One centrist’s view on guns
Forewarning- Though I wrote most of this over a year ago, I’ve not posted this for some time because other things in my life have taken priority over proofreading. So, I apologize if my thoughts aren’t written as clearly as I’d have liked.
I want to explore two extreme hypothetical policies on gun control. The pros and cons of each. Then I want to talk about meeting in the middle and what compromises really end up being. For ease of writing, the word “tyranny” will be used whenever I’m talking about any form of overreaching or controlling government.
What the pro-gun extreme thinks will happen-
Guns. Guns everywhere. Police at every door of our schools. Every good guy carries a gun so when the bad guy with a gun does a bad thing then the good guy stops him. Smart bad guys stop doing bad things with guns and the dumb bad guys get Darwin awards and don’t live long enough to procreate.
Bonus pro-gun benefits. If the government gets too tyrannical, you and your freedom-fighter buddies grab your guns and set things straight. We need assault weapons to effectively fight the tyranny. You’ll be prepared to survive in a post-apocalyptic world; zombie or otherwise. You can shoot animals and eat them.
Gun registration is just a tool for the tyranny to use when they need to know where to send their absolutely obedient army to crush the resistance. Background checks are a tool the tyranny can abuse to keep the resistance from getting guns.
What it would take to get there-
Culture shift:
The way the guns-everywhere theory works is kind of like herd immunity. Everyone needs to buy into it otherwise bad guys will just target the people without guns. Therefore, it must be required like getting shots, indoctrinating and training from a young age. Unless every voting person believes that guns are a part of life, you will have dissenters and dissenters are weak links in the nickle-plated fabric of this hypothetical society. This would likely create an increasingly militarized society that has it’s own drawbacks.
The cost:
Doing it right would be pretty expensive. Guns, ammo, proper training, and insurance for every adult good-guy would probably create costs close to a monthly mobile phone bill. Some of those costs would be offset by a reduction in certain types of crime but it would be an ongoing cost for a large portion of people’s lives.
What the anti-gun extreme think will happen-
No guns anywhere. If you see a gun then you instantly know they are a bad guy. In some places, police don’t even carry guns because criminals can’t even get them. Our children are safe from irresponsible gun owners and school shootings. If bad guys try to kill a lot of people, they will be stopped by non-lethal means before they kill a lot of people.
Our constitution protects us from tyranny because people have the power of the vote.
What it would take to get there-
Culture shift:
Gun culture runs deep in the U.S. Even if everyone was directly affected by gun violence, there would still be cases made for guns: tyranny, hunting, self defense, sport. A lot more people would have to be sold on the idea that the trade-offs will be worth it over time. Indoctrination would again be a large part of the change; like resiliency and coping skills training. You would need to convince U.S. Citizens that turning their guns in is what’s best for them and the nation. Home searches, looking for guns, would likely become standard practice. You’d basically need to shift the culture enough that 75% of states would agree to remove the 2nd Amendment. It would take some serious gun demonization with our youth and time for them to grow up for this to happen.
The reality of today with current laws-
Guns stop crime and save lots of lives every day. It’s impossible to put a number on how many lives are saved because there’s no way to know and police don’t have any way to track it. Criminals don’t report every time they are deterred when they see an armed guard or armed citizen. How many drunk uncles would fight the police with a bat if the police couldn’t use deadly force?
Accidents happen. About 500 deaths a year happen from accidental or negligent discharges. Though they are unfortunate and shouldn’t happen, over 5,000 people die per year from choking. Both are 100% preventable but laws that mandate children and the elderly to only be allowed to drink smoothies and soft food would be balked at but gun control is part of everyday discussion and law-making.
Mass killings are increasing in numbers. Though there are other means, using a gun is probably the most common. Guns check all the blocks for mass killings: available, affordable, easy to use, often easy to get, easy to get in or near crowds, kills multiple people in a small amount of time (many models can), reasonably safe for the user, little to no effort per kill. If guns weren’t all of these things then it would be harder or more risky to kill so many people but not impossible.
