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Posted by on Dec 15, 2012 | 40 comments

A skeptical look at gun control

I see some of my confreres are deciding to discuss the following, and I’ve also seen that both Dawkins and Shermer have weighed in on this on FB, so I’m adding my few cents in the wake of this ghastly business.

Arguments about gun control online tend to fall into one of the two images below:

 

 

 

I’ll just assume for this that there are good reasons to be for one or t’other.  I understand why someone as gentle and furry as Shermer is in favor of the latter image; on the other hand, I am the first man in my father’s family in two generations not to live under tyranny, so I lean towards the former.  I also grew up in a part of the world with over ten times the per capita homicide rate of the US, so I do not think I am too sanguine.

Let’s leave that aside and just talk about the rationality or otherwise about the discussion of gun control, specifically in the United States.  The trouble is that it looks like what Mencken described “To every problem there is one easy, obvious answer, and its always wrong”.  The proponents of it suggest an answer that just seems too easy to me.

There’s another country that has a high rate of gun ownership (not as high as the US admittedly) but has very few gun murders, and that is true even if you adjust for per-capita.  I’m talking about Switzerland.  For that matter Germany (see above) has quite a high rate of gun ownership, but nothing like this rate of homicide.

The fault lies not in our stars…  Placing the blame for this atrocity on the availability of weaponry in the United States just seems too easy.  There is, frankly, something a little feral about the land of the free and the home of the brave, and I write that as an admirer of the Republic.  Yes, one always has to bear in mind the famous line:

“In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock!”

Well, maybe, but it is also true that the United States is one of only six nations on earth to execute minors since 1990, the others being Yemen, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Nigeria.  And the United States is not just a member of that club, but the most prominent one.  To put it another way, you are much less likely to be excuted for being an adult Nazi war criminal in Israel than for being a retarded child in America.  I don’t think this taste for violence will simply vanish with the hardware.

Nor, naturally, will those one wants to hand their weapons over be likely to do so.  For effective gun control, you would need a very law abiding populace with a high level of social solidarity, again, one like the Swiss.  It seems that the only societies that can do gun control right are the ones that can do gun ownership right.

What a conundrum.  After mulching over this a bit, I think the following image may represent the best, i.e. Swiss, option:

 

 

 

Your thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

  • Ronlawhouston

    The problem in the US is that you cannot even have a discussion about image #3 without folks claiming that you’re trying to implement image #1.

    I also agree with you about a culture of violence. When a presidential candidate gets cheers for executing people, it says a lot about the culture in the US.

    • ThePrussian

      That’s a very depressing thought. I mean, the Swiss have the sort of citizens militia that the US founders probably envisaged, so one would think their model could be sold elsewhere.

      • rockribbedrushy

        That’s a great idea. The Swiss have universal conscription from 20 to 30 years, 34 if you are an officer.

        Let’s look at the firearm that everyone of those men is supposed to have with him at his house, shall we? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIG_SG_550

        • Vic

          It’s a neat gun. But if you want to defend yourself or your familiy with it, better fix your bayonet (courtesy of the Swiss Army). Only militamen of emergency units are allowed to have ammo.

    • Chill Chick

      Another big problem is the thought process “Gun control won’t prevent 100% of gun violence so let’s settle for 0%”. There are incremental steps that can be taken, that have been shown to reduce gun crime, e.g. background checks and limits on the number of guns you can buy in a month (to put illegal dealers out of business.) But whenever such a step is taken, the NRA immediately unleashes an army of lawyers and lobbyists to sabotage the legislation. Then it turns around and says, “look, those restrictions don’t work, let’s scrap all restrictions.” It’s incredibly dishonest.

    • bluharmony

      Either that or they scream “2nd Amendment!”

    • rockribbedrushy

      Gun Control is on the road to Gun Confiscation.
      Ask any one from a former Communist or Authoritarian country.
      Hitler, Stalin, Mao, et. al. and other tyrants in history did not permit the populace, ‘cept for the military, to have any firearms.

      • ThePrussian

        Please reread my piece, specifically the following: “I am the first man in my father’s family in two generations not to live under tyranny,”

        That, for the record, is the case for something like the Swiss model: you can have guns as long as you undergo sensible safety and firing training. The possibility of citizens organising themselves into a well armed militia is much more of a deterrent to tyranny than a fearful mob that does not know how to use them.

        • rockribbedrushy

          My comment was to someone else and you did not address anything I said.

          What did I say that was false?

          BTW the NRA has been training people since its inception in the proper handling, firing and safety issues with firearms.

          The people that are buying up more firearms already know how to use them, the holders of CC went through training and safety.

          These people are buying these firearms for self defense; to protect their home and their family.

          None of them are going to band together and rampage through the countryside.

          Do you not agree that that woman in Georgia should or should not have had that pistol?
          Maybe if she had a 357 Mag she would not have needed all six shots, eh?

          • ThePrussian

            Nothing you have said was false; I was just slightly, ever so slightly, vexed by the idea that I was ignorant of the very real history of tyranny. I’m glad to hear that the NRA goes in for training. I still think that a proper and sensible licensing and training system could help to solder the correct social compact.

