Amazing number of thoughtful and interesting comments to this piece on guns, one of several I've written. I've made the point elsewhere so let me reiterate it here: the Second Amendment is very likely never going to be overturned, and the 2008 SCOTUS decision in Heller adds legal precedence to the right to own a handgun for self-defense. So it's unlikely anything I or anyone else is proposing is going to effect the overarching legal framework protecting guns. And, by all means, if you want to have a gun in your home for self-defense (or hunting, or recreation, or whatever) you have the right to do so.
I grew up with guns. My step-father was a hunter so we had shotguns. I started off with a BB gun, then a pellet gun, then a 20-gage shotgun, then a 12-gage shotgun. We hunted birds: dove, quail, and ducks, and brought home the birds and ate them. My father was an excellent cook. Eventually I outgrew hunting as a sport and got into baseball and other sports so stopped hunting. In my 30s at a home I purchased there was an incident in the neighborhood that led me to purchase a handgun for protection for my new family, a Ruger. At first I practiced with it as a gun range, but then got busy with other things and forgot about it in my closet and didn't touch it for years. I eventually got rid of it after moving to a safer neighborhood. I do not own a gun now. If I lived in a questionable neighborhood where there was a lot of crimes, perhaps I would get a gun. So none of what I am writing about guns is about this part of the issue.
What I want to do is figure out how to reduce the overall carnage from gun violence. Perhaps there's nothing that can be done, given that there are more guns than people in the U.S. and that there is next to no political interest on the part of Republicans to do anything. But by all means if anyone here has additional ideas about how to reduce the death rate from guns (higher than it is for automobiles) I'm all ears. But my general impression from reading and talking to gun advocates is that it wouldn't matter if it was 440,000 dead each year (an order of magnitude higher), or perhaps even 4.4 million a year killed by guns. I'd like to think my impression here is wrong, but I don't think so. For many people, guns are talismanic in what they represent.
This is the second article I've read from Shermer that left me surprised and disappointed. He appears to have lost the ability to apply logic and self-checking when making an argument. I won't address the whole "against tyranny" argument because that's not why I own guns.
The self-defense reason, on the other hand, is basically hand-waved away, even though that is by far the most applicable and solid reason for owning a gun.
Here, I can make similar claims as cited in the article about any number of things . . . owning a car increases your chances of being involved in an automobile accident. Having alcohol in the house increases the chance and incidence of underage drinking, alcoholism, and alcohol-related violence. Owning a knife increases the chance you'll cut yourself. Having kids increases the chance that you'll kill them (more kids die murdered by their parents than are killed in school shootings each year). The point is, you need to look at what was studied and what it was balanced against, and Shermer conveniently ignores all that.
Side note: he's quick to point out an argument's logical failings for other topics.
To be clear, I'm in favor of fairly strict requirements for owning a gun (and even stricter for carrying guns). But, I'm also a highly motivated individual when it comes to my safety and the safety of my family.
To wit, I'd like a discussion of Barnes Law be included in these pieces. Specifically, I'd like to see statistics included in the discussion of self-defense; statistics for the incidence of non-gun violent crime, the chances of being a victim of violent crime, police response times, the duty of the police to protect, etc. etc.).
It's not been my experience that police departments are geared toward keeping violent crime from happening . . . because they can't.
It's anecdotal, but my interest in owning and carrying a gun was a result of a credible death threat and the inability of the police to address the matter. The detective I was dealing with said my recourse was to get a gun and learn how to use it, and rethink my habits, gearing them to personal safety . . . because until something happened, there was nothing they could do.
That's the reality in this country that — because of our laws — makes comparisons to other countries a useless exercise in what-if-ism.
. . . and it's why self-defense is a much more real and present reason for gun ownership.
Now, if we want to suggest ways to encourage responsible gun ownership (insurance, training, other requirements, etc. etc.), then, fine. I'm there with you. Talk to me about banning this or that weapon or tell me I don't really need a gun because I'm "less safe", and I will immediately lose respect for your opinion.
Dear Doctor Mike, I am normally a huge fan of yours but this article disappointed me.
First of all, you have always been an advocate for individual rights so you should be careful above all others when trying to reduce or remove rights enjoyed by others. Especially rights which are enshrined in the constitution and have been upheld in courts. We've already seen our government approve of Civil Asset Forfeiture which is in violation of the Fifth Amendment. If it is easy to take away gun rights, then what about the rest of the Bill of Rights? (Maybe the way the Second Amendment defends us against tyranny is by being the red line where people step up with lawyers and protests etc?)
I believe in rights - part of that means good people should not lose rights because bad people abuse those rights. My personal guideline when it comes to considering plans that will impinge on rights is:
1) What, exactly, is the problem this plan proposes to solve and is it as significant as the rights that will be lost?
2) Are we sure this plan will be effective at solving the problem and how do we know?
3) Is the loss of these rights the only way to solve the problem? Note I am not asking if it is the easiest way or the cheapest way - rights should not be sacrificed because they are in the path of least resistance.
One place where a lot of anti-gun arguments lose me is conflating gun violence with violence. They often show scary charts of gun deaths in America vs gun deaths in other countries but if the same chart were to also include overall violent deaths we'd see a more nuanced picture. I wish I didn't have to keeping making the point: violent death is The Problem, the means to that end is secondary.
