Now
that we seem to have twice-daily shootings at schools and colleges around the
country, a number of people, including Hillary Clinton and President Obama,
are proposing various gun control measures – like banning assault weapons
(pretty much a no-op, since “assault weapon” is a poorly-defined marketing name,
and most semi-automatic rifles wouldn’t fall under that category), requiring
dealers at gun shows to do background checks (dealers are already required to
do background checks on any sales, whether at gun shows or in stores, so that
is another cosmetic suggestion), and preventing domestic abusers from buying
guns (but domestic abuse isn’t one of the categories currently carried in the
national database).
All
these proposals sound great, but in fact they would likely have little if any
effect on the current gun violence – they just let politicians sound like they
are doing something. If they had all been enacted, most of the recent mass
shootings would probably still have taken place.
In
fact nothing really is going to have much effect on the gun problem until one (or
both) of two things happens:
(1)
drastically reduce the number of guns Americans hold (currently estimated at
270-300 MILLION guns) by either confiscating them (that isn’t likely to fly politically
in this country) or a massive compulsive buy-back (which probably wouldn’t fly
either, and would cost an exorbitant amount), and /or
(2)
Imposing civil and criminal liability on gun owners and gun dealers whose allow
their weapons to be stolen or “borrowed” and used in crimes. There have been
three killings in the past few days by young children who simply went into
their house and picked up one of their parent’s guns – meaning the guns weren’t
in a locked gun safe or locked with a trigger lock. If those parents had been liable for massive
civil fines – losing everything – for that carelessness, they might have been
more careful.
The
problem, of course, is that option (1) is probably politically impossible. If the government tried to confiscate
everyone’s guns it would probably spark serious civil unrest and rebellion in
parts of the nation, and it would be political suicide for any political party
that tried it. It would simply confirm the right-wing fears that the government
is out to establish a tyranny.
Option
(2) just might be possible if enough people got behind it, but of course there
will be serious opposition from powerful lobbies, like the NRA and the gun
dealers and manufacturers. Still, a serious financial liability might make at
least some people be more careful with their guns. It probably still wouldn’t have much effect
on the occasional disgruntled postal employee or bullied teenage loner who
wants to go out taking some of their supposed tormentors with them.
Liberals
(who don’t own guns) want to address this problem, and I agree with them. But the proposals being suggested to date by political
leaders and hopefuls are just political wishful thinking at best, or cynical
campaign sound bites at worst.
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