          • rockribbedrushy

            Don’t take this the wrong way, but you might. Sorry.

            Not every thing is about you, although it is your blog, I was addressing thing that the first gentleman addressed.

            I just got done elsewhere addressing the very same thing. Someone denied that registration leads to confiscation.

            I said it was on the same road. I provided a quote from Stalin, as quoting from Hitler is apparently verboten in some quarters.

            I basically said ” dictators schmictators, they all want power and they don’t care who they need to kill to get it and maintain it.

            He then said that my quote was irrelevant, because he said so.

            For the record, my parents both came from Belarussia and Leningrad, coming to the New World after the war. So you might say I am the first generation not to live under a tyranny.

            There is so much misinformation and disinformation going around, I just try to do my part and bring as much knowledge as possible.

            Some people appreciate and some people curse at me for doing so.

            A lot of this gun, oops, firearm business is full of manure.

            Something to think about, why did james holmes in aurora co pick out that particular theater, eh?

            There were closer theaters and larger theaters, but he chose the only one that was GUN-FREE!

            That meant he could do his dirty work and have no opposition. He was way unbalanced.

            Same with Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood. Those soldiers were unarmed and therefore sitting ducks.

            Only the MP’s were armed. He was looney tunes as well.

            Look at my list of killers. they were all overly medicated for severe psychological disorders.

            The ACLU has made sure that we cannot put them away.

            There will be more and GunFree is not the way to go.

            If they don’t have firearms, they will make bombs or they will set them on fire, or poison them.

            Punishing and stigmatizing law abiding citizens, while letting criminals run free will not make anyone any more secure.

            Ben Franklin was right:

            Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither
            Liberty nor Safety.

          • Vic

            Wow. Did you tell the European criminals? They could rule the streets, with the unarmed populace and all.

      • FB

        At least as far as concerns Hitler and the 3rd Reich, you are, Im afraid, misinformed and spreading false information (Im going to assume not purposefully).

        The Nazis actually loosened gun legislation. The previous government, the democratically elected “Weimar Republic”, had imposed stringent gun control laws, effectively making it illegal to privately own guns – these were significantly relaxed in 1938 (by the Nazi regime).

    • http://www.facebook.com/RCONNORIII Robert Connor

      Make more Gun Laws-The criminals will comply!

  • Vic

    I already followed the other discussion with interest.

    Also I like charts. Thus, have some links:

    http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compare/194/number_of_gun_homicides/178,192,69,87,88,66

    http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compare/194/rate_of_gun_homicide/69,66,178,192,88,87

    http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compare/194/number_of_privately_owned_firearms/66,69,87,88,192,178

    http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compare/194/rate_of_civilian_firearm_possession/66,69,87,88,192,178

    Illicit firearms are not included (the only number provided for the countries I picked seemed to be Germany with 17.000.000 guns)

    From looking at the website I got the impression the number of gun homicides in all those countries is either declining or at least stagnating, so, a positive outlook?

    I have to say I do not know how accurate the website is, I just found the available functions highly convinient.

  • bluharmony

    Image three is a compromise, and that’s what reasonable people do. How could anyone be against image three? “No guns” won’t help, because people will find a way to get them, and the system we have now encourages irresponsible gun ownership and needless death.

    I’m against execution period. Lifelong restraint (prison) is more humane, cheaper, and a far more foreboding punishment.

    • SmilodonsRetreat

      I fully agree… if we can stop making possession of marijuana a federal crime and let those people out of the criminal ‘justice’ system.

      • rockribbedrushy

        Drugs aren’t part of the Federal jurisdiction, but they are the State’s under the Tenth Amendment.
        If you live in a pot-free zone, you could move to Washington or California, the Land of Fruits and Nuts.

  • Clayton Flesher

    I have to give credit where it is due. As a gun owner, but someone who thinks the NRA dream we have in this country is clearly gone too far, I agree with everything about this post.

    You’ll notice that all of the countries you mentioned having comparable guns to us, also have a much better social safety net and mental health coverage. It might or might not do much to curb the spree shootings that make the news everyday, but I believe a better social safety net in the United States and better opportunities for upward mobility might do more to curb gun violence in this country than just about anything else we could do.

    • ThePrussian

      Very nice of you to say so. Maybe we “randroids” aren’t so irrational after all, no?

      • Clayton Flesher

        Oh, you’re still silly if you think you can dismiss Krugman outright like that. You just happen to not be letting your ideology blind you on this issue.

        • ThePrussian

          I await something that passes for an argument on that post.

    • rockribbedrushy

      “mental health coverage”

      You might want to look at the genesis of that. It started in California in the 70′s with the ACLU mental health advocates and the Patient Bill of Rights that culminated with the NYCLU and Billie Boggs, who they wanted to remain on the streets and homeless.

      The following are just a few of the mass murderers who were on medication or medications:

      Eric Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged 18 (Colombine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado), killed 12 students and 1 teacher, and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves. Klebold’s medical records have never been made available to the public.

      Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather’s girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12 wounded.

      Cory Baadsgaard, age 16, Wahluke (Washington state) High School, was on Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of the event.

