Gun Control Proposal

Great Debates
1

We seem to favor empirical methods in every field except government. That is, you try something you think might give a desired effect, and if it doesn’t, you try something different. But in government we tend to try something, and if it doesn’t give the desired effect, you blame it on the opposing party but keep on doing it.

Gun control advocates say that freely accessible handguns are bad for society because someone may shoot you. The NRA et al. say that handguns are good for society because you can use them to shoot first, so that potential murderers are deterred. In the spirit of empiricism, I propose the following way to settle this question once and for all:

Enact a prohibition against the possession and sale of handguns which automatically expires after five years unless the rate of murders and accidental gun deaths decreases by 50%. Do it by constitutional amendment so the Supreme Court can’t invalidate it.

Now, we’ve already tried the alternative (free access to handguns), and there is evidence to say that it may be bad for society. But with the proposed law, the rate of gun deaths will either go up or down, thus settling the issue permanently.

I want to make pre-emptive comments against two likely objections:

  1. Five years is all it will take for the government to strip its unarmed subjects of their other rights. No, because you’ll still have your rifles, machine guns, shotguns, etc.

  2. Such a law would be analogous to a ban on some other freedom, say free speech. Again no, because it is very limited in scope, and we already accept significant limits on free speech. Plus, there is no significant segment of society that is advocating more limits on free speech, while there is a sizable minority that would like to see handguns restricted. I’m not going to give a cite for this because you can find a survey to support any view, but I will say that I think it’s beyond question that a “sizable minority” supports tighter restrictions on handguns.

I open the floor to comments and critiques.

2

An interesting thought experiment, although cumbersome and impractical for real life. How’s that, you say? Well, think of it like this: At the end of five years, if crime rates had no significant drop, what will be the reaction of the pro-control side? “We just didn’t do enough!” Then, in the interest of compromise, they’ll slap another, stricter five-year amendment (or they’ll try to).

Hell, remember the dismal Brady Bill? The one that had no discernable effect on crime? You’d think that rational-minded people would be calling for such a failure to be repealed immediately… but, alas, 'tis not to be. More and more gun control measures were insisted upon.

The thing is, Mr. Gent, we should be trying out proposals to see what doesn’t work… we should be trying out proposals to see what does. And there is already a project in place that has had remarkable success in lowering crime rates, without yanking guns away left and right. I always try to mention Project Exile in every single gun thread, because it’s a shining example of what works (rigorous enforcement of existing laws, not passing new laws).

3

How do you propose we get EVERY handgun out of private ownership?

Let’s say that handgun ownership is a good thing; it prevents murder. Now let’s say that we try your experiment. Which loved one will you give up in the name of science?

Aside from being dumb and impractical, I suppose your idea has some merit as a hypothetical topic of discussion.
:rolleyes:

4

The really big, huge gaping-hole problem I see is your proviso on banning possession of handguns. How do you get people to voluntarily turn them in? Do we get them back in 5 years? Who pays for the storage? How is the facility secured?

Without a voluntary surrender during the period of the ban, how will you insure compliance w/o bumping up against the 4th Amendment?

Odds are, the people who comply and voluntarily surrender their handguns aren’t the people committing the vast majority of violent crimes anyway.

Another problem I see is that Gun Control has not been shown to equal crime control, with New York city and Chicago being the most obvious and egregious examples in the U.S.; others would be Mexico, Brazil, Ireland and South Africa internationally.

With no significant change to the Federal gun control laws within the last 3+ decades, we have had wildly varying highs and lows in rates of violent crimes committed with firearms (typically, but not nearly exclusively, with handguns). Our violent crime rate is currently around 1966 levels, a 30+ year low, and has been dropping approx. 5% annually nationwide since 1993.

Just some thoughts, some things you may wish to consider more thoroughly.

5

[slight nitpick]

Being a Life Member of the NRA (since age 11), I have never once heard an official or otherwise endorsement of a “shoot first” policy; most of the members who do are probably talking out their ass.

A more accurate summation of the sentiment you expressed above, that may be more in line with the official NRA position, might be expressed as:

[/slight nitpick]

6

Once a ban is enacted, even temporarily, you might as well kiss any chance of reversing it goodbye. For one thing, it would almost crush the industries (minor concern). For another, the ban would end up getting extended, eventually it would be indefinite (or at least effectively indefinite). The same thing is happening with copyrights. Every time Disney’s copyrights are about to expire, congress meets and extends copyright another 10 to 20 years. I see the same thing happening.

Guns are an important right, and I think that most advocates of liberty and freedoms would not accept any proposal that removes their rights. Any right weakened is much more difficult to take back. Over the last century, we have a record of steadily increasing regulation and restriction of our right to bear arms, and it shows no sign of letting up in the future, barring some major coup in future elections. Do you think it’s realistic that any of the ground given up in the name of “compromise” and “common-sense legislation” will ever be regained, short of a revolution? I don’t.

