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In the case of gun control, the people who argue that no one should have guns, period, want everyone to be safe. There’s nothing wrong with that. But complete disarmament of the public, and complete safety, are impossible. On the other side of the divide, some argue that there should be no restrictions on gun ownership, because they want everyone to have as much freedom as possible. Nothing wrong with that either, and that’s also impossible. With any right or freedom has to come accountability.
On this issue we see passion, sometimes mutual contempt and loathing, and almost always different basic wording and different mental frameworks. Like the county health council in my example, this enables people on both sides to feel good about what they are doing and saying, but it solves no problems. It gets in the way of solutions even being possible. It would work better for each group to start by trying to understand what the other really wants – in this case what they're arguing about is not a desired end result – that, they share – but rather the means they're convinced will lead to that end. When we see this we can agree on that end, then look for solutions both sides can accept.
The starting point is to define violence as a vital public health issue. From there we should get an accurate picture of the scope and nature of the problem, set goals that all concerned can agree on, and find courses of action that have actually worked on that problem, or adapt some that has worked on similar problems.
Some Basic Facts
To begin with an accurate picture of the situation, here are some relevant facts:
Depending on which polls we examine, somewhere from about one third to about one half of American households own guns. Given that some own more than one, there are more than 200 million privately owned guns in the United States today. This tells us two things: first, since it's doubtful that nearly half of Americans are either criminals or crazy, a lot of decent, stable, reasonable people choose to own guns. Second, since there are already that many guns in circulation, guns tend to be pretty sturdy devices that can last for generations of use, further restricting what guns people can buy will not remove them from society.
The American public, when polled, is about evenly divided on the question of whether they believe that we have appropriate laws on the books already regarding gun ownership, or that we need more stringent laws. Again, this tells us that there are a lot of well-meaning and reasonable people on both sides of the controversy.
Between one third and one half of homicides in America are committed with guns, with the majority being committed by romantic partners of the victims, usually in situations where there is a history of escalating domestic violence and danger. So if we can find a way to keep guns out of the hands of people who are prone to violence, especially where there's a history or risk of domestic violence, it will make us much safer.
Between half and two thirds of suicides in America are carried out with guns, nearly always by people under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. One of the factors that seriously raises the risk of suicide for a person who is severely depressed is having access to a gun. So if someone is a danger to him/herself or others, that person should not be allowed to handle a gun until he or she is no longer in that mental state.
News coverage of violent crime has increased steadily throughout the era of television, with an attendant rise in the general public's level of fear of violence.
Rates of gun ownership have risen over the last couple of decades, probably partly due to the above-noted rise in news coverage of violent crime and rise in fear of that violence.
At the same time, the actual occurrence of violent crimes, with or without guns, has been steadily declining for the last twenty years, showing no meaningful change up or down as a result of gun laws anywhere. There are places where laws have been made more restrictive, and crime has gone down, like New York City, but it went down just as much in other places where the laws didn't change or were made more permissive.
The number of states legalizing concealed carry permits has increased dramatically during the last several years, with (here, too) no impact on gun crimes. As a group, concealed carry permit holders are actually about half as likely to commit any crime as the general public. Having a concealed carry permit doesn't reduce a person's accountability under the law if he or she misuses a gun, and there are still a number of places where possession of a gun is a felony, permit or no permit (typically schools, places that serve alcohol, state and federal building, and anywhere posted as banning them.) So in terms of making America a safer place, this is an irrelevant distraction, including the recent uproar about allowing concealed guns in national parks. Criminals don't bother to get a permit to carry their guns in concealment in a park or anywhere else; if a person with a permit chooses to carry his or her gun in a park, it's almost certainly for self-defense.
People offer several reasons for owning guns. The reason expressed most often is for self-protection against criminal assault (that media-driven exaggerated fear again) and also against large predators when hiking or camping (the national park issue.) Other popular gun activities include hunting, recreational target shooting, and collecting. Guns popular for these uses include some that are often called “assault weapons”, “military weapons”, or “automatic weapons”, often with accompanying declarations that they have no use except killing people and that they belong in war zones and not in our communities. The fact is that these are not assault weapons, and are not the same as those in military use. Actually, the types of guns under discussion have far outsold all others in the U.S. over the last five years, and people do buy them for all the legitimate purposes just noted. And again, they aren't automatics or assault weapons, they're semi-automatics, a huge difference in function despite similar outward appearance. If any military force in the world was sent into battle today with the semi-automatic rifles available for sale in the U.S., they'd be seriously handicapped and outgunned by any other force that had the real thing. And again, violent crime itself, including gun crime, has been dropping slowly but steadily in the United States for about the last two decades with little or no identifiable connection to laws affecting gun ownership. When the 1994 ban on “assault weapons” was passed with a lot of fanfare, nothing changed. When it expired ten years later, nothing changed then either.
Most gun crimes are committed by people for whom even possessing the firearms used is already illegal before they pull the trigger, because they've been convicted of felonies, are underage (under 18 for a rifle or shotgun, under 21 for a handgun), have illegally modified the guns (usually by sawing off the barrels and/or stocks to make them easier to conceal), have obtained the firearms illegally, have been adjudged as mentally incompetent, or are in a place where possession of a gun is illegal for private citizens (typically schools, places that serve alcohol, and places posted as banning guns on their premises.) The problem isn't a lack of relevant laws, it's ineffective enforcement of the ones already on the books.
A significant share of gang crimes are committed with guns, both in the U.S. and in Mexico. Some officials have said that 90% of the guns used by drug gangs in Mexico come from the American market, while other sources put the number as low as 15%. Two key points here are that the guns typically used in these crimes are fully automatic (i.e. submachine guns or assault rifles), which are not legal for sale in the U.S. without a lengthy and expensive process including a background check by the FBI, and which cost upwards of ten thousand dollars apiece. Unlawful possession of what the feds call a Class III firearm, i.e. fully automatic or fitted with a suppressor (what's often called a silencer), carries a ten-year penalty in federal prison. Of the guns used by criminals that do originate in the U.S., the serial numbers of guns trace back to a small minority of licensed sellers, who typically collude with criminals in “straw buys”, i.e. fraudulent sales to a legal buyer with the intent of that gun being passed on to someone who could not legally buy it himself/herself. For both buyer and seller, a straw buy is also a serious crime under current federal law.
