Ways and Means

Ruth Marcus demands that we take some action to reduce the likelihood of future incidents like the shootings in Oregon last week:

The Second Amendment protects a right to gun ownership. It does not forestall reasonable regulation. The sorts of small steps that now appear unachievable would not interfere with the needs of responsible gun owners.

It is too soon to know how the Roseburg killer obtained his weapon or weapons; how evident was his mental illness; whether he could have been stopped. It is not too soon for all of us, myself included, to feel ashamed by our willingness to accept the status quo as bloody but immutable.

There are, however, several questions she leaves unanswered. What “reasonable reforms” would have that effect? Chicago has or had regulations or restrictions that were among the toughest in the nation, so tough they didn’t make constitutional muster. It also has one of the highest rates of gun violence in the country. Just last weekend we had a spate of violence that left six dead and eight more wounded. What reforms, specifically, would have changed that? Mayor Emanuel says there are too many guns but doesn’t have any proposals in mind that would both reduce the number of guns and meet constitutional muster.

Eugene Volokh points out the close association between gun violence and the consumption of alcohol:

Now I generally don’t support the “don’t just stand there, do something” school of criminal law. When all the proposals seem likely not to work, or do more harm than good, implementing one of them for the sake of “doing something” strikes me as a mistake.

But let me offer a concrete analogy (recognizing that, as with all analogies, it’s analogous and not identical).

Every day, about 30 people are killed in the U.S. in gun homicides or gun accidents (not counting gun suicides or self-inflicted accidental shootings). And every day, likely about 30 people are killed in homicides where the killer was under the influence of alcohol, plus alcohol-related drunk driving accidents and alcohol-related accidents where the driver wasn’t drunk but the alcohol was likely a factor (again not including those who died in accidents caused by their own alcohol consumption). If you added in gun suicides on one side and those people whose alcohol consumption killed themselves on the other, the deaths would tilt much more on the side of alcohol use, but I generally like to segregate deaths of the user from deaths of others.

So what are we going to do about it? When are we going to ban alcohol? When are we going to institute more common-sense alcohol-control measures?

I recognize that Mr. Volokh means this as a “modest proposal”. More about that later. The point is that in addition to the presence of lots of guns there are other factors involved. Among these are inadequate treatment of mental health problems, substance abuse, and low social cohesion. Rather than one grand (but ineffectual) gesture in gun control why not try some smaller moves in all of those directions?

Over the last few days I’ve heard praise for President Obama’s words as an attempt at moving the Overton window. What I believe they are missing is that there is no barrier to engaging in symbolic action aimed at redirecting the national discourse while proposing concrete steps that will effect your intended objective. If President Obama is trying to change hearts it’s not working. If anything, public opinion has moved in the direction of believing that we have gun control laws that are strict enough.

One more thing. I own two long guns, family heirlooms, neither of which has been discharged in living memory. I’m no “gun nut” but I understand where they’re coming from. There are many people in the United States who are absolutely as dedicated to the Second Amendment just as there are people who are dedicated to the First Amendment. I suspect that’s why few Democratic politicians other than a few backbenchers and no Republicans have staked any political capital on gun control. I’m not advocating despair—merely pointing out that when you hear a politician declaiming gun violence it may well be cynical and that goes for the president of the United States, too. Verbal advocacy for gun control while being unwilling to sacrifice anything for it may just be a form of signalling.

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  • PD Shaw Link

    I just read a good article from Jeffrey Goldberg: A Matter of Black Lives, which is about New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s engagement with the problem of murder, trying to understand why they occur and development preventive approaches.

    The main approach appears to be to identify groups of 12 young men on probation, and bring them into a courtroom, where on one side are representatives of the legal justice system, the judge, prosecutors, law enforcement and prisoners. On the other side are physicians, therapist, and clergy. The mayor enters, surprising some that they merit his attention, and he gives a speech about changing the culture of violence, speaks of their love for them and offers all the medical, occupational and social assistance of the people to one side. He also shows videos of the young men, indicating that law enforcement knows what they are doing, and if they don’t change their lives, it will be the responsibility of the other side of the room to jail them for the protection of everyone else. Afterwards, most of the young men met with the helpers.

    Unfortunately, I don’t think a lot of big city mayors have the personal cache to take the issues of a culture of violence head-on. Landrieu’s father was a strong civil rights leader in the 1970s and the family is trusted by the black community. “Landrieu is a liberal making a conservative argument that was once a liberal argument—he’s trying to reappropriate it,” says Daryl Scott, a professor of African American history at Howard University. “He’s arguing for structural reforms and personal reforms all at the same time.”

    Landrieu also goes to the state’s high-security prison from time to time to learn from murders about why they did what they did, and how to stop the violence. That’s an interesting discussion, part of which touches on guns:

    “There’s a big fight in the country,” Landrieu said to the prisoners, perhaps mindful of my questions to him about gun control. “Is it the guns? Should we seize all the guns from everybody? That’s what people say.”

    “It’s not a gun problem,” Thomas said. “We’ve got a communication problem. If I can’t talk to you without feeling played, I’ve got to go for the gun.”

    “What if you don’t have a gun?,” I asked.

    “People will find some way to kill people they don’t like,” Thomas said.

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