(Note: The article headline says fatal shootings, but I think the study only deals with homicides, not accidental shootings.)
It sounds like the main things they did were raise the age limit to 21, require stronger background checks, and require an 8-hour safety course before you could get a permit.
The methodology of the study sounds pretty sensible to me too… the article mentions it’s hard to compare one state to another or separate out those changes that would have happened regardless of gun control (due to declining crime rates in general). What this study did was create a weighted average of other states to approximate Connecticut’s demographics (basically building a control group to approximate what would have happened if Connecticut hadn’t enacted the law), and showed that non-firearm homicides in this synthetic state tracked well with Connecticut both before and after the gun control law was passed (providing a check that it was indeed a suitable control group), whereas Connecticut’s firearm homicide rate declined more than in the synthetic state. It’s not perfect, but you can’t really have a perfect control group in this sort of social science research, and this approach seems pretty reasonable.
As a card-carrying liberal, I used to pretty much support all gun control. But in part from discussions on this board, I’ve decided some laws – e.g., assult weapons bans – are probably not going to do much to address the real issues. But Connecticut seems to have an approach that works. Anyone care to argue otherwise?
One open question is which of the changes mattered the most. That doesn’t seem impossibile to answer… you could look into the rate of homicides committed by people under the age of 21. Maybe you could look into how many homicides (in the synthetic state) were committed by people who would have failed the stricter background check in Connecticut. I’m not sure we can say much about the training course, since this is looking at homicides and not accidental shootings. (Although maybe criminals are less likely to attend an 8-hour course?) But one could do a similar analysis focused on accidental shootings.
As a secondary point of debate, anyone care to defend the lack of government funding for this sort of research? (This is also referenced in the article.) Even though I’m generally pro-gun control, I don’t see anything wrong with the NRA lobbying against gun-control laws. But lobbying against research just seems despicable. That amounts to saying “We suspect the facts don’t support our position, so we want everyone to stay ignorant of the facts.”
Do you support the forms that are/were practiced in Chicago, New York, and Washington DC? In DC, you simply weren’t allowed a gun at all. No getting a license and proving you’re competent to handle such a device, you had to have special permission that only important people could get. It was illegal to have a firearm in your home in a state ready to defend yourself (it had to be unloaded and trigger locked)
This Connecticut rule does seem more reasonable. Except - why the over 21 requirement? Do 18-21 year olds not have the right to self defense? I would be ok with the concept of the gun safety courses for an 18-21 year old to be more extensive, and for a real safety test (live ammo on an armored indoor range, with a cop watching behind bulletproof glass or security cameras) or something to be required. However, the idea that an 18 year old who does need protection - the local police may be corrupt, slow to respond, or it is the police you need protection from - not being permitted to obtain the tools to defend him or herself sounds like a violation of the constitution to me.
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Except - why the over 21 requirement?
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Because they are the demographic most likely to use a handgun in a crime, statistically speaking, so they are trying to prevent that. If changing the age at which someone can register for a gun has a statistically relevant effect (and if you buy the methodology in the linked article in the OP it is) I’m fine with that provision. In fact, I don’t have any issue with any of those provisions, as long as it’s not a backdoor attempt to seem to allow gun ownership but then make it so onerous to get one that for all practical purposes you can’t. I don’t actually know that much about Connecticut’s gun control laws or how easy/difficult it is to actually get a gun using these controls so I couldn’t say.
There is nothing in the text of constitution, or the thinking of the framers, that would limit the right by age. I can see some situations in which a fourteen year old has more need for protection than his parents. Your invocation of age eighteen, whether as a cut-off age for bearing guns, or a cut-off age for some licensing exam, is just as unconstitutional as any other gun restriction. Only difference is, it is, like restrictions on the rights of ex-convicts, the kind of second amendment violation conservatives like.
Tim314 – We need to step back and ask what the real issue is.
One thing the study struggles with (see page 10) is why the good effects of the law took years to take effect, and then did so gradually. The study can’t really give a good answer because the methodology doesn’t let us know how the law helped.
My hypothesis is that law helped by sending the message that gun lovers should avoid Connecticut, and that it would be a good place for those who don’t want to be in an armed camp to live. Since maybe fifteen percent of Americans move every year, it takes time for the big effect of ideological/geographic sorting to take effect. But it did.
So what does that say about assault weapons bans? Well, you may be right about a federal ban not doing much to make the US safer.* But if my state banned their sale, it would send a strong message to Pennsylvania’s gun enthusiasts: Go West (or South), young man. That’s because these macho-looking guns have become tremendously popular among those who fancy having a home arsenal. Send them the right message, and, without having to put anyone in jail, firearms enthusiasts gradually leave. Then the rest of us are safer.
IMHO, the primary benefit of a United Statas federal assault rifle sales ban would to reduce the number of those weapons in Mexico.
In theory, his or her parents are responsible for protecting him or her. If they do an inadequate job, the kid has but to complain softly and CPS will whisk him or her to the custody of foster parents who are sometimes worse.
