Following the horrible shooting episode at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut (USA) a little over a week ago, I ended up in discussions with friends “across the pond” in England about gun control. I personally am reasonably neutral about the gun control issue for several reasons – I grew up in England and lived in Canada for 25 years, with both countries having a fairly good degree of gun control (the UK greater of course), so I recognise that gun control can work to reduce crime. For the same reasons, I do not throw my hands up in horror when the issue is discussed – I’ve held gun licenses and did not resent having to do so. The difference in crime rates per capita between Canada/UK and the USA involving guns is dramatic, and indeed, the murder rate differences per capita are significant. As I’ve always maintained, if no gun is involved and you plan on murdering someone, you are going to have to get up close and personal to do it – and that can be messy, and can discourage some people. It’s very impersonal to be able to stand 10 feet away and do the same thing by pulling a trigger. This may start to sound as though I’m about to expound in favour of gun control, but that’s not where I’m going – I’m just stating some basic facts the way I see them. As the contrary position to the foregoing, I own guns – quite a few of them – and have for years, having been given my first air-rifle at the age of 13, and I use guns regularly.
Several of my European friends upon hearing of the CT killings immediately jumped on the gun control bandwagon, which resulted in me responding with some arguments against the practicality of implementing a control based solely on the number of guns that are present in the USA. When I started researching the numbers, it was quite amazing to me, even though I was already aware of the fact that there were huge numbers of guns present in the USA. My first response to the discussion ran like this:
The gun issue in the USA is not a simple black and white issue. Logic in the the wake of a disaster like this certainly dictates “gun control”, but – quite beside the fact that gun ownership is enshrined in the 2nd amendment to the Constitution (not the 8th), which presents a host of issues in itself – there is the simple fact that there are so many guns floating around in the USA that to suddenly say “OK, from tomorrow all guns must be licensed” would result in a significant number simply never being registered. So then what? OK, so one says “if an unlicensed gun is used in a crime, prosecute the owner”, but that won’t prevent the crime, which is the real desire of any licensing/registration.
About 12 years ago, Canada – which does have some restriction on firearms, although not as stringent as the UK (for example, I wanted to get a pistol for use as a humane killer, but was advised that although I could get a license to get the pistol, I would only be able to legally use it on a range!!) – decided it was going to require registration of all “long arms” (shotguns/rifles etc.) which hitherto had not been registered. At a huge cost a licensing program was set up and people were required to register. The problem was that it quickly became apparent that significant percentage of people were not registering. To actually enforce the Act would have required far more police than were available! Some people were charged when unlicensed guns were found in premises as an adjunct to other police activity, but the reality of the situation was that the requirement to register was not only controversial (most of those not registering were not doing so as an act of civil disobedience), but it simply wasn’t working. Several years ago the requirement to register long arms in Canada was dropped and earlier this year, the long arm registry was disbanded and the records destroyed. It ended up being a multi-billion dollar waste of money. And Canada has far fewer guns and people than the USA!
So based upon the Canadian experience, the avid resistance of many of the US gun-owning fraternity, and the practicality aspect involving the sheer number of guns, trying to require licensing and registration in the USA would almost certainly end in the same way as it did in Canada.
It can be difficult for a European to get an idea of just how many guns there are here in the USA. Depending upon who is visiting us, one of “sights” I might take people to see is a visit to one of the local gun shops. The vast majority of pawn shops are also gun dealers and our local pawn shop here carries thousands of different guns. Of course, the vast majority of reasonable-sized towns have a pawn shop – and note that this is pawn shops, not gun shops – so simple math starts to bring the numbers involved into focus. And gun shops exist as well as pawn shops!! The number of guns present is mind-boggling.
With regard to the Constitutional 2nd amendment issue – “the right to bear arms” – one is dealing with something that is on a par with (in many American people’s minds) something like the Monarchy in Britain. It is so deeply enshrined that although there are some who dislike it, it is unlikely to change. It is of course easy to poke holes in its logic – it was originally in place to prevent suppression of the population by an overly-controlling Government (such as they had just experienced in 1776 with the Brits.), so one was looking at flintlocks etc. Firearms were also of course essential for survival in the early days of American civilisation to obtain food and for protection against “marauding Indians” and predatory animals. But today, that same amendment has been taken to mean that one has an enshrined right to carry assault weapons. Furthermore, one has to wonder what would happen if one were to mount insurrection against what one perceives as a suppressive Government in the USA today – I think it would not go well (perhaps an introduction of gun control will show that!! Remember Waco?). So the 2nd amendment is truly redundant in form and function, but it is one of the parts of the Constitution, and if one starts fiddling around with that, there is a very strong question about where it would end! Incidentally, the 2nd amendment is not the only Constitutional issue that could be raised in connection with regulation of guns, as the 4th and 5th amendments – the 4th prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and sets out requirements for search warrants based on probable cause; the 5th sets out rules for indictment by grand jury and eminent domain, protects the right to due process, and prohibits self-incrimination and double jeopardy – for example how does one charge someone with not registering a firearm if one cannot truly know that they have it (“just cause” is required for a warrant for search of a property)? Maybe not totally insurmountable, but it certainly makes it more difficult…
Finally, one has to look at what existing laws are actually in place and what difference they have made. In the case of Connecticut, it is a legal requirement that one be 21 years of age before owning a gun. The shooter at Sandy Hook was 20, so obviously that didn’t make any difference. What it boils down to is that we’re back to there being so many guns around that it is easy for someone who is really determined to get hold of one. Why did the family involved have guns? Well, of course there are many potential reasons, but in this particular case, it has been reported that the Mother was of the mindset that there was a potential apocalypse coming following a financial crash and that it was therefore necessary to have firearms for protection against insurrection when it happened. There are a variety of similarly-minded people in the USA (and probably elsewhere in the world) – and do you really believe that if the demand to license and register firearms is issued that they and their ilk are going to do so????
