Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Panel Discussion on Gun Violence: The Eugene City Club

Back on Friday, June 14, I was proud to join a panel discussion on gun violence, hosted by the City Club of Eugene, entitled "Finding Common Ground on Gun Control."  Coincidentally, this was the beginning of Father's Day weekend and the 6-month anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting.

The City Club regularly hosts speakers on a wide range of important topics, with professionals and politicians across the board.  So it was a great honor when they asked me to join them in this discussion.

I felt it was a very balanced discussion, with a local medical professional (Dr. Patrick Luedtke) to talk about statistics and the public health angle on the issue of gun violence, a local NRA member and essayist for gun rights and gun safety (Peter Loewy), and myself (Baldr Odinson), representing gun violence prevention efforts and concerns.

As written in the City Club's notice for the event:
Dr. Patrick Luedtke will present data on Lane County and Oregon firearm injuries and deaths and make general recommendations based on a public health approach to injury prevention. He is a Preventive Medicine and Internal Medicine physician. He is the Medical Director of Lane County’s Community & Behavioral Health clinics and the Senior Public Health Officer for the County. 
Peter Loewy will talk about creating a national movement to reduce the number of gun-related deaths and injuries without further infringing on Second Amendment rights. He is an NRA member and retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer who directed air traffic control towers and radar facilities. His letters and columns have recently been published in the Register-Guard
Baldr Odinson will focus on the broad, bipartisan support for universal background checks, proficiency training, child access protection laws, and waiting periods for gun purchases. He survived a shooting in his youth and now works to reduce gun violence through community action. Odinson is a blogger and Eugene’s point person for Ceasefire Oregon and the Ceasefire Oregon Education Foundation.
Dr. Luedtke gave some excellent statistics around the issue, including at the local, state, and national level, and stressed the need for safe gun storage and suicide prevention.

Peter Loewy is what I consider a mainstream NRA member and gun owner.  He is very much for universal background checks, safe storage of guns, and technology for tracing guns outside of government purview.  Here is a recent essay of his in the local newspaper.

The discussion was in four parts.  The first three parts were 10-minute presentations by each of the three speakers.  The fourth part was a Q&A session by City Club members, answered by the speakers.  Here is a brief news write-up of the event.

I would like to extend a thank-you to the City Club for hosting the event, and to the other speakers for taking part.

Here is audio of the full event, via KLCC radio.  

See below for video of each of the four parts, as posted by the City Club on YouTube, along with an excerpt that I appreciated most.

Dr. Patrick Luedtke:
Selected quote:  "I think overall we would agree that knowledge is power in training providers and the general public to recognize warning signs of suicide and homicide, something we've done for some years, is an evidence-based practice and helpful, but we also need to train gun owners to keep firearms from at-risk persons and we need to stress safe gun storage practices and each effective and practical steps that can be taken to save lives, reduce injuries, and prevent heartache."


Peter Loewy:
Selected quote:  "[A]n effective gun violence reduction program would embrace a very narrowly-defined goal to which most if not all parties can and will agree.  And that would be significantly reduce incidents of gun-related injuries, fatalities, and crime. Then, determine an equally-narrow approach that will effectively make firearms less available to those people who should not have access to them without infringing on Second Amendment rights. That would be, promote the secure, safe storage of firearms and ammunition when not in use. Thirdly, craft a working definition of what constitutes safe and secure storage of firearms and ammunition. And, finally (and this is the kicker), enlist the National Rifle Association, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and their allied associations to use their resources to start a grass-roots movement to increase and make nearly-universal the practice of securely storing firearms and ammunition when not in use."


Baldr Odinson:
Selected quote:  "Across the nation there are... around 3,000 children killed every year at the end of a bullet in suicides, homicides, and accidents. Another 14,000 or so are injured.... This is a very serious public health crisis. This is how we view it at Ceasefire Oregon and how I view it. More needs to be done to reduce those numbers. If that many children were killed by anything else it seems to me like there would be a massive public outrage, and yet, somehow, when it's a gun involved, we just write it off as 'Well, that's just how it goes in America.' and we can't do that anymore. We just can't."


Q&A session:
Selected question and answer: 
Question (directed at Baldr): "There are numerous quotes from the Founders that provide many gun enthusiasts with a mentality much like the Founders which is one from freedom from government, tyranny, and oppression. My question to you is, Do you feel like the time to fear government tyranny is over, or should we always maintain and foster an atmosphere of vigilance." 
Answer (from Baldr):  "Luckily we have a turnover of the government every four years, legally and non-violently, with checks and balances, too. Article III section iii of the Constitution specifically says that it is the militia's duty to prevent insurrection. So the Founders did not write into the Constitution the ability to overthrow them. Rather, they put in checks and balances. ..."


Our society needs more conversations like these.  Let's all take part.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

ASK About Guns Where Your Children Visit

Friday, June 21, is National ASK Day.  (Asking Saves Kids)

We at Ceasefire Oregon Education Foundation, and many other organizations around the country, would like to remind every parent that there are many dangers in homes.  It is incredibly important that you ask about those dangers before you visit a home with your children.  Always ask about those dangers:  Are medicines and toxins locked up?  Will a responsible adult be present at all times?  Is there a pool and will someone be watching?  Can we please trade phone numbers in case of an emergency?

