Some Thoughts on Gun Control

In a recent blog I discussed the degree to which dialogue surrounding the processes of societal change can be blamed for individual acts of violence. During that article I referenced an author who favors strict gun control, but I didn’t address that issue in that piece. So I thought I would share my thoughts now.

What makes gun control such a difficult topic for More Spock is that both sides are mostly right.

How the political right is right

The 2nd Amendment was enacted as a constitutional check against government oppression. It was not enacted to allow firearms simply for hunting or home protection. In 1791, we were only a few years’ removed from a group of loosely aligned state militias uniting to defeat what was perceived to be an oppressive government representing the interests of a monarch in London rather than the interests of the governed. The new collection of “united” states saw the need for, but were leery of, a centralized government.

Unfortunately, many Americans don’t really understand how progressive Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, et al were for their time. Building on the writings of John Locke, William Small and others, they developed a vision for a representative government that was completely different from the monarchies and birthright traditions that most societies had used since the beginning of recorded history. They believed that if citizens could revolt at the ballot box, they wouldn’t need to revolt with pitchforks and muskets. But they also wanted government leaders to always be aware of the potential for mobs armed with pitchforks and muskets if they lost their way. They adopted the 2nd Amendment for this purpose.

How the political left is also right

The U.S. military is no longer a loose collection of militias sporting cannons and muskets. Our soldiers in all branches are equipped with state of the art weaponry from handguns to nuclear weapons, from battleships to battle drones. While the American Revolution proved a group of farmers with muskets could match up with a highly trained army also carrying muskets, it’s hard to imagine an armed militia having any success attempting to overthrow the U.S. or any state government for that matter. Marching to Washington, DC or Albany, NY, seizing control of the capital grounds and installing a group’s own leaders such as happened in Cuba in 1950s, Russia in 1918 and France in the 1790s doesn’t really seem possible in the U.S.

Since the end of the American Civil War, there have been only a handful of small, isolated events: the Bundy family/militia revolts in Nevada/Oregon in 2014-16, the BLM/Antifa groups that occupied part of Seattle for about a month in 2020, and perhaps the storming of the capital by Trump supporters in 2021. But none generated the type of on-going rebel activity that leads to the seizing and holding of territory, the overthrow of a local, state or federal government, and a declaration of independence. The ballot box thing seems to be working.

The Modern Condition

But the proliferation of advanced firearms has changed society. The Founding Fathers couldn’t foresee a day when a single citizen could terrorize an entire village. Murders happened in the late 18th, early 19th centuries, but a single shooter couldn’t kill or wound over 100 people in minutes like Omar Mateen did in Orlando in 2016. Or fire over 1,000 bullets in a short span, killing 60 from the 32nd floor of a hotel, like Stephen Paddock did in Las Vegas in 2017. If John Wilkes Booth had access to weapons widely available from retailers today, he might have killed nearly everyone in Ford’s Theater that April evening in 1865.

There have always been criminal gangs. Groups like the Dalton Gang, the James Gang, Billy the Kid, the Wild Bunch are familiar and are sometimes even romanticized in movies and books. Same for 20th century gangsters like Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and the Gambino family. And while these characters were responsible for the murders of many rivals and people perceived to be threats between 1860 and 1960, mass murders were somewhat rare. The famous St. Valentine’s massacre in Chicago in 1929 only had seven victims, for example.

By way of comparison, Chicago experienced 3,561 shooting incidents resulting in 797 homicides in 2021. According to a police department spokesperson, most of these were attributed to violent gang activity. The occasional mass shooting is heavily covered by the media, but the thousands of young people who are murdered every year by their peers using easily accessible firearms are barely covered. So this begs the question, what is the solution?

Are there solutions or at least progress available?

The right says that if you take firearms away from law abiding citizens, you make them more vulnerable to criminals. There is data that shows that there is more gun crime in urban areas and states with the toughest gun control laws, casting doubt on the efficacy of creating more and more restrictions.

The left says that the original intent of the 2nd Amendment is no longer valid because hand guns, shotguns and hunting rifles are no match for what the government’s army (military and police) can bring to a fight. If we emulate Europe and move to aggressively eliminate firearms from our society, they say gun crime will naturally go down.

The political challenge is that gun control is a litmus test issue on both sides. A candidate must remain firmly pro-second amendment to have any chance at winning state and national elections as a Republican. In deep blue states, it is perfectly fine for a candidate to be for the strictest gun control measures, but in light blue and purple states, Democratic candidates tend to dance around the issue unless forced to comment after a shooting. When that happens, Dems blame the guns while Republicans blame the criminal. Both groups hope the shooter has links to the other side. Compromise is difficult.

The NRA and its supporters are resolute in that any compromise on gun control is the first step down a slippery slope that leads to disarming the citizenry. Certain members of the left are resolute in that’s exactly what they’d like to do.

More Spock’s position is that reasonable gun control laws that would make mass shootings more difficult should be considered. The ability to fire hundreds of rounds in seconds is not sufficient to go up against a police force or an army, but it is sufficient to create a human catastrophe. Limits on magazine capacity, the ability to modify guns from semi-automatic to automatic, etc. are logical. It would be nice if those on the right would allow practical measures to help reduce the likelihood of mass public shootings.

It would also be nice if those on the left saw the handgun violence in our inner cities as a social problem more than a gun problem. New York was able to reduce gun violence in the 1990s with aggressive law enforcement. Unfortunately, some publicized abuses combined with a growing group of black activists who seem more aligned with the interests of law breakers in their community than the community’s victims have succeeded in turning the population against this solution. We have accepted their premise that if there is adverse impact associated with any societal practice, that practice is automatically labeled racist, even if the practice is neutral on its face. I’ll address that in another article. Meanwhile, black teenagers and young adults are killing each other at an escalating rate. I don’t think you can solve that with gun control measures.