Jeremy, in your recent article about gun control, you said you were trying to “figure out what a ‘high powered assault weapon’ is.” You then decided to call them Big Scary Guns (BSGs) and went on to write about gun ownership/statistics in other countries and whether there should be gun control in the United States.
For the record, I consider any gun other than a paint gun and possibly a BB gun to be a BSG. In my dream world no one would own a gun, police or citizen. But when I’m fully awake I realize, the United States is in an on-going love affair with guns and it isn’t going to end anytime soon. The second amendment gave citizens the right to carry arms in the event a militia was needed to rally against the British. That amendment is touted as the reason for gun ownership and used as an argument against gun control. In reality, the reasons for gun ownership for many, and their highly emotional stance against any form of gun control, has more to do with machismo and irrational fear than with the second amendment.
For purposes of our debate over gun control, let’s define assault weapons and use the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban definition of an assault rifle: a semiautomatic firearm with the ability to accept a detachable magazine and two or more of the following – a folding or telescoping stock, a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon, a bayonet mount, a flash suppressor or threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor, a grenade launcher. In other words, not my daddy’s hunting rifle.
Let’s discuss a couple of the countries that you pointed out to have high rates of gun ownership and low rates of crime and murder – Switzerland and Israel. Switzerland does not have a standing army; they have a citizen’s militia for national defense. Their weapons are kept at home as part of this obligation. That said, in recent years, new gun rules have been established that include serial registration and permits. In addition, and this is important, except for 2,000 militia specialists, ammunition is not kept at home and is only issued during an emergency.
Israel has far stricter gun control laws than the United States. It also has mandatory military service. Even so, gun ownership is lower in Israel than in the United States. Both Switzerland and Israel require yearly permit renewals to insure that the reasons for gun ownership still apply.
Both sides of the gun control issue bring up various statistics in other countries to prove a particular point. I could spend time talking about countries that have instituted strict gun control laws, like Australia, Britain, and Japan with successful results in lowering crime and deaths. But I would rather focus on the United States. There are two U.S. statistics that are key to this discussion, and are remarkable to me:
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2010 statistics, 31,672 deaths resulted from firearms in the U.S., including homicide, accident, and suicide. And, this: 2011 studies show that having a gun in your home significantly increases your risk of death. This is particularly true for women and children. I found several sources supporting this finding including the American Academy of Pediatrics. Here is an article in the Science Daily that discusses a study on the benefits and risks of having guns in the home. The risks far outweigh the benefits. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110427101532.htm.
With these statistics in mind, tighter gun control seems logical and adding more guns in schools and homes sounds irrational. These are the steps that I believe will help us address the problem of gun deaths in our country.
- Ban assault rifles and high capacity magazines.
- Require that every gun is registered and every owner is licensed.
- Require that every gun transfer is recorded and the buyer authorized.
Will these laws stop gun deaths? No. Will they help the problem with minimal impact on legitimate gun owners? I think so.
We have an arms race going on within our own borders. You refer to it in your article. Police, criminals, citizens – all thinking they have to have the most powerful firearm available to them in order to have the upper hand against one another. But you and I come at this from very different perspectives. You’re looking at the arms race from the Libertarian philosophy of “nature’s ethics” (non-aggression, and personal or private property rights). Few of us would argue against these particular ethics being good principles to live by. Although there are many arguments against your premise that they are god- or nature-given rights that trump the need for governmental regulations for the good of society.
You see the arms race occurring as a need for every citizen to have whatever the police, maybe military, have in terms of weapons, and certainly whatever the “bad guys” have so that you can protect yourself from everyone and anyone who may wish to do you harm or threaten your property. I see the people we designate as peacekeepers having to have more and more firepower and self-protection so that they can effectively protect society against individuals with the latest weaponry. When will it end? No matter how we view this, it’s a nightmare of more and bigger guns entering our society.
I do differentiate between the right of designated military personnel and police officers to carry certain weapons versus John Q. Public having an identical arsenal at the ready. I don’t make the leap from believing in non-aggression and respecting someone’s personal property to agreeing that taxation or gun control, for instance, automatically violates those ethics; or that our government is, or may become, the enemy if we keep assault weapons out of the hands of the public.
A group of men didn’t drop out of the sky over 200 years ago to write our Declaration of Independence or draft our Constitution. A god didn’t ordain them; an advanced society from another planet didn’t ship them in. They were variously flawed, brilliant, selfless, persuasive, and egotistic human beings. Each had a vision of what freedom and democracy should look like, or at least knew what it didn’t look like. They disagreed and battled it out, but kept on working together to finally craft a system “Of the people, for the people, by the people.” A system hailed as one of the best forms of government in recorded history. A republic that may not function in a perfect manner, but one that affords a good amount of personal freedom and opportunity.
Human beings are social by nature and prefer to live in groups. Some form of leadership is necessary for order to exist within society. As far as I know, there is no recorded history of a society, state, or country where no leadership or government has existed without anarchy resulting. If we want to live in a society, and benefit from the society, we have to give up certain personal freedoms. We Americans can legitimately argue about what we consider appropriate legislation, and how much government is too much government. We always have and probably always will. But it’s hard to argue against the need for some form of government, along with regulations, within a country of over 300,000,000 people.
Jeremy, I absolutely reject your notion that I don’t believe in equality or I am supporting violence because I allow that government has the right to make laws and regulate weapons of war. Respectfully, but absolutely, reject. I believe you allow that we need to have peacekeepers as a form of government. I would much rather take my chances with police men and women, and U.S. soldiers, than I would with a group of vigilantes or some business contracted to keep the peace. I am not afraid that the FBI, state or local police will suddenly storm into my home, claiming that no citizen can own a gun, and begin rifling through my underwear drawer. What I am concerned about, is the production and marketing of military style weapons, the ease with which anyone can obtain a gun without appropriate authorization, the glorification of violence, the disconnect between the haves and the have-nots, and this new tea-party mentality that leaves no room for compromise or help for those who need it; or the ability to see past the need for a gun and a pair of boot straps to pull yourself up with.
“No man is an island” wrote poet John Donne. We are connected like we’ve never before been through media of every sort. And yet we experience a huge disconnect. Maybe because we see so much of what can go wrong in every part of the world every day, we feel like we can’t make a difference. Over 31,000 die every year by guns in our country; many more are devastatingly wounded. I’m embarrassed for us. Gun control is not THE answer, but it is part of the solution. With every fiber of my being, I don’t believe manufacturing more guns, and convincing more people they have to carry a gun, is any part of the answer. We can be smarter than that. When NRA spokesperson, Wayne LaPierre, held his press conference, he remarked that we protect our money in banks with armed guards, but not our children in schools. Ah, no, Mr. NRA, we don’t. When is the last time you saw an armed guard strutting around your bank? Even New York banks no longer hire armed guards. The guards were the first persons shot when a bank robbery occurred. Banks now have video cameras everywhere and safes that can’t be opened by any bank personnel and robberies are down.
It is illogical to think that teachers or doctors or priests can outgun a crazed individual or individuals bent on destruction at any place where large numbers of people are present. But we can better control certain weapons and our environments. We’ve done a pretty good job on our planes and in our airports since 911. I think we’ll rise to the occasion this time, too.
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