Guns

[I wrote this many days ago, but I’ve been afraid to post it. As the title says, it’s about guns.]

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I can't remember the first time I went hunting with my dad. Hunting was just something my dad always did, just like his dad, and his dad before that, and he let me tag along as soon as I was able to keep up.

Hunting wasn’t all we did. On weekends in my family, you went hunting, you went fishing for salmon, steelhead, trout, bass, whatever you could catch, things like that. Sometimes, we'd camp way up in the mountains in the Sierras, you could only get there by four wheel drive, and we'd pan for gold on a claim we had. I think now of the environmental damage we must have done using a ventura to vacuum up the bottom of the stream, run it through rockers, then pan what was left - the stream would get muddy and cloudy as far as you could see downstream - though the trout fishing didn't seem to diminish much. We still have little bottles of gold and a few quartz nuggets from those days. My dad and brother also rode dirt bikes, as my do several cousins and uncles, and my brother was a ranked rider until he hit something in a race in the desert several years ago, punctured a lung, broke some bones, and he decided (was told by his wife) that was enough of that. It wasn’t his first accident. I rode bikes a few times, but never saw the attraction so I left that to others in the family. My brother was a defensive lineman at Oregon State University (about the time Marcus Allen played for USC, they played against each other), and seems to have a much greater tolerance for tearing himself up physically than I do, so that probably explains the difference in tastes. One of my uncles raced hydroplanes, but, like my brother his racing came to an end after he got married and had a family. He didn’t have an accident like my brother did, but my aunt saw one too many accidents with other boats, one deadly, and that was the end of that. So he bought a ski boat instead and that was another thing we did a lot.

But back to hunting. I can't think of a single male relative who doesn't hunt now, or who hasn't hunted in the past. They all had hunting dogs as well. My grandfather had a shepherd of some sort, gray and white, and you didn't dare use the word "chicken" in the dog's presence as he would go nuts thinking you were taking him pheasant hunting. But apparently he couldn't hold a candle to the dog before that, good old "Bo," who could literally herd pheasants your way as you hunted, fetched ducks, loved kids, etc. We had a pointer, a Brittany spaniel, and my dad and I spent many weekends taking her out when she was young, training her how to hunt (e.g. stopping her from bolting after the birds at first scent). People invested a lot in their dogs, and boasts of who had the best hunting dog were heard frequently, it was a point of pride. I’m still amazed at the way pointers work and they way they can hold a bird. I still like watching them work a field.

As we hunted, and at other times, my dad and my grandfather would tell me stories about how many ducks and geese there were in the good old days, before their numbers started to decline (the mascot at my dad's high school in Yuba City was a "honker," still is as far as I know). There’s a certain something in their voices as they talk about it, awe, a sense of loss, I don’t know what really, but they made it seem like something you wish you had seen. Two of my relatives are really into duck hunting. One's family has been in the area I grew up in since it was settled, or nearly so. He's a rice farmer mainly, though he grows lots of other things too, walnuts, Lima beans, wheat, and I don't know what else, whatever he thinks will be profitable, and he has always done quite well. He's a member of an exclusive duck club in the Butte basin adjoining his property; it’s a club where it's hard to get a membership except by heredity. The club only allows hunting twice a week - the rest of the time the ducks are left alone. When I lived there long ago, there were a few movie stars that were members, Robert Stack and George Kennedy come to mind, so it wasn’t impossible to get a membership as an outsider, but it wasn't easy (both had filmed movies there – the town is in California but looks very southern, particularly the courthouse, so the movie studios used the town to shoot movies with southern scenes and that's how both of them found it – they used to show up at the golf course where I worked picking up range balls so I could play for free and that was always kind of fun.).

My uncle and cousin had extensive knowledge of ducks, I was always surprised by how much they knew. They'd see a duck flying pretty far away and could tell you if it was a wood duck, pintail, teal, widgeon, etc. When they hunted, they were pretty picky and would only shoot certain types, letting the others go. If you ever get the chance, crawl up on ducks that are settling for the night, when there are thousands and thousands together and they roll like a wave. The sound is incredible, and if you can get close without them knowing, it's an opportunity you should take. It’s something to see (but please, for those of you who know what I'm talking about, leave the shoestrings in the truck...).

