When it comes to guns per capita, gun homicides, gun suicides and mass shootings, America outdoes every high-income country in the world multiple times over. We own the most guns and shoot the most people. And, as anyone who reads the news can attest, we fight about gun control often and at length. We’re familiar with Republicans and Democrats duking it out on the issue, despite having adopted their relative positions without any real mooring in their party ideology. With that in mind, the opinion section has decided to host a productive discussion on gun control that attempts to come to a reasonable, achievable conclusion rather than merely partisan bickering. Linden Atelsek, who feels negatively about the presence of guns in our society, and Dan Nelson, who feels positively about it, critically examined their own views and then discussed them together to create a resolution they could both agree to.
Dan:
Like many, my relationship with guns began at a young age. I still have fond memories of going hunting and shooting with my dad and cousins on my uncle’s property in the middle of Georgia. Such an upbringing during these formative years is not uncommon among gun owners and, in many ways, it influences how many of us view guns when we grow older. We view guns as tools that, if used safely and with respect, can be both useful and fun. I was always taught to follow the golden rules of gun safety and that gun ownership, even as a constitutionally protected right, came with a responsibility to be a good citizen.
With age, however, I came to see guns in a different light. No longer were they exclusive to fond family memories, rather they were ubiquitous in much of the crime and violence we see in America today. Few gun owners — despite what many who don’t like guns believe — are callous to the reality of gun violence in America. We see the same news you do and are not impassive to the staggering toll, but we believe that gun rights and gun crime can be reconciled without the all too common knee-jerk reaction of banning or severely limiting gun ownership.
Guns, after all, have multiple purposes in America. We use them when hunting both for food and for conservation purposes. We use them in a variety of sports. We rely on them for self-defense. Legal gun owners are not the problem, criminals and other ineligible parties are. A quick look at other countries with high gun ownership, like Canada, Finland and Switzerland, clearly shows that high legal gun ownership doesn’t necessarily result in higher homicide rates.
With that in mind, we must consider guns as what they are — tools. A crowbar can be used in a number of harmless ways, but it can also be used by criminals to break into your car. In much the same way, guns can be used for good or for bad. Getting guns out of the hands of criminals should be the goal, not taking them from the large number of responsible, legal gun owners.
Linden:
The idea that fewer guns mean fewer deaths seems simple to me. Statistics back me up, for the most part — studies show higher rates of gun ownership correlate to higher rates of gun death. Countries that aren’t us just don’t have the same kind of gun violence we do. Japan virtually outlawing gun ownershiphas led to them experiencing as few as six incidents of gun-related deaths in 2014, whereas America had 33,594. Australia’s gun restrictions have given the country over two decades free of mass shootings, whereas the U.S. in the same amount of time has had hundreds. It feels obvious that those statistics would improve if we could severely restrict gun ownership and use the way other countries have.
I’m not ignorant of the practical considerations stacked against my argument — namely, that the U.S. isn’t Japan or Australia. I know gun rights are enshrined in our constitution and our culture in a way they aren’t other places in the world, so we’re unlikely to be able to pass the sort of sweeping gun control that those countries did. I also acknowledge that there are people in America (like farmers and subsistence hunters) who need to be able to own and use guns. But disregarding those factors, I’d be in favor of the idea of outlawing as much unnecessary gun ownership as possible.
I don’t see how America can be surprised by our high rates of gun homicide, suicide and mass shootings when we’re keeping guns so available. There are a few demographic factors (being male, for instance) that predict gun violence, but none of them are really practical to keep guns out of the hands of people who are going to hurt other people with them. If we don’t know what generates violent incidents, I think it’s best to believe the worst of everyone.
Our resolution:
Most Americans want some kind of gun control. We're no different.
What kind of gun control, however, is a debated issue. We spent about an hour and a half arguing about what kind would be reasonable, practical and able to pass in a sane government.
We agreed at the outset — some of the conventional wisdom about how gun control should work is more hysterical panic than rational precaution. As much as semi-automatic rifles, or "assault rifles," are often demonized, banning them wouldn't substantially reduce gun violence, since the grand majority of incidents involve handguns. The effort of fighting for a ban would probably be better expended on provisions that would save more lives. Likewise, while banning the mentally ill from owning guns would take more guns off the streets, it would be similarly useless at substantially reducing gun violence and discriminatory to boot.
