Guns

In recent years I’ve thought about getting armed. I’m not a pacifist, and I live near Crazytown. I don’t expect I would prevail in a gunfight, but I do think I could take a few miscreants with me. I earned an NRA Sharpshooter badge in summer camp, in about 1959. Target shooting was great fun. I’m aware of stats about the dangers of individual ownership, but I don’t think they apply to me. I’m not a klutz, and we don’t have kids in the house. We hardly even have visitors. Still, I’d also be happy to abide by any firearms restriction you might think of, if it became law.

No single restriction will eliminate gun violence. The idea that any particular measure would not have prevented a given atrocity is idiotic. The criterion for policy is to reduce such incidents on the margin. Most people understand that.

The case for individual ownership of assault weapons or large-capacity magazines seems especially weak.

• Use of them for hunting is obviously foolhardy. If you need such things to hunt, you shouldn’t be hunting. Real hunters use . . . hunting rifles or shotguns. Or bow-and-arrow. Three strikes and you’re out. I saw a video of the actor Gerald McRaney hunting feral hogs with a spear, which strikes me as demented, but at least the prey had more of a chance. I don’t expect many mass-spearing incidents. We don’t allow people to use dynamite to go fishing.

• If you can’t defend home and hearth from God-knows-who with a shotgun or other firearm, chances are you will lose that gunfight even with an assault rifle.

• The definition of ‘assault rifle’ is said to be too fuzzy to permit a ban, since manufacturers can alter specs to evade any specific definition. But the law can be fuzzy and imperfect too, and still be effective to a degree. We see this in other realms. For instance, define “loitering.”

• If you think an assault rifle will protect you in the apocalypse, you fail to realize there will always be others with guns. This is why I don’t understand survivalists who stock up on things. Somebody else will always turn up to take your stuff.

Expecting any law to enable confiscation of weapons is foolhardy. No sane politician would propose it. It would open the way to scores of Ruby Ridge episodes. It would be feasible to prevent open carry of weapons. Wyatt Earp did it in Tombstone. The cops already do it, if you’re black. Guns would still be available for self-defense at home. Even the NRA understands that open carry doesn’t make a locale safer. That’s why they ban it at their own conventions.

I suspect a buyback would vacuum up many guns, since they will have proven so useless for so many. Maybe you bought one on impulse, or out of fear of a threat that dissolved over time. People would welcome the chance to get some of their money back – like getting rid of that exercise bike you never use.

All the other usual suggestions are grist for the mill. Do as many as can be done. Again, the criterion is not a law that absolutely prevents mass shooters. It is for one that reduces their frequency, and the frequency right now in the U.S. is insanely high.

How can anybody say a country that fails to protect its children from preventable hazards is “great”?