Arkady
President
There's an idea, often discussed in law school, that "hard cases make bad law." It's a very old saying which basically comes down to the concept that it's a bad idea to set law based on extreme cases -- that the law will serve better if it's crafted with more common cases in mind.
I think this is an important thing to keep in mind when it comes to gun policy. Regardless of where you lie on the gun control spectrum, there's a problem with deebating the issues primarily in light of mass shootings, when those are relatively rare. Every year, over 30,000 people are killed by firearms in this country. Of those, only a few dozen will be victims of mass shootings. So, setting policy on the basis of those rare occurrences is problematic.
This point should inject a note of caution into both sides of the gun control argument. For example, it calls into question the great emphasis gun-control advocates place on assault weapons, semi-automatics generally, and magazine capacity. Although gun control that addresses those things would, over the long term, probably mean fewer lives lost in mass shootings, so few are lost in such events, that the life savings are going to be quite minimal relative to the political capital expended.
On the other side of the argument, it also undermines the "good guy with a gun" case against gun control. It's admittedly possible that if more club-goers had concealed firearms on their persons, the Orlando shooting would have had a lower death toll, since someone might have killed the shooter before he could kill so many people. But, such events are so rare that the benefit could easily be outweighed by the cost in extra lives lost to more ordinary shootings (e.g., the many cases where what would have been a garden-variety bar brawl instead wound up as a murder --or self-defense homicide-- because one or more participants had a firearm at hand).
I understand the urge of gun control advocates to look for the "low hanging fruit," from a political perspective. It's hard to push anything past the anti-gun-control absolutists, so it's tempting to take on the issue in some fringe way that won't impact the vast majority of gun owners (e.g., banning assault weapons). But, it's likely to be only marginally effective, and it may actually be counter-productive in the big picture (wasting lots of political capital on something where the gains, even if achieved, might be immeasurably small). Better to think about guns in the context of the most common killings -- either suicides or murders of close friends and family (e.g., someone shooting his wife).
One thing we need to do is get the CDC to study these issues much more extensively, so we have good data to work with. For example, consider the possibility of imposing a universal waiting period for new gun buyers. The likely effectiveness of that measure could be estimated by looking into what percentage of gun deaths occur within certain periods of the acquisition of the firearm. If a disproportionate share occur within, say, the first week of acquisition (e.g., a "heat of the moment" purchase followed by a "heat of the moment" killing), it suggests that a mandatory "cooling off period" before someone can get his hands on a gun may save a bunch of lives (while doing nothing to prevent the formation of a well-regulated militia). If, on the other hand, killings happen no more often in that first week than in an average week after that, then such a rule would just be an inconvenience with no benefit. Knowing which requires good data.
I think this is an important thing to keep in mind when it comes to gun policy. Regardless of where you lie on the gun control spectrum, there's a problem with deebating the issues primarily in light of mass shootings, when those are relatively rare. Every year, over 30,000 people are killed by firearms in this country. Of those, only a few dozen will be victims of mass shootings. So, setting policy on the basis of those rare occurrences is problematic.
This point should inject a note of caution into both sides of the gun control argument. For example, it calls into question the great emphasis gun-control advocates place on assault weapons, semi-automatics generally, and magazine capacity. Although gun control that addresses those things would, over the long term, probably mean fewer lives lost in mass shootings, so few are lost in such events, that the life savings are going to be quite minimal relative to the political capital expended.
On the other side of the argument, it also undermines the "good guy with a gun" case against gun control. It's admittedly possible that if more club-goers had concealed firearms on their persons, the Orlando shooting would have had a lower death toll, since someone might have killed the shooter before he could kill so many people. But, such events are so rare that the benefit could easily be outweighed by the cost in extra lives lost to more ordinary shootings (e.g., the many cases where what would have been a garden-variety bar brawl instead wound up as a murder --or self-defense homicide-- because one or more participants had a firearm at hand).
I understand the urge of gun control advocates to look for the "low hanging fruit," from a political perspective. It's hard to push anything past the anti-gun-control absolutists, so it's tempting to take on the issue in some fringe way that won't impact the vast majority of gun owners (e.g., banning assault weapons). But, it's likely to be only marginally effective, and it may actually be counter-productive in the big picture (wasting lots of political capital on something where the gains, even if achieved, might be immeasurably small). Better to think about guns in the context of the most common killings -- either suicides or murders of close friends and family (e.g., someone shooting his wife).
One thing we need to do is get the CDC to study these issues much more extensively, so we have good data to work with. For example, consider the possibility of imposing a universal waiting period for new gun buyers. The likely effectiveness of that measure could be estimated by looking into what percentage of gun deaths occur within certain periods of the acquisition of the firearm. If a disproportionate share occur within, say, the first week of acquisition (e.g., a "heat of the moment" purchase followed by a "heat of the moment" killing), it suggests that a mandatory "cooling off period" before someone can get his hands on a gun may save a bunch of lives (while doing nothing to prevent the formation of a well-regulated militia). If, on the other hand, killings happen no more often in that first week than in an average week after that, then such a rule would just be an inconvenience with no benefit. Knowing which requires good data.
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