So, back when I was cussing a lot about the premature politicization of the Virginia Tech shootings, I threatened to give my real opinions on the subject of gun control on Monday. It's Monday, and I try to be good to my word, so, this is that post.
Dipping back into my shady past on Usenet, there's this old post, which turned up in .sigfiles for a while:
Actually, a smallish number of people with strong opinions and mind control powers would probably be the simplest possible explanation for the gun control debate, which typically involves critical reasoning diluted to near-homeopathic levels...
That's still pretty much my feeling, as you can also get from Thursday's post, in which I referred to it as one of the two great brain-sucking quagmire arguments in American politics. I say that not just because people who get sucked into arguing about gun control inevitably seem to find themselves covered in filth and unable to escape, but because something about the topic appears to suck the brains right out of the skulls of partisans on both sides. In fact, I can feel brain cells dying even as I write this, so I'll try to type fast.
People on the pro-gun-control side creep me out, not because of their expansive view of government power, but because they seem to regard guns as weirdly talismanic objects that inevitably bring death and destruction. This is just ridiculous-- a gun is a tool, not a ring of power. There's nothing inherently corrupting about guns. They don't whisper ominously to you in the Black Speech of Mordor, tempting you to evil. Giving someone a gun won't turn an ordinary person into a cold-blooded killer, any more than giving them a claw hammer will turn them into a master carpenter.
"But thousands of people are killed by firearms every year!" Yes, and...? Taking statistics from a pro-gun-control site, the total number of firearm deaths in the US is on the short side of 30,000. The total number of guns in the country is frequently cited as being in the neghborhood of 200 million-- that means that there's something like one chance in 7000 of any particular gun killing anybody, even if you make the highly conservative assumption of one and only one death per gun. That makes guns roughly as dangerous as cars (40,000 deaths in automobile accidents for 250,000,000 cars), and those odds just don't say to me that guns are so intrinsically scary that they must be banned.
Don't get me wrong-- I'm not trying to trivialize firearm deaths. The death of any person for any reason is a terrible thing, and firearm deaths are no exception. But the fact is, the actual risk of death from guns doesn't come close to justifying the level of fear gun-control proponents try to generate about them.
But the timorous gun control proponents come off well compared to the pro-gun side, who seem to run on a combination of preposterous machismo and pants-wetting terror. It's a wonder their heads don't explode from the cognitive dissonance. The case for having more people carry guns rests on two main assumptions, as far as I can tell. The first is that crime is everywhere, and people have an absolute need to carry guns in order to keep themselves safe. The second is that when confronted with an actual crime, a person carrying a gun will automatically turn into Clint Eastwood, calmly and coolly saving the day with steely resolve.
Both of these are ridiculous. The total crime rate is in the neighborhood of 4,000 per 100,000 people, which sounds like a lot, but that's everything. If you consider only violent crimes (which are what guns are supposed to prevent), that drops by an order of magnitude, and those aren't going to be evenly distributed. The fact is, for most people, the danger of being a victim of a crime just aren't that great, whether you're carrying a gun or not.
I'm thirty-five years old, and I can think of a total of about five occasions in my life when I honestly thought I was in danger of being the victim of a crime, and I was wrong every time. In four of those five cases, I or somebody with me had actively done something stupid to put me in an unsafe situation (the fifth came about because I lived down the block from a crack house, which you could argue is delayed stupidity). Now, granted, I'm a large white male, and I've spent most of my life far from crime-ridden urban areas, but none of those situations would've been improved by a gun.
(And similar conditions hold for many gun proponents. One of my favorite news articles ever came from the Washington Post in the wake of a vote on an assault weapons ban. A congressman representing Glens Falls, NY, said on the floor of the House that he was voting against the ban because he was away from home for much of the year, and his wife needed to be able to feel safe in their home when was gone. The Post pulled the police blotter for Glens Falls, which featured no violent crimes to speak of, but did include honest-to-God calls to retrieve cats stuck in trees.)
As for the second key assumption, that armed citizens will automatically be able to stop crimes being committed, don't make me laugh. We're a nation of people who freeze up when confronted with the six choices on the value menu at a fat-food restaurant-- you think that these people are going to make accurate snap decisions in a life-or-death situation? The vast majority of people, armed or not, will simply freeze up in the sort of stressful situation where a gun would need to be used, and those who don't freeze up worry me more than the criminals do. If carrying of concelaed weapons were as common as some libertoonians would like, I'd be more afraid of getting shot in the face for asking some jittery commuter the time than I would of actual muggers.
This is dealt with extremely well in the promoted comment from "Old Jarhead" on Making Light, and the article on the Lethal Force Institute, also via Making Light. The idea that a bunch of ordinary citizens with guns are going to be a solution to the crime problem is just not credible. Of course, it looks like a rock-solid certainty compared to the farcical notion that privately owned weapons are the last, best defense against government tyranny. That's absolutely farcical given the resources of a modern police force, let alone the military.
