Part II: Common Sense Gun Laws

April 7, 2002
1:18 PM CST

Oh sheesh, it didn’t take long before someone took me to task about my position on guns. (See The Gun Thing Part I on this site

“Are you saying that people should be allowed to own rocket-launchers and nuclear bombs?”—Anon

Firstly, Mr. or Mrs. or Spinster Anon, let me award you the Hackneyed Cliche Of The Week award. Secondly, the short answer is, No, I don’t.

Here’s my list of commonsense gun laws (it won’t take long to read, I promise):

• An individual may not possess any weapon of mass destruction. This includes bombs, rockets, hand grenades, F-14s and any weapon capable of fully-automatic fire which cannot be carried by an individual as a personal weapon.
• No one convicted of any crime of violence involving a firearm or explosive device, may possess a firearm. (Note that this does not include poachers, or some idiot in a bar who used a bottle on a guy for looking at his girlfriend’s tits.)
• Gun purchases made through a licensed gun dealer (FFL) should be subject to the NICS instant check. Specifically excluded from this restriction are any transfers of firearms between individuals, especially family members. (Surprisingly, I’m not against the principle of NICS background checks—provided that if I have to undergo the blasted thing, I can then buy a gun outside my home state, and provided that a NICS check involves only a simple yes/no response to the question: Does this person have a disqualifying criminal record? Also, if an application is not approved/disallowed within 3 minutes, the default is “Application Approved”—I have no patience with government inefficiency.) Most important, however, is this: if NICS cannot perform in the manner I’ve described, it should be junked.
• No federal, state or other governing entity may require registration of firearms or gun owners. No ifs, buts, excepts or maybes.
• No additional tax, other than customary state and local sales taxes, may be levied on the sale of guns or ammunition. So, would-be President Al Gore [spit], don’t think you can kill gun ownership by making ammo too expensive, you shithead.

Note that I use “possess” in its broadest sense—it means you can carry a gun if you want, without a permit, or keep it locked in a closet likewise. Like Vermont does. Note too that there’s no bullshit about “assault rifles”, high-capacity magazines, silencers, “cop-killer” bullets or any of that other crap. Nor do I care about sawed-off shotguns. It’s not the tool, moron, it’s the criminal act itself that’s illegal.

Incidentally, I would also propose a mandatory death sentence for anyone convicted of using a gun in the actual commission of a crime, but we can discuss that thread at another time.

So there ya have it. Up yours, Mayor Richard Daley, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Sarah Brady.

Update:

[Thoughtful Reader Sam sent me a letter to debate a position I took in The Gun Thing, Part 2.  The letter was deeply thought-provoking, which is why I thought I’d debate it here rather than in Reader Mail.]

“Kim,

I applaud you for being the first person I’ve come across (other than myself) who sees and talks about the distinction between the language in the second and first amendments (’be infringed’ versus ‘congress shall not’ ).  However, I need to take you to task for some of your views expressed in ‘Commonsense Gun Laws’.

“Up until a few years ago, I also was of the opinion that it was a good thing to restrict felons from owning guns.  However, the rapidly changing environment and our dead-in-all-but-name Bill of Rights forced me to actually think about the issue of crime and punishment.

“Firstly, ‘convicted felons’ and weapons:

“Here’s the basic philosophy simplified:  creating a distinction between the class of people who (at some time) committed a crime and those that haven’t (yet) is a very bad thing.

“Two really huge reasons in explanation:

“1. When a real, tangible barrier exists to restoration of one’s stature in the community, there is an inherent, tangible barrier to rehabilitation.  (If, upon examination, the truth and ramifications of this statement are not obvious, then please ask me why that is so, or what are the effects of this barrier).

“2. If you decide that any given person (who just happens to have a felony conviction of armed robbery in his past) does not need to own/possess/carry a weapon (gun) for—oh, let’s say—self defense, then you have accepted the argument that any other person (who did not happen to get convicted of armed robbery—yet) does not need one, and one has then accepted implicitly that the right to keep and bear arms is not a ‘natural’ right.  (Pick the penalty, pay the price, and let one return to humanity—or otherwise brand their forehead and release them back into society and stop talking about rehabilitation /equality/ ...)”

Actually, I agree with you more than you realize, because I’ve struggled with the same issues myself for years.  The idealist in me says that a right is a right, and cannot be infringed upon, by anyone or any institution.

But upon closer inspection, this is not so.  Certainly, we abridge the rights of criminals by imprisoning them (depriving them of liberty), by taking away their right to vote, and, in extreme cases, depriving them of life (for murder).

In all those cases, the reason for which we step all over their rights is a simple one:  the criminals have chosen to step outside the moral bounds of society, and infringed upon the rights of others—whether it be by theft (loss of property), or murder (loss of life).  Retribution, in this case, is a simple matter—what they have done to others, they have done to themselves (or, in the Biblical sense, an eye for an eye).

What troubles you, and troubles many people, is that once a felon is released from prison, he has paid his debt to society, and should therefore be allowed all his rights (hitherto denied him by being in prison).  That makes logical sense, but it’s also flawed reasoning.

You see, repaying your debt to society is only part of the punishment.  By stepping so far outside the mores of society, you also have to prove to society that you have reformed, and will not repeat your crime.  Thus, for example, convicted forgers are not allowed to work in financial institutions ever again, and may not follow certain other kinds of profession, either.

An egregious crime such as armed robbery is so abhorrent to society that we have to force the criminal to provide us with a reason to restore his full rights as a citizen.  Sadly, of course, most convicted criminals continue to commit crimes—only a tiny percentage are one-timers.

