One could make a few observations about guns in the US, and I know it's a bit like pissing into the wind, but here goes. RedState has a banner article entitled "To Attain a Gun Free America, You Would Have to Kill these Amendments." The first paragraph of the article reads:
I'm going to skip explaining how the left's true intent is to take our guns away. It's been written on ad nauseam, and proven through so many examples that I'm not sure why the left is still feigning innocence to the plot.
It just might be that we're not feigning innocence, that we actually are innocent, and there is no "plot" to completely eliminate guns. I have no desire to own a gun, in small part because I have no desire to hunt, get no bang from target shooting, and know that the "self-protection" is too often a testosterone fueled fantasy that I could be a Jack Bauer "should the circumstances arise." I have no desire to own a gun, in larger part because it would be yet one more expensive hobby that I can't afford. For very similar reasons, I have no desire to own a motorcycle, a four-wheeler, a snow-mobile, and a very very long list of other potential adult toys. I do not, however, project my priorities onto others or assume that they should share them. I have a friend who does hunt and who do get a bang from target shooting, and who can differentiate between fantasy and reality. I'm not sure, having come out of the closet as a progressive liberal, that I could convince my neighbors. The paranoid style in politics runs too deep, and they tend to see every step as a plot to push us down a very slippery slope. Eliminate the AR-15 today, tomorrow it's hand guns, and before you know it's squirt guns. Nevertheless, I don't know how else to say it, but I do mean pretty much what I say -- that I want an evidence-based discussion of guns as a public health and safety issue and meaningful controls placed on the sale and use of guns consequent to that discussion, but I categorically do not want gun elimination.
So, first observation. The second amendment right to "keep and bear arms" already has some limits, and they are no doubt limits that just about every rational human being would support. "Arms" present us with what I call a "spectrum issue." At one end of the "arms" spectrum we have red rider bb guns. At the far other end of the "arms" spectrum we have intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. There is quite a distance between the two extremes. If the red rider bb gun represents the "white" end, the nuclear missile the "black" end of the spectrum, there is considerable "grey" in between. At the dark end of the spectrum, it has been the official policy of the US government to exercise considerable "arms" control. Just as it's a fantasy to think about gun elimination, it is equally a fantasy to think about the elimination of nuclear arms, but we nevertheless expend considerable effort to keep them out of civilian hands and to curtail their international proliferation. I do believe every rational human being supports a ban on civilian ownership of nuclear weapons, in part because there are few if any "legitimate" civilian uses for such weapons and they would present a crystal clear public health and safety hazard should they fall into the wrong hands. The risks for "civilian" ownership far outweigh any conceivable "benefits."
To a certain extent, I am, of course, belaboring the obvious and distorting the argument. At the time the constitution was written, the word "arms" would not have meant much more than a sword and a gun, and a very rudimentary gun at that. The "arms" that exist today would have been inconceivable to them, and it is unlikely that the framers, were they considering the constitution today, would have been so categorical and universal in their assertion that the right to keep and bear arms should not be infringed. The controls placed on military weapons is a tacit recognition of this reality, but the spectrum issue is one that bedevils efforts at any "evidence-based" discussion of guns as a public health and safety issue. "Guns" are a sub-set of the full spectrum of available "arms," and while few would argue that the constitution protects the individual's right to keep and bear nuclear arms, or for that matter the individual's right to keep and bear surface to air missiles, "guns" have been cordoned off and afforded a "special" status within that spectrum. Those of us who want a discussion of "guns" as a public health and safety issue and meaningful controls placed on the same and use of "guns" consequent to that discussion simply want to place any particular "gun" on the spectrum and ask a series of questions:
Are there "legitimate" civilian uses for that particular gun? And yes, though I tend to pooh-pooh it, self-protection is a legitimate civilian use.
Does it present a public health and safety hazard, and if so, what measures should be put in place to ameliorate those hazards, to include measures that would prevent any particular gun falling into the "wrong hands?" It is clear enough that "guns" are hazardous, particularly those who own the guns, but then so too are any number of things -- my pickup, example. If I drive "aggressively" I place myself, my passengers, and others on the road in clear danger. Though we can never eliminate the danger entirely, and people do die in automobile accidents, that hasn't prevented us from taking steps to ameliorate those dangers without "infringing" significantly on my "right to keep and drive pickups."
Do the risks of civilian ownership and control outweigh the legitimate civilian uses? The AR-15 is a case in point. There may well be "legitimate" civilian uses for that particular gun, to include target shooting and the macho rush it provides for those who want to play at soldier but don't want to actually be soldiers (sorry, pooh-poohing again). I won't argue its use for hunting, only to suggest that one must be a really bad shot and you need more time on the practice range if one needs an automatic weapon with a high capacity clip to bring down a single deer or elk (sorry, pooh-poohing yet again). Assuming legitimate civilian uses, however, the question remains whether the "risks" associated with that particular weapon outweigh those uses should the gun fall into the "wrong hands." It's a favorite argument against gun safety measure to say, "if guns are criminal, only criminals would have guns." The statement is tautological, but I get the point. The weapon WILL fall into the "wrong hands," and the greater the proliferation of the weapon, the more likely it is to fall into the "wrong hands." We cannot eliminate the risk of its falling into the wrong hands, but we can certainly curtail its likelihood, and let us not speak falsely now, for the hour is getting late, it's a pretty "risky" gun in the "wrong hands." I think it's a legitimate question to ask whether its associated risks outweigh the benefits that accrue to its use.
Second observation. Right now, it's virtually impossible to have a meaningful "evidence-based" discussion of guns. A good deal of the discussion now is pure supposition, what seems likely to be true or what we would like to be true, without much in the way of verifiable, repeatable data to support those suppositions. The first step toward a meaningful "evidence-based" discussion is the relaxation of the congressional restrictions place on government funding of research into gun safety, through the CDC or a comparable agency. (A complementary step would be the requirement of "insurance" for gun ownership. They would do the actuarial research and while they wouldn't be in a position to "ban" certain guns, they would be in a position to make the premiums cost-prohibative if the guns do pose a substantial risk to the owner or others.) The NRA supported restrictions amounting to a virtual ban on research into gun safety strikes me as a "cover-up." One generally don't ban "questions" unless we the answers are known and the answer isn't good. So back to the opening salvo. On the other side of the divide, on the light side of the force, I'm going to skip the right's true intent to conceal the truth and keep it from the american public. It's been written on ad nauseam, and proven through so many examples that I'm not sure why the right is feigning innocence to the plot.
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