Much as some wish passionately that Heller never happened, that the Second Amendment would disappear, that Bruen didn’t make it worse and even less coherent, the reality as we find it today is that Americans have a fundamental individual right to bear arms and the limits on that right are, well, far more limited than Nino Scalia thought when he wrote his errant paragraph in Heller.
These are not the subjects of argument here, because this reflects the current state of the law and, if one enjoys their constitutional rights, one can’t deny the constitutional rights of others that one doesn’t like as much.
But, it’s undeniable that there are a lot of mass shootings. These aren’t of the sort that ramp up numbers merely by body count, but the sort of shooting that pretty much any sentient person would agree is a mass shooting, some person who goes into a place with other people around and starts shooting. If may be a mall, a store or a school, but it ends with bodies of innocent people who shouldn’t be dead at the end of the day.
Much as you may like guns (or adore them as David French argues), and believe deeply in their need for self-protection, whether from an intruder or the government, these mass shootings are still terrible tragedies that should be prevented. There can be no modestly sane human being who isn’t outraged and heartbroken by these murders. There can be no modestly sane human being who doesn’t want to prevent them from happening, to save the innocent from being needless murdered by zealots and crazies.
So what can be done? Is there any tradeoff that could save lives given our jurisprudence and the fear and loathing of Americans who see any effort to reduce mass shootings as an effort to seize their ARs? Even if the reaction is that it’s not guns, but crazies with guns, that are the problem, it still raises the question of how to keep guns out of the hands of crazies.
Are red flag laws, often of dubious constitutionality, the solution to mass shootings? Thus far, they don’t seem to have had much impact. Are there other laws that would find wide acceptance that could help? Are there any laws that would find wide acceptance, despite the regularity of shooting deaths?
Are we a nation doomed to watching elementary children die because any effort to prevent their death could erode the right to keep and bear arms? Is there nothing we can do, as mass shootings are too real to ignore?
*Tuesday Talk rules apply, within reason.
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I think short of an AR ban, the most effective way to limit the number of ARs in society would be to put a price floor on them. It works for other products. However, I’m wrong about a lot of stuff.
I think short of a voting ban, the most effective way to limit the number of voters in society would be to put a poll tax on them. It works for other constitutional rights. However, I’m wrong about a lot of stuff.
Prior to the AR patents expiring they cost about 2 times as much as they have recently.
People bought AKM’s instead because they were cheaper.
Red flag laws have potential if they are carefully drafted and enforced. The Swamp has a good one–it passes facial muster. But the danger is in the application. As discussed here in days-ago, there is the potential for misuse. The states could use the laws to bypass criminal protections. Avoiding that is best accomplished by having the petition handled or at least vetted by a disinterested lawyer that understands the law and implications of misuse.
I get hired to do or vet these pretty regularly and for about 18 months. I’ve probably directly handled 50 and vetted another couple dozen. I’ve turned some down because what happened didn’t meet statutory requirements and I don’t ever want to file where it would tend to affect the perception of good faith. I’ve also litigated about a zillion mental health cases. Filing these cases astounded even my hardened ass; I couldn’t believe the number of seriously mentally ill people that had guns or, worse, have carry licenses. In nearly every case, the individual was recently detained under our mental health statute because they were a threat to themselves or others. Many had multiple detentions in less than 6 months.
The problem: the agency running the MH facilities doesn’t report the detentions to law enforcement or anyone else, so the guns don’t get taken from seriously mentally ill people unless the law enforcement agency actually prompted the detention, or they play guess-and-call with other agencies. It’s not efficient, and many slip through. Reporting MH detentions to law enforcement, mental health courts or the similar would go a long way toward taking guns out of the hands of crazy.
Your question whether red-flag laws work has no easy answer. It might be unknowable because no one knows whether an order prevented a shooting.
Do you think there would be too many people that aren’t a danger, but still end with having their guns removed? I hear that a lot as one of the negative aspects of red flag laws. Essentially if I’m going to lose my guns by asking for help, I’m no longer going to ask for help.
