Eric Sentell shoots down the argument that “if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”
Not long after the Newtown shooting, I discussed gun control with an older man whom I respect greatly. An honorable, good man in every way that matters. So even though he disagreed with me, I took what he said very seriously.
I suggested we should ban assault-style weapons and limit the capacity of magazines. An avid hunter and devoted NRA-member, he asked, “Why? So I can’t have one?”
Then he argued that criminals will obtain any weapon or magazine they wish on the black market whereas law-abiding citizens like himself wouldn’t get to enjoy their second amendment rights. He added that mass shootings will happen regardless of any laws, that they can’t be prevented.
When I pointed out the far lower crime and murder rates in countries with much stricter gun laws, he answered, “No, they just have suicide bombings.” I clarified that I meant developed countries like Germany and Japan, but my point still wasn’t persuasive.
More recently, I retweeted a call for universal background checks: “Why wouldn’t anyone want to make it harder for a criminal to get a gun?” To which another person replied, “A dangerous criminal will get their hands on a gun no matter how difficult.” When I asked if that was sufficient reason to let it be easy, I heard about the downside of infringing on law-abiding citizens as well as criminals.
To summarize, “Bad people will do bad things no matter how hard we might try to stop them, so why try things that also hinder good people?” Many people would add that guns prevent crime, but as this article points out, this claim is so questionable even the gun lobby has largely abandoned it. Rather, fatalism and the right to enjoy guns are today’s main arguments against gun control.
After both of these conversations, I asked myself about the value in fatalism. I wondered: Should I accept that tragedies will happen occasionally? Should I accept that neither I nor society can do anything to prevent them? Should I place the freedom and rights of millions of responsible gun-owners above striving to prevent gun crime, especially the statistically rare mass shootings that most motivate gun control efforts?
I concluded there is significant value in a certain acceptance of tragedy. I tried it on, and I felt some freedom in shrugging off Newtown, Aurora, Gabby Giffords, VA Tech, and Columbine as just a few notable examples of the unpredictable, unpreventable violence of the world’s inevitable psychopaths. I no longer felt responsible for doing anything about it. After all, I didn’t shoot anyone.
Besides, one can’t shoulder the burdens of all the problems in the world. There is too much evil for any human or human-made system to address. There will always be pain, there will always be tragedy, there will always be hardship. And if I can’t change it, if my government can’t change it, then at least I and my government can leave the good people alone.
But then I considered the underlying values behind this tendency to shrug off the occurrence of mass shootings and other evil in favor of preserving the freedom of the law-abiding.
And I decided, if people want to be left alone so badly that they’ll shrug off tragedy after tragedy, that they’ll accept easier access to guns for people who shouldn’t have access to any kind of weapon, then there is something defeatist in them that ought to be, well, defeated.
To put it another way, I refuse to accept that we’re powerless to prevent tragedies, that we can’t make the world at least a little bit better place. Perhaps most importantly, I refuse to separate efforts to prevent or minimize gun crimes from similar efforts to prevent or minimize other types of tragedies.
Following fatalistic logic, we shouldn’t bother trying to prevent future terrorist attacks since “dangerous terrorists will get their hands on weapons of mass destruction no matter how difficult” and the Patriot Act, TSA bag searches, taking off our shoes, going through metal detectors, and so forth all infringe upon the law-abiding masses as well as the rare terrorist. We should’ve just shrugged off 9/11 as a notable example of the unpreventable, unpredictable violence of the world’s inevitable psychopaths.
But that’s not how we responded to 9/11, and that’s not how we should respond to either terrorism or gun crime now. Even the NRA advocates doing something: arming “good guys with guns,” including teachers, as the only sure-fire way to stop “bad guys with guns.” The logic of the premise is undeniable, and its heroic idealism has great appeal. But this idea won’t seem so great when a student or group of students overpowers a teacher and uses the gun to kill others.
Nonetheless, I’m open to the idea of arming and training teachers, resource officers, and other “good guys” if it can be done in a safe, reasonable way. Though I believe in gun control, my argument in this essay is not that we should adopt any particular measure. Rather, my argument is that we should reject the notion that we can’t do anything and instead have an open-minded discussion about what we can and should do.
Some object, quite reasonably, that we shouldn’t sacrifice liberty for security, and thus we should leave the laws like they are. I also value liberty above security, but let’s not be dogmatic about it. Though Ben Franklin said people who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither, he also didn’t stick around in places taken over by the British Army out of a refusal to give up the freedom to be where he wanted when he wanted.
So, is it that unreasonable to require law-abiding citizens at gun shows to undergo the same background check as law-abiding citizens at gun stores? Would banning thirty-round magazines infringe on second amendment rights, self-defense, hunting, or recreational shooting any more than the long-standing ban on full-metal jacket rounds? And why isn’t the liberty to see a movie or attend first grade without fear comparable to the liberty to own any type of gun one wishes?
