Loaded Questions - Talking about Guns in America

Sadly, this week has been dominated by discussions of horrific things and uncomfortable questions and polarized opinions in the wake of the monstrous attack in Las Vegas. As I write this, 58 are dead and 489 were wounded. It is an unspeakable tragedy and a sad fact of our modern life that as the week has gone on, it seems more and more likely that nothing of substance will be done about this.

I felt the need to write something about this event and my feelings on the inevitable debate on guns in America that it naturally brings up. Rather than engage in back and forth debates on social media that seem to only alienate people, I wanted to put my thoughts in a longer format that maybe allows for a more polite and reasoned discourse.

I structured these thoughts into several main ideas that I want to discuss - many of them will read as though they are "myths" that I wish to dispel. However, that is not the intention - they are not myths, but rather opinions that I have continually heard from people that I respect, love, and know to be thoughtful, intelligent human beings. I may disagree with them, and believe I have evidence to support that, but I present this in the hope that I can also find discussion and evidence from those with differing opinions, life experiences, and viewpoints that may help me to further my own understanding of the issues involved here.

You shouldn't politicize an event like this.

This is a narrative that you hear after almost any tragedy, and it's true on some levels. Politicians and other people whose livelihoods are based primarily on the opinions and support of the public (authors, political commentators, etc.) are absolutely guilty of using events like the horror in Vegas to further their own reputations, careers, and perceived or actual power. It's a slimy, morally bankrupt practice that I think most people will agree is distasteful at best and downright awful at worst.

However, we should not let that fact discourage us from having frank, honest conversations about questions that such events create. In fast, I would argue that tragedies most often SHOULD be politicized; at least, in the sense that we should ask ourselves if we can do anything to prevent them from happening in the future. Regardless of whether something can be identified to prevent such a shooting or not, we should absolutely allow ourselves to discuss and debate what could have been done to prevent such a slaughter. Only by looking at the past can we actually find evidence for the path to take in the future. 

So, yes, we should be discussing gun control in the wake of Las Vegas. It is not disrespectful to the victims or their families - in fact, it may be one of the best ways to honor them, by seeking to prevent more families from experiencing their own heartbreak and loss.

People in favor of gun control just want to take our guns, infringe on our Second Amendment Rights, and further the march of our government to a tyranny.

If this is the view one puts forward as LITERALLY THE FIRST THING brought up when the words "gun control" are spoken, it makes it extremely difficult to have a productive discussion. This is a classic false equivalence, where the equation

ANY GUN CONTROL ==  TAKING MY GUNS

The Second Amendment states, in its entirety: 

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The Supreme Court has made numerous rulings pertaining to and clarifying their position on how this should be interpreted - a good, simple overview of those is presented here by the Cornell Law School. While they have struck down certain legislation restricting gun bans, they have also expressly stated that numerous legislative options exist that do not infringe on the Second Amendment: regulation on possessing firearms for criminals and the mentally ill, background checks for gun purchase, and limits on certain types of weapons (like what was used in Las Vegas) all fall into that category. As always, I strongly encourage anyone interested to look to the actual source and read the SCOTUS decision on District of Columbia vs Heller (link here). Several pertinent quotes:

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.

The 18th-century meaning is no different from the meaning today. The 1773 edition of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary defined “arms” as “weapons of offence, or armour of defence."

This holding is not only consistent with, but positively suggests, that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms (though only arms that “have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia”).

 Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment , nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

This majority opinion was penned by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, hero of conservative circles. It is clearly stated by even foremost conservative legal minds that regulations on the sale, transport, operation, and possession of guns are all constitutionally supportable, if limited in their scope to not directly infringe on the right itself. Thus, similar to the adage "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight", I am really sick of people equating discussing gun control with taking away all of my lawfully supported guns.

No one is coming to take away your guns if you are a law-abiding gun owner, using your guns responsibly and for lawful purposes.

Gun control legislation doesn't work and won't do anything to prevent/reduce future shootings.

This is similarly stated ad nauseum. Yet, I feel it's both a simplification of the issue and a cop-out answer bereft of any real data to support it.

First, it's a simplification because there is a MASSIVE variety of "gun control" legislation that can be considered. It is simply not correct to assume that any and all gun control has no efficacy, even if some (or even most) of the regulations discussed did prove to be futile. Changes to handgun laws, trigger lock or gun locker requirements, or concealed carry laws are fundamentally different than closing loopholes in already mandated background checks, restrictions on gun possession for criminals or the mentally ill, or limits on weapons such as automatic rifles and such. Lumping all gun control into one bin is far too simplistic.

Second, there is compelling evidence that certain gun control laws can and have actually worked to reduce gun violence and mass shootings. Australia is the often cited example (for a decidedly satirical, but still relevant view, check out the series of videos John Oliver did when he still was on the Daily Show). The evidence is compelling, even if there are conflating factors. After having 13 mass shootings in a period of 18 years, Australia enacted a series of very strict (by our standards) gun regulations. They saw a substantial decrease in gun deaths over the next 17 years, and there were no mass shootings for at least 14 years after the laws were passed. A good quick summary is here.

