Happiness Is A Warm…

How I Came Around On Gun Control

I used to be very strongly opposed to gun control. In the last year or so, that’s changed, and I thought it might be interesting to explore exactly how that happened. Let’s start with some numbers (from Wikipedia) :

The United States has 112 guns for every 100 residents. It also has 10 gun-related deaths for every 100 000 people, annually. Serbia has 75 guns for every 100 residents, and it only has 3 gun-related deaths for every 100 000 people. Here’s the twist — Honduras only has 6 guns for every 100 residents, but it has 67 gun-related deaths for every 100 000 people. Venezuela has somewhere between 10 and 50 guns for every 100 residents, and it has 59 gun-related deaths for every 100 000 people.

The US has far more guns per person than any other country, but it doesn’t even crack the top 10 for firearm-related deaths. Of the countries in the top 10, only Uruguay has a relatively high level of gun ownership — slightly higher than Canada or Sweden, both of which have negligible levels of firearm-related deaths.

So what gives? This looks like a pretty strong argument that having a lot of guns doesn’t necessarily lead to violence. If you look at the other countries with high levels of gun violence, you’ll see that they’re pretty much all Third World nations with high poverty, high crime, and minimal rule of law. Guns clearly aren’t their main problem.

In fact, prominent Republicans often make this very argument. “Guns aren’t the problem. The real problem is mental illness.” Or poverty. Or, since they’re Republicans, immigrants. But when anyone actually tries to do something about mental illness or poverty, those same Republicans do everything in their power to stop it, which shows what they really care about.

Here’s the thing — those Republicans are sort of right. Guns really aren’t the problem. If you really want to tackle America’s violence, you need to address mental health, poverty, racism, sexism, and a whole lot of other issues. But since the Republicans won’t let you do that, fuck it, you might as well try to bring in some gun control. It won’t actually fix any of America’s real problems, but it will cut down on the body count.

That’s what I realized : a sane, rational, responsible country can handle a high level of gun ownership without any real trouble. But America isn’t a sane country. Guns may not be the problem, but they make it really easy for America’s many other problems to become massacres. The United States just isn’t mature enough to handle guns without people dying.

What Is To Be Done?

So where does that leave us? Right now it looks like there’s a groundswell of support for gun control — it may be possible to actually accomplish something. Unfortunately, gun control is really easy to screw up, especially since the people who implement it rarely know anything about guns. There’s another problem, too — if you’re going to actually pass any gun control, you have to get at least some Republicans and gun owners on your side. Trying to ban all guns and shut down gun manufacturers is a non-starter.

Fortunately, this isn’t unexplored territory. Gun owners may be against gun control, but they seem to be OK with expanded background checks, so let’s dive into that. Right now, if an American buys a gun from a gun store, they have to go through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which tries to see if they have been convicted of a serious crime, have been adjudicated as mentally defective, or a number of other things.

In some states, that’s it — you can buy a gun from a private citizen with no background check or paperwork. This is the so-called “gun show loophole”. Other states require background checks for all firearm sales, or licenses. Universal background checks are basically a no-brainer : of course you should have to make sure someone is allowed to own a gun before selling them one. One of the sticking points is that background checks are currently processed through gun stores. See, gun owners hate gun stores. They have a reputation for terrible customer service, deceptive practices, unreasonably high prices, and right-wing politics. They’re actually a lot like comic book stores. Gun owners would probably be willing to accept universal background checks that go through gun stores, but they’d be a lot happier if the stores were taken out of the equation altogether. The other common option, licenses, is also pretty unpopular. Right or wrong, gun owners don’t like the idea of a bureaucrat standing between them and what they see as their rights.

What’s the solution? Just let private sellers access the National Instant Criminal Background Check System themselves. There are all sorts of different ways to implement this, but there’s no need for us to get bogged down in the details right now. Just make sure that abusing the system is a felony, and that selling someone a gun without using the system is also a felony.

Of course, that doesn’t solve America’s gun violence problem. After all, Omar Mateen bought his guns from a gun store — he passed the background check. I think everyone realizes that not all guns are equally dangerous — a hunting shotgun can be used to kill a person, but it can’t be used to kill an entire room of people. Different types of guns need different laws. I would suggest having three different categories of guns :

Guns That Don’t Cause Problems : To buy these, you would just need to pass the same background check that you do now. This category would include pretty much all of the guns that everyone is OK with — long guns that are neither semi-automatic nor fully-automatic, revolvers, maybe old-fashioned pistols, and most of the guns that fall into the current “Curios & Relics” category.

