Feeling Safe
Jesse Walker | April 17, 2007, 10:07am
This is
all over the Internet already, but since we're already hearing
demands for
new gun
laws it deserves to be mentioned here too. From the
Roanoke Times, January 31, 2006:
A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly....
Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."
With that grim irony noted, let's not forget an important fact: School shootings are rare. They're especially rare at Virginia Tech. National Review reports that in "2005, the last year for which data are available, the campus had no murders, forcible thefts, or aggravated assaults. Almost no cities of 25,000, Virginia Tech's student enrollment, ever have had a year that safe. Despite a single horrific day nothing fundamental has changed." Anecdotal evidence, even really gruesome anecdotal evidence, isn't the best argument for any sweeping policy change -- including changes, such as concealed-carry permits, that I happen to support. The Virginia Tech shootings are a lousy argument for gun control, but that doesn't mean they'll turn out to be a strong argument for anything else.
As Ilya Somin notes, "The extreme rarity of such incidents should be kept in mind as we decide what, if any, policy changes should be made in response to the Virginia Tech tragedy. Some changes may well be warranted, but we should guard against costly overreactions such as the draconian 'zero tolerance' policies implemented in many schools after the Columbine attacks in 1999."
VM | April 17, 2007, 11:29am | #
MC | April 17, 2007, 11:07am | #
What kind of moron wants to carry a concealed gun around on a college campus, especially if school shootings are rare?
The type of moron who would rather fight back against a psycho than stand there waiting to die.
oooh! less than 10% chance of rain. Gonna walk around in a drysuit. not gonna get wet! Look! It's fucking SECRET AGENT MAN! You're as fucking lame as the guy who gets into a martial arts stance everytime someone walks by - "just in case".
There's a better defense of concealed carry than that. That's as silly as the anti GM arguments. In fact, it doesn't need justification. It's legal. And I believe it is unrelated to this case.
It's really fucking lame to have these faux macho fantasies.
The image of everybody running around like James Bond is really silly. And the "judged by twelve than carried by six" argument is also really lame.
You're not gonna be in that situation. Ever. You're not gonna win the lottery. And Penny Sue will NOT, repeat NOT, call you even though she smiled at you in homeroom.
This asinine argument, "this proves that I should carry" vs "this proves guns are bad" don't get anywhere.
Argue from a different perspective. By even floating these situations as your justification, you're giving the control people ammo, ahem - as it were. You don't need to justify concealed carry. At all.
These terrible shootings have nothing to do with your right to own, possess, or carry a gun. Unrelated.
In fact, you're the moron of the day. You're the daily equivalent to that idiot who had a toothache and figured he could stand up to Iran, unlike those "treacherous" Brit sailors. Tool.
Brady - that's a completely misunderstood, unfair characterization of Mediageek. I suggest you understand the regulars here before you embarrass yourself more.
Mediageek is a responsible, knowledgeable gun owner. He explains safety issues, laws, mechanics etc all the time.
He wasn't spewing any macho shit, unlike MC.
I take it back, MC. You're tied with Brady for moron of the day. And please heed Mr. Jake Boone's advice! He speaks clear minded!
Other Matt | April 17, 2007, 11:35am | #
Some ideas:
- strict compensatory liability for gun manufacturers to victims. let the gun manufacturers decide who is worthy, and give them incentive to be stingy in bestowing that honor.
How about we do the same with cars, pools, hammers, and any other thing which has ever been used to murder someone? If you're up for that, let's do it. By the way, I get to be the guy that sells you your food.
- make gun owners sign a Fourth Amendment waiver. If you carry a gun, then all searches are "reasonable" and consensual.
Bullshit. Are you willing to sign a waiver that since you post here, exercising your first amendment rights, all searches are consentual?
- better enforcement of laws requiring people to secure their guns. (In conjunction with last point), random, warrantless searches to make sure the gun cabinets stay locked. On pain of jail time.
Why? How about random, warrantless searches to ensure that your medicine cabinet stays locked? You simply don't grasp that a firearm sitting about is not going to jump up and kill someone, and there are many ways to kill someone that don't involve a gun. There has to be someone pulling the trigger. It's tragic when a kids shoots another, just as it's tragic when a kid beats another to death. The latter is more likely to happen. It's tragic when a kid gets killed with scissors, that's more likely yet.
