Gun Control, Alcohol Abuse and Mismatched Socks
Reshaping the Debate with Unlikely Fashion Trends
I have a pair of mismatched socks that I love to wear. They are athletic argyle socks. One is white with blue and orange diamonds and the other is black with purple and lime green diamonds. They used to be two pairs until one of the white socks got a massive 4-inch hole when I was playing indoor soccer one day. And I lost one of the black ones to the dryer or another such thing a while back. But I couldn’t get rid of two perfectly fine, very comfortable, and super stylish socks — so I just wear them together. They are especially great for basketball and distance runs.
Mismatched socks are much easier to deal with than the brutal, implacable political clash that renews every time there is a mass shooting. The liberals clamor for more gun control while the conservatives and libertarians hang everything they hold dear on the 2nd amendment. From the news shows to talk radio, everyone is trying to be the biggest voice, the loudest ensign, everyone is waving their banner to prove once and for all that they alone are right. I used to play that game. But I haven’t come here to argue my position.
There are more important things at stake. No longer are we a nation who can have a spirited debate about a controversial issue and then shake hands, share some lemonade, sit on the front porch and be friends. Something has happened as of late and those days are quickly passing us by. The precious few who still occupy those lofty philosophical spaces are uncertainly watching the knockdown, drag-out brawl in the streets.
I hope to quell the seething emotions by offering some perspective. Not a solution that will cut through the talking points on both sides of the debate, not some healing words that will act like a salve to the wounded hearts, not anything of the sort. Just some perspective. And I don’t even know if it will work, but I know shouting at each other and pointing to data that validates a certain agenda only bolsters those who posted in the first place. Which in turn only entrenches their lockstep supporters who only care about one thing — winning.
I’m tired of winning. And so perspective.
I have been studying a book as of late entitled The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. Haidt is a moral psychologist and long-time liberal advocate. The purpose of his book is to help conservatives, liberals and libertarians take a step back from their own biases and see more clearly other points of view by better understanding how each processes any given issue. Haidt believes that humans can process the world through the lenses of 6 moral reasoning foundations — Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Liberty/Oppression, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion and Sanctity/Degradation, but that not everyone can access these foundations equally. Haidt contends that liberals favor the moral foundation of care/harm, libertarians favor the foundation of liberty/oppression, but that social conservatives can access all 6 equally.
In the case of the gun control debate in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting, most of the liberals in the country are only able to see the aftermath through the lens of care/harm. They feel they need to do something, call upon Washington to enact some law, or belittle and shame the NRA and all its supporters so that something like this never happens again. On the other hand, the libertarians see the shooting aftermath through the lens of liberty/oppression. While they recognize the shooting as tragic, they also see it as the price of freedom. The rest of the country is scattered between the opposing points of view, but many are equally hostile. It is the age old metaphor of the blind men and the elephant and we haven’t got a clue because we are so concerned about making our point that we don’t take the time to hear what our neighbor is trying to say.
Some numbers. In 2015 there were over 36,000 deaths as a result of gun violence. Of those deaths 12,979 were homicides and 22, 018 were suicides. The rest were accidents, altercation between police and perpetrators (some innocent and some not). Every year nearly 88,000 deaths come as a result of alcohol. In 2015, there were 10,265 people who died due to alcohol related car incidents. The rest came as a result of binge drinking, disease, suicide and other accidental deaths. As a nation of 325 million we own somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 million guns. Gun totals are hard to estimate accurately due to attrition, but it is clear that gun production and ownership have risen significantly in the past decade. However, in the past four decades, while gun totals have dramatically increased, the percentages of homes owning a gun has dramatically decreased, both at nearly the same rate — 33%. Currently 31% of households own nearly all the guns in the nation.
That shift has proven enough to change the culture in opposition to guns. On the other hand, alcohol consumption has remained culturally steady.
As a nation we consume about 6 billion gallons of beer each year and another 1.7 billion gallons of wine and liquor. These numbers have mirrored population growth since repealing prohibition, even as there have been fluctuations in specific consumption rates. For instance, Americans are drinking less beer than they were fifty years ago, but more wine and even more liquor. The deciles have remained pretty similar as well, the top 30% of drinkers accounting for nearly 95% of all alcohol consumption, and the top decile accounting for nearly 74%.
I realize the numbers between guns and alcohol don’t mesh up exactly, but they are close enough for our purposes. In a nutshell, they’re a pair of mismatched socks. There is a lot of potential for disaster in terms of death by alcohol or firearm, but the damage is minimal all things considered. And yet all the outrage goes towards the gun industry and its consumers.
Can we take a step back here and analyze the ideas of government control, personal responsibility, and trust for our fellow man outside the context of a specific industry? Can we all agree that most people don’t see it as a big deal to keep their liquor cabinet generously stocked as well as their fridge, even though it amounts to more than might be reasonably consumed in one sitting, and even if all their friends came over and shared in the exuberance? Can we also agree that many people do see it as a big deal for people to keep their gun safes generously stocked with weapons and ammunition as well as in their nightstand safe, because it amounts to more weapons than might be reasonably used in one sitting? By the numbers the deaths that result from each product are reasonably similar. If each consumer is reasonable and safe in how they store and use their guns and liquor, which by and large the numbers bear out as accurate, what business is it of ours how many of each they store in their homes? Perhaps you are a responsible citizen who controls their alcohol consumption and would never think of binge drinking, drunk driving, or anything of the sort. If such is the case, it should be easy to step into the shoes of a gun owner who feels exactly the same way about his guns.
