Mathew A
Mathew A
Nov 6 · 3 min read

You raise some interesting points.

First I also agree keeping guns out of the hands of crazies is a worthwhile goal. The trick is doing so in a constitutional manner where you don’t deprive people of their rights without due process. So for example, I might be willing to support “red flag” laws if they had enough due process safeguards, as well as suitable punishments for those that abuse the system or file false complaints. I would also support additional mental health money, and/or additional money for monitoring of people that “might” be a danger, but there isn’t enough evidence to take away their rights. We could take all those DEA agents and repurpose them to preventing mass shootings J

As for universal background checks there are two big problems with them. One, I shouldn’t need a background check to loan, give or sell a gun to my brother, friend etc. That’s what universal background checks really means. The bigger problem is that I oppose any law that helps create a national gun registry. The first step to gun confiscation is of course knowing where all the guns are. Universal background checks accomplish that through the back door. Maybe you could get around with a constitutional amendment that allowed background checks while greatly enhancing the protections of gun owners, but I know most gun owners wouldn’t believe it.

The fact is far too many people have been coming after our guns for too long. Yes they really do what to take away your guns. Beto was the most truthful when talking about mandatory buybacks (ie confiscation) but just about every major Democratic presidential candidate supports an “assault weapons” ban. Of course what they refer to as assault weapons are really just semi-automatic rifles, and they are also the most popular gun in the country.

That being said, maybe you could get around that with some type of firearm license (like a concealed carry license). If you have that, then you can purchase any gun, no background check, no waiting period, and most importantly no record of what or how much you purchased. That’s the only way I think you could get most gun owners to be ok with a universal background check system, is one that made it impossible to know who had the guns after the check.

As for comparing the US vs other countries with gun deaths, it’s really not an apples to apples comparison. Yes the US has higher gun deaths than some countries like Japan, but they also have much lower deaths than other countries with much stricter gun laws (see Mexico). Of course most of your analysis tend to leave out those other countries. Not to mention that over the least 30 years or so as the rate of gun ownership in the US has increased, and concealed carry has taken off (so more guns, plus more people carrying those guns) total gun deaths have decreased drastically. Of course we can argue causality, but the actual correlation between guns and gun deaths in the US is very weak, and it might even be more guns = less crime (See John Lott’s book, plus all the pro and con rebuttals of it).

As for gambling and prostitution, yes I think they should be legal. The government doesn’t have any right to tell me what I can do or put in my body. And in general I don’t think government can make something illegal without a victim.

Your example of hiring someone to murder fails because inciting violence isn’t covered by free speech. IE, you can say all types of hateful things you want, but the minute you go from talking smack, to making plans for (or encouraging) actual physical harm, you are no longer covered under the first amendment.

“The idea of money being speech disproportionately helps people in power” Not so. With speech control the people in power are the ones that get to decide what’s acceptable or not. I shudder at giving either Trump, or Warren the power to decide what is or is not acceptable speech.

I agree with the founders, the only solution is bad speech is more good speech and the let people decide for themselves.

    Mathew A

    Written by

    Mathew A

    Economist, CPA