Modern Whig Weekly 8.30.25
Photo credit: "Stained Glass Window Full of Light and Color" by StockPhotosforFree.com is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
― William Shakespeare
Far too often, we have one subject planned for our weekly newsletter when events force another subject on us. Sometimes, as with last week, an abuse of power or some other insult to the Constitution lead us down a particular road. Sometimes, as with the case of the floods in Texas on July 4 of this year, it's a natural disaster, the dimensions of which may have been made worse by human foolishness of one stripe or another.
This time, it's yet another school shooting. According to Education Week, which uses the strictest definition (they only count shootings which result in injury or death), there have been eight school shootings so far this year. That's relatively light. There have been 229 school shootings in the United States since 2018, with a low of 10 in 2020 and a high of 51 in 2022.
But the fall semester is just starting, of course.
The murders at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis came just as the first Friday morning Mass of the year was getting underway. The pews were packed with students from Annunciation Catholic School. It's an experience all of us who went to Catholic grammar school know all too well, that first Mass of the year, but it hits differently now, as so many things do. Even before a disturbed 23-year-old with family ties to the school started blasting away with high-powered weapons from just on the other side of the stained-glass windows, the sense of community was tempered by the increased security.
Maybe that's true in all things, now. Maybe the fundamental morality of our culture, our once-universally shared sense of right and wrong, has fractured so much we can no longer experience community with the same level of trust as before. Maybe the atomization and personalization of our existence — the reduction of our identity to someone's digital commodity, tucked in a cocoon of blinking lights and carefully tailored ads — has broken something essential and atavistic in our character which we desperately need in order to be fully human.
I really don't know. I do know there's more candor in some circles than Jonathan V. Last acknowledges in a piece in the Bulwark where he tackles his own feelings, as a parent of children in Catholic school, about the killings at Annunciation:
All I really want is honesty. Mass shootings are the price we pay for the Second Amendment. It’s as simple as 2+2. Why can’t gun defenders just say that?
We make safety tradeoffs all the time in life. Cars create economic mobility by giving people broad access to large pools of jobs in places removed from mass transit. Cars also kill a lot of people every year. We do our best to minimize those deaths, but society has made its peace with them. Americans are never going to give up the economic benefits of cars just to save 40,000 lives per year.
I’m not quite sure what people get out of owning guns, but it must be something incredibly valuable to them. Their insistence on owning guns, with very few restrictions, means that mass shootings—including in schools and churches—will always be part of American life.
Why won’t people just acknowledge that this is a tradeoff they’re willing to make?
I'm not exactly sure who JVL has been talking to, but personally, I've heard more than a few right-wing radicals say exactly that, and quite explicitly. One of the most remarkable, and disturbing, conversations I've ever had came after a lone gunman managed to accomplish the mass slaughter of 58 concertgoers in Las Vegas in 2017 in less than 10 minutes. When I pointed out the toll of dead and wounded was equivalent to the losses of the U.S. Marines in the initial assault phase of the Battle of Fallujah, they simply shrugged and said, "it's the price of freedom."
I challenged them to go to the funerals of the victims, some of which were not far from where they lived, and tell that to the families of the people who were murdered, then get back to me with the reaction they got. It was, needless to say, the end of the discussion on the topic, other than the relentless loop of radical Second Amendment talking points which follow these massacres like night follows day.
Whether they would have had the nerve to say anything to the parents of 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski, the two children who were murdered at Annunciation Catholic Church, about the Tree of Liberty being nurtured by the blood of children, or some such rot, I have no idea. But I do know they wouldn't get a very friendly reception.
The Problem of Good Faith
On the morning of Dec. 14, 2012, another disturbed individual in their early 20s murdered his mother in her bed, drove her car to Sandy Hook Elemntary School, shot his way into the building, and then promptly slaughtered 20 first graders and six teachers and staff with (you guessed it) high-powered weapons before, as seems to be the most common fate of these lone gunmen, taking his own life.
In the wake of the massacre, New York State, along with several others, quickly passed a more restrictive gun control law, the NY SAFE Act. The impulse to pass something, anything, in the heat of the moment is forgivable given the horrifying images of first graders being mowed down at their desks. It was an emotional time for everyone. Something had to be done.
But the law suffered from many of the usual flaws of standard gun control measures, and promised very little in the way of protection from the lone madman armed with an assault weapon. Its provisions banned some things, restricted others, permitted still others, but didn't strike at the heart of the issue: how do we prevent a disturbed individual from legally acquiring firearms and then going on a rampage?
