“People are going to do whatever they were going to do anyway.”
There seem to be a lot of voices in this country clamoring for their government to do something about the spate of mass violence, mainly against strangers, that has made so many headlines this year. There also seem to be a nearly-equal number of voices calling for government to do nothing or even less than it is already doing, and for people to be held individually responsible for their actions, because regardless of government or what any other person does or says, they were going to do whatever they wanted anyway.
The first clamor doesn't seem like a useful voice for change because “something” is too broad, and many of the more directed voices on the “something” side of things call for action which is too broad to have any purposeful effect, other than increasing fear of The Other (the police officer, the Guy With Too Many Guns, the Guy With Too Few Guns, the Guy With Too Many Cats, the Guy With Too Much Melanin) and making enforcement of existing or future laws even more difficult.
The second clamor doesn't seem like a useful voice because it calls not only for no change, but no government at all. We'll all just be responsible, whatever that means, for own actions, and since we're all good people, that means we'll all be good, right? Or that the Bad People will get “taken out” by all the good people all around them, here in our happy anarchy where everyone is armed and itching to see somebody else draw first so they can rip off a dozen or so rounds into that black-hat baddie's still-twitching torso. Or else it means we'll just give up and live on our own islands and never trust anyone else ever again, because nobody is safe here in our dystopian anarchic Mad Max world.
Maybe I'm reading too much into the non-thinkers' thoughts there.
It seems to me, though, that giving up on narrowly-drawn, easily-enforced and easily complied-with regulation is the worst possible thing to do in the face of violence. Change should come, and it can come soon if politicians are courageous (or scared) enough to act. It seems to me that all the sociological evidence I'm aware of says that laws which are easy to comply with (traffic lights, for example) are the ones most often obeyed, and the laws most easily enforced (traffic cameras, anyone?) are the ones most often effectively enforced. That is one fact.
Another fact is that Americans have a lot of guns. A shitload of guns. Per capita, we are easily the most heavily-armed in the first world, and that includes Switzerland, where every household in the cantons has a weapon of some sort, the more effectively to raise a well-regulated militia when called upon. (it has never been called upon, but it is ready to be called if ever required)
A third fact is that, unlike Switzerland, where there are lots of guns, or England and France, where there are very few guns, or the very largest societies (China and India) where there are also very few guns per capita, America is a very violent place. According to the FBI, in 2006 the US murder rate per capita was 5.7 per 100,000 citizens, putting us a bit behind Estonia at 7.9 and ahead of the Ukraine at 4.7 for the same period. Switzerland had 1.3 murders per 100,000 citizens. I'm going to guess that most of those were committed with firearms, with perhaps a beating, a couple of stabbings, and maybe a poisoning, or half of one. Among the societies most like us (large, wealthy population, long-established republican government, and so on) Australia was at 1.7, France at 0.8, Germany at 0.25 per 100,000, and Russia with its less-effective and less well-established republic, is at an unsurprisingly higher 17 or so. (statistics are less reliable for Russia, hence the hedging)
While overall violence has gone down despite regulation of guns and so on getting more lax and more difficult to enforce (a sop I'm sure to the “whatever; people are going to do what they want” clamorers) the fact is quite obvious: of the large, wealthy, long-established republics, ours is at least 5 times more murdery than it ought to be, or than it needs to be. And that is directly related to the number of guns which are used to commit those murders. Of 473.5 crimes of violence per 100,000 citizens, 58.1% of murders were with guns, 36.7% of robbers used guns, and a more pedestrian 20% of violent assaults were with guns. I'm just taking a wild guess here, but the fact that guns were 3 times as likely to be used to kill as to hurt may have to do with the fact that they are designed to kill.
What do all these numbers tell us about whether our society is overall working well and toward a peaceful, successful future? I think they don't tell us much, other than we've nearly platformed at five times the “normal” rate of killing and injury for a large, wealthy republic, which means we can do better. A lot better.
Maybe we can't take guns out of the hands of people who already have them (and I don't want to turn mine in just yet) but we can certainly make licensing and operating a gun much better overseen. There will certainly be a grey or black market in weapons of every sort, from ropes and lead pipes, to candlesticks, knives and guns. (in the conservatory) There's little need to make penalties for gun crimes more draconian than they already are; people in this country are very likely to spend multiple years in prison for even the most minor crimes of violence. There is every need to make it easier to police and easier to comply with standards that make it more difficult to put the most deadly of weapons (military and paramilitary assault rifles, submachine guns, large-caliber/large-capacity pistols) in the hands of people more likely than the average Joe to use them to harm other people.
It was time to discuss regulation and enforcement, and whether we should or can regulate and enforce firearms restrictions (we can and we should) on Wednesday the 12th. Let's get to work on Monday the 17th to make a difference. Passively lamenting when another one goes off the reservation and kills a few dozen people, or wishing the weapons he used to do it with would simply go away, aren't working. We can do better.