Guns That Do Cause Problems : To buy these, you’d have to pass an enhanced background check that includes phone interviews with your friends, family, co-workers, and former romantic partners. You wouldn’t have to go through that every time, of course — once every 5 years would probably be fine. This is basically the system that Canada uses now, and it would have likely prevented Omar Mateen from buying the weapons that he used. It would include semi-automatic rifles and modern handguns, as well as semi-automatic submachine guns and semi-automatic carbines.

Guns That Could Potentially Cause Problems : Some guns, or gun accessories, are very rarely used in any kind of crime (generally due to price, rarity, or impracticality), but could do real harm if that ever changes. These would require the same expanded background check as the previous category & would also be heavily taxed, just to make sure they never become common enough to cause trouble. This category would include things like silencers and automatic weapons.

Now, none of this is set in stone — if you’re not particularly worried about mass shootings but you are concerned about street crime, you would want to add all handguns to the second category. You could even tinker with the expanded background checks — if you want to be really strict, you could say that even one red-flag would be enough to disqualify a potential gun owner. I think the general framework is sound : it doesn’t significantly inconvenience law-abiding gun owners, and it should keep the really dangerous guns away from dangerous people.

It wouldn’t be immensely popular — gun owners certainly wouldn’t love the expanded background checks. If you throw them some red meat, though, they’d probably be willing to go along with it. It wouldn’t be that hard — you could open up the machine gun registry, or loosen some of the restrictions that individual states place on certain types of guns.

This won’t be cheap — the ATF would need to go on a massive hiring spree in order to conduct all these expanded background checks. But is that really a bad thing? Not only would it create a lot of decent jobs, it’s just money. Compared to all the lives it could save, wouldn’t that be worthwhile?

A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing

Having said all that, this proposal isn’t why I started writing. My real concern is that a lot of people who are basically on my side are saying terribly uninformed & misguided things about guns and gun control. Do you remember when Ted Stevens described the Internet as a “series of tubes”? If an ordinary person did that, it would be funny. But Stevens was a US Senator, and he said it during a Senate committee meeting. If you don’t understand what you’re regulating then a) you aren’t going to accomplish your goals, b) you’re going to do things that you didn’t intend, possibly hurting the interests of innocent people, & c) you’ll lose the support of people who actually understand the situation.

With that in mind, let’s look at some of the misguided, inaccurate, or unproductive things that people are saying :

No One Needs An Automatic Weapon/Machine Gun

This is true, but so what? Automatic weapons are a gun control success story — they’re tightly regulated, rare, and extremely expensive. They are also virtually never used in violent crime. According to most sources, including this Daily Kos article, “[i]n the last 80 years, legally registered machine guns have accounted for TWO deaths”, while illegal machine guns only represent a tiny fraction of murders. Automatic weapons are a non-issue — they’re a wildly expensive toy that you play with at the gun range. They’re not causing any problems, so further regulation seems like a rather silly reaction.

No One Needs An Assault Rifle

Assault rifles are, by definition, automatic. Omar Mateen didn’t use an assault rifle. Neither did Rizwan Farook & Tashfeen Malik. Assault rifles are almost never used in crime. The problem is that the weapons which do get used in mass shootings often look like assault rifles. The AR-15 isn’t an assault rifle, but it’s very similar to the M16, which is. The only significant difference is that the AR-15 is semi-automatic, not fully automatic…but that’s a huge difference. Calling the AR-15 an assault rifle is like calling the electric Tesla Roadster a gas-powered car just because it shares a platform with the gas-powered Lotus Elise.

Assault Weapons

Look, I’m just going to stop you right there — the second the phrase “assault weapons” comes out of your mouth, gun owners stop listening. “Assault rifle” refers to a clearly-defined type of firearm. “Assault weapon” doesn’t. The phrase has a complicated origin, but it became widespread thanks to the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. While the AWB did ban certain models of gun by name, it’s best known for defining (and banning) “assault weapon” as any semi-automatic gun with certain features — most of which are cosmetic or removable. You could take a perfectly legal rifle, add a bayonet lug, and it would suddenly become a banned assault weapon. Unless there was a spate of drive-by bayonetings in the ’90s that I’m unaware of, that’s not exactly a reasonable law. For better or worse, the term “assault weapon” is permanently tainted.