But one question that is all too frequently overlooked is:  "Is there a gun in the home, and if so, how is it stored?"

It's not a hard question.  And, no, it isn't invasive.  I have yet to hear about a responsible person being annoyed by it.  Anyone who respects the safety of children will understand. 

Gun owners are not always forthcoming about their guns unless you ask about them.  Up to 40% of homes in Oregon have guns, and a great many of them are kept unlocked and loaded.  This includes homes with children or where your children may visit, including your friends and relatives, or the friends and relatives of your children's friends. 

As we say over and over again at the Kid Shootings blog, "Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult." And yet, every day, I see dozens of articles where a person's loaded firearm got into the hands of a child or teen, who then took it too school, played with it, or discharged it unintentionally, injuring or killing themselves or others.  And let's not forget the many cases where older kids took those unlocked guns and used them to purposely threaten, rob, injure, or kill. 

Here is a very good publication put out by The Center To Prevent Youth Violence.  In it you can find ways to start the conversation, representative facts and statistics about children and guns, how to spread the word, informative posters, templates to write your mayor or for a letter to the editor on the topic, and other things. 

Facts from that publication (see publication p.7 for citations):

--  An average of 8 kids and teens are killed by firearms every day and 42 additional children and teens are seriously injured.
  
--  Studies show that between 33% and 40% of American households with children have guns

--  1 in 4 kids and teens whose parents own guns say they have seen or touched a gun without their parents’ knowledge.

--  Almost 90 percent of accidental shootings involving children are linked to an easy-to-find, loaded handgun in the house.

--  88% of the children who are injured or killed in unintentional shootings are shot in their own homes or in the homes of relatives or friends.

--  42% of parents with guns keep at least one unlocked; 25% keep at least one loaded, and 14% keep one unlocked AND loaded.

--  Over 75% of kids in homes with guns say they know where the gun is hidden.

Remember, this is the LIFE of your child we are talking about.  It only takes a moment to ASK.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

An Emotional Weekend: Father's Day, Six Months After Sandy Hook

This is an emotional three-day weekend.  Friday was the 6 month anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting, and Sunday will be Father's Day.

I'm a father to two small children, ages 7 and 8.  Sunday will be great, and I'm certain they've got a homemade goodie to give me.  I love my kids.  They are so special to me, and have such potential and strengths.

So it makes me grieve to think that those 20 little kids in Newtown leave behind 20 fathers who won't be celebrating Sunday, who won't be getting homemade gifts, who won't see the promise of their children fulfilled over time. 

Since that horrifying day, six months ago, I have watched as many of those fathers and family have lobbied endlessly for solutions to keep such a horror from happening again.  They are tireless, brave, and enduring.  It is their promise to their children, enshrined in the Sandy Hook Promise:
I Promise to honor the 26 lives lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School.   
I Promise to do everything I can to encourage and support common sense solutions that make my community and our country safer from similar acts of violence.
You can sign that promise, too.  I have.

Many of those victim families were in Washington, D.C., today to lobby again, meeting with legislators and President Obama.  Said one father:
“I feel like it’s my responsibility as Ana’s dad to do something that honors her life and, in some small way, maybe prevents some other family from having to go through what we’ve had to go through,” Jimmy Greene said.

Said another father:
“We’re in mile one of a marathon, so we’re going to continue to work for this,” Mark Barden, whose 7-year-old son, Daniel, was killed, told Spencer. “And we’re going continue to try to convince people and influence people that this really is the right thing to do.”
See an interview with some of these parents below:



Since the Newtown shooting, six months ago, another 5000 Americans have been killed in homicidal shootings.  An estimated 10,000 or so have died in suicides. 

According to one estimate from the Children's Defense Fund, 3000 children and teens a year die from gun homicides, suicides, and accidents.  Another 14,000 are injured.  That's a lot of fathers who won't be celebrating Father's Day!

And our legislators continue to do nothing about it.

“And how much has changed, really, since then?” a Darien, Conn., town policeman asked Friday morning, near one of the entrances to a cemetery where one of the small coffins was brought last December. 
“Tell me how much will ever change in this country.”
In the absence of leadership from our Federal legislators, states have instead had to take the lead:
And despite the shameful lack of progress at the federal level, state governments are not sitting still. In the past six months, several states have passed gun violence prevention legislation that will save lives and help prevent future shootings. 
Some of the states that have passed, or are currently considering strong gun violence legislation, include:
  • Connecticut enacted a strong package of laws, including: the strongest state assault weapons ban on the books; a ban on armor-piercing ammunition; a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines; and background checks for all gun purchases. 
  • A new law in New York State strengthened its ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines and required background checks for all gun and ammunition sales, as well as other measures. 
  • Colorado put a new law in place that limits ammunition magazine capacity to 15 rounds and requires universal background checks for all gun sales. 
  • California, which already has some of the strongest laws in the country, is moving forward with a legislative package that passed the state Senate at the end of May, and is now awaiting action in the Assembly. The bill requires that all semiautomatic rifles have non-detachable ammunition magazines with a capacity of 10 rounds or less, requires background checks for ammunition sales, and expands the prohibited categories for gun possession (for example, those with multiple drug/alcohol convictions within a three-year period). It also closes the "bullet button" loophole that now allows gun manufacturers to circumvent the state's assault weapons ban by exploiting a definitional weakness in the law.
But in other states, there have been rollbacks in protections for citizens, from a weakening of gun laws.

