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.
I'm going to assume that as a responsible gun owner you claim you are, that your guns are trigger locked and locked away in a gun safe. If so, how long would it take you to get your weapon in the event of a home breakin? So much for defending your family.
This is reminiscent of dishonest discussions I have with religious folks, where they think they have a "got you!" question . . . but I'll reply as if you're actually serious (and honest).
As a responsible gun owner, my guns are in a safe, and NOT trigger-locked. Seeing as we opted long ago not to have kids, the safe is only in case of a break-in when we're not at home. My carry gun, on the other hand, is always on me (except when I shower).
As far as being able to get to the guns in the safe, probably about a minute. But, I would be already armed because my carry gun is on my nightstand when I'm sleeping, right next to my phone and powerful flashlight.
Let me walk you through a scenario:
1) someone breaks into the house. This would have to be a window because the doors are both reinforced and braced. It would take someone some effort to break in through the doors, so window it is.
2) Once a window is opened or broken, the alarm goes off. It takes about 30 seconds for the call center to contact me and ask if I want the police dispatched.
3) during those 30 seconds, two things happen. One, the bedroom door gets closed and braced, and two, I'm on the phone which has an app that lets me see all the cameras feeds (three outside, two inside).
4) Depending on what I see (a person or persons in the house), I can hit the panic button, in which case the call center will dispatch the police without waiting for confirmation from me. The call center also have access to the camera feeds when the alarm is triggered, so they can advise the police.
5) If I don't see anything but still think it's a credible alarm, I will still ask for the police to be dispatched. The call center remains on the line with me and is also in contact with the police.
6) By then, I now have my shotgun, and I wait for the 10 minutes or so for the police to arrive. During that time, if anyone tries to force the bedroom door open, I will give them a verbal warning that the police are on their way and that I am armed.
6a) If someone still continues to try and gain entry, I might decide to fire through the door . . . but probably not for two reasons: 1) I have nice wood floors and I imagine blood would soak in and be difficult to clean up, and 2) I don't like shooting without knowing what I'm shooting.
6b) All this changes if whoever is on the other side of the door is screaming how they are going to kill both me and my wife and redouble their attack on the door (this would be unusual because we're nice people who avoid confrontations).
7) If no one is trying to break down our door, we still wait for the police.
7a) When they get there, the police will conduct a visual inspection of the perimeter. If they don't see any signs of a break-in, I will chalk it up to a false alarm, but still ask them to clear the house before I come out of the bedroom (the call center has the codes to opening the garage doors allowing them entry).
7c) If they see an obvious point of entry, they will likely ask me to stay secure as they bring in a canine unit and sweep the house (that's the procedure they followed when there was a reported break-in to the house next door when no one was at home).
Once the all clear is given, I will store my shotgun in the safe, but retain my carry gun in a holster on my person (the chief of police conducted the concealed carry qualification class I took for my license, so the cops will know I have a CCW permit and that I have been advised as to the procedure to follow when dealing with police).
I then thank the officers, reset the alarm once they leave, and make a note to test the system in the morning, and especially the sensor that went off.
So, yes, so much for defending myself and my wife at home.
Just out of curiosity, what would you do in the event of a break-in? I assume you have a plan?
Robin, I have to say, you are clearly being obnoxious here.
For the benefit of those actually interested in other points of view, here is mine:
I live in one of the safest towns in America: 20 cops, 660 homes, one road in! Yes, a peninsula. I keep guns in my safe but not ready to use. A couple of anecdotes:
1) I value the option to change my defense posture when I want, without hoping that lawmakers deign to allow me to;
2) when I first moved in, I was chatting with one of our police officers about security and his advice was to have my wife take a gun safety course and then keep a handgun in her glovebox full time. I quote him: “if she is out and trouble occurs, by the time she calls us and we respond it will be too late.”
I haven’t seen any arguments from you. Yes, I think the approach that you have taken in these comments is obnoxious. I apologize if you take that personally. I don’t know you and probably never will so I am simply referring to your commentary here, not you as a person.
My argument took the form of questioning the stated rationale behind gun ownership. If you think that approach is obnoxious (extremely unpleasant) then so be it.
The best adjective to describe your preparations is probably, “wow “. Why are you so afraid? Do you live in a high crime area? As to my plan, I don’t have one. The probability of experiencing a home invasion is no doubt the same as dying in an airplane crash and I don’t fly wearing a parachute.
Why would you assume I'm afraid? The opposite is true; I'm prepared.
As for where I live . . . it doesn't matter where you live.
For example, for 11 years I lived in Franklin Village, Michigan. You should look it up. It's very affluent area roughly four square miles in area.
The village has its own police force with a response time in sub-5 minutes. Residents have stickers for their cars indicating they are local.
According to crime stats, here's its current ranking:
Franklin crime rates are 75% lower than the national average
Violent crimes in Franklin are 92% lower than the national average
In Franklin you have a 1 in 172 chance of becoming a victim of crime
Franklin is safer than 89% of the cities in the United States
Twice in the 11 years I lived there, home invasions resulted in one or both of the homeowners dying (after the thieves got money and other stuff). At the time I lived there, there were 2-3 home invasions per year. Some years more, some years less. There are about 1,100 residences in Franklin Village. Strictly looking at the odds, they are small. I don't want to just rely on the odds.
In Colorado, I lived in the Woodmoor area north of Colorado Springs (another area with its own security force that supplements local police and the Sheriff's department):
Woodmoor crime rates are 39% lower than the national average
Violent crimes in Woodmoor are 52% lower than the national average
In Woodmoor you have a 1 in 71 chance of becoming a victim of crime
Woodmoor is safer than 58% of the cities in the United States
While we lived there (also 11 years) we had the occasional rash of home invasions. On two separate years, two groups targeted the area (one group was a gang of six that were eventually caught, the other ceased operation after a while), plus random individuals assumed to act on their own. That I know of, no one was killed, but some people were the worse for wear.
All the areas I've lived in were and are considered "safe" . . . but safe doesn't mean absent of crime. You might do a check of the area where you live and see what's going on.