Another problem I see is statistics that claim that America has more gun deaths per capita than any other "developed country" and when countries like Brasil (which have much stricter gun control laws) are mentioned, they are dismissed as not a "developed country." I forgot the name of this logical fallacy (No True Scotsman?) Basically a country is "developed" if it makes their case ... but the elephant in the room is, by many measures (e.g child poverty and health) America should not be considered a "developed country" and should not be compared with Switzerland or Japan.
Yet another issue: many countries with high levels of gun violence have strict gun control laws - which calls into question the efficacy of gun control laws.
Finally, the reason each side has their own gun statistics which say different things is this is a very complicated matter with a dizzying array of confounding variables. Depending on how the data are defined, analyzed and aggregated we can make almost any case we want. We wind up like the statistician who reported: Adult Humans have, on average, one testicle and one breast (rounded, of course - the number, not the testicle and breast. Although...)
Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine says that you and I shouldn’t own guns, because…
A.) privately-owned guns are more likely to be used in crime than in self-defense, and
B.) privately-owned guns are no defense against tyranny, because the U.S. military is far mightier than we are.
My response:
1.) When the moment comes that I need to defend myself with deadly force, I’m not going to care about statistics. If I am without a gun, I will derive no comfort from how “statistically unlikely” it was that I would ever need one, or how “relatively likely” it was that my gun would be used for harmful ends.
There is no arid, “fact-driven” argument against THAT.
Too many of us have bought into the notion that nebulous, anonymous things — like statistics or “systemic XYZ” — are what make the world go ‘round.
That’s far from the truth. At best, it’s a limited perspective on the truth. In fact, it’s bitch-think.
What makes the world go around is INDIVIDUALS making choices, one at a time. Get that through your head — that it’s ALL ON YOU — and you will no longer be stupid enough to bring abstract statistics to a survival scenario.
You’ll also stop imagining yourself as smart in proportion to how removed all of your thinking is from concrete reality. You’ll start seeing a lot less intelligence in statisticians, and a lot more intelligence in people who know how to fix tractors.
Do you even GET that a statistic is nothing but an abstraction? You can define “the average person” abstractly, but you’ll never be able to meet “the average person” concretely. That person does not exist except in the heads of “experts.”
But dangerous people DO exist — in abundance.
2.) Ordinary firearms ARE the best deterrent against tyranny, not because .38 revolvers pose a credible threat when faced with F-35s, but because those private firearms wielded by brave, freedom-loving people would make victory unacceptably EXPENSIVE for a would-be tyrant.
Do you honestly think North Korea would be the hell hole it is if all of those people had guns? Do you think that the Tiananmen Square massacre would have been so simple for the CCP if that tank boy and his compatriots had been armed to the teeth?
Ordinary firearms are the best defense against tyranny because they are the ONLY defense against tyranny, other than letting yourself get killed and hoping that enough OTHER people with guns are outraged enough that THEY’LL come to the rescue of whoever is left.
It still gets down to force, though, doesn’t it? At the end of the day, when all of your “systemic” bullshit breaks down and all the statisticians are already dead or in hiding, there’s still one brute reality that eternally abides.
Reality. Remember that? It’s not a statistic. It’s an armed human who wishes you ill. What will you do if you meet him, Mr. Shermer — write him an article? Reason with him abstractly? Pick up a phone?
Michael Shermer, you seem to recommend civil disobedience instead of self-defense. All I can say is, “You first, pal.“
——
Look no further than the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan for an example of a superior force getting its ass handed to it by an outgunned but highly motivated population.
Or how’s about that Bundy Ranch debacle from a few years ago? Regardless of anyone’s opinion, the simple fact is that the mighty U.S. government backed down when faced with armed resistance from a few hundred of its own citizens armed with ordinary guns and A LOT of cameras.
Mr. Shermer, you take yourself to be an individualist, right? Not a collectivist? Then why do you speak of the abstraction of mere statistics (which are no-doubt skewed anyhow) as though such statistics should ever be used to circumscribe the liberty of concrete individuals?
Think for a moment of all the other liberties someone might justify eliminating by simply applying the formula, “Statistical averages and outcomes define the acceptable limits of liberty.”
Do you like cheeseburgers? What do you suppose is the statistical cost-benefit analysis on those?
How about sports cars? Motorcycles? Fornication?
Explain to me how your pattern of reasoning could not also be used to take away many other liberties we all take for granted.
Explain to me how statistics would make you or yours any less dead (or any less raped or injured) in the event of a “statistical anomaly,” such as a brutal attack on your family.
Explain to me how “statistical (un)likelihood” justifies going through life utterly defenseless, whilst the principle of individual liberty still somehow justifies alcohol consumption, gambling, fornication, and all manner of other things that are more or less guaranteed to result in personal and social ruin.
I am an individual. I do not exist for the sake of another, and I do not recognize safety statistics as an authority that can be used to limit my liberty.
I do not recognize your maternalistic, abstract, “safety first” approach to life as an appropriate mode of governance for free people. I recognize your heuristics as the rhetoric of mothers who smother and stifle their children.