Not if the statute is well-drafted and the process is handled by competent lawyers. The Swamp law doesn’t include just anyone seeking MH care–they have to be deemed a threat by actually making a threat because of MH problems. Other bases include violating a DV injunction, violating a red-flag order by having a gun, and arrests for agg assault. Before anyone gets crazy about the last, not having a gun is always part of the PTR order.
What you “hear” will often come from someone who doesn’t know what their talking about. That’s especially true of lawyers that don’t read a statute before commenting on it.
Thanks for the answer.
” . . . no longer going to ask for help”
In the past, I worked with recently discharged vets. That was their point of view. Ask for help, lose your Second Amendment rights.
In addition, many were afraid of their wife or girlfriend. One bad word from the woman in their life to the VA and they believed (and it was probably true) that their legal firearms would be seized. Some even were celibate (or not emotionally involved with any woman) for that reason.
Many were amazingly fear ridden and felt the need to be armed all the time. It was a world that made no sense to me. But I never served and was never in combat.
Maybe the Second Amendment is obsolete in 2023. (I am on the fence.) But let have an honest open debate about. Introduce a Constitutional Amendment to repeal or modify and go through the Constitutional process. Follow the process, up or down
This sneaking around the edges for gun restriction shows how useless a Constitution can be. During the COVID excesses, the First Amendment was temporarily repealed. You couldn’t go to church or (The Horrors!) sing a hymn in a choir
A 2003 CDC meta study reviewed over fifty previous studies that looked at the efficacy of a range of “gun control” measures. These included waiting periods, registration, background checks, and outright bans on certain types of weapons. They didn’t find any, taken alone or together, that could be shown to have reduced violent crime to a statistically significant degree.
FWIW, I think a carefully crafted “universal background check” bill could pass judicial review… at least if the standard of review was strict scrutiny… whether it could pass this court/ Bruen… I can’t guess.
Such a bill would likely save some lives, but the number might be so small that it gets lost in the year to year variation in gun deaths.
“The problem: the agency running the MH facilities doesn’t report the detentions to law enforcement or anyone else…’
That is one loophole I cannot understand why everyone is not on board with closing. Mandatory reporting to the Instant Check system and law enforcement would go a long way toward preventing some tragedies. The legislation to close the loophole needs to have serious penalties (including jail, IMO) for failing or refusing to report.
As to red flags, I’d contend that if someone is dangerous enough for a red flag order they also meet the criteria for an emergency commitment.
I would be curious to see any argument that certain laws would prevent any of the typically defined mass shootings in recent times. Banning ARs may put a dent in the popularity of the usage, but that would soon be replaced by any number of firearms still available. This ban doesn’t even take into account that no one seems to agree on a definition of assault rifle.
The best attempt I’ve seen to help reduce gun deaths was in terms of waiting periods and suicides. This introduces the trade off of someone trying to buy a gun to defend themselves though too.
The right needs to admit guns are a problem and the left needs to realize it’s not only guns that are a problem. With the state of discourse, I’m not sure we’ll see anything in the next few decades.
Just to throw this out there.
Data are from the link.
“Guns used in mass shootings from 1982 and April 2023. Pistols – 161. Rifles – 65. Shotguns – 30.
“Handguns are the most common weapon type used in mass shootings in the United States, with a total of 161 different handguns being used in 111 incidents between 1982 and April 2023. These figures are calculated from a total of 142 reported cases over this period, meaning handguns are involved in about 78 percent of mass shootings.
The involvement of semi-automatic rifles in mass shootings.
Owing to their use in several high-profile mass shootings, there has been much public discussion over suitability or necessity of assault weapons for the purpose of self-defense. While any definition of assault weapon is contentious, semi-automatic rifles are generally the main focus of debates around this issue. Since 1985 there has been a known total 58 mass shootings involving rifles, mostly semi-automatics. This figure is underreported though, as it excludes the multiple semi-automatic (and fully automatic) rifles used in the 2017 Las Vegas Strip massacre – the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, killing 58 and wounding 546. In fact, semi-automatic rifles were featured in four of the five deadliest mass shootings, being used in the Orlando nightclub massacre, Sandy Hook Elementary massacre and Texas First Baptist Church massacre.”
https://www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-weapon-types-used/
So why all the concentration on controlling ARs and not pistols?
