December 17, 2012
Frustrated by thinking about gun control? Me too
by S. Abbas Raza
Like many if not most of you, I'm sure, I spent much of the weekend reading various articles about gun control and signing various petitions about it. By Sunday night I just became depressed: while it is clear to me that the existence and easy availability of hundreds of millions of guns to the citizens of America is responsible for tens of thousands of preventable deaths each year, it is also seems that there is very little hope of passing any meaningful gun control legislation in this country. So what to do? In my confusion I put up the following on Facebook last night where it generated quite a few comments, so I am now throwing it up here too (it is not a well thought-out essay, just a goad to discussion):
Friends, help me think this out, will you? I am a little confused by everything I have been reading about gun-control in the last couple of days. I'll appreciate your thoughts and comments but, because this is an extremely emotional issue and all of us are rightly outraged by the Newtown shooting, I will be grateful if the tone of all comments can be kept respectful of other points of view.
Here is some of what I have gathered:
1) There is a very large number of people in America who are very attached to the idea of gun ownership. To dismiss these people with condescension is at worst irresponsible and undemocratic and, at best, just silly in pragmatic terms. No drastic measure such as a repeal of the 2nd amendment or some other sort of ban or severe restriction on gun ownership is going to happen for decades in this country no matter how devoutly I or my lefty friends wish it. Even laws limiting purchase of guns to one a month are impossible to get enacted, given the current state of electoral politics!
2) There is an extremely large number of guns out there in America already and it would not be an easy thing to get people to turn them in even if one could pass legislation limiting new gun purchases in a meaningful way, which one probably can't. (For many different sorts of reasons.)
3) No legislation that could realistically pass at this point would have kept Adam Lanza from having access to the guns he had access to. This is not to say that such legislation would not prevent other tragedies from occuring, just that it would not have prevented this one.
4) The NRA spends over ten times the amount on keeping guns unrestricted as all forces calling for restrictions on guns combined.
5) Unlimited access to guns has become a signature emotional issue for the beleaguered right in America and this is not going to go away. Guns are a part of American culture in a way that they are not part of Japanese or English culture. And though I am convinced that the existence of a huge number of guns in private hands in America (close to 300 million by some estimates) is responsible for the disgraceful fact that that while a handful of people die by gun-shot every year in countries like Japan and the UK, in America that number is in the tens of thousands, I don't see any way of changing this anytime soon.
1) A ludicrously unjust distribution of wealth and income.
2) A political process supremely corrupted by big money.
3) A diminishing set of opportunities for class mobility or even education.
4) A lack of decent healthcare for all and an insanely large prison population and industry.
5) Etc.
And so maybe we need to just focus on fixing the big problems and if we succeed there, these other things will take care of themselves? I am not, by the way, implying that the "root causes of many of our problems" that I listed directly apply to the Newtown shooting or the killer himself. I am only asking if these things have created the twisted political atmosphere in which it is impossible to legislate rationally and also result in things like untreated mental illness. In other words, should we really be asking politicians like Barack Obama to spend huge amounts of precious political capital on things like very small and incremental restrictions in the gun laws (like limiting gun purchases to one a month, as Nicholas Kristof suggests in his NY Times column today) or should we just say to ourselves that nothing effective can be done about the gun problem until the big problems are addressed, and then do everything we can to address those? Are we wasting our own and other people's time by asking them to sign all those petitions?
Hey, I am just ASKING! I already admitted to being confused. So what do you think?
Posted by S. Abbas Raza at 12:05 AM | Permalink
Comments
In other words, is the paranoid djinn(ie) so far and so long out out of the bottle that we have no hope of ever containing it?
Strong emotions are the obstacle and also perhaps the solution. That is, will there come a day when strong revulsion - felt by gun owners themselves - at events like Newtown outweighs the paranoia that grips gun owners now? Will it take seeing their own kids murdered by their guns? And will *that* need to happen repeatedly, until it reaches some horrible critical mass that finally drives the point home?
I don't know.
Posted by: Kai Matthews | Dec 17, 2012 3:45:37 AM
I'm sure far more intelligent answers will come your way with some more specific arguments, but I would like to respond that, yes, we should expect Obama to spend huge amounts of political capital on even the small steps.
This will not hinder us from addressing the big problems you enumerated above.
The discourse reiterated time and again on certain media channels to certain impressive minds is that the 2nd amendment is essential to the very core of what constitutes their freedom. We know what their reading of the 2nd amendment is. That reading is now carved in stone for them. It will not change until the collective discourse, of which your web site is a small part, changes it. It is up to the writers, the artists, the thinkers, whatever we are, to change that discourse. Little by little.