Here’s where the movie Casablanca did us all a grave disservice, by immortalizing the cynical line of Police Captain Louis Reynaud:  “Round up all the usual suspects.” Actually, this is a perfectly acceptable criminal investigation technique—because people, and especially criminals, are creatures of habit.  The first place to look for a perpetrator in a child molestation case, therefore, is among released child molesters living in the area—and the percentage of times that this leads to the guilty party is downright depressing.

That’s my problem with allowing felons convicted of violent crimes to own guns upon their release from prison:  the idealist in me says, “Why not?”, but the realist in me says, “Not so fast.”

And in saying “Not so fast”, I do feel that the system may be open to change.  If some mope robs a 7-11 store when he’s nineteen, serves fifteen years in the slammer, and then gets a job, a wife, kids, house, and proceeds to walk along the straight and narrow for the next twenty years, why shouldn’t he, at age 54, be allowed to buy a gun to hunt, or for self-defense?

Under this scenario, the question becomes:  what’s a decent amount of time to allow to elapse for a man to prove he has not only paid his debt to society, but also become a model citizen since?  Ten years?  Fifteen?

Some states allow convicted felons to own a gun, but the guns may not leave the property of said felon—which makes sense to me too, especially when the felon has a wife and kids.  Why should they be denied the right of self-defense for a crime that was committed by another?

But the plain fact of the matter is that as a violent criminal, you have chosen to step outside, far outside society—and if you suffer serious consequences for the rest of your life, that’s just too damn bad, because that’s how serious the consequences are.  If you’re worried about self-defense, you’ll just have to defend yourself with a baseball bat or a kitchen knife.  And if you understand that the consequences don’t just apply to you, but to anyone who is close to you, that’s just a part of it—just as the family of the guy you crippled in the 7-11 robbery also has to live with the consequences of your actions, forever.

The second part of Sam’s letter was a little easier to answer, having to do with what constitutes a “personal weapon”, or, as I described it in Part 2, a weapon of mass destruction.  Readers may recall that I described a WMD as a weapon which cannot be carried by one person, and one which is capable of killing many people at the same time.  Here’s the second part of Sam’s letter:

“Secondly, on the matter of weapons classification:

“Simplified philosophy: when one cannot draw a clear and easily distinguishable line of definition then the line is at best useless and at worst a danger to the underlying issue/undertaking.

“Some basic/huge reasons for what is wrong with your classification (i.e. WMD):

“1.  In California they passed a ban on “assault weapons”; how do you distinguish between a semi-auto hunting rifle and a semi-auto MAK-90?  A certain quantity of gasoline can become a WMD… as we’ve seen, an airplane becomes a pretty effective one, and probably a twin engine Piper crammed with fuel would probably do the job on a slightly smaller building, ... not to mention the blast focusing capabilities of water barrels in combination with readily made explosives… (need I continue?)

“2.  (see 2 Above) Are you accepting the gun grabber’s argument that making it illegal magically prevents the bad guys from having them?  And as far as the rocket launcher goes, wasn’t it Washington who insisted that people should own military grade weapons?*

“What good does the FFL do?  Instead of [your 5 laws], let’s replace those 20,000+ laws with zero, and then we’ll attack the tax code.

“I hope I have been able to plant some seeds of reason that may affect your views on ‘the gun thing’.  It took me years to shake off the indoctrination of my early education and then actually try to understand what those guys were writing/talking about (Constitution).”

How about this for a classification:  Weapons of mass destruction can be described as those which are best used to defend the nation, and not the individual.  (Included in this would be:  rockets, Claymore mines, hand grenades, flame throwers, crew-served heavy machine guns or artillery pieces.)

Note that specifically excluded from a “military-only” classification are battle rifles with select-fire capability (eg. a fully-automatic AK-47, M3 Grease Gun or H&K MP-5 would be just fine, in private hands).  I know that the line starts getting fuzzy when you look at some of the light machine-guns, but in the spirit of common sense, let’s apply the worthy judge’s words (used to describe pornography):  “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.”

Note also that a private citizen would not be forbidden to own a machine gun; he’d just have to be a licensed owner (like the Class III license of today).  All other guns, however, could be purchased without restriction of any kind.

As for explosive components (gasoline, petroleum jelly, Piper aircraft etc), there’s no reason why these should be of any concern to anyone—that’s a straw man I have no problem burning down.

And using California’s legislative lunacy as an example for anything would best be applied in the negative—in other words, whatever they do, you’d be pretty safe to do the opposite (in almost every situation, not just as applied to guns).

If letters like this do anything, they serve to clarify our thinking.  On the two topics Sam has addressed, however, my thinking has been clarified for some time, but I always welcome the opportunity to explore the topic and its nuances further.

At some point, idealism always collides with common sense—and when making rules which would abridge the rights that are contained within those ideals, I am hugely skeptical.  But at some point, you have to listen to what the data tells you, and to make a cold, clear decision as to where to draw the line—to do otherwise is just plain foolish.

Common sense, therefore, tells us that violent criminals are not to be trusted with guns, because they are statistically far more likely to use those guns to inflict harm on others than they will use them in self-defense or as members of the militia.  (I’m prepared to ameliorate that position, as I described above, but I’m not entirely sold on it, either.)

Common sense also tells us that law-abiding individuals have little need of weapons of mass destruction—indeed, the risk of private ownership far outweighs any potential benefits of their ownership.

As with all things, it’s important where you draw the line; and when it comes to guns, I draw the line at a position which largely takes into account, and punishes, criminal behavior, but also gives law-abiding citizens the greatest degree of freedom possible.

I don’t think that’s too unreasonable.

*Not Washington, but Tench Coxe:  “Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.” I’m not sure whether old Tench would have included artillery in the “every other”—he probably would have considered a cannon as a terrible implement of the army, but there you have it.

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