Thursday, October 08, 2015
Political Mayhem Thursday: The problem with the good guy/bad guy dichotomy on guns
Now that we are a few days out from the latest school shooting in Oregon (the 45th this year), it looks like the only reaction will be, once again, an increase in gun sales. That's a sad fact.
Part of what drives this is the belief that "the answer to bad guys with guns is good guys with guns." In other words, if "good guys" have guns, they will shoot the "bad guys" before they do anything harmful. There are several problems with this logic:
1) Everyone knows they are a "good guy." We justify our acts and beliefs, even the awful ones, as somehow "good"-- that seems to just be a fact of the human condition. And then… the "good guy" gets in a fight with his wife, and the gun is right there, and suddenly he is a bad guy. Or the "good guy" gets depressed and shoots himself dead. In fact, having a gun in the home increases, not decreases, the likelihood of the gun owner and his/her family dying violently in the home.
2) There is also the problem of identifying the "bad guy." Say you see a guy holding a woman up against a wall with a gun in his hand. Yeah, it might be a robber. It also might be an undercover cop making an arrest. And in the few seconds you have to decide, you might not properly evaluate the situation. As it turns out, Oregon is one of seven states that allow students to carry guns on campus, and an armed student (a veteran) was present at the shooting. Shooting a shooter in a crowd is not a great plan for often-untrained combatants, and often they only take action after the damage is done.
3) Importantly, guns are portable; they are not restricted to use by the owner (though that could be easily accomplished if we wanted to take that step). Thus, the "good guy" guns end up in the hands of the "bad guys." In fact, in both Newtown and Oregon, the school shooters used guns purchased by their mothers. The Oregon shooter's mom was adamant that her guns were protecting people-- she even posted online that "I keep all my mags full. I keep two full mags in my Glock case. And the ARs & AKs all have loaded mags. No one will be 'dropping' by my house uninvited without (acknowledgment),"
It is time to give up the fantasy that guns keep us safe.
Comments:
<< Home
I thought this Dylan Mathews piece from Vox was incredible: http://www.vox.com/2015/10/5/9454161/gun-violence-solution
He includes your main point, of course, and also offers the most comprehensive and fair discussion of what is really possible, what it would take to get there, and a stunningly honest assessment of who, what, where, when, and how.
He includes your main point, of course, and also offers the most comprehensive and fair discussion of what is really possible, what it would take to get there, and a stunningly honest assessment of who, what, where, when, and how.
I don't accept the premise that gun control can "solve" the problem of gun violence-- but I also reject the thesis that gun control would do nothing to reduce gun violence.
So I heard an interview with one of the two armed veterans that was on campus. They apparently discussed it quickly and decided to hunker down. They were afraid SWAT would mistake them as the original shooter.
Here in lies the problem. One has to weigh the risk of helping and putting oneself at risk with the shooter or being mistaken as the bad guy. Given the speed of the law enforcement response I think the veterans made the right choice given they weren't in the actual classroom being attacked.
Here in lies the problem. One has to weigh the risk of helping and putting oneself at risk with the shooter or being mistaken as the bad guy. Given the speed of the law enforcement response I think the veterans made the right choice given they weren't in the actual classroom being attacked.
I agree with Osler's point; . . . For the moment I am not going to get into the issues of guns not making us safer, and I have given up thinking that this country can substantially reduce the number of guns out there (certainly, there's no way that government is going to "take away" people's guns).
I've heard a couple of folks put forward the proposition of treating guns like cars, not only in terms of requiring training and checks before being able to operate one ( a car or a gun) but also requiring gun owners to carry insurance on their guns.
If your car gets broken into or stolen or used to commit a crime, or of course if you are deemed at fault in a car accident, your insurance premiums go up and you may face criminal charges, depending on the incident.
Why don't we do the same with guns? As one commenter I heard said recently (don't remember who it was), it's a "market" solution which is pretty much apolitical and would certainly give insurance companies some business.
I have a modest proposal (in the Swiftian sense) of my own which I'll refrain from giving for now. The whole issue makes me too emotional and I think requiring training/licensing AND insurance, like for cars, is one solution which could ratchet down the emotions and dichotomies and endless circular rhetoric which gets us nowhere.
I've heard a couple of folks put forward the proposition of treating guns like cars, not only in terms of requiring training and checks before being able to operate one ( a car or a gun) but also requiring gun owners to carry insurance on their guns.
If your car gets broken into or stolen or used to commit a crime, or of course if you are deemed at fault in a car accident, your insurance premiums go up and you may face criminal charges, depending on the incident.
Why don't we do the same with guns? As one commenter I heard said recently (don't remember who it was), it's a "market" solution which is pretty much apolitical and would certainly give insurance companies some business.
