Thinking About Guns, VIolence, and Gun Control

 More mass shootings have made the news in the USA. As usual, those events kicked off a flurry of activity on social media. This happens every time a mass shooting happens. 

Every time it happens, the same bad arguments and dishonest claims emerge. We're told that the Democrats want to ban guns, probably so they can enslave the population. We are told that Republicans don't care about people getting murdered. Second Amendment absolutists say we have too many gun laws as it is. Some people demand a ban on assault rifles (whatever they are) right now before this happens again. Gun rights advocates make numerous questionable claims. Gun control advocates fixate on mass shootings instead of on violent crime. 

Gun Control Arguments - Bad and Dishonest Overall:

Gun control opponents want to make guns look as unimportant as possible. Is it because access to guns is not that important? Or, do gun control opponents change the subject knowing they are misleading people? Hard to say, though the smart money says that "influencers" in the gun rights space know exactly what they are doing. They discount gun violence in three ways. 

• Suicide - Most people who commit suicide with guns will find another way. We know this isn't true. We also know that guns are far more effective than other means of suicide. The more guns in circulation, the higher the suicide rate is likely to be. 
• Accidents - Responsible gun owners are responsible, right up until they accidentally shoot someone, or themselves. The more guns in circulation, the more accidents there will be. 
• Murder - "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." You can't kill someone with a gun, you can only shoot them, or try to shoot them. Most gunshot victims live. But a gunshot wound is more likely to kill you than a stab wound or a whack on the head with a steel pipe. Gun control opponents minimize the value of having a gun, if you want to murder people, by pointing out that murders will just use knives, or sticks, or cars. 

If you read social media, you will learn that gun violence isn't that serious in the United States, because stats on fatal shootings include suicides and accidents, and most of the homicides are just gang-bangers killing each other. 

Banning Guns or What?

No one cares that much about banning guns. A ban on handguns or assault weapons or whatever is just one approach to a goal. What is the goal? Without getting into loaded political rhetoric, the goal is to get dangerous weapons off the streets. Almost every news story, news commentary, and blog post focuses on banning guns. Sometimes, writers and pundits talking about the government buying weapons. 

However, the default approach to banning handguns or assault weapons seems to be a ban. Ban people from buying, selling, or otherwise transferring them after a given date. That doesn't help with all of the legal guns and illegal guns on the streets. Offering to buy the guns can work, but not really. Logic dictates that criminals won't accept the "no questions asked" offer. You'll mostly collect old pistols that hardly shoot anymore, and some shotgun a hunter left to his wife when he died. 

Many legal gun owners will realize the low-ball offer isn't worth it. If I had a Bushmaster rifle in excellent condition, I would probably not sell it for $600. Would you?

Other gun owners insist that they need a gun for protection. Sometimes gun owners say they need guns for defense against tyranny. That argument is way beyond the scope of this little essay, so let's look at self-defense in more detail. Please don hip waders if you have them because the stuff is about to get deep. 

The Risks and Benefits of  Self Defense:

Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves or other people thousands of times a day. Right? Well, no one knows. This might be a deliberate effort to muddy the waters. If we don't know how often people use guns for self-defense, we can't have an intelligent discussion about the issue. Experts have studied this topic and reached a range of conclusions. 

In order for a gun to be useful in self-defense, it seems like three conditions need to be met:

1. The gun has to be readily available when needed. 

2. The owner has to be somewhat proficient in using the gun. 

3. This logically follows from #2, but you must be able to carry the gun in most places. 

Points one and two in particular raise some issues. In the first place, safe gun storage is important. But a gun that is secured isn't easy to access in the event of a home invasion. If the gun is easy to access and loaded, then it introduces new risks into the home. The most obvious risk is that someone will accidentally shoot themselves or someone else. The second risk is that someone will intentionally kill themselves. 

Gun control opponents like to say that a person bent on suicide will do something else if they can't get a gun. That might not be true. A Harvard University study illustrates this point. The researchers compared 15 states, grouped into low gun ownership and high gun ownership states found that suicides were much more common in high gun ownership states. The two groups had comparable populations, 39 million versus 40 million, so population alone can't explain much. 

However, the relationship between gun ownership rates and suicide rates may be an illusion. Something that influences both suicidal thinking AND gun ownership may be at work. The authors of the Harvard study mentioned differences between rural and urban mindsets to explain why there is a difference in suicide rates. So, the availability of guns may not be the only important variable. Like most any social problem, then, there are several variables at work. 

What about self-defense though? Isn't it common? Well, here's the problem. No one knows what "common" means. And, is there a standard definition of what legal self-defense is? We can try to conduct email surveys or mail surveys or something, but survey research raises many issues. Here are a few:

1. Will people lie about owning guns, for fear of unwanted attention from authorities or just because it is nobody's business if they have guns?

2. If the person is not permitted to own a gun, and use one in self-defense, should it count?

3. If the individual was illegally carrying a concealed firearm and use it to defend yourself, does it count?

4. If someone pulls a gun to diffuse a violent confrontation that THEY STARTED, should that count?

5. You hear noise and possibly whispers outside. You loudly announce that you're getting your shotgun, and the noise stops. Does that count?

6. Dave shoots an aggressive dog that rushed him and tried to bite. Does this count?

Research on defensive gun use produces varying statistics. One report has it happening a few thousand times A DAY. Other studies yield smaller numbers. A review study from Harvard School of Public Health suggests that defensive gun use is often illegal or socially undesirable. Real cases of citizens lawfully defending themselves or others appear to be rather rare. (Read all about it: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use-2/). 

Alternatives to Tougher Gun Control Laws:

If we can't have more gun control, how can we make society safer? Both sides of the gun control debate offer some alternatives. 

1. Background Checks - Most firearm transfers (gifts and sales) have to go through a federal background check system now. The problem here is that some dishonest people will buy a gun legally and then transfer it to someone who is not allowed to own a gun. 
2. More Gun Carriers - All states allow adult citizens to carry guns either openly or concealed. Concealed carry laws, we're told, make a place safer because criminals never know if they'll be confronting an armed citizen. 
3. More Law Enforcement - Spend more money preventing gun crimes. Put violent criminals behind bars for a long time. Don't let anyone get a violent felony reduced to a serious misdemeanor through plea bargaining or some other maneuver. 
4. Moral Awakening - Several arguments around morals, ethics training, and religious faith come up. Someone needs to describe how this would work, what would be done, how we know their version of a moral awakening would work, and why their "program" is a good idea. 
5. Health Care - Mental health and substance abuse contribute to a fair amount of violent crime. The cure might be to provide more counseling or treatment services. How would people pay? Gun control opponents might say we need more mental health care without saying how it would be paid for. And money aside, how do you compel an adult to get help? 

All of those steps might help, a little. So would restricting access to guns. 

Violence is a Tough Issue:

This should be obvious, but many on both ends of the political spectrum seem to ignore that. Instead, they talk about simple solutions that are anti-gun or pro-gun. We need more people carrying guns. We need to ban "weapons of war" so that gun violence declines. Both arguments have major issues, issues which I hope you understand a little better after reading this summary article. 

(Footnote: Many arguments against gun control are out there on the Web. Many of the arguments are so dumb that I don't want to waste your time describing them here.)