The fact that we can implies that we must.
The first clamor doesn't seem like a useful voice for change because “something” is too broad, and many of the more directed voices on the “something” side of things call for action which is too broad to have any purposeful effect, other than increasing fear of The Other (the police officer, the Guy With Too Many Guns, the Guy With Too Few Guns, the Guy With Too Many Cats, the Guy With Too Much Melanin) and making enforcement of existing or future laws even more difficult.
The second clamor doesn't seem like a useful voice because it calls not only for no change, but no government at all. We'll all just be responsible, whatever that means, for own actions, and since we're all good people, that means we'll all be good, right? Or that the Bad People will get “taken out” by all the good people all around them, here in our happy anarchy where everyone is armed and itching to see somebody else draw first so they can rip off a dozen or so rounds into that black-hat baddie's still-twitching torso. Or else it means we'll just give up and live on our own islands and never trust anyone else ever again, because nobody is safe here in our dystopian anarchic Mad Max world.
Maybe I'm reading too much into the non-thinkers' thoughts there.
It seems to me, though, that giving up on narrowly-drawn, easily-enforced and easily complied-with regulation is the worst possible thing to do in the face of violence. Change should come, and it can come soon if politicians are courageous (or scared) enough to act. It seems to me that all the sociological evidence I'm aware of says that laws which are easy to comply with (traffic lights, for example) are the ones most often obeyed, and the laws most easily enforced (traffic cameras, anyone?) are the ones most often effectively enforced. That is one fact.
Another fact is that Americans have a lot of guns. A shitload of guns. Per capita, we are easily the most heavily-armed in the first world, and that includes Switzerland, where every household in the cantons has a weapon of some sort, the more effectively to raise a well-regulated militia when called upon. (it has never been called upon, but it is ready to be called if ever required)
A third fact is that, unlike Switzerland, where there are lots of guns, or England and France, where there are very few guns, or the very largest societies (China and India) where there are also very few guns per capita, America is a very violent place. According to the FBI, in 2006 the US murder rate per capita was 5.7 per 100,000 citizens, putting us a bit behind Estonia at 7.9 and ahead of the Ukraine at 4.7 for the same period. Switzerland had 1.3 murders per 100,000 citizens. I'm going to guess that most of those were committed with firearms, with perhaps a beating, a couple of stabbings, and maybe a poisoning, or half of one. Among the societies most like us (large, wealthy population, long-established republican government, and so on) Australia was at 1.7, France at 0.8, Germany at 0.25 per 100,000, and Russia with its less-effective and less well-established republic, is at an unsurprisingly higher 17 or so. (statistics are less reliable for Russia, hence the hedging)
While overall violence has gone down despite regulation of guns and so on getting more lax and more difficult to enforce (a sop I'm sure to the “whatever; people are going to do what they want” clamorers) the fact is quite obvious: of the large, wealthy, long-established republics, ours is at least 5 times more murdery than it ought to be, or than it needs to be. And that is directly related to the number of guns which are used to commit those murders. Of 473.5 crimes of violence per 100,000 citizens, 58.1% of murders were with guns, 36.7% of robbers used guns, and a more pedestrian 20% of violent assaults were with guns. I'm just taking a wild guess here, but the fact that guns were 3 times as likely to be used to kill as to hurt may have to do with the fact that they are designed to kill.
What do all these numbers tell us about whether our society is overall working well and toward a peaceful, successful future? I think they don't tell us much, other than we've nearly platformed at five times the “normal” rate of killing and injury for a large, wealthy republic, which means we can do better. A lot better.
Maybe we can't take guns out of the hands of people who already have them (and I don't want to turn mine in just yet) but we can certainly make licensing and operating a gun much better overseen. There will certainly be a grey or black market in weapons of every sort, from ropes and lead pipes, to candlesticks, knives and guns. (in the conservatory) There's little need to make penalties for gun crimes more draconian than they already are; people in this country are very likely to spend multiple years in prison for even the most minor crimes of violence. There is every need to make it easier to police and easier to comply with standards that make it more difficult to put the most deadly of weapons (military and paramilitary assault rifles, submachine guns, large-caliber/large-capacity pistols) in the hands of people more likely than the average Joe to use them to harm other people.
It was time to discuss regulation and enforcement, and whether we should or can regulate and enforce firearms restrictions (we can and we should) on Wednesday the 12th. Let's get to work on Monday the 17th to make a difference. Passively lamenting when another one goes off the reservation and kills a few dozen people, or wishing the weapons he used to do it with would simply go away, aren't working. We can do better.
The fact that we can implies that we must.