The one provision of the law which directly addressed mental health concerns didn't quite get there, as the New York State Sheriffs Association pointed out in their response to the law. The rest of it was a mixed bag of good ideas and bad ones, effective solutions and wasted resources, intelligent policy and dogmatic reaction.
A more direct and workable policy was needed, and so the Modern Whigs of New York went to work. In our usual whiggish fashion, they solicited the advice not only of public safety experts, academicians, sociologists and researchers, but also of stakeholders like gun owners, gun dealers, and gun clubs.
The result was the Whig Firearm Responsibility Policy, which evolved into the Firearm Responsibility Program under the Institute. It's a way to leverage the plain language of the Second Amendment and the expertise of the gun ownership community, as well as the authority of local sheriffs, to regulate the use and possession of firearms and keep them out of the hands of criminals and lunatics, all while respecting the constitutional rights of individual gun owners and addressing the safety concerns of the public.
We'll have much more on the FRP in the Whig Policy Lab and in the pages of the Modern Whig Leader. It's an elegant solution to a ferociously stubborn problem. We're quite proud of it. But there's one significant and troubling issue no policy can address: the problem of good faith.
You see, the FRP requires everyone to give a little to get a little — to be willing to sacrifice a little privacy, or a little authority, or a little autonomy, in order to get the benefit of not seeing a parade of tiny caskets in town on a periodic basis. (Some elements of the FRP would actually mean less onerous regulations, especially for individual gun owners, than any other proposal, but leave that out for now.)
But even more importantly, it would only work if everyone is being sincere. All the stakeholders would have to buy in and be on the up and up. Everyone would have to understand the basic and fundamental truth of our system of individual rights: they only exist in the context of community, and therefore all of them come with community responsibilities attached.
In this day and age, can we expect Americans to see the world like that? To remember the admonitions and advice of our forefathers? To respect and preserve our true heritage?
Those are not easy questions to answer. All of us — meaning all Whigs — are practical idealists. We believe in the best of us, and our faith in our country and in humanity as a whole isn't a whole bunch of hokum. Human progress has been too remarkable to ignore; to look around at the daily miracle of modern life is to have that faith constantly renewed.
At the same time, we're realistic enough to understand, human nature doesn't change. It has always been, and will always be, the best of times and the worst of times. Our inherent failings make it inevitable. What matters is keeping the faith. What matters is not surrendering to the darker — and, let's face it, easier — impulses. What matters is the courage to stand on principle.
We've done it before. We can do it again. And maybe, just maybe, we can work together, as fellow members of a community — and yes, a shared society — rather than compete as antagonists. Maybe we can work together in good faith to prevent the next hail of gunfire from shattering some other church's stained-glass windows, or some other first grade classroom, or another concert, or high school, or college, or government office, or any number of public gatherings. Maybe we can reclaim our public spaces.
Maybe.
Before we get to this week's Odds and Ends, a quick note on how you can help support the cause ...
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Odds and Ends
There's always so much going on these days, it can be a challenge to pick the items for this section. We cover a lot in the weekly essay, but at the same time, with the presidency comes great influence as well as great power, which means any president who demands our attention is likely to get it.
So, here's one story which has to do with administration policy. Then we'll get into some more fun stuff. There's only so much one can take.
Experts: Government stake in defense firms could harm industry
If you're going to do philosophy, do it with a philosopher who can box:
Mano a Mano | The Point Magazine
Admit it: you'd go to the Roswell McDonald's first too, wouldn't you.
18 Fast-Food Landmarks Worth the Pilgrimage - Atlas Obscura Lists
Do yourself a favor — don't do this:
I’m Obsessed with Other People’s Spotify Playlists | The Walrus
Never underestimate the value of imagination. It's what truly drives culture, and culture is what makes it all worthwhile:
CHANEL Now & Next: Yunchul Kim and Sojung Jun | Frieze
Okay, let's settle down out there, people:
Costly extreme dorm makeovers redefine back-to-school shopping
Get a hobby, they said. It will be fun, they said:
Watch: Connecticut man collects more than 3,800 pairs of Crocs - UPI.com
And finally, if you're gonna do it, do it right:
Mastering The Bbq: The Order Of Operations For Grilling | ShunGrill
See you next week.
Kevin J. Rogers is the executive director of the Modern Whig Institute. He can be reached at director@modernwhiginstitute.org
Visit the Institute website at https://www.modernwhiginstitute.org/
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