I now live in Marion Illinois: I still live in a fairly safe area, but Marion numbers a a tad worse than other areas I've lived in:
Marion crime rates are 12% higher than the national average
Violent crimes in Marion are 45% higher than the national average
In Marion you have a 1 in 39 chance of becoming a victim of crime
Marion is safer than 17% of the cities in the United States
We consider this a temporary place to live, but we'll probably be here for at least 3-5 more years. And no, I don't live in fear.
Now, you mentioned airplanes. Well, you'll be happy to know that I too don't wear a parachute when I fly . . . because it would be useless. Once on a jet in flight, your odds of surviving a crash are practically nil.
But you mention the odds . . . there are various sources, but I picked the ones that offer ranges (that I could find — you should do your own investigation). Note also that your behavior can alter these odds, so this is generalized.
The odds of dying in a plane crash is between 1-in-3million to 1-in-5million (roughly and depending on the type of flight). So, pretty small. At the upper end, depending on how you calculate it, I read it might be 1-in-1million to 1-in-800,000.
In contrast:
Here are the FBI statistics for burglary and home invasion:
65.5% of the total number of burglaries committed in 2018 were in the category of home burglary, statistics reveal
The FBI’s figures for 2018 show that nearly two-thirds of the total number of burglaries were home invasion burglaries (around 685,766 total). Of these, the biggest share (56.7%) were committed by forcible entry, 36.7% were unlawful entries, and 6.6% were attempted via forcible entry.
There are around 100 burglaries that result in homicide every year in the United States.
Now, it's difficult to calculate odds and compare them to flying, but in both cases, whether something happens is outside your control.
However, in one case (home invasion) you have the possibility of doing something about it.
But odds are a strange way to look at it when the stakes are high.
Meaning, if something bad happens to me, I will not be comforted by the fact that the odds were small that anything would happen. I'd rather not be the person who says "Oh well. I rolled the dice and I lost. So be it!"
If I am one of the unlucky ones, I rather be the kind who says "Gee, those guys with crowbars and masks look unsavory. I'm kind of glad I have a gun with me and know how to use it."
By the way, there is a class of people who fantasize coming to the rescue of someone being attacked or killed. That's not me; my first and only priority is keeping my wife and me safe. You and others are on your own (the cops will tell you the same thing if you ask them).
I am not assuming you are afraid. I’ve read what you wrote and clearly you are afraid; more specifically of a home invasion. Why else would you fortify your home and carry a weapon wherever you go? Because you are prepared? Yes, prepared for that of what you are afraid.
Interesting . . . should I also engage in not believing what you write and making assumptions about your state of mind?
Just so you know, I've answered respectfully and in an attempt of having you understand a different point of view. I can't say your tone has been the same.
If I were to engage in similar behavior, I would categorically state you are in denial and desperately trying to reassure yourself that you are safe and will remain so. Whatever gives you peace of mind, go with FSM.
But please, stop telling me what I believe and what I feel. Not only is it disrespectful and uncivilized, but it paints you as an insufferable elitist.
Still, realizing the futility of this discussion, I quote someone I recently read:
"What I do understand is that we live on different planets and will never agree and so not much point in continuing this conversation."
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...)
violent death is The Problem, the means to that end is secondary.
Guns make violent death easier, and easy access to guns makes it even easier.
It's hard to kill someone with a baseball bat, hard to kill someone with a knife, even harder with your bare hands. Easy with a gun. Point and pull the trigger.
Some folks do not have much experience with fire arms and over estimate their effectiveness - probably because of how Hollywood portrays them. Police are well trained with firearms and roughly 70 -80% of their shots miss. In combat with well trained soldiers the numbers are even worse. The stats I have seen range from tens of thousands of rounds per hit to over 100,000 rounds per hit. Look at how many small arms rounds are expended in a typical war and then look at the causality count. They differ by _orders of magnitude_.
It is simply not true that it is "[e]asy with a gun. Point and pull the trigger."
FWIW: I am not anti gun-control (and I do not own any firearms). I just think if we're going to impinge on the rights of millions of honest, decent people we ought to actually think and not just spout memes. (I already provided my guidelines). Another reason to really think is drafting an effective las is non-trivial: Just as real guns aren't "point and click" most laws don't vanish all problems. Look at the War on Drugs - it just made the situation worse! Most gun-control voices these days are more emotional than rational and they sound like they don't want laws, they want Harry Potter to wave his wand and uninvent guns.
Again, if we are going to impinge on others' rights we owe it to them to think very carefully so they do not lose any more rights than absolutely necessary. It is horribly anti-democratic to pass gun control laws that take away rights and don't make a significant dent in The Problem (violent deaths). We should exhaust possibilities that do not infringe upon the rights of the innocent.
You make some very good points jbg. I would rather not take an axe handle, or a machete, to a gunfight. Killing a large number of people is much easier with an assault rifle. I have not seen or read the statistics you refer to ie, the number of rounds discharged that miss. It would seem logical that an assault rifle with a large magazine could miss more than it hits.
I think we will have to disagree that is just easier to commit mass murders with a gun. Or perhaps I misinterpreted what you're saying.
I do not see how a ban on assault rifles would impinge on anyone's rights.
I lived in Mexico for 16 years. Mexico has very strict gun laws and it is difficult to own a gun legally. Gun violence there is still quite prevalent. I was witness to this violence in a personal way. And I ask myself where do all these illegal guns come from in Mexico? They came from the United States!
I've stated before that I believe the problem is multifactorial. We do have a problem with mental health, access to Mental Health services, and young people who feel isolated and have existential angst. Giving them easy access to firearms just doesn't make sense. If that's infringing upon their rights I say that's too bad.
Despite living in Mexico for 16 years in a war zone where I saw the homicide rate increase by 600% in one year I still did not feel the need to own a gun. Perhaps I was just naive.