And don't even talk to me about the hack-tacular John Lott and his ridiculous studies. Even before he imploded in a cloud of sock puppets and mysteriously absent research data, his book was a case study in how to package dubious results to make them look more impressive. His subsequent antics have completely compromised any credibility he might've had.
If you put a gun to my head (heh), and made me pick one group or the other, I'd probably go with the gun control people. My ideal solution, though, would be to ban most concealed-carry proponents from carrying anything more threatening than a butter knife, and require most gun control activists to carry loaded pistols at all times. Assuming we couldn't just maroon them all on an island somewhere.
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Well said.
Well stated. I've often felt that, if concealed-carry were enacted tomorrow, you might get as many as 5% of the population to get involved, but over time, the number of people who actually carry guns would probably drop to under 1%. Why? Because carrying a gun is kind of a pain, and most people live in a world where you don't actually need a gun to protect yourself.
The only problem, though, is that those 1% carrying would be the kind of people who think that guns can solve problems, and those people kind of scare me.
In general, I think that simple gun control laws are the best, but that no law is a panacea. Harsher gun control laws will not stop lunatics, and weaker gun control laws will not protect us from them.
K
Most gun deaths are probably drug-crime related (as differentiated from drug-related).
Most of the gun owners I know are perfectly sane, wonderful people and it wouldn't bother me a bit to have them packing. But then I don't know any violent criminals or psychopaths.
I'm started to get annoyed by how fair you are, it's just impossible to argue with. But I do sort of take offense to "libertoonians", since not all libertarians are crazy (although, like all groups, there are certainly some crazy ones).
Also, I'm sure you heard about the students who stopped a gun-wielding maniac at a Virginia law school not too long ago, which is an example of citizens stopping crime. I'm not saying everyone should have guns, just that quick thinking by someone who has one can happen.
A distinction that you make implicitly (I think) that I think should be made explict is the difference between long guns (rifle, shotgun) vs hand guns. I rember reading somewhere that a majority of gun deaths are hand guns, if you where to resolve gun type, I suspect hand guns would come out alot worse than cars.
I don't trust rednecks with cars or guns, but in their minds, "The bigger, the better. Git 'er dun."
The idea that there's a problem at all is what sucks the brain dry. Whenever there are particularly high-profile events, be they gun deaths, plane crashes, ships sinking, derailments etc, the VIVIDNESS of it all compels some to demand universal solutions to problems that are not universal. It's the fallacy of excessive vividness played out at internet speed, and for the profit of cable commentators.
On the gun control side, I am not sure that many people call for complete ban on guns (and if they do, it indeed does not make any sense). The fact is that in societies with stricter gun control (which include both cases of Israel and Canada which I am familiar with) there are fewer gun related deaths (which includes both accidents and homicides). Since the difference is typically a very large factor (3-4 when compared to Canada, more like 10-15 when compared to other places), maybe it is reasonable to look for compromise between absolute rights and safety. I suspect a lot can be done by controlling weapons not used by your average citizen
Howard does bring up an important point. Popular thinking is too affected by the extreme outlier type events -like last week. The vast majority of gun deaths are events with one or two victims, but these rarely make national news, they don't command our minds the way extreme events do. If you are terrified of VT like events, then you may be swayed by "let everyone carry" type arguments, and will ignore
arguments that accidents, and increased numbers of small scale events
might overwhelm any good thus done.
It really does not help that ostensible "gun rights" organizations like the NRA go far beyond just advocating legal firearms ownership. The NRA invited Ted Nugent to speak at their annual convention a couple years ago. Key quotes:
This bears no relationship whatsoever to gun rights. If there is a relationship, it's the relationship between a generic right to buy glass bottles and throwing Molotov cocktails. If the NRA wants to be perceived as a rational player in this debate, they need to do one thing, above all else: stop supporting or hosting speeches like this right now.
Or, more correctly, the right to buy Molotov cocktails and the right to throw them at people you think are going to hurt you.
When I think of the people I know with concealed carry licenses, they all seem like pretty reasonable people, and I don't mind their carrying.
In fact, many of the carrying people, in some respects, seem a lot more reasonable than many of the police officers I know.
I'm from Australia, so my perspective will obviously be a bit different. What is wrong with allowing farmers to carry long guns and perhaps a few other groups as well. Severely restrict the availability of automatic (and semi-automatic) weapons and hand-guns and require they they be stored in a licensed armoury/shooting range.
I can't think of any reason that bears up under scrutiny to allow concealed (or otherwise) weapons on city streets except for in the hands of law-enforcement officers. No one needs vigilantes in this day and age...
Only the last sentence of Mr. Nugent's rant even remotely mentions that condition. Moreover, it feels like a cheap rationalization -- the thing you say at the end of something crazy to make it appear less crazy than it was. In this case, a tirade about (a) killing lots of people who (b) in some cases are not posing an immediate lethal threat and (c) without benefit of a trial.