I know some small, frail, 70-something year old women who want to go to the shooting range just to defend their "rights." These are lovely people in any other setting, but sit them down at a table and get them talking about the 2nd amendment and it's like you're in Bizarro World. Suddenly these caring, loving, community-helping, charity-giving ladies are screaming down your throat that you don't love America if you are for gun control. (obviously, i've lived this first hand)
The NRA succeeded in making these people believe that their reading (NRA's reading) is the only way to interpret the 2nd amendment.
We have to turn that around.
And Obama has to take steps that may seem pointless, but are nonetheless necessary. Still, he can't do it alone. He needs the public behind him.
This will take a long time. But it has to be done.
So, sign those petitions, write those articles, welcome those articles on your site, comment, comment, tweet...etc.
They may try to turn this into a debate about mental health, but we must not let them.
Imagine what THAT would look like. Little Johnny, loner, budding misanthropist, with a margin-marked Nietzsche under his arm, maybe a pale complexion, angry and stupid, like most teenagers will find himself in a pickle instead of blossoming into the brilliant researcher, writer, artist, tech star he could have been. Because some terrified school psychologist didn't want to even take a little chance that he might go batty and come to school with a gun.
No, no, no. That's not the way to go.
That's the thing to watch out for most right now.
The discourse needs to stay on track. Let's write about the history of the 2nd amendment. Let's use it in our arguments. It belongs to us too! And we know its proper history. So, let's get it out there.
Let's get Bizarro grandma back on track. Our pens (keyboards) will defeat the NRA.
Posted by: Jane | Dec 17, 2012 5:03:09 AM
"There is a very large number of people in America who are very attached to the idea of gun ownership. To dismiss these people with condescension is at worst irresponsible and undemocratic"
Well said.
Posted by: Sundar | Dec 17, 2012 7:47:32 AM
Some thoughts:
1. The goal is safety. Not passing legislation. Or even control. There seems to be an irrational belief in the efficacy of legislation to achieve goals. This in spite of a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
2. There are many other forms of collective action. Why restrict debate to coercive state action? The biggest changes in social norms and conventions are brought about by voluntary collective action. Religious groups, movements etc.
3. Not every problem has a solution.
Posted by: Sundar | Dec 17, 2012 8:02:20 AM
Lastly, an obvious point, but one that is too often forgotten. Legislation has costs as well as benefits. People talk as if passing gun control legislation is obviously good. That may be, but it is an empirical question. And I suspect that no thought has been given to the costs.
An extreme example: We can reduce automobile accident deaths to zero. By banning automobiles. (Don't attack this example, just trying to illustrate the point via an extreme example.... all obvious stuff, but I suspect that most people here do not think about it in this manner)
Posted by: Sundar | Dec 17, 2012 8:19:48 AM
A personal note: Lest you all think I have no "skin in the game": I am a parent of school age children. And I live a few miles from Newtown CT.
Posted by: Sundar | Dec 17, 2012 8:22:14 AM
1.What debate?
2.It's going to get worse.
3.My adult daughter and her husband are beginning to consider my long proffered advice to get outta here to NZ.
Posted by: Robert | Dec 17, 2012 8:35:01 AM
NZ is too dangerous for me. Too many Orcs on the loose... I plan to move to an uninhabited moon of Jupiter.
Posted by: Sundar | Dec 17, 2012 8:41:08 AM
This tragedy, as awful as it is, may yet produce something good. Two things:
1. We now have the opportunity to convince even the most die-hard anti-government libertarians that an expensive, nationwide mental illness program must be initiated. I have friends who work in the biz and they tell me that it's just awful: prison is almost certainly where most people like Lanza can hope to end up.
2. The tragedy may teach us about an important split in American culture. The fact of the matter is that when things like this happen, many of us immediately think that "the government should do something", whereas the other half of the population thinks "individuals should be able to protect themselves". Call them the top-downers and the bottom-uppers. These are the gut-level, emotional responses we have to perceived threats, and they are quite clearly driving disagreement over the gun control issue.
Since this is 3QD, I'll say that we need to start a responsible philosophical-cultural dialogue about these two ways of seeing the world. Zoomed out from this particular issue, the bottom-uppers don't look so crazy: they are part of what makes America a unique and interesting place, and they embody what is, in certain lights, a noble ideal. Consider, for example, that the lives ordinary people have, for most of civilized history, been absolutely dominated by ham-fisted tyrants, Monarchs, and lords: in this light, a type of ordinary person who says things like "no-one owes me nothing" and "I don't like when government tries to fix our lives" is a kind of unique human achievement.