If You’re On The No-Fly List, You Shouldn’t Be Able To Buy Guns

Seriously? The no-fly list is unaccountable, wildly inaccurate, and has only a passing familiarity with due process. It’s the worst possible combination of bureaucratic quagmire, security theater, and civil rights violation. It should be abandoned entirely, not used for more things.

I find it particularly upsetting that my fellow leftists are willing to throw away civil liberties the instant that terrorism is mentioned.

The Founding Fathers Wanted To Protect Muskets, Not Machine Guns

I don’t like the Founding Fathers. They were slave-owners who talked about freedom, and they were also traitors to the Crown. But that doesn’t mean we should distort their intentions. The 2nd Amendment is concerned about “the security of a free state”, not self-defense or hunting. Military-style weapons are exactly what the Founders wanted to protect.

Moreover, it’s not as though “but technology has changed” could reasonably be applied to the other amendments. The Founders never could have predicted the Internet, TV, or even radio, but those things are all still protected by the 1st Amendment. The 4th Amendment provides certain protections against drug dogs and GPS tracking. You can’t realistically claim that the 2nd Amendment only applies to antique muskets.

If you want to get really obscure, the Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution allows Congress to issue letters of marque, which is an explicit endorsement of privately-owned warships armed with cannons. Now, you can’t hide a warship under your coat, but you also can’t level an entire town with an AR-15. The Founders were clearly OK with private individuals owning massive firepower.

Only Militias Are Protected, So If You Want To Play With Guns, Join The National Guard

The Founders hated the idea of a standing army. They thought that it would be used to tyrannize the people. The 2nd Amendment clearly wasn’t meant to protect the government’s right to own guns.

Only Militias Are Protected, So If You Want To Play With Guns, Join A Militia

United States Code, Title 10, Section 311, Paragraph a : “The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and […] under 45 years of age”. Traditionally, “militia” means any man who isn’t already in the armed services. Early versions of the 2nd Amendment even said that the militia was “composed of the body of the people”.

Only Well-Regulated Militias Are Protected

There appears to be significant historical debate about what “well-regulated” actually means. There’s a persuasive case that it actually just means “well trained”. Frankly, the ambiguity here doesn’t allow a clear victory for either side of the debate.

Only Militias Are Protected

A well educated populace being necessary to the prosperity of a free state, the right of the people to keep books shall not be infringed.

Surely that couldn’t be interpreted to mean that only educational books are protected by law, or that only well-educated people have the right to own books. The first clause of the sentence explains the reasoning for the second — it’s not a limitation. Why should that be different if we replace “books” with “guns”?

Admittedly, there are many people who disagree — it isn’t a settled matter.

The AR-15 Uses Bullets That Were Banned By The Geneva Convention

That’s not even remotely true. The Geneva Conventions don’t actually ban any bullets. The Hague Conventions ban expanding bullets, but the AR-15 doesn’t use expanding bullets.

There’s No Reason To Own An AR-15

Sure there is — they’re fun! They’re one of the most popular guns in America because they’re neat to shoot, they’re good for pest control, and you can play dress-up with them. Seriously — one of the reasons the AR-15 is so popular is that they have an insane number of accessories and modifications available. You can put together an AR-15 for just about any purpose or occasion, real or imaginary. There are plenty of people who spend far more time taking their AR-15 apart and putting it back together than they do shooting it.

Let’s keep this in perspective — there are something like 3 million AR-15 style guns in the US alone. The vast majority of them are never used in any kind of violent crime. When they do get used to hurt people, they can be devastating, which is why additional legislation is needed. This kind of semi-automatic rifle can very dangerous, and it should absolutely be kept out of the wrong hands. That doesn’t necessarily mean that no one should be able to own them.

Effective Gun Control Matters

In 1989, Marc Lépine used a Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle to kill 14 women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal. This prompted new gun control laws in Canada. The government didn’t ban the Mini-14 —to this day, the Mini-14 is still unrestricted. The Heckler & Koch G11, on the other hand, is specifically prohibited…which is weird, because the G11 never even entered full production. It’s basically a non-existent gun, but if you were to bring one back to Canada from an alternate reality, boy, you sure would get in a lot of trouble.

Understanding the things that you regulate is important.