As a Matter of Fact

Yesterday, the New York Daily News, in response to the Senate vote on gun control measures, ran a picture of the capital drenched in blood over the headline "Slaughter House: Senate Votes in Favor of Continued Mass Killings."  While I might agree with the sentiment, as a simple matter of fact, the Senate did not vote in favor of continued mass killings, they simply stalled as they have always stalled on additional gun control measures.  While I might question the motives, here I have to agree with the conservatives and the NRA.  Simply being on the "terrorist watch list" (in much the same way that simply being a muslim) does not constitute sufficient probable cause to deny someone their "rights."  It might be "common sense" to prevent someone on the terrorist watch list from purchasing an assault style rifle, but it is  ultimately "common sense" of the sort espoused by Trump when he advocates profiling muslims, a different set of rules for a different set of people.

The Post cover is the liberal version of the same bullshit, to use Jon Stewart's technical term, that has John McCain proclaiming that Obama is "directly responsible" for the Orlando shooting because one thing led to another thing, led to another thing, which led to ISIS, whose cause the shooter used to justify what was very likely just a projection of self-loathing onto a crowd at a gay night club.  Given the accepted meaning of words, Obama was not "directly responsible."  He did not pull the trigger himself, nor did he conspire with the killer to have him pull the trigger, and so, despite Trump's dark musing to the contrary, as a matter of fact, he was not "directly responsible."  When he walked it back, I'm not sure that he made the case that Obama was even "indirectly" responsible, except insofar as Obama has been dealing with middle east conflict for the last eight years, just as Bush had dealt with the middle east for eight years before.

I could go back and forth like this between liberal and conservative versions of bullshit for quite some time, but it all remains just bullshit.   We have lost (or never had) the ability to make some very basic distinctions in our political discourse, the first of which is the distinction between "fact" and "fabrication."  In the election cycle, political discourse is expected to be "persuasive discourse," and one expects opposing sides in an argument to select out the facts that best support their argument and their election, but nothing justifies the wholesale fabrication of faux facts.  Even in the election cycle, however, there are a whole host of reasons why the fabrication of faux facts is not only intellectually, but morally reprehensible.  It is the same host of reasons that prevent sales people from "mis-representing" their product during sale.  It is one thing to persuade the electorate, even if one stretches and selects the facts, another to con them, and the wholesale fabrication of faux facts is ultimately just a con.  And it matters.  In the post election cycle, the actual governing cycle, political discourse is also expected to be "problem-solving discourse." While there is plenty of room for disagreement on how best to solve a problem, one must ultimately confront the facts, all the facts, otherwise solutions will be at best tenuous and untenable.

Or unachievable.  We seem to have entered a faux fact era.  Trump is not the first, nor will he be last, to predicate a whole campaign on faux facts, but he is certainly the most egregious.  He has been fact checked in so many ways, against so many claims, and he is so clearly brimming over with bullshit in almost everything he says.   His business cons are right there, on the surface.  Trump University being a case in point.  The promises of charitable contributions that never occurred (from Trump University profits, from sales on the book, Crippled America, among others).  Unpaid contractors on his construction projects being another case in point.  All of which establish a pattern of lying for personal, not even political, gain.   So far as the Orlando shooting goes, FactCheck.org has run a full piece on his claims relative to the shooting, almost all of which constitute faux facts.  Regardless, his supporters do not seem to care, and that is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this campaign.  It is not political discourse as usual, where facts are selected and sometimes stretched.  It is an outright disregard for the facts, which will, if it continues, make it impossible for him to actually govern, to actually solve the problems confronting us.

Here's why.  According to FactCheck.org,

A Republican senator said known or suspected terrorists “cannot just walk in and buy a firearm” at a gun store. Not that same day, but 91 percent of individuals on terrorist watch lists who have attempted to buy a firearm or explosives since 2004 were able to complete the sale — typically in three days.

They go on to say:

Since the National Instant Criminal Background Check System began checking prospective gun buyers against terrorist watch list records in February 2004, “individuals on the terrorist watch list were involved in firearm or explosives background checks 2,477 times, of which 2,265 (about 91 percent) of the transactions were allowed to proceed and 212 were denied,” according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office.

