Guns are Good

Are cars good or bad? If you say good, what of the more than 35,000 annual domestic deaths due to motor vehicle crashes? If in consideration of these losses, hundreds of thousands of injuries, and their polluting exhaust you conclude that cars are indeed bad and therefore their use should be further limited, you may be discounting the higher lifestyle and freedoms that the automobile affords millions.

Many believe guns are bad. It’s a reasonable position, as their effects upon the human body are horrific. It’s especially easy to vilify guns in the wake of senseless mass shootings as recently happened at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. We can all imagine ourselves or our loved ones innocently attending classes or going out for an enjoyable night at the movies and suddenly subject to an unthinkable attack.  It is reasonable to take action to prevent that from happening.

Homicide by firearms number around 11,000 annually (and falling – the murder rate is down 50% from its historic highs in the early 1990’s, but it is spiking as much as 73% this year in some cities.) Suicide gun deaths are double that. A few thousand fewer people die each year by the bullet as do in motor vehicle accidents. Our reactions to these unpalatable incidents are very different, though.

Perhaps it’s because traffic deaths are overwhelmingly accidents. Only about 500 or so gun deaths are accidental. The others are all intentional. As mentioned, two thirds of these deaths are suicides. Of the homicides, historically around 75% are committed by people with a criminal history. Crimes of passion and first-offender murderous gun-wielding madmen are relatively rare.

But this doesn’t stop left-leaning politicians from calling for more gun control each and every time a lunatic strikes. Their argument is that it is innately wrong that guns should be so common and easy to obtain. I suppose they also believe that it follows that if we enforced even more gun restrictions than are currently on the books, there would be a reduction in these events. Though this may be sensible on the surface, fewer guns = less opportunity = fewer murders, the evidence does not support the claim.

We won’t be able to fully prosecute the gun control argument here. I do wonder why these same politicians never point out that every mass shooting (defined as more than four deaths aside from the perpetrator and numbering over the past century at around 170 or so) with two exceptions since 1950 occurred in places where it was illegal for citizens to carry guns. Gun free zones in fact act as advertisements where perpetrators can be relatively assured that there won’t be people there to prematurely thwart their efforts. Advocates for more gun control also don’t discuss the profiles of mass shooters  – almost always young, white, and male with a 60% likelihood of having been previously diagnosed with mental disorder. Some suspect that the behavior of some recent mass murderers may be linked to harmful side effects of powerful psychotropic drugs used to treat their behaviors.

Pundits and politicians also seem reluctant to discuss deeper social realities that may relate to these tragic incidents – the breakdown of the nuclear family, the lack of a clear demarcation between boyhood and manhood, the onset of violent video games, the worship of celebrity, and laws that make it nearly impossible to commit a person to a mental institution without their consent.

One might reasonably doubt that those politicians are really trying to solve the problem. It seems at least possible that they have ulterior motives. What might those be? You might consult the literature of their ideology and study history for answers. I’ll leave that up to you.

President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and many others blame the gun for the crime. Hillary said in a recent speech that it is wrong not to hold the gun manufacturers accountable for these deaths. (I wonder how GM and Ford feel about that one.) I think it’s safe to say that they and their supporters fall into the “guns are bad” camp.

History makes a counter argument. How did society function before widespread firearm ownership? In Europe and non-industrial parts of the world, power was held by the strong. The big man called the shots. The lord, baron, governor, duke, or king ran, what were in essence, protection rackets. There was no such thing as a middle class. There was little freedom or personal ambition and therefore progress was slow.  It was a world that lacked justice and Thomas Hobbes famously described in Leviathan where life was “solitary, nasty, brutish, and short.” In too many places, this describes life to this day.

Women were particularly vulnerable. They were nearly universally considered second class citizens, somewhere between men and children. This was not because women lacked strength of character and of mind, but strength of arm. The gun has served as an equalizer in society and indeed is a factor in ushering in the modern age.

The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is amazingly powerful. It was written short and sweet so as to be difficult to subvert. That hasn’t stopped the efforts of the left, as its spirit would forbid the existence of a gun free zone. Often, those who favor the restriction of firearms refer to the Second Amendment as out of date and not suited for modern life. To hold this view, you must ignore the rationale that the authors themselves gave for its prominence in the Bill of Rights.

The reason that the Second Amendment is in our Constitution is this – to protect personal power. James Madison explained the role of the militia (private armed citizens.) It was necessary as a check against any governing force, foreign or domestic.

Madison and his contemporaries understood human nature better than our current crop of leaders. In an ideal world, guns would be unnecessary. Everyone would be enlightened so as to eschew violence and warfare. They would not seek dominion over others. But as the men of America’s founding knew, this is not human nature.

For that reason, guns are necessary. Like it or not. I believe the world is best served when moral and peace-loving people are better armed than those who are not. In the hands of the just, guns stop evil dead in its tracks. Therefore guns are a great good.