If you think safety statistics can or should be applied to us in the way you are applying them — as if by an AI with “average safety outcomes” as it’s one and only prime directive — then you are pre-committed to many logical conclusions that you will not much care for. You are pre-committed to the “safety” of a prison full of prisoners so defenseless that even the thought of rebellion is impossible.
You can have your state. I welcome you to go there and be defenseless. Right now, your paradise is called China — a place where status-quo statistical thinking prevails. It’s been other places in the past, but what all such places have in common is the tendency to reduce individuals down to averages, instead of reducing averages down to individuals.
You go where you like. I’ll be where the free people with the guns are. We’ll see how that plays out.
Having everyone armed to the teeth as you put it, would be unrealistic. Not everyone is capable of operating a firearm but many are. I don't own firearms but I have military service training in various firearms and could operate one, if pressed to do so. You also forget about those who are allowed, or obligated to carry firearms such as police officers. They keep guns at home when not working, are they an unacceptable risk too? Having an unarmed police force as they had in the UK is a farce when criminals can easily obtain a gun. Now UK police are largely armed.
What do law abiding citizens do in the face of home invasions or incursions by radical groups when police are ordered to "stand down"? The inconvenient truth is that besides suicides, the most firearm related homicides are due to criminal / gang activity and such perpetrators won't heed stronger or any gun laws. Crime, especially gun crime, is a at an all time high in cities and states having the most restrictive firearms control laws. Nobody trusts government to protect them anymore, either by putting criminals away or by deploying police. The real issue here is the overall homicide rate. Anyone who believes that they will be made safe by politically popular moves toward strict gun controls or outright prohibitions is living in a fools paradise.
Much as I agree with the underlying sentiment, I don't think the central argument holds much water. You rightly point out that trained military forces have access to much more powerful weaponry than any ragtag homegrown militia could hope for, and then you take it as self-evident that this force differential is determinative. But recent history suggests otherwise. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. Need I go on? As it turns out, both American and Russian forces (the two mightiest on the planet) have been defeated by people who were lightly armed and highly motivated.
"What else can we do to reduce the carnage of mass murders? " writes Mr. Shermer.
Don't mass shootings account for 1% or 2% of all shootings? I sense that the conversation is superficial because questions about things like stop and frisk, bail reform, and release of offenders and repeat offenders are touchy subjects. It is also extremely sensitive to ask about who actually commits shootings and their intersectional identities.
That's a conspicuous part, seems to me, that the conversation seems evasive.
As to the 2nd Amendment, I don’t understand the inability of reasonably intelligent people to discern the difference between the right to “bear arms” and the right to “own guns.” The idioms of “bear arms,” “to take up arms,” and “under arms” (not underarms), all share the common idea of using weapons for military purposes. Arms are used by Armies and stored in armories. “Present arms” is a military command.
I’m tired of people trying to make the 2nd Amendment say something that it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say anything about self-defense, or hunting, or target shooting, or protecting home and hearth from a military coup. Zero, zilch, nada.
More than that, the 2nd Amendment is moot and inoperable. It’s was replaced by The Militia Act of 1903, called the Dick Act, and the National Defense Act of 1916, as subsequently amended, which created the National Guard and the Reserves. Militia, as meant by the founders, are no longer necessary.
But even though the 2nd amendment was, in effect, repealed in 1903, there is still the right to own guns. That right is protected by the 9th Amendment as an “unenumerated right,” or as a matter of common law.
The prime obligation of government at all levels is to provide for the protection and safety of their citizens, to “promote the general Welfare,” to defend person and property, and to honor “certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We need to quit saying gun “control” and start talking about gun “safety!”
Tragically, we have the best Congress that the NRA can buy. Any action related to gun safety will likely be cosmetic and perfunctory. As a result they, they being Republicans, are unindicted co-conspirators in the murder of tens of thousands of Americans by guns.
Sadly, my friends who love their guns will never give them up in light of these statistics. They think they will be the exception to the rule. Furthermore, for them, gun ownership is a symbol of their tribe-based identity. This psychological factor will always trump (excuse the pun) logic about safety.
I use Professor Shermer's work in my classes and have great respect for his careful analysis of society's problems. As a 45 year, lifelong teacher, I too was devastated by the Uvalde murders but I can't let emotion destroy analysis. I rarely hear what I consider to be the primary reason for the Second Amendment discussed: not as a defense against tyranny but the establishment of individual sovereignty. The American experiment in government gives individual sovereignty to every citizen. Americans take this form of liberty for granted and don't seem to understand that we are free to do anything, unless restricted by legislative law, whereas the citizens of other countries are free to do only what is allowed by their sovereign governments.
Most unfortunately, sovereignty, whether usual government sovereignty in other countries or our individual American sovereignty comes at the point of a gun. As Professor Shermer has written, civilized society has given up personal retribution to the state. However, Americans do not give up their right to self defense to the state. Despite their motto ("To Protect and Serve"), police departments cannot be sued for failure to prevent crime and protect citizens. The responsibility for self-defense is clearly, legally and literally in the hands of individual Americans.