People I grew up with were just as crazy about hunting as people in my family. In high school, we'd party until early into the morning, then a lot of my classmates would get up before dawn, go to the blind, set out the decoys if they weren't out already, then sit there in the cold, rain, and fog waiting for ducks and geese to fly by so they could call them in with their duck calls (even I know some of the different calls you use to try to lure them in). I went to the parties, no doubt about that, but left the early morning duck hunting for others. They seemed to think it was great fun, but I could never ever see why. I went a few times with my dad or relatives when I was young, but declined invitations as soon as I was old enough to realize I could say no. People where I grew up were pretty crazy about ducks and talk of duck hunting dominated a lot of conversation, both within my family, and among my friends. Not all of them were into it, but enough, and everyone had some sort of acquaintance with it. A lot of them refilled shotgun shells as well, you don’t buy shells if you hunt as much as they do, you buy the powder, wadding, casings if needed, firing pins, etc. and assemble them yourself with the aid of a machine. Some people in my family had these setups, and though we didn’t have one. But I still know how to refill shells just from helping friends and I could always use their machines. One thing for sure, we were never short of gunpowder (and that wasn’t always a good thing, but that’s another story).

I followed the usual progression: Lots of exposure to guns, my own BB gun at age seven or eight, gun lessons and a shotgun by age 12. One thing, though, that I want to emphasize is how much respect for guns and gun safety was drilled into my head from day one. There were things you did, things you didn’t do, and it started from the very first time you tagged along just to watch. I won’t even try to detail all the rules, but anyone who knows them also knows that Vice-President Cheney did not have this kind of training (don’t know why I would expect someone with his background to have had it, he plays like he’s one of the hunting types, but wearing the costume doesn’t give the knowledge you get growing up in this environment). If he had the proper training and respect for guns, the accident would not have happened. When you are hunting, you don’t swing past the line. Never, ever, ever, ever. You don’t do it, and it’s not okay to do it just this once even if it’s the best opportunity you ever had in all your days hunting. You walk in a line, you stay in the line – it’s dangerous to fall behind or get out in front so you keep everyone in sight and make sure you are in formation – and you only shoot in front of the line. When a bird takes flight and crosses the line, you let it go. Period. There are rules, and you depend upon everyone following them to the letter.

One time I took my BB gun to my grandfather’s. I wasn’t allowed to shoot it in town where we lived, and never did, not even once, but my grandfather lived out in the country, there wasn’t another house for miles, so we were allowed to shoot there (but only BB guns, not 22s). During the visit, I was shooting cans or something with my older cousin, and we broke one of the rules. Somehow, my grandfather found out about it and my cousin and I were told we could not shoot our BB guns there anymore. I was probably 9 or 10 at the time and I was crushed to have disappointed my grandfather, absolutely crushed. I can still remember how bad I felt. I was eventually allowed to shoot there again, but not for quite awhile, and it made a huge impression on me. I don’t think I ever consciously broke a gun rule after that. In my family, and it was no different among the people I knew, if you broke the rules, even once, they never asked you to go hunting again. They might let someone like Cheney tag along, but he wouldn’t be allowed to bring a gun, not with his history. The rules covered all sorts of things. As an example, if anyone in my family ever saw me intentionally shoot something that I didn’t intend to take home, take the time to clean, and eat, they would never hunt with me again (I absolutely hated the cleaning part, that alone was enough to stop me from wanting to hunt as I got older, setting aside the entrails -please - ever try to pluck a snow goose?). If you shot a dove out of a tree instead of in flight, that was considered to be unfair and you’d be ostracized. As I said, there were rules, and you followed them.