Answers? I don’t have any that work and still support the 2nd Amendment.
Metal detectors everywhere? Armed guards everywhere? Issue everyone body body armor? Restrict certain groups from owning firearms?
Or maybe our priorities are wrong. Drunk drivers kill more people than guns by orders of magnitude.
The question wasn’t about ARs, but about all guns.
Statistics be damned. A 9mm handgun round does not inflict the same bodily damage that a tumbling .223 round does.
But President Biden said a 9mm will blow your lungs out.
Seriously, tumbling. 223 is a myth and in many situations .223 FMJ will make a clean through and through where a 9mm hollowpoint will expand and make a much more serious wound. For that matter a .75 caliber musket is a veritable cannon compared to .223 ball ammo. While I don’t personally own a musket, a 12 gauge shotgun slug has similar terminal effects.
There’s a great deal to unpack here. “Mass shooting” is, or was, something of a term of art used to describe events like this most recent massacre at the mall in TX. Mother Jones, not exactly a right wing publication, maintains a database of mass shootings that comport w/ this trad’l/ official definition. By their count there have been 144 of these atrocities since the FBI began tracking them in 1982. This is very different from the roughly 200 mass shootings the Gun Violence Archive claims have already occurred this year or the 248 that the Daily Beast claimed in a recent pc.
OT1H, one can reasonably argue that any event at/ in which more than one person is shot is a “mass shooting”. OTOH, using a term that has long been understood to mean one thing to describe something related, but both qualitatively and quantitatively different, is confusing and makes comparisons difficult or impossible.
Understanding these differences is necessary to explore/ understand what might work to reduce them. The sort of mass shooting detailed in the Mother Jones data base/ what most people think of when they hear the term, is very different from the mass shootings that GVA includes in their count. The means of dealing with them are also different.
The sort of mass shooting that occurred at the mall in Texas is an example of the former. In these events the shooter chooses some public venue, goes there and starts shooting people. The shooter may target one race or ethnicity or simply shoot people at random. These events, almost invariably, occur in what are nominally “gun free” zones (or victim disarmament zones, per some). I’m not a fan of John Lott’s research, but he’s tracked/ documented this pretty thoroughly.
Lott has suggested that it is the fact that the shooters know the likelihood of encountering an armed citizen at these venues is so small is why they choose them as the site for their attacks. I’ve seen little evidence that this is the case. I think it far more likely that these people are interested in amassing a high body count (which is beyond sick) and these venues tend to be target rich environments.
Despite this, the FBI reported recently that 6 of 61 “active shooter events” the prev year (I think 2022, might have been 2021) were thwarted by armed citizens. Given that only a small percentage of people carry concealed weapons, even fewer do so in “gun free zones”, this is significant. Also, it’s likely that some events which would have become mass shootings didn’t because the attacker was killed before he could shoot many people.
As fervent a supporter of the RKBA as I am, I often disagree w/ the NRA, but we’ve got some pretty good evidence that good guys with guns do stop bad guys w/ guns. Further, we know from experience in Florida where roughly 2 million permits have been issued over a period of more than thirty years, that permit holders tend to be an especially law abiding demographic (w/ less that 0.1% having their permits revoked for any reason). It would seem that allowing those w/ permits to carry into events/ venues currently called “gun free zones” would have a salubrious effect. If it didn’t deter attackers, it would make it more likely that they’d be stopped before they’d killed so many people.