A major part of the reason I think that is that I don’t accept the common explanation that they want to get rid of guns only for the public health and to prevent crime. I think all governments that want to disarm the populace want it for the same reason: To be the only entity capable of exercising force of arms. Most governments do not respect individuals, and do not want checks on their power, and thus do not trust their populations to be armed.

Regarding your comment that we already accept limits on freedom of speech, you’re right. And we also accept much excessive regulation on our other freedoms as well. Which is why I’m not willing to give any further on the issue of gun control.

Oh, one last thing: We already have your experiment in action. Washington, D.C. has an effective ban on handguns. Excerpts from the NRA’s gun laws archive:

**“Carrying a handgun in the District is prohibited. All firearms are to be kept at one’s home or place of business.”

"All firearms must be unloaded and disassembled or locked with a trigger lock except when kept at a registrant’s place of business or while being used for lawful “recreational” purposes. A D.C. license to carry a pistol is needed for one’s home or business and the pistol must also have been registered prior to September 24, 1976.

Self-defense in one’s home with a firearm is therefore legally precluded."

“No handgun can be legally possessed in the District unless it is registered. All handguns registered in the District prior to Sept. 24, 1976, were required to have been reregistered by Feb. 5, 1977. After that date, no more handguns could be registered.”

“A … law passed in 1976 by the D.C. City Council requires all firearms to be registered, all owners to be licensed, and prohibits the sale of new handguns. It also prohibits anyone from bringing a handgun into the District or transporting a handgun through the city.”**

Do you think D.C. is anything approching 50% safer than other cities (of comparable size) where guns are prevalent? Not likely. I’ll post again later when I have the FBI crime stats in front of me. Will that do as empirical evidence?

7

Hey ExTank, long time no see! How you doing?

8

I’m by no means a “gun freak” but I see a serious flaw in your rebuttal to objection number two. Taking away guns won’t be like taking away free speech because it’s limited in scope? Huh? If anything, it’s worse.
You’d be asking people to give up their entire second amendment rights whereas freedom of speech is a mere 1/4 of the first amendment.

Five years, five days, whatever, the Bill of rights doesn’t have a holding period on it. Let’s give up your right to remain silent for five years and see if we can’t get the conviction rate up a bit.

9

One of the reasons I believe the citizenry should have guns is to act as a check against government tyranny. Would you replace all handguns with long guns? Would you raise my taxes to pay for this?

10

Madame Chairperson, I move that the able and distingushed[sup]1[/sup] City Gent’s proposal be amended by adding the words “to government officials and employees” immediately after the word “handguns”.

[sup]1[/sup][sub]Since I am not a member of the U.S. Senate, “able and distinguished” is not, in this instance, a euphemism for “corrupt idiot”, as it usually is when one Senator uses it to refer to another of the opposing party.[/sub]

11

City Gent wrote [emphasis mine]:

Ever tried to legally obtain a machine gun?

12

Hey, I’ve got a counter-proposal. Let’s just enforce the laws we have. I’d like to see someone in favor of gun control just once show some numbers about just how many of these terrible crimes are committed using legally-possessed firearms. Not some terrible, isolated example or two but hard numbers so that they can justify removing them from our society. Until I see such numbers, I refuse to allow that removing legally-owned firearms would have any desirable impact on crime. It seems that all the proposals I hear about involve removing legally-owned firearms from law-abiding citizens. Let’s try to get rid of the illegally-owned guns first, eh.

I agree, as does every other gun owner, that gun crime is a terrible thing. We don’t like criminals who use guns either. But, and this is a major point, we live in a violent society. Removing legally-owned firearms from our society will not have a measurable impact on the level of violence. Guns are not the reason our society is violent. The mixture of cultures that makes America great is probably also the greatest contributor to this aspect of our great nation. Look at nearly every other nation or region that has a mixed cultural makeup: Northern Ireland, all of the former components of Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Iraq, Rwanda, etc. The list goes on and on. I can’t even think of any nation with such a mixed cultural makeup that is even as peaceful as the US. Most of these nations have far more strict gun control laws than we do in the US and yet I doubt many people would feel any safer in many of those countries than say, Washington, DC.

13

I don’t have a lot of time right now, so I’ll try to address just a couple of the comments.

If it’s illegal to obtain a machine gun, then I stand corrected, but that doesn’t change the basic plan.

There were a couple of comments about the impracticality of getting people to turn in their weapons. I know people aren’t going to dutifully file down to their local police station and drop their guns in the garbage can; that’s why I proposed the time as five years and not one year. I figure that after a couple of years or so, everyone with any intention of obeying the law will have done so. Then, there will obviously be a hard core of criminals, survivalists, etc. (actually they’ll all be criminals technically, but you know what I mean) who are not going to give up their guns voluntarily. But this is part of what is to be tested: one of the arguments against gun control is that, to use the popular phrasing, “then only criminals will have guns”. Maybe that’s true, but it is still an open question whether the overall result of a handgun ban, imperfect as it might be, would be good or bad for the crime rate. That is precisely the question to be answered by the tentative ban.

