It's not the guns, it's the...well, actually, it IS the guns: Part I

I have been watching with interest as a great number of remarkably articulate teenagers have taken us further than we have ever gone down the road of dealing with the problem of mass murder in schools. It seems that we are now finally going to have the national dialogue on guns that we desperately need to have.

I thought I would share my thoughts on the gun issue, and the violence issue more generally.

It might surprise you to learn that I support the Second Amendment. That is, for reasons that I will hopefully be able to make clear below, I do not support any effort to repeal the Second Amendment (despite my great respect for retired Justice John Paul Stevens, I think he is wrong on that point). 

I don't presently own any guns at all. I simply don't need one. I don't hunt. I live in a neighborhood that's very safe--in fact, the only crime-like incident I'm aware of in the three years I've lived here, apart from some teenage graffiti, was a recent police standoff that was precipitated by a gun nut who answered his doorbell by brandishing a weapon.

I've shot handguns and shotguns and rifles. I'm not a very good shot, but I've hit some targets when I've shot at them. 

I'm not afraid of guns. When I encounter them, I treat them with the respect they deserve; I always treat them as if they are loaded; I practice gun safety religiously.  I'm not fearful of, for example, the AR-15. I don't find that gun even to be scary-looking. I view guns primarily as tools.

I was recently involved in a discussion with some NRA-type folks*, friends of acquaintances, who appear to believe that any regulation of "arms" is unconstitutional.  When I brought up that no one seriously questions that the government can prohibit the ownership of explosives, they sought to exclude those from the definition of "arms."  I suppose that some people think that the term "arms" is congruent with "guns."

* I have no idea whether they are members of the NRA or not, but they were more than happy to defend the NRA's positions.

The problem with their contention, aside from the fact that it's ahistorical, fatuous, and driven by a purpose of stopping all meaningful regulation, is that "arms" is most definitely broader than "guns."  The term "firearm" was coined in the mid-17th century to distinguish weapons that made use of gunpowder from arms like bows-and-arrows, slings, and swords. A hundred years before the Constitution went into effect, the English Bill of Rights provided, among numerous other provisions, that Protestants had the right to "have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law," and that document makes clear that "arms" refers to the military weapons of the day. The 1755 Dictionary of the English Language, written by Dr. Samuel Johnson, defined "arms" as "weapons of offence, as well as armour of defence." And, in modern times, we have commonly referred to the "nuclear arms race," and there have been treaties and negotiations over the reduction of nuclear weapons that referred to them as "arms."

Most Americans agree that the government can legitimately, Constitutionally regulate (and even prohibit) the ownership of some kinds of weapons, as long as not all weapons are outlawed. The ban on manufacturing and possessing automatic weapons manufactured after 1986, and the regulations on ownership of such weapons made before the ban, has been upheld as Constitutional. Likewise, the ownership and possession of explosives is heavily regulated.  You may not legally own a cluster bomb or a grenade or a stick of dynamite without a license, and such licenses require significant background investigations.

I do not think there is any legitimate space for someone reasonably to argue that private citizens should be able to own any type of weapon they choose to own. So the question is not whether we can draw a line between permitted and prohibited arms, but where that line should be drawn.

In order to answer that question, let's look at the range of potential uses of guns:

• To defend your home against an intruder;
• To defend your person against a violent attack;
• To defend livestock or crops against wild animals;
• To hunt wild game for food;
• To shoot at targets for sport/recreation;
• To hunt wild game for trophies;
• To defend yourself against arrest by the authorities;
• To defend your property against seizure by the authorities;
• To defend the nation against an invasion (Wolverines!);
• To compel the government to act in a certain way;
• To fight against a tyrannical government;
• To commit property crimes;
• To commit crimes of violence against others;
• To commit murder;
• To commit mass murder.

I'm sure that we could think of other potential uses for guns. If you think of some, just put them wherever in the list you think they fit best. I've tried to arrange these from "most acceptable" to "least acceptable." You may have a different view.

In fact, we can certainly expand this list to include other kinds of weapons, without departing from the scope of the discussion.

When I think about the acceptable uses of guns, I would tend to draw the line either after the fifth use or after the sixth. The precise point is more of a value judgment than anything. I don't especially like the idea of trophy hunting, but that doesn't mean that I think we should prohibit it.  But I would definitely draw the line no later than just after the sixth use.  The reason is simple:  With the exception of "to defend the nation against an invasion," these are simply not legitimate activities of private individuals. As to the exception, it's simply not necessary. Our nation is well protected by the large standing military we have in place. There is no threat against us that would be well defended by private individuals bearing arms.

To put all of this into a summary, I think that guns are useful and legitimate as tools of defense and hunting and sport, and not as weapons of offense in the hands of private citizens.

So, what does that mean for regulation? In my view, guns that are well adapted to defense and hunting and sport should generally be allowed, and weapons that are well adapted as offensive weapons should generally be prohibited.

I have a problem with semi-automatic weapons. In case you're not well-versed in terminology, semi-automatic weapons are guns that use a part of the firing energy as one round is fired to position the next round for firing. For example, a rifle or pistol may include a magazine that is filled with cartridges, all in a line. To fire, a cartridge is moved from the magazine to the firing chamber. In a lever-action or bolt-action rifle or a double-action-only pistol, the user must manually move a lever, bolt, or other system through a sequence of motions that loads a cartridge into the chamber. In a semi-automatic rifle or pistol, the gun is designed to capture some of the energy released when a round is fired to move the next cartridge into the chamber.  This means that pulling the trigger not only fires a round but also readies the gun to be fired again.

Semi-automatic guns are, for obvious reasons, much easier to use than guns that require a manual loading action. Even though semi-automatics fire only one round per trigger pull, even novice users can use them efficiently to spray a lot of bullets at the intended target.  (Skilled marksmen can fire well-lubricated bolt-action rifles almost as quickly as a semi-automatic will allow, but we'll deal with that later.)  When you combine them with large-capacity, detachable magazines, some of which may hold as many as 300 rounds, it is possible for even a novice user to cause a huge amount of damage.

Although some people prefer semi-automatics for hunting, primarily because of the ease of use, most of the responsible hunters I have ever known will readily admit that repeat fire is not a feature that's of much use in hunting. That is, if semi-automatics were outlawed or subjected to heavy regulation, it is unlikely that hunters would be unable to hunt.

Likewise, repeat fire is not especially helpful for personal defense.  The reason for this is simple: Your goal in personal defense is to stop the attacker. "Pray and spray" is the only technique in which rapid repeat fire is helpful. It's also the least effective use of a firearm for personal defense.

If your goal is hunting, a bolt-action rifle with a limited-capacity (say, 5 rounds) internal magazine is more than sufficient to accomplish your goal. If your goal is home defense, a 12-gauge shotgun, either a break-action or a limited-capacity pump-action style, is a much better choice. For close quarters defense, you might prefer a large-caliber handgun, such as a 6-shot .38 or .45 revolver.

From a regulatory standpoint, outlawing semi-automatic guns entirely, and limiting magazine capacity and type, will leave the legitimate uses of firearms alone while making it much more difficult to accomplish the kinds of offensive attacks that are the subject of the recent protests.

In Part II, I'll discuss how we implement these proposed regulations, and in Part III, I'll discuss and answer some of the challenges that the gun lobby has put forward against them. I'll link those when they're written and posted.