It’s hard to tease out, but it appears that most of the “mass shootings” that GVA includes are gang related. Gang violence accounts for roughly half of all murders in this country, most of which occur in a dozen or so cities. These events typically involve gang members shooting at members of a rival gang. The victims tend to be young BIPOC males. Others are usually “collateral damage”/ victims caught in the crossfire. While something like 20% of trad’l mass shootings, over the past decade or so, have involved long guns, in the gang related shootings nearly all involve handguns. This explains the enormous disparity between what MoJo reports and what GVA claims (using the metric of four people shot, rather than the number killed), as handguns are both less powerful and harder to shoot accurately and thus result in fewer fatalities.
Gang violence is a particularly intractable problem. Community intervention programs have shown some success in reducing the “tit for tat” nature of gang shootings as, at least per some reports, have community policing programs/ putting more cops on the street. JMO, but I think we need to address the wealth/ income disparity w/in this country, so black communities aren’t mired in poverty/ hopelessness. I also think that some program whereby those who as young men were convicted of crimes, but have gone on to lead law abiding lives, are able to have their convictions expunged, so they really can be productive members of society.
Personally, I’m opposed to “red flag” laws. I think they’re Constitutional abominations that infringe on the 2nd Amendment, the 4th Amendment, and the 5th Amendment, and doubt they’ll pass judicial review.
I’m also opposed to “assault weapon” bans for a number of reasons. If the standard of review for such a measure is, as I believe it should be, “strict scrutiny” such measures can’t clear the hurdles imposed. (More people die from autoerotic masturbation each year than are killed w/ “assault weapons” and > 99.99% of such weapons are never used to commit a violent crime.) I also think that embracing/ endorsing such measures is foolhardy. I invite anyone who’s read this far to google “2nd Amendment sanctuaries” and to read the 2017 Pew report, “America’s Complex Relationship With Guns” to see how strongly some non trivial number of people (roughly 50 million) feel about this issue. Banning/ attempting to take people’s firearms is flirting w/ civil war.
HTH
Note that according to Dr. Lott, the FBI seriously undercounted the number of active shooter events stopped by legally armed citizens. (I see you are not a fan of Lott, but he seems to be a good source for analysis). Nonetheless, I agree with your proposal to allowed licensed concealed carriers to carry in “gun free zones.” But the antis will fight that tooth and nail, regardless of the facts.
And, again from John Lott, 96 percent of mass shootings from 1950 to May 2022 occurred in gun free zones. That seems convincing to me that gun free zones are actually target rich “soft” targets.
On a related topic, I thought we could add links on Tuesdays?
TT rules allow links, not that they’re required.
I was dubious of the effect of bans on “high capacity” magazines until I saw a picture from an attack in a theater in Paris showing people streaming out of the theater into the lobby “while the shooter was changing magazines”. So, maybe they would hold dlwn the death toll a tiny bit.
I’d be a little skeptical of that claim. There were three shooters at the theater, IIRC, and it’s unlikely that all three were changing magazines at the same time. Further, while changing a magazine on an AK takes longer than on an AR-15/ M-16, it still doesn’t take very long. That a crowd of people, deafened from gunshots, would recognize and act during the few seconds it would take for a shooter to reload seems pretty unlikely.
FWIW, I’d guess whomever wrote the caption engaged in a bit of literary license. JMO
As Skink observes well above, dealing with mental health well would help with shootings. It would also help significantly with other societal issues (homelessness, the subway incident from earlier in the week, et cetera). I’m not persuaded that society is either able and willing to really deal with mental health problems. There were good reasons for the elimination of involuntary mental health hospital incarceration – but was the resulting mix of prison/jail incarceration and homelessness problems really a better outcome?
I’d link a 2018 Volokh post entitled “Is Mass Incarceration Inevitable? Part 2. Much Smaller is Still Very Large” if linking were permitted. If you look it up, I recommend the chart on institutionalization rates from 1934-2000.
Another area to tackle would be tribalism (including partisanship). I think mental health would be easier to address though – at least most people want to do better on mental health.
So, at a time when the feds are beating the bushes for dangerous white supremacists (declared “the greatest threat to our country”), the Allen, TX mall shooter was posting his rhetoric on social media for almost three years, then gravitating to pictures of his guns, and pictures of the mall he would attack. He all but sent Homeland Security a box marked “ATTACK PLANS FOR MASS SHOOTING” with the details of his intentions (assuming that he did not actually do this too).
