Gun politics

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Template:Gun politics The term gun politics refers to the various public policy debates surrounding the freedom or restriction (gun rights versus gun control) of private ownership and usage of firearms, and to what extent such policy influences crime and the balance of power between the individual and the state.

Contents

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Specific locales

This article discusses these policies in a general sense. For more specific discussion of policy in specific locales, see:

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Summary of Positions

Those who favor greater restrictions on firearms ownership and availability tend to believe some subset of:

  • There is no fundamental right to own firearms.
  • Guns represent a more effective method of killing than other varieties of weapons, and their elimination would lower rates of death and injury.
  • The great majority of people in the USA do not own guns.
  • Gun control legislation reduces violent crime.
  • Guns are more dangerous to the owners than to intended targets because most gun related deaths are a result of domestic violence, accidents, and suicides.
  • Guns are of little use as self defense for the typical owner because in incidents where a hostile encounter with an armed criminal occurs, the criminal is often more experienced and skilled with his/her weapon; also, criminals may act in groups.
  • Even against armed criminals, the presence of a gun serves more often to escalate the likelihood and/or severity of violence.
  • Citizens have no need to own guns to protect themselves against crime because government is tasked with that obligation.
  • Citizens need to protect themselves against crime, but owning firearms is not a good way to accomplish this.
  • Citizens of First World countries today have no need to protect themselves against their governments if they vigilantly confront malfeasance before violence is necessary, or that even if such a need should arise, it would be hopeless to take up individual small arms against the modern military that a government would bring to bear.
  • Guns, being devices designed to kill, raise the level of violence in any disagreement between people.
  • Gun control, properly and judiciously applied, lessens (though cannot eradicate) the possibility that criminals will obtain firearms.
  • Fewer guns means fewer deaths relative to homicide, suicide, and unintentional deaths [1].

Those who favor maintaining or extending the private ownership of firearms tend to believe some subset of:

  • Owning firearms is a right.
  • Equipping in defense from predators, criminal, animal, or otherwise is a right.
  • Equipping for subsistence and survival is a right, and firearms represent a legitimate means of hunting or harvesting animals for food.
  • Government should not be empowered to interfere with an individual's right to own firearms as long as the individual is not harming or intimidating fellow citizens.
  • Guns in the homes of the law-abiding populace reduce the occurrence of burglary and home invasion crimes.
  • Family, public health and insurance actuarial death statistics demonstrate that the risk of owning a gun is negligible compared to other typical hazards, e.g., bathtubs and swimming pools, automobiles, bicycles, suffocation hazards, and ingestable poisons.
  • Although government is tasked with an obligation to protect citizens collectively, government is not obligated to protect any given individual citizen without a special relationship established with that citizen prior to victimization, and thus citizens have a demonstrable need for personal protection. (In U.S. case law, courts have held that the police cannot be held civily or criminally liable for failing to provide individual protection (Warren vs. D.C)) [2]
  • The concept of government and police having absolute and total responsibility to protect citizens leads to government and police bureaucracies that are fortresses of undemocratic political power. In addition, this responsibility, were it to exist, would divert legislative oversight and attention and strain public expenditures which might otherwise be invested in schools, parks, libraries, social programs, transportation, and other public infastructure.
  • An armed populace decreases the overall occurrence of violent crime; widespread ownership and discreet carry of handguns by the law-abiding advances civilization by deterring assault, bullying, mayhem, robbery, rape, and murder.
  • Gun control laws have a disproportionate effect on the freedoms of the law-abiding as criminals are willing to break the law to acquire, possess, and use guns.
  • Carrying a firearm provides the means to make oneself safer.
  • An armed populace is a deterrent to the excesses of government; the threat of violent revolution by the people is a check and balance against an abusive totalitarian government or "coup d'état".
  • In the U.S., existing gun laws would be sufficient if the government were able and willing to enforce them.
  • Increasing movement to blame violence in Mexico and Canada on American gun owners represents a political attack on the United States rather than a position with an empirical basis.
  • That over 50% of American households own guns, despite government statistics showing the number is approximately 35%, because guns not listed on any government roll were not counted during the gathering of data. [3]

These lists should not be construed as exhaustive; there may exist other positions not represented here.

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Degrees of gun legislation

There are many areas of debate into exactly what kinds of firearms should be allowed to be privately owned, if any, and how and where they may be used.

