It's Not About the Guns

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” - Benjamin Franklin

On December 14, 2012, a deranged Adam Lanza entered the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut and killed twenty kindergarten children as well as six adults.  This was the second-deadliest mass shooting in United States History.  The heartfelt outcry was universal and immediate.  How could this have possibly happened again?  When were we going to do something about these mass murders?  What were we going to do to protect the innocent among us?  Shouldn’t we get rid of these powerful and high-capacity firearms that always seem to be used in these killings?  Wasn’t this the obvious answer?  Were there other solutions?  Better solutions? These are all obvious as well as very good questions.  

For many, the immediate answer to these questions is that we need to radically restrict the ability of citizens to own firearms.  In the Sandy Hook aftermath, President Barack Obama has gone into overdrive to strike while the gun-barrel is hot.  Simultaneously, just today, Governor Andrew Cuomo of the State of New York signed into law the most restrictive and sweeping firearms restrictions yet seen in the history of our republic.  The speed with which this legislation whipped through the New York legislature was truly mind-boggling and also indicative of the clarity which many think they see in restricting firearm ownership.

Is it really so self-evident that firearm restrictions will help reduce violent crime?  I could manipulate statistics to show anything I want in regard to criminal activity and general gun availability.  I certainly have thoughts on the matter, but there are a host of people who’ve handled the data extensively and are far more qualified than I am to deal with it.  I do, however, want to present some principles which I think bound the thinking on this important subject.  Basically, I believe that thinking on gun rights boils down to giving primary credence to one of two contradictory premises.

1) More guns equal more (deadly) gun  crime.  A higher number of guns necessarily increases the likelihood – even the certainty - that criminals will inflict greater lethal harm on our society than they would under other circumstances.  It is self-evident that greater numbers of guns, even when legally obtained by citizens, increases the probability that these guns will ultimately find their way into the hands of criminals.  This can and will happen through many different avenues.  Greater numbers of legal guns mean greater numbers of guns available to be stolen and then used in the commission of crimes.  Higher frequencies of gun ownership increase the chances that firearms will wind up in the hands of those close to the gun owner (such as Adam Lanza) who may use them for evil purposes.  Furthermore, increased ownership of legal firearms increases the probability that normally law-abiding citizens will make horrible decisions in fits of passion with the end result of firearm violence.  Likewise, reducing the numbers of these firearms necessarily reduces the opportunity for firearms to be transferred to illegal activity or to be used by legal gun owners during a temporary loss of self-control.  In short, reducing or eliminating legal gun availability directly reduces gun violence. 

2) More guns equal decreased (deadly) gun crime.  Uncertainty over whether a potential victim is armed automatically gives a potential criminal pause.  Knowledge that a potential victim is armed will likely avert a crime altogether.  Where deterrence (the principal goal) fails, law abiding gun-owners are able to exercise self-defense in the face of otherwise overwhelming firepower.  Furthermore, the appropriate use of lethal force necessarily either reduces the number of criminals or helps assure that they are apprehended and prosecuted.  In addition to self-defense from criminal predation, our Founders rightly understood that firearms help safeguard democratic freedom.  In enshrining the Second Amendment in our Bill of Rights, the Founders intended the widespread and general distribution of personal firearms to help discourage the ascendency of tyrannical regimes.  They knew their history in this regard – they had experienced it with the British.  They understood that a disarmed populace cannot long promote the will of the people.  Guns keep both criminals as well as nefarious regimes in check.

I believe that there are elements of truth to each of these premises.  The question becomes, “Which premise is the dominant force?”  How you answer these questions lies in your view of human nature I believe.  If you believe that criminals are strictly creatures of opportunity and will not have weapons if they aren’t available legally, then premise 1) may be attractive.  If you can only get firearms from those who get them legally and they can’t be obtained legally, then the violence problem is solved.  Of course this takes no heed for trampling the rights of those citizens who can no longer legally own firearms in such a scenario.  It also ignores the fact that criminals do and will have many other avenues for obtaining weapons besides commandeering legal ones.  In such a scenario (as many others have pointed out), only the criminals would have weapons.  This solution would only work in the worldwide absence of easily available firearms (which I assume is the basis behind the interest of many who advocate participating in the UN Small Arms Treaty).

I contend, however, that weapons will always be available to criminals who are determined to use them (and I believe mass murderers are determined).  If not a firearm, then will they not make a pipe bomb?  Or find a gallon of gasoline?  Or build a fertilizer and diesel fuel bomb as utilized (to horrific result) in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh?  Consider how seriously we take the prohibition of narcotic drugs.  We have enormous task forces dedicated to the elimination and destruction of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and a host of other drugs, yet illicit drugs are available on any street corner.  How much more so would the tools (guns) needed to commit such crimes continue to be available to those who want them?  

What about my bigger concern of maintaining a deterrence to tyranny?  If you think tyranny could never be an issue here, I contend you don’t recognize the depravity of the human condition.  History has taught us again and again what men will do when seized with the lust for power, fame or revenge.  Our Founders understood that an armed citizenry helps keep a civil government honest.

Do I believe that the easy availability of guns can contribute to crimes of passion or to an increased lethality of crime?  Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.  But there is no way I would ever willingly trade the broader benefits of our Second Amendment rights to offset those risks.  I am absolutely convinced that Premise 2 is far more dominant.  We don’t live in a perfect world, and we don’t have perfect answers available to us.  We should do all we can to enforce existing gun laws and keep firearms out of the hands of criminals.  Justice should be severe for those who use guns in a crime.  The mentally ill should be kept as far away as possible from firearms. Every gun owner should be diligent to take responsibility for access to their weapons.  We just have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water.  

Sometimes we are faced with societal conundrums that don’t have easy answers.  I deplore the loss of life inflicted by criminals with powerful weapons, but I’ve never seen one of these guns fire itself.  Is a nut-job with a high-capacity weapon more lethal to the innocent?  Yes he is, but likewise a citizen with a high-capacity weapon is also more lethal to the nut-job.  I would far rather see an armed citizenry that works to restrain criminals and maintain freedom from tyranny than I would to place my faith in some utopian danger-free society where the only ones with firepower are those who’ve obtained it illegally.  In a society with heavy gun restrictions, there will be no change for how a criminal gets his gun – it will still be obtained illegally.  The difference is that he’ll have no one to oppose him. 

Now is the not the time for knee-jerk attempts to solve one problem by creating potentially far bigger ones.  Freedom is a very fragile thing.  As we move further and further away from personal responsibility and toward a nanny police-state where the government provides all, I believe we are seeing our ability to live as a free people slip away.  Can we do things to help make our society safer from gun violence?  Absolutely, but not at the cost of the freedoms our forefathers gave so much to preserve for us.  I fear we are beginning to value that freedom all too lightly.  I am unwilling to trade freedom for security.  As Benjamin Franklin eloquently stated, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”  

Are you more interested in essential liberty or temporary safety?  I, for one, choose essential liberty.