      Chris Fetters, age 13, killed his favorite aunt while taking Prozac.

      Christopher Pittman, age 12, murdered both his grandparents while taking Zoloft.

      These individuals were overmedicated and overdosed.

      No one wants to talk about the drug problem that these and other unknown people have.

      And if these people did not have access to firearms, some were capable of other devices, bombs, fires or poisons.

  • SmilodonsRetreat

    I just said the same thing… great minds and all that…

  • Zardoz

    It is not that guns in society is a inherently bad idea but that Americans can’t be trusted. It is like giving matches to 4 year olds. One of them will burn the house down.

    Once you are able to demonstrate that you will use them responsibly, you can have them back.

    • Copyleft

      Excellent point. Ours is a unique culture that celebrates and praises violence. Putting weapons of cheap, convenient, and risk-free mass murder (which is after all, what guns are) in the hands of such a populace has entirely predictable results.
      “As president, I would support the Second Amendment completely. Anyone and everyone should be allowed to own guns. However, only _I_ would be allowed to own bullets. I wouldn’t trust the rest of you idiots with anything more dangerous than string.”
      –Scott Adams, “Dilbert”–

  • Patrick

    “on the other hand, I am the first man in my father’s family in two
    generations not to live under tyranny, so I lean towards the former.”

    I can understand that as an intellectual influence.

    In the United States, we recently ended about a full century of time in which our entire political process was dominated by heavily armed terrorist groups which utilized lawfully owned firearms to torment and murder racial minorities. So from my perspective, the idea of a citizen’s militia protecting its rights from a dominating federal government looks like a bunch of white people standing by a black man danging from a tree.

    This isn’t just hyperbole. This is what the narrative of gun ownership as a defense against tyranny was, for decades.

    • ThePrussian

      That is a very good point; I had not thought of that.

      • rockribbedrushy

        Something else to think about, they were all Southern Democrats.

  • Ronlawhouston

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/mythbusting-israel-and-switzerland-are-not-gun-toting-utopias/

    A good discussion of whether Switzerland and Israel are really valid analogies about gun ownership.

    • Vic

      Interesting article, thanks for sharing.

  • http://www.facebook.com/gojaejin Jeremy J. Goard

    I would think that the first kind of thing a skeptic would say, right off the bat, is that Figure 2′s comparison of absolute numbers, for nations with very different populations, is blatantly irrational, bullshit propaganda. If the Brady Campaign wants to make a point about the U.S. having between four and five times the gun homicide rate as Canada, let them do it honestly, not fooling an already credulous audience into thinking it’s almost 50 times. That ad is thoroughly shameful.

    • ThePrussian

      Well, maybe it is, but I just picked those two images as examples where internet arguments tend to fall. I do think that a per capita murder rate is much more important than a per capita gun murder rate, but leaving this or that campaign aside, what do you think of the third position?

      • http://www.facebook.com/gojaejin Jeremy J. Goard

        Well, I guess the next point I’d make as a skeptic would be: mass murder of very young children by a stranger doesn’t seem at all like a representative reference class for gun murders as a whole, so it’s likely to be quite irrational to combine an emotional reaction to the former with statistics about the latter. I don’t have statistics in front of me, but I believe that a very large majority of U.S. gun murders are either from gang conflict or from domestic violence leading to non-premeditated murder of a family member. I’d suggest the likelihood that for someone already living like the families in Newtown, there’s probably very little improvement left to be made to better their odds. This event was a huge outlier. Now, if we want to improve the statistic for gun murders, let’s do it! — but not from any cosmetic BS we do at elementary schools or more elaborate gun licensing for already law-abiding suburban people. Let’s attack the problem where the big numbers actually are — by supporting programs to give poor young men in inner cities other options in life than the drug trade or petty crime.

      • rockribbedrushy
  • @DemoPubliTarian

    There are great points made in here for both sides. The car vs gun regulation is great.

    It is American’s mentality and psychology in regards to the gun. We are a feisty nation of pioneers and immigrants who embrace risk at the core of our being.

    That mixed with angst makes for some bad gun mojo. Better mental health coverage would help a great deal. Problem: Americans embraced the idea of Reagan shutting down mental health facilities (which did need a policy renovation) to save money.

    That’s when we pretended to care about ‘bums’ by saying WHOA! We call them ‘homeless’ out of respect, yet ignore their safety while they are on the street struggling.

    Guess it cost short sighted people a lot in the long term, eh?

  • rockribbedrushy

    That’s all well and good, but when are you guys going to disarm the criminals by having Mandatory Sentences for Gun Crimes, eh?
    Why punish the law abiding firearms owners?

  • Gee

    Image 3 has always been my best thought. Register and tagging seems to let a bit more creep into the 2nd amendment grey area, but the rest is spot on. I really would like to know that my next door neighbor has training with his weapon of choice just like I know that I can pass him on the highway doing 60 MPH with just feet separating us and because he has been trained I am confident that he will not turn into me.

  • ElJuano13

    I agree! Common sense tells me that you’re absolutely correct in pointing out that cars are greatly too regulated!

  • Bob Metcalfe