We pay a terrible price for our individual sovereignty: we regularly send our sons and daughters off to war and we endure the misuse of weaponry by mentally ill individuals. As a large country with a massive 335 million population, the ability of our species to do violence, which we have used as a tool for thousands of years to solve survival problems (wipe out a neighboring tribe and double your resources), will not go away: it is part of our evolutionary heritage.
Finally, please note that the problem is violence, not the inanimate object used to carry it out. Focusing on the gun, knife or the car plowing through a street festival promotes the erroneous idea that individuals are not responsible for their actions. Our society and the world only works if individuals are responsible for their actions. There is no "gun violence". There is violence and we must carefully focus on that very human problem.
More gun laws could save a few lives. And if you have no use for guns, it is understandable that you might be for enacting any gun law that you deem reasonable if it would save a few lives. Furthermore, it is understandable that you find those who are opposed to any more gun laws to be cold and uncaring.
But lowering the speed limit to 55 and enforcing it nationwide would probably stand to save more lives than banning AR-15's and universal background checks. Would you be for enacting that law?
What about outlawing alcohol? Imagine all the lives that would save. Is the right to imbibe something that dims your wits, slows your reaction time, and rots your liver more sacred or reasonable than the right to own a rifle that looks like a military rifle but functions like other common sporting rifles?
You might find that to be an unfair comparison as you might not be for outlawing guns but simply for a few restrictions. So what if we just outlawed bars? People drive to them and then often drive home drunk. You could still drink all the alcohol you might want and get however drunk you would like in other places such as your home or the home of a friend. People would still drive drunk, but this law would cut down on it enough to save lives. Even banning the sale of cold beer in grocery stores would stand to save more lives than banning AR-15's. You have to understand here that other rifles function exactly like an AR-15 and serve the same purpose. Would it be too much to ask of beer drinkers to put a rider on any bill to ban AR-15's to also ban cold beer in grocery stores?
Now, I personally don't drink alcohol, and I would be fine with a speed limit of 55. But I am against making any of these laws for the same reason, fundamentally, that I am against more gun laws. There is a risk in living our daily lives. But even though I am probably more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than the typical gun control activist is to be killed by a gun, I am a strong proponent of Ben Franklin's idea which has been paraphrased as "Any society that gives up a little freedom for a little order loses both and deserves neither." I'm also a big proponent of The Constitution. I see no authority in it to ban alcohol or guns or to set a national speed limit.
There is one last question I would like to pose to gun control advocates: How much more gun control do you want? Once AR-15's are banned, are you then going to want to ban all semi-autos? Once magazines are limited to 5 rounds, will you want to limit them to 3? Will you want to ban removable magazines? As many more people are murdered by handguns than by rifles, will you then want to ban handguns? And at what point will you say no more? Once all the laws you currently think should be passed get enacted, will you then push back against further laws?
Emilio made a good counterpoint about automobiles, knives, and alcohol to Michael Shermer's comment about having a gun in the house increasing the chance of an innocent person being killed. Having said that, I think Michael made a good point about the problem with promoting arming the country to the hilt. I would not recommend gun ownership to anybody who isn't familiar with them. Those of us who grew up with them take safety precautions that are second nature to us. If you are going to buy a gun, I strongly recommend that you get some good training.
On a side note, the first time I ever saw Michael Shermer, he was in a debate with several others about the prospect of The U.S. attacking Iraq. He was against it, and I, as a former Marine infantry officer who requested Vietnam as my first duty station (but wasn't sent there and never served a day in a combat zone) thought he made the best argument of the day. And about the same time, as I recall, I read an excellent article he wrote entitled "The Unlikeliest Cult in America" about "Randites". And I say that as somebody who has a great appreciation for Ayn Rand. I contend she was a philosophical giant (mainly because she was so good at putting my ideas into print) but a psychological midget.
There are already an enormous number of guns already out there. I would compare this to the cold war build-up of nuclear arms. Sanity prevailed with the SALT treaties. Unfortunately, Putin and Trump reversed some of the disarmament. The comparison to military escalation is apt - guns, especially AR15s - are weapons of war. Some (e.g., Sam Harris) want to handle the build-up is through better training of "citizen soldiers" to fight with better weaponry. It ends with mutually assured destruction. (Ever see the movie "War Games"? - "the only way to win is not to play").
I don't trust any non-professional (and many professionals) to act wisely when confronted with an actual shooter. I also don't think that jumping through more hoops to obtain guns is any assurance that the guns obtained won't be used for nefarious purposes. How can anyone predict how he would act, never having been in that situation? How can anyone predict when he will snap and go on a killing spree?
Other countries have successfully had gun buy-back programs, so it is possible.
I would also applaud giving projectile stun guns instead for home defense to those who turn in guns . Stun guns are (usually) non-lethal and can only be used on one person at a time.
Dr. Shermer, I’m curious, what’s your solution to rampant criminal gun violence, which obviously kills far more people than occasional mass shootings?
And how is having lawyers working out for Julian Assange? Or for the vast majority of criminal defendants who are coerced into a plea bargain?
I like your idea to avoid publicizing mass murderers. Is that all you have? I need a whole lot more on violent crime from you than that for me to begin to be persuaded.