You make some good points, too. I, being a grumpy old Grandpa, would rather not attend a gunfight at all. But when some meth-head tried to breach a door to my house I grabbed my axe handle and waited inside. I was not jealous of Glock owners. I grew up around firearms and did some competition shooting (I wasn't very good at it - some of them are eerily accurate ... they'd take a couple of minutes between shots to control breathing). Firearms are not that easy to use - no matter what Bruce Willis and Sly Stallone may do with them.
Mexico, like Brasil, has strong gun control laws and much gun violence. That should be a flashing warning that strict gun control laws do not necessarily reduce gun violence. Perhaps we should be extra cautious about banning property that many people legally own. I think that we would make much more progress if we even paid lip-service to the fact that we are reducing rights of millions of Americans ESPECIALLY if those rights may be lost in vain. Additionally, with the various conflicts and wars in and around Europe for the past few decades, they have been having a big problem with illegal firearms flowing in. The thing about laws is only the lawful obey them.
BTW: You ask how banning assault rifles would infringe upon the rights of people who already own them? I presume that is a rhetorical question. Anyway, people toss about terms like "assault rifle" willy-nilly and the lack of precision of language is another problem. Assault Rifles are capable of full automatic fire - from what I have heard almost none of the mass shootings have used a gun with that capability. The firearms (rifles and pistols) used in most shootings have largely been semi-automatics (each pull of the trigger shots one round) with removable magazines. There are so many such firearms in America that banning all of them would be a HUGE infringement on the rights of the owners. Most firearms sold today are semi-automatic with removable magazines.
I would say that most gun-control advocates want a magic spell to make all firearms disappear rather than gun control laws. I don't see gun control laws working any better than that whole War of Drugs.
Haha. I'm a grumpy old grandpa also! It looks like we both agree that the War on Drugs is a complete failure. It's done nothing but create a lucrative Black Market. And I think you're saying increasing control of guns will do the same thing, ie, Increase gun control laws will create a lucrative Black Market 4 guns. There is already have liquid and black market 4 guns.
It would seem to be a difficult task to take away guns that are already owned.
I do know the difference between semi-automatic and automatic weapons. It would seem like having laws such as longer wait times, increased age for ownership, and required training before purchase as well as some kind of mental health background check or evaluation would help with overall gun violence. I don't see how making it more difficult to access guns in any way infringes on anyone's right to own a gun. Again perhaps I'm just naive.
We have much in common. IMHO: the main problem with the War on Drugs was drug addiction was framed as a crime & justice problem when it should have been framed as a public health problem. As soon as they started the war they lost. Who would turn in a loved one with a drug problem to the cops? Once you get a conviction your life is largely restricted - you'll never teach, work with kids, hod a security clearance... Sadly, the wealthy - who can afford the Betty Ford clinic - could get treatment without destroying their careers and reputations.
I agree with you that waiting times, 21-year age limit does not infringe much on rights (no more than say, banning racial epithets does). I would add banning large capacity magazines. I support those measures. I also support having to pass a firearms safety test (as is the law in California) - along with home-gun safety laws!
I am also realistic that only the home gun safety law is likely to make a big difference. The others will nip around the edges. However, since they are at most inconveniences to the rights rather than infringements... that makes them a good start.
For example, the magazine capacity is only a deterrent against mass shootings and those make up a teeny fraction of all gun death. Additionally, swapping magazines can be done quickly enough that it doesn't give folks much time to escape or to charge the assailant. But it also makes a small cultural change without trampling significantly on gun rights. Sport shooting and hunting already do not allow large capacity magazines (hunters fear game wardens more than cops!) so it is a minor inconvenience and then only to Rambo posers.
The rest of them are also more of a cultural shift than effective measures to reduce deaths due to guns.
The reason I brought up semi-autos vs assault rifles is no assault weapon ban is worth a damn. CA had bans on assault weapons and gun manufactures, like Colt, immediately released new models that conformed to the (ridiculous) criteria. In CA one characteristic of an assault weapon was a bayonet lug. Seriously WTF? Also pistol grips and flash suppressors. Basically cosmetic items that make a gun look "bad ass" were banned in CA. But the functionality was never addressed.
One idea that I heard that has potential is modeled on the tobacco taxes - an ammo tax that funds programs to reduce gun violence. They could run anti-violence commercials (akin to the no smoking commercials); they could fund gun buy-backs; they could give away trigger locks for every new gun purchase.
But I doubt any of this will make much of a difference. Mass shootings are becoming increasingly political - the Buffalo shooter had the name of a victim of the SUV attack on a parade in Wisconsin written on one of his weapons. (The driver of that SUV was African-American and was angry about the Rittenhouse verdict). A quick search shows how politicized they have become over the past 20 years. Dr Shermer's PPT has slides about using a gun to defend against Law Enforcement or Navy SEALS... is he aware of the radicalization of the military and Law Enforcement (look up Oath Keepers). Who is to say if LEO's & SEAL's start knocking on doors they'll be after Angry White Men With Guns?
The Problem in America goes beyond citizens with guns ...
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.
When the moment comes that I need to defend myself with deadly force - How many such moments have come? Likely 0, In the event that it does, what if you shoot your own ass, or spouse or a child. It probably takes three tries for you to get out of your couch, and you're gonna take down a "threat" accurately? Stick to watching action movies, pal. What if the police respond and mistake you for the shooter, or another gun nut thinks you're the threat.
On "..but because those private firearms wielded by brave, freedom-loving people would make victory unacceptably EXPENSIVE for a would-be tyrant."
How so? A drone controlled by a kid with a xbox controller is taking you out while you take out the trash. Or an armored tank sitting in your driveway. There aren't enough of you and there isn't any cost in neutralizing you.
Maybe travel the world, see how people in other countries live - none of them have guns and are not experiencing hypothetical tyrannical takeovers. /endrant
Hi. My name is Nick. I’m a returned Peace Corps volunteer, a returned English teacher in Japan, and my passport has stamps from Timbuktu, Egypt, Morocco, Taiwan, Korea, Italy, Greece, and blah, blah, blah.
Yes, you are correct that the US government has more powerful weapons than the US civilian population, but that does not mean our private ownership of guns would offer no effective deterrent against tyrannical designs.
