jawfish

Guns, Again
john posted in politics & culture on July 28th, 2005

see Reason Magazine online: Straight Shooting on Gun Control
Summarizing author Abigail A. Kohn: gun owners hold the national political power right now, so there is no incentive for them to accept any gun control. Both sides in the gun debate take irrational, emotional stances that lead to permanent deadlock. Most gun owners are decent everyday folks. ( I should note that there are a few bizarre ancillary arguments in the Reason article which I am ignoring.)

The article is labeled a debate, but not really argued from the gun control side. However, since I thought it a reasonable but incomplete approach to the discussion, and since Charlton Heston isn’t involved, I felt inspired to try my own unravelling of the gun vs. antigun knot.

This is a very emotional issue so I’ll raise the colors to start:
I am a past gun owner, an occasional hunter in my teens. I have lived in dangerous big cities ( LA and New York ) and several of my friends have been mugged. I think Dubya is a rich frat-boy, captive to the politics of some really dangerous NeoCons, and the NRA leaders are a highly successful conspiracy to raise money and hold political power by creating ridiculous fears of gun control. My late Father had a handgun in his bedside table. I myself have never owned a handgun, but I have a vague memory of shooting a pistol once. I was shot at with a shotgun once, but the shooter waited until we were out of range, though the pellets did puncture the plastic window. I don’t think the 2nd amendment guarantees non-militia gun ownership, but given the ubiquitous legal guns I’ll concede the point as moot due to precedent.

One thing that strikes me right away from the piece in Reason, is that carry-permits and criminal use are the real issues for her. I’d add, personal disputes ending in gunfire: including spouse abuse, bar fights, and accidents with children. These are all the result of too-casual gun storage, and often, alcohol. There’s no consensus for making heavy armament legal, and none to limit rifles and shotguns. So what’s left to argue? Handgun ownership rules, light assault weapons, and carry permits.

Whats the goal?
The goal should be to balance individual ownership rights versus the costs to the community of widespread gun ownership ( which includes the incidental infringement of rights of non-owners). Never mind the 2nd amendment, lets just agree that people in the US are allowed to own anything unless its prohibited for a good reason. But community costs of widespread handgun ownership exist - non-owner’s rights are infringed by gun owners: including shootings which would have remained fist-fights without a gun present, accidents with children, and the hypothetical wild-west spraying of bullets in public.

Don’t confuse the gun control side of this argument with the straw man argument often put forward by opponents of gun regulation- “guns don’t kill people, people do.” Its really quite simple- without ubiquitous guns, people wouldn’t kill so many other people. So lets look at the balance.

What gun problems actually exist?

Everybody agrees that crimes involving guns should be minimized somehow. That’s a no-brainer, we and, I think South Africa, have off-the-charts levels of gun violence compared to other developed countries. Criminals in America have easy access to handguns, in contrast to other developed countries.

The police have a problem of unknown magnitude ( unknown to me ) with armor-piercing ammunition and rapid-fire ( assault) weapons. This might be very isolated, or it might be widespread - frankly I don’t know, except to say that it does exist and could become a big problem. In gun terms, a pump shotgun, bolt-action rifle and 9 millimeter automatic accomplish everything a Tek9 or AK47 do, minus some fun factor, so there is a strong pro-police argument for eliminating special weaponry.

Cheap guns, so-called Saturday night specials, may or may not increase the number of criminal guns, but they don’t benefit legitimate gun users because they are junk. There seems to be some evidence that ultra-cheap guns do make it easier for low-level criminals to get untraceable guns.

Some number of domestic disputes end in serious injury just because a gun was at hand. Its a big problem, maybe bigger than street crime.

Some number of attempted crimes or situations result in unnecessary serious injury because an ordinary citizen used a gun. This could be verging on hypothetical, and its the corrollary of how many times violence is prevented by the presence of a legal gun. I suspect both numbers to be small.

Where do we stand?

Guns can’t be banned or severly curtailed at this time for practical and for political reasons.
The Reason piece argues for this, but it also argues that the vast majority of gun owners are level-headed everyday folks. If the second statement is true, and I believe it is, then political compromise should be possible if a more rational political atmosphere evolves. I don’t think there are serious gun-control proposals that ignore the practical problems, so the argument over the practicality of a control measure should be left to the implementation phase, it there is one.

Handguns aren’t good for anything but killing people:
This is a gun-controllers argument, and its silly on the face of it. If people didn’t like guns they wouldn’t have them and they wouldn’t take them out and shoot them. Its not productive to start arguing over each other’s hobbies. Other people’s always seem so weird, and your own are so rewarding.

A large percentage of citizens are not in such danger from criminals that they need to carry a gun around:
This is highly inflammatory I realize because it touches the heart of the matter. Guns make people feel safer and stronger, yet I claim that it isn’t actually true unless you are special case, a gang-banger or a cop. We do have a very high rate of street crime, but it still is mostly a localized phenomenon in urban areas and bad neighborhoods. I think there are a large number of citizens in low-crime areas who carry concealed handguns and never use them. Special cases certainly exist like bail bondsmen, people who need to carry large amounts of cash, and people who work in high-crime businesses like ghetto liquor stores. Domestic violence is a universal problem, however.

There is no preventive effect from widespread gun ownership. Widespread gun ownership reduces crime:
There is little evidence either way. States that opted for universal carry permission have not reduced their crime rate because of it. But that still means little because its impossible to know whether more people carried guns after the law changed. Probably all we know is that promotion of gun ownership does nothing to decrease crime. That’s because the people who were actually in danger, already carried a gun.

A large percentage of citizens own handguns without ill effect:
I don’t think anybody can argue the numbers on this. There are a lot more legal gun owners than people involved in violent crimes. Of course you can read this as a proof that a lot of people have no good reason to keep a gun for protection.