Yet, there is absolutely no hope for reconciliation or dialogue between the two types unless they (1) come to understand each other, and (2) use that understanding to talk about new, better shared visions for the country. It's a pipe-dream, I know, but it's a best-case scenario that people who frequent this website could conceivably work to achieve.
(Note that currently, the dominant tendency of the intellectual sphere is to blather on about how certain psychological profiles would have provided a survival advantage 500,000 years ago in the Kalahari. Academics/intellectuals can do better than this.)
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Dec 17, 2012 9:49:57 AM
@Nick Smyth: Well said.
Posted by: Sundar | Dec 17, 2012 9:54:58 AM
Here are some assorted suggestions.
- Approach the problem as crime control through legislation, not gun control.
- Owners of weapons used in killings where they were not personally should be charged with Negligent Homicide. They will then keep their weapons locked up so it does not fall in wrong hands. Lanza's mom whose weapon was allegedly used should be charged with negligent homicide. See (*) below where it is applied for lesser incriminating situations.
- Extensive background checks when purchasing guns
- Waiting time of 6 months
- Registration of guns with local police office
- Control sale of ammunition
- Major cultural cause of crime and violence is its glamorization by Hollywood. Make display of weapons PG, use of it in a crime X, killing XX, mass killing XXX. If it can be done for nudity, why not for murder?
(*) Negligent homicide is a criminal charge brought against people who, through criminal negligence, allow others to die.
Negligent Homicide is a lesser included offense to first and second degree murder, in the sense that someone guilty of this offense can expect a more lenient sentence, often with imprisonment time comparable to manslaughter. U.S. states all define negligent homicide by statute. In some, the offense includes the killing of another while driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Examples of such cases include the crash of Aeroperu Flight 603 near Lima, Peru. The accident was caused by a piece of duct tape that was accidentally left over the static ports (on the bottom side of the fuselage) after cleaning the aircraft, which led to the crash. Employee Eleuterio Chacaliaza left the tape on by accident and was charged with negligent homicide. (Wikipedia).
Posted by: Raza Husain | Dec 17, 2012 10:08:02 AM
The solution is very simple. No assault weapons. No high-capacity magazine or any magazine weapons. No semiautomatics. In other words, no weapons that shoot more than one bullet at a time -- only guns you have a reload every time you want to fire a shot allowed
.
That's all it takes.
That's sort of what they did in Australia after a mass shooting tragedy there, and what they did in England, where the cops don't have guns, which would be the next step.
In the end, in other words, no guns except single shot guns for hunters that have to registered with the local police after a thorough background check and a waiting time of six months.
As for the mental health issue, maybe Obamacare can help with that, or maybe Medicare for mental health should be extended to troubled youth. Instead of spending gazzillions on homeland security, we can spend it on mental hospitals in every town in the land.
Posted by: Adam Ash | Dec 17, 2012 10:20:37 AM
We need to listen to Saul Alinsky and think locally. Here in our town we are working to get the names and addresses of owners of hand guns printed in the local paper as a first step. What can you do in your own town?
John
Posted by: John garrett | Dec 17, 2012 10:26:58 AM
Guns won't go away in the US, so regulate them as alcohol by a combination of taxes, strict penalties for misuse, and building the public support instead of full prohibition.
Introduce a progressive gun tax or mandatory gun insurance.
Pay more for owning lots of guns or being in the risk zone of using them in a harmful way.
Posted by: Pavel | Dec 17, 2012 10:27:05 AM
Slapping a massive sales tax on guns would be another solution, like we do with cigarettes.
Posted by: Adam Ash | Dec 17, 2012 10:38:55 AM
As Nick said, a serious dialogue between groups with opposite world views is absolutely necessary... now! Elected leaders, public intellectuals and friends need to engage in the dialogue. That is what leadership is about. That said, the two views on gun ownership are not equal. High powered assault style weapons and armor piercing bullets do not belong in the homes of hunters or those who want to protect their property against intruders. Protection against tyrants is a red herring also. Just look at the present day tyrants' arsenal.
Yes, Americans are not about to give up "clinging" to their guns or the 2nd Amendment. But there was a bloody civil war when some did not want to give up their slaves. I am not saying that there should be another civil war to free ourselves of guns but the culture needs to change through debate and some legislation. Instead of the blathering congressmen, the spokespersons in this matter should come from the ranks of the police force, emergency first responders and mayors - hardly the bleeding heart types. Common sense ought to prevail over paranoia.