I think I saw a handgun once or twice growing up, but rarely. On those few occasions, the person handling the gun didn’t seem very careful to me, and it made me nervous (you check to see if a gun is loaded every time you pick it up, no exceptions, even if you set it down fairly recently, and it started with failure to do that simple safety check). I just wanted it put away. Shotguns, 22s, rifles for deer or elk hunting, those were mostly what you saw (and rifles were rare too, it was mostly shotguns). We didn’t much worry about protecting ourselves, that’s not what the guns were for. We probably locked our doors, but we didn’t have to, it was pretty safe, everyone knew when there was a stranger in the neighborhood. And though the guns weren’t kept for that purpose, anyone contemplating breaking into a house knew, or should have known, that most people had a shotgun and their house and people who knew how to use it. And use it well. There was just no need for handguns.

I understand the problems handguns cause in big cities. Well, as much as I can understand from having lived in one for three and a half years. Other than that I’ve lived in mid-size cities or small towns in rural surroundings. I read somewhere recently that rural voters are one of the key elements in the race between Clinton and Obama. If so, and this isn’t news to anyone, they need to tread lightly on the gun issue. To people who grew up like I did, guns aren’t just something that are used for hunting, they’re a symbol of a way of life. Sadly, an uncle of mine passed away recently and not long after I was presented by my father, rather ceremoniously in its own way, with a gun that had belonged to my grandfather and had passed through my uncle’s hands. I took it – I still have the 20 gauge one I got when I was twelve years old, and another old 12 gauge Winchester (another of my grandfather’s guns I was given when he passed away). I had to take the guns, even if I wanted to get rid of them I couldn’t do it while my dad was still alive, and even then I’d give them to my brother or someone else in the family – there’s no shortage of options. I don’t even have 12-gauge shells any more I don’t think, but the guns themselves have a long family history and I will likely pass them along to my kids someday, or to their kids, who knows. I have another gun that belonged to my grandfather’s dad’s, a really old pump, my dad called it a riot gun, and for all I know it’s worth something. But I’ve never checked and don’t plan to. It too will stay within the family.

Maybe if I’d spent more time in a big city and observed first-hand the troubles that handguns can cause I’d feel different about the whole gun issue, but anything that might force me to have to register the guns I have, give them up, anything approximating that I would resist. I can remember seeing my grandfather wearing his vest and hat, carrying that Winchester hunting pheasants in sugar beet fields, the wheat and rice stubble, riding with him in his pickup as a kid on the way there with the dog hanging out the window itching to get started. Those are wonderful memories, and having the guns is somehow connected back to all of that, to my family history, to time as a kid with my dad, grandfather, uncles, and cousins. It recalls a way of life I no longer live, but it will always be with me. I can’t exactly explain how guns fit into all that, but I know that they do.

I don’t know if this helps any of you understand the gun issue better or not, I hope it does. It’s not just a bunch of bozos in funny hats drinking beer and shooting stuff just to kill it (beer is not allowed). I have let the tradition die, I didn’t teach my sons or daughter how to hunt, or even how to shoot guns. I can take a shotgun apart, every single piece, clean it, and put it back together, and could from a very young age, but my kids don’t know how to do that and probably never will. I feel kind of bad about that, about not passing certain traditions and knowledge along, and I wonder what the guns will mean to them when they get them. They probably won’t mean much, not in the way they have meaning to me, they don’t connect to memories of time with family and friends, or to a way of life. They’ll be something they remember from my house, if they even remember at all since they are hidden away out of sight. Maybe somebody will make a few bucks someday selling them once there’s little meaning left. I guess it’s okay that I didn’t pass the gun thing along, maybe losing cultural connections to a way of life that involves guns isn’t so bad, though I have to admit part of me wonders if I shouldn’t have done more. I guess I want them to have the same memories I have, the same connections to me that I have to my dad, and the outdoor-type image has some attractiveness I suppose. I don’t know. There’s something about getting up early, trudging in the cold through wet fields until you and the dogs are dead tired, often coming up empty-handed but somehow that didn’t matter, generations of family together sharing stories from the past, and creating new ones to be told in the future. Because of all this, I think, I resist restrictions on guns. I guess it’s my history but I can’t logically explain why I resist more control over guns other than what I’ve said above. I don’t have any problem with some restrictions, e.g. waiting periods, bans on certain types of guns, and I don’t have much use for handguns, so restrictions on those don’t bother me too much, but I would have trouble with an outright ban on all handguns. And, sorry, but I’m not giving up my shotguns. I’m not about to register them with anyone or tell the government that I have them, and the government is not welcome to come into my house and see if they are there (I guess they could read this). I know there are no plans to do this, that’s not a real worry, but there are surely limits on what I would be in favor of.