So – no easy solution to US gun control. It’s easy to think of what appears to be a perfectly logical solution, but when one really looks at it, it’s not that simple.
So my argument was such that because of the numbers involved, there was no way to control the guns present in the USA. Not unreasonably, my British friend – and one must remember that the Brits are quite used to gun control and in fact within the last 10-20 years, following a similar mass-murder situation at a school in Scotland saw a complete ban on handguns in the UK enacted to the point where not even the Olympic shooting team are permitted to practice in the UK – retorted that “surely a severe limitation on any form of multiple fire weapon would be a start”. Well, yes, I replied, but… and I followed up with some statistics that actually included numbers from reasonably reliable sources (it’s very difficult to accurately determine how many guns are present in the USA simply because there have been no records kept):
One would think that a “severe limitation” would be a start, until one actually starts looking at estimated numbers. Obviously a reduction is a reduction, but we’re quite literally talking pissing in the ocean. When I said it’s hard to comprehend the number of guns in the USA, it’s not only hard to comprehend, but hard to even accurately estimate. A quick search of the Internet for a review of statistics immediately reveals a variation in estimates. The ABC (BBC equivalent) has an interesting article which gives some stats. (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/08/guns-in-america-a-statistical-look/):
“There are more than 129,817 federally licensed firearms dealers in the United States, according to the latest Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives numbers (as of Aug. 1) . Of those, 51,438 are retail gun stores, 7,356 are pawn shops and 61,562 are collectors, with the balance of the licenses belonging mostly to manufacturers and importers of firearms and destructive devices.
For comparison, here are some numbers of other ubiquitous elements of American life:
- Gas Stations in the U.S. (2011): 143,839 (source TD LINX/Nielsen via National Associations of Convenience Stores, Association for Convenience for Convenience and Fuel Retailing)
- Grocery Stores in the U.S. (2011) 36,569 (source: Food Marketing Institute)
- McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. (2011): 14,098 (Source: McDonald’s Corporation Annual Report 2011)”
The FBI estimates there are over 200 million firearms in the country! That equates to almost one gun to each adult resident. Another set of statistics presented in the “Small Arms Survey 2007) suggests 88.8 guns for every 100 people, so again, a reasonably close number to the FBI estimate.
Even considering that not all of those weapons will be “multiple fire”, a significant proportion would be (I would guess probably in the region of 75%), so lets say that there are 150,000,000 (one-hundred and fifty million!!!) affected weapons. So a reduction of 50% (which would never happen) would still leave 75 million multiple-fire weapons at liberty in the USA!!
As I said, it’s hard for a European to get an accurate impression of the issue and the number of guns over here…!
For another piece of incredible US gun-related trivia, take a look at the Guardian article http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state Here’s a mind-boggling statistic from that article:
“… the murder figures themselves are astounding for Brits used to around 550 murders per year. In 2011 – the latest year for which detailed statistics are available – there were 12,664 murders in the US. Of those, 8,583 were caused by firearms.”
So once again I have to say, there really is no easy answer related to gun control, and although there is no doubt that if there were controls put back in place to remove assault weapons it would have a potential to reduce the threat, one has to question by how much, simply because there are so many out there that would not be turned in. There is a certain amount of poignant truth in the gun-lobby argument that only a good person with a gun will stop a bad person with a gun…
Another portion of the discussion which deserves merit is the part that the media plays in sensationalising the murderers in these situations – turning them into anti-heroes. To someone with a warped mind, this has to have a potential effect of their believing that they can “go down in a hail of anti-fame and bullets”. I commented on that to my friend in the following manner:
An interesting piece of prose that has been circulating the Internet and has been attributed to Morgan Freeman (although he is not the author and that aspect is a hoax) is truly worthy of thought no matter who wrote it. It asks “Why did this [the Connecticut shooting] happen”:
” You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here’s why. It’s because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine?
Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he’ll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.
CNN’s article says that if the body count “holds up”, this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer’s face on all their reports for hours.
Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer’s identity? None that I’ve seen yet. Because they don’t sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you’ve just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.
You can help by forgetting you ever read this man’s name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news.”
I do think that there is more than a grain of truth in that. The sensationalism created by the media certainly does have the potential to encourage a warped mind to seek the spotlight in some cases.
I have thoughts on other causes that are present in daily life in modern society, and I will expound on those in future blog posts, but I think the above is enough for the moment…!