As for the problem of what to do with the 300 million + guns already in the hands of private citizens? Not much; that genie is already out of the bottle. Those cannot be recalled. But what about regulating the sale of ammo? Make it prohibitively expensive, require strict background check (criminal and psychological) and put limits on the quantity of ammunition used in assault style rifles and rapid fire hand guns that one can buy, say within a 3-6 month period. No hunter or homeowner is going to be handicapped but it may hinder those with mayhem on their minds.
Posted by: Ruchira | Dec 17, 2012 10:51:58 AM
Sundar, I do have to take issue with your choice of example, as I've seen the cars::guns analogy used just in the past couple of days by gun apologists (which I understand you're not; btw, I'm an uncle of school-age children who live just a few towns away from Newtown).
To quote myself in another 3QD thread:
"Cars have a primary purpose that doesn't involve the intent or threat of bodily harm; guns have no other purpose."
With cars, we accept a tradeoff of their great utility against their inherent risk. There is no comparable tradeoff with guns. Their risks far outweigh their purported benefits. Almost all of the latter fall apart upon sustained logical cross-examination. See, for example, http://globalsociology.com/2012/12/15/on-the-guns-thing-i-would-just-like-to-point-out/#.UM8ZvNkJsv8.facebook
Posted by: Kai Matthews | Dec 17, 2012 11:09:32 AM
Actually I think, ammunition for assault weapons should be banned altogether making the corresponding guns obsolete.
Posted by: Ruchira | Dec 17, 2012 11:20:10 AM
I wonder what we'd find out if there was an excellent body of research on instances where semi-automatic weapons in private hands were desperately necessary, and used to good effect. Meaning, used in such a way that the loss of life was not only justified, but truly the only way out of more widespread harm. In cases where this was so, would an ordinary shotgun have served as well? Or did the semi-automatic weapon play a vital and unique role in disposing of a still greater threat? This research should help answer the question: What good are they really? If semi-automatic weapons are not unique and irreplaceable life-savers in frequently recurring ghastly situations where private citizens have demonstrated nothing else would have done, then perhaps they ought to be confiscated and replaced with the gift of a hunting rifle.
I accept that self defense is sometimes necessary in the worst of all ways, and I would rather shoot someone who clearly meant to murder me than let him go ahead with it on the grounds of a commitment to personal nonviolence. I grew up in Texas, where everyone had a gun and knew how to use it and knew exactly in which circs they would use it. Bad enough, right? But no one had a semi-automatic weapon or five.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 17, 2012 12:14:09 PM
Good points.
I think the main issues are simple:
Should assault/automatic weapons be hard to get: yes.
Should gun purchasing be highly stringent to ATTEMPT to keep them out of hands of criminals, mentally ill, etc.?: yes.
Should handguns and rifles be banned: no.
Should gun shows be allowed to deliver on site: no.
Why these simple laws are so hard to pass is due to the crazy hyperbole on BOTH sides. Neither side addresses anything practical, so nothing will ever get done.
Posted by: Beajerry | Dec 17, 2012 12:42:20 PM
I see no real solution. The New York Times reports that even in Newtown, Ct, most people remain opposed to gun control. From reading gun owner's posts on social media, I have come to understand that most people in this country either own guns or have friends that own guns and that, especially in rural areas, gun owners are genuinely afraid of other gun owners. They live in fear. You will only take their guns from their "cold dead hands". It's just that bad.
Posted by: Olavi Valo | Dec 17, 2012 12:59:03 PM
I think Conor Friedersdorf has something to say to many people on this thread:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/12/the-us-already-had-a-conversation-about-guns-and-the-pro-side-won/266335/
Posted by: Sundar | Dec 17, 2012 1:44:15 PM
Even if we accept the NRA claim that the 2nd amendment confirms the rights of individuals to keep and bear arms (I disagree that with analysis, but will assume it's valid for now), that does not mean the government cannot regulate gun ownership. We have a first amendment freedom of speech, but that does not mean individuals can stand out front of their neighbors' homes with a bullhorn at 2 a.m. All "rights" are subject to reasonable restrictions for the purpose of peace.
So, for example, nobody would dispute that the government can prohibit visitors to federal prisons from carrying guns inside. What is the purpose of that restriction: to protect the prison guards and the public.
