Good Gun Article in U.S. News & World Report
Date: Sep 3, 2004 6:37 PM
U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, SEPTEMBER 6, 2004
Page 48

The National Interest BY MICHAEL BARONE

No truce in the culture war

LAST JULY AT THE DEMOCRATIC convention in Boston, John Kerry
said, ?Let?s build unity in the American family, not angry
division.” Four years ago at the Republican convention in
Philadelphia, George W. Bush said he wanted to be a ?uniter,
not a divider.? Yet most of the crowd in Boston seethed with
hatred for Bush, and most of the crowd in Philadelphia
seethed with hatred for Bill Clinton. The atmosphere of the
presidential campaign today is suffused with anger, and
Kerry?s invocation of his military service and the Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth ads criticizing him have reopened
the festering wounds of Vietnam. The campaign finance law
of 2002, supported mostly by Democrats and signed by
President Bush, has led to an unprecedented wave of negative
ads financed mostly by rich Democrats, though rich
Republicans have now entered the fray as well.

To be sure, not a happy picture. But one that seems
inevitable since American politics has devolved into a grim
battle between two approximately equal-size armies in a
take-no-prisoners culture war. For years, political
scientists called for a realignment along ideological lines.
Now we?ve got it. Be careful what you wish for.

Yet it?s also true that burning issues can disappear. You
heard little last month in Boston, and you?ll hear little
this week in New York, about abortion and gun control, two
of the most-talked-about issues of the 1990s. That?s partly
because Democrats think that gun control cost Al Gore
crucial votes in 2000 and because Republicans think that
abortion is not a winner for George W. Bush. But it?s also
because those Americans who have wanted to outlaw abortion
and those who have wanted to outlaw guns?two almost totally
non overlapping groups?have figured out that they are not
going to get their way. We?re going to have lots of
abortions and lots of guns for years to come.

With this interesting difference: There will be fewer
abortions and more guns. The number of abortions peaked in
1990 at 1.6 million; in 2000 it was 1.3 million, a decline
of 19 percent during a period when pregnancies declined by
only 6 percent. There seems to be an increasing stigma on
abortion: The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights
Action League recently changed its name to NARAL Pro-Choice
America. The number of guns seems clearly to have
increased, as the number of states allowing law-abiding
citizens to obtain on-demand licenses to carry a concealed
weapon has risen to 38.

Hot buttons? The consequences of these trends have been
benign. We have seen decreases in child poverty and
children in one-parent families even as abortion has
plunged. And we have seen decreases in crime even as gun
ownership has risen. Economist John Lott has shown that
violent-crime rates have declined when concealed-carry laws
are passed; evidently criminals are less willing to assault
people who may be armed. In contrast, when Great Britain
and Australia recently passed laws banning gun ownership,
crime sharply increased.

Neither of these trends is surprising in a country where
many people believe they have a right to an abortion (the
Supreme Court says so) and a right to bear arms (the Second
Amendment says so). What is interesting is that even as
these issues disappear, the composition of both parties?
coalitions?the two armies in the culture wars?has remained
very much the same. New cultural issues have appeared.
Democrats in Boston talked a lot about Bush?s supposed ban
on stem-cell research (he actually restricted federal
funding of embryonic stem-cell research). Republicans in
New York may talk a lot about upholding traditional marriage
(Kerry opposes same-sex marriage but backs civil unions).
But stem-cell research, much of it privately funded, is
likely to increase, and same-sex unions, legally sanctioned
or not, will probably become more numerous. As on abortions
and guns, Americans are free to live as they want, whatever
politicians say.

The non economic issues both parties are talking most about
are Iraq and foreign policy?legitimate issues with pretty
clear differences be tween the candidates. But few voters
on either side of the culture war seem to have changed
sides. We?re still divided, and both parties are
concentrating on rallying the troops on their side.