Jumping the Gun: Why Most of the Gun Debate After Newtown Isn't Helpful

Jay Carney got some flak after the Newtown massacre by saying "Today is not the day to talk about gun control."  Detractors almost universally said "if not now, when."  They were right.  We can say what we want, when we want.  But pushing for gun control immediately after the incident, before the facts come in, increases the chances that we'll just say or do something useless.

Many of the loudest gun control advocates are pushing for assault weapons bans, because a semi-automatic assault rifle was used to kill the children in Newtown.  Many gun advocates, including many pundits and politicians who have previously opposed these bans, are saying that nobody needs weapons like this.  I'm generally inclined to agree with this, but any time the government tells me what I do or don't need, the Libertarian part of my psyche cringes.  One thing they say that makes sense is that certain weapons only belong on the battlefield.  The trick is identifying what that means.

The definition of assault weapons is a bit vague.  Automatic weapons are always considered assault weapons.  Not all semi-automatic weapons are considered assault weapons, only ones with certain characteristics are.  The assault weapons ban defined an assault weapon as a weapon with detachable magazines and at least two other characteristics that were considered typical of assault weapons.  The problem is, a few of the things that potentially define something as an assault weapon seem mostly or entirely harmless.

Two examples are pistol grips and collapsible stocks.  A collapsible stock is a stock that can be shortened in order to be customized to the size of the user.  I don't see how this makes a gun noticeably more dangerous.  A pistol grip allows the user to control the recoil more easily.  One could argue that it makes a shooter more able to shoot people more quickly.  But it also makes them more able to shoot static targets more quickly or deer more quickly or whatever.  Typically, how quickly someone can kill targets has more to do with the skill of the shooter than the type of stock or grip that a gun has.  This ban seems to be designed to ban guns that look dangerous. They may like they belong on a battlefield, but many of them are no more or less dangerous than more ordinary looking weapons.

Another problem with fixating on assault weapons is the fact that they are not used in most murders.  Most murders are committed with pistols, which is probably why the last assault weapons ban had no noticeable effect on homicide rates.  The President echoed this in the presidential debates, noting that most murders involve "cheap handguns".  Even some mass killings are done with pistols.  The Virginia Tech massacre, the worst school shooting ever, was done with two handguns.  By focusing entirely on the specific circumstances of the shootings in Newtown, we risk ignoring most of the violence in this country. 

Another thing that has come to the forefront is a focus on mental health and identifying people with problems and treating them.  Many, if not all, of the mass murderers in recent years have had some kind of mental health problem.  Disturbing behavior by the Tucson killer was reported by many classmates at a local community college he attended and nothing was done.  The Aurora killer's classmates also reported strange behavior and nothing was done.  On the other hand, The Virginia Tech killer and one of the Columbine killers had been diagnosed with mental health problems prior to the attacks and had received treatment.  The Newtown killer was known to have some mental problems and some reports suggest his mother was about to have him committed.  These instances all suggest that more intervention is necessary and when it happens it needs to be more effective.  But what's also true is that most murderers are not crazy.  Most murderers kill for a relatively mundane reason: an argument, jealousy, revenge.  Angry results in more murders than crazy.  Focusing only on the mentally unstable ignores most of the problem.  It's always a good idea to improve mental health care (or any other health care), but this won't fix most of the problem.

As with every other mass shooting, the debate over the "culture of violence" has reemerged.  We are told that America has a history of violence and our culture glorifies violence and contributed to this.  But this actually doesn't make any sense.  The same violent movies and video games that are common in a America are equally common in other nations where murder is extremely rare.  American movies are commonly watched in Canada, the UK, France, Germany, and Australia.  They buy the video games too.  France, the UK, and Germany have far more violent histories than America.  Yet murder rates are low in all of these countries.  Not only would attempting to silence or deter these forms of entertainment be a violation of the First Amendment, it would be a complete waste of time.  Other countries are able to avoid real violence, despite the fact that they are exposed to the same amount of fake violence as we are and despite the fact that they have histories as violent, if not more so, than ours.