The same judges who rule for the NRA and against the public also see no contradiction in enforcing laws to keep guns out of a courtehouse, so the judges are protected.
The Republicans and too many Democrats have simply accepted the NRA extremist position (no regulations or restrictions allowed) because they take money from the NRA. They have pledged allegiance to the NRA, which is itself nothing more than a lobbyist for the gun industry. Just like they pledged allegiance to Grover Norquist, who is nothing more than a lobbyist for rich people who want to shut down the U.S. government, run the sheriff out of town so there will be no one to stop their crime spree. We need to demand the politicians represent us, the people, or step aside.
We, the citizens must demand the government begin passing reasonable gun restrictions. Certainly assault weapons and automatic weapons should be banned. Background checks required. Handguns should be banned or restricted to people having them in their homes, but not otherwise.
Gun safes in the home should be mandated. Gun owners should be required to carry liability insurance to provide compensation to anyone injured by their guns, the same as we require car owners to carry liability insurance to compensate anyone injured by their car.
We need to start someplace and build from there. A good place to start is to stop listening to the lies of the NRA. There is nothing in the constitution to prevent us from passing laws to regulate and restrict gun ownership.
Posted by: NABNYC | Dec 17, 2012 1:52:00 PM
http://davidhealy.org/the-hidden-gorilla/
Posted by: Louise Gordon | Dec 17, 2012 1:55:28 PM
I own several guns and am a member of the NRA
1. I support reasonable gun control and gun safety laws. There are about 50 million gun owners in this country and most of them do, too. The NRA has about 3 or 4 million members and even it supports some gun safety laws.
2. The gun control laws that currently exist are primarily security theatre, just like the TSA making grandma dump out her 4 ounce bottle of mouthwash. For example, even if you already own a gun, you still have to undergo a background check, and in California, go to the dealer and fill our paperwork and then wait 10 days and come back to pick up firearm. There should be a "gun license" just like there should be a "trusted flyer card."
That said, one of the biggest impediments to "gun licenses" is the NRA that fear a registry of gun owners that will be used to seize firearms. So that's a conundrum.
3. In the next couple of months, we will be deluged with calls to ban "assault rifles" like the one used in the Connecticut shooting. I have already seen hundreds of blog posts and newspaper articles. There will be debate in congress and across the nation and the ban will or will not pass. About 30-40 people were killed this past year with "assault rifles" in the United States. --->>>More people are struck and killed by lighting each year in America.
4. The President of the United States has killed more school-aged children through drone attacks than were killed in Connecticut. The fact that this is not a scandal points to the moral depravity of this country.
Posted by: jncc | Dec 17, 2012 1:57:31 PM
NABNYC
There problem with your sensible proposals is that none of them have even the slightest chance of happening. Even the mother of the shooter in Newtown was a "gun enthusiast". Instead of taking her obviously disturbed son to a place where he could get psychiatric help, she was taking him to firing ranges. That tells you how ingrained guns are in U.S. society.
Posted by: Olavi Valo | Dec 17, 2012 2:00:01 PM
Assault weapon ban: to me this seems like an incredibly ill-chosen goal:
- Such weapons are implicated in extremely few gun deaths. For good reason too: these things are ungainly, difficult to conceal and slow to pull out (they don't exactly have a point-and-click interface). To focus on them is focus on what can only ever be a side-issue.
- You're facing the guns-for-recreation-and-hunting crowd head on.
- The 'b' word is a political loser.
- The SC is unlikely to agree that such bans are consistent with its recent 2nd amendment ruling.
- Nothing is done to deal with the fact that there are millions of guns out there, and they aren't magically vanishing just because you ban them. In fact if you do try to vanish them there's really bad adverse selection.
Basically, this would use a hell of a lot of political capital, for purposes that if carried to success would accomplish very little. It's hard to believe anyone would seriously be proposing this if spree killers didn't happen to use such weapons atypically often. I won't sneeze at saving lives, but this sure seems like a strange place to start, unless there are no plausible alternatives. Which brings me to:
Taxing bullets: this is something like the opposite really. You accomplish shifts in gun markets generically and save lives across the gun death spectrum, or at least wherever there's price elasticity. You're using taxes, which are at least more popular than bans. The constitutional hurdle is rather lower. You could frame the tax, maybe saying that the tax revenue will be used in voluntary education and training in "responsible gun usage." Actually, why not? Can't do harm, might help.
