In a nation of 300 million guns, how do we go about reducing gun related crime and violence? Not a simple question to answer and there doesn’t appear to be many viable solutions that people are willing to agree on.
Of course there are some ways to make it marginally a bit more difficult for those with criminal intent, the dangerously mentally ill and the suicidal to acquire firearms and ammunition. Background checks on all firearm transfers could prove effective in keeping guns out of the hands of some criminals. Waiting periods might stop a few suicides. Mental health professionals could be required to report patients they feel shouldn’t own guns to the National Instant Criminal Background System. The sale of drum style and extended magazines could be restricted. All of these control measures might even pass constitutional muster.
Seeking to impose such measures is certainly noble, we just have to understand that doing so would probably at best, only have a modest impact on our rate of gun related violence. Why? Simply because it really is too late; the horse is out of the barn, the genie is out of the bottle, the ship has sailed, the toothpaste isn’t going back in the tube, pick any metaphor you like but we are far past the point of no return. Acknowledging, understanding and accepting this fact needs to be the foundation from which solutions to gun related violence are based.
I’m not saying do nothing or don’t try or give up. I’m saying that reality is a hurdle that will be difficult if not impossible to overcome. We’ve got 300 million guns in the hands of anywhere from 80 to 120 million people. Each year roughly 5 million new guns go on the market. This amount of gun saturation cannot be solely attributed to the lobbying efforts of the NRA or any other pro gun-rights group. These groups are definitely powerful, but like any effective pressure group, they are powerful because many Americans, whether they are members of these groups or not, agree with the basic message. On top of that, with this level of gun ownership, even if the Supreme Court reversed itself, ruling that individual ownership of handguns was illegal, there would be no way to locate and seize those guns.
Many gun-control advocates are in favor of a Canadian, U.K. or Australian style system of firearm ownership with far fewer guns per capita, federal registration and bans on certain types of firearms. Arguments for emulating these countries can sound appealing, but without the American people and our legislators making a decision to remove the right to bear arms from the Constitution, such arguments are useless. Advocating for such an approach, which communicates the seizure of the guns of law-abiding citizens, is at cross-purposes with the goal of limiting the ability of the violent, the criminal and the deranged to cause harm. Gun-control advocates have to respect the fact that gun ownership is a right and that there are 10’s of millions of honest, decent people who believe in that right.
I am not an adherent of gun-rights absolutism. While I do believe that our government is corrupt, overreaches and involves itself in things that are none of it’s business I don’t see it as tyrannical, the potential is there yes but we haven't reached that point. I side with those who want to exercise their rights, those who see firearms as a viable means of self-defense and with the empirical truth that the great majority of the 10’s of millions of legal gun owners are not the source of the problems we face.
We never will become Canada, the U.K or Australia. Like it or not, guns are here, and they are here to stay. While this may be seen as tragic to many, it is reality and this reality dictates that the warring factions of this very contentious issue agree to some compromises.
I’ve gone on long enough but I encourage you to go here and read Kurt Eichenwald’s Newsweek article "American’s Don’t have the Right to Bear Just Any Arms" and then go here to watch his Q&A video. Some time in the not too distance future Joy of Fishes and I will do a diary together on his article and add our own thoughts to his proposals, so stay tuned.