1) The reference to the 2nd Amendment as a constitutional right for every private citizen to bear arms is simply ridiculous. I learned this in my undergraduate constitutional law course and it holds true. Here is a great article on the topic. It is long, but well referenced and worth the read. The TL;DR for it is basically this: the legal proceedings to uphold the notion that the 2nd Amendment supports private gun ownership were politically motivated and extremely contorted. Also, it makes absolutely no sense for a government to build in a way for the populace to fight against an unjust government. That is like saying “You must obey the speed limit at all times except when you think it is OK not to.”

None of this is to say that the constitution prohibits private gun ownership. Merely that the 2nd Amendment supporting it is nothing less than a ludicrous bit of motivated reasoning.

2) Most discussions re: gun control suffer from the Nirvana fallacy. Just because gun control won’t eliminate violent crime or even gun deaths doesn’t mean it isn’t reasonable to lower gun deaths. As Dr. Novella pointed out, we trade the necessity and utility of driving for the inevitable deaths that occur (same as we trade the necessity and utility of modern medicine for the inevitable deaths that occur) while at the same time working hard to mitigate those deaths. The problem is that gun ownership has vastly less legitimate utility and need than car ownership. The analogy to race cars is a valid one – though a consideration missed (though pointed out tangentially) is the cost of ownership. Most really high end and fast sports cars are prohibitively expensive. The same cannot be said for guns. Lastly, one commenter said that the prevention of life lost is somehow not valid because the killing of 13 vs 26 would be equally tragic (in a statistical sense so to speak) and that realization of the decrease could not occur prospectively. That is pretty ridiculous. That is akin to saying we shouldn’t care about preventing terrorist attacks because we can never know if we actually prevented something that never happened.

3) The bottom line is important. Gun ownership is simply not worth even one single life. Even one single life that was only maybe saved by not owning a gun. I really enjoy guns and shooting. I would gladly sign away my right to ever own one if I knew it would save 1 life. Even if I was told it would only have a 10% or 1% chance of saving a single life it would still be worthwhile. Nobody needs to own a gun to survive*, live a fulfilled life, or any other need. Thus the threshold for being more restrictive is necessarily and reasonably lower.

4) Just as in cars we use other means to diminish harms, the same can and should be done with guns. The issue is multifactorial as we have established and so numerous changes could and should be implemented for a desired outcome and even indirectly acting measures are quite reasonable (lowering magazine capacity for example). I cannot think of an argument against making every aspect of using a gun to kill someone shouldn’t be made harder, regardless of what the individual effect size might actually prove to be. Both because the additive effects are more interesting and because we should err on the side of caution in these cases and be willing to be more restrictive than necessary due to the bottom line (as described above). I’d rather be wrong that decreasing magazine capacity will decrease deaths and still do it anyways, than be wrong about the association and not legislate to save a life.

5) I agree with the proposed criminality of losing control of your gun. I also agree that if all reasonable precautions are taken the penalty should be lighter. But making the onus of responsibility on the owner seems like a very reasonable thing to do. You don’t need a gun and even if you do, you are taking ownership of a device designed to be lethal. You should bear an extra burden to ensure it is not used to illegally take life or injure someone (or something). You also don’t need a car (many people get by on public transport, walking, biking, carpooling) but if you take on the ownership of one – whether for pleasure or necessity – you are already required to take extra burden to ensure you have proper safety training and licensure. I would also argue those standards need to be raised and more stringent as well, but that is another discussion.

Lastly, I will reference this post and comments for future conversation I have regarding this topic. This is an exemplar of how proper rational discussion should proceed even when people disagree. Thanks to everyone for reminding me there is sanity in this world.

