Gun Safety, Part 2

If gun violence were recognized as a serious public health issue, some of the things we might see could include laws requiring the manufacture of safer guns and use of other safety-related features, better laws regarding the registration and tracking of guns, laws related to parental responsibility, and the systematic collection of data related to gun ownership and usage.

I don't know much at all about guns, but one doesn't need to know the difference between a magazine and a clip to discuss gun violence any more than one needs to know how to drive a stick shift to talk about auto safety. I do know the technology already exists to make guns that recognize their owner's fingerprints and won't fire for anyone else. And I'm quite sure technologies exist that would prevent the I-didn't-know-it-was-loaded scenarios. We're an inventive people. If their were a national recognition of the need for safer guns, and a commitment to addressing the need, there would be no shortage of imaginative new technologies.

I can hear the arguments already that this would make guns too costly, but there is no part of the constitution that guarantees citizens the right to a cheap gun or that guarantees a certain profit margin for the gun makers. Public safety trumps both issues. When the American public became interested in automobile safety issues, the industry quit fighting the trend and began making and marketing safer cars. The same would happen with gun manufacturers when people began to demand safety features.

Clearly this is an issue on which there is a lot of emotion, not at all helped by a poorly-worded, ambiguous 2nd amendment. Ignorance doesn't help matters either. I still find it almost impossible to believe that a Rasmussen poll in January found that 65% of people in the U.S. believe people have a constitutional right to own a gun to safeguard their freedoms and to protect themselves against tyranny. Of the others, only 17% outright disagreed with that notion and 18% just weren't quite sure. Among gun owners, not surprisingly, the percentage who believe that it's all about preventing tyranny was 72%.

As long as people have this misconception it is probably natural that a sizable number of them think any attempt to study gun ownership or usage patterns, to require background checks, to track ownership, to limit the capabilities of the weapons or magazines, to make changes in the definition of what is a legal weapon etc. is the first step in the government's plan to come after their guns.

I have news for them. When us gun-hating pinko fags control the government and decide to take drastic action, we're not going to come for anybody's guns, even after we set up that national registry for the purpose of identifying the evil gun owners.  Confiscation is too complicated a procedure, not to mention dangerous to all parties, No, we're just going to the retailers and manufacturers and take possission of all the bullets. So, gun owners, quit worrying about that national registry. It's all about safety and tracking ownership. We can effectively disarm you without it.

One common mantra is that any effort at what I will call for the sake of convenience "gun control," is only going to affect legal gun owners, while the "real" problem is illegal gun owners. This ignores the fact that virtually every legal activity is regulated, controlled or limited in some respect, and that gun control laws already exist, and have always existed (Tombstone, Arizona had a check-your-gun law which was the ostensible reason for the OK corral gunfight). It also ignores the fact that the business of making laws is a constant redefinition of what is legal and what isn't.

Once you accept that gun violence is an issue of public health/safety and that it is appropriate to try to reduce the violence, the discussion enters another realm.

Look for example at what are generally called assault weapons and multi-round magazines. The argument against them, from a public safety perspective, is that there is no demonstrable need for civilians to have what are essentially military weapons, or thirty rounds literally at their fingertips. Also it is a combination whose potential for wreaking havoc has been demonstrated many times, so ban them or make them available only within organized gun clubs.

Opponents of course argue thier supposed 2nd amendment rights to an AR-47, but just in case people might find that a bit weak, they also try to argue that attempts to ban them are useless. Why? Because any semi-automatic weapon can easily be transformed into a fully automatic weapon, which transformation should also be made illegal, by the way.

The argument seems to be that, because we can't make a perfectly effective law, we shouldn't make any law at all. But I truly believe many people who assert this are arguing backward, starting with a belief that we should not make a law, and justifying that belief with the argument that we can't make a workable law.

In reality, almost all of our laws are petty easily violated. That is why we have police forces, and why statutes provide penalties for those who don't obey them. Murder is as easy as pulling a trigger, which is much simpler than converting a weapon to full auto. Why then have laws against murder, if they are so easily broken? A good many, if not the majority, of our laws depend primarily upon the private honesty of citizens, which isn't perfect.

I'll wager that the first mandatory seat belt laws were opposed by some people who claimed the laws would be unenforceable, and people would/could violate them with impunity. Still today they are almost universally obeyed

We have laws today that prevent the use of silencers on guns. People who are determined to break those laws can do so, but as far as I know it is generally the laws are generally obeyed. I suggest you do a Google search for "how to make a silencer." Do the 9,180,000 results mean we should do away with the laws that make silencers illegal?

Should we halt attempts to place limitations on fully automatic weapons because a similar Google search for "how to convert a semi-auto to a full auto" yields 1,930,000 hits?

Nobody needs a fully automatic weapon to protect himself or his family. When I look at the propaganda on the internet, the assault rifle crowd almost all seem to arguing from the position of needing these weapons to protect their rights against an assault by a tyrannical government, and I'm sorry, but that is just plain bogus.

Now one objection might be that we don't have enough evidence about automatic weapons to ban them, e.g. how they are used, who uses them, where they are bought, why people say they own them, or any other question you can think of. And that is true, because gun data is not being collected. But, from a public safety standpoint, do we need research to show these weapons at large in society make us less, rather than more, safe? States imposed speed limits without waiting for research showing that limits save lives. If research someday shows that the country would be a better place with more fully automatic weapons, we can always return to the issue and legalize them.

Public health and safety campaigns generally involve education. The first education campaign should be about the 2nd amendment...what it says, including both sides of the controversy, and more importantly what it doesn't say.