Here in Oregon, despite widespread support for four bills to require universal background checks, prohibit guns in schools and government buildings, and require proficiency testing before being issued a concealed carry license, the bills nonetheless are not getting enough senators to support them.  With up to 90% support for universal background checks among Oregonians, according to a poll that was taken in the state, one has to ask:  Who, exactly, are these senators representing?

It's time to demand real change.  It's time to reduce the grieving.  It's time to put the welfare of our children and adults to the top of the priority list, above the concerns of a minority of extremist gun advocates.

Have a safe and happy Father's Day.

ADDENDUM (6/16/12): See below for a message from another father of a Sandy Hook victim:


.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

“Molon Labe” Was Uttered By An Arms-Controlling Tyrant


one of thousands of decals and other accessories
commercially available with the phrase "molon labe" on it
(This is Part II of a two-part series.  See HERE for Part I.)

The phrase “Molon labe” has special meaning to pro-gun extremists, but if they bothered to learn more about the arms-control beliefs of the tyrant who said those words, I believe they would immediately renounce the phrase.  In fact, the saying may not have actually been uttered at all.

When King Leonidas I of Sparta and his legion of 300 Spartan warriors, at the Battle of Thermopylae, were told by Persian King Xerxes I to surrender and lay down their weapons, King Leonidas supposedly said “Molon labe!” in response, which translates to “Come and take them!”  Over the next three days, he and his brave warriors defied and beat back the massive Persian army, with up to 150,000 soldiers, at a very tight pass along the route that the Persians were trying to take to invade Greece.  Defiant to the end, Leonidas and his brave Spartans nearly all died in the battle, buying time for Athens to evacuate to safety.  The war later ended due to superior Greek naval strategy and sea battles, and Xerxes was forced to retreat back to Persia. 

There's no doubt about it: Leonidas and the rest of his army (not just 300, by the way, but at least 7400 including all the other Greeks there) were a model of defensive positioning, and their act was indeed very heroic and altruistic.  They fill a very worthy position in the annals of History.  The defiance of Leonidas and his warriors rightly became a symbol of patriotic defense and self-sacrifice against overwhelming odds. 

The account of the battle fits in well with the pro-gun fantasy of defending one’s home against an invasion of bloodthirsty, drug-dealing gangs or “jackbooted government thugs” 

The translation of “molon labe” (come and take them) also goes hand-in-hand with the simplistic and wrongheaded ideology that any and all gun control proposals are actually a prelude to total civilian gun confiscation.  Like Charleton Heston’s famous “From my cold dead hands!” speech, “Molon labe” evokes the same Leonidas-like defiance against a supposedly tyrannical government intent on complete disarmament of its people.  It’s an ideology pushed hard by the NRA and other gun lobbies, the arms manufacturers who fund them, and anyone who defends them.  The more they push this belief, the more their customers will buy their products. 

And buy them they do!  A huge cottage market has sprung up around the phrase “Molon labe” (like THIS site or THIS site).  You can purchase all sorts of gear with the phrase on it:  hats, shirts, stickers, pens, dog tags, and, yes, gun parts.  There are even bikini thong panties with the phrase across the crotch.  Many of these are sold in combination with anti-Obama themes.  Here’s one that shows Obama’s election logo shot up (no violent implications, I’m sure).  Here's a pro-gun forum named after the phrase, and the name of a small-time firearms dealer.  The gun guys even get tattoos of it, like this one and this one

But I wanted to dig a little deeper.  I like to think of myself as a little bit of an ancient history buff, and what I knew of ancient Sparta didn't seem to jive with the philosophies of the modern pro-gun movement.  Though Sparta had a reputation of being warlike (which may be undeserved), it was also a highly stratified society with slaves and requirements to earn honors and titles.  It didn't seem like a place where weapons designed for killing were freely available, able to be carried in public by just anyone, as modern gun extremists would like to see with firearms in America.  Could it be true, then, that the man who uttered those famous words was actually leading a society with (gasp!) strict arms control?

So I contacted one of the world's foremost historians on ancient Sparta:  Stephen Hodkinson, BA, PhD, FSA, Professor of Ancient History and Director of the Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies at the University of Nottingham.

Professor Hodkinson edited and helped write the book (along with co-author Ian Macgregor Morris) “Sparta in Modern Thought.”  Dr. Hodkinson was even made an Honorary Citizen of the modern city of Sparta in Greece for his academic contributions to the history of Sparta. 