*For those that genuinely need a gun for subsistence hunting – which in the US is probably a small number – then the onus should be on them to demonstrate this. They already need to go somewhere to buy the gun and get a hunting license, and already need to go through hunting safety classes so the argument that this would be an undue burden on those with already diminished resources seems fallacious to me. Furthemore, those that are genuinely that impoverished are likely already hunting illegally and the laws wouldn’t change that. Inclusion of a compassion clause to allow such (I would suspect not commonly occurring) folks to demonstrate need and have a free of discounted permit issuance with no further criminal or civil penalty would then completely mitigate the issue. And lastly, none of this affects the discussion on what kinds of guns should be allowed. No subsistence hunter could possibly have need for fully automatic guns or even handguns.

Steve, you have Australia, Canada, the UK and Japan to draw some good evidence from to start. All have gun restriction laws in place and all have very low levels of gun homicide compared to the US where there are some 300 million guns in circulation. It’s a no-brainer that this is at least a MAJOR factor in the huge levels of gun violence your country deals with. The data in social science is rarely this clear. They strongly suggest that you have so much more gun violence than other countries because you have far more permissive laws than others regarding the sale and possession of guns. With 5% of the world’s population, the United States has 50% of the guns.

Suggesting you need more evidence is like asking for more evidence that jumping out of an airplane without a parachute may be dangerous. We’re still not certain …

IF SO:
In the presence of impaired mental functioning (e.g., Schizophrenia, Delirium), I think we might well expect video games to give rise to violent outbursts like Newtown.

IF SO:
We should act to restrict both video games and guns. Plus increase our vigilance for the onset of major mental illness… we have the computer power to prevent an ill person falling into a world where reasonable boundaries between real and make-believe disappear.

So insist on etymological accuracy all you want but know if you come to the great northwest, you better call it a “clip” or expose yourself as alien, yankee, urbane, or fay.

As always you worded this very well. It was nice to hear the opinions of some one close to the situation.

~K

Yes we surely do. Resources are bad, but even where they are good, we have a findamental problem with individual rights in mental health. I work here, and I can’t tell you the number of times family members have been aware of significant health mental health issues in a loved one, but they (and the earnest workers around them) have been unable to act due to the right to refuse treatment. Schizophrenics sleeping under the overpass – and family members devastated. There has to be a middle ground between forced institutionaliaztion and the free for all where people in need are able to refuse care and end up getting lost to the penal system. Surely there is a better way!

“So, it comes down to this: What kind of America do we want to live in? One where everybody carries a gun and is ready at a moment’s notice to kill their fellow citizens if the situation calls for it? Or the kind where we willingly surrender the ability to depersonalize killing someone, surrender our Rambo/Wild West fantasies and choose as a nation to stop the guns at the border?”

Thanks for seeing the wood for the trees; for giving voice to the bottom line.

In Australia, after the Port Arthur massacre, most of us voluntarily surrendered our guns. And there wasn’t even any buy back scheme. And those who wanted to keep them had to apply for a licence which included police and mental health checks and were required to keep their guns under lock and key.
There really was no significant outcry.

One massacre, of course, doesn’t prove anything about the negatives or positives of gun ownership, but it seems to me that we went with the sentiments expressed in your last paragraph and chose to have a society in which we were happier to live. The massacre was an excuse to get this thing done and those with any sense realised that this was the case and just pushed it through.
Here’s hoping Americans have the same sense.

Further – we need serious mental health reform. Prisons are our de facto institutions because of lack of needed resources.

A couple of points here that I’ll put up besides my correction: First, fully fund and provide a director for the BATFE. Second, fully fund the national background check system, and mandate the inclusion of those judged to be mentally unstable to the point they pose a risk of harm to themselves or others. Finally, I add the suggestion — make the background check system mandatory for all firearms transactions, but place the burden on the buyer. Make the buyer certify that they have no history in their past which would preclude them from legally owning a firearm. This could be done by secure web server handled by either the FBI or the BATFE, and include one of those “instant link” splotches used in advertising that would bring up a confirmation page at the government website. Place the burden of proof on the buyer, under penalty of perjury.