Post#100 » by Severn Hoos » Thu May 9, 2013 9:27 pm
I don't own a gun, and hope I never get to the point where I feel I have to own one. (If I do, it will probably be too late to get one anyway.) But I can say that I feel MUCH safer living in an area with high (legal) gun ownership. Criminals are many things, but one thing they generally are not is stupid. And they don't tend to target places where they have a higher likelihood of encountering a gun owner. I've even been tempted to put an NRA sticker or even an empty gun rack on the back of my vehicles, just to give the illusion of a deterrent.
Because of that, I tend to default on the side of "gun rights", although am more open to some true commonsense approaches than maybe some of the more vociferous supporters of the 2nd Amendment.
With that background, I would respectfully say that when I hear things like "the 2nd Amendment needs to be repealed", I sometimes feel like a middle school math teacher grading a test where a student went from step 2 to step 5 in solving a problem. In other words, "show your work." What do I mean? Well, let me ask: what percentage of mass shootings are performed by NRA members? What percentage of violent crimes? Armed assaults or robberies?
I would wager that it is a very low percentage. And that's the problem that I have with gun control legislation. It seems to be aimed entirely at people who will follow the law (since professional criminals will not be deterred by such regulations). Which means it is aimed at those who are the least likely to be an actual threat to the public, since they tend to be respectful of the law, even the individual statutes they don't agree with. Whereas the people who are more inclined to commit crimes anyway will not be deterred by gun control laws.
BUT - there is a link in there, I just think it's not often clearly stated. And that link is that guns which are owned legally by law-abiding citizens can fall into the wrong hands. [jim & Zonk - I think you both alluded to this issue before, kudos - I think it should be the primary argument for tighter restrictions.] This could include everything from stolen weapons to children accessing their parents' guns to unstable family members getting legally registered guns from their relatives. Again, I would like to see what the actual percentages are, because I suspect that these are the minority of cases, but am open to the argument.
The problem is - when you go down this road (as popper did a few pages back), the remedy is less about restricting the acquisition of guns as it is about the responsibility of the owner to secure his guns. And in that, I'd be OK with severe penalties for the person who allows (including through negligence) his legally registered gun to be used in the commission of a crime. At that point, he can/should be treated as an accomplice. That should cause the law-abiding citizens to clamp down, keep their guns in safes, always have the safety on, etc.
In the end, my biggest fear about gun control is exactly that we have an entire nation that looks like Chicago or Baltimore. The law abiding citizens are disarmed, while the criminals are only marginally affected. Not sure who said it, but the recipe is a short-term spike in violent crime for the hope of a gun-free future. And even that is compromised by overseas manufacturers, porous borders, and the remaining need for guns (police, military) offering a target for professional criminals. The current system is far from perfect and could use a good amount of tweaking, but I still prefer it to what I consider the false hope of total disarmament.
"A society that puts equality - in the sense of equality of outcome - ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom" Milton Friedman, Free to Choose