While I'm on the subject of foreign countries, it has to be mentioned that other industrialized nations have stricter gun control laws.  In some, like Japan and England, this results in low rates of gun ownership and low murder rates.  Others, like Canada or France, have relatively high numbers of gun owners (though not as many as us) but still have low murder rates.  And some others, like Brazil and Russia, have low rates of gun ownership but much higher murder rates.  What this means is the presence or lack of guns and gun control laws doesn't appear to predict a country's murder rate.  The source of the problem is something else.

This doesn't mean gun control is useless.  I think some gun control measures makes sense.  Smaller magazine size is fine.  I truly don't need a 30 round clip to defend myself.  If I need to defend myself from an attack and need more than six or seven bullets to do it, this is the sort of attack I should be running away from.  And limiting magazine size won't prevent me from buying more than one gun.  This won't stop people from producing homemade high capacity magazines, but I still think it will reduce the chances of mass shootings occurring.  Background checks should be required for all gun purchases.  Instant background checks should be available everywhere.  There must be a way to make background checks possible at gun shows.  This won't stop strawbuyers, but it will still prevent many felons and crazy people from getting guns. Lastly, one thing that often goes unmentioned is that many criminals acquire guns from licensed dealers who make illicit sales under the table. So another thing that must happen is additional enforcement.

But as for the rest of the debate, it's a hasty reaction which will have little or no effect.  We won't fix the problem by renewing an assault weapons ban that didn't accomplish anything significant the first time, other than boosting assault weapon sales before its passage.  And hand wringing over movies and video games is a waste of time.  This is a multi-faceted problem that will probably take decades or generations to fix.  We won't be able to control it if we only respond to the headlines.  We will not fix anything if we attempt to resurrect legislation that already failed once.  We must be willing to commit to rigorous analysis of all aspects of the problem and explore all possible solutions, while being mindful of the Constitution and its guarantees.  We must accept that this requires a prolonged effort at the grassroots level by all citizens who want the violence to stop.   If we want to prevent future violence and respect the memory of the victims of violence, we must attempt to find solutions that actually work and shake off the tired old rhetoric that solves nothing.

The Gun Made Me Do It

Bob Costas has been echoing the same tired old talking point that gun control advocates have been spewing for years.  On the O'Reilly Factor, Bob Costas said (paraphrasing) that if more people possess guns that it is more likely that a dispute would escalate because someone has a gun.  What he actually said is here, on the second clip at about the 1:30 mark.  This assumes that the possession of the gun is more likely to cause one person to want to kill another in a dispute.  This is false.  It's true that a person with a gun is more likely to succeed in killing someone else, but the gun does not magically cause someone to be more aggressive.

The problem is not the presence of guns.  The problem is that people in the United States are more likely to want to kill someone than they would be in many other countries.  Many of the highly publicized murders we've seen were preventable without taking away guns.  Kansas City Chiefs Guy had a history of problems in his personal life.  Crazy Guy in Arizona had been reported acting loony at his community college.  Nobody did anything.  If we had been more proactive about identifying and dealing with these problems, they never would have escalated into violence.

More recently,  Michael Dunn killed Jordan Davis in Jacksonville, Florida.  This was an escalation of a simple argument.  A motive for murder that is all too common.  This is the real problem.  People in the United States are willing to kill for stupid reasons.  Apparently, Jordan Davis and his pals were just playing their music too loud.  That's not a sufficient reason to kill.  We should be focusing our efforts on figuring out why people are willing to do things this senseless.

Instead, Costas and others simply fixate on the guns.  If two guys want to kill each other and we take away their guns, it doesn't suddenly make them not want to kill each other.  Disarming us isn't the answer.

