TR packed semi-auto heat, but not a 33 round clip
My current fascination with Teddy Roosevelt is such that I regularly find myself wondering “What would TR do?” If he were President, how would he react to this morning’s Headlines?
TR was a complex character. Henry Adams famously said that he was “pure act”, but he was also unquestionably a voracious reader a true intellectual. He loved animals very passionately, but he also loved to shoot them, eat them, and hang their heads on his walls. A Republican, he was a reformer and a “maverick” before it became a caricature. He defies easy categorization - he was unique.
So the “what would he do” question is always intriguing for me, because there isn’t often a simple answer. This week I’ve been wondering what TR would do in the wake of the tragedy in Arizona. Since he became President through McKinley’s assassination, and since he survived an assassin’s attack years later as a Presidential candidate again (then went on to give his speech anyway and proclaim “It’ll take more than that to kill a Bull Moose!”), he would have a relevant perspective on this particular current event.
Here’s what I think he would do:
- He would give a respectful and de-politicized speech as mourner-in-chief. I don’t think he could have done any better than President Obama did last night. If you didn’t see the speech, you can read it here.
- A week later, he would forcefully support Representative Carolyn McCarthy’s (D-NY) initiative to ban high-capacity ammunition clips with a pulpit-pounding speech.
- In that same speech, he would exhort more citizens to carry concealed handguns and to practice shooting them regularly. Master of the press event that he was, I can even imagine him pulling a revolver from under his suitcoat and brandishing it over his head for full dramatic effect. When using the bully pulpit, he would make sure to get every headline and above-the-fold photo possible.
Dogmatic party-pros from both parties would immediately come out denouncing his position. More guns out walking the streets? Regulating the sacred 2nd amendment in any way whatsoever? He would welcome a fierce debate, and he would want to have it out loud in the public square.
There is no question that TR would advocate for more guns in the hands of more citizens. In his last address to congress as President he said in a classic example of his “Walk softly, carry a big stick” philosophy:
“The great body of our citizens shoot less as times goes on. We should encourage rifle practice among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as well as in the military services by every means in our power. Thus, and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving peace in the world… The first step – in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it should come – is to teach men to shoot!”
In speaking to Congress, he was making the case for guns to emphasize his belief in readiness for war. The historical context of reaching empires in both Europe and the Pacific is essential to understanding his thinking.
He also believed in bearing arms for self-defense. The amazing Edmund Morris biography describes TR shaking a world-record 8,150 hands as h
e welcomed the public into the White House on January 1, 1907. Morris then describes how that day would have ended. Right before turning out his light and removing his pince-nez, the president unholstered his handgun and laid it next to his pillow - just like he did every night he was President. It was one of the very first semi-automatic pistol designs ever manufactured - an 1900 FN Browning equipped with an 8 round magazine. 8,150 citizens vigorously shook hands that New Year’s Day with a President who was packing his era’s sophisticated and modern heat.
On a different occasion, he explained “I should have a chance of shooting the assassin before he could shoot me, if he were near me.” His niece Eleanor followed his example and picked up a revolver of her own when she became First Lady to FDR, later remembering “I carried it religiously.”
TR paid $25 for a lifelong membership in the NRA and I’m sure he was a proud and card-carrying member. But I also have no doubt that as an active member he would stand up to the NRA’s obstinate efforts to block any and all forms of gun control and regulation. Assault rifles? 30 round clips that would allow a mad man to shoot 20 people before pausing to reload? No way. He couldn’t have imagined it in his day, but after seeing even one massacre enabled by too-easy-to-obtain weapons like these, he would have acted with customarily dizzying speed to prevent another.
But what about his party brethren that would immediately spring up defending the original purpose of the 2nd amendment? How would TR respond to the oft-debated argument that the founders intended an arms-bearing citizenry that would have the ability to provide a “check-and-balance of last resort” on government power?
TR would argue against them from a position based entirely on realism, informed by intimate personal experience. He would remember the Gatling guns at San Juan Hill. He would painfully recall the experiences of his own sons in the horrific World War - and the death of his youngest and dearest son in that war. And he would determine that modern war and modern weapons (airplanes, laser-guided bombs, machine guns, grenades, mortars, missiles, night-vision goggles, and on and on) had rendered the founder’s 2nd amendment intent hopelessly outdated. He would conclude that the idea of Minutemen grabbing their muskets and running to muster against a line of fife-and-drum Redcoats in a field was wonderful national folklore, but not a useful foundation for policy in the modern world.
So TR, “our first truly modern president”, would argue for both more guns and more gun control. More Glocks, fewer high-capacity clips. As a result, future would-be mass murderers in possession of their senses would have to contend with the possibility of armed resistance. And future madman mass-murderers could be tackled 23 shots earlier.
