Bans? “That’s what people do when they don’t understand the problem”
((so said a reformed Chicago gang member, whose firsthand experiences display the brazenness with which bans are ignored by criminals. In this case, the man was talking about how easy it was for him and his buddies to acquire illegal guns through illegal means, and how little they cared about it.))
I’ve long believed that bans don’t work. We’ve all learned in school about the utter failure of America’s experiment with prohibition; how alcoholism remained a problem, how otherwise law-abiding citizens were branded criminals, how a thriving black market enabled the rise of the Mafia and in fact increased crime. But we seems we have forgotten this lesson in modern times, as bans are all the rage to solve tough problems.
The most wide-reaching ban covers drugs. Drugs of all sorts, from marijuana to heroin are universally banned (except in some cases where authorization is specifically granted, such as certain medicinal uses of marijuana). And look at how well it’s worked: since 1972, the year Richard Nixon coined the term “war on drugs”, drug use itself has risen across the board. It’s pretty much common knowledge that the “war on drugs” has been a dismal and expensive failure.
If our goal is to keep people off drugs, then it certainly seems that criminalizing the possession, use, manufacture, sale, and transportation of drugs hasn’t worked to accomplish that goal. I’m not a drug user, never have been, and don’t approve of drug use, but I’m a results-oriented person—and the drug ban just isn’t working. I’m also by no means an expert on the subject, but the only historical parallel I can draw is when we tried banning the drug “alcohol” with disastrous effects. It seems somewhat foolish that we’re trying the very same thing with other types of drugs today. Didn’t we learn anything in our middle school history classes?
Even if we did, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence doesn’t seem to have. Today I was reading one of their blog posts which was talking about gun-running from Texas to Mexico when I ran into this bombshell:
Mexico is a rich market for smugglers because it bans high-caliber automatic weapons — even police are prohibited from using them — and has strict gun laws that make it extremely difficult for members of the public to buy handguns.
Looks like someone forgot history! The Brady campaign favors gun bans, yet admits here that they cause black markets! Again, prohibition is an excellent example of the best way to dry up this sort of black market: legalize the goods in question! Black markets of any sort exist for one simple economic reason: when demand for a good or service is not being addressed because of legal barriers to consumption.
The Brady Campaign is essentially claiming, “a lack of supply has caused this black market.” Alas, there’s a logical fallacy in their argument: they’ve ignored demand. While it’s true that the extreme difficulty of acquiring handguns could lead to a black market in such weapons, we too in the United States have a gun ban: one on automatic weapons, which are illegal for civilian purchase. Strangely, though, there isn’t any particular underground heavy weapons gun-running problem to speak of. This points to the fact that there just isn’t much demand for automatic weapons here. Why? Because automatic weapons are only useful if you’re fighting a war. For hunting, sporting, home- or self-defense, a fully-automatic weapon is not only impractical, but also more dangerous to the surrounding area (an issue for defense) and more expensive to maintain and purchase ammunition for (an issue for everyone). It’s well-established that petty criminals favor concealable revolvers and only fire an average of about 2.3 shots where any shots are fired at all; they’re looking for a quick buck, not a slaughterfest.
But gangs are another story. Gangs routinely battle their rivals in ways that mimic full-scale military war, and they’re constantly looking to get their hands on more powerful weapons, no matter the legality. In Mexico, the drug cartels rake in the dough playing the role of underground gun merchants and use the profits to buy and sell the very drugs that these gangs often fight over, in many cases partaking in the violence themselves with well-armed private militias.
In other words, it’s not just the gun ban that’s caused the problems; there are deeper issues at work in Mexico. While a black market may have been encouraged by the ban, the unusually high demand is what allows it to continue. Basically, Mexico has a drug and gang problem for political, economic, and cultural reasons. This has caused an upswing in demand for guns across the board, from gang members to outgunned police trying to keep the peace to ordinary citizens wanting to protect themselves from the new threat, all of which have logically resulted in a rise in gun violence. This lead to a virtual handgun ban, which in turn nurtured a black market; now, the black market has only joined the existing, unsolved drug and gang problems. Meanwhile, violence has only increased, and the core issues remain unaddressed.
As usual, it’s not about guns, it’s about culture and circumstance expressing themselves through guns. To solve these hairy problems, we have to address the uncomfortable issues of poverty, cultural identity, economic deprivation, as well as political restriction. Guns are a common scapegoat for entrenched violence-related issues because they’re easy to be frightened of. But we owe it to ourselves to rise above that.
Nobody wants arms trafficking in the same way that (almost) nobody wants everybody walking around stoned out of their brainstems. But history teaches us that banning outright something whose negative effects you wish to curtail will do nothing except entrench that which you which to avoid, at the cost of untold amounts of money and innocent victims. Bans are not the answer.
I’m not a drinker, but I oppose alcohol bans because they encourage alcoholism and crime. Likewise, I’m not a gun owner, but I oppose gun bans for the same reason. Guns are mere objects; they’re used daily by the police to keep the peace, and by law-abiding citizens for self-defense. They can’t kill anyone on the own absent some human desire to kill; that’s the thing we need to go after.
Categorised as: Guns, Politics
“mere objects”?
“Objects” is a pretty vast unmarked category, as you use it here. There are far more subtle gradations within the family of objects, and therefore subtler moral approaches.