It’s all about trust, isn’t it?
Let’s put this to the test. I have taken most of the responses from a recent post started by a good friend of mine and reworded the ideas related to guns with ideas related to alcohol. I did so NOT with the intention of calling people out, mocking them, or tricking the reader into an argument. I intend for these quotes to be somewhat challenging to read, even if they read at times over the top. I hope in so doing to encourage empathy for an alternative point of view.
(Sidenote: I realize that such encouragement is lopsiding my argument against a more liberal point of view. My liberal friend, who I love dearly, holds opposing points of view from my libertarian mind on nearly every topic under the sun. Sometimes the replies to his posts turn into an echo chamber and I feel that there is no point in challenging such ideas no matter how open-minded I try to come at them. I would like to believe that I am empathetic to points of view outside my own, but perhaps I give myself too much credit. I write this in the hopes that my words will challenge others that perhaps others might challenge me back in turn to help me see just as clearly.
Game on. Here are the reworded posts in no particular order:
- RFID in every bottle of beer or every glass of alcohol served with a public tracking app. If someone is drinking too much at a bar, I know which roads to avoid. Give credits (and make it seriously worth it) for those drinkers who will put the chips on all the alcohol already in their liquor cabinet. Make it so that all new alcohol containers have the chip. If the chip is removed in some way, it will cause the container to break and spill all the alcohol out. Also make all alcohol containers bright pink to make it less badass to drink. After all, all lives are worth it.
- The first thing I would do is require/enforce background checks for those that wanted to drink to make sure that nothing in their past might suggest that they are likely to be drinking because they are depressed, have a predilection for binge drinking or be in danger of drunk driving at the end of the night. I would also close a loophole that allows parents to serve alcohol to their children if they are underage.
- If a state has strict alcohol sales and is next to one that doesn’t (e.g. Utah and Nevada) how does that affect the alcohol death rate in each state? How do stricter laws, around or just better incentives for, safe alcohol storage reduce accidental alcohol abuse and death among teenagers? The impact ideally would be to use the findings from this kind of study to inform smart alcohol-control laws. I would really like our lawmakers to approach their job from the starting point of “What does the evidence say about which policies significantly reduce alcohol deaths?
- I’d like to see the connections made between mental health history and alcohol abuse. Even as much as doing brain studies on perpetrators of DUIs and DWIs that result in accidental homicide. Is there a connection that we are missing? Would that lead to stiffer regulations for alcohol purchasing? Stronger checks for those with mental health issues who wanted to purchase alcohol?
- No alcohol above 70% proof period. 3 bottles of liquor at any given time per household — including wine racks. All beer cases must now be sold in 6 packs. 7 day waiting period between purchasing your alcohol and getting possession of it.
- The Australia argument (something akin to prohibition) — Mandate that the public sell back all its beer and liquor at reasonable rates. Raise taxes on certain citizens (probably the rich) to pay for the purchase and destruction of the alcohol.
- Much akin to requiring car insurance, there should be a liability insurance required for purchasing alcohol. Different types and proofs of alcohol would require different levels of insurance. Resulting costs would effectively self limit volume of alcohol purchased and consumed…. Everyone has to get an alcohol license.
- Why not just apply a prohibitive tax to alcohol? That way, it can only be consumed by those who really need a drink, a natural self-policing if you will. Then use the tax receipts to buy back all the remaining alcohol.
- Who regulates alcohol in the house? Who tells a mom that her son is so sick that she can’t have alcohol either? And what if the law is in place so that a mentally incompetent person cannot get alcohol and the doctor gets it wrong and says he is competent enough to drink alcohol? And then the mentally incompetent person gets drunk, runs a red light and kills a family of 8 on their way to church? Do we go after the doctor? I think the licensing, training and insurance for alcohol is a good start. The cost will be a loss of privacy. A database of who has what kind of alcohol and how much they drink will be seen as too invasive for most drinking people. And I doubt that any mad man running his own distillery or amassing his own alcohol storage would do so legally, let alone the bums on the street who buy it from the black market and the mob who make it themselves and distribute it. But a large insurance pool of money that gets distributed to victims of alcohol violence might help people start regulating on their own. We need the bars and the liquor stores to be the ones who start raising flags. Until the people who inhabit the pro alcohol world want to see a change, there will be no change.
- I’d say ban beer since its the most effective and most controversial measure.
- Repeal the 21st amendment and go back to the 18th or only allow alcohol consumption in the context of staying below the state mandated levels of intoxication.
- Raise the price of beer to $200 a bottle. Do the same for shots.
It is interesting how changing a single word — gun, alcohol, white, black, conservative, liberal, supremacist, socialist, communist, fetus, cells, duties, rights— can change the trajectory of an argument. It is also interesting how two socks can be so different and yet so similar. It is interesting how emotion changes the way people react to controversy, analyze evidence, and put forth solutions. It is also interesting that mismatched socks are gaining traction as a clothing norm, but that I only feel comfortable wearing them in athletic pursuits. It is interesting how opposing points of view cannot always agree on the labels of victim and perpetrator. It is also interesting how my mismatched socks feel the same way on my feet when I am not thinking about what they look like.
I don’t make these statements as slights, but as matters of observation. We make the arguments that we do because we are passionate, but also because that’s how we see the world and we struggle to see it any other way. The solution to seeing is not as simple as stepping into another’s shoes. We must listen more, speak less and remember we share more in common than we think. At the end of the day, my socks are still socks, mismatched or not. And you and I are still human, brothers and sisters spinning though the universe together.