I have no emotional connection to the problems guns create in major cities. I see it on the news, read about it, but it’s not real. Where I live now, there’s not a single area of town I wouldn’t walk in, unarmed, alone, any time of the night or day, and this is an urban area of around 200,000 people. The small town I grew up in is even safer. The fear that I suppose exists for a lot of people about guns doesn’t affect me or the people around me. The gun issue is far from the most important thing for us to worry about, and there is very little for a politician to gain by taking on the gun issue if rural votes are important for winning. I don’t have any particular message to deliver, and I don’t mean to preach, I don’t even think I’m very logical on policy issues where guns are concerned so I won’t offer any. I just wanted to write down a few of my experiences, explain how guns are connected to my past, hoping it might help people see this issue through other eyes.

Comments

[Barkley Rosser]

Needless to say there has been huge debate about guns and crime. The data is a mess, with on the one hand cross section data showing correlations across states between gun ownership rates and homicide rates, while at the same time panel studies of states allowing concealed weapons and such have sometimes shown lowered crime rates (John Lott has pushed this argument hard, although many of his studies, as well as he himself, have been controversial).

I would suggest that a bigger problem, but one much less widely discussed, is the link between guns and suicide rates. I have a post up on this at econospeak, I put up in conjunction with the anniversary of the VA Tech massacre, which was also a suicide, among other things. This relation is extremely strong, at least across the states within the US (international data must deal with cultural difference, thus low gun Japan having more suicides than the US, and it has a more favorable view of suicide, hara-kiri and all that).

The main source of the problem is simply that it is so much easier to kill oneself with a gun without having the chance to regret it and get over the depression fit, or whatever. Sorry I am not linking, but 90% of suicide efforts with guns succeed, whereas the success rate with other methods is around 3%.

So, it is not surprising that we get the following sorts of things. The five lowest states in gun ownership rates are D.C., New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. The five lowest states in suicide rates are D.C., New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. BTW, RI has the second highest rate of adult depression, but this does not show up in its suicide rate.

Two of the top five suicide rate states are also in the top five in gun ownership: Montana and Wyoming (although maybe the latter are killing themselves out of embarrassment at Cheney shooting his friend in the face with a shotgun).

Also, we have the spectacle of South Dakota, which has the second lowest rate of youth depression in the US, and according to Robert Putnam, the second highest amount of per capita social capital. However, it has the third highest gun ownership rate in the US, and its youth suicide rate is twice the national average.

And, the US Supreme Court is about to end D.C.'s restrictive laws on gun ownership. Can't wait to see what will happen to its suicide rate...

[Farrar]

Yeah, I understand what you're talking about, in so far as the love of hunting goes. I grew up in Northern California, too - along the Redwood Highway, but I never could understand this love of guns for themselves.

Now I live in France, and in a rural area for almost 30 years. And there are plenty of hunters here, too. Hunting is just as big here as in Northern CA - maybe moreso because it was a right the common man gained only with the Revolution.

But in France gun sales are strictly controlled and you don't see anything other than a hunting rifle. And everyone finds it normal. And even the hunters look on American NRA types as a bunch of nuts.