That's simply appalling. And as I said before, that has nothing to do with gun rights. The most objectionable part of Mr. Nugent's tirade doesn't mention guns at all -- it would be equally objectionable if he were thinking of knives or baseball bats. What I quoted is utterly unhinged and explicitly rejected by a large number (most likely the large majority) of people who own any weapons for personal self-defense. The NRA's habit of conflating all of this is what I object to, very deeply.
For the record, I am broadly supportive of a legal right to own firearms; I think you can come up with a coherent defense of that on civil-liberties grounds alone. Thanks to the NRA, I cannot make that argument to most people that I know: if I tried, they'd "see" Ted Nugent talking to them. The NRA can argue for his right to own firearms all they want; supporting attitudes like this is something else entirely.
Sounds rational to me, Chad. I own a number of firearms; rifles, shotguns, double and single action hand guns, and I do my own reloading. I genuinely enjoy them. Target practice is a kick. It's all about precision. Controlling your breathing. Controlling your heart rate. I've zero interest in hunting. When it comes to 'protection' I'd rather have a well trained dog.
That said, I'm one of those folks who sees no need for semiautomatic, or automatic arms in the general population. It freaks me out that our local police force sees the .45 semiautomatic as the firearm of choice. The cops I've met are none too bright, and pretty pumped up on themselves. And, from the looks of some of 'em anabolic steroids seem to be their vitamin of choice. Doesn't strike me as a happy combination. I also see no real need for 9 - 15 bullet clips. Others could feel differently. There seems to be plenty of room for rational discourse if the NRA could at least stop and take a deep breath.
I appreciate the numbers you've been able to find to put Virginia Tech into perspective. Thanks for taking the time.
It's worth pausing to note that one can be pro-gun (or more accurately, anti-gun-control) without exhorting people to shoot other people, without exhorting people to buy more guns, and in fact without even owning a gun in the first place.
Hell, I don't drink, but that doesn't make me pro-Prohibition.
(I guess in fairness, it's possible to be for gun control without resorting to shamanistic fantasy thinking, too, but I encounter that less frequently, so it annoys me less.)
Great reference on the gun deaths. I found it interesting how much the rate of gun homicide varied by age. According to that data, if you are 45 you have roughly 1/5 the odds of being murdered by someone with a gun than does a 20 year old.
Great site...I'm glad there are others out there who are still talking about gun control, since the MSM is likely to let it slide, along with most everyone in DC. This was excellent, a great read.
Here is my contribution to the effort:
Arm Fratboys -or- Curb Straw Purchases?
I linked to your site on http://deadissue.com - hope you'll check it out and maybe reciprocate.
Peace - DI
Which is precisely why I can't understand the resistance of groups like the NRA to licensing and background checks. If you can prove you're a reasonable person, I don't have a huge problem with you owning a gun. The VT klller only needed a credit card. (Not that I'm blaming this, of course!)
The NRA gets lots of funding from handgun manufacturers. About 15% of the handguns sold new end up being used in crime (and traced) after 5 years. This works out to several million handguns per year. That is basically the profit margin for an entire industry.
I don't have any irons in the fire either way. I understand and can debate both sides.
I really think that the huge number of available firearms exacerbates crime numbers. The number of murders in the rest of the first world don't even approach American levels. On the other hand, you can't simply outlaw weapons; the American public wouldn't stand still - there would be a second civil war.
That is the core issue.
Whether you want to disarm America, remove all handguns or arm all the 'good guys,' I would just say what any good redneck would answer when asked for directions - You can't get there from here.
The VT klller only needed a credit card. (Not that I'm blaming this, of course!)
Uh, no. He passed a background check and observed the mandatory waiting period (and these laws only apply to licensed gun dealers, private citizens can and do buy and sell firearms from and to each other).
He'd never been convicted of a crime, he'd never been institutionalized, and he could afford the purchase.
Pseudonym wrote:
Which is precisely why I can't understand the resistance of groups like the NRA to licensing and background checks.
I can understand. They don't want the government having a list of who has a gun, and which ones. There have been just enough cases of governments confiscating guns to, I think, give them cause to have that worry.
On the other hand, a background check that simply verifies whether a given person is eligible to buy a gun (without saying whether that person actually bought a gun) might keep the unfit from getting one, without allowing the government to create a master list.
The argument that my (hypothetical) gun would enable armed anti-gov resistence doesn't sound as sensible to me as it once did. If it gets to the point where we have to shoot our government, we're really screwed because it can shoot back in some unimaginably serious ways. Best to exercise strong vigilance on the early stages, not drift in that direction in the first place. Freedom of the press, reliable elections, and all that.
Gradually I've come to think there should be real gun licencing and registration, including ballistic samples. Perhaps mandatory liability insurance as well, though it should be pretty cheap if one can demonstrate owning a gun safe.
Concealed carry doesn't sound that crazy to me, providing the gun is registered and the gun owner too. I'd never carry a gun but criminals would have to wonder if I do.