He responded quickly to my email, and wrote a very good, unbiased, scholarly opinion.  PLEASE GO TO PART I of this two-part series.  There you can find his response, un-edited by me. 

What Professor Hodkinson wrote surprised even me....  See some selected quotes below.

The right to possess a weapon in Sparta at that time wasn't guaranteed to just anyone.  As Professor Hodkinson outlines in Part I, there were a number of different castes in Spartan society.  The helots, who were essentially slaves, couldn't possess them at all, outside of a few historical exceptions or farming tools:

Each Spartiate was normally accompanied on campaign by a helot personal servant; but there were strict precautions to prevent these helots gaining access to usable arms. So there is every reason to believe that within Spartan territory helots would normally have been prevented from owning or gaining access to military weapons ...

Other groups had to go through certain "hoops" before they could be granted weapons: 

Returning to the various groups who are attested as fighting as hoplites, did they have to earn the right to bear and own arms?  Again, there is no text that specifies the exact legal position; but there were certain hoops that men from the different groups had to go through. A Spartiate boy almost certainly had to fulfill all the demands of the upbringing, in order to be allowed to join the army at age 20; the same surely also applied to young mothakes. The neodamodeis had to agree to perform military service for Sparta in return for being granted their freedom. As for members of the perioikoi, on reaching adulthood they had to be accepted as legitimate citizens in their own local communities and they probably also had to have sufficient wealth to afford the hoplite equipment – as was the case in most other Greek states.

Women likely couldn't own or use weapons, either:

No women from any of the groups in Spartan society fought in the Lakedaimonian army or had any guard duty roles, so they probably had no right to own or use military weapons.

Is discrimination against women and socio-economic class for gun ownership sound like something the modern pro-gun movement would support?

When it comes to age, here in the U.S. you have to be at least 18 to purchase a rifle or shotgun, and at least 21 to purchase a handgun (though the gun lobby has been trying unsuccessfully to lower those ages), but anyone younger can possess a gun that their parents buy for them, of any age.  Some guns are even special-made for children so young they are still learning their ABC's!  But in the Sparta of Leonidas, you likely had to be of military age of 20, or at least close to it, with military training, before earning the right:

As already indicated, for the Spartiates (and probably for the other groups too) eligibility for hoplite service began at age 20. Whether or not a Spartiate teenager possessed his own weapons before he started hoplite service is not mentioned in any ancient source. It may be that youths in their late teens, soon about to become hoplites, did so, but it is very difficult to demonstrate. In Athens, and possibly in other Greek states, 18-19-year-olds from citizen families who could afford it (families had to pay their teenagers’ costs) could serve as ephebes, being assigned static guard duties inside Athenian territory. Athenian teenagers would necessarily have their own weapons during this period of service. However, no source mentions anything parallel in Sparta ....

The only implied reference to formal military training (and this was for hoplites generally, not specifically part of the upbringing) is to formation drill: coordinated manoeuvres to get the phalanx into the right position before or during battle. It would be reasonable to assume that 18-19-year-old Spartiates were included in this formation drill training in preparation for when they turned age 20; and also that it was probably practised spear in hand, to make it more realistic. However, this is only assumption and it cannot be used to infer that boys below age 18 had access to military weapons.

The pro-gun movement has been very successful in recent years in making it ridiculously easy to legally carry firearms in public, concealed or openly.  Did Spartans carry their weapons around in civilian life, too?  Certainly not:

However, apart from these specific occasions, the Spartiates (and no doubt the other groups who fought in the army) normally went about their daily lives unarmed: i.e. without carrying weapons. ....

Thucydides (1.5-6) says that in certain (less civilised) parts of Greece – he mentions various peoples in central Greece – the old practice of carrying arms still survives because of the continuing danger of piracy. The clear implication is that in more secure and civilised Greek states people no longer carried weapons in everyday life; and this is confirmed when he goes on to say that the Athenians were the first to give up the habit of carrying weapons and also to adopt the fashion of wearing luxurious dress. He then says that the Lakedaimonians (i.e. Spartans) were the first to dress more simply in accord with modern taste. The implications are: (1) that by the time of their shift to simpler dress the Spartans had already followed the Athenian example of not carrying arms in everyday life; (2) that the Athenians and other civilised Greeks then adopted the Spartan example of simple dress, so that by Thucydides’ time in the late 5th century they all dressed simply and without carrying arms.

And this in spite of the fact, as Hodkinson goes on to point out, that the Spartans were vastly outnumbered by helot slaves and other subordinate groups who could easily arm themselves with tools and other dangerous, non-military implements found in markets or in the course of their labors.

The pro-gun lobby in modern America argues that people need to carry their weapons at all times to protect against imminent threat, even in places like schools and coffee shops.  Clearly Leonidas and his culture didn't feel the same.