- require open carry rather than concealed carry. I would rather know who is carrying, me.
Why does it matter to you that you want so much to let people know where they can steal a gun? The inference is that you're scared of people that have them, it would follow that cops scare the crap out fo you.
I think your trust in fellow people, perhaps yourself, is quite lacking. I think your concerns would be much better addressed by saying "Anyone who has a predisposition to kill someone, wear a yellow triangle on the front of their garment". That would solve it, right? Therefore, even if someone wasn't carrying, but instead had a knife, hammer, something to kill you with, they'd be appropriately identified. By all means, pass this law, as it would undoubtably ensure safe living for all.
- make it a crime to have your guns stolen from you. Period.
Now this is just stupid. Someone steals your car, uses it for vehicular homocide, you want to assume liability? If yes, please do so. I don't.
- stiffer penalties for people who allow children unsupervised access to guns.
This is already illegal, but what would you propose? I don't particularly have a problem with this, as long as it's written precisely, so it can't be used as a broad brush attack on people.
I could go on, but you get the point.
No, I don't. I see a number of ill considered proposals that stem from irrational fears, not reality.
Andy | April 17, 2007, 11:43am | #
Dave W,
Since you went through the admirable trouble of posting this list, I wanted to give you some thoughts on it.
To all, sorry for any repeats to the countless people who’ve already answered him.
strict compensatory liability for gun manufacturers to victims. let the gun manufacturers decide who is worthy, and give them incentive to be stingy in bestowing that honor.
This idea strikes me as a non-starter, unless you’re going to allow compensatory liability for car manufacturers and alcohol brewers as well. A gun manufacturer doesn’t have any more control over who the gun is sold to than either of those (significantly more deadly, even in terms of pure “unreasonable use” deaths) products. Maybe if you wanted to talk about gun DEALERS facing compensatory liability in the face of demonstrable gross negligence, but I’m not sure that wouldn’t already fly in court. And regardless, if you’re comfortable with liability for responsible ownership of cars stopping with the owner thanks to extensive government licensing, I’m not sure why that changes here.
- make gun owners sign a Fourth Amendment waiver. If you carry a gun, then all searches are "reasonable" and consensual.
You can’t waive a Constitution right. There’s this pesky thing about the lack of alienability. Even if you could, this is just about the stupidest and most insulting thing I’ve ever heard, and I don’t own or want to own a gun.
- better enforcement of laws requiring people to secure their guns. (In conjunction with last point), random, warrantless searches to make sure the gun cabinets stay locked. On pain of jail time.
Again with the Fourth Amendment. While I can agree with upping the penalties, neither I nor any court of record is going to get behind that being a reasonable cause of search. And at that point, of course, it just becomes another excuse to up jail time for people caught doing something else, or who can’t quite be caught doing something else. Again with the “uniqueness” problem – if this is a reasonable cause for a search, so is ensuring that you’ve properly secured all potentially toxic cleaning chemicals from children, and that you don’t have any sharp or electrical objects in a position where a child or potential visiting child could access them. It just doesn’t make any sense.
- require open carry rather than concealed carry. I would rather know who is carrying, me.
I don’t really know or care much about this. I don’t really know why people want to conceal carry, so it’s not really for me to speak about whether or not they should be able to. Seems odd to me though that you can be comfortable declaring someone safe to use a gun, but that you have to be able to see it anyway.
- make it a crime to have your guns stolen from you. Period.
This is mind-numbingly stupid.
- stiffer penalties for people who allow children unsupervised access to guns.
What about a trained kid who wants to go hunting? I mean, of course, on face, no one’s going to argue that you should be penalized for letting a five-year-old play house with double barreled shotgun, or whatever, but in practice this doesn’t make total sense.
- make gun owners carry theft and malpractice insurance.
Eh, no real problem with this. At least in a sense that would be equivalent to car insurance. So to say no to theft, but yes to safety insurance.
dhex | April 17, 2007, 11:59am | #
some reasonable steps in discussing this issue:
1) separate gun deaths and gun suicides. as the high suicide rate in many countries where weapons bans are strong, as well as in a country like switzerland where guns are plentiful strongly indicates that suicide should be separated when talking about gun availability. israel has a low suicide rate - finland a high suicide rate, but their legal approaches to firearms are radically different.