We don’t allow those same 18-20 year old kids to buy alcohol, even though in theory they are ‘adults’. We require them to be 21 to do that (and buy cigarettes and some other things as well). This would be the same sort of thing. Or do you disagree with those limitations as well?
I haven’t really looked at this issue, but some people are claiming that the study is flawed.
Furthermore, it’s claimed that Connecticut’s firearm homicide rate was falling even faster BEFORE the law went into effect; i.e., the law slowed down the rate of decline.
You don’t need alcohol or cigarettes to defend your life, and the right to have them is not Constitutionally protected. Also, you can be jailed for possessing an unlicensed or concealed gun used to protect yourself. The authorities almost never jail people for underage drinking and smoking.
Like I said, “used to support” – a decade or so ago I probably would have been cool with an outright ban on firearms. That’s not a position I’d defend today. I do think cities like D.C. and Chicago have problems with handgun violence (although I confess I don’t know the statistics), and I support them taking steps to try to curb that problem, but I think that can be done through less restrictive means than a handgun ban.
Regarding the question of “keeping the gun unloaded”, I’m not a gun owner, so I’m not well versed in what is or isn’t expected safety protocol. Let me ask you as (I presume) a gun owner, what precautions do you think are appropriate when it comes to storing a gun? What about in a house with young children, is the answer different?
17 year olds have a right to self-defense, too. So do 5-year-olds, for that matter. But I’m not sure that’s an argument against an age cut off.
Regarding the “defending themselves against corrupt police”, I’m definitely concerned about the violent treatment of minorities by police that’s been all over the news lately (not that it’s a recent problem, just one that’s recently more exposed) but I don’t think advocating that people turn their guns on the police is a good solution. If that’s not what you’re advocating, then I don’t understand how guns are meant to provide protection from the police. If anything, the fear of being shot motivates police officers to use a greater level of force.
This seems like the issue I mentioned in the OP with separating out the effects of the law with changes that would have happened regardless. If I understand correctly, firearm homicide rates were falling nationwide before the law went into effect, and they declined more slowly (nationwide) after the Connecticut law went into effect. So that’s not an effect of the law. But in Connecticut, the declining rates didn’t level off nearly as much as in an average of other states (a weighted average to give similar demographics to Connecticut).
The conclusion is (1) nationwide, firearm homicide rates aren’t falling as fast as they had been. But (2) they’re still falling faster in Connecticut than they would have been without the law.
I’m not saying that methodology is perfect, but it seems quite a bit better than either (A) concluding Connecticut’s law is working well just because firearm homicide rates declined, or (B) concluding Connecticut’s law is working poorly just because firearm homicide rates are declining less than they previously were. Both of those are clearly flawed ways of thinking about it. The authors of the study were smarter about it than that.
I’m somewhat sympathetic to the idea that once you’re an adult, you should be treated as an adult in all things. Of course, that’s not the situation that actually exists in the U.S. today, since 18 year olds can vote but can’t buy alcohol.
But I don’t accept that there’s “no defensible argument”. Given that any line between “adult” and “child” is inherently somewhat arbitrary, and there’s really no meaningful difference between an 18-year-old and a 17-year-and-364-days-old, why must the law treat it as a bright line? Just as human beings mature gradually, why not gradually confer the rights of adulthood over a several year span, between the ages of 18 and 21?
I’m playing devils advocate here – it’s not something I’d necessarily support, and even if I did, I’m not sure I’d make the same choices about which rights you should acquire the soonest. But I don’t think it’s inherently a less reasonable approach to take.
I would have assumed the effect was gradual because not everyone who’s going to commit a homicide does so immediately after buying a gun, so it takes a while for restrictions on who can get a gun to translate into an effect on who is killing with one. But yours is also an interesting theory. I also hadn’t thought of “sending a message to gun enthusiasts to get lost” as a rationale for gun control legislation.
So you think the drinking age should be 18 as well?
If I showed you a study that proved that gun-owners between 18 and 25 were far more likely to lose their cool and shoot someone than gun-owners between 30 and 40 would that make a difference?
That’s the wrong question to ask and a partisan way to frame the discussion. Everyone has the right to self defense, but not everyone has the right to do it with guns. They’ll just have to make do with something else
I don’t care what age the age of majority is set at. I do care that it be consistent. 18, fine. 21, fine. 42, fine.
All law abiding adults enjoy certain rights as adults. Some of these are enumerated in the Constitution. Whatever age is set as the age of majority that is when all the rights of adulthood should be recognized.
Enumerated constitutional rights being limited should receive higher levels of scrutiny than non-enumerated rights. Drinking isn’t an apt comparison. Poor judgment in certain age groups is not an argument against gun ownership, but one against the age of majority. There will always be those with poor judgment. That’s part of the tradeoff when we recognize the right to arms.
Consider this: 18 year Olds are not prohibited from owning or possessing handguns. They are prohibited from purchasing them. So the 18 year old can receive a handgun from a family member but one without a family member available is unable to legally obtain one.
Why should one 18 year old enjoy their right to self defense with the quintassential self defense weapon and the other not? That’s a stupid law.