On the one hand, the Senator, Lankford, is correct in one respect.  Not just anyone can purchase a firearm.  There have been 212 instances of attempted purchases that have been identified and stopped by background checks.  On the other hand, the majority of attempted purchases are successful, in part because there was insufficient probable cause to deny the purchase.  If we look at each individual case, I am virtually certain there is plenty of room for the second-guessing of hindsight among the 2,265 cases where the purchase was allowed.  I am equally certain there is plenty of room for the second-guessing of hindsight among the cases where the purchase was not allowed.  

The bottom line, however, is this: even if all 2477 cases had been denied, outright, it would have had a negligible effect.   I can say this because the number is so minuscule compared to the over-all prevalence of guns, and because "terrorism" itself is so minuscule compared to the over-all instance of gun violence.   Moreover, so long as gun ownership is a right, protected by the constitution, we cannot suspend those rights without "due process."  The NRA is correct when they assert that there are several on the "watch list" that simply shouldn't be there.  As FactCheck points out, "FBI guidelines say a preliminary investigation may be opened 'on the basis of any ‘allegation or information’ indicative of possible criminal activity or threats to the national security.'"  We cannot deny rights on the basis of any "allegation or information" without suspending the due process that substantiates those allegations, and that would mean living in a "snitch-state" where the allegation is as good as the act.   Although allegations had been made against the Orlando shooter, for example, the FBI found insufficient evidence to carry forward a case, and so he made a perfectly legal purchase.  While there is plenty of room for second-guessing in hindsight, and we always want to scapegoat someone, it remains just that, second-guessing in hindsight.

If the goal is the prevention or the reduction of gun violence, then "banning" ownership of those on "terror watch list" is ultimately a red-herring.   Here's another set of facts, and they seem indisputable, though I would love to hear the counter arguments. There is the notion that "guns don't kill people, people kill people."  Absolutely.   This is a simple argument that differentiates between intentionality and instrumentality.   Guns, of course, are inanimate objects and do not have the intent to kill.  People do, on occasion, develop the intent to kill.  Given the intent to kill, there are various means instrumental to that end.  One can poison, stab, bludgeon, drown, suffocate, starve, blow-up, burn, or shoot a person to death.  Guns, in other words, are simply one among many means instrumental to intent to kill, and one intent on killing will, no doubt, find the means to do so.  

Having said that, however, there are significant differences between the means, and to ignore them is another form of willful ignorance of facts.  Of those listed, shooting is a quicker, easier, and more effective means to the end of killing, and it is perhaps not surprising.  If we go through the list, most poisons were developed with another intent in mind -- e.g. to poison insect pests.  With the possible exception of the sword, most knives have multiple good uses beyond killing other people and are designed with that purpose in mind.  Although I can bludgeon someone to death with my hammer, I have it to drive nails.  So on and so forth.  The gun, however, is designed to kill large animals, to include primates of our own species, and there is no other purpose.  Until the alien invasion of giant insects, I cannot use it to kill insects.  I cannot use it chop vegetables.  I cannot use it to drive nails.  I cannot think of another purpose for guns, except perhaps "target shooting," which aims at improvement in one's ability to kill large animals effectively.  Moreover, some guns, like assault rifles, are designed principally to kill other primates of our own species, in large numbers, quickly.  Though he could have, of course, the Orlando shooter didn't rush into the night club with a hammer intent on bludgeoning people to death, nor did he rush in with a kitchen knife intent on chopping people to death.  He rushed in with an assault rifle with the intent of shooting them to death, and the assault rifle provided a very efficient means of doing so.   

Given that people will occasionally develop the intent to kill and will find the means to do so, no reasonable person would assert that banning or heavily regulating the availability of assault rifles will prevent killing,.  Those with the driving intent  to do so will find a way.  Moreover, no reasonable person would assert that banning or heavily regulating the availability of assault rifles will prevent even mass killings.  Those with terror in mind will find a way, even if it includes flying an aircraft into a building.  It would, however,  remove ready access to one of the most efficient means to that end.   Flying an aircraft into a building requires years of planning, but buying an assault rifle for most is instant, for other takes 72 hours.  Background checks, while a step in the right direction, will do little to prevent shootings so long as we insist on due process, and we should, of course, insist on due process.   Nevertheless, as we go for new records in the number of dead and injured in a single incident, we might want to consider limiting the efficiency of potential mass killers, and a universal ban (or very strict limitations) on assault rifles might be a good start.