because their use "mutilate[s] small game beyond the point of consumption or taxidermy." While I agree that hunting small game with an M16 is odd, would such animals be any less destroyed if we used another rifle not currently employed by the military, one that often fires larger bullets faster (since modern assault rifles are a relatively small caliber, low-powered innovation meant to injure rather than kill)? His image of a gun-crazed nut mutilating small animals is a useful rhetorical flourish, but unfortunately it misrepresents the deadliness of the weapons in question.
Maybe the argument could be that small game is only properly hunted with a shotgun, which is probably a good rule of thumb. If all rifles, not just assault ones, are useless for hunting small game, should we ban all rifles and say all hunting must be done with a shotgun? Deer or bear hunters probably wouldn't be too happy with that, nor would marksmen.
Bruschi also asserts that while target practice is fun, assault weapons have no place in shooting for sport because they are too inaccurate for a proper marksman. Evidently he forgets that while he loves firing at a bull's-eye, there are quite a few people in this country who find the idea of firing a gun under any circumstance appalling. They would certainly not like Bruschi's idea of a good time, just as Bruschi does not seem to think firing an AK-47 for the simple thrill of firing it would be a good time. Should we legislate based on the subjective preferences of specific gun owners?
Herein lies the flaw of Bruschi's argument. The Constitution, and the Bill of Rights along with it, exists for the explicit purpose of removing such subjective calculations from majority politics. We should not legislate on the basis of anybody's idea of a good time, but instead as we are required to on the basis of constitutional rights -- one of which, as is generally agreed among legal scholars, is the right of the individual to bear arms. This right does and should include less powerful rifles than are generally useful for hunting large game. This argument goes for all our rights and liberties. To put it in the context of the First Amendment, just because I don't think marching on Washington with antiwar protesters is fun doesn't mean it should be illegal and isn't absolutely fundamental to our societal health.
As the basis for the rest of his op-ed, Bruschi uses Jim Zumbo as his springboard. Zumbo is a gun personality who recently lost his job over a comment made in opposition to hunting with so-called "assault weapons," as a hero. He spoke out against hunters using what he calls "terrorist" weapons to bag prairie dogs on his Outdoor Life blog, and was subsequently fired from his post at the magazine due to pressure from the NRA and its readers. Bruschi says this overreaction belies the "absurdity of the firearms debate in this country."
In the end, Bruschi tries to make Zumbo's fall from glory into a free speech issue. He makes a classic mistake, though -- the First Amendment guarantees against congressional and state legislature curtailment of freedom of expression, not an unlimited right to supercede your editor on the pages of the magazine at which you are employed. Regardless of how ridiculous a pro-assault-weapons-in-hunting argument is, if Outdoor Life wants its editorial line to reflect that, it is First Amendment freedom for Outdoor Life to be able to control what is said in its pages. We have no right to tell them who they can and cannot hire and fire.
Removing Zumbo from his post does not curtail his freedom of speech. Zumbo has the freedom to say whatever he wants free of government control; he just no longer can say it as Hunting Editor for Outdoor Life. Bruschi makes the common mistake of confounding freedom with empowerment. The First Amendment speaks not at all to the latter. It promises every man his own voice, not his neighbor's bullhorn.