Gun control advocates like to point to other industrialized nations which have strict gun control laws and lower crime.  But they always forget to mention Russia and Brazil.  Russia has extremely strict gun control laws, but twice the murder rate of the US.  Brazil is the most violent industrialized nation in the world, despite its gun laws.  Here in the US, gun ownership has been on the rise, despite the fact that violent crimes have been declining for years.  The presence or lack of guns or gun control laws isn't the problem or the solution.

The problem of violence is extremely complex and nuanced.  Simply demanding gun control every time a tragedy happens is a simple-minded solution.  Simple-minded solutions do not fix complex problems.  We need to make an effort to identify why we can't identify dangerous people in time and why ordinary people are so willing to kill for ridiculous reasons.  Until we accept that deeper analysis is necessary, this problem won't go away.

Why we need to politicize guns and gun control after the Aurora shooting, and how to do it right.

Immediately after a mass shooting, half of the politicians and media personalities start pounding the drums for gun control.  Then the other half says now is not the time to address this; the “too soon” argument.  Then the first half says now is exactly the time, while it’s fresh in our memories.  Then the second half accuses them of exploiting a tragedy to push a political agenda.  They’re both kinda right.  They’re both kinda dumb.

Now is exactly the right time to wonder why things like this happen and how to prevent them.  It’s also the time to wonder why other murders happen (frequently for relatively mundane reasons, like an argument over money), and how to prevent those. But we should not dive automatically into gun control. 

There were approximately 15,000 homicides in 2009 in the United States.  This is according to the UNODC (UN Office on Drugs and Crime), in their 2011 report which is available here.  But I know that millions (if not billions) of bullets were fired in the U.S. that year.  That means most people are responsible with their guns.  I’m not inclined to limit everyone’s rights when a relatively small number of people abuse their rights.  Think of it like Substantive Due Process in the Constitution; there must be a compelling, overriding reason to limit someone’s rights.

Homicide is a compelling reason, but not an overriding one.  This is because gun control is not the only way to reduce homicide.  I’m not even convinced that it would be effective at reducing homicide.  Gun control proponents like to point out the relatively low crime rates in Australia and Canada and many Western European countries, where guns are strictly controlled if not outlawed.  True, but how do they explain Russia?

In 2009, there were 16,000 homicides in Russia, according to the same UN study.  Their population is slightly less than half the size of the U.S. population.  This makes their murder rate slightly more than twice ours.  And their gun control laws are very strict.  Handguns and automatic weapons are outlawed.  Shotguns and rifles are heavily restricted, requiring citizens to go through a strict and extensive licensing process.  All of these rules don’t appear to do a damn thing.  Nice work, tovariches.

There are other examples I’ve heard in the news that make me wonder why we fixate on gun control.  Gun bans have been removed in D.C. and Chicago.  Murder is up (way up) in Chicago, but down in D.C.  Violence has been on a consistent decline in the U.S. and gun ownership is on the rise.  Presence or lack of guns and gun control laws doesn’t appear to have anything to do with anything.  We have a murder problem, not a gun problem.  So why the hell do people want to kill each other?  If we figure that out, we’ll actually make some progress. 

Sadly, every time we try, we stray into a minefield of political correctness.  Murderers tend to come from poor neighborhoods.  Murderers tend to come from single parent homes.  Mentioning facts like these tends to manufacture more outrage than results.  There are plenty of other possible causes, some controversial, some not.  But they all have to be explored if we ever expect to make a real change, even if we risk hurting someone’s feelings.  Hurt feelings are preferable to more dead people.

So the left wing is right for saying we need to talk about this now, but dumb for knee-jerking its way into gun control.  The right wing is right to dispute this, but dumb when they accuse the left of exploiting a tragedy.   Exploiting a tragedy to prevent future tragedies is an entirely worthwhile exercise.  Just exploit it in a way that gets actual results.

The political agenda that needs pushing is that we need murder control, not gun control.  Focusing on gun control is just taking our eyes off of the ball.  It’s times like this that I’m happily and thankfully non-partisan.  I hope they eventually get it together.  Before anyone dies or anything.