A Few Words on Gun Control and the Culture of Fear

The US has more guns per person than any other country in the world. It also has a relatively high homicide rate. (As I've previously discussed, the U.S. also has highest rate of incarceration of any nation on Earth with the most people in prison anywhere -- it also has by far the highest military budget on Earth.)

A number of studies by Harvard scientists have correlated the higher rates of gun ownership with higher incidents of homicide both in the United States and the world.  New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Hawaii, for example, are the three U.S. states with the lowest gun ownership, and are also the three lowest in deaths caused by guns. The highest rate of gun ownership are in Wyoming and Montana, and they are number 2 and 4 in the rate of death by guns. Aljazeera, of all places, has an excellent -- and reliable, based on my check of the stats -- interactive graphic of the United States and gun ownership coupled with homicide rates.

The U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment does not prohibit reasonable restrictions on gun ownership. It does not prevent requiring trigger locks, background checks, limitations on transfer, taxation, storage requirements, display requirements, limitations on number, ammunition limitations, or prohibition of things other than personal arms. It doesn't give a right to sell, just to "bear," arms. The appropriate question is why, given that there is a general right to own guns are so many opposed to laws assuring the right is exercised in a safe manner?

One argument is that people somehow have a natural right to own guns. People, of course, are not born with firearms. The Christian fundamentalist claim of a natural right from God to bear arms seem flatly contradicted by their bible's commandment "Thou shalt not kill" and Jesus's second most important commandment "Love thy neighbor as thyself."

Another argument is that the U.S. Constitution gives the literal right to "bear arms." Ignoring the qualification of a militia, as the literalists oddly often do, a problem with the literal approach is that it does not address the sale of weapons; ostensibly, the sale of weapons could be completely prohibited consistent with the Second Amendment unless the right to bear arms implicitly includes the right to buy and sell them. The right to bear arms is the right to sticks and rocks. Conservatives who would argue there is an implicit right to buy and sell -- though it's one not expressly mentioned in the Constitution -- are at odds with the conservative view there is no "right to privacy" because it is not mentioned in the Constitution.

Some conservatives also believe that the words of the U.S. Constitution can only be given the uses they had when those provisions of Constitution were ratified. That's an odd view, one inconsistent with a broad view of the right to bear arms. That's because in 1791 (when the Second Amendment was ratified) muskets were the only "arms" that existed (including some primitive muzzle loading rifled muskets). The ratifiers of the Second Amendment had no concept of automatic weapons, semi-automatic weapons, of easy load ammunition cartridges, of readily available ammunition, of hollow point bullets, of explosive shells, of not loading through the muzzle, of taking shots faster than one every several minutes, of shooting accurately over great distances, of using a sight or aiming with a laser, or, in fact, of anything other than hand made hand held arms. 

A reasonable view of the Second Amendment accepts that there is a right of citizens to own hand guns. It's a venerable right, in fact, not invented by Americans but deriving from the English Bill of Rights passed 102 years before the U.S. Bill of Rights. Neither, though requires society be armed to the teeth.

U.S. Republicans, nonetheless, have taken a rabid approach to gun ownership far beyond the Second Amendment or reason. Their influence, as long as it is strong, results in a dangerous society, a society where people can freely carry hidden weapons, where the police are required to be heavily armed, where children frequently shoot themselves and others, and where criminals have easy access to vast amounts of powerful weapons. Should you have a hankering for real world tragedy, try a Google search for something like "child shot handgun."

Let me draw back from getting preachy and ask, why do so many U.S. citizens take such an extreme view of the right to own weapons? (U.S. citizens' views are "extreme," regardless of where one stands on gun control, as U.S. citizens own far more guns than citizens in other countries.) There is no obvious answer. Yet, considering the question of "why" in light of two other facts where the U.S. is extremist -- (1) it has highest rate of incarceration of any nation on Earth (with the most people in prison anywhere) and (2) it also has by far the highest military budget on Earth -- and an answer might be gleaned. All relate to a common denominator of fear of others. Guns provide an aura of safety. Putting threatening people in prison for long periods allows one to feel safer. Having an enormous military makes the country feel safer. The fear some U.S. citizens harbor towards immigrants are consistent with this. The phrase "culture of fear" has been used by some to refer to the "War on Terror" (and, N.B., should that view be accepted, the name "War on Terror" is Orwellian genius).

Tapping into fear allows those whose arguments are not cogent to obtain and stay in power and to push policy agendas that serve narrow benefits. The Republicans have been the party espousing this approach, harking repeatedly on fear based arguments (including broad access to weapons, for draconian criminal laws, and for high military budgets), none of which are justified in their extremes as measured by the rest of the world, but which have served as the Republican gateway to power.

What happens under the influence of such fear is that guns not only fuel homicide in the United States (as the Harvard studies I've linked above show), but fuel, for example, the bloody Mexican drug wars; they lead the U.S. to doing things like irrationally invading Iraq; they lead to compiling massive amounts of nuclear weapons and attempting to address a nuclear war with lasers; and they lead to a substantial loss of freedom as many people in the U.S. are put in prison, denied jobs, and have the basic ability to do things like easily travel impaired. It's a tragedy is that none of this makes people in the U.S. safer or better off.

Part of this post appeared previously in my post Why I am Not a Republican and is posted here as part of my 2012 election series.