I realize an assault-weapons ban and new magazine restrictions won’t prevent determined criminals from obtaining assault weapons and high capacity magazines, especially since there are already so many in existence. I also realize an expert can modify magazines quite easily or simply change magazines in an eye-blink. I’m not at all suggesting that gun control will make gun crime disappear.
But I just don’t understand why we should make things easy for the criminals and the psychologically disturbed. Shouldn’t a mentally ill person with homicidal tendencies have to hunt high and low for some black market arms dealer? Shouldn’t such a person have to develop the expertise required to switch magazines in a flash? Shouldn’t they be forced to devote significant prep time to their crimes, during which they might calm down and realize murder-suicide isn’t their best option? How many future mass shootings might be prevented by the simple barriers of time and expertise?
Consider this: The Aurora shooter, James Holmes, rigged booby traps in his apartment. They failed because of his lack of skill. But what if he could have gone to an explosives show and purchased powerful, easy-to-deploy death traps without any type of background check? Arguably, many lives were saved precisely because obtaining or creating booby traps isn’t as easy as obtaining and using military-grade guns. I wonder, how many lives might have been saved if Holmes hadn’t been able to fire so many rounds so quickly?
Or think about this: The same day Adam Lanza killed twenty-six people at Sandy Hook Elementary, a man entered an elementary school in China with a knife and wounded twenty-seven students. Yes, people kill people, but guns make it much easier. Military-style guns make it even easier. Military-style guns in the hands of psychopaths make it almost inevitable. So the next time someone absolves the gun as a mere tool, the next time someone snidely suggests banning knives or hammers, ask that person how difficult (mass) murder ought to be.
But allowing easy gun access for criminals and psychopaths means that it’s also easy for me: that I’m left alone, that I don’t have to undergo an inconvenient and unnecessary background check, that I can fire a couple hundred rounds a minute just for the sheer fun of it. I’ll grant the right to enjoy anything that doesn’t harm others. Yet in my opinion, none of that justifies opposing any and all gun control efforts any more than it justifies giving up on preventing terrorism.
We won’t — we can’t — prevent every tragedy, but we’re wrong to reject reasonable measures and inconveniences that might make tragedies harder to achieve — and thus rarer and smaller. When it comes to gun control, fatalism and dogmatism are subtle forms of defeatism that we ought to reject.
Read more about Guns on The Good Life.
Image credit: Official U.S. Navy Imagery/Flickr
No offense taken really, but I did want to clarify. This is actually a much better place to do that than Facebook given how wordy the clarification was.
In no way, shape, or form was I suggesting that we do nothing to prevent these horrific crimes from happening. I am suggesting that we target criminals first and foremost before we enact laws and policies that also hinder law abiding citizens. I don’t think any one good decent person is going to protest an inconvenience such as stricter background checks if it will help the greater good. However, I think many people feel that we have moved past the point of mere inconvenience into infringement on basic rights. This does not just apply to stricter gun control laws. It… Read more »
Wow, I’m sorry if I offended you. I was just expressing my opinion the same way you expressed and wish to express yours. I guess I misunderstood your point. Sorry.
I don’t leave my protection and safety in the hands of others. Get rid of your gun if you want. My Jericho 941 is staying right here.
No one, including me, is suggesting getting rid of guns.
From an outsider looking in, it never ceases to amaze me that in the US, it is usually the far right and gun owners who sit by and watch as their government enacts things like the patriot act that restricts their freedoms and says absolutely nothing.
As much as I despise the left, at least it is usually the left who said something against bush when he created the dept of homeland security and its highly restrictive policies.
