Gun Control—the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

It is quite possible that stricter gun laws of the sort that Mr. Obama may or may not be planning, could have stopped the Connecticut killings.  But that is a separate question from whether it is a good idea to allow private individuals to own guns.                            

That, really, is how most perceive the gun control issue.  Once you have guns in circulation, in significant numbers, specific controls on things like automatic weapons or large magazines can have only marginal effects.  So good luck collecting all 300 million guns currently in circulation from 100 million people or more should such a law be passed.

The facts:

·       Under current federal law a person is legally entitled to buy a gun and give it as a present without the recipient having a background check.

·      That contrasts with gun dealers who are required to run a background check on every person who buys a gun--even at a gun show.  

·    A private citizen could rent a booth at a gun show and sell a gun without requiring that same background check.

·         With almost one privately owned firearm per person, America's ownership rate is the highest in the world; tribal-conflict-torn Yemen is ranked second, with a rate about half of America's.

Gun-control solutions:  

·        Limited magazine capacities, new laws banning weapon types, posting gun bans on public buildings.

Arguments against gun control:

·     We haven't got broken gun laws. We have broken people. The problem lies with a broken mental-health system and violence-ridden media.

·      If existing gun laws worked, i.e., were enforced, Chicago would be the safest city in the country.  (Chicago has some of the strictest gun-control laws in the country and the highest crime rates, as does Washington, D.C.)  Prosecuting gun laws that are on the books would impact crime not more gun laws.

·     The U.S. constitution's second amendment is intended in part to maintain "the security of a free State" by ensuring that the government doesn't have a monopoly on force and National Rifle Association bumper stickers argue that only an armed citizenry can prevent tyranny.  (I wonder if that isn’t a form of narcissism, involving the belief that lone, heroic individuals will have the ability to identify tyranny as it descends, recognize it for what it is and fight back.  There is also the small matter that I don’t think America is close to becoming tyrannical, and to suggest that it is, is both irrational and a bit offensive to people who actually do live under tyrannical rule.  It is also worth considering a real police state, Tunisia, had the lowest firearm ownership rate in the world--one gun per thousand citizens, compared to America's 890--when its people toppled a brutal, 24-year dictatorship and sparked the Arab Spring.

Arguments for gun control:

Look at the Harvard social scientist David Hemenway’s work on gun violence.  It suggests the solution is simple.  The phrase “more guns = more homicide” tolls through it like a grim bell.  The more guns there are in a country, the more gun murders and massacres there will be.  Of the world's 23 "rich" countries, the U.S. gun-related murder rate is almost 20 times that of the other 22.

Hemenway discovered, as he explained in this interview with Harvard Magazine, that what is usually presented as a case of self-defense with guns is, in the real world, almost invariably a story about an escalating quarrel.

“How often might there be a chance to appropriately use a gun in self-defense?” Hemenway asks rhetorically.

Answer: “Zero to once in a lifetime. “

“How about inappropriately—because you were tired, afraid, or drunk in a confrontational situation?”  Answer: “There are lots and lots of chances.”

Summary:

Gun control is not a panacea, any more than penicillin was.  Some violence will always go on.  What gun control is good at is controlling guns.  Gun control will eliminate gun massacres in America as surely as antibiotics eliminate bacterial infections.

Those who oppose it have made a moral choice: they would rather have gun massacres continue rather than surrender whatever idea of freedom or pleasure they find wrapped up in owning guns or seeing guns owned—just as faith healers would rather watch the children die than accept the reality of scientific medicine.  Faith healers make that decision every day; it is not just a thought experiment.

Some citizens would doubtless point out that faith healing has an ancient history and we must regard the faith healers with respect—to do otherwise would show a lack of respect for their freedom to faith-heal.  (The faith healers’ proposition is that if there were a faith healer praying in every kindergarten the kids wouldn’t get infections in the first place).

But it is absurd to shake our heads gravely and say we can’t possibly know what would have saved the lives of those Connecticut kids.  Don’t listen to those who say that this is an impossibly hard, or even a particularly complex, problem.  It’s a very easy one.

Summoning the political will to make it happen may be hard.  But there’s no doubt or ambiguity about what needs to be done, nor that, if it is done, it will work.

Even though there is more courageous debate than has been heard for some time, with Mr. Obama proposing gun control laws that would have been unthinkable in his first term, not very much is likely to change at all.  Hence the emotion, vexation and dilemma for all.