A few days ago, around midnight, I published a wildly popular
article rant on gun control. By wildly popular, it’s had over a hundred unique pageviews since Saturday night (a record for anything I’ve written). I don’t average that many unique pageviews in a week, so by my meager standards, it’s popular. It was popular enough, in fact, that someone from Business Insider stumbled upon it and asked to do an interview. On gun control. Not being one to turn down an opportunity to not shutup, we did it. So while the author prepares his article, I suppose I’ll summarize some of the many ramblings and rants I had time for within the space of 45 minutes. And yes, I know I’m a hypocrite.
The 2nd Amendment isn’t an excuse to own guns
Yeah, I said it. Not in those exact words, but close enough. Gun ownership is certainly part of the DNA of our country, due in a huge part to it being the second amendment to our country’s constitution. However, it is still an amendment. [July 26 edit]
It’s a law like any other which can be repealed (not true, my mistake). It is an amendment which can be overturned with another amendment.[end edit] We shouldn’t use the 2nd amendment as our reason to own guns; we need a reason that justifies the 2nd amendment. ‘Just because’ and ‘founding fathers’ arguments don’t work. We should own guns because we care about personal defense, civil liberties, freedom from oppression — the second amendment is the result of these reasons, not the reason itself.
I own a semi-automatic rifle
for home defense and hunting because it’s fun to shoot
Let me be honest. I bought an AK-74 because I could. It was cool to say I have one, and I thought they were fun to shoot. I didn’t buy it because I need to fill a deer with 30 rounds of steel-tipped 5.45 x 39 or because a roving gang is going to break into my house.
When I hear a loud noise late at night, or am afraid that something criminal is going on, I reach for my 9mm Sig Sauer P229. My wife reaches for her .38 revolver. Handguns and shotguns are for home defense.
Assault rifles [July 26 edit]Semiautomatic rifles with large magazines [end edit] are for…what, in civilian hands? Assault? Good luck with that argument. They’re for recreation, and it’s really hard to make the AR-15 out to be anything different without looking a little crazy.
Just because I can carve a turkey with a chainsaw doesn’t mean that’s what I use at Thanksgiving; what the media calls assault rifles , such as AKs and ARs, aren’t the best tools for home and personal defense and that shouldn’t be our argument for owning them. There’s nothing wrong with saying that they’re recreational guns.
Banning guns doesn’t reduce the desire to kill
There are two motivations to kill: Intrinsic and extrinsic. An extrinsic motivation is one created by factors in the environment. A threat to your life, another’s, or even under order by someone else (e.g. the military). Extrinsic motivations to kill can be managed. An intrinsic motivation would be psychological or ideological. People with an intrinsic motivation to kill (also called murder) cannot be stopped by physical barriers. Our laws recognize the motivations to take life and distribute punishments according to our intent (a legal term called mens rea). We must understand that an intrinsic motivation to kill is called murder, and it cannot be stopped by taking away guns.
Our alleged shooter had an internal motivation to kill. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had an AR-15; he would have done it anyway. He demonstrated that fact by making a ton of bombs. If he didn’t have an AR, he very well could have used those instead. You can’t stop evil by taking away the tools. You just can’t.
An “Assault rifle” ban would be a very, very bad idea
Gun ownership is part of the DNA of our country. We aren’t like other countries where gun ownership is an option; it was the second most important freedom after religion, assembly, and speech. Banning assault rifles would have serious political consequences because it would be a stand against our 2nd amendment.
Enforcing an assault rifle ban would be worse. It’s one thing to stop selling them, but it’s a worse thing to attempt to confiscate them. Populations tend to get a little edgy when their weaponry is confiscated; regardless of the weapon or the reason. Additionally, there’s not the manpower to enforce confiscation. Consider, after all, that you are going to someone’s house and asking for their gun. You’re taking away private property — and you’re asking someone to willingly disarm themselves to an armed individual. This approach doesn’t end well.
Education is better than regulation
If there’s one thing I said in the interview that was a little crazy or nuts, it was the fact that I think we should enforce gun education. Not to every single person who owns or buys a gun, but specifically to people who purchase any firearm or paraphernalia that is intended for police or military. From ARs through bullet proof vests, I think you should be required to receive training before you can own it. That means that when you’re in the store making the purchase, you complete a background check and then you proceed to training for the next four hours.