Yet, somehow, they missed it. In spite of the nationwide ear to the ground for the mysterious, shadowy white supremacists, DHS missed the real one who shot up a mall. Was it because his Latinx name reassured them he was in their “big tent”? Was it because they preferred to let the shooting occur to advance their “gun control” agenda? Are they just completely incompetent?
Failures here include failure of the military to report mental history information that might have blocked weapons purchases, and an inexplicable DHS failure to detect or act on information this guy was pouring out on the Internet. Are they monitoring dangerous white supremacists or are they not? Somebody needs to be answering some hard questions as to what this expensive but highly ineffective agency is supposed to be doing.
What is this ‘Latinx’ that you speak of?
As Skink pointed out a well crafted “red flag law” can help but most of these laws are more like Oregon’s,which was deliberately written to facilitate malicious abuse of the law. I’d be more supportive of this if the state had the burden of proof and false reports were automatically prosecuted as felonies.
Realistically no restrictions on the tools of mass attacks will work, the problem is societal. we didn’t see the same frequency or media coverage until after Colombine in the mid 90s. Before that spree killing was a rare event despite the ease of acquiring guns, this goes doubly for schools where the Gun Free School Zones law seemed to trigger school shootings. Prior to that the only widely known incidents were the University of Texas sniper in 1966 and Cleveland Elementary in 1979. It was only after a wave of gun control laws in the 90s and the rise of the 24 hour news cycle that gave killers national fame.
Also banning guns,won’t stop the killing, the highest casualty events often do not involve guns. The worst school attack in the US remains the 1927 Bath Michigan school bombing and the deadliest terrorist act before 9/11 was the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. There are,also numerous examples of vehicle attacks, the Nice truck attack is one of the deadliest in Europe and the Waukesha Christmas Parade attack killed as many as the Allen Mall
Only if you can change the culture.
I think the greatest impediment to making headway on the issue is distrust. Unfortunately, the left gives gun owners little reason to believe that they will be satisfied with modest, targeted compromises. Every proposal seems intended to be as intrusive and inconvenient to law-abiding gun owners as possible.
I think creative, honest people can bridge that gap. For example:
— Make background checks mandatory, but also completely free and immediate.
— Have a gun registry. But outsource the management on a performance-based contract to the NRA.
— Ban open carry and permitless concealed carry. Establish nation-wide shall-issue concealed carry.
The fact of the matter is, most gun victims are not in mass shootings and the types of people who do most gun crime have had numerous brushes with the law, which are increasingly disregarded. The fact that clear gun crimes are going unprosecuted by the same strata of people who want more gun laws, does not build confidence in the overall intent.
Unfortunately the mistrust is completely justified on the gun owners part. All the “compromise” only seems to ever work one way, us giving up rights. There has been a whole lot of “Why can’t you compromise and give up this one little thing and then we’ll stop” over the years. And then they come back a bit later and ask for the next thing, and then the next. People started out with a complete right to own and use guns legally that has been repeatedly chipped away at by the “compromises” starting with the NFA and United States v. Miller in the 30’s and increasing starting in the 70’s. SCOTUS finally starting giving some of them back recently.
As others have said, guns are not the problem – they are a tool that can be used properly or improperly. Mass gun violence itself is a symptom, the problem is a culture and fetishism of violence and people who do go out and commit mass shootings.
It can be objectively argued that the current level of gun legislation is the strongest in the history of the country. In the 1950’s, when I was young, there was (outside the NFA of 1934 which limited access to machine guns) effectively no restrictions on firearm purchases. One could pop into a store, put some money on the counter, and walk out with your selection. Or one could mail off a check & subsequently get a front-line battlefield weapon from WWI or WWII delivered to your door by the Post Office (a convenience lost to Lee Harvey Oswald).
