Congruently with a couple of discussions regarding “slippery slope” gun control arguments, there is another current GD thread, in which an assertion was made that widespread gun ownership would directly reduce crime. minty green (who, if I recall correctly is generally “pro gun rights”) replied:
However, tricky as those calculations may be, I think we can make quite reasonable assumptions about those effects, and can base some valid social policy conclusions on those assumptions.
Assumptions and conclusions regarding an increase in gun ownership (specifically concealed carry):
Assumption: Criminals don’t want to meet armed resistance.
Implications: 1. Criminals are less likely to confront citizens they presume to be armed. 2. Criminals, being interested in the benefits of crime, will alter their modus operandi to deal with any increased likelihood that their intended victims will be armed, rather than give up criminal activities entirely.
Expectations: Practicing criminals (those who commit crimes from a dispassionate self-interest) will be less likely to commit confrontational crimes, such as robbery with assault. There is some research evidence (Lott, et al) indicating that adaptation of “shall issue” laws produces a decrease in armed robberies with a corresponding increase in burglaries and theft. This correlation, however, while supported by intuitive reasoning, has not been proved to be statistically significant.
Conclusion: [Solely as a result of increased gun ownership] the overall rate of crimes perpetrated by “career” or professional criminals cannot be expected to decrease in any substantive manner, but can be expected to shift between categories.
Assumption: Fewer controls over the sale and distribution of firearms increases their availability not just to law-abiding citizens, but also to career criminals.
Assumption: Assuming a constant or slightly increasing rate of home burglaries (as implied by the first conclusion), an increase in firearms ownership will produce a corresponding increase in stolen firearms.
Expectations: 1. Both legal and illegal ownership of guns will increase among criminals. 2. With increased ownership among criminals, a higher percentage of criminals will be armed during the commission of a crime.
Conclusion: Some increase in violent action as a result of being “caught in the act” may result in increased possession of guns.
Weak Assumption: Gun carrying citizens are more likely to successfully defend themselves against aggression than are citizens who don’t carry guns.
Strong Assumption: Citizens who arm themselves specifically for the purpose of self-defense are more likely to use or display a firearm in a confrontational situation than citizens who do not arm themselves, or do not carry their weapons for self-defense.
Expectations: 1. Defensive gun usages will increase. 2. Of those DGU’s, a large percentage will be reasonable and appropriate defensive use, but some usages will be unreasonable or out of proportion to the perceived threat. 3. Some of the unreasonable DGU’s will result in prosecutable actions by the “defending” gun user.
Conclusions: Reasonable and approriate usages of firearms for self-defense cannot be termed “criminal”, and can be expected to thwart some percentage of attempted crimes. Unreasonable usages of guns, even without criminal intent, can be expected to yield some increase in prosecutable assaults.
Overall Conclusion: Assertions that widespread ownership of guns would either decrease or increase crime cannot be supported by reasonable assumptions, and neither assertion has strong supporting documentary evidence. One reasonable expectation is that a decrease in armed robberies would result from a higher rate of gun ownership. Another reasonable expectation is that criminals would be more likely to shoot if “caught in the act” of burglary or theft. Yet another reasonable expectation is that an increase in armed assaults from previously law abiding citizens would result.
The question then becomes: do these opposing results yield a more secure society, or a more dangerous society? I think the latter conclusion is the more likely to be true, but that other economic and social forces are much more important factors in determining crime rates. Extensive gun ownership is neither a panacea nor a prescription for anarchy. Anyone who advocates extreme levels of gun control or absolute freedom of gun ownership would most likely be extremely disappointed in the real effects.
All of this means, IMHO, that while society should err on the side of freedom for the sake of our ideals, pragmatically we should discourage the casual carrying of firearms, should place reasonable controls on the sale and distribution of firearms, and should place reasonable restrictions on the use of firearms.
Which leads (finally) to my debate topic: Many people see a continuum between Maximum Freedom and Maximum Security, portraying them as mutually exclusive conditions:
{Freedom <==============Ø==============>** Security**}
I don’t believe that this properly illustrates the dynamic between the two ideal conditions. I think it’s far more proper to say that freedom and security are two sides of the social coin and that, while the pursuit of either necessarily limits attainment of the other, there is a large degree of compatability between them in a modern democratic society. Moreover, I believe that the mutual effects of one on the other do not correspond equally or linearly. A small limitation of a specific freedom can often yield much better security, but incremental sacrifices in security rarely yield equally large increases in freedom, and often result in a net decrease in specific liberties.
In the case of gun control in the US, I think we have such a situation. The restrictions and controls placed on distribution and ownership of firearms, which gun control opponents characterize as the erosion of freedoms, still allow many options for firepowered self defense, while providing substantial return in the form of public safety. Conversely, having fewer controls in place would seem to allow not much more freedom of each individual to provide for their self defense, while at the same time increasing the number of firearms out on the streets, which (per the above assumptions) would seem to negatively affect public safety, particularly in urban settings. People don’t want to make their cities more dangerous, they want them to be less dangerous. In pursuit of our own safety, we (average Americans) oppose laws which curtail our practical ability to defend ourselves, but we support laws which curtail the ability of other people to harm us. In defense of our deservedly vaunted Bill of Rights, we resist government imposition on our freedoms, but we cry out for government protection of our liberties.
Therefore (whew), I submit that there is no “slippery slope” down which America will slide with further gun control, as the very compromises between freedom and security inherent to our social system tend to level any temporary slope toward or away from such controls.
