In my previous diary I posed a few questions and attempted to define some terms in order to come to a basic understanding of what gun control is and what it is intended to accomplish. I did this in the hopes of finding some common ground and maybe some agreement from which we could move forward and attempt to address the issues of guns and gun control. Whether or not I was successful is a matter of opinion but I did gain some important insight regarding how gun control is viewed.
Through the course of replying to comments I was informed that the purpose of gun control is not to prevent or reduce the severity of criminal gun violence but to reduce gun violence in general, which at first glance appears to make sense but upon closer inspection is found to be lacking. The idea that the purpose of gun control is to prevent gun violence is problematic for a number of reasons. Gun control is a legislative solution, which is the enactment of law(s). Laws are not designed to promote justice but to prevent injustice from reigning. Additionally law is a form of force and subsequently the legitimate application of law cannot extend beyond the legitimate application of force. Laws when legitimately applied only necessitate that a person abstain from harming others. The idea that gun control is to prevent “gun violence” negates what laws are and how they are intended to function because now instead of targeting intentional criminal acts, non-criminal and unintentional / negligent acts become the target of law, they become “criminalized”.
For non-criminal and unintentional / negligent acts to constitute a crime or produce criminal liability it is required that there be a simultaneous occurrence of voluntary conduct, a “guilty act” and a culpable mental state, a “guilty mind”. A guilty mind is defined as four mental states: purpose, knowledge, recklessness and negligence. In order to criminally charge someone for an unintentional / negligent discharge of a firearm that ends with injury or death, they must be found to have purposely committed a guilty act, knowingly committed a guilty act, recklessly committed a guilty act or negligently committed a guilty act. Broad definitions of these four mental states are:
Purposely – having the conscious objective to deliberately cause or commit the act.
Knowingly – is aware of the fact that the act is criminal but does it anyway.
Recklessly - is aware of but consciously disregards the substantial and unjustifiable risk of serious physical injury to another person. That acting in such a way constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise.
Negligently - the lowest level of a guilty mind, involves participation in risky and dangerous behavior similar to that of recklessness, but in this case the individual is unaware of the great potential for harm.
Suicide and self-harm could be considered guilty acts but there is no guilty mind because the subsequent death or harm are by products of the desire to end pain, suffering or a cry for help. Without a guilty mind suicide and self-harm are non-criminal, it is therefore axiomatic that laws that seek to restrict firearms with the intent of preventing or reducing suicide and self-harm are illegitimate uses of force.
Unintentional / negligent discharges of a firearm could be considered criminal if they result in injury or death. The nature of such discharges obviously preclude them from the guilty mental states of purposely and knowingly but a case can be made for the mental states of recklessly and negligently and result in charges of reckless endangerment or criminal negligence. In 2011 there were 591 unintentional firearm deaths and 17,662 unintentional firearm injuries. Undoubtedly, under current law, in many of these cases, charges of reckless endangerment or criminal negligence can and should be brought and people should be prosecuted. But when making policy, we need to view these types of incidents in the context of the hundreds of millions of firearms that when used don’t result in unintentional death or injury and the fact that such discharges have been trending downward for the past 20 years. We must consider that campaigns for additional legislation intended to reduce these acts of “violence” may not be the best use of political capital and could do more harm than good to other Democratic causes.
Let’s take a moment and return to what our problem is and the purpose of gun control. Previously I defined our problem as being how guns are used, that they have the potential (when in the wrong hands obviously) to facilitate the commission of violent crime. I came to this definition after looking at some numbers from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the CDCs fatal and non-fatal injury reports. According to the CDCs WISQARS fatal and non-fatal injury reports, in 2011 there were:
• 591 unintentional firearm fatalities,
• 17,662 unintentional non-fatal firearm injuries,
• 4,086 non-fatal self-harm firearm injuries, and
• 19,990 firearm suicides.
This gives us a total of 42,329 non-criminal, unintentional / negligent fatalities and non-fatal injuries. Also in 2011 there were:
• 11,068 fatal firearm homicides, and
• 50,077 assault related non-fatal firearm injuries
This gives us a total of 61,145 intentional criminal firearm related fatal and non-fatal injuries. These figures are part of the 467,321 persons that were victims of crime committed with a gun as reported by the BJS. Upon looking at the different aspects of "gun violence" there appears to be 3 categories; violent criminal gun use that results in almost a half a million fatal and non-fatal injuries and victims; unintentional / negligent gun use that results in 18,253 fatal and non-fatal injuries and self-harm gun use that results in 24,076 fatal and non-fatal injuries.
• Violent criminal gun use = 467,321 victims
• Unintentional / negligent gun use = 18,253 victims
• Self-harm gun use = 24,076 victims
In my last diary I was informed that it was a bad idea for the scope of gun control to focus on criminal acts of violence. I was told that the proper role of gun control is to reduce gun violence - whether that gun violence is criminal, suicidal, or accidental. Yet clearly and in reality our biggest problem is violent criminal gun use. As I stated earlier:
• The purpose of law is to prevent injustice, (which is the violation of the rights of others).
• Law is a form of force and the legitimate application of law cannot extend beyond the legitimate application of force.
• Laws properly applied only require a person to abstain from harming others.
• Gun control is a legislative solution.
Extending the scope of gun control to include non-criminal acts is unlikely to prevent those acts and does nothing to address the causes of those acts. Suicide and self-harm are mental health problems and should be treated as such. In cases of unintentional / negligent discharges where reckless endangerment or criminal negligence can be proven they should be prosecuted. But punitive measures only take effect after an incident has occurred. Our goal has to be, to the best of our ability and within the framework of our system of government, to prevent these incidents from occurring and the best way to do that is via comprehensive instruction and training.
I believe that we all want to prevent and reduce the incidents of criminal and non-criminal gun use harm. Finding common ground and agreement will be challenging for most of us and unfortunately impossible for some of us. So for starters can we agree on these three categories?
• Violent criminal gun use
• Suicide / self-harm gun use
• Unintentional / negligent gun use
If we can start here we can then move forward to define and hopefully agree what these constitute and then formulate the best ways to prevent and reduce them.
Thanks for taking the time to read, it was long winded but I had a lot on my mind.