Ah, but here's the real surprise that I wasn't aware of:  the utterance of "molon labe" may not have even happened at all!  It didn't appear in extant writings from close to the time of the Battle of Thermopylae.  We know the phrase from the writings of Plutarch, some 580 years after the battle:

Finally, some comments on the “molon labe” phrase ascribed to Leonidas at the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. It does not appear in Herodotus’ account, written in the later 5th century, which records the witty sayings of another member of the 300, Dienekes. Neither does it appear in accounts of the battle deriving from Ephorus, who wrote in the 4th century and who himself drew upon a contemporary poem about the battle by Simonides. To my knowledge, the only appearance of the phrase in all the ancient evidence about Thermopylae is in a work by Plutarch, writing in the early 2nd century AD: the Apophthegmata Lakonika (Sayings of Spartans), which is part of Plutarch’s Moralia. It is no. 11 out of fifteen sayings ascribed to Leonidas.

He later clarified in an email (updated 6/11/13):  
As far as we can currently tell, many of [the Spartan sayings] were probably invented in the late 4th or early 3rdcenturies BC, at a time when Sparta had ceased to be a major international power and became instead an attractive source of moral examples for the new and rising Hellenistic schools of philosophy. However, the late 4th or early 3rd centuries BC is still 150-200 years after Thermopylae, a long time after the event.

In sum, the historical authenticity of the phrase “molon labe” is uncertain. One cannot prove that it is a later embroidering of the Leonidas legend; but its sole appearance in a late work which is known to contain many other inventions and its somewhat odd context in that work do not inspire confidence that it is genuinely historical.

So what can we make of all this?  The answer is shockingly clear:  for anyone who uses "molon labe" as a rally cry for the pro-gun movement, the joke's on them! 

It leaves me laughing to think that all those people who tattoo their bodies with "molon labe", apply bumper stickers to their cars, or wear hats, shirts, or even panties with the words on them, are likely celebrating a fiction.  The society of the man who supposedly uttered those words would horrify any pro-gun person if the culture of Sparta in the time of Leonidas were applied to modern life, and the saying itself may have been a fabrication to begin with!


But that won't stop these people.  After all, the gun guys cling to myths, based on half-truths, to justify their beliefs -- like the belief that the American Revolution was won by valiant farmers wielding their hunting rifles in militias and picking off the British using guerrilla tactics, ignoring the largest role by the Continental Army and French allies, or that the American West was tamed by cowboys with revolvers, ignoring the fact that guns were prohibited in city limits of the time, and rarely carried or owned at all except for hunting.  Using "molon labe" as a symbol for the pro-gun movement focuses only on the one, defiant sentiment, and ignores all other aspects of the arms-controlling society of the man who supposedly uttered it.

Did Sparta Exercise Arms Control In Its Society?

(This is Part I of a two-part series.  See HERE for Part II.)
Professor Stephen Hodkinson

Today we have a guest post by Professor Stephen Hodkinson, BA, PhD, FSA, Professor of Ancient History and Director of the Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies at the University of Nottingham.

Professor Hodkinson is a world leader in the history of Sparta, and edited and helped write (along with co-author Ian Macgregor Morris) “Sparta in Modern Thought.”  Dr. Hodkinson was even made an Honorary Citizen of the modern city of Sparta in Greece for his academic contributions to the history of Sparta.

As I expound upon in Part II, a common slogan among the more extremist groups of U.S. pro-gun activists is "Molon labe!" (ancient Greek for “Come and take them”), a phrase which was supposedly spoken by King Leonidas I after Xerxes I commanded him to lay down his arms and surrender, at the Battle of Thermopylae (as written by the ancient historian Plutarch, who was a Greek Roman).  Pro-gun activists in the U.S. use the cry as a sort of code phrase to oppose any and all gun regulation, with the fallacious assumption that, no matter how commonsense the regulation may be, it would eventually lead to complete confiscation of all civilian firearms (and thus they would utter the phrase upon any attempt to take them away).

But I wondered how appropriate such a slogan was.  Though it fit the idea of surrendering arms, I wanted to delve a bit deeper.  As I understood it, the Sparta of Leonidas was deeply stratified and had some very profound rules about earning honor and rigorous military training.

Thus, I was curious, and hoped Dr. Hodkinson could help answer some questions:  Could anyone in Sparta possess weaponry?  Were Helots or the others banned from owning weapons?  Did you have to earn the right, even as a Spartiate?  At what age could you possess a weapon?  Were women allowed to be armed?  Once earned, could anyone carry a weapon anywhere they wished in society?

My main goal was to compare and contrast the reality of arms control between that of Sparta in the time of Leonidas and the U.S. of today, and see if the utterance of "Molon labe!" is really pertinent to the modern pro-gun movement or is simply a shallow and narrowly-focused slogan.

So I wrote Dr. Hodkinson with these questions.  Below was his academic response.  In Part II I will then evaluate his response in light of the gun control and pro-gun movements.  

From Dr. Hodkinson:


Did Sparta exercise arms control in its society?
(Academic opinion in response to a query from Baldr Odinson)

Professor Stephen Hodkinson. BA, PhD, FSA
Professor of Ancient History and Director, Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies
University of Nottingham

Preliminary note
My comments here derive from my research over the last few years on the role of war and military elements in Spartan culture. I have published an early version of my findings in an article, “Was classical Sparta a military society?”, in Stephen Hodkinson and Anton Powell (eds.), Sparta and War (Classical Press of Wales, Swansea, 2006), pp. 111-162.