Over 500 people last year were killed in accidental discharge of firearms. And while that was primarily handguns, the problem really is education. If people knew how to handle guns, stupid stuff like that wouldn’t happen. And think about it: an AR or an AK wasn’t meant for civilians at all; it was meant for police and military. If you, as a civilian, want to own one, you should get training, just like soldiers and police have to do. You should learn how to disassemble your weapon’s system. You should learn how to clean it, care for it, when to use it, and you should learn how to use it… Before you walk home with it.
Seriously, you have to take a test to drive a car or cut someone’s hair, but not for the same weapons used in Afghanistan?
Regulation wouldn’t have worked for the alleged shooter, but education might have
The problem with James Eagan Holmes is that no regulation today would have filtered him out. On paper he was the model citizen. A psychological profile might have worked, but there’s two problems with a psychological profile:
- It’s an invasion of privacy
- One of the markers of sociopathy is the ability to deceive; a sociopath knows how to not look like one
However, if our alleged shooter were required to go through a four-hour or eight-hour course on AR safety and usage, and additional courses for the tactical gear, someone might have noticed something. After September 11th, I remember hearing that the flight instructors thought it very odd that some students didn’t care about learning how to land. That’s the kind of red flag you don’t find on paper, but through interactions with the purchaser. Education courses have the benefit of actually educating the user and guaranteeing proficiency (so they don’t accidentally kill someone), but they also give the instructor a chance to gauge the mental well-being of the user before they walk out the door.
I don’t know exactly how the education approach would work as it would be burdensome and slow down the process of firearms ownership. But deal with it. More people die in car accidents than gun fire, and you still need to prove you know how to drive. Maybe it’s as simple as going to the store, getting your background check, and authenticating the purchase. Then you get a card or a note that requires you to check into a local range or police station where you get your training. Once it’s done and you pass, the weapon is released to you right there. Obviously there’s a cost issue in paying for training, but that’s good for police departments and gun ranges. And, it’s a subtle barrier to crazies getting guns.
No, there hasn’t been a mass shooting in Texas (in a while)
I think the reporter forgot about Fort Hood and what happened at the University of Texas (the first mass shooting). But no, there aren’t many mass shootings in Texas. Texas is very vocal about gun ownership. It permits concealed-carry, makes firearms accessible, and (at least in the Dallas area) there’s lots of gun ranges. A statistic on the History Channel said that in Texas alone there were 26 million people and at least 51 million guns. There’s a gun for every hand in Texas. When you consider that not everyone in Texas owns guns, that’s a lot of guns per household; there’s a strong incentive not to break into houses.
It’s good when you’re allowed to protect yourself
Colorado, like Texas, holds strong to the “Castle doctrine” which is the right to protect yourself and your property from the threat of force. In both states, you’re exempt from jail time, and law suits by the family of a criminal, if you shoot and/or kill in the course of protecting yourself, family, and property. When someone crosses the threshold into my house, the law now protects me, not the perpetrator. I’m not afraid to protect my home.
The law in Colorado, as in Texas, allows you to protect your “castle”, but it’s not a license to draw a gun anywhere. Brandishing a gun in a menacing manner is a felony. Castle doctrine doesn’t work outside of the house. My concealed weapons instructor made it very clear that I’ll still spend a night in jail if I discharge my weapon in public (even if it’s fully justified). Charges won’t be pressed — so long as I used my weapon in the defense of force against me or a third party. I’m allowed to exercise judgement and then protect myself and others.
Yes, I still feel safe in Colorado
This was a question that surprised me. Do I feel safe in Colorado? Of course I do. Evil can happen anywhere, at any time. This shooter could have moved from California to any of 49 other states. This could have happened anywhere.
Concealed-carry is legal in Colorado. I can carry a gun into a movie theater. I can protect myself in most any place I go in Colorado. Colorado is no more in danger from the depravity of mankind than anywhere else. Of course I’m safe here.
I’m a hypocrite
Days after I write a blog post about how everyone should shut up about gun control, I do an interview on the very subject. But hey, isn’t it nice when someone actually admits to it?