Fun Control

To the many law abiding gun owners in the United States, fun control is what is heard when lawmakers mention the foreboding words of gun control. That is one of the things that comes to the forefront of my mind as well.

In the world we live in today it easy to understand the fear of guns. As a concerned citizen of this nation I would like to see violent crimes take a downward trend rather than the ever climbing numbers we see in our day to day exposure of the media. Watching the news we are constantly bombarded, or so it seems, by reports of the crimes committed with guns, the most common reaction to these is a ban on guns or make guns laws stricter. I am reminded of when, as a child, I pulled weeds from our little vegetable garden. Often to skip out on doing hard work, I would just pull the tops off the weeds making the garden look nice and clean, but leaving behind the actual problem, the roots. Within a day or two the weeds would be back in full force with the addition of little sprouts. I believe we have a similar situation when we enforce strict gun laws in an attempt to avoid violent crimes. It may look as though we're working hard to solve the problem, and it is hard work to get laws passed. We still miss the root of the problem however.

It's easy to understand the fear of firearms when stories like Sarah Brady's are so prolific. Brady and her husband were wounded and almost killed by a mad gunman during the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. The result of that attack and her efforts was the passage of the Brady Bill which mandated the background check and waiting period for the purchase of handguns. Both of which are reasonable and I would say necessary gun control laws. With all the good that Brady did by pushing for that law, I still do not stand behind her in light of her recent comments. In her recent article from CNN titled, “Sarah Brady to Obama: Lead on gun control” Sarah Brady tags gun owners as “bullies, ignorant, abnormal Americans, and without good conscience” (1). Brady goes on to say that the ideology of one who does not support her is of one who “is fixated with weapons of war that are turned on grandmothers and babies.” (1) Perhaps I am too ignorant to see the reasoning for such allegations against gun owners, but it would seem as if Brady is working very hard at pulling the leaves off of the weed of violent crime. This is the stigma that is attached to gun owners by those who have been or have had someone they know hurt by a gun owner.

According to www.gunpolicy.org, the current ownership of civilian firearms is 88.8 per 100 people. According to Brady, that would mean that about 88% of the population is a bunch of ignorant bullies, without a conscience who should not be allowed to make the rules. I don't believe the American people are inept, and instead believe that they are fully capable of voting intelligently and responsibly. At this point it may be easy to see Brady as an enemy if you are a gun owner, but Brady is not. I believe that Brady has the best intentions at heart - to lower and hopefully end violence in America. Brady had the strength to reap from the violent crime that impacted her life valuable insight on strengthening our gun laws. However we don't ever see calls to ban automobiles when someone is killed in a car accident. That's because the car, just like the gun, are tools that if and when used improperly can and will endanger lives.

Earlier we read that those who do not support gun bans are those whose ideology is fixated with weapons of war turned on grandmothers and babies. I find that statement to be extreme and inflammatory. Does gun ownership carry with it an inherent evil which makes one want to commit violent crimes? In his recent article from CNN titled, “Gun control measures don't stop violence” writer Robert A. Levy said, “There are about 500,000 gun-related crimes annually in the United States. Further, Americans own roughly 250 million guns. Assuming a different gun is used in each of the 500,000 crimes, only 0.2% of guns are involved in crime each year. A ban on firearms would be 99.8% over-inclusive” (1). From those statistics we can see that guns don't carry with them an inherent evil to cause one a desire to commit a violent crime. Not only that, punishing 99.8% of gun owners because of the ignorance of a few doesn't seem right. The focus instead should be on those that represent the 0.2% and not on gun owners as a whole. Levy goes on to say:

Recall that Washington banned handguns for 33 years; during some of those years the city was known as the nation's murder capital. Killers not deterred by laws against murder were not deterred by laws against owning guns. Moreover, anti-gun regulations did not address the deep-rooted causes of violent crime -- illegitimacy, drugs, alcohol abuse and dysfunctional schools -- much less mental instability. (1)

We need to stop casting blame on the tools used to kill and rather focus on uprooting killings from where they start.

By turning to the justice system we can learn a little more about what is meant by “dysfunctional schools” (Levy 1). A quick search from google shows us that the education level of those on death row is at or below high school according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In a study done at Berkeley done by Lance Lochner and Enrico Moretti shows a similar trend with prison inmates. In other words, our school system is severely lacking in certain areas. In a world where most jobs require you to have a college diploma just to get an interview, what chance do those with less then a high school education have? What then will those who have no opportunities to make money legally do? With no education and no opportunity to get an education it's not likely that they will earn a living through legal means. They learn that there are other ways to make money if one is willing to “bend” some laws. Once they've learned that skill set it's difficult to unlearn. It would seem that the money spent on lobbyist for gun control and gun bans could be better spent on hiring more teachers, strengthening the education system, and providing college opportunities for those who have no hope on their own.

In one of my favorite songs, a religious hymn, one of the lines goes as follows, “I would be my brothers keeper, Lord I would follow thee.” This line embodies the very thing that I am calling for. We need to stop ignoring those who stand in need and leaving them to hopelessly flounder around in the prison system, we need to care for our brothers and sisters. Naturally this would not solve all the problems that we face, but it would do a great deal in the effort to stop the growing trend of violent crimes. Not only that, it would make the world we live in a better place. The value of improving lives cannot be measured by simple numbers, it has an impact beyond what we can measure with statistics. In fact, the study done by Lochner and Moretti shows what other effects can come from increasing the education level in America.

Another common call on firearms is to ban magazines with capacity's that are greater than ten, or as Brady calls them, “high-capacity-killing magazines” (1). We can look to California (CA) for an answer on this one, where a ban is currently in effect on guns that have magazines over 10. I'll compare CA to Utah (UT) since this is the state where I live and most people who read this live. In 2009 CA racked in a grizzly 1,972 murders 1,360 of those by firearms. Contrast with UT where we have 37 murders with 25 of those as a result of firearms according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Now that is not exactly fair to CA, it is quite a bit lager than UT, anyone looking at a map can see that. According to the U.S. Census CA has an estimated population of 36,961,66 in 2009 while UT has about 1/13 of that at 2,784,572. If we take the CA population, murders, and murders by firearms and divide them by 13 we get a population of 2,779,072 with 148 murders and 102 of those caused by firearms. Now there are many things that can influence the murder rate, demographics, poverty, religion, etc. but the lesson taught here is that putting a ban in effect to end all magazine over the capacity of 10 has not stopped violent acts by firearms.

As stated by Levy earlier in the article we saw that a ban on firearms would be 99% over-inclusive, and wouldn't impede those of a criminal mindset. The hateful rhetoric needs to stop between gun supporters and anti-gun supporters. We need to learn from out past mistakes and see that strict gun control laws don't have an impact on those already participating in illegal acts, to stop wasting our time pulling the leaves, stop looking busy, and solve the real problems where they begin, at the roots.