Amazing number of thoughtful and interesting comments to this piece on guns, one of several I've written. I've made the point elsewhere so let me reiterate it here: the Second Amendment is very likely never going to be overturned, and the 2008 SCOTUS decision in Heller adds legal precedence to the right to own a handgun for self-defense. So it's unlikely anything I or anyone else is proposing is going to effect the overarching legal framework protecting guns. And, by all means, if you want to have a gun in your home for self-defense (or hunting, or recreation, or whatever) you have the right to do so.
I grew up with guns. My step-father was a hunter so we had shotguns. I started off with a BB gun, then a pellet gun, then a 20-gage shotgun, then a 12-gage shotgun. We hunted birds: dove, quail, and ducks, and brought home the birds and ate them. My father was an excellent cook. Eventually I outgrew hunting as a sport and got into baseball and other sports so stopped hunting. In my 30s at a home I purchased there was an incident in the neighborhood that led me to purchase a handgun for protection for my new family, a Ruger. At first I practiced with it as a gun range, but then got busy with other things and forgot about it in my closet and didn't touch it for years. I eventually got rid of it after moving to a safer neighborhood. I do not own a gun now. If I lived in a questionable neighborhood where there was a lot of crimes, perhaps I would get a gun. So none of what I am writing about guns is about this part of the issue.
What I want to do is figure out how to reduce the overall carnage from gun violence. Perhaps there's nothing that can be done, given that there are more guns than people in the U.S. and that there is next to no political interest on the part of Republicans to do anything. But by all means if anyone here has additional ideas about how to reduce the death rate from guns (higher than it is for automobiles) I'm all ears. But my general impression from reading and talking to gun advocates is that it wouldn't matter if it was 440,000 dead each year (an order of magnitude higher), or perhaps even 4.4 million a year killed by guns. I'd like to think my impression here is wrong, but I don't think so. For many people, guns are talismanic in what they represent.
This is the second article I've read from Shermer that left me surprised and disappointed. He appears to have lost the ability to apply logic and self-checking when making an argument. I won't address the whole "against tyranny" argument because that's not why I own guns.
The self-defense reason, on the other hand, is basically hand-waved away, even though that is by far the most applicable and solid reason for owning a gun.
Here, I can make similar claims as cited in the article about any number of things . . . owning a car increases your chances of being involved in an automobile accident. Having alcohol in the house increases the chance and incidence of underage drinking, alcoholism, and alcohol-related violence. Owning a knife increases the chance you'll cut yourself. Having kids increases the chance that you'll kill them (more kids die murdered by their parents than are killed in school shootings each year). The point is, you need to look at what was studied and what it was balanced against, and Shermer conveniently ignores all that.
Side note: he's quick to point out an argument's logical failings for other topics.
To be clear, I'm in favor of fairly strict requirements for owning a gun (and even stricter for carrying guns). But, I'm also a highly motivated individual when it comes to my safety and the safety of my family.
To wit, I'd like a discussion of Barnes Law be included in these pieces. Specifically, I'd like to see statistics included in the discussion of self-defense; statistics for the incidence of non-gun violent crime, the chances of being a victim of violent crime, police response times, the duty of the police to protect, etc. etc.).
It's not been my experience that police departments are geared toward keeping violent crime from happening . . . because they can't.
It's anecdotal, but my interest in owning and carrying a gun was a result of a credible death threat and the inability of the police to address the matter. The detective I was dealing with said my recourse was to get a gun and learn how to use it, and rethink my habits, gearing them to personal safety . . . because until something happened, there was nothing they could do.
That's the reality in this country that — because of our laws — makes comparisons to other countries a useless exercise in what-if-ism.
. . . and it's why self-defense is a much more real and present reason for gun ownership.
Now, if we want to suggest ways to encourage responsible gun ownership (insurance, training, other requirements, etc. etc.), then, fine. I'm there with you. Talk to me about banning this or that weapon or tell me I don't really need a gun because I'm "less safe", and I will immediately lose respect for your opinion.
Dear Doctor Mike, I am normally a huge fan of yours but this article disappointed me.
First of all, you have always been an advocate for individual rights so you should be careful above all others when trying to reduce or remove rights enjoyed by others. Especially rights which are enshrined in the constitution and have been upheld in courts. We've already seen our government approve of Civil Asset Forfeiture which is in violation of the Fifth Amendment. If it is easy to take away gun rights, then what about the rest of the Bill of Rights? (Maybe the way the Second Amendment defends us against tyranny is by being the red line where people step up with lawyers and protests etc?)
I believe in rights - part of that means good people should not lose rights because bad people abuse those rights. My personal guideline when it comes to considering plans that will impinge on rights is:
1) What, exactly, is the problem this plan proposes to solve and is it as significant as the rights that will be lost?
2) Are we sure this plan will be effective at solving the problem and how do we know?
3) Is the loss of these rights the only way to solve the problem? Note I am not asking if it is the easiest way or the cheapest way - rights should not be sacrificed because they are in the path of least resistance.
One place where a lot of anti-gun arguments lose me is conflating gun violence with violence. They often show scary charts of gun deaths in America vs gun deaths in other countries but if the same chart were to also include overall violent deaths we'd see a more nuanced picture. I wish I didn't have to keeping making the point: violent death is The Problem, the means to that end is secondary.