And why the straw man argument against “bans”? Isn’t the real issue regulation? Alcohol is regulated, cigarettes too, and the last time I checked, both fit within the category of objects.
Just sayin’.
A knife can be used to slice warm homemade bread or stab folks. A baseball bat can be used to play a classic American game loved by millions or crack skulls. An automobile can be used to transport people to exotic faraway locations or commit vehicular homicide. A nuclear-tipped intercontintal ballistic missile can be launched at civilians to murder millions, or sit in its launching tube enforcing the principle of mutually assured destruction, thereby preventing apocalyptic nuclear holocaust. A wood chipper can be used to pulp logs or eviscerate Carl Showalter. An ice lolly can bring great pleasure or be used to cruelly taunt those without ice lollies. A pen can be used to write a novel or a libelous personal attack.
The common thread in those examples is that all those objects can be used for good or ill depending on the will of their owners.
That’s not to say that all objects are naturally peaceful unless maliciously used. Far from it—a gun is inherently violent, because even all of its positive uses involve threatening or inflicting violence (on those we deem deserving of it). A missile is the same way. What I argue is not the peacefulness of objects, but their neutrality. Their owners determine the praiseworthiness of their use.
For example, guns cause or threaten death, while ice lollies are delicious treats intended to be eaten. But imagine if a father and his children were accosted by a street gang; surely his threatening them with death using his gun in order to protect his small children who could neither fight them off nor run fast enough to escape would be not only justifiable, but admirable. Likewise, a child tormenting her baby brother by keeping an ice lolly just out of his reach would be scoldworthy. But it’s not the ice lolly’s fault that its owner is a creep!
Now, a gun is clearly more powerful than an ice lolly, and the consequences associated with its use—for good or ill—are much higher. But what I’m asserting is that all objects can inherently be used for good or ill, and that when objects are used for ill, we should blame their negligent or malicious owners more than the objects themselves. That’s what I mean when I say a gun is a ‘mere object’—that what it does is more a function of its owner’s desire than its abilities.
Also, I don’t see how my anti-ban argument is a straw man at all. Can you explain how you arrived at this conclusion?
Finally, I never argued for unregulation. In fact, I support the regulation of guns where I think it makes sense and is proven to be effective (this includes background checks, proficiency tests, age and mental health minimums, etc), in the same way that I support the regulation of alcohol and cigarettes. All I was arguing was that banning something only exacerbates that thing’s associated problems, that’s all.
I would respond that there is no “mere” in objects. Objects are physically incarnated interior states. Such as: a gun doesn’t just appear, magically, in space; it was designed. And what is a gun designed for? To either kill or maim, or to threaten those said states. Period. No other reason for the thing. So a gun is already filled with intention, violent intention, that’s the whole point of it. Otherwise it wouldn’t exist as an object. A person may or may not use it wisely, but the gun is not at all neutral to begin with, it comes with, as it were, preconditions. Just as a back scratcher comes with the intentionality of offering relief for hard to reach places. That was the human intention that set in motion the creation of the object.
Objects are not mere or neutral. They are invented for specific reasons, arising from specific desires. The strict materialist position, in this instance, is I think a dead end.
As for straw man arguments, who but the most rabid or marginalized opponents of guns want to ban them all? Such a position isn’t serious, and so why bother arguing against it? Regulation, in all its gray areas and moral ambiguity, is where the real red meat of the gun/anti-gun argument rests . . .
I guess you’re right on that count. A gun is inherently imbued with violence, as a backscratcher is imbued with relief. But I wasn’t arguing that objects are neutral in their intended uses, I was arguing that objects don’t impose any sort of mental states on their users; people don’t pick up backscratchers and instantly feel the need to scratch their backs. Likewise, picking up a gun doesn’t make a pacifist want to kill, but it could serve as an enabler for a violent person’s worst impulses (as could a knife or a bat).
Rather, people try to choose the tool most appropriate for the task as hand. Those with itchy backs pick up backscratchers; those living near the wilderness or in dangerous neighborhoods keep guns, and there should be no question that guns can be very useful in such situations.
Of course, in an ideal world, guns would be unnecessary, as would nuclear weapons and money. But that’s not the world we live in. Sometimes violence is the only option; when diplomacy fails, flight isn’t an option, and danger is imminent, violence is an acceptable last resort. And, confronted with that situation, there are many who would like to be able to inflict violence rather than receive it and hope for the best. For them, there are guns.
My anti-ban argument isn’t a straw man argument at all. While I don’t think many would be brazen enough to yell “We need to ban guns!” (though some are) there are an awful lot who support the ability of others to ban guns, such as the Brady Campaign, and all of England. Also, there are several current gun bans in the United States, such as the handgun bans of Chicago and Washington, D.C. which have resulted in rising rates of violent crime. In my book, supporting those who want to ban guns, with the knowledge that they would use their power to ban guns, is pretty much the same as supporting a ban on guns.
Well, harumph, oh yeah!?!?
If guns were only designed for killing then mine must be malfunctioning 99.998% of the time. I’ve fired over 100K rounds and only shots killed anything. 1) A rattlesnake near my children. 2) A deer which my children and I ate (my wife doesn’t like deer meat).
I wanted to eat the rattlesnake too but the kids thought it was gross and we left it beside the trail.
As for the question of gun bans being effective or not please see my post Just One Question.