But even with this easy access, the murder rate was lower than today. And the idea that an individual would dress up in tactical gear & head out with a civilian facsimile of a military assault weapon to slaughter innocents they did not know would be unconceivable. It is now sadly conceivable, but still not understandable. Something in the ethos of the culture has changed. I have lived through it & don’t understand it.
Perhaps the coarsening of popular culture, with ever more violent movies, TV shows, & video games (& the prevalence of first-person shooters) has desensitized the mentally vulnerable in the population to perceive what was once unthinkable as an acceptable path.
As to CCW permit holders being useful in stopping mass shooters…I don’t know about that. I’ve been a permit holder for 50 years. I’d be willing to shoot to defend my life, or the life of a loved one, but, to be honest, I’m not sure I’d be willing to shoot a stranger to save a stranger unless there were some kind of good Samaritan law covering use of deadly force by a civilian. And that’s never going to happen. If they’re trying to take protection away from cops, they’re not going to give it to some yahoo.
“unconceivable”… I don’t think that word means what you think it does.
I suspect you meant to reply to someone.
Scheisse!
I did indeed. Sorry, about that. Maybe getting to use a “Princess Bride” joke so delighted me that, in my excitement, I forgot…
…or maybe I just forgot.
I throw myself on the mercy of the court.
George W moment…
Since there seems to be great reluctance to focus on weapons restrictions, the only other alternative is to focus on the person. With concealed carry restrictions being severely weakened, not only do I have to worry about the criminal element, the scared cop, but also the civilian next to me that might be having a bad day or be irresponsible, or lack the judgement to know when to use a weapon. If feasible, I would require an extensive background investigation that includes a psychological assessment of the purchaser. If the applicant fails any portion of the investigation, the applicant would be restricted from purchase. Furthermore, I would mandate periodic reviews of the gun owner to ensure that they are still capable of owning a weapon as well as scenario based training, paid for by the owner, to ensure the weapon can be handled responsibly. We can’t continue this path where gun owners can purchase legally and have the same owner commit murder because of a bad day or believe a kid playing in their yard is a deadly threat. I support the 2nd Amendment, but that amendment shouldn’t give citizens the right to own whatever weapon they desire, or not have restrictions placed upon them. After all, they are in possession of a device that can kill another citizen.
“With concealed carry restrictions being severely weakened, not only do I have to worry about the criminal element, the scared cop, but also the civilian next to me that might be having a bad day or be irresponsible, or lack the judgement [sic] to know when to use a weapon.”
As noted above, permit holders have proven to be an especially law abiding demographic. Also, while we’ve not touched upon it here, and much of the media chooses to ignore it, there’s a body of evidence (from Kleck/ Gertz, DOJ, Pew, Gallup, the LA Times and other sources) that shows that defensive gun use (DGU), occurs substantially more often than does criminal gun use. I’ve mentioned that I’m not a fan of Lott, but his research (detailed in “More Guns, Less Crime”) appears to show a small, but consistent, reduction in violent crime that corresponds w/ a given jurisdiction beginning to issue CCW permits and continues to grow as the number of permits issued increases. Perhaps more telling, he also reports a displacement effect, where neighboring jurisdictions see an increase in such crimes.
“If feasible, I would require an extensive background investigation that includes a psychological assessment of the purchaser. If the applicant fails any portion of the investigation, the applicant would be restricted from purchase. Furthermore, I would mandate periodic reviews of the gun owner to ensure that they are still capable of owning a weapon as well as scenario based training, paid for by the owner, to ensure the weapon can be handled responsibly.”
It seems that you’d be imposing a cost for exercising a fundamental right. Just as poll taxes infringe on the write to vote, the measures that you suggest, however well intentioned they may be, seem to infringe upon the RKBA.
“I support the 2nd Amendment, but that amendment shouldn’t give citizens the right to own whatever weapon they desire, or not have restrictions placed upon them.”
