Isaac Saul's Take on Gun Control
Imagine there were legally sold items in the United States responsible for 38,000 deaths annually, but Americans love them dearly and they would never be made illegal. Imagine that over 90% of American households have access to one of them; but that there are strict laws that govern their usage. Each one must have a unique serial number that tracks its usage, and it is illegal to use one unless you are trained, tested, insured, certified, and re-certified regularly to ensure you are capable of using it safely. Imagine that there are oversight panels that require safety features to be equipped in each one and that it is illegal not to use some of those safety features when operating one, because of how lethal and dangerous these items can be. Would you think we should ban these items? Would you think we should de-regulate them? Or should we try to make them incrementally safer to use within this current system?
It's not hard to imagine, because this is already the American relationship with the automobile.
Now: Automobiles aren’t designed to be weapons. There’s nothing in the Constitution about our right to own a vehicle. And there’s no complex relationship in America between ownership of a car and self-defense or protection from government tyranny. But we can look at these two distinct kinds of ownership in America and think about how they differ. When we do, I think there’s reasonable cause to bring the gun world a bit closer to the regulatory world of vehicles.
I wrote 10 days ago about the Democrats’ two gun control bills. I’m often skeptical of gun restrictions, and while I’m not exactly sold on what positive effect the bills could have, it’s clear they do practically nothing to restrict “the law-abiding citizen buying a gun” — and, given that, if they were to prevent a few of the horrific mass shootings we experience every year, it’d be worth passing them. Both of the bills seem to be constructive, common-sense gun laws that have the rough outlines of additional background checks and restrictions that the vast majority of Americans support. They’d be a perfectly reasonable piece of the solution.
At the same time, the left continues to undermine itself with language around gun legislation. I have, no joke, asked about 20 liberal friends to define “assault weapons” and none of them can. The real definition is quite difficult to pin down because it is essentially a term invented by activists. Technically, if you’re talking to someone who understands guns, they’ll tell you an assault weapon is a gun that can switch between semi and fully automatic firing capabilities. But under that definition, AR-15s, which are the bane of many gun control activists, do not qualify. They don’t have select fire capabilities, they’re just semi-automatic (and “AR” does not stand for “assault rifle” — it stands for ArmaLite, the manufacturer of the rifle).
The AR-15 is notorious for its use in mass shootings. But it’s also the most commonly owned rifle in the United States, and it’s still popular amongst hunters. Even if Congress were to ban or limit sales of those rifles today, I think it would just lead to a giant boom in sales and court battles that 2nd Amendment advocates would likely win (the Supreme Court’s “in common use” standard for gun ownership essentially protects the right to own weapons that are common).
What’s obvious, though, is that we’ve spent decades doing nothing and the problem has not been solved. Everyone looking at this shooting can pick their narrative. A foreign-born teenager bullied until he snaps? A Syrian immigrant who could have extremist ties? Another lonely male taking his frustrations out on the world? A mentally ill person who needed treatment and therapy? Another angry male having a bad day with too easy access to firearms? You can latch onto something that ties to your priors.
Yes, suicides account for most gun deaths. Yes, handguns are used in most mass shootings. Yes, the practical application of expanding background checks has had mixed results. Gun control activists understand a lot of this stuff and hope their measures address suicide and crime and violence. Their question, and it’s a good one, is how can we possibly look at what’s happening in our country and continue to do nothing?
The right’s focus on “mental health” is also overstated. As is often pointed out (and cannot be noted enough), people with mental health issues are far more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than the perpetrators. But that doesn’t mean mental health issues aren’t at play in a lot of these shootings. Nor does it change the fact that the typical profile of mass shooters seems to be lonely, socially ostracized young men. It just means we need to be as precise as we can in our language. Solving for “mental illness” is not going to gain us much ground.
We have a lot of problems to address. It’s too easy to buy a gun in our country and it’s definitely too easy to buy weapons designed for soldiers. We celebrate and glorify big guns and military cosplay and violence in a pernicious way that creates an arrogant, bombastic, ill-informed and dangerous gun culture — one that I’m loath to be associated with despite often defending second amendment rights and being one who enjoys the use of guns myself. The internet is accelerating extremism and young men in our country are increasingly anxious, paranoid, lonely and susceptible to being coaxed into extremism. We don’t do a good enough job of protecting our children from the cruelty of others that often sends them down that path of violence, though anti-bullying programs are gaining steam and importance in these conversations, too, which is good.
Further, there are many common-sense restrictions on gun ownership and background check laws in place that don’t need to be changed or expanded, just properly enforced. And gun ownership advocates are right to point that out: we’re not doing nearly enough to enforce sharing data across state lines and flagging people who may be a threat to their communities.
There’s a lot to work on — but instead of pointing to non-restricting changes we can make anytime someone says “gun control” or pointing to the abundance of guns every time someone says “mental health” we should embrace that these changes will come piecemeal and work toward something holistic. Understanding and studying motives is a start. Reforming (and better enforcing) background checks is practical. Elevating the threshold to own weapons of war seems wise. And addressing the epidemic of violent resolutions to personal strife is part of it, too.My take.
