0692 - TaserTime

As you Faithful Readers know, our political and moral positions in this column are the result of intense debate among the Staff. When we reach a position, we state it with force. Today, though, we use the unique insights available in Anguilla to deal with a subject in a conciliatory – yes, a compromising mode. All Readers know that in the United States the subject of free access to guns is a "hot button" item. Opinions are held strongly, and they differ from State to State – gun control in Texas is political death, while in New York it is largely endorsed. Because guns are so freely available in the U.S., they are more and more circulating in Anguilla, and robberies and murders with guns are more and more frequent here. Supposedly, you need a permit to own a gun in Anguilla, but the easy availability to the North makes control indeed difficult, and the police can't cope. So, perhaps we can reach a meeting of minds today about what to do about AXA crime, starting with the assumption that guns will be owned by the gangs here. We have an idea.

As you know, there now exist high-voltage electric guns, trade name TASERs (*see note to learn why they are so called), which when fired give the evil target a shock that incapacitates, but does not kill. Suppose, we suggest, that responsible homeowners in Anguilla could sign up for the right to own Tasers, not to carry about, but to keep in their homes. Suppose also that these legal home-only Tasers each has a fingerprint lock so that only the owner could fire them. Result: the bad guys breaking in would be writhing on the floor, but not dead. The young kids couldn't get at the Taser and fire it, because it is personal to the owner. And, of course, the weapon wouldn't be any use to anyone who steals it. A good idea, no?

Our Staff Ethicist thinks the legal Taser-at-home idea passes the ethical test. The ethical problem with free access to guns is not that the intruders might be shot and killed – that's what a criminal signs up for. Rather, the problem with wide availability of guns is what it does to the innocent. The kids play with the gun. The crazies get guns and shoot up a High School or a University. Every domestic dispute becomes a potential murder, as does every workplace argument. With a Taser, though, if the betrayed wife Tasers the errant husband, he is uncomfortable, but lives to stray again. The situational ethics are comparable to smoking. Smoking is bad for you and shortens your life. That's an individual choice. But releasing cigarette smoke when others have to breathe it injures them. That's wrong, so your freedom to smoke is limited when others are around. So guns for everybody doesn't meet the ethical test, but Tasers do.

Please, Readers, do not send us hot-tempered e-mails saying either that the right to buy guns is a U.S. Constitutional right or that all handguns should be banned in the name of humanity. We know the arguments. The Constitutional argument is flatly wrong, as the gun lovers know. But the NRA (the National Rifle Association) is very strong politically in the U.S., and that's a true fact. As for banning all guns, that may be a good idea, but it ain't going to happen in the U.S., or in many other places in the world, So, Anguilla has to deal with the fact that guns are arriving here. Also, we know that more and much better trained police are a good idea, and also that the habit here of not telling the police who done it – fearing reprisal – needs to be changed. That is the code here, though, so let's deal with it. Tasers. We have spoken.

*Note: Wikipedia says the name TASER is an acronym for "Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle ... Arizona inventor Jack Cover naming it for the science fiction teenage inventor and adventurer character Tom Swift." Thank you, Wikipedia. We didn't know that.

Next time: MoreBad [OO #693]

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