Historical Context
My comments deal with ancient Sparta in the Classical period of Greek history: i.e. the 5th and 4th centuries BC. This was the period when Sparta was at the peak of its power: when it led the Greek resistance to the Persian invasion (480-479 BC, which included the battle of Thermopylae), when it fought the Peloponnesian War against Athens (431-404 BC), and when it controlled a short-lived empire, which collapsed after Sparta’s defeat at the battle of Leuktra in 371 BC.

Spartan society was highly stratified and, in discussing the question of access to arms, we need to distinguish several different groups. Traditionally, there were three main groups:

  • The Spartiates (nowadays, in popular parlance, simply called the ‘Spartans’). This was the elite group of full citizens. They lived in the five central villages of Sparta and were a leisured elite of landowners. Their country estates, which occupied the most fertile plains within Sparta’s quite large territory, were cultivated by an unfree population, the helots (see below). Spartiate boys went through the public upbringing from age 7 and Spartiate men alone exercised political rights. Spartiate girls also received some form of public physical training before marriage.
  • The perioikoi (‘dwellers around’). This was another group of free men and women. They lived in a number of self-governing villages or small towns scattered around Sparta’s territory. Economically, they ranged from wealthy leisured landowners to ordinary working farmers and craftsmen etc. They were not full citizens like the Spartiates (they did not exercise any political rights in Sparta itself or go through the Spartiate upbringing), but they did have some form of subsidiary membership of the broader political community. The ancient term for the Spartan state, ‘the Lakedaimonians’, embraced both the Spartiates and the perioikoi.
  • The helots. These were an unfree population who farmed the Spartiates’ country estates and were also servants in the Spartiates’ households in Sparta itself.

There were also a number of other groups in the society. The people in these groups were free, but not full citizens. Over the course of the Classical period, two of these other groups became numerically significant:

  • The Inferiors. These were Spartiates who had lost full citizen status for various reasons: most notably impoverishment which prevented them from making their compulsory food contributions to their common mess, which led to loss of Spartiate status.
  • The neodamodeis. These were former helots who had been given their freedom in return for military service in Sparta’s armies. This status was probably created during the Peloponnesian War in the 420s BC.

A couple of further minor groups are worth mentioning:

  • The mothakes. Exactly who these were is debated. In my view, these were boys from former Spartiate families which had lost full citizen status, but who were sponsored through the public upbringing by wealthy Spartiates and on successful completion could regain Spartiate status.
  • The nothoi (‘bastards’). These were probably sons of Spartiate fathers by helot women.

Ownership of and access to arms: military weapons
The phrase “molon labe” (“come and take them”) ascribed to King Leonidas at the battle of Thermopylae relates to military arms used in warfare. Most soldiers in Sparta were heavy-armed hoplites, whose offensive weapons were a spear and a short sword (shorter than the sword of hoplites from other Greek states). Hoplite service was normally reserved to adult males (i.e. men aged 20 and over). Among the Spartiates the age of retirement from hoplite service was age 60.

Of the groups listed above, the Spartiates, perioikoi, Inferiors, neodamodeis and nothoi are all attested as fighting as hoplites in Sparta’s armies. (Nowadays, we talk loosely about the ‘Spartan army’; but Sparta’s army was never composed solely of Spartiates. The ‘Lakedaimonian army’ would be more accurate and closer to ancient usage.) We can reasonably assume that adult male hoplites from all these groups of free persons had legitimate personal ownership of military weapons, which they would typically store at home when not on active service.

The situation regarding the helots is slightly more complex. (Peter Hunt’s controversial book, Slaves, Warfare and Ideology in the Greek Historians, argues that the helots had a larger military role than most scholars believe.) In my view, they did not normally have an active fighting role. There were occasional exceptions: in the crucial battle of Plataia in 479 BC, the final battle of the Persian War, 35,000 helots participated as light-armed (not hoplite) troops; and modest numbers of helots sometimes fought on overseas campaigns during the Peloponnesian War. But these were exceptional occasions. Each Spartiate was normally accompanied on campaign by a helot personal servant; but there were strict precautions to prevent these helots gaining access to usable arms. So there is every reason to believe that within Spartan territory helots would normally have been prevented from owning or gaining access to military weapons – or at least to spears (see below).

Returning to the various groups who are attested as fighting as hoplites, did they have to earn the right to bear and own arms? Again, there is no text that specifies the exact legal position; but there were certain hoops that men from the different groups had to go through. A Spartiate boy almost certainly had to fulfil all the demands of the upbringing, in order to be allowed to join the army at age 20; the same surely also applied to young mothakes. The neodamodeis had to agree to perform military service for Sparta in return for being granted their freedom. As for members of the perioikoi, on reaching adulthood they had to be accepted as legitimate citizens in their own local communities and they probably also had to have sufficient wealth to afford the hoplite equipment – as was the case in most other Greek states.

Gender. No women from any of the groups in Spartan society fought in the Lakedaimonian army or had any guard duty roles, so they probably had no right to own or use military weapons.