Another problem I see is statistics that claim that America has more gun deaths per capita than any other "developed country" and when countries like Brasil (which have much stricter gun control laws) are mentioned, they are dismissed as not a "developed country." I forgot the name of this logical fallacy (No True Scotsman?) Basically a country is "developed" if it makes their case ... but the elephant in the room is, by many measures (e.g child poverty and health) America should not be considered a "developed country" and should not be compared with Switzerland or Japan.
Yet another issue: many countries with high levels of gun violence have strict gun control laws - which calls into question the efficacy of gun control laws.
Finally, the reason each side has their own gun statistics which say different things is this is a very complicated matter with a dizzying array of confounding variables. Depending on how the data are defined, analyzed and aggregated we can make almost any case we want. We wind up like the statistician who reported: Adult Humans have, on average, one testicle and one breast (rounded, of course - the number, not the testicle and breast. Although...)
Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine says that you and I shouldn’t own guns, because…
A.) privately-owned guns are more likely to be used in crime than in self-defense, and
B.) privately-owned guns are no defense against tyranny, because the U.S. military is far mightier than we are.
My response:
1.) When the moment comes that I need to defend myself with deadly force, I’m not going to care about statistics. If I am without a gun, I will derive no comfort from how “statistically unlikely” it was that I would ever need one, or how “relatively likely” it was that my gun would be used for harmful ends.
There is no arid, “fact-driven” argument against THAT.
Too many of us have bought into the notion that nebulous, anonymous things — like statistics or “systemic XYZ” — are what make the world go ‘round.
That’s far from the truth. At best, it’s a limited perspective on the truth. In fact, it’s bitch-think.
What makes the world go around is INDIVIDUALS making choices, one at a time. Get that through your head — that it’s ALL ON YOU — and you will no longer be stupid enough to bring abstract statistics to a survival scenario.
You’ll also stop imagining yourself as smart in proportion to how removed all of your thinking is from concrete reality. You’ll start seeing a lot less intelligence in statisticians, and a lot more intelligence in people who know how to fix tractors.
Do you even GET that a statistic is nothing but an abstraction? You can define “the average person” abstractly, but you’ll never be able to meet “the average person” concretely. That person does not exist except in the heads of “experts.”
But dangerous people DO exist — in abundance.
2.) Ordinary firearms ARE the best deterrent against tyranny, not because .38 revolvers pose a credible threat when faced with F-35s, but because those private firearms wielded by brave, freedom-loving people would make victory unacceptably EXPENSIVE for a would-be tyrant.
Do you honestly think North Korea would be the hell hole it is if all of those people had guns? Do you think that the Tiananmen Square massacre would have been so simple for the CCP if that tank boy and his compatriots had been armed to the teeth?
Ordinary firearms are the best defense against tyranny because they are the ONLY defense against tyranny, other than letting yourself get killed and hoping that enough OTHER people with guns are outraged enough that THEY’LL come to the rescue of whoever is left.
It still gets down to force, though, doesn’t it? At the end of the day, when all of your “systemic” bullshit breaks down and all the statisticians are already dead or in hiding, there’s still one brute reality that eternally abides.
Reality. Remember that? It’s not a statistic. It’s an armed human who wishes you ill. What will you do if you meet him, Mr. Shermer — write him an article? Reason with him abstractly? Pick up a phone?
Michael Shermer, you seem to recommend civil disobedience instead of self-defense. All I can say is, “You first, pal.“
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Look no further than the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan for an example of a superior force getting its ass handed to it by an outgunned but highly motivated population.
Or how’s about that Bundy Ranch debacle from a few years ago? Regardless of anyone’s opinion, the simple fact is that the mighty U.S. government backed down when faced with armed resistance from a few hundred of its own citizens armed with ordinary guns and A LOT of cameras.
Mr. Shermer, you take yourself to be an individualist, right? Not a collectivist? Then why do you speak of the abstraction of mere statistics (which are no-doubt skewed anyhow) as though such statistics should ever be used to circumscribe the liberty of concrete individuals?
Think for a moment of all the other liberties someone might justify eliminating by simply applying the formula, “Statistical averages and outcomes define the acceptable limits of liberty.”
Do you like cheeseburgers? What do you suppose is the statistical cost-benefit analysis on those?
How about sports cars? Motorcycles? Fornication?
Explain to me how your pattern of reasoning could not also be used to take away many other liberties we all take for granted.
Explain to me how statistics would make you or yours any less dead (or any less raped or injured) in the event of a “statistical anomaly,” such as a brutal attack on your family.
Explain to me how “statistical (un)likelihood” justifies going through life utterly defenseless, whilst the principle of individual liberty still somehow justifies alcohol consumption, gambling, fornication, and all manner of other things that are more or less guaranteed to result in personal and social ruin.
I am an individual. I do not exist for the sake of another, and I do not recognize safety statistics as an authority that can be used to limit my liberty.
I do not recognize your maternalistic, abstract, “safety first” approach to life as an appropriate mode of governance for free people. I recognize your heuristics as the rhetoric of mothers who smother and stifle their children.
