Is the new Harry Potter book pro-gun?

[Don Gwinn]

Normally, I just roll my eyes at this kind of "spot the pro-gun stuff in popular culture" exercise, but this caught my eye. In a new Dave Kopel piece, he opens with a bit of color from the Harry Potter series:

In the new Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the young wizarding students are frustrated by a "Defense Against the Dark Arts" teacher who resolutely refuses to teach the students how to protect themselves. The teacher, Deloris Umbridge, is a government bureaucrat, and she considers it better that innocents be murdered by the Death Eaters than for people outside the government to be able to fight back.

So, who's read it? I'm not doing it until the paperback comes out. It sure sounds like Ms. Rowling has decided to incorporate the self-defense debate into Order of the Pheonix--and if she's not on our side, Harry Potter is.

 

[Baba Louie]

I suppose you could make a far-fetched comparison between holding a magic wand and... Naaaaahhh

Proper Use of a Tool. That's it. The proper use of a tool. Used properly, said tool saves lives; used improperly it can take lives.

I'd leave it to mum and dah or the kiddies to make the connection... its not far-fetched at all.

Learning Individual responsibility w/ lack of parental input... Usually does the right thing.

Self defense and a heightened personal awareness level to nearby and longterm dangers...

A lesson all humans should learn.

It was Good Reading, I thought.

Adios

 

[Stickjockey]

Finished it about a week ago. Aside from it being a good story, it does have a very interesting feel concerning self-defense, government ineptitude, and even underground revolutionary groups. Media bias, .gov heavy-handedness, it's all in there!

 

[agricola]

actually I always thought the Harry Potter books were Platonist in nature.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

I've read the series so far and it can be considered pro CCW. All of the students carry magic wands in their robes and frequently pull them out to use in self-defense. In the 2nd book, Harry and Ron even used their wands to force a teacher to do what they wanted him to do.

In the last book, the teacher hired to teach them "Defense Against the Dark Arts" (ie Self Defense) doesn't teach them anything useful because she doesn't want them to be able to defend themselves. The students form a secret class to study on their own.

 

[Porter Glockwell]

The new Harry Potter book is quite possibly the most politically charged children's book I have ever read. The government is oppresive, prosecutes cases with wild abandon, buraucratic, and oftentimes downright tyrannical. I found it to be a thinly veiled treatise on the right to self-defense and personal liberty.

practical self defense is banned, and the underground rushes to fill the vaccum.

The wizard media portrays those who fight against tyrrany and evil as paranoid reactionaries and wackjobs just like it does to modern day gunowners.

it's a great read too.

Porter

 

[shooten]

It was a good book. They also had to check their wands as they entered the government ministries.

Scott

 

[DigMe]

I'm reading it now. There definitely seem to be parallels between guns and wands. There is one comment made about "wand safety" when Harry shoves his wand into his back pocket and an older wizard makes a comment about how some have...well darnit..now I had to look it up. Here's the quote after Harry sticks the wand in the back pocket:

"Don't put your wand there, boy!" roared Moody. "What if it ignited? Better wizards have lost buttocks, you know!"

and then

"Elementary wand safety, nobody bothers about it anymore..."

brad cook

 

[cool45auto]

I guess there are some connections you could make. I keep hearing about the Biblical connections more than anything else, though. Anyway whenever a student lost their wand or it got broken they were pretty much defenseless so that would seem to mean you need some form of weapon.

 

[Backwoods]

Damn! Now I'm going to have to read it. I work at one of the printing facilities that printed a large portion of them. The publisher gave everyone in the plant a copy after the public release date so I've got one sitting here.

Don in Ohio

 

[Don Gwinn]

Mad-Eye Moody is back? Excellent. I liked him a lot, but I figured he would never be heard from again (he was, after all, a Defense-Against-the-Dark-Arts teacher at Hogwarts.)

 

[cool45auto]

Remember Mad-Eye was held captive in his trunk while Mr. Crouch's son impersonated Mad-Eye at Hogwarts.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

Mad-Eye Moody is back?

Actually, all of the characters from the first 4 books are back in this book. Except, of course, the dead ones.