Imagine there were legally sold items in the United States responsible for 38,000 deaths annually, but Americans love them dearly and they would never be made illegal. Imagine that over 90% of American households have access to one of them; but that there are strict laws that govern their usage. Each one must have a unique serial number that tracks its usage, and it is illegal to use one unless you are trained, tested, insured, certified, and re-certified regularly to ensure you are capable of using it safely. Imagine that there are oversight panels that require safety features to be equipped in each one and that it is illegal not to use some of those safety features when operating one, because of how lethal and dangerous these items can be. Would you think we should ban these items? Would you think we should de-regulate them? Or should we try to make them incrementally safer to use within this current system?
It's not hard to imagine, because this is already the American relationship with the automobile.
Now: Automobiles aren’t designed to be weapons. There’s nothing in the Constitution about our right to own a vehicle. And there’s no complex relationship in America between ownership of a car and self-defense or protection from government tyranny. But we can look at these two distinct kinds of ownership in America and think about how they differ. When we do, I think there’s reasonable cause to bring the gun world a bit closer to the regulatory world of vehicles.
I wrote 10 days ago about the Democrats’ two gun control bills. I’m often skeptical of gun restrictions, and while I’m not exactly sold on what positive effect the bills could have, it’s clear they do practically nothing to restrict “the law-abiding citizen buying a gun” — and, given that, if they were to prevent a few of the horrific mass shootings we experience every year, it’d be worth passing them. Both of the bills seem to be constructive, common-sense gun laws that have the rough outlines of additional background checks and restrictions that the vast majority of Americans support. They’d be a perfectly reasonable piece of the solution.
At the same time, the left continues to undermine itself with language around gun legislation. I have, no joke, asked about 20 liberal friends to define “assault weapons” and none of them can. The real definition is quite difficult to pin down because it is essentially a term invented by activists. Technically, if you’re talking to someone who understands guns, they’ll tell you an assault weapon is a gun that can switch between semi and fully automatic firing capabilities. But under that definition, AR-15s, which are the bane of many gun control activists, do not qualify. They don’t have select fire capabilities, they’re just semi-automatic (and “AR” does not stand for “assault rifle” — it stands for ArmaLite, the manufacturer of the rifle).
The AR-15 is notorious for its use in mass shootings. But it’s also the most commonly owned rifle in the United States, and it’s still popular amongst hunters. Even if Congress were to ban or limit sales of those rifles today, I think it would just lead to a giant boom in sales and court battles that 2nd Amendment advocates would likely win (the Supreme Court’s “in common use” standard for gun ownership essentially protects the right to own weapons that are common).
What’s obvious, though, is that we’ve spent decades doing nothing and the problem has not been solved. Everyone looking at this shooting can pick their narrative. A foreign-born teenager bullied until he snaps? A Syrian immigrant who could have extremist ties? Another lonely male taking his frustrations out on the world? A mentally ill person who needed treatment and therapy? Another angry male having a bad day with too easy access to firearms? You can latch onto something that ties to your priors.
Yes, suicides account for most gun deaths. Yes, handguns are used in most mass shootings. Yes, the practical application of expanding background checks has had mixed results. Gun control activists understand a lot of this stuff and hope their measures address suicide and crime and violence. Their question, and it’s a good one, is how can we possibly look at what’s happening in our country and continue to do nothing?
The right’s focus on “mental health” is also overstated. As is often pointed out (and cannot be noted enough), people with mental health issues are far more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than the perpetrators. But that doesn’t mean mental health issues aren’t at play in a lot of these shootings. Nor does it change the fact that the typical profile of mass shooters seems to be lonely, socially ostracized young men. It just means we need to be as precise as we can in our language. Solving for “mental illness” is not going to gain us much ground.
We have a lot of problems to address. It’s too easy to buy a gun in our country and it’s definitely too easy to buy weapons designed for soldiers. We celebrate and glorify big guns and military cosplay and violence in a pernicious way that creates an arrogant, bombastic, ill-informed and dangerous gun culture — one that I’m loath to be associated with despite often defending second amendment rights and being one who enjoys the use of guns myself. The internet is accelerating extremism and young men in our country are increasingly anxious, paranoid, lonely and susceptible to being coaxed into extremism. We don’t do a good enough job of protecting our children from the cruelty of others that often sends them down that path of violence, though anti-bullying programs are gaining steam and importance in these conversations, too, which is good.
Further, there are many common-sense restrictions on gun ownership and background check laws in place that don’t need to be changed or expanded, just properly enforced. And gun ownership advocates are right to point that out: we’re not doing nearly enough to enforce sharing data across state lines and flagging people who may be a threat to their communities.
There’s a lot to work on — but instead of pointing to non-restricting changes we can make anytime someone says “gun control” or pointing to the abundance of guns every time someone says “mental health” we should embrace that these changes will come piecemeal and work toward something holistic. Understanding and studying motives is a start. Reforming (and better enforcing) background checks is practical. Elevating the threshold to own weapons of war seems wise. And addressing the epidemic of violent resolutions to personal strife is part of it, too.
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