An armed and determined citizenry takes every “soft” option off the table, leaving all-out war as the only strategy for subduing us against our will. Inside the US heartland, the only way to prevail would be to kill millions of people.
That is politically, economically, and optically infeasible for many reasons, so it would never happen — or if it did happen, those who made it happen would end up with a nation in smoldering ruins, and with the entire world turned against them. That’s not a tempting option.
So, since our government cannot subdue us against our will (as is the case in every other nation I can think of), nor can it feasibly exterminate us, it simply has no choice but to bargain with us and accept that we are the last balance of power — WHICH IS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT.
American citizens who don’t get this are solving for X (i.e. end gun violence) but forgetting about Y and Z (i.e. the right to self-defense as individuals and as a people).
Sure you can eliminate gun violence by getting rid of all the guns, just like you can eliminate rape by chopping off all the penises.
If that sounds absurd to you, please know that your views on “gun control” sound equally absurd to those of us who actually think highly of the US Constitution and the Enlightenment ideals that inspired it.
Thomas Sowell said there are no solutions; there are only trade offs. If you want to live in perfect peace by rendering yourself defenseless, then the trade off is that you’ll also live in perfect submission to whatever force you confront that IS armed — whether that be a criminal gang or your own overwrought government.
After all, the quickest way to end any fight is to simply lay down like a dog that’s been beaten too much.
I invite you to enjoy that cushy, anesthetized life. I’ll stay out here with the Wildlings, thank-you-very-much.
“So to summarize, you agree that you, your cohorts, with your guns stand no chance against a tyrannical government taking over…”
This is actually the polar opposite of my key claim, so I cannot affirm your summary. 🤷♂️
But I can affirm that gun violence is indeed a serious and growing problem that we need to address through rational measures that nonetheless preserve a liberal reading of the Second Amendment.
Outlawing or unduly (key word) regulating guns is a non-starter, but it’s quite easy to bring the NRA crowd to the table with other ideas for minimizing gun violence.
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.
The Second Amendment was never repealed. It is still there. If there is a conflict between a law and the Bill of Rights, the Bill of Rights trumps a law. The fact that laws have been passed do not overrule an enumerated right.
Respectfully, I’m not sure of your experiences in life and how much violence you’ve encountered. By that, I mean encounters with people intent on doing harm to you and yours, and not prone to giving one moment of consideration to living and letting live.
Certainly, I assume you were not part (as a perpetrator or victim) of the reported 500,000 incidents of violence and sexual offenses in the UK for the first quarter of 2022. Or one of the 1.7M incidents in 2021.
If you weren’t, I congratulate you on your good fortune and your privileged life, but forgive me if I don’t hold to your views on matters of self-protection.
If you were a victim and you still hold to your current views, you have my respect; you’re a much better man than I am for I intend with every tool at my disposal to never let myself or my wife become statistics.
If you were a perpetrator of one of those incidents, you lose my respect, but I then understand your desire for complacent victims prohibited from employing instruments of self-defense. Very clever, that is.
I'm 69 years old, have owned four homes, and I've never made a claim on my home insurance. I only know one person who has made a claim on their policy (for a water leak).
Your (to my mind) absurd comments points to someone who has discounted the possibility they might one day have need to defend themselves.
Again, good for you, but what makes you think I have to come to the same conclusion?
For the record, I hope I never have a need for any insurance I carry, and I also hope I never have a need for the guns I own . . . but I sleep better for having them both.
The obvious and overriding reason I am safe is because virtually no one here has firearms.In answer to your clearly sarcastic remark,'naturally gentle and benevolent',I dont necessarily believe this is the case,but a lack of weapons certainly helps.
Do not understand the question. What I do understand is that we live on different planets and will never agree and so not much point in continuing this conversation.
You may have lived a privileged and protected life. To never have been attacked, not know anyone who has been violently attacked makes me think you are an elite or somehow haven’t spent much time on the “rough side of town.”
God made all men, Smith and Wesson made them equal.
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 am a card-carrying Libertarian who used to own guns. I decided 20 years ago to sell them because I believe that my household is safer without them. The statistics cited by Shermer supports the proposition that my household is indeed safer without them. My choice to get rid of my guns was a free choice, not the giving up of an essential liberty. I do not seek to prevent others from owning guns, even though I believe that they are incorrect in thinking that the guns make them safer. So I don't think the Ben Franklin quote (which actually concerned whether it was okay for the Penn family to bribe the Pennsylvania General Assembly with a lump sum of money to avoid being taxed for frontier defense during the French and Indian War) is relevant to my comment.
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.
Right. JP Sears. His commentaries on many subjects are brilliant and funny. So, okay, you reject my proposals here (and elsewhere) to restrict access to assault weapons, large capacity magazines, background checks, etc. So what do you propose to do to reduce the carnage from gun violence of all forms, now in excess of 44,000 dead per year? Nothing? More guns? Arm everyone to the teeth, right down to teachers and students and just hope enough of the bad guys are shot to make up for the increase in homicides, suicides, and accidental discharges that are sure to happen? Imagine if this number of people died per year from terrorist attacks in the U.S. Would Republicans propose doing nothing because then only terrorists would have access to weapons?
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.
I'm going to assume that as a responsible gun owner you claim you are, that your guns are trigger locked and locked away in a gun safe. If so, how long would it take you to get your weapon in the event of a home breakin? So much for defending your family.
This is reminiscent of dishonest discussions I have with religious folks, where they think they have a "got you!" question . . . but I'll reply as if you're actually serious (and honest).
As a responsible gun owner, my guns are in a safe, and NOT trigger-locked. Seeing as we opted long ago not to have kids, the safe is only in case of a break-in when we're not at home. My carry gun, on the other hand, is always on me (except when I shower).
As far as being able to get to the guns in the safe, probably about a minute. But, I would be already armed because my carry gun is on my nightstand when I'm sleeping, right next to my phone and powerful flashlight.
Let me walk you through a scenario:
1) someone breaks into the house. This would have to be a window because the doors are both reinforced and braced. It would take someone some effort to break in through the doors, so window it is.
