Conservatives are not opposed to gun control, but they strenuously oppose gun confiscation and proposals to ban civilian ownership of semi-automatic weapons. These include semi-auto handguns of .22 caliber, semi-auto rifles such as the AR-15, and semi-auto shotguns. Most of these same conservatives, however, support a reduction of, or moratorium on, Muslim immigration, either across the board or from selected terror-sponsoring states.
This raises a question. Is the differential stance of these conservatives reasonable? According to Libertarian Michael Huemer,
The threat of mass shootings is vastly overblown. The U.S. murder rate is about 4.9 per 100,000 population per year. The comparable *mass shooting* death rate is about 0.002. We should stop freaking out about a relatively tiny risk.
He also maintains that
The threat of terrorism is vastly overblown. In the last 50 years or so, about 3,300 Americans were murdered by terrorists, while about 800,000 were murdered by non-terrorists. We should stop freaking out about a relatively tiny risk.
I will assume that Huemer's numbers are correct, at least for Americans on American soil. The numbers seem about right. Going by the numbers alone, it is not rational for a random individual to worry about dying either in a mass shooting or in a terrorist attack. So why the differential stance? is it not irrational for conservatives to support the right of civilians to own semi-auto weapons while wanting to reduce Muslim immigration out of concern that some Muslims will engage in terrorist attacks?
I say it is entirely rational to stand for gun rights while also demanding special vetting of Muslims and a reduction in Muslim immigration. This is because immigrants bring their culture with them, and in the case of Muslims, their culture, based as it is on sharia, Islamic law, is antithetical to American values of the sort that libertarians and classical liberals tend to uphold. These include freedom of thought and expression, even unto the mocking of their Prophet, religious liberty including the liberty to eschew religion, and separation of church/mosque and state. Muslims, bringing their culture with them, are not interested in assimilating, but in remaking our culture in their image. Taking advantage of our excessive tolerance, they seek to replace our tolerant culture with their intolerant culture.
Libertarians, however, understand none of this since they tend to think in a narrowly economic way. Blind to culture, libertarians are blind to the cultural damage that Muslims do by refusing to assimilate to American values and ways. So they tally up how many are killed by berserk shooters and how many by berserk Muslims. But that involves vicious abstraction. Once cannot reasonably abstract from the cultural impact of Muslim immigration.
When Americans stand for their Second Amendment rights, they are not altering American culture but insisting on it. Ours is a culture of liberty and self-reliance and limited government. It is a culture that prizes freedom of expression and open inquiry. It is anti-totalitarian in a way that theocratic Muslim culture is not.
Libertarians strike me as embarrassingly un-self-aware. They don't seem to realize that a culture in which they and their ideas can flourish is not a culture re-made along the lines of sharia. For the sake of their own survival they need to realize that the threat that Muslim immigration poses is not merely the terrorist threat but the broader cultural threat.
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