Even the defenders of gun rights don’t really buy the argument that “only outlaws will have guns.” Because, if you outlaw guns in the hands of civilians, there will still be one other group of people with guns: the people enforcing the laws. I guess the argument I’m hearing is that law enforcement is just another kind of outlaw? That calls into question the whole meaning of the word “outlaw.” I also get the sense that many diehard second amendment defenders already think of themselves as outlaws, or they are willing to become outlaws out of principle. If you’re totally… Read more »
“I also get the sense that many diehard second amendment defenders already think of themselves as outlaws, or they are willing to become outlaws out of principle.” Ummm no. I think that a lot of second amendment defenders are pure straight arrows, who live in rural areas and go bird hunting on weekends. They work hard, pay their taxes and probably view themselves as quintessentially American (think Sam Walton founder of Walmart). They don’t understand why they should face any restrictions whatsoever on guns when the problems are primarily occurring in Inner cities and Suburbs. And of course race plays… Read more »
“When I pointed out the far lower crime and murder rates in countries with much stricter gun laws” Your friend should have corrected you and pointed out that there are countries with much stricter gun laws and higher homicide rates, and that there’s no causal correlation between gun availability and homicide rates, either on a country-by-country or state-by-state basis. “Why wouldn’t anyone want to make it harder for a criminal to get a gun?” Why wouldn’t anyone want to make it harder for a con-man to speak freely? Because in either case, attempting to control the criminal results in the… Read more »
Then I’m left wondering what all the fuss is about. If passing laws against private gun ownership will make no difference one way or the other, then there’s nothing to get worked up about. There’s no reason to resist something that has no effect. If there are so many people who will hang onto their guns until you can only pry the weapons from their cold, dead fingers, then just ignore the laws like you’re going to anyway. Like I said elsewhere, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that guns protect you from oppressive government and also… Read more »
Great examples of the power of weapons other than guns. Those are pretty big casualty figures. Let’s assume there are lots of other non-gun sprees out there just like these. That suggests to me that if you want to defend yourself against violent criminals or big, bad government then you don’t need guns after all. You can get all your second amendment protection from machetes, knives, clubs, and your bare hands. You can “keep and bear arms” with just your actual arms. So which is it, are knives just as good as guns or aren’t they? If they are as… Read more »
The gangland drive-by shootings are WAY more challenging with a knife. You have to drive really, really slowly and have really, really long arms.
“So which is it, are knives just as good as guns or aren’t they?” They aren’t. But this was already addressed above: “but sure, guns can make it easier to kill a lot of people.” “That suggests to me that if you want to defend yourself against violent criminals or big, bad government then you don’t need guns after all.” The author was specifically focussed on killing sprees not fighting government in guerilla wars. Obviously the utility of guns/knives depends on the specific situation. When I am making a sandwich I rarely feel the need to get a gun so… Read more »
Few are saying all background checks are bad. Few are saying that nothing we do will ever restrict any crime whatsoever. What we’re saying is that every single proposal has clear counterexamples for where it would have made little or no difference in a major mass shooting event. What we’re saying is that the gains made in security will be minimal relative to the costs incurred against liberty. Mass shootings happen with handguns. These dweebs who go on killing sprees either buy their own guns or steal them from someone else. In the Newtown case, he killed his own mother… Read more »
Rick, with all due respect, your argument reflects the very defeatism against which I argue. The significant improvement in drug-related violence compared to the “drug wars” of the 1980s supports my argument that we can effect positive change if we choose to attempt to do so. Just something to think about. Thanks for reading.
The drug related violence hasn’t improved, but rather it has shifted locations. Check out some of the Mexican border towns. Back in the 80s we used to feel perfectly safe heading down there for a cheap beer or to cross the river and go fishing.
This is binary thinking. Bad things happen on a continuum. There are thresholds all along that continuum. Tipping points. Anything that pushes situations towards better outcomes is what should be pursued. On that continuum is drug-dealers/bank-robbers/quarrelsome drunks/domestically violent/gangs members/ suicidals/ home defense/homes with children/ and others. The choice is not between some media image of criminals versus some totally innocent lamb victim. There are situations where the presence or absence of a gun can spell life versus death.
Prairie Mary
@Eric- do you have kids in school?
When you do get back to us with which one you’d like to see armed….
They barely have time to teach to the mandated test, let alone spend time on the combat range….
I agree with your points. But as I state in the essay, I don’t think arming teachers is a very good idea. Yet as I also argue, I don’t want to be close-minded to any ideas that might work. I don’t feel right about arguing for an open-minded discussion while completely shutting down an idea with which I disagree.
If guns are outlawed, we won’t be able to resist tyrannical government.
The choice is not Sandy Hook vs peace and safety, it’s Sandy Hook vs Auschwitz.
http://jpfo.org/pdf02/genocide-chart.pdf
In my opinion, all the AR-15s and 30-round magazines in the world won’t be much use against our country’s tanks, personnel carriers, jets, and bombers. Invoking tyrannical governments ignores both logic and the remarkable stability and responsiveness-to-citizens of U.S. democracy.
Read some history. You only have to go back to 2011 to realize just how amazingly wrong you are about the nature of armed revolutions.
Right, if only all those European Jews, Roma, homosexuals, etc. had been able to keep their really powerful, Nazi-defying firearms, there would have been no Holocaust. (This is progress at least. I know many people on the right don’t think the Holocaust actually happened.)
If only those Russian soldiers who wound up in prison camps had been given firearms to fight the Nazis. Oh wait, they WERE given firearms to fight the Nazis….
“If only those Russian soldiers who wound up in prison camps had been given firearms to fight the Nazis. Oh wait, they WERE given firearms to fight the Nazis….”
Actually lack of marksmanship and keeping guns collected and supervised so that soldiers couldn’t shoot their commissars was one of the reasons for the signifigant soviet losses in the early phases of the war.
Finnish or German units that managed to surprise soviets that had not yet distributed the weapons were easy prey.