2) Once a window is opened or broken, the alarm goes off. It takes about 30 seconds for the call center to contact me and ask if I want the police dispatched.
3) during those 30 seconds, two things happen. One, the bedroom door gets closed and braced, and two, I'm on the phone which has an app that lets me see all the cameras feeds (three outside, two inside).
4) Depending on what I see (a person or persons in the house), I can hit the panic button, in which case the call center will dispatch the police without waiting for confirmation from me. The call center also have access to the camera feeds when the alarm is triggered, so they can advise the police.
5) If I don't see anything but still think it's a credible alarm, I will still ask for the police to be dispatched. The call center remains on the line with me and is also in contact with the police.
6) By then, I now have my shotgun, and I wait for the 10 minutes or so for the police to arrive. During that time, if anyone tries to force the bedroom door open, I will give them a verbal warning that the police are on their way and that I am armed.
6a) If someone still continues to try and gain entry, I might decide to fire through the door . . . but probably not for two reasons: 1) I have nice wood floors and I imagine blood would soak in and be difficult to clean up, and 2) I don't like shooting without knowing what I'm shooting.
6b) All this changes if whoever is on the other side of the door is screaming how they are going to kill both me and my wife and redouble their attack on the door (this would be unusual because we're nice people who avoid confrontations).
7) If no one is trying to break down our door, we still wait for the police.
7a) When they get there, the police will conduct a visual inspection of the perimeter. If they don't see any signs of a break-in, I will chalk it up to a false alarm, but still ask them to clear the house before I come out of the bedroom (the call center has the codes to opening the garage doors allowing them entry).
7c) If they see an obvious point of entry, they will likely ask me to stay secure as they bring in a canine unit and sweep the house (that's the procedure they followed when there was a reported break-in to the house next door when no one was at home).
Once the all clear is given, I will store my shotgun in the safe, but retain my carry gun in a holster on my person (the chief of police conducted the concealed carry qualification class I took for my license, so the cops will know I have a CCW permit and that I have been advised as to the procedure to follow when dealing with police).
I then thank the officers, reset the alarm once they leave, and make a note to test the system in the morning, and especially the sensor that went off.
So, yes, so much for defending myself and my wife at home.
Just out of curiosity, what would you do in the event of a break-in? I assume you have a plan?
Robin, I have to say, you are clearly being obnoxious here.
For the benefit of those actually interested in other points of view, here is mine:
I live in one of the safest towns in America: 20 cops, 660 homes, one road in! Yes, a peninsula. I keep guns in my safe but not ready to use. A couple of anecdotes:
1) I value the option to change my defense posture when I want, without hoping that lawmakers deign to allow me to;
2) when I first moved in, I was chatting with one of our police officers about security and his advice was to have my wife take a gun safety course and then keep a handgun in her glovebox full time. I quote him: “if she is out and trouble occurs, by the time she calls us and we respond it will be too late.”
Arguing the rationale behind gun ownership is being obnoxious? So be it.
I haven’t seen any arguments from you. Yes, I think the approach that you have taken in these comments is obnoxious. I apologize if you take that personally. I don’t know you and probably never will so I am simply referring to your commentary here, not you as a person.
My argument took the form of questioning the stated rationale behind gun ownership. If you think that approach is obnoxious (extremely unpleasant) then so be it.
The best adjective to describe your preparations is probably, “wow “. Why are you so afraid? Do you live in a high crime area? As to my plan, I don’t have one. The probability of experiencing a home invasion is no doubt the same as dying in an airplane crash and I don’t fly wearing a parachute.
Why would you assume I'm afraid? The opposite is true; I'm prepared.
As for where I live . . . it doesn't matter where you live.
For example, for 11 years I lived in Franklin Village, Michigan. You should look it up. It's very affluent area roughly four square miles in area.
The village has its own police force with a response time in sub-5 minutes. Residents have stickers for their cars indicating they are local.
According to crime stats, here's its current ranking:
Franklin crime rates are 75% lower than the national average
Violent crimes in Franklin are 92% lower than the national average
In Franklin you have a 1 in 172 chance of becoming a victim of crime
Franklin is safer than 89% of the cities in the United States
Twice in the 11 years I lived there, home invasions resulted in one or both of the homeowners dying (after the thieves got money and other stuff). At the time I lived there, there were 2-3 home invasions per year. Some years more, some years less. There are about 1,100 residences in Franklin Village. Strictly looking at the odds, they are small. I don't want to just rely on the odds.
In Colorado, I lived in the Woodmoor area north of Colorado Springs (another area with its own security force that supplements local police and the Sheriff's department):
Woodmoor crime rates are 39% lower than the national average
Violent crimes in Woodmoor are 52% lower than the national average
In Woodmoor you have a 1 in 71 chance of becoming a victim of crime
Woodmoor is safer than 58% of the cities in the United States
While we lived there (also 11 years) we had the occasional rash of home invasions. On two separate years, two groups targeted the area (one group was a gang of six that were eventually caught, the other ceased operation after a while), plus random individuals assumed to act on their own. That I know of, no one was killed, but some people were the worse for wear.
All the areas I've lived in were and are considered "safe" . . . but safe doesn't mean absent of crime. You might do a check of the area where you live and see what's going on.
I now live in Marion Illinois: I still live in a fairly safe area, but Marion numbers a a tad worse than other areas I've lived in:
Marion crime rates are 12% higher than the national average
Violent crimes in Marion are 45% higher than the national average
In Marion you have a 1 in 39 chance of becoming a victim of crime
Marion is safer than 17% of the cities in the United States
We consider this a temporary place to live, but we'll probably be here for at least 3-5 more years. And no, I don't live in fear.
Now, you mentioned airplanes. Well, you'll be happy to know that I too don't wear a parachute when I fly . . . because it would be useless. Once on a jet in flight, your odds of surviving a crash are practically nil.
But you mention the odds . . . there are various sources, but I picked the ones that offer ranges (that I could find — you should do your own investigation). Note also that your behavior can alter these odds, so this is generalized.