The 2nd Amendment doesn’t “give citizens” a right, it prohibits the government from infringing upon an existing right. In US v. Miller (1939) SCOTUS decided that the criteria for determining whether a weapon was protected by the 2nd Amendment were that it be “suitable for military purpose” and “in common use”. People have the right to defend themselves/ their loved ones and the right to the means w/ which to effectively do so.
I can’t get my head around Bruen, but the standard of review whenever a fundamental right is implicated, is supposed to be that any such law serve a compelling government need, be narrowly tailored to impose upon that right only to the extent necessary to meet that need, and that there be no other less intrusive means of meeting the need. That’s a high bar, but it should be, as it should be for any fundamental right.
It’s really important to recognize both how many people (more than fifty million) are supporters of the RKBA and how fervent/ passionate their support is. Wikipedia has a map that shows something like 75% of the country has passed 2nd Amendment Sanctuary Laws [ Scott, here’s the link; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_sanctuary Please incl or work your magic so clicking on the text takes one there, I don’t know how to do that. TIA] I don’t know if you’ve read the Pew report [https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns/ and again, Scott, I’ll impose on your good offices…] but when you have roughly twenty percent of the nation’s population feeling the RKBA is essential to their liberty, infringing on the right is an extraordinarily dangerous endeavor. When I used the word “foolhardy” above, I did so advisedly.
Having read all these comments, it seems to me the attitudes and opinions of the Simple Justice community have moved a bit to the left, on this issue, since the last time I recall our host opening it up to debate: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2015/12/05/the-new-york-times-puts-gun-control-on-a1/
A few thoughts that came to me while reading this thread:
1) I don’t normally participate in gun control conversations anymore. The reason, relevant here, is that the common cause I noted among gun owners and others across the spectrum seems to disappear as soon as they meet each other.
Sure, there’s a lot of gray area–but we all know that certain people shouldn’t be free to go near objects sharper than a golf ball, let alone weapons. So what exactly happens when we try to legislate that makes this fail right out of the gate?
I hang around gun owners in the absence of the gun grabbers on a regular basis (and vice versa). Among even the most hard-core 2A crazies, the conversation is markedly different than anything you’ll find online. There’s a near-universal acknowledgment that there’s always going to be someone that shouldn’t have a gun. Go to a range and see this kind of person even accidentally point a gun in the wrong direction and you’ll find them banned with everyone around tsk tsk-ing their idiocy.
But the same group that would agree this person is a danger – around people that want to grab guns – and they’ll overwhelmingly defend this idiot’s RKBA.
If the first part of solving a problem is defining it, how do we move forward when we all know this type of person is someone that shouldn’t have guns, but can’t even figure out what to do with him, let alone all the other edge cases.
2) Skink is right that red-flag laws can be problematic (and especially right when it comes to mental health providers not sharing info). Typically lost in that discussion though, is a public policy focus. If you make people less likely to seek mental help because you really want strong gun laws, what happens?
When I was a local elected official, residents came to me at various times about the long delays in getting permits to own firearms approved (we are in NJ) and four of them came to me with what I thought was a bizarre question: if they had seen a psychiatrist (or could benefit from seeing a psychiatrist), but it would have to be reported every time they applied for a firearm, is it worth putting in the form (or seeing a doctor)?
Every policy creates a set of incentives. Here, in NJ, if you have ever seen a psychiatrist (and they mean, ever, you need to so indicate on every firearms-related form and get a note from a doctor that you can safely handle firearms.
This sounds like a decent policy at first glance if you’re only looking at it from a gun-violence prevention vantage point.
But then I saw how it operated for these individuals. I’ll give a quick overview of one person below (we will call him John) so you get a sense of the public-policy related reasons that the Veterans Administration refused to comply with the NY SAFE Act.
John asks his psychiatrist for a note that they can safely handle firearms. The psychiatrist says his knowledge base is psychiatry and can say John is “stable”, but as he doesn’t know anything about how guns work, so he can’t say anyone can or can’t safely handle firearms.