In the United States, full-automatic weapons are legal in most states, but have extremely restrictive requirements under federal law. They must have been manufactured and registered before May 19, 1986; a $200 transfer tax must be paid; approval must be met in writing prior to purchase from the local sheriff or chief of police; fingerprints and a photograph must be submitted to the ATF; a criminal background check must be performed; and a waiting period of approximately 6 months applies. Written permission must be given by the ATF at least 30 days in advance if one wishes to take his full-automatic firearm out of his state. Due to the static number of full-automatic firearms on the market (fixed at 1986 levels), their collective value continues to increase. Most full-automatic firearms for sale cost in excess of $8,000USD, which is for many seeking to make a legal purchase the most prohibitive factor. Several states have decided to prohibit the sale of full-automatic firearms altogether. In most US states however, one can buy semi-automatic firearms over the counter if the buyer meets basic legal requirements, and after completing the proper paperwork and a criminal background check (and in some states, a waiting period).

Internationally, many countries have an outright ban on full-automatic weapons, and some countries ban nearly all kinds of firearms.

In Switzerland, however, every male between the ages of 20 and 42 is considered a candidate for conscription into the military, and following a brief period of active duty will commonly be enrolled in the national guard until age or an inhability to serve ends his service obligation. During their national guard enrollment, these men are required to keep their government-issued selective fire combat rifles and semi-automatic handguns in their homes, together with 50 rounds of government-issued ammunition, sealed and inspected regularly to ensure that each firearm is always combat-ready. In addition to these official weapons, Swiss citizens are allowed to purchase surplus-to-inventory combat rifles, and shooting is a popular sport in all the Swiss cantons. Ammunition (also MilSpec surplus) sold at rifle ranges is intended to be expended at the time of purchase, but target and sporting ammunition is widely available in gun and sporting goods stores.

Another issue is whether individuals have the right to carry a handgun concealed on their person, even if it is perfectly legal and easy to own a pistol in general. In the United States another area of dispute is whether any requirement that firearms be registered constitutes a violation of the Second Amendment by impairing the exercise of that explicitly protected right. There is the perception that firearms registration - by making it easier for government officers to target gun owners for harassment and confiscation - constitutes an easily exploited encroachment upon individual personal privacy and property rights.

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General discussion of arguments

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Balance of power

Advocates for the right to bear arms often point to previous totalitarian regimes that passed gun control legislation, which was later followed by confiscation. Totalitarian governments such as Fascist Italy and Germany during World War II, as well as some Communist states such as the People's Republic of China are examples of this. Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union allowed personal gun ownership from 1918 to 1929; the introduction of gun control in 1929 coincided with the beginning of the harsh Stalinist regime.

There is no direct causal relationship between gun control and totalitarianism. A number of countries have had gun control in place for many years, without becoming totalitarian regimes. The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Japan, for example, are not considered to be totalitarian.

On the other hand, however, totalitarian nations often were democratic prior to becoming totalitarian. The Weimar Republic, for instance, constituted one of the weakest governments in Europe in the twenties and early thirties; yet it was from the Weimar Republic that the Third Reich arose.

The Nazis actually liberalized the gun laws of the Weimar Republic with the Reichswaffengesetz in 1938, but prohibited possession of weapons by Jews shortly thereafter. [4]

Firearms-rights advocates also point to the fact that Japan had a long history of weapons ownership that was strictly limited to only the elite and their Samurai bodyguards. Peasants, without any access to arms, were at the mercy of powerful warlords.

Registration of firearms in some countries has led to confiscations of formerly legal firearms and the outlawing of the ownership of firearms to various degrees.

Some oppose registration of guns or licensing of gun owners because if captured, the associated records would provide military invaders with the locations and identities of gun owners, simplifying elimination of law-abiding (i.e. patriotic) resistance fighters. Location and capture of such records is a standard doctrine taught to military intelligence officers; and was widely practiced by German and Soviet troops during World War II.

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Self-defense

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Both sides actively debate the relevance of self-defense in modern society. Some scholars, e.g. John Lott, claim to have discovered a positive correlation between gun control legislation and crimes in which criminals confront citizens - that is, increases in the number or strictness of gun control laws are correlated with increases in the number or severity of violent crimes. Other scholars, e.g. Gary Kleck, take a slightly different tack; while criticizing Lott's theories as (paradoxically) overemphasizing the threat to the average American from armed crime, and therefore the need for armed defense, Kleck's work speaks towards similar support for firearm rights by showing that the number of Americans who report incidents where their guns averted a threat vastly outnumber those who report being the victim of a firearm-related crime. The efficacy of gun control legislation at reducing the availability of guns has been challenged by, among others, the testimony of criminals that they do not obey gun control laws, and by the lack of evidence of any efficacy of such laws in reducing violent crime. In his paper, Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not[5], University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt argues that available data indicate that neither stricter gun control laws nor more liberal concealed carry laws have had any significant effect on the decline in crime in the 1990s (In his 2005 book, Freakonomics, Levitt argues that legalized abortion was the most important factor). While the debate remains hotly disputed, it is therefore not surprising that a comprehensive review of published studies of gun control, released in November 2004 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was unable to determine any reliable statistically significant effect, pro or con, resulting from such laws, although the authors suggest that further study may provide more conclusive information.