Age. As already indicated, for the Spartiates (and probably for the other groups too) eligibility for hoplite service began at age 20. Whether or not a Spartiate teenager possessed his own weapons before he started hoplite service is not mentioned in any ancient source. It may be that youths in their late teens, soon about to become hoplites, did so, but it is very difficult to demonstrate. In Athens, and possibly in other Greek states, 18-19-year-olds from citizen families who could afford it (families had to pay their teenagers’ costs) could serve as ephebes, being assigned static guard duties inside Athenian territory. Athenian teenagers would necessarily have their own weapons during this period of service. However, no source mentions anything parallel in Sparta (on the enigmatic Krypteia, see below). Contrary to popular opinion, Greek hoplite fighting, even in Sparta, involved remarkably little specialised prior training. It was generally assumed that using spear or sword was such a natural activity that it required little formal training, and in other states one has references to youths just grabbing their father’s weapons stored at home and playing at fighting. In Sparta, of course, boys were away from home in the public upbringing from age 7, so one might imagine that training teenagers for combat would have been more organised. However, none of the evidence for the Spartiate public upbringing makes any mention of specialised military training: either practice in the use of spear or sword or practice in group combat. The only implied reference to formal military training (and this was for hoplites generally, not specifically part of the upbringing) is to formation drill: coordinated manoeuvres to get the phalanx into the right position before or during battle. It would be reasonable to assume that 18-19-year-old Spartiates were included in this formation drill training in preparation for when they turned age 20; and also that it was probably practised spear in hand, to make it more realistic. However, this is only assumption and it cannot be used to infer that boys below age 18 had access to military weapons. (In an incident discussed below, when one boy accidentally killed another, he did so with a whittling knife, not a military weapon.)

Use of military weapons in everyday peacetime life
There were certain specific occasions in everyday peacetime life when men who had legitimate ownership of military weapons could take them out of storage at home and make use of them in public situations. One was for the formation training mentioned above. Another was for hunting expeditions in the countryside, for which spears were used. Yet another may have been for certain types of public dances: notably the so-called pyrriche, which mimicked combat movements and was conducted bearing one’s shield – and possibly one’s spear (the evidence differs on this point).

However, apart from these specific occasions, the Spartiates (and no doubt the other groups who fought in the army) normally went about their daily lives unarmed: i.e. without carrying weapons. This point is attested by two contemporary writers: Thucydides, writing about Greece in general in the late 5th century; and Xenophon, writing specifically about Sparta in the early 4th century.

Thucydides (1.5-6) says that in certain (less civilised) parts of Greece – he mentions various peoples in central Greece – the old practice of carrying arms still survives because of the continuing danger of piracy. The clear implication is that in more secure and civilised Greek states people no longer carried weapons in everyday life; and this is confirmed when he goes on to say that the Athenians were the first to give up the habit of carrying weapons and also to adopt the fashion of wearing luxurious dress. He then says that the Lakedaimonians (i.e. Spartans) were the first to dress more simply in accord with modern taste. The implications are: (1) that by the time of their shift to simpler dress the Spartans had already followed the Athenian example of not carrying arms in everyday life; (2) that the Athenians and other civilised Greeks then adopted the Spartan example of simple dress, so that by Thucydides’ time in the late 5th century they all dressed simply and without carrying arms.

Xenophon, in his Hellenika (3.3.7), gives an account of a planned conspiracy in Sparta around 400 BC whose leaders hoped to recruit various non-Spartiate groups – the helots, neodamodeis, Inferiors and perioikoi – to revolt against the Spartiates. The conspiracy was nipped in the bud because an informer brought it to the attention of the authorities and reported a conversation he had had with the conspiracy’s leader, a certain Kinadon. When the informer asked Kinadon where the rebels would get arms, this is how Xenophon reports Kinadon’s words and actions (I quote):

“Those of us who are in the army, of course, have arms of our own. As for the mob, I will show you.” He had then taken him into the iron market and pointed out to him the great supply of knives, swords, spits, axes, hatchets and sickles. “And tools”, he said, “which are used for work in agriculture, forestry or stonework are also weapons, and most of the other industries, too, use implements which are perfectly good weapons, especially against unarmed men.”

From this evidence we can deduce that: (1) various types of everyday sharp and bladed implements (but not spears), were available for purchase in the market and for use by all sorts of subordinate groups – whether the swords mentioned in the passage would have been sold to helots is an interesting but unanswerable question; (2) despite this easy availability of dangerous implements to potential rebels, the Spartiates went about their daily lives unarmed.

Earlier in the episode Xenophon gives a series of snapshots of Spartiate daily life. He depicts around 75 Spartiates doing business in the agora surrounded by more than 4,000 non-Spartiates; other Spartiates walking about the streets in ones and twos, also outnumbered by non-Spartiates; finally, individual Spartiates out on their country estates supervising a mass of helot labourers. So we can’t account for the fact that the Spartiates didn’t carry arms by arguing that they were always massed in a group, giving them strength in numbers. Xenophon implies that a Spartiate remained unarmed even when on his own out on his country estates, separated from his fellow citizens. Some TV programmes about Sparta, such as the History Channel’s The Rise and Fall of the Spartans (2002), show images of helots working the fields supervised by Spartiates standing over them fully armed in military gear. Nothing could be further from the truth.   