If you think safety statistics can or should be applied to us in the way you are applying them — as if by an AI with “average safety outcomes” as it’s one and only prime directive — then you are pre-committed to many logical conclusions that you will not much care for. You are pre-committed to the “safety” of a prison full of prisoners so defenseless that even the thought of rebellion is impossible.
You can have your state. I welcome you to go there and be defenseless. Right now, your paradise is called China — a place where status-quo statistical thinking prevails. It’s been other places in the past, but what all such places have in common is the tendency to reduce individuals down to averages, instead of reducing averages down to individuals.
You go where you like. I’ll be where the free people with the guns are. We’ll see how that plays out.
Having everyone armed to the teeth as you put it, would be unrealistic. Not everyone is capable of operating a firearm but many are. I don't own firearms but I have military service training in various firearms and could operate one, if pressed to do so. You also forget about those who are allowed, or obligated to carry firearms such as police officers. They keep guns at home when not working, are they an unacceptable risk too? Having an unarmed police force as they had in the UK is a farce when criminals can easily obtain a gun. Now UK police are largely armed.
What do law abiding citizens do in the face of home invasions or incursions by radical groups when police are ordered to "stand down"? The inconvenient truth is that besides suicides, the most firearm related homicides are due to criminal / gang activity and such perpetrators won't heed stronger or any gun laws. Crime, especially gun crime, is a at an all time high in cities and states having the most restrictive firearms control laws. Nobody trusts government to protect them anymore, either by putting criminals away or by deploying police. The real issue here is the overall homicide rate. Anyone who believes that they will be made safe by politically popular moves toward strict gun controls or outright prohibitions is living in a fools paradise.
Much as I agree with the underlying sentiment, I don't think the central argument holds much water. You rightly point out that trained military forces have access to much more powerful weaponry than any ragtag homegrown militia could hope for, and then you take it as self-evident that this force differential is determinative. But recent history suggests otherwise. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. Need I go on? As it turns out, both American and Russian forces (the two mightiest on the planet) have been defeated by people who were lightly armed and highly motivated.
"What else can we do to reduce the carnage of mass murders? " writes Mr. Shermer.
Don't mass shootings account for 1% or 2% of all shootings? I sense that the conversation is superficial because questions about things like stop and frisk, bail reform, and release of offenders and repeat offenders are touchy subjects. It is also extremely sensitive to ask about who actually commits shootings and their intersectional identities.
That's a conspicuous part, seems to me, that the conversation seems evasive.
As to the 2nd Amendment, I don’t understand the inability of reasonably intelligent people to discern the difference between the right to “bear arms” and the right to “own guns.” The idioms of “bear arms,” “to take up arms,” and “under arms” (not underarms), all share the common idea of using weapons for military purposes. Arms are used by Armies and stored in armories. “Present arms” is a military command.
I’m tired of people trying to make the 2nd Amendment say something that it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say anything about self-defense, or hunting, or target shooting, or protecting home and hearth from a military coup. Zero, zilch, nada.
More than that, the 2nd Amendment is moot and inoperable. It’s was replaced by The Militia Act of 1903, called the Dick Act, and the National Defense Act of 1916, as subsequently amended, which created the National Guard and the Reserves. Militia, as meant by the founders, are no longer necessary.
But even though the 2nd amendment was, in effect, repealed in 1903, there is still the right to own guns. That right is protected by the 9th Amendment as an “unenumerated right,” or as a matter of common law.
The prime obligation of government at all levels is to provide for the protection and safety of their citizens, to “promote the general Welfare,” to defend person and property, and to honor “certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We need to quit saying gun “control” and start talking about gun “safety!”
Tragically, we have the best Congress that the NRA can buy. Any action related to gun safety will likely be cosmetic and perfunctory. As a result they, they being Republicans, are unindicted co-conspirators in the murder of tens of thousands of Americans by guns.
In England where I live only the police, the military, and criminals have firearms. Therefore there is no reason for me to be armed.
Sadly, my friends who love their guns will never give them up in light of these statistics. They think they will be the exception to the rule. Furthermore, for them, gun ownership is a symbol of their tribe-based identity. This psychological factor will always trump (excuse the pun) logic about safety.
I use Professor Shermer's work in my classes and have great respect for his careful analysis of society's problems. As a 45 year, lifelong teacher, I too was devastated by the Uvalde murders but I can't let emotion destroy analysis. I rarely hear what I consider to be the primary reason for the Second Amendment discussed: not as a defense against tyranny but the establishment of individual sovereignty. The American experiment in government gives individual sovereignty to every citizen. Americans take this form of liberty for granted and don't seem to understand that we are free to do anything, unless restricted by legislative law, whereas the citizens of other countries are free to do only what is allowed by their sovereign governments.
Most unfortunately, sovereignty, whether usual government sovereignty in other countries or our individual American sovereignty comes at the point of a gun. As Professor Shermer has written, civilized society has given up personal retribution to the state. However, Americans do not give up their right to self defense to the state. Despite their motto ("To Protect and Serve"), police departments cannot be sued for failure to prevent crime and protect citizens. The responsibility for self-defense is clearly, legally and literally in the hands of individual Americans.