Irrespective of the statistical arguments, 39 US states have passed concealed carry legislation of one form or another. In these states, law-abiding citizens (usually after giving evidence of completing a training course) may carry handguns on their person for self-protection. Indeed, only 2 states (Illinois and Wisconsin) have explicit legislation restricting personal carry in this way, while 2 others (Vermont, and Alaska) place no restrictions at all on lawful citizens carrying concealed weapons.

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Domestic violence

The strongest evidence linking availability of guns to injury and mortality rates comes in studies of domestic violence, the most well known being the series of studies by Arthur Kellermann, although other slightly different studies have similar results. In response to suggestions that homeowners were at risk from home invasions and would be wise to acquire a firearm for purposes of protection, Kellermann tabulated domestic homicide figures in three cities over several years, and found that the risk of a homicide was in fact higher in homes where a gun was present; his study led to the conclusion that the risk of a crime of passion or other domestic dispute ending in homicide when a gun was available was large enough to overwhelm any protective effect the presence of a gun might have against burglaries, home invasions, etc. In confirmation of this conclusion is his little-remarked upon finding that almost all the risk was limited to homes where a handgun was kept both loaded and unlocked, and therefore available for immediate use; apparently, the amount of time and effort required even to just remove a loaded gun from a locked cabinet was sufficient to allow tempers to cool enough to prevent a shooting.

Although Kellermann's papers themselves do not make any recommendations, they were immediately held up as support by advocates of gun control, and decried as bad science by proponents of gun rights. See Arthur Kellermann for the alleged flaws in the study. The findings are essentially what would be predicted a priori; the presence of any object which adds some degree of risk, no matter how small, will always mathematically increase the total risk. For instance, the presence of a swimming pool in a home can only increase the risk of death because it adds the risk of death by drowning; ownership of an automobile can only increase the risk of death because it adds the risk of death in an automobile crash, etc. The only way this type of study could have found a reduction in risk of homicide from the presence of a gun in the home would have been if the rate of home invasions was much greater than the rate of domestic violence. Although domestic violence is actually not well studied, it is universally agreed that it is often more common than home invasion type crimes, at least in so-called good neighborhoods, although the choice of a bad neighborhood, even within any particularly nominal safe city, may be more indicative of the probability of home invasions occurring than domestive violence, thereby tilting the statistics to appear to favor either side's basic argument, depending on which neighborhoods are chosen for analysis.

Kellermann also tabulated the change in risk of homicide associated with other, purely defensive, means of protection, e.g. alarm systems, deadbolts, security doors, barred windows, etc., and in each case was able to demonstrate a very small decrease in risk of homicide, which would suggest that the effect of the presence of a firearm on the risk of death by home invasion would be of similar magnitude, much smaller than the additional risk of domestic violence related homicide which was seen.

More thoughtful critics of the work and its connection with calls for gun control point out that Kellermann's work does not address the overall question of the total risk or benefit of firearm ownership because it does not address any events occurring outside the house; and due to this limitation, assert that his result is really more of an indictment of domestic violence than of gun ownership. Even Kellermann himself includes in his paper several paragraphs referring to the need for further study of domestic violence and its causes and prevention. It is often argued that the vast majority of households which possess a gun are not at any risk for any form of domestic violence, making any increased risk from gun ownership related to this behavior totally irrelevant to most gunowners; and that restriction of the rights of the great majority for the protection of a few who are at risk for domestic violence who might harm themselves is in keeping with neither the general tenor of United States law, nor the Second Amendment in particular. (However, the risk of domestic violence related homicide found in Kellermann's study cuts across all sub-populations including both demographic variables such as race as well as others which might be considered more directly relevant, such as a history of violence, drug or alcohol abuse, or criminal record. Perhaps it is obvious to those in a relationship whether there is risk of domestic violence or not, but the data in the study were not able to make such a distinction. In this respect, the calls for further study of predictors related to domestic violence become even more important). Furthermore, it is argued that it is not the government's place to prevent adult citizens of sound mind from indulging in anything risky; and that people are freely permitted to assume much greater risks among their hobbies, sports, and interests, such as the aforementioned swimming pools and automobiles, skiing, etc. if they wish. However, Kellermann's paper begins by pointing out that people who would not otherwise own firearms for recreational or other purposes are being urged to acquire firearms specifically for protection of the home, and in this one narrow context, his results demonstrate that this is an erroneous strategy; whether prospective gun owners choose to follow this advice or not is their decision alone to make.

