It’s not often that I’ll start off an editor’s letter
by writing about letters to the editor, but it’s
not often that we get the deluge of correspondence spawned by Ray
Ring’s cover package on firearms in the West, “Guns R Us.” You’ll
see a selection of the missives in this issue; you can see more
comments (and video interviews with a gun shop owner who’s battling
federal regulators) on our Web site, www.hcn.org
What’s
striking to me about the letters is not their fervor; it’s the
ignorance of general constitutional principles many of them
exhibit. Particularly on the pro-gun side of the firearms debate,
there seems to be little realization that rights enumerated in the
Constitution are not absolute, that courts often balance one
against another in making decisions. Perhaps the most succinct
example of this misperception of legal reality came in an e-mail
from someone calling himself “redneckrepairs”: “It’s all fun and
games for John Mecklin unless someone mentions reasonable
restrictions on the press, isn’t it?”
As a matter of
long-standing case law, in fact, the government can impose
reasonable restrictions on First Amendment activities. So long as
it’s making a legitimate effort to protect general welfare, the
government can restrict the time, place and manner in which speech
is exercised. And as became clear during the investigation of the
leaking of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity to the
press, the government’s right to seek evidence of criminal activity
does, in some cases, outweigh free press considerations. That
government prerogative – upheld by the Supreme Court – can even put
journalists in jail, if they refuse to betray their anonymous
sources.
I offer this explanation to redneckrepairs (and
other gun absolutists) not to foment further outrage, but to
emphasize, again, the need for collaboration on the gun issue.
There are compromises that can reduce gun-related crime while still
allowing law-abiding Westerners to have the guns that are so
closely tied to their heritage. But it’s awfully tough to work in
concert with people who won’t face up to sky-is-blue reality.
Global warming is spinning off complex environmental
choices that could divide those who want to save the Earth from a
Venusian future. For example, in this issue’s cover story, “A
Climate Change Solution?”, Valerie Brown looks at a promising
demonstration project that could, if successful, clear the way for
carbon dioxide to be stripped from electrical plant exhaust and
pumped into underground lava flows, where the CO2 would combine
with water and minerals leached from the lava to create calcium
carbonate – that is, the equivalent of seashells.
Even
during the testing phase, this potential good news in the fight to
reduce atmospheric CO2 levels is producing discord within the
environmental community. Some environmentalists fear carbon
sequestration research will be a slow-moving distraction from an
urgently needed move toward alternative, carbon-free energy
sources. Some think sequestration will be falsely portrayed as the
magic bullet that can slay climate change, actually spurring the
construction of coal power plants. Others support sequestration, so
long as it is part of a many-faceted program to stabilize Earth’s
climate.
Though I’m hopeful a massive expansion of solar
energy research and development during the upcoming
Clinton/Richardson administration will make the sun our primary
energy source within my lifetime, I’m generally in the
pro-sequestration camp. But I’m also willing to consider
well-considered arguments to the contrary. So write me a letter.
Maybe you know more than I do. Maybe we can get together on
this.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Letter imperfect.
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