I have a modest proposal (in the Swiftian sense) of my own which I'll refrain from giving for now. The whole issue makes me too emotional and I think requiring training/licensing AND insurance, like for cars, is one solution which could ratchet down the emotions and dichotomies and endless circular rhetoric which gets us nowhere.
I like the insurance idea Amy. And no discounts for quantity or age of the weapon. And higher premiums for rapid fire weapons.
The cat is out of the bag. The horse is out of the barn. The genie is out of the bottle. Pandora's box has been opened. Pick your cliche'. Hard as it may be to accept, gun regulation, as worthy a goal as any, is not a panacea for what ails us.
Creating civil liability in gun owners whose weapons may be stolen or abused by others in possession of them will do nothing to avert gun violence or injury resulting from gun misuse. Neither will insurance schemes. Mandatory automobile insurance is the rule in most states. It provides a means of compensation for injuries and damage, but it has no effect on accident rates, or rare uses of vehicles to deliberately cause mayhem. Furthermore, at least in my state, notwithstanding the law, many drivers and vehicles remain uninsured or underinsured. Yet, they drive and they have accidents.
If no new guns were manufactured and sold, and the borders could be made impregnable to smuggling, and if all illicit gun traffic could be eradicated, because there are already in circulation enough weapons to continue the present violence rate, the problem will continue. Guns are durable things. They will not all wear out over time. There is no "solution" to gun violence than the confiscation of all guns from everybody without exception- all guns, sporting, self defense, and attack alike. That solution is impractical both from a legal and logistical point of view. We are already armed to the teeth.
Our only hope is to change hearts and minds, to make cultural changes of a permanent nature, and do all of the things "our better angels" have been pushing us to do for a long time. Good luck with that, some say, but really, that is the answer.
Sometimes there is not enough light at the end of the tunnel to see one's way out.
In the meantime, as individuals, we can protect ourselves as best we can in the usual ways; T\through personal prudence, awareness, and the use of good judgment. I'm afraid that no board scheme of gun regulation has any prospects at all to speak of. Yet w keep speaking.
Creating civil liability in gun owners whose weapons may be stolen or abused by others in possession of them will do nothing to avert gun violence or injury resulting from gun misuse. Neither will insurance schemes. Mandatory automobile insurance is the rule in most states. It provides a means of compensation for injuries and damage, but it has no effect on accident rates, or rare uses of vehicles to deliberately cause mayhem. Furthermore, at least in my state, notwithstanding the law, many drivers and vehicles remain uninsured or underinsured. Yet, they drive and they have accidents.
If no new guns were manufactured and sold, and the borders could be made impregnable to smuggling, and if all illicit gun traffic could be eradicated, because there are already in circulation enough weapons to continue the present violence rate, the problem will continue. Guns are durable things. They will not all wear out over time. There is no "solution" to gun violence than the confiscation of all guns from everybody without exception- all guns, sporting, self defense, and attack alike. That solution is impractical both from a legal and logistical point of view. We are already armed to the teeth.
Our only hope is to change hearts and minds, to make cultural changes of a permanent nature, and do all of the things "our better angels" have been pushing us to do for a long time. Good luck with that, some say, but really, that is the answer.
Sometimes there is not enough light at the end of the tunnel to see one's way out.
In the meantime, as individuals, we can protect ourselves as best we can in the usual ways; T\through personal prudence, awareness, and the use of good judgment. I'm afraid that no board scheme of gun regulation has any prospects at all to speak of. Yet w keep speaking.
# posted by 
: 12:40 PM
: 12:40 PM
What I'm talking about, in the biggest sense, is some measure of responsibility taken by gun owners. This is another misnomer: the "responsible" gun owner. Yes, plenty of gun owners do keep their guns stored, don't let their kids use them, etc. But -- unlike with cars -- there is absolutely no requirement, no checks, no nothing, to ensure that gun owners use them in a "responsible" way. Nothing. And what does "responsible" really mean, in the context of guns? That you don't kill anyone with a gun?
My ideal USA would actually have the confiscation of every single gun, and the immediate cease of manufacturing and sale of new guns. But, as the write above noted, those things are not going to happen. So why can't we do something to require that gun owners do more than just sit in their houses with an arsenal of "full mags," available to their eleven-year-old children or even their adult children, with no sense of consequences whatsoever?
Post a Comment
My ideal USA would actually have the confiscation of every single gun, and the immediate cease of manufacturing and sale of new guns. But, as the write above noted, those things are not going to happen. So why can't we do something to require that gun owners do more than just sit in their houses with an arsenal of "full mags," available to their eleven-year-old children or even their adult children, with no sense of consequences whatsoever?
<< Home