The odds of dying in a plane crash is between 1-in-3million to 1-in-5million (roughly and depending on the type of flight). So, pretty small. At the upper end, depending on how you calculate it, I read it might be 1-in-1million to 1-in-800,000.
In contrast:
Here are the FBI statistics for burglary and home invasion:
65.5% of the total number of burglaries committed in 2018 were in the category of home burglary, statistics reveal
The FBI’s figures for 2018 show that nearly two-thirds of the total number of burglaries were home invasion burglaries (around 685,766 total). Of these, the biggest share (56.7%) were committed by forcible entry, 36.7% were unlawful entries, and 6.6% were attempted via forcible entry.
There are around 100 burglaries that result in homicide every year in the United States.
Now, it's difficult to calculate odds and compare them to flying, but in both cases, whether something happens is outside your control.
However, in one case (home invasion) you have the possibility of doing something about it.
But odds are a strange way to look at it when the stakes are high.
Meaning, if something bad happens to me, I will not be comforted by the fact that the odds were small that anything would happen. I'd rather not be the person who says "Oh well. I rolled the dice and I lost. So be it!"
If I am one of the unlucky ones, I rather be the kind who says "Gee, those guys with crowbars and masks look unsavory. I'm kind of glad I have a gun with me and know how to use it."
By the way, there is a class of people who fantasize coming to the rescue of someone being attacked or killed. That's not me; my first and only priority is keeping my wife and me safe. You and others are on your own (the cops will tell you the same thing if you ask them).
I am not assuming you are afraid. I’ve read what you wrote and clearly you are afraid; more specifically of a home invasion. Why else would you fortify your home and carry a weapon wherever you go? Because you are prepared? Yes, prepared for that of what you are afraid.
Interesting . . . should I also engage in not believing what you write and making assumptions about your state of mind?
Just so you know, I've answered respectfully and in an attempt of having you understand a different point of view. I can't say your tone has been the same.
If I were to engage in similar behavior, I would categorically state you are in denial and desperately trying to reassure yourself that you are safe and will remain so. Whatever gives you peace of mind, go with FSM.
But please, stop telling me what I believe and what I feel. Not only is it disrespectful and uncivilized, but it paints you as an insufferable elitist.
Still, realizing the futility of this discussion, I quote someone I recently read:
"What I do understand is that we live on different planets and will never agree and so not much point in continuing this conversation."
Well said.
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...)
violent death is The Problem, the means to that end is secondary.
Guns make violent death easier, and easy access to guns makes it even easier.
It's hard to kill someone with a baseball bat, hard to kill someone with a knife, even harder with your bare hands. Easy with a gun. Point and pull the trigger.
Some folks do not have much experience with fire arms and over estimate their effectiveness - probably because of how Hollywood portrays them. Police are well trained with firearms and roughly 70 -80% of their shots miss. In combat with well trained soldiers the numbers are even worse. The stats I have seen range from tens of thousands of rounds per hit to over 100,000 rounds per hit. Look at how many small arms rounds are expended in a typical war and then look at the causality count. They differ by _orders of magnitude_.
It is simply not true that it is "[e]asy with a gun. Point and pull the trigger."
FWIW: I am not anti gun-control (and I do not own any firearms). I just think if we're going to impinge on the rights of millions of honest, decent people we ought to actually think and not just spout memes. (I already provided my guidelines). Another reason to really think is drafting an effective las is non-trivial: Just as real guns aren't "point and click" most laws don't vanish all problems. Look at the War on Drugs - it just made the situation worse! Most gun-control voices these days are more emotional than rational and they sound like they don't want laws, they want Harry Potter to wave his wand and uninvent guns.
Again, if we are going to impinge on others' rights we owe it to them to think very carefully so they do not lose any more rights than absolutely necessary. It is horribly anti-democratic to pass gun control laws that take away rights and don't make a significant dent in The Problem (violent deaths). We should exhaust possibilities that do not infringe upon the rights of the innocent.
You make some very good points jbg. I would rather not take an axe handle, or a machete, to a gunfight. Killing a large number of people is much easier with an assault rifle. I have not seen or read the statistics you refer to ie, the number of rounds discharged that miss. It would seem logical that an assault rifle with a large magazine could miss more than it hits.
I think we will have to disagree that is just easier to commit mass murders with a gun. Or perhaps I misinterpreted what you're saying.
I do not see how a ban on assault rifles would impinge on anyone's rights.
I lived in Mexico for 16 years. Mexico has very strict gun laws and it is difficult to own a gun legally. Gun violence there is still quite prevalent. I was witness to this violence in a personal way. And I ask myself where do all these illegal guns come from in Mexico? They came from the United States!
I've stated before that I believe the problem is multifactorial. We do have a problem with mental health, access to Mental Health services, and young people who feel isolated and have existential angst. Giving them easy access to firearms just doesn't make sense. If that's infringing upon their rights I say that's too bad.
Despite living in Mexico for 16 years in a war zone where I saw the homicide rate increase by 600% in one year I still did not feel the need to own a gun. Perhaps I was just naive.
You make some good points, too. I, being a grumpy old Grandpa, would rather not attend a gunfight at all. But when some meth-head tried to breach a door to my house I grabbed my axe handle and waited inside. I was not jealous of Glock owners. I grew up around firearms and did some competition shooting (I wasn't very good at it - some of them are eerily accurate ... they'd take a couple of minutes between shots to control breathing). Firearms are not that easy to use - no matter what Bruce Willis and Sly Stallone may do with them.
Mexico, like Brasil, has strong gun control laws and much gun violence. That should be a flashing warning that strict gun control laws do not necessarily reduce gun violence. Perhaps we should be extra cautious about banning property that many people legally own. I think that we would make much more progress if we even paid lip-service to the fact that we are reducing rights of millions of Americans ESPECIALLY if those rights may be lost in vain. Additionally, with the various conflicts and wars in and around Europe for the past few decades, they have been having a big problem with illegal firearms flowing in. The thing about laws is only the lawful obey them.
