How to meaningfully cut down on mass gun violence
The subject of gun violence so frustrates & infuriates me that I actually find myself not wanting to think about it. I put off starting this for a solid two years and it’s taken more than another for me to put it together. All shootings are terrible but the mass shootings which seem to have started at Columbine High School and continued through Sandy Hook, Orlando, Parkland, The Las Vegas Strip (odd, you NEVER hear about that one anymore), Uvalde (but not Bowling Green) and so many more are so horrible that it’s difficult to form rational thoughts on them, especially as a parent.
What’s especially so frustrating is that there are so many common-sense “white space” solutions that the vast majority of Americans can get behind that it completely infuriates me that we can’t do something about the scourge of unnecessary, mass deaths in our country. In public policy & politics it seems all of the focus has been on:
Background checks & waiting periods to get guns and how to take them away from people who display mental health issues or may threaten others
Concealed carry measures
Licensing & permitting
Limiting types of guns (assault weapons) or equipment (bump stocks) people can own
For reasons known to only me, I can only get fired up on the last issue. In my mind, the first few issues can be an inconvenience for a shooter, but inevitably none of these tools can do much to stop the sheer volume of shootings in aggregate which are supported by a country awash in guns & ammunition. The fact is, we have ever increasing supply, and that makes it cheaper & easier it is to acquire and use firearms that can kill scores at a time. Nothing will change that unless we can change the supply & demand dynamics.
The one area that I am very hot about assault weapons. I have yet to hear of any good reason why anyone should be allowed to own them. There’s no reasonable defense in my view for anyone to own an assault weapon for defensive purposes or for sport purposes such as hunting. They are a single use tool, light, easy to carry, accurate and purpose designed to kill as many people as efficiently as possible. That’s why they were built for the military.
I feel pretty similarly about hand guns, which are generally legal unless fully automatic. Unlike assault weapons, pistols are only accurate at very close range and hence generally only make sense as a weapon of threat or killing someone (including yourself) in a confined environment. They do little to protect one’s home unless in the rare case of a home invasion (though ~1MM burglaries are reported annually in the US, residents are only present 28% of the time) and only make sense to be carried for concealed purposes for security personnel and someone who is otherwise under threat. They are also accident prone so when I think about it, if you own a handgun it’s more likely to kill you or be used for suicide of a loved one than protect you.
I realize however that some people like guns, either for collecting or the fun of target practice or hunting. Personally, I am ambivalent. I’ve shot skeet about five times and found it enjoyable, but there are plenty of other things I enjoy more. I also spent a summer training with the Navy and was fortunate to shoot EVERYTHING. Handguns, small caliber assault rifles, machine guns that aren’t remotely legal, .50 caliber machine guns & grenade launchers….you name it, I shot it. Though I spent a good portion of the time nervous as hell that I’d hurt someone (including myself), I generally had fun. And it was pretty clear a lot of the soldiers accompanying me were way more into it than I was. The most fun I had shooting guns occurred during my Marine week when we literally played ‘Army’ (well, technically Marines I guess) as if we kids. We dressed in camouflage, were each given two clips of blanks, put bright colored BFA’s (Black Firing Apparatus) on the front of M-4’s (a smaller, lighter version of the M-16 the military has used in recent years & the military variant of the AR-15), ventured out into Tropical Storm Allison in squads and crept through in the woods in ranger columns in an attempt to ambush our adversaries. After we hid from each other effectively enough that everyone got bored, the full-time Marine sergeants leading us marched us toward another squad in a clearing and we unleashed blanks on each other from 50 yards. Was I so scared I barely knew what I was doing? Yes. But did I have fun? Hell yeah. It was great. But most of the fun came in knowing we were all shooting blanks.