 

[mete]

Did you see the news item about the women who was trying to make up a Harry Potter like potion ? She burned her house down !! Powerfull potion.

 

[Mostly Harmless]

It's a sort of "Unintended Consequences" for kids

I picked up the hardcover on publication day at a substantial discount, read it and passed it on to my son:

"Mom, this is sort of like 'Animal Farm' -- where the story isn't about what it seems to be about. This isn't about witches and magic, it's about politics and oppression".

"Yep, it's a parable or if you prefer, an allegory."

"Can we go to the range please? I need to practice my Defence Against The Dark Arts."

Ah, the joys of motherhood.... I love my little Libertarian

J.

 

[Porter Glockwell]

I also seem to remember a tiny blurb about the "wand registration act of 1075" or some such date being an utter failure. I'll have to look back throught the book and find the quote.

Porter

 

[recal]

The new Harry Potter book is quite possibly the most politically charged children's book I have ever read. The government is oppresive, prosecutes cases with wild abandon, buraucratic, and oftentimes downright tyrannical. I found it to be a thinly veiled treatise on the right to self-defense and personal liberty.

Glad to hear it. Especially surprising, coming from a Brit author. Will have to read. Wonder when the NEA will try to have it banned.

 

[FNFiveSeven]

Well, speaking of banning this book, there are a lot of groups who have already tried to do just that, but there arguments were largely based on the belief that the book was some sort of occult work of the devil that sought to teach kids witchcraft.

As far as the guns=wands thing, yeah, I've noticed that a bit as well. Notice how when Harry goes to the ministry of magic, they declare that all wands must be inspected and registered (!!) at the front office.

 

[Ian11]

Wow. Its sounds pretty good. I read the first book and saw both movies and was not impressed with the story so far. Thought it was too simple and geared too much toward little kiddies for me. I'm biased too since I thought it stole some of the attention from the LOTR books and movies (Not that it needed more hype though )


Can I enjoy the new book to see those possible "pro-gun/self-defense" allegories myself without reading the others first? As I said, I only read the first.

 

[HBK]

Ian, you really ought to, if you've the time, read them one after the other. The 4th and 5th ones are where the above mentioned is more prominent, but they are a great series. I was able to read one through three with no waiting, then the waiting was torture for the fourth one. If you read them all, each gets better and maybe the 6th one will be out by the time you finish the fifth.

 

[BryanP]

The really great thing about these books as the characters age they do act differently. Harry & co are 15 now and he acts like a 15 year old. Sometimes he's OK, but he can be a whiney snot when he's feeling persecuted. Each book is a bit more mature and less of a children's story.

I literally read the last pages about 15 minutes ago. Man, I really hope she doesn't have such a long delay before #6 comes out.

 

[Tempest]

I'm glad I'm not the only one!

I finished it the day after it came out, and re-read it last week. I asked a couple of friends what they thought about the politics, but most of them sort of shrugged the political aspect off. I'm glad to see I'm not just imagining things.

This was quite possibly the best book out of the series. It's a slam on power-hungry bureaucrats, on government involvement in education, and on anti self defense. At the same time, the characters are human and vulnerable. Harry, aside from becoming a bratty teen at times, also exhibits certain signs of PTSD from his last encounter with Voldemort. He's growing as a human being and developing as a wizard.

Loved it! Loved every page!

 

[M58]

Very powerful stuff dpending on the reading.
Rowling when asked said that she is not writing for kids.
The English have often used cleverly written satire to attack the Crown.

 

[Marko Kloos]

I thought it was very pro-defense. The kids take defense lessons against the explicit orders of the bureaucrat who wants to see them powerless, and everybody totes a wand. Incidentally, even at the Ministry of Magic, the wands only have to be checked at the security desk, not surrendered. During the final showdown, even the kids hold their own against adult wizards thanks to their illegally-practiced self-defense lessons.

 

[c_yeager]

The books MAY be pro defense. But, they are most certainly NOT pro-RKBA. Recall what happened to Hagrid when he got kicked out of school? Confiscated wand/implicit word from the powers-that-be not to perform magic period. Seems to me that the ownership of a wand is fairly well controlled and allowed only to an "approved" class.