Weirdly enough, if mass shootings motivate such a policy, they'd be catalytic in the chemical sense. Someone who wants to kill fifty people then die is probably the kind of killer least likely to be affected by price hikes. You'd have to be an unusually dimwitted mass shooter to not realize that you lose nothing in buying bullets and armor and such by bankrupting yourself/selling off assets/maxing out credit cards.
Posted by: prasad | Dec 17, 2012 2:03:06 PM
I should add:
5. There are more guns in this country than any time in history and more states permit concealed carry than anytime in the past 100 years. Crime rates and gun crimes is at a 30 year low.
We live in one of the safest times in this Country's history and yet people live more in fear than ever before.
Posted by: jncc | Dec 17, 2012 2:06:29 PM
Great idea to tax bullets. That will give a definite edge to rich people killing poor people when they venture out of their gated communities.
Posted by: Olavi Valo | Dec 17, 2012 2:07:30 PM
"That will give a definite edge to rich people killing poor people when they venture out of their gated communities. "
You're parodying something, right? Do you have any numbers on how gun deaths distribute among rich/poor killing rich/poor people? My guess (but I'd bet fairly large sums on it): the biggest component doesn't involve rich people at all. I'd bet (somewhat smaller sums) too that the next biggest term involves rich victims.
Posted by: prasad | Dec 17, 2012 2:31:03 PM
Always useful: Some data in form of graphs
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/12/17/assault-deaths-within-the-united-states/
Posted by: Sundar | Dec 17, 2012 3:55:57 PM
I'm slightly puzzled as to why no one is asking why these shootings involve innocent people. Where does someone get the idea that the thing to do when your mind is unbalanced is to kill as many people as possible before committing suicide? Is this typical behaviour of all breakdowns? If not, how did the idea become so entrenched in the minds of these people? Would instant world infamy have anything to do with it?
Posted by: Ivor Tymchak | Dec 17, 2012 6:09:25 PM
Sundar:
Been to NZ?
Didn't think so.
USA is over.
Posted by: Robert | Dec 17, 2012 7:15:34 PM
With regard to the 2nd Amendment and the belief that it only applies to citizens as part of an organized militia:
What happened to the militias?
It seems that they mostly exist in name only. They have pretty much been replaced by the National Guard.
What if the US were to phase out the National Guard and replace it with truly effective, beefed up militias that any able-bodied citizen could join?
What if the members could regularly go out on weekends and shoot guns that no one in their right mind would suggest that the average person could keep in their home?
These beefed up state militias could have a number of positive side-effects:
1) Lower demand for personal gun ownership, or at least ownership of more exotic "assault" weapons. Who needs a semi-auto AR-15 at home when they can shoot a full-auto M-16 at the base on Saturday?
2) Large supply of nominally trained citizens to help out in emergencies such as forest fires, floods, hurricanes, etc.
3) Unlike the National Guard, a state militia could tell the the US government to go pound sand if that state's government decided a particular war was not worth the lives of their citizens.
4) One less thing paid for by the one level of government in this country that doesn't have to keep to a budget.
Of course devolving the role of militias away from the central government and back to the states seems at first to be a political non-starter, but it might be something that could get the support of people across the political spectrum.
Posted by: DAS | Dec 17, 2012 9:40:25 PM
Sorry for joining the conversation late. . .I don't know if you guys have seen this yet or if you are NSFWCORP subscribers (it seems like there would be a lot of 3QD and NSFW overlap, but maybe not).
Anyways, Here is an essay by Mark Ames (a former gun nut and workplace massacre journalist who has finally given up and started tackling the NRA for the first time today). It details the sordid history of the NRA from when it was once a gun safety and target shooting educational outfit with ties to the boyscouts. Hell, my Dad was a member back then, and nobody despises gun nuts more than hunters because we have a vested interest in keeping our firearms to pursue our sport. I will comply with any and all regulations necessary to prevent this shit from happening again. One thing I was thinking was maybe you buy your hunting rifle, or birding shotgun or whatever, and you keep it at the local sheriff station or something under lock and key. Then when you have all your tags in order you can go down there and use it for 6 hours or 24 hours or whatever (depending on what you are hunting, deer can take an awfully long time).
Handguns need to be abolished. My dad never let me fire handguns growing up, because handguns (and assault rifles, for that matter) have one explicit purpose: to murder human beings.
Oh, I am getting off topic here. Here is the Mark Ames piece:
http://nsfwcorp.co/qkdnbq
Posted by: DrunktankDan | Dec 17, 2012 9:46:44 PM
I should clarify; when i said 'nobody despises gun nuts more than hunters' I may have caused offense. That was a pretty stupid and not well thought out statement. Anyone connected to a tragedy like this obviously has more cause.