John currently owns 3 firearms he has used for decades and asks what he should do? The police advise him that the law says any doc can write the note, they just need it to check the box, so John can get a podiatrist to sign off. Just get a note. They also tell him — if you get denied, they may come after his existing guns, so he should get the note quickly.
John seeks out a lawyer. The lawyer advises John to retract his application. Without a denial, they don’t go after his existing guns.
John is confused, but the law is clear. If you have guns, you can keep them. If the State doesn’t have reason to take them, they can’t. Due process, after all.
But if John gets denied, they can use the denial to go after your guns. So John asks his general practitioner. This doc says he would love to sign the letter, but his malpractice only covers the work he’s authorized to perform, so sorry.
John is in a fairly common situation. He is advising someone else not to see a doc unless it’s absolutely necessary.
So when John 2.0 asked if they should worry about future permits (if they see a shrink), this seemingly mundane rule has turned into a public policy quagmire. We have incentivized people that want to seek help not to do it. We’ve incentivized entire networks to skirt the laws (the VA won’t comply with NY’s SAFE act because they prioritize patient treatment over gun laws).
I made a recommendation to our State senator that since there’s an affirmative requirement on all mandatory reporters to so indicate if their patient is an imminent threat to themselves or others, perhaps the law can be tweaked to change the note requirement to a checkbox: have you any reason to declare this person an imminent threat?
Pols rarely want to look like they have made things worse. This is still how it works in NJ.
So many people agree with each other (when separate) but actively fight policy once they are in the same room.
How do you move forward from there?
Where is the rational person seeking to merely alter incentives while acknowledging rights and risks under our legal system?
Beats me. The only thing this RKBA issue has done is make me hesitant to ever engage in gun debates publicly.
But someone told me once that every once in a while comments on a gun post can pleasantly surprise you.
Who knows, maybe that day can be today.
[quote] I hang around gun owners in the absence of the gun grabbers on a regular basis (and vice versa). Among even the most hard-core 2A crazies, the conversation is markedly different than anything you’ll find online. There’s a near-universal acknowledgment that there’s always going to be someone that shouldn’t have a gun. Go to a range and see this kind of person even accidentally point a gun in the wrong direction and you’ll find them banned with everyone around tsk tsk-ing their idiocy.
But the same group that would agree this person is a danger – around people that want to grab guns – and they’ll overwhelmingly defend this idiot’s RKBA. [/quote]
There is a reason for this, even if everyone it town knows Cletus is a moron who shouldn’t be allowed near anything sharper than cooked spaghetti the first time they specifically agree that he really shouldn’t be allowed to have firearms for his own, and neighbors, safety you start seeing reports with bold text ledes “GUN OWNERS AGREE WITH GUN CONTROL!!!!!”. And then the little compromises start again, “Well you agreed that this obviously unsafe person shouldn’t have guns, why can’t you agree that this completely different group we want to take them from shouldn’t be forbidden also, and then that group over there, and so on. Again, we have been taught never to admit that any person shouldn’t be allowed to have them, even for good reason.
If everyone started acting in good faith, looking for real solutions to real problems that didn’t almost immediately devolve into “Let’s go door to door confiscating all the guns at gunpoint.” you would find a lot more people willing to help find workable methods.
After a few days and reading the thoughtful comments y everyone I’ll say this ; Whether you believe or not now would be a good time to
Pray
It’s difficult not to see the RKBA “solution” as little more than a thinly-veiled marketing ploy. Sure, as a solution it’s not unlike Smokey the Bear but with a gun and a pile of dead children: Only You Can Prevent Mass Shooters (TM).
Among the differences, however, is that Smokey the Bear was an attempt — albeit a bad one at that — to tap into a sense of both personal and collective responsibility. Of course, with Smokey the Bear in hibernation, we can rake the forest floors. RKBA, on the other hand, admits to defeat to an intractable problem of our own making while simultaneously ensuring that the final solution comes with increased profit margins. (After all, who will buy the guns of tomorrow if today’s kids are dead?)
So say what you will about red flag laws, they at least offer some form of due process compared with extrajudicial killings, which tend to be permanent.