BTW: You ask how banning assault rifles would infringe upon the rights of people who already own them? I presume that is a rhetorical question. Anyway, people toss about terms like "assault rifle" willy-nilly and the lack of precision of language is another problem. Assault Rifles are capable of full automatic fire - from what I have heard almost none of the mass shootings have used a gun with that capability. The firearms (rifles and pistols) used in most shootings have largely been semi-automatics (each pull of the trigger shots one round) with removable magazines. There are so many such firearms in America that banning all of them would be a HUGE infringement on the rights of the owners. Most firearms sold today are semi-automatic with removable magazines.
I would say that most gun-control advocates want a magic spell to make all firearms disappear rather than gun control laws. I don't see gun control laws working any better than that whole War of Drugs.
Haha. I'm a grumpy old grandpa also! It looks like we both agree that the War on Drugs is a complete failure. It's done nothing but create a lucrative Black Market. And I think you're saying increasing control of guns will do the same thing, ie, Increase gun control laws will create a lucrative Black Market 4 guns. There is already have liquid and black market 4 guns.
It would seem to be a difficult task to take away guns that are already owned.
I do know the difference between semi-automatic and automatic weapons. It would seem like having laws such as longer wait times, increased age for ownership, and required training before purchase as well as some kind of mental health background check or evaluation would help with overall gun violence. I don't see how making it more difficult to access guns in any way infringes on anyone's right to own a gun. Again perhaps I'm just naive.
We have much in common. IMHO: the main problem with the War on Drugs was drug addiction was framed as a crime & justice problem when it should have been framed as a public health problem. As soon as they started the war they lost. Who would turn in a loved one with a drug problem to the cops? Once you get a conviction your life is largely restricted - you'll never teach, work with kids, hod a security clearance... Sadly, the wealthy - who can afford the Betty Ford clinic - could get treatment without destroying their careers and reputations.
I agree with you that waiting times, 21-year age limit does not infringe much on rights (no more than say, banning racial epithets does). I would add banning large capacity magazines. I support those measures. I also support having to pass a firearms safety test (as is the law in California) - along with home-gun safety laws!
I am also realistic that only the home gun safety law is likely to make a big difference. The others will nip around the edges. However, since they are at most inconveniences to the rights rather than infringements... that makes them a good start.
For example, the magazine capacity is only a deterrent against mass shootings and those make up a teeny fraction of all gun death. Additionally, swapping magazines can be done quickly enough that it doesn't give folks much time to escape or to charge the assailant. But it also makes a small cultural change without trampling significantly on gun rights. Sport shooting and hunting already do not allow large capacity magazines (hunters fear game wardens more than cops!) so it is a minor inconvenience and then only to Rambo posers.
The rest of them are also more of a cultural shift than effective measures to reduce deaths due to guns.
The reason I brought up semi-autos vs assault rifles is no assault weapon ban is worth a damn. CA had bans on assault weapons and gun manufactures, like Colt, immediately released new models that conformed to the (ridiculous) criteria. In CA one characteristic of an assault weapon was a bayonet lug. Seriously WTF? Also pistol grips and flash suppressors. Basically cosmetic items that make a gun look "bad ass" were banned in CA. But the functionality was never addressed.
One idea that I heard that has potential is modeled on the tobacco taxes - an ammo tax that funds programs to reduce gun violence. They could run anti-violence commercials (akin to the no smoking commercials); they could fund gun buy-backs; they could give away trigger locks for every new gun purchase.
But I doubt any of this will make much of a difference. Mass shootings are becoming increasingly political - the Buffalo shooter had the name of a victim of the SUV attack on a parade in Wisconsin written on one of his weapons. (The driver of that SUV was African-American and was angry about the Rittenhouse verdict). A quick search shows how politicized they have become over the past 20 years. Dr Shermer's PPT has slides about using a gun to defend against Law Enforcement or Navy SEALS... is he aware of the radicalization of the military and Law Enforcement (look up Oath Keepers). Who is to say if LEO's & SEAL's start knocking on doors they'll be after Angry White Men With Guns?
The Problem in America goes beyond citizens with guns ...
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.
Thank you for putting words to many of my thoughts. I am in full agreement with and support this post.
dumbest comment on the internet today!
When the moment comes that I need to defend myself with deadly force - How many such moments have come? Likely 0, In the event that it does, what if you shoot your own ass, or spouse or a child. It probably takes three tries for you to get out of your couch, and you're gonna take down a "threat" accurately? Stick to watching action movies, pal. What if the police respond and mistake you for the shooter, or another gun nut thinks you're the threat.
On "..but because those private firearms wielded by brave, freedom-loving people would make victory unacceptably EXPENSIVE for a would-be tyrant."
How so? A drone controlled by a kid with a xbox controller is taking you out while you take out the trash. Or an armored tank sitting in your driveway. There aren't enough of you and there isn't any cost in neutralizing you.
Maybe travel the world, see how people in other countries live - none of them have guns and are not experiencing hypothetical tyrannical takeovers. /endrant
“Maybe travel the world…”
Hi. My name is Nick. I’m a returned Peace Corps volunteer, a returned English teacher in Japan, and my passport has stamps from Timbuktu, Egypt, Morocco, Taiwan, Korea, Italy, Greece, and blah, blah, blah.
Yes, you are correct that the US government has more powerful weapons than the US civilian population, but that does not mean our private ownership of guns would offer no effective deterrent against tyrannical designs.
An armed and determined citizenry takes every “soft” option off the table, leaving all-out war as the only strategy for subduing us against our will. Inside the US heartland, the only way to prevail would be to kill millions of people.
That is politically, economically, and optically infeasible for many reasons, so it would never happen — or if it did happen, those who made it happen would end up with a nation in smoldering ruins, and with the entire world turned against them. That’s not a tempting option.
So, since our government cannot subdue us against our will (as is the case in every other nation I can think of), nor can it feasibly exterminate us, it simply has no choice but to bargain with us and accept that we are the last balance of power — WHICH IS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT.