And also there is quite a bit of overlap between hunters and gun whackos (the type that clean their barrels in a pantomime of masturbation while having fantasies about black/brown people invading their homes and attempting to rape their wives).
I grew up as a hunter from a very conservationist/environmental perspective. My dad was horrified watching all of this prime pheasant/deer land in the East Bay go to subdivisions. There was a period where deer were being culled in too large of numbers, so he stopped taking deer and just did pig for a while and birds for a while. When deer starting getting so out of control that cougar numbers subsequently skyrocketed, he switched back to one a year and laid off the turkey, and well, you get the idea.
One thing that always bothered him, (and his opinion rubbed off on me) was that when we were doing all of these hunter safety classes, and permitting processes and shit, there would always be a few weirdos doing them to own assault weapons in CA (CA is arguably the most regulated state). There is no legitimate reason to go hunting with an assault rifle. First off, milspec stuff is usually small calibre, because some diabolical genius figured out that it is a lot more expensive for the enemy to suffer a casualty as opposed to a kill. Second, anything with a higher rate of fire then semi-automatic will ruin the most of the meat with a gut shot. Should I continue?
It just doesn't make any fucking sense. And folks in CA would abuse the hunter registration program to get these weapons which were solely designed to take away human lives.
Could you cause alot of mayhem with standard hunting weapons? Absolutely. Is it much easier with assault rifles and handguns? No shit. Would most ethical hunters comply with common sense regulations in order to preserve their sport and their access to ethical meat, while preventing tragedies like this from happening? I don't know.
But I would.
And one last thing: regulating hunting should not make it more expensive for the average hunter, because poor people deserve access to responsibly harvested meat, and animals deserve their best chance at having a normal life before we eat them, and hunting preserves open space and I could go on.
Posted by: DrunktankDan | Dec 17, 2012 10:03:20 PM
Anybody got any decent research on Switzerland's gun policy?
I have heard, too many times, that they have more small arms per capita than the united states but almost no gun violence. Anybody found a good article explaining this?
Posted by: DrunktankDan | Dec 17, 2012 10:07:54 PM
this gives a little bit of info on switzerland: See here.
Posted by: chris | Dec 18, 2012 12:23:12 AM
Re: Switzerland
http://www.businessinsider.com/switzerlands-gun-laws-are-a-red-herring-2012-12
U.S gun laws are crazy for all the reasons pointed out. Although it's a much reviled saying...people ultimately do kill people. Any discussion must begin with the premise that a majority of US citizens do not wish to tighten the gun laws.
Posted by: Troy | Dec 18, 2012 7:46:22 AM
As a comparison, after the Port Arthur Massacre in Australia, the Australian government seeks to implement comparatively draconian restrictions on the ownership of guns and the "polls showed public support for these measures at upwards of 90 percent."
See this.
Posted by: Troy | Dec 18, 2012 8:02:38 AM
Wow, it's gonna take me a minute to work through all of these comments. I will do so on my break tomorrow and try to take notes and ask relevant questions. It's nice to see so much output from the 3QD community concerning my f'd up country, domestic or abroad. This needs to be figured out.
. . .This is why I f'n love the internet, and 3QD in particular.
Posted by: DrunktankDan | Dec 18, 2012 8:33:31 AM
The phrase I was looking for was "magical thinking". The discussion on gun control is full of magical thinking.
Diego Basch discusses:
http://diegobasch.com/mass-shootings-political-correctness-and-magical-thinking
Posted by: Sundar | Dec 18, 2012 9:43:16 AM
Yes, the "thinking" on gun control is full of magical thinking, but this is no surprise in a country where half the population believes the Earth was created 6,000 years ago. These are the same people who ask for our "prayers" and say that those unfortunate little kids are now "angels in heaven".
Irrational thinking is pervasive in this country. And power, money and magical thinking trump the lives of small children every time. This is obvious in the health care system which places profits ahead of human life, the financial system which places profits ahead of human life and gun control which places profits and delusions of power ahead of human life.
Posted by: Olavi Valo | Dec 18, 2012 10:14:00 AM
I strongly recommend Sundar's link as well. I'll take "magical thinking", and add piety masquerading as policy, along with generic preference for action - however pointless - because there's a Problem. Almost none of the policy proposals put forth recently (and after every shooting) get away from the distracting influence of mass shootings, and those that do rarely make contact with a) the guns already out there b) the constitutional and SC situation. I wonder if this is more than accidental - in many circles signaling opposition to guns has social and cultural salience. If so, the point IS to ostentatiously record opposition and distaste, not to propose anything useful.