Do I believe in any other scenario this should be allowed? I guess. This is sort of why paintball exists — only in paintball you can actually hit your opponent and they feel it but no one really gets badly injured, unlike shooting blanks where you make a lot of noise and fire the trigger of a real gun but it’s impossible to know what actually would have happened. So could it be conceivable that private citizens under the right licensing could run around in the woods and shoot automatic weapons with BFA’s & blanks at each other? Sure. Should people be allowed to go to gun ranges and for a price shoot whatever the heck they want? Hell yeah! Have at it! If we want to allow “Ted Nugent’s back yard” to exist, I probably won’t go, but I’m not against the idea, nor do I think it should be illegal for consenting adults and minors with the right level of supervision. Shooting guns can be fun and some people are REALLY into that. And that’s OK. But in my mind, there’s a massive difference between the sporting aspect of it, like many other fundamentally dangerous things, done in tightly licensed & regulated environments, and allowing people to own, possess and shoot military firearms without limits either in public or even their own private property.
It’s hard to get past this point without a discussion about the 2nd Amendment which I will quote: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The challenge of this text is that even in strict original constructions of the text, there’s room for debate. One hand, those who support “2nd amendment rights” focus more on the first part of the statement as much as any other given that republic was founded on a belief that by disarming the population, the Kings & Queen of England subjugated their citizens to their rule and so there was a belief that raising a militia was critical for ensuring freedom and preventing tyranny. However, it’s also important to recognize that weapons were not as sophisticated as they are now and even in revolutionary times, heavy weapons such as cannons could not be owned by individuals. So even Ted Nugget would agree there is some limit (perhaps somewhere between .50 caliber machine gun, Rocket Propelled Grenade & small missile in his case); it’s a matter of where.
The other area of ambiguity, which is were I am most interested, is whether “arms” includes solely the guns themselves (which are the focus) or ammunition, which I think is an area of most promising opportunity & I’m really not sure why we don’t talk about it more. To quote Chris Rock: “Guns don’t kill people, bullets do.” And ammunition is an area of regulation & taxation that is ripe for additional regulation, depending of course on how the courts interpret the statutes.
There are a lot of good reasons why limiting ammunition will lead to a reduction in gun violence:
It will limit the “body count” of mass shootings
Certain types of ammunition (e.g. hollow point bullets) are more dangerous than others. There is again little reason why we cannot regulate production such that ammunition most prone to kill and / or pierce body armor would be outlawed to members of the public.
Though guns have a very long lifetime if properly maintained, the quality of ammunition consistently degrades over time so limiting sales of ammunition can have a bigger impact over time
There are ways to safely limit ammunition sales to those who reasonably need in a way that would protect the industry (e.g. gun ranges, law enforcement & military)
And the best way to limit ammunition is to tax it. We’ve decided that cigarettes are a threat to public health so even though they cost almost nothing to make, we tax them by up to about $7 in certain locations. As guns are a significant threat to health, why don’t we tax ammunition at $100 per round? There already is a Federal Excise tax on the sale of firearms & ammunition and many states have taxes. So it can’t be claimed that taxes on firearms are an infringement of the second amendment because they have been accepted and on the books for over 100 years. Quick carveout here: I am very OK with an exemption for ammunition stored and used on licensed ranges & to the government. So again, if you want to own a gun for your own protection, the cost is reasonable, but if you want to perpetuate a crime and carry 10 clips around, either it’ll be too cost prohibitive or it’s going to be such an unusual activity that it’ll attract the right attention that may prevent it. And in the meantime, it’s more money for the government which I don’t have to pay in my own taxes. It’s a win for everyone!
There is also the counter-argument raised that we could prevent more gun violence through deterrence; in effect if we arm enough people in enough places, criminals will be deterred by gun violence and the severity of mass shootings will be curtailed by “good guys with guns.” However there are three flaws with this argument:
Fear - As we saw in Parkland, Uvalde and other mass shootings, it turns out that - and I know this should come as a surprise - mass shooting perpetrators are crazy and unafraid to die whereas everyone else is. Unfortunately, there have been good guys with guys who could stop the bad guys, but they’ve been so afraid that they’ve cut & run and let others die
These arguments have been made primarily by the NRA, which at this point is not a lobby for gun owners, but gun manufacturers and coincidentally it’s their business to find reasons to sell AS MANY GUNS AS POSSIBLE
Israel is a much less diverse country than the United States with serious threats on all sides. It’s not exactly an oasis of safety to emulate
This isn’t complicated: Ban Assault Rifles, Restrict Handguns & Tax Ammunition