My husband’s gun acquisition meant that I have learned a little about the economics of gun ownership. That is, a pistol will run you about $500, give or take. An hour at the shooting range is about $20. The ammunition works out to maybe another $20 per session — my husband’s best guess, anyway, based on ammo prices and how much you’d use in a typical shooting range session. As hobbies go, it’s not outlandishly expensive (on an hourly basis, far cheaper than our sailboat, considering how hard a time we have making it up to the marina, since you need to both have an empty weekend day on the calendar as well as the right sort of weather), but not as cheap as, say, crochet or drawing.
So here’s my hypothetical, a way of discussing the priciples behind the Little Sisters’ religious objections to the contraception mandate: what if Congress decided that, in order to enable the American people to better defend themselves, they needed protection against the high cost of self-defense pistols?
In order to remedy this problem, imagine that Congress decreed that all employers are required to provide for their employees who wish to avail themselves of the opportunity, one handgun per adult family member, upon request.
Now, the Brady Campaign finds this prospect rather upsetting, as do various corporations who believe that it’s morally wrong to own handguns (facebook, twitter, Bloomberg’s Bloomberg empires, etc.), and they start seeking injunctions exempting them from the ASDA provisions.
The Cruz administration proposes a compromise: employers will not have to buy handguns directly, but simply contribute money to a “handgun fund.” In fact, the money in that fund can be used to purchase firearms, or pepper spray, or, for those employees who choose not to arm themselves, or even fund other kinds of self-defense, say, self-defense classes, or a home security system, up to a maximum annual benefit.
Supporters of the ASDA say that this is just another piece of employee compensation, and that without its provision, their handgun access is unfairly being denied to employees. They claim that, since no employee is required to buy a handgun, and the funds can be used for other purposes besides handguns, the employer isn’t really complicit in handgun provision, they’re just following the law, same as everyone else.
What would Bloomberg’s legal arguments be? What would the government’s claims be? And how would those arguments stack up against the Little Sisters case? Remember, in our hypothetical, to make it work as a means of discussing the issue, we’ll take it as a given that the government believes it has a “compelling government interest” in having everyone be armed.
(Image: own photograph)
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