Posted by: prasad | Dec 18, 2012 11:28:47 AM
Agree Prasad...change must come from the grassroots and that entails attempting to educate a critical mass of people in the US out of their collective mindset; the need of assault weapons and handguns. That's the challenge and proposals before congress are worthless until that state of group consciousness is altered.
Posted by: Troy | Dec 18, 2012 11:58:18 AM
@Prasad you say you "have a generic preference for action". Not clear why. There is a long list of state actions that have made problems worse and created new problems.
Thats not to say that state action can never be effective. Just that people seem to have a irrational faith in state action.
Posted by: Sundar | Dec 18, 2012 12:03:58 PM
Sundar, re-read :)
Posted by: prasad | Dec 18, 2012 12:09:25 PM
Oh... Sarcasm? My bad.
Yes, signaling is very important. In left wing circles, it is important to ostentatiously say certain things... e.g. contempt for middle america... Right wing circles have their own set of shibboleths.
I on the other hand, am completely free from illusion. Am coldly rational and unemotional.
Or perhaps I have no idea what my biases are...
Posted by: Sundar | Dec 18, 2012 12:21:33 PM
Eh? What sarcasm? I was trying to add additional descriptive features to the gun control crowd's instinctive response to this massacre beyond 'magical thinking.' I picked piety subbing for policy and a desire for action, any action, even if would accomplish little. I didn't realize my text was that opaque.
Posted by: prasad | Dec 18, 2012 12:30:51 PM
Sundar, you said it!
Posted by: Raza Husain | Dec 18, 2012 8:42:47 PM
Fewer people in the USA own guns than, say 20 years ago, but those who do own guns own multiple. They are stockpiling. Yes, this is frightening and that is why gun owners must be included in this conversation.
The gun culture is really what requires a paradigm shift. People need to hold gun owners to the same level of accountability that we reserve for smokers. Don't you remember 20 years ago, when you could smoke on a plane? Or the smoking and non-smoking sections of a restaurant? And wasn't the Tobacco Industry all-powerful? Paradigms can shift, it just takes time and a huge loss of life.
Legislation will only go so far, and may not be completely effective, although background checks, mental health checks (what the army or National Guard requires), closing up the loophole at gun show sales, and NABNYC's suggestion of gun insurance is excellent. If I have to pay car insurance, then I should pay gun insurance. And if I am a young, unemployed male with 5 handguns and an assault rifle I should pay a much bigger premium than the 60 year old male hunter with his excellent hunting safety record and his goose hunting gun.
Regarding militias: this was a myth. George Washington thought the militia guys were good for pot-shots in the forest, but when it came to doing actual army work, you needed real soldiers with training. After the militia failed to defend the country in the War of 1812, a standing army was created. The militia, along with the shooting the shooter and defending my home from robbers are all cultural illusions without a lot of hard facts to back them up. But Americans love these gun narratives.
We have to deliver the same message that (eventually) got through with cigarettes: smoking/shooting doesn't make you a man, it makes you a lethal public nuisance.
In the meantime, if you are a USA citizen, write a letter to your elected official. You may not feel like you are doing much, but think of it as counter-acting the gun crazy person's letter.
Posted by: nmr | Dec 21, 2012 11:31:19 PM
The sad thing is, according to polls, many if not most NRA members are open to some reasonable restrictions, but the leadership is intransigent and delusional. I have been an NRA member for about 15 years, but this is the last straw. Since Obama got elected, gun rights have actually increased, but you wouldn't know it by reading 'American Rifleman'-- they seem to think that BO and HRC and the U.N. stormtroopers are going to be rounding up gun owners with black helicopters and FEMA camps any day now...to destroy freadumz and such.
I still support the RKBA for lawabiding, sane people, and I dislike those whose first (well-meaning but often misguided) instinct is to strengthen the nanny state-- but I have to admit there are some things that need to change. The NRA has good programs for hunters, marksmanship, gun safety training, etc., but I cannot in good conscience ally myself with LaPierre and his ilk, and their batty, revanchist politics any longer. I had been holding out hope that perhaps they would soften the stance and come to the discussion table to work out something we could all live with...but instead they doubled down on stupid. This week I'm writing them a letter and returning my membership card, cut in half.
Posted by: Brian King | Dec 22, 2012 7:31:41 AM
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