Perhaps the most useful contribution of the Kellermann studies is to quantify the degree of risk for domestic homicide associated with gun ownership, in the context of the degree of risk posed by some of the other variables he included. The greatest risks are associated with factors such as renting a dwelling rather than owning, and/or living alone; these are not in themselves causes of homicide, obviously, but represent measurable results of deeper factors, e.g. lower socioeconomic status. In comparison, the risk associated with gun ownership was significantly lower. It was, however, statistically indistinguishable from the degree of risk posed by any member of the family having a criminal record, which most people would consider to be significant.

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Statistics in the Public Policy Arena

The specter of the private ownership of guns and their relationship to domestic violence casualties is a very significant variable used for political leverage in the policy debate. A frequent argument portends that a gun is "far more likely to kill or injure a family member or other person known to the gun owner than to be used in self-defense against an unknown home invader." This line of statistical reasoning is propogated on billboards and radio and television commercials in addition to its use on the floor of legislative bodies. In many cases, the use of the domestic shooting statistics are criticized by gun rights advocates as being propounded in oblique manner without proper context. That is, while many shootings occurring in the course of a heated mutual argument of passion, others occur where a partner or family member of a "romantic" or familial relationship, who is an ongoing victim of domestic physical abuse or sexual abuse uses the force of a firearm in self-defense action against the perpetrator who also happens to be known to or related to the victim. As a corollary, in such policy advertising campaigns, the comparison of "domestic" gun casualties is usually not accompanied by murder and assault prosecution numbers stemming from the shootings occurring in that context. Of particular note is that in many of the latter cases, the victim firing in self-defense is frequently a woman or youth victim of a more physically powerful abuser. In those situations gun rights advocates argue that the firearm arguably becomes an equalizer against the lethal and disabling force frequently exercised by the abusers.

In a similar fashion, while both sides frequently make misleading arguments in the political arena, many gun control advocates also point to statistics in advertising campaigns purporting that "approximately 9 or so childen are killed by firearms discharges every day across the US,"[6]. Gun rights advocates argue that this statistic is seldom accompanied by a differentiation of those children killed by unintentional discharges and stray bullets, and those "children," under the age of majority, which is 18 in the U.S., who are killed while acting as aggressors in street gang related mutual combat or while committing gun crimes, many of which are seen as arising from the War on Drugs. There is further controversy about courts trying and sentencing these mostly "young men" as adults despite them not having reached the age of consent. A significant number of the aforementioned deaths occur through suicide. To be specific, in the case of the U.S., a country with a high occurrence of child gun deaths, in fact, 85% of those children killed are ages 15-19; 61% of are killed in homicide or legal intervention; 31% commit suicide with a gun; 6% are killed by unintentional discharges.

There has been widespread agreement on both sides that the use of trigger locks and the importance of gun safety education has a mitigating effect on the occurrence of accidental discharges involving children. There is somewhat less agreement about vicarious liability case law assigning strict liability to the gun owner for those firearms casualties occurring when a careless gun owner loses proper custody and control of her or his firearm.

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Numbers

Many advocates on all sides of the issue manipulate numbers, i.e., lump gun deaths together, or segregate them according to intent. Broad categories of deaths are often broken down (by size):

  1. suicide
  2. accidental death
  3. homicide
  4. legal intervention
  5. undetermined

Gun control advocates' claims impact only causes 2 and 3, since there is no agreement whether, after gun regulation, suicides decrease or not. [7]

Many results indicated by the media and many official reports indicate only raw numbers or percentages, and then are often erroneously compared to previous reports. This does not take into account the growth of the population, and other factors. Typically a good number indicates incidences per thousand or per hundred thousand.

Other numbers are often not factored into discussions. For example, in Australia, knives are 2-3 times as likely to be used in robberies as a firearm.

The numbers of legal versus illegal firearms, in areas with laws legislating proper gun ownership, are also glossed over. For example, 90% of all firearm related homicides in Australia are committed with unregistered firearms (since the 1995 & 1996 regulations).

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See also

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External links

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Pro gun control

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Pro gun rights

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