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What divides us

Saturday, 28th June 2008

We have so much in common that it's easy to forget how wide the transatlantic cultural gap can be. Mars and Venus, and all that. Here's Jeffrey Goldberg - a Washington-based liberal who supports gun-control - reacting to the latest Supreme Court decision on handguns:

Maybe it's my long experience in Israel, but I believe that the average, law-abiding citizen can be trusted with a firearm. More than that - and again, maybe this is my experience in Israel talking - I don't like the idea of subcontracting my own defence to the police. Why should a person who is paid $40,000 a year, who doesn't know me, who doesn't live in my neighborhood, risk his life for me when, properly armed, I'm fully capable of defending myself? It never seemed fair to me.

An opinion seconded by Andrew Sullivan:

One of my good friends is a DC cop. I'd trust him to defend me. But he'd also trust me to defend myself. I should add that I live on a corner in DC that has had its share of gun violence.

Now, I don't consider myself a wuss, and I'm all in favour of hunting with guns, but I wouldn't trust myself to keep a handgun in the house, and I wouldn't trust most of my friends either, much as I like them. I can understand that people in a dangerous neck of the woods might feel the need to own a weapon, but the part of the Goldberg quote that startled me most was the reference to "subcontracting" his safety to the police. In other words, he seems to view it as a matter of principle rather than necessity. A Hobbesian choice?

[Photo: Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images]