Australia is just one example, but it is absolutely compelling enough that we should not continue to dismiss the idea that gun restrictions might be efficacious in reducing gun violence. There is other evidence that I find compelling as well - this article in the NY Times lays out a really good case of how the US compares to other nations in gun violence rates, and it's a bleak picture. There are limitations in that analysis, of course - it primarily focuses on European nations, leaving out many Central and South American nations with far higher gun homicide rates than the US (Venezuela, Mexico, Guatemala, etc.). A good refute of this view is presented by Ryan McMaken of Mises Wire.

However, that does not mean that we should inherently dismiss the evidence that the US has a gun violence rate much higher than a lot of ideologically similar nations. This is one of those issues where, if we can even make a 5% difference, that directly results in fewer lives tragically lost, fewer families torn apart by violence and death. Most of the people that I know that argue vigorously against gun regulations are also some of the most generous people I know - giving of their time, talents, and money to help those in need. I have a difficult time understanding why those same people will not even consider if there's a way we can make a small difference statistically, but one that makes all the difference in the world to those affected.

Also, as a sad commentary on our American society, one of the reasons why we probably don't know much about gun violence and what to do about it is that we actually have laws prohibiting research into it. This ABC News article lays out the basic details: essentially, for the past 20 years, our government has prohibited the CDC from funding study of the problem, severely limiting our available data from which to make decisions. The Representative for whom the legislation is named, Jay Dickey (R) of Arkansas, ended up publicly stating before his death that he regretted championing the bill in question because of the hindrance to collection of meaningful data that it caused. This is not that different from the cigarette companies lobbying to prevent research into lung cancer and other diseases. As a scientifically-minded person, it's crazy to me that we wouldn't want to at least research the facts in this issue before making important decisions.

Guns aren't the problem - sin is the problem.

This is obviously veering into a Christian mindset, but it is applicable to any religious viewpoint (often, the word "sin" is just replaced with "people" - which is more fitting than we'd like to admit). I have a fairly visceral reaction to this:

Well duh!

Of course it is our sinful nature as humans that's the root cause of gun violence. It's also at the heart of rape, domestic violence, identity theft, blackmail, assault, sexual deviance, lying, bullying... You get the picture. This is obvious from even a cursory Biblical inspection:

Rom. 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"

Psalm 51:5 "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me"

James 2:10 "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at one point is guilty of breaking all of it."

Of course sinful people are the real problem. There are two issues with just attributing the problem to sin and leaving it there:

1) There is no recourse for action, since there is no earthly way to purge sin from this world. The world will remain sinful until Christ comes again - in fact, he promised that it would before his Ascension.

2) The sinful nature of man does not absolve our responsibility or ability to act to try to protect against the worst of our sinful nature. The Bible is very clear that a Christian has obligations to protect and defend those who cannot do so themselves. The Bible is very clear that governments may be formed to ensure that people can live in justice and peace, and they should enact laws and strictures to do so (and also that we have an obligation to abide by those laws unless they infringe upon God's law).

Simply put, just because sin is the root cause of the death and misery at every mass shooting, suicide, and homicide does not mean that we should not also consider how to enact legislation to make our sinful world a bit safer.

People would still murder without guns. People die of pools in backyards, yet we're not trying to legislate that.

This is tied somewhat to the last point, and my response is pretty similar. You're right, but it's beside the point. I am so frustrated at how the gun control debate inevitably has to get redirected into a debate on lots of other causes of death.

Yes, people would still kill without guns. However, they certainly make it a whole lot easier to do what the killer did in Las Vegas. Just because restricting guns would not completely eliminate violence is not an excuse not to do it. Again, people's lives are literally at stake.

And yes, other causes of death (some zany, some extremely mundane) are just as or more responsible for deaths than guns. However, it's seldom useful or productive in a debate to bring other, off-topic facts in to the mix. If I was arguing with my wife about how to remodel the kitchen, it wouldn't be helpful to suddenly mention that I'd also like to remodel the bathroom. Let's have a discussion on how to address our problems with gun violence in America first - then we can tackle the pool-related deaths. (For my brother-in-law, I believe you know just the City of Denmark official to spearhead the cause!).

I have my gun(s) for self-defense, and now you liberal gun-haters (like you) want to take it away.

The final point I want to address is the idea that gun control is designed around taking guns away from EVERYONE. Sensible gun laws really should not restrict the ownership of guns for lawful purposes (as noted above) for law-abiding citizens. In fact, I feel like gun owners should really be FIRST IN LINE to back sensible gun control, as it makes them implicitly look bad every time a tragedy like this happens. I am fully supportive of an individual's choice to own guns for hunting, for self-defense, for recreation, and other lawful uses. There is no reasonable situation where the types of weapons used in Vegas could be used for lawful purposes, outside of a gun range. Is the somewhat increased hassle for the small number of people who want to have such a weapon to take to a gun range worth us continuing to have this discussion several times a year when these weapons have helped perpetrate a massacre?

Conclusion

As with so many things nowadays, this debate has descended into merely spewing forth the party line in an increasingly strident and polarized fashion. Instead of that, let's all try to learn from people's experiences and viewpoints together, so that we can enact some meaningful changes to improve our society.