The only occasion when certain Spartiates are said to have gone out among the helots armed with a military weapon was as part of the infamous Krypteia. According to Plutarch (Life of Lycurgus ch. 28), reporting information from Aristotle (probably a work written by Aristotle’s students within his collective research into Greek constitutions), a select group of young Spartiates was sent out carrying the short Spartan sword, the encheiridion, with the brief to kill helots. This, however, was a very limited occasion. According to the latest study, Jean Ducat’s Spartan Education (2006, ch. 9), it took place for a limited period perhaps only once a year, involving a very small number of young Spartiates, perhaps only a dozen or so (possibly 18-19-year-olds, possibly young men in their 20s: the evidence is ambiguous). It does not represent normal everyday Spartan practice.

Use of non-military ‘weapons’ in everyday life
As the Xenophon passage shows, everyday life in a pre-industrial agrarian society like Sparta necessarily involved the regular use of a wide range of sharp and bladed implements which would have been available to men and women from all groups in the society.

This included not just adults but also boys. In his Anabasis – his account of the expedition of the Greek mercenaries known as the ‘Ten Thousand’ into the Persian Empire – Xenophon (4.8.25-6) mentions that one of the troops was a Spartiate called Drakontios who had been exiled from home as a ‘boy’ because he had accidentally killed another boy with the stroke of a xyele. (In a Spartan context, the Greek term for ‘boy’ (pais) could mean anything from age 7 to 14.) The xyele was a curved knife, a Lakonian speciality, used especially for whittling, not specifically for fighting; but obviously its availability could prove tragic in the wrong circumstances. We don’t know anything more about the precise circumstances of this accidental killing. What’s interesting is the severe punishment of exile meted out by the Spartan authorities to the boy Drakontios for the crime of accidental homicide. This was the same punishment as was meted out to Spartan kings who were convicted of taking bribes against Sparta’s state interests whilst on campaign.

“Molon labe”
Finally, some comments on the “molon labe” phrase ascribed to Leonidas at the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. It does not appear in Herodotus’ account, written in the later 5th century, which records the witty sayings of another member of the 300, Dienekes. Neither does it appear in accounts of the battle deriving from Ephorus, who wrote in the 4th century and who himself drew upon a contemporary poem about the battle by Simonides. To my knowledge, the only appearance of the phrase in all the ancient evidence about Thermopylae is in a work by Plutarch, writing in the early 2nd century AD: the Apophthegmata Lakonika (Sayings of Spartans), which is part of Plutarch’s Moralia. It is no. 11 out of fifteen sayings ascribed to Leonidas.

The Sayings of Spartans was not an original work by Plutarch himself, but a personal compilation of sayings already in circulation (perhaps already collected into earlier compilations) which Plutarch put together for his own purposes. How far back the sayings go varies from saying to saying. Some go back to the classical period and seem to be authentic sayings by historical characters. However, many appear to be later inventions created in the Hellenistic period.

Leonidas’ saying has a somewhat odd context. Unlike most sayings in Plutarch’s compilation, it is not a verbal saying, but a written response by letter to a letter from the Persian king Xerxes. In fact, it is Leonidas’ second response in a mini-exchange of letters initiated by Xerxes. The initial exchange between the two men is given in the previous Saying, no. 10. Leonidas’ “molon labe” in Saying no. 11 has the appropriate Spartan brevity in response to a brief three-word demand from Xerxes. In contrast, in no. 10 Xerxes’ letter and Leonidas’ response are both somewhat longer: Xerxes’ letter is 10 words long and Leonidas’ response is an incongruously verbose 24 words in ancient Greek. The exchange of letters is in itself peculiar, though not because Spartiates couldn’t read or write (they could). Oral communication via herald was a more normal mode of exchange and would have given greater public resonance to a dramatic assertion like “molon labe”.

In sum, the historical authenticity of the phrase “molon labe” is uncertain. One cannot prove that it is a later embroidering of the Leonidas legend; but its sole appearance in a late work which is known to contain many other inventions and its somewhat odd context in that work do not inspire confidence that it is genuinely historical.


ADDENDUM (8/10/13) (Added by Baldr Odinson): For a related article on how ancient Greeks did not carry their weapons in everyday life, "How the Ancient Greeks Viewed Weapons," see an article in the New Yorker, HERE.  Selected quotes from that article:
The pioneers of citizen armies were also pioneers of withdrawing weapons from the places of civilized life.  ... 
But, even in these cities, it was believed that carrying weapons at home would be tantamount to letting weapons, not laws, rule. ... 
This is the opposite of the view attributed to the Founding Fathers by the N.R.A.’s chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, in 2009, when he said that “our founding fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules.” On the contrary, letting the guys with weapons make the rules of ordinary life was the opposite of the classical practices that inspired the American founders. 
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