2) depending on who is doing the talking (and believing) there seems to be a huge divide on what actions cause what effects in terms of crime resistance and injury. while this is not surprising, it becomes difficult to suss out what's crap and what's not, even if we take the primary step of eliminating the demagogues and jerkoffs (i.e. the brady campaign, john lott, etc). invariably people believe what they want to believe. my take on it is that legal handgun ownership and usage seems to help certain populations (women, minorities) in certain categories of crime (rape, armed robbery and home invasion) avoid greater injury and crime completion. the rates are not tremendous, but they are somewhat more positive than passive resistance. (This data is reflected in many women's self-defense courses in the united states now, in which active resistance is stressed over passive resistance; neither is a byword for "suicide" regardless.)
3) as a group, CHL holders seem to be extremely law-abiding, with crime rates far below the general population (outside of the obvious, like not storing their licensed guns properly and other infractions that only apply to CHL holders).
4) keep in mind that this "debate" is dominated by fear and that's what brings it to shaivo-esque levels of insanity. so don't take it personally, and be not afraid.
5) a question: why is gun violence considered a public health issue, at least as far as the academic reviews are concerned? that seems...odd. maybe it's a funding thing? the suicide aspect makes sense, but actual gun crimes seems to be a criminology issue, not a public health issue.
and as requested, a partial bibliography:
Committee on Law and Justice, National Research Council. “Firearms and Violence: A
Critical Review.” Wellford, Charles F., Pepper, John V. and Carol V. Petrie,
Editors. Washington, DC. National Academies Press, 2004.
http://newton.nap.edu/catalog/10881.html
Centers for Disease Control. “First Reports Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for
Preventing Violence: Firearms Laws.” October 3, 2003. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm.
Kleck, Gary and Don B. Kates. Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control. New York:
Prometheus Books, 2001.
Synder, Jeffrey R. “Fighting Back: Crime, Self-Defense and the Right to Carry a
Handgun.” Cato Institute, October 22, 1997. https://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-284.html.
Texas Dept. of Public Safety. Concealed Handgun Licensing Bureau.
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administration/crime_records/chl/chlsindex.htm.
Texas Dept. of Public Safety. Concealed Handgun Licensing Bureau. “Conviction Rate
Breakdown for CCW Licensees.” http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administration/crime_records/chl/convrates.htm.
Texas Dept. of Public Safety. Concealed Handgun Licensing Bureau. “Demographic
Summary.” http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administration/crime_records/chl/demographicsummary.PDF.
Reynolds, Morgan and H. Sterling Burnett. “Carrying Concealed Weapons Reduces
Crime.” At Issue: Gun Control. Tamara L. Roleff, Ed. Chicago: Greenhaven Press, 2000.
World Health Organization. Suicide Prevention and Special Programmes.
http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/country_reports/en/index.html and http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/unitstates.pdf.
Dave W. | April 17, 2007, 12:18pm | #
Well, I wanted a non-polarized dialogue on gun law here and now it looks like I got one. My responses to the responses:
- strict compensatory liability for gun manufacturers to victims. let the gun manufacturers decide who is worthy, and give them incentive to be stingy in bestowing that honor.
This idea strikes me as a non-starter, unless you’re going to allow compensatory liability for car manufacturers and alcohol brewers as well. A gun manufacturer doesn’t have any more control over who the gun is sold to than either of those (significantly more deadly, even in terms of pure “unreasonable use” deaths) products. Maybe if you wanted to talk about gun DEALERS facing compensatory liability in the face of demonstrable gross negligence, but I’m not sure that wouldn’t already fly in court. And regardless, if you’re comfortable with liability for responsible ownership of cars stopping with the owner thanks to extensive government licensing, I’m not sure why that changes here.
