Gun Logic Part 5 - You Can't Control Guns, So Don't

People who like guns say the U.S. shouldn't enact stronger gun control laws because the weak gun control laws that we have don't work. The basic premise, that gun control laws don't work, is questionable. Our experience with gun laws indicates just the opposite. In states where people aren't allowed to carry concealed weapons, hardly anyone does. In states that barely control guns at all, lots of people have guns, and lots of people get shot. When there was a ban on assault weapons, hardly any such weapons were in circulation. As soon as the ban was lifted, gun dealers reported that they sold large numbers of the weapons.

Obviously gun lovers know that gun control laws can work. If gun lovers really thought that gun control laws didn't work they wouldn't care if we passed all the laws we could think of, because they would still be able to get and carry all the weapons they wanted.

Gun lovers argue that gun control laws only keep law abiding citizens from getting guns. That wasn't the case with the assault weapon ban. It kept just about everyone from getting the guns. Sure, a few of the banned weapons slipped through the cracks. No law is perfectly enforced. But we haven't gotten rid of stop signs just because some drivers don't always stop at them. Instead, we try to educate people about the importance of obeying the law, and we step up enforcement when we see that there is a problem.

The gun lovers also oppose gun laws because they believe that every such law is simply a step towards totally banning all guns. Because of this opposition, laws that would prevent accidental shootings of children by requiring safe storage of guns have been blocked, laws that would reduce the number of impulsive shootings by requiring waiting periods for buying guns have been blocked, and laws that would prevent defective guns from unintentionally discharging have been blocked. In their zeal to stymie laws that would make guns more safe, gun lobbyists have put their own lives and their family's lives at risk.

From a political viewpoint, the gun lobby's strategy has been to force gun safety advocates to work for every advance, and then, when the public's furor over some shooting tragedy has died down, to try to repeal whatever gun control laws got passed and make the gun control side work for that same law all over again. It is the equivalent of forcing an enemy to keep fighting for control of a hill. It exhausts and discourages the opposition and results in a stalemate where neither side wins. In the context of the gun control debate, this war of attrition has resulted in maintenance of the status quo, which means almost no control over guns.

The argument that gun laws don't work is directly contrary not just to the concept that the government should strive to make laws that represent the will of the people and further their general welfare, it is a rejection of the whole idea of work. “If at first you don't succeed, try, try again” is replaced by “Give up, don't bother, what's the use?”

The most peculiar argument that the gun lovers make is that we don't need more gun laws, we just need to punish people who use guns to commit crimes. They assert that tough sentencing will discourage people from using guns to commit crimes. Isn't that pretty much admitting that gun control can work?

Gun Logic Part 2 - Wrong or Not, Guns are a Right

People in the U.S. who like guns are quick to say that they have a right to have guns. Sometimes they say that it is a God-given right, because some parts of the Christian Bible can be read to suggest that people have a right to defend themselves and their families. Of course, other parts of that Bible say that people should turn the other cheek if they are attacked, and the main thrust of modern Christianity favors peaceful resolution of conflicts. Gun lovers do not talk about the parts of the Christian bible that advise people to obey the civil authorities in civil matters. They also don't pay a lot of attention to resolutions favoring gun control that have been adopted by many mainstream Christian churches.

Gun lovers don't usually talk about whether non-Christians are granted rights to have guns by a Christian god, and they certainly don't seem concerned that someone who does not believe in a Christian god might argue that Christians don't have any rights to guns because there is no Christian god, or because some other god or understanding of god says there is no right to guns.

Sometimes gun lovers say that their right to have guns comes from nature, because humans are animals and self-preservation is instinctive. They ignore the larger picture – that social animals naturally protect the entire group, even if the individual must be sacrificed in the effort. They also pay no attention to the differences between humans (which have developed sophisticated technological ways of organizing and defending their complex societies) and other creatures which must rely on whatever tools their genes provide them.

Some gun lovers say that their right to have guns comes from the Second Amendment to the Constitution. After a couple hundred years during which the Supreme Court held a contrary view, the gun lovers finally have a Supreme Court that has said the amendment gives them a limited right to have guns, subject to regulation by the government. The gun lovers accept the part of the court's decision that they like, reject the part about regulation that they don't like, and vow that regardless of what the court says, they insist that there should be no limitation to their Second Amendment rights.

Whatever the gun lovers profess to be the source of their right to have guns, they don't acknowledge that the right could be taken or interpreted away. The Second Amendment could be repealed or a court in the future could disagree with the recent decisions and again hold that the right to bear arms only refers to a well regulated militia, which we don't have and have never had. Even if the Second Amendment remains intact, other parts of the Constitution could be construed as being in conflict with it, permitting severe limitations on private gun ownership.

Gun lovers who think their right to have guns has a divine origin forget that although the U.S. Constitution guarantees that right to freely practice one's religion, there have been plenty of unsuccessful religion-based challenges to laws. It is clear that the U.S. government, its courts included, has the power and the right to enforce its will on its people regardless of what some of those people believe their religion dictates. Everyone has to pay taxes, even people who think god tells them they don't have to.

What gun lovers really mean when they talk about their rights to have guns is that they want to have guns, despite all of the evidence that private ownership of guns has made people in the U.S. much less safe and free than places where there aren't so many guns. The gunners talk of rights, because they think that rights are superior to reason and reality. So long as they can convince people that they have a right to guns, it doesn't matter whether, for the sake of the entire country, they shouldn't be allowed to have them. Rights, to gun lovers, are just a way of getting what they want, regardless of the harm they do to others. The entire American experience has shown that no one has any right under God, nature, or the Constitution, to act in such a manner.