A large number of domestic quarrels and bar fights end in gunfire:
This is unquestionably true and since most of it is alcohol-driven and not really pre-meditated, having fewer guns in easy reach would save lives. The same is true for the accidental shootings of children. Education is another cure for the accidents, and the gun lobby would help their community-spirit points by providing a little give-back. Doing something about the guns-in-reach would directly inhibit the guns-for-security, and I suspect there’ll be no agreement there.

Your ordinary citizen, without significant training, can’t be trusted to fire a gun sensibly and effectively in a violent confrontation.
Before you react, listen to what I am saying: I am sure guns are brandished, and occasionally prevent violence or robbery ( I am thinking of the bar owner, late-night cash depositor, and so forth) , but when they are fired things are different.

An example- There was a newspaper story in New York back in the 70’s about a store owner who was robbed and shot some of the robbers. He lived above the store and had been robbed several times - bad times, bad neighborhood - so he was prepared with a gun when he heard sounds in the store at night. He came downstairs and surprised the robbers, who ran. By his own testimony he couldn’t see them in the dark. He followed them out the door and saw a car pulling out from the curb. He emptied the gun into the car without being able to see inside. Maybe in your suburb there’s no one on the street at night, but not so in New York. Fortunately he had guessed right, but the point is he was just guessing, and innocent people in the street were in mortal danger from stray fire.

A recent example - The LA Sheriffs are in trouble again because they chased and stopped a criminal, then shot him. Maybe they didn’t really need to shoot him, that’s always debated, but they took over a hundred shots on a public street. They were just plain lucky they didn’t hit somebody else ( they did hit somebody’s hat). They are trained, they have experience, and they had lots of backup, yet they still used really bad judgement, probably because they were amped up from the chase. Should we expect untrained citizens to be as good as the not-so-great cops? Do I think we ought to train the cops better? Maybe, but I am more sympathetic than a gun owner might think. My point is, anybody can shoot unwisely, its just that much more likely with amateurs.

An ethical point - are the people who hold guns for security willing to kill someone over a robbery? Dad used to say, “Don’t point a gun at someone unless you are willing to kill them.” He meant, you can’t control what a handgun will do if you hit someone, and events can quickly get out of control. A last example- One evening in LA I looked out the window and saw someone stealing my truck. By the time I was out the front door, he was in the truck, with the doors locked. I didn’t have my keys, and I pounded on the window as he drove away. I was so angry I almost jumped in the truck-bed. If I had a gun, he might be dead. Now I wouldn’t agonize over a dead car thief in the abstract, but I am glad I didn’t kill him, and I am glad for my sake. ( I am really, really glad I didn’t jump in that truck!) I was also really lucky he didn’t whip out a pistol and shoot me, as happened at a fast-food place not too far away, at about the same time.

Some good statistics would settle many of these arguments. For instance, if you could show that more crimes were prevented by guns than harm committed by bad shooting. For that matter, maybe the episode in New York I mentioned was an isolated example. What are the numbers, please?

My exceptions to all this:
Clearly there are people who really are in danger because of their work, and need to be armed. This is the carry-permit issue. I would agree that their danger outweighs my concern about stray gunfire. I used to chat with a criminal lawyer at a favorite sushi bar. He was badly mugged and beaten one day in the notoriously unsafe parking lot at the courthouse, and a gun might have done him some good, if he had been trained. I just don’t think many people are in that much danger on a regular basis. And I don’t think untrained people have much chance of using their gun effectively, if they are surprised. So for a guy expecting trouble, my sushi-friend, with some training, the gun makes sense. A gun in your purse or glove compartment, is probably going to be unused, or worse, stolen by the criminal who attacks. Further, an attacker has a huge advantage over the victim because he is a criminal- he’s strung-out, desparate, scared, maybe just whacko. He has a lot less slowing him down than an honest citizen. The not-caring and the fear are both really dangerous. Again, reliable statistics could prove me wrong.

14th Amendment or not gun regulation is undeniably allowed:
Look, everything is regulated. I can’t ride a dirt bike anywhere I want, you have to wear a seat belt and get an inspection and insurance, I have to wear a helmet on my bicycle and my street bike, you need a building permit to change your house, I can’t claim that reading jawfish cures warts. Regulation is a fact of life, and the gun world is less regulated than non-controversial enterprises. Firearms dealers endure less regulation than hairdressers or used-car dealers. Its easier to get a gun than a car, which leads me to the scary thought that some of those freeway drivers might also have a gun.

Regulating handguns wouldn’t eliminate gun violence or violent crime:
Of course not, but that’s never the goal of regulation. The goal is to reduce the harmful effects significantly, with minimal effect on the safe use. Proper regulation is worth the effort and the infringement, because it creates a greater good.

The presence of hundreds of millions of guns is not a significant counterweight to an oppressive government:
Right now the government I fear the most is encouraging guns. The oppressive government argument is an afterglow of the eighteenth century I think. Its ludicrous to think an American government’s oppression could be stopped with handguns. An invading army might be given pause ( the loose guns in Iraq are a good example of this ) and the Swiss hope so, but invasion is not a big problem, at least for us.

My conclusions:
Given a calmer environment handguns could be regulated, and armed crimes, accidents, and man-slaughters could be reduced. There already are so many guns out there, that it will take a long time for the criminals to move away from armed crime, but just slowing down gang-bangers would save a lot of lives. Regulation could be no more intrusive than the rules for say, dirt bikes, and most of the gun industry wouldn’t suffer much. Some aspects of gun culture like assault weapons, could be severly curtailed, and the police in particular, would benefit. I don’t actually think anything will happen at the federal level, because of the NRA. If I were running for office, I’d stay away from the whole issue, until the political climate changes.