Winkler's Gun Fight is a highly readable and well-researched excursion into the history and jurisprudence of America's unique obsession with guns. He uses the landmark DC v. Heller decision (2008), which was the first Supreme Court case to affirm the individual-rights theory of the Second Amendment, as the central thread around which to weave the fascinating story of the role of guns and the role of gun control in American life, from the colonial days to the present.
Its most profound insight is that gun rights and gun control have always coexisted in the United States, and it was not until the 1970s that advocates on each side of the issue raised the heat to the boiling point. Trying his best to be "fair and balanced", Winkler falls into the common mistake of describing both sides in equal terms when they are anything but equal in either intent or purpose.
While accusing both sides of "extremism", the gun-control advocates he depicts are guilty only of excessive idealism in pursuit of a safer society, while the gun-rights extremists are guilty of excessive self-interest through the propagation of myth and fear. If gun control has been insufficiently effective or unrealistic, it's only because the powerful forces of gun rights have made sure that modern gun regulations are so weak and full of loopholes and that enforcement agencies are so hampered in their efforts that the goal of public safety remains illusive.
Winkler informs us that the NRA was, for most of its history, supportive of reasonable gun regulations, even writing and propagating model national legislation to repair the patchwork of state and local laws, and supporting the earliest federal regulations of the 1930s. It was not until a hard-core radical faction took over the NRA in 1977 that it morphed into a rabid evangelist for zero gun control.
It's also revealing that, while Winkler describes the Heller decision as a constructive middle-ground compromise that accepted both the right of the individual to possess firearms for self-defense and also the legitimacy of every gun control law short of a complete ban, he notes that it was widely condemned by both the left and the right.
The gun-control advocates, of course, were critical of the new individual-rights interpretation. But conservative jurists and legal scholars were much more sharply critical of both that a-historical reading of the Founders' intent and the "faux orgininalism" by which Justice Antonin Scalia crafted the majority opinion. Prominent originalists accused Scalia of doing precisely what conservatives have railed against since the 1970s: impose personal values and legislate from the bench.
Winkler reminds us that “The founding fathers instituted gun control laws so intrusive that no self-respecting member of today’s NRA board of directors would support them. Early Americans denied the right to gun ownership even to law-abiding people if they failed a political test of loyalty to the Revolution. The founders also declared that free white men were members of the militia and, as such, were forced to appear with their guns at public ‘musters’ where government officials would inspect the weapons and register them on public rolls. When pressing public necessity demanded it, the founding fathers were also willing to impress [temporarily confiscate] guns from law abiding citizens, even if those citizens were left without guns to defend themselves from a criminal attack.”
He also dispels other common myths, such that the West was "wild" and filled with guns. While guns were certainly prevalent on the frontier, many frontier towns had a ban on the carrying of any firearms, and gun murders were extremely rare. Winkler similarly points out that, in the 18th century, almost every state had a complete ban on concealed carry and that several states with constitutional protections for gun rights – including Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma – restricted or banned open carry, as well.
What we learn is that today's gun laws are far more permissive than at any previous period of American history, and that the Founders did not believe that self-defense or home defense was at the heart of America's need for guns. Only two state constitutions originally protected the possession of firearms for personal self-defense.
Not only does Winkler try to portray a complete and balanced a picture of the American relationship with guns, but he concludes with a hopeful interpretation of the Heller decision, which has the potential to eliminate the fear-based "slippery slope" argument that any gun regulation is a step toward civilian disarmament since gun bans are now impermissible, and to allow the possibility of turning down the heat and finding the middle road of reasonable gun control that most Americans support.
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