We pay a terrible price for our individual sovereignty: we regularly send our sons and daughters off to war and we endure the misuse of weaponry by mentally ill individuals. As a large country with a massive 335 million population, the ability of our species to do violence, which we have used as a tool for thousands of years to solve survival problems (wipe out a neighboring tribe and double your resources), will not go away: it is part of our evolutionary heritage.
Finally, please note that the problem is violence, not the inanimate object used to carry it out. Focusing on the gun, knife or the car plowing through a street festival promotes the erroneous idea that individuals are not responsible for their actions. Our society and the world only works if individuals are responsible for their actions. There is no "gun violence". There is violence and we must carefully focus on that very human problem.
More gun laws could save a few lives. And if you have no use for guns, it is understandable that you might be for enacting any gun law that you deem reasonable if it would save a few lives. Furthermore, it is understandable that you find those who are opposed to any more gun laws to be cold and uncaring.
But lowering the speed limit to 55 and enforcing it nationwide would probably stand to save more lives than banning AR-15's and universal background checks. Would you be for enacting that law?
What about outlawing alcohol? Imagine all the lives that would save. Is the right to imbibe something that dims your wits, slows your reaction time, and rots your liver more sacred or reasonable than the right to own a rifle that looks like a military rifle but functions like other common sporting rifles?
You might find that to be an unfair comparison as you might not be for outlawing guns but simply for a few restrictions. So what if we just outlawed bars? People drive to them and then often drive home drunk. You could still drink all the alcohol you might want and get however drunk you would like in other places such as your home or the home of a friend. People would still drive drunk, but this law would cut down on it enough to save lives. Even banning the sale of cold beer in grocery stores would stand to save more lives than banning AR-15's. You have to understand here that other rifles function exactly like an AR-15 and serve the same purpose. Would it be too much to ask of beer drinkers to put a rider on any bill to ban AR-15's to also ban cold beer in grocery stores?
Now, I personally don't drink alcohol, and I would be fine with a speed limit of 55. But I am against making any of these laws for the same reason, fundamentally, that I am against more gun laws. There is a risk in living our daily lives. But even though I am probably more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than the typical gun control activist is to be killed by a gun, I am a strong proponent of Ben Franklin's idea which has been paraphrased as "Any society that gives up a little freedom for a little order loses both and deserves neither." I'm also a big proponent of The Constitution. I see no authority in it to ban alcohol or guns or to set a national speed limit.
There is one last question I would like to pose to gun control advocates: How much more gun control do you want? Once AR-15's are banned, are you then going to want to ban all semi-autos? Once magazines are limited to 5 rounds, will you want to limit them to 3? Will you want to ban removable magazines? As many more people are murdered by handguns than by rifles, will you then want to ban handguns? And at what point will you say no more? Once all the laws you currently think should be passed get enacted, will you then push back against further laws?
Emilio made a good counterpoint about automobiles, knives, and alcohol to Michael Shermer's comment about having a gun in the house increasing the chance of an innocent person being killed. Having said that, I think Michael made a good point about the problem with promoting arming the country to the hilt. I would not recommend gun ownership to anybody who isn't familiar with them. Those of us who grew up with them take safety precautions that are second nature to us. If you are going to buy a gun, I strongly recommend that you get some good training.
On a side note, the first time I ever saw Michael Shermer, he was in a debate with several others about the prospect of The U.S. attacking Iraq. He was against it, and I, as a former Marine infantry officer who requested Vietnam as my first duty station (but wasn't sent there and never served a day in a combat zone) thought he made the best argument of the day. And about the same time, as I recall, I read an excellent article he wrote entitled "The Unlikeliest Cult in America" about "Randites". And I say that as somebody who has a great appreciation for Ayn Rand. I contend she was a philosophical giant (mainly because she was so good at putting my ideas into print) but a psychological midget.
This is a good site.
Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between Shermer's arguments for gun control and satire.
https://youtu.be/XbkNIoJ-9jY
There are already an enormous number of guns already out there. I would compare this to the cold war build-up of nuclear arms. Sanity prevailed with the SALT treaties. Unfortunately, Putin and Trump reversed some of the disarmament. The comparison to military escalation is apt - guns, especially AR15s - are weapons of war. Some (e.g., Sam Harris) want to handle the build-up is through better training of "citizen soldiers" to fight with better weaponry. It ends with mutually assured destruction. (Ever see the movie "War Games"? - "the only way to win is not to play").
I don't trust any non-professional (and many professionals) to act wisely when confronted with an actual shooter. I also don't think that jumping through more hoops to obtain guns is any assurance that the guns obtained won't be used for nefarious purposes. How can anyone predict how he would act, never having been in that situation? How can anyone predict when he will snap and go on a killing spree?
Other countries have successfully had gun buy-back programs, so it is possible.
I would also applaud giving projectile stun guns instead for home defense to those who turn in guns . Stun guns are (usually) non-lethal and can only be used on one person at a time.
Dr. Shermer, I’m curious, what’s your solution to rampant criminal gun violence, which obviously kills far more people than occasional mass shootings?
And how is having lawyers working out for Julian Assange? Or for the vast majority of criminal defendants who are coerced into a plea bargain?
I like your idea to avoid publicizing mass murderers. Is that all you have? I need a whole lot more on violent crime from you than that for me to begin to be persuaded.