Homicide and suicide. People are going to do these with or without guns. Without guns there would be less of them. A Washington Post article estimated that suicides would decrease by 20–38%. If the U.S. averaged 40,000 suicides per year, which would be low, without guns that number would likely fall to 32,000 per year.
Guns are often used to stop crimes that aren’t life threatening. I once read that people that have deep roots in Texas tend to use greater force when crimes are committed against them; a long time ago it made sense because if your cattle or horse was stolen then you were as good as dead because that was your livelihood. Shooting someone for theft made sense. It’s rarely neccessary now. When the pro-gun side use these instances to justify having guns I think it’s a losing argument because the value of the stolen goods is rarely worth a life. At least that’s what most people with money say.
Tyranny.
Your AR-15 won’t prevent tyranny. An educated, underpaid military prevents tyranny. If you think “the government “ can just give the order and the nation’s army will turn on its citizens then you’re wrong. You have to pay for that kind of loyalty and the smarter and more educated the Soldiers are the more you’re going to have to pay. If the government declared martial law and ordered a bunch of Soldiers to oppress civilians, the number one response would be “I don’t get paid enough for that”. The number two response would be something about patriotism, loyalty to family and friends, and the constitution.
Secondly, do you even have a plan? Have you really thought this through? If things got bad enough, are you going to go “Rambo” on Congress or are you going to chest-bump your closest buddy before kicking the doors in? Let’s face reality, it’s going to take a well regulated militia (hmm, that sounds familiar) to have any kind of impact when fighting a tyranny. There are too many people using the second amendment to collect guns and not enough militias. Right now it seems that the National Guard is the best armed force we have against the Federally controlled armed forces but there are still a lot of ties between the two that gives the federal government control over the National Guard. A lot of our population doesn’t know what the differences between the National Guard and the Army Reserve are. At least I’m assuming because I didn’t know the difference before I enlisted.
My stance-
It appears to me that the second amendment reserves the right for the people to form well regulated militias. I think we, the people, should be doing this. I think militias should be formed, those militias should have training facilities, and the weapons you intend to use to defend the constitution should be kept there.
There are incredible hurdles to overcome. You need leaders who won’t see it as an army. Leaders have to understand that it’s an organization of civilians who will take up arms when their government severely and habitually violates the constitution. It is a last resort. Anything less and it will be a terrorist organization. There are many more hurdles but I’m not going to make this longer than it needs to be.
I would prefer gun owners to be responsible and not ruin our freedoms for everyone but if they continue to fail and mass shootings continue to happen then there are incremental steps they can take without taking guns and without tracking guns. Here are some ideas, just spitballing here so some of them may be bad ideas. And don’t poke too many holes in these suggestions because I don’t want to write a book here trying to close all the loopholes and explain all the exceptions.
- Require guns be locked out of sight or carried at all times. I think there are laws like this in many places but it should be everywhere. It’s about knowing where your gun is and having control of it at all times.
- Require a cosigner for every gun purchase. This could look a million different ways but most likely it would have to be someone that knows you well. This is to involve a third-party (not the government) into the transaction which could be a deterrent to wrongdoing. The only way around this would be to pay for a thorough background check/behavioral assessment.
- Further classify every gun model. Right now guns are basically legal or illegal. They can go a step further: home/personal defense, hunting, sport, constitutional defense. Just classifying guns won’t physically change anything and may not need to go any further but it can help shape people’s views and can be used for other laws.
- restrict non-personal/home defense guns from the home. This is the compromise; you own the gun so you can maintain your 2nd Amendment rights but someone can’t just grab an AR-15 out of the closet when they want to go shoot up a school. The idea here is that you store your AK-47 at a commercial, Co-op, or militia arms storage facility. They will release your weapon to you under certain conditions like: going to a range, changing storage facilities, and militia activities. This way you have accountability by having a (non-government) third party involved. If the program went well, it could open the door for allowing other types of weapons to be owned and unregistered, like automatic weapons.
To wrap this up, I’ll tell you like I tell my kids, “be considerate” and “use your words”.