Cars aren't designed to kill people and they are not particularly good at killing people. That is why I want "strict liability" for guns and not cars. To put it in commonlaw parlance, I see guns as a dangerous instrumentality, but not cars. Furthermore, the manufacturers choose who the dealers are, and they have more money to lose if some Korean goes off at all the boy engineers. This would incentivize manufactures to choose dealers who will choose responsible customers. If you place this responsibility only upon the dealer, then the dealer will just declare bankruptcy. Manufactuers don't have that option. they are well capitalized and therefore cannot easily evade responsibility if someone sells to an idiot or evildoer. their safeguards against selling to idiots and evildoers are more likely to be economically efficient because they will have a lot of transactions over which to spread the risk.
- make gun owners sign a Fourth Amendment waiver. If you carry a gun, then all searches are "reasonable" and consensual.
You can’t waive a Constitution right. There’s this pesky thing about the lack of alienability. Even if you could, this is just about the stupidest and most insulting thing I’ve ever heard, and I don’t own or want to own a gun.
Some searches are presumptively reasonable. Although, traditionally searches of gun owners are not considered presumptively reasonable, I think the Framers meant for what is "reasonable" to depend more on contemporary context, rather than original intent. I think that is why they used the word "reasonable" in the Fourth Amendment, so as not to put that particular amendment in a 1791 time freeze. Given the number of gun murders in the US, and also the increased safety of society otherwise, I think searches of gun owners are reasonable. Maybe someday a creative prosecutor will make this argument for SCOTUS and we will see what they think.
Now, consensual searches are a whole nother thing. Consensual searches, under 4th Amendment law don't have to be reasonable. they just have to be consented to. You say that you cannot waive a Constitutional Right. That is just plain wrong, as a Con Law matter.
- better enforcement of laws requiring people to secure their guns. (In conjunction with last point), random, warrantless searches to make sure the gun cabinets stay locked. On pain of jail time.
Again with the Fourth Amendment. While I can agree with upping the penalties, neither I nor any court of record is going to get behind that being a reasonable cause of search. And at that point, of course, it just becomes another excuse to up jail time for people caught doing something else, or who can’t quite be caught doing something else. Again with the “uniqueness” problem – if this is a reasonable cause for a search, so is ensuring that you’ve properly secured all potentially toxic cleaning chemicals from children, and that you don’t have any sharp or electrical objects in a position where a child or potential visiting child could access them. It just doesn’t make any sense.
Toxic cleaning chemicals are not designed to kill people and are not particularly good at it.
Explosives are more akin to guns because they are designed to kill and are effective at it. Explosives do entail special insurance, premises inspection and strict liability in tort, which is part of the reason that I suggest this would be appropriate for guns, too. As a matter of fact, I would not draw a categorical distinction between guns and explosives for second Amendment purposes. I think both should be considered as "arms" for Con law purposes. Which makes even clearer the Constitutional permissibility of my proposals here.
- require open carry rather than concealed carry. I would rather know who is carrying, me.
I don’t really know or care much about this. I don’t really know why people want to conceal carry, so it’s not really for me to speak about whether or not they should be able to. Seems odd to me though that you can be comfortable declaring someone safe to use a gun, but that you have to be able to see it anyway.
The idea is that if someone who you see carrying a gun about on a daily basis starts acting crazy, then you will be quicker to report him to the authorities. If the Korean who shot up VT had been openly carrying for a couple years, then he might have been reported even before he got to his ex-girlfriend's dorm room yesterday morning.
there may also be an enhanced deterrence effect with open carry, although that is subject to debate and empirical study.
- make it a crime to have your guns stolen from you. Period.
This is mind-numbingly stupid.
I know you are, but what am I?
- stiffer penalties for people who allow children unsupervised access to guns.
What about a trained kid who wants to go hunting? I mean, of course, on face, no one’s going to argue that you should be penalized for letting a five-year-old play house with double barreled shotgun, or whatever, but in practice this doesn’t make total sense.
I have faith that a statute could be crafted to bestow criminal liability in one situation and not the other. remember, this is not one of those polarized dialogues that all those other gunnuts and bleeding hearts wanna have. this is us talking.
- make gun owners carry theft and malpractice insurance.
Eh, no real problem with this. At least in a sense that would be equivalent to car insurance. So to say no to theft, but yes to safety insurance.
a tiny sliver of common ground, then. Nice grace note to end on.
