Last week I wrote critically about media’s responses to a mass killing. That was unlikely to anger anyone because the media are an easy target. At the risk of continuing the metamorphosis of this opinion page into the gun page, it is time to turn to policy, which I hope will be more provocative. After all, anyone writing opinion pieces to be popular has missed the point.
I am disappointed by the gun control debate in this country. It strikes me that there is a possibility of real reform, which makes Americans safer from gun crimes, with relatively small intrusions into anyone’s rights to gun ownership.
Ideally, the people who own most of the guns would be involved in drafting legislation, since they probably know more about specific guns and ammunition than do typical gun control advocates. The NRA used to fill this role. If they still did, George H.W. Bush would not have forfeited his membership, and I would join.
I am relatively centrist on this issue; although, I had the same positions and would have been considered a bit left of center a couple months ago, according to opinion polls. I strongly favor some of the president’s executive orders related to sharing data among law enforcement. I also want universal background checks and stiff penalties for businesses that do not perform those checks.
Candidly, I don’t care much about the assault weapons ban. I say this not to convince anyone, but just to make plain my positions before I get to my real purpose. Eternal optimist that I am, I want to crush four of the worst arguments, in the hopes of advancing the debate on better grounds. I have 700 words, so I had to be selective. These are just the ones which make my eye twitch.
Let me start with, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people,” in all of its forms. Depending on which analytic philosopher you ask, and on what mood she is in, this might be a true statement, but it is unrelated to this debate. Except for the ones we use to start a race, most guns are specifically designed to kill animals.
They are good at it, and to the extent that they are, they are dangerous. If they do not give the wielder an advantage over people armed with hammers (the latest comparison from the far right), then the military is wasting your money, and you should write to your representatives.
Next, it is time people stop arguing that the United States has become more violent, so that they can ascribe their favorite ex post rationalization for that fact –Hollywood, corn syrup, childhood vaccinations, etc. This argument is used by both sides, but it is nonsense. Murder and other crime rates have been falling for decades, and we are safer now than ever before. Of course we could be safer, but the sense of urgency surrounding this debate is detached from reality.
Almost all of the arguments made from statistics on this issue are drivel. Comparisons between states and countries, and across time periods are difficult to conduct, since guns are durable, are carried from one state or country to another, and people often buy them in response to their perceptions about local violent and property crime rates. This does not even begin to cover more technical questions, like model specification, omitted variables and endogeneity.
Murder rates might be close to accurate, but data for gun ownership are not reliable. It seems that diligent statistical work on this subject would require us to conclude only that we are highly uncertain about the relationship between gun ownership and violent crime.
The worst, and therefore last, argument is that the Constitution gives you the right to carry your favorite type of firearm. This is a nice slogan, but it is not a legal reality. We get to put restrictions on which arms individuals can have, from Abrams tanks, to katanas, to high capacity clips and magazines. And don’t take my word for it. This is the opinion of former Pravda editor Antonin Scalia.
Brad Erthal is a Ph.D. student in economics. His column runs on Tuesdays.