American citizens who don’t get this are solving for X (i.e. end gun violence) but forgetting about Y and Z (i.e. the right to self-defense as individuals and as a people).
Sure you can eliminate gun violence by getting rid of all the guns, just like you can eliminate rape by chopping off all the penises.
If that sounds absurd to you, please know that your views on “gun control” sound equally absurd to those of us who actually think highly of the US Constitution and the Enlightenment ideals that inspired it.
Thomas Sowell said there are no solutions; there are only trade offs. If you want to live in perfect peace by rendering yourself defenseless, then the trade off is that you’ll also live in perfect submission to whatever force you confront that IS armed — whether that be a criminal gang or your own overwrought government.
After all, the quickest way to end any fight is to simply lay down like a dog that’s been beaten too much.
I invite you to enjoy that cushy, anesthetized life. I’ll stay out here with the Wildlings, thank-you-very-much.
So to summarize,
you agree that you, your cohorts, with your guns stand no chance against a tyrannical government taking over, the whole purpose of the 2nd amendment.
Meanwhile deaths due to suicides, murders, mass shootings - all caused by guns- are topping 44,000 a year.
“So to summarize, you agree that you, your cohorts, with your guns stand no chance against a tyrannical government taking over…”
This is actually the polar opposite of my key claim, so I cannot affirm your summary. 🤷♂️
But I can affirm that gun violence is indeed a serious and growing problem that we need to address through rational measures that nonetheless preserve a liberal reading of the Second Amendment.
Outlawing or unduly (key word) regulating guns is a non-starter, but it’s quite easy to bring the NRA crowd to the table with other ideas for minimizing gun violence.
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.
Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq had forces that were well trained military, not untrained unregulated malitias.
"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.
The Second Amendment was never repealed. It is still there. If there is a conflict between a law and the Bill of Rights, the Bill of Rights trumps a law. The fact that laws have been passed do not overrule an enumerated right.
Re-read the first paragraph and then talk about the second amendment.
Interesting . . . You should read about Barnes Law in relation to what the government's obligation is to provide for your safety and protection.
In England where I live only the police, the military, and criminals have firearms. Therefore there is no reason for me to be armed.
Respectfully, I’m not sure of your experiences in life and how much violence you’ve encountered. By that, I mean encounters with people intent on doing harm to you and yours, and not prone to giving one moment of consideration to living and letting live.
Certainly, I assume you were not part (as a perpetrator or victim) of the reported 500,000 incidents of violence and sexual offenses in the UK for the first quarter of 2022. Or one of the 1.7M incidents in 2021.
If you weren’t, I congratulate you on your good fortune and your privileged life, but forgive me if I don’t hold to your views on matters of self-protection.
If you were a victim and you still hold to your current views, you have my respect; you’re a much better man than I am for I intend with every tool at my disposal to never let myself or my wife become statistics.
If you were a perpetrator of one of those incidents, you lose my respect, but I then understand your desire for complacent victims prohibited from employing instruments of self-defense. Very clever, that is.
I am 78 years old, and not once in my life have I been threatened and therefore have never felt the need to shoot anyone and nor has anyone I know.
I'm 69 years old, have owned four homes, and I've never made a claim on my home insurance. I only know one person who has made a claim on their policy (for a water leak).
. . . but I still carry homeowner insurance . . .
To attempt to equate home insurance with owning a weapon is absurd.
Why?
Both are in case the unthinkable happens.
Your (to my mind) absurd comments points to someone who has discounted the possibility they might one day have need to defend themselves.
Again, good for you, but what makes you think I have to come to the same conclusion?
For the record, I hope I never have a need for any insurance I carry, and I also hope I never have a need for the guns I own . . . but I sleep better for having them both.
can your insurance policy accidentally kill someone?
can someone steal your insurance policy and use it in a crime?
The US 2nd Amendment is literally an insurance policy securing the 1st, and all the rest of the Constitution.
Excellent! I too am your age and I too have never felt the need to shoot anyone.
Please continue. Please explain to me how it is that you managed to live in the safest and most prosperous time in the entire history of humanity.
I am curious to hear if you think that it's because humans are naturally gentle and benevolent.
The obvious and overriding reason I am safe is because virtually no one here has firearms.In answer to your clearly sarcastic remark,'naturally gentle and benevolent',I dont necessarily believe this is the case,but a lack of weapons certainly helps.
Where is "here"?
Do not understand the question. What I do understand is that we live on different planets and will never agree and so not much point in continuing this conversation.
You may have lived a privileged and protected life. To never have been attacked, not know anyone who has been violently attacked makes me think you are an elite or somehow haven’t spent much time on the “rough side of town.”
God made all men, Smith and Wesson made them equal.
Did you forget the middle of your post? Where you provide evidence, or at least logic, to support “since A, B and C exist, then Y is true”.
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.
Speaking of logic and safety: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
I am a card-carrying Libertarian who used to own guns. I decided 20 years ago to sell them because I believe that my household is safer without them. The statistics cited by Shermer supports the proposition that my household is indeed safer without them. My choice to get rid of my guns was a free choice, not the giving up of an essential liberty. I do not seek to prevent others from owning guns, even though I believe that they are incorrect in thinking that the guns make them safer. So I don't think the Ben Franklin quote (which actually concerned whether it was okay for the Penn family to bribe the Pennsylvania General Assembly with a lump sum of money to avoid being taxed for frontier defense during the French and Indian War) is relevant to my comment.
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
Right. JP Sears. His commentaries on many subjects are brilliant and funny. So, okay, you reject my proposals here (and elsewhere) to restrict access to assault weapons, large capacity magazines, background checks, etc. So what do you propose to do to reduce the carnage from gun violence of all forms, now in excess of 44,000 dead per year? Nothing? More guns? Arm everyone to the teeth, right down to teachers and students and just hope enough of the bad guys are shot to make up for the increase in homicides, suicides, and accidental discharges that are sure to happen? Imagine if this number of people died per year from terrorist attacks in the U.S. Would Republicans propose doing nothing because then only terrorists would have access to weapons?
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.