James Alan Fox has a great, upfront piece in the Boston Herald today– it’s his first anniversary writing for them, so he takes the time to clear the air about a few questions he’s had about guns.
Whenever I breathe even a word about guns in this space or other media outlets, I can expect a rapid-fire barrage of irate e-mails from gun advocates. I’m surprised they can afford so much free time away from keeping their firearms collections well polished.
These attacks presume much about my position on gun control, typically making reference to my “ilk.†Well, I’ve decided to mark my one-year anniversary writing for the Herald by clearing the air of lingering gun smoke. A few bullet points may actually surprise those of my counter-ilk:
Guns are not the root cause of our violent society. In fact, the U.S. non-gun homicide rate (3.6 non-gun homicides per 100,000 residents) is double the overall homicide rate in virtually all our kindred nations, including Great Britain, Canada and Australia.
That said, firearms do make violent attacks far more lethal.
And that’s the real problem with guns. It’s not necessarily all violent crime we’re trying to fight here– even if, by some miracle, the NRA realized how crazy it was, and we really did get rid of all the guns in this country, there would still be violent crime– it’s just the way people are. But guns make a bad situation even worse, and that’s why they represent a threat, all the time, every time.
I concur with the need to punish violators. But the usual complaint that we do not prosecute gun crimes is just false. Our prisons are full of offenders who committed violent crimes with firearms.
As I have noted before, the National Rifle Association has recently grown more powerful in manipulating congressional action. My complaint is not so much with the NRA (which is entitled to its position), but with members of Congress who capitulate to its pressure. Our lawmakers should adopt gun policy based on sound evidence, not based on fear that a potent lobby will hold a gun to their political heads.
The goal is not to deprive law-abiding Americans of the ability to own firearms, but to disrupt the flow of guns to impulsive, impatient and imprudent trigger-happy gang-bangers who have helped send the rate of gun violence through the roof. Some reasonable approaches include: establishing a database of ballistic fingerprints – the unique striation marks produced by gun barrel – for all new firearms; full Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms tracing of serial numbers on all guns recovered from criminal activity; and even gun registration.
Now, Fox is going for compromise here, and he’s not wrong to do so. None of those suggestions will be a final and complete solution to gun violence, but they’ll all help. Gun fingerprinting isn’t always reliable, but it’s better that no identification options at all. ATF tracing is something that police departments have been asking for for years, and yet because of the gun industry and the lobby that fights for them, it’s never happened– in fact, the gun lobby is working on making it illegal for police departments to share information at all.
And Fox’s last suggestion is probably his most interesting one.
Aside from some paranoid view of government intrusion, what really is the danger of firearms registration or of background checks on all gun sales We register automobiles, and qualify and license drivers; why not do the same with guns and their owners It makes no sense to prevent law enforcement from tracking firearms transfers that fuel the illegal market. We could even install LoJack-style, GPS devices into new guns to curtail trade in stolen firearms.
The gun guys are wrong: there is no Second Amendment right to individual firearms ownership. All of the ideas Fox mentions are completely constitutional, because owning a firearm isn’t a right– it’s a privilege. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t register each and every gun sold in this country. Every single automobile on the road is licensed and registered, and even insured. Guns shouldn’t be any different. If you choose to own a gun, you’re putting yourself and others in danger, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t have to face the responsibility for that.
It may be naive to believe there is room for compromise in the heated gun control debate. Perhaps I should just make some room in my in-box to accommodate another onslaught of angry e-mails.
Unfortunately, this is probably true as well. But that seems to be, unfortunately, the fate of all reasonable debates on firearms in this country. Any idea that hints, even a little, at a strategy to legitimately reduce gun violence (and therefore gun sales) gets shouted down by a belligerent, obscene opposition.