We also have to assume that in a sane world, no Congress members would put in extra provisions that would sink these restrictions and that no Congress members are so far into the pocket of the NRA that no gun control at all would be allowed to pass. Human incompetence and corruption aside, these are the few measures we could agree on that would reduce gun suicides, homicides and mass shootings.
First, closing the private sale loophole. That is a piece of conventional wisdom on gun control that has merit. Currently, only sellers licensed by the federal government to sell guns, FFLs, are required to conduct background checks before selling guns. There's a clear problem with that — it allows people an easy, obvious way to circumvent a system meant to make gun ownership safer for the general public. We believe that background checks should be required for all gun purchases, even it does make private sales a tad more inconvenient.
However, the background check system itself needs reform. There are a number of ways people slip through — the military doesn't communicate well enough with the FBI, for example, to prevent service members with disqualifying information in their background to be excluded, and the whole system is underfunded, leading to processing holdups, false negatives, and, more concerningly, false positives. Simply put, we need the system to function. We must increase funding for this database, as well as set up a quick and efficient channel of communication between the relevant agencies to be sure nothing slips through the cracks.
That's mostly bureaucratic wheel-greasing. We also believe that red flags in a background check — an arrest for domestic violence, for example — should trigger harsher scrutiny than they currently do. The FBI clearly doesn't have the time or manpower to perform in-depth, interview-heavy background checks on everyone who tries to buy a gun, but in cases where there are reasons to believe that there might be a problem, it seems only reasonable to introduce more checks if preventing gun violence is truly the goal.
We know that it's a risky proposition to suggest an arrest with no conviction should be a discriminating factor, but domestic violence is a unique crime. For one, it is strongly linked to mass shootings. It is also frequently difficult to get battered significant others to press charges due to fear or a misplaced sense of loyalty, a tendency which we have acknowledged with other laws, like warrantless arrest for domestic violence cases. However, to prevent taking away someone's rights based on a crime they have not been convicted of, a robust appeals process must be built into the system to lower false positives due to the method we're proposing.
Once someone has legally bought a gun, when and where should they be allowed to have it?
We agreed almost instantly that constitutional carry should be abolished. There's no good reason to need permit-less, limitless carry, and the danger of allowing anyone to carry a gun anywhere without training far exceeds the small burden of requiring licensure and training. However, the training currently required by concealed carry laws is basically a joke in many states. It must be longer and more rigorous than the current set of classes to ensure that licensed, armed people know how to carry, use, store and maintain their guns safely and reduce the number of deaths and injuries due to accidental discharge.
One restriction that might have easily passed after the Las Vegas shooting was an outlawing of bump stocks. But that law hasn't really come to fruition nationally. Bump stocks — and other modifications that violate the spirit of the law against fully automatic weapons — should be outlawed.
One of the biggest issues with gun violence in America is the prevalence of trafficked, illegal firearms. About 50,000 guns are trafficked illegally across state lines, generally from states with laxer gun laws to those with tougher ones. These guns are used in a variety of crimes across the country, from armed robbery to murder. The majority are stolen, and others come from what is known as "straw purchases" Because of this, we think that mandatory reporting of firearm loss must be a part of reasonable gun control. Plenty of states happen to have this type of law, and it gives law enforcement a better chance at recovering and returning the firearm. Furthermore, tougher penalties are needed to even begin to tackle this issue.
Most of all, we agreed that one of the reasons it was so difficult to us to find reliable scientific information on gun control to support our respective arguments is that gun control research in this country has been stifled since 1996 by the Dickey Amendment. The NRA at that time accused the CDC of promoting gun control and Congress threatened them with funding loss if it continued its research, which has essentially put the kibosh on all gun control research for the last 21 years.
Partisan politics should never be allowed to shut down scientific study. If we have to remain ignorant of facts to support our positions, our positions are not worth defending.
The most important measure to take to keep Americans safe from guns without violating Second Amendment rights is to allow research into how to make that possible.