Oh, and to the guy who asked which member of my family I would “give up in the name of science”: Without knowing the actual effects of the ban were it to be enacted, I (and you also) cannot say whether the safety of my family would be increased or decreased with a handgun ban. In my present state of semi-ignorance, however, my gut feeling is that they’d be safer with the ban. Therefore, the riskier course as I see it would be to continue with the present system. Nice try at a “Kitty Dukakis”, though. :rolleyes:

14

OK, I’m back. Here’s what I found:

Source: The FBI’s Uniform Crime Statistics Report for 1999 [sub](I counted only cities 100,000 population or greater)[/sub]


[sub]**Washington D.C. rank for crimes committed**
Murders: .........................  6 (241)
 " per 100,000 population: .......  2 (46.4)
Rapes: ........................... 31
 (248-tie with Jackson, MS [no data for Chicago] )
 " per 100,000 pop: .............. 33 (47.8)
Aggravated Assaults: ............. 15 (4,615)
 " per 100,000 pop: .............. 12 (889.2)
Robberies: ....................... 12 (3,334)
 " per 100,000 pop: .............. 12 (644.3)

Total Violent Crimes: ............ 11 (8,448)
 " " " per 100,000 population: ... 14 (1,627.7)[/sub]

So there’s your empirical evidence: The nation’s capital has some of the strictest gun laws on record. These include:
[ul][li]Mandatory registration on all firearms[/li][li]Mandatory permits to buy, sell, carry, or possess (even in your home or business) any firearm[/li][li]A ban on all handguns that were not registered before 1977[/li][li] A ban on buying or selling any firearm to anyone but a licensed dealer, and[/li][li] A ban on buying or selling of any handgun, period.[/ul][/li]Now, despite (or maybe because of) these extreme measures, Washington, D.C. ranked in the top 40 (of the 219 U.S. cities over 100,000 population) in every single category of violent crime, and in the top 15 for every one except rape in 1999.

Seems gun control is not making the city any safer.

Let’s pause for closing comments from some guest speakers:

{Edited to attempt to reduce sidescroll. --Gaudere}

[Edited by Gaudere on 08-03-2001 at 03:43 PM]

15

Sorry, I listed a couple items incorrectly. Corrections are in Bold.


Washington D.C. rank for crimes committed
Murders: .........................  6 (241)
 " per 100,000 population: .......  2 (46.4)
Rapes: ........................... 31
(248-tie with Jackson, MS [no data for Chicago] )
 " per 100,000 pop: .............. **87** (47.8)
**(incorrectly listed as 33)**
Aggravated Assaults: ............. 15 (4,615)
 " per 100,000 pop: .............. **17** (889.2)
**(incorrectly listed as 12)**
Robberies: ....................... 12 (**3,344**)
**(incorrectly listed as 3334)**
 " per 100,000 pop: .............. 12 (644.3)

Total Violent Crimes: ............ 11 (8,448)
 " " " per 100,000 population: ... 14 (1,627.7)

So Washington was slightly lower in population adjested aggravated assaults and considerably lower in population adjusted rape (no idea how I managed to screw that one up…), but overall, still a dismal picture of gun control-induced safety.

{edited to try to reduce sidescroll --Gaudere}

[Edited by Gaudere on 08-03-2001 at 03:44 PM]

16

Regarding the OP, first of all, it’s not gonna happen. Besides the objections already raised, you also have the quesitons of who’s going to collect the “official” statistics, how do we know that they’re accurate, etc…

Next, let’s look at Washington, D.C., which seems to be the favorite city for gun rights activists. Leaving aside the fact that one shouldn’t make a national policy based on data from only one city, Washington just isn’t at all representative of the United States. Washington is an urban area, most of the residents are extremely poor, the police force is largely viewed as corrupt and incompetent, and of course the city is run by the world’s most inept organization, the U.S. Congress. Thus, one would expect very high crime rates there, as compared to a nation that is, on the whole, more suburban and wealthier.

Would anybody like to tell us the year that the Brady Bill was enacted?

17

**

Like all those hard core criminals who kept drinking alcohol during Prohibition? I have no criminal record and that’s not just because I haven’t been caught. I’m not prone to react violently without a good reason and I don’t steal what I want.

If your proposal came to light I would not comply. Why should I? I can lay low for 5 years after which the ban will be lifted and I’m free to go about my business. Your proposal would simply make millions of Americans into “hard core” criminals.

Marc

18

I personally haven’t - for one thing, they’re expensive - but some of my friends own them. You do have to go through a very thorough background check, pay a $200 fee, etc., but its just an annoyance, if you meet the criteria you will most likely be approved eventually.

One of the criteria is, of course, living in a state that allows them.

19

From a Washington Post article from back in August, 2000. For more info, see this thread on the subject.

20

I have nothing to contribute to this debate except this:

“They can have my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.”