[Dickeylee]

Very good post Mark. Look, you should teach your kids about guns and gun safety ASAP.. You will never be everywhere your child is, and sooner or later, they will come across someone, somewhere that has a gun, dad of a friend has a gun, grandma, etc... and accidental shootings happen every day, everywhere.
So break out the 12 ga. and break it down for them, show them it's working parts, in short take the mystique away from a gun for them. Stress that they treat EVERY gun as loaded, just like you were taught, it could well save their life someday.

[TigerPaw]

If all gunowners were like our host on here (and his family), there would be no worries. Sadly however, they are an extremely small minority (or so it would appear).

Certainly the NRAs slogan "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is true - but 99% of people can't be trusted. So most societies take the obvious solution. A restriction on freedom? Yes. But there are education and licensing requirements for automobiles too.

[robertdfeinman]

One way to look at the gun issue is as a public health problem. Gun deaths and injuries can be broken down by category, for example:

1. Use of a gun in a crime
2. Accidental injury
2.a. by adults
2.b by children
3. Suicide
4. Use by an unstable individual
5. Use of a gun in "self defense"
6. Murder and family disputes

Obviously there are different measures to handle the various types of misuse. A trigger lock could reduce accidents by children, for example. A more thorough vetting of buyers and elimination of a black market could reduce ownership by the unstable.

Registering guns seems to provoke a lot of resistance from the hunting crowd, but this doesn't seem rational. We need licenses or registration for lots of items from automobiles to cell phones. Fears that this is going to lead to confiscation sound more like paranoia than a reasonable objection.

By lumping all sorts of firearms together it seems that rational policies get quickly swept away. At a minimum the discussions of hunting in rural areas should be kept separate from urban handgun issues.

Canada has widespread gun ownership, but a much lower rate (about 1/4) of gun deaths. Examining the reasons for this might be instructive.

[2slugbaits]

Mark,

I think there's an important distinction here that was more or less implied in Obama's comments, but was not explicit. I don't think Obama was talking about people clinging to guns as part of a hunting tradition. I'm not a hunter, but I have plenty of friends and family members who regularly hunt pheasant and deer. Guns as part of a hunting tradition is probably a socially healthy thing. Obama didn't criticize people for clinging to a cultural tradition; he criticized right wing politicians who manipulate rural voters into thinking that Democrats were going take away that traditon. But I don't know of any politician who has ever threatened to take away people's shotguns. Where guns get to be socially unhealthy is when gun owners become fanatical about the right to own AR-15 assault rifles and .44 magnum handguns. Those are not part of the hunting tradition. In most states you cannot even hunt with a rifle and you have to use shotguns with deer slugs. When the NRA launches attacks against politicians for proposing gun locks, then something has gone wrong.

[piglet]

"Canada has widespread gun ownership, but a much lower rate (about 1/4) of gun deaths. Examining the reasons for this might be instructive."

This has been attempted. Bowling for Columbine, anyone? It turns out the reasons are not easy to nail down. Moore,s suggestion that a culture of fear is to blame still is the most convincing to me. Canada, btw, does have gun registration laws that were widely opposed to by hunters and other gun owners. I don't know what the conservative government did with them (at some point, they promised to scrap the gun registry). The resistance to gun registration is irrational, as you point out, but the expectation that registration will solve the problem is also hardly rational. Another strange phenomenon is the invocation of hunting each time guns are discussed. Be serious, hunters are a tiny minority in this country.

[Bruce Webb]

Well I also grew up in N California but in a County where hunting was to my knowledge illegal everywhere. Still my Dad took us all out shooting and taught us all gun safety, rules that go beyond not getting ahead of the line and always treating every gun as if it was loaded. As a kid I was taught to never handle a gun in a way where the muzzle would line up with a person, after a while this took no thought at all, gun muzzle here person there keeping the two separate was required no more thought than stopping at a red light, that is how you shoot, that is how you drive.

Which is why the transition to serving on security teams in the Navy was so easy. I never pointed a gun at a person I wasn't willing to shoot and I would never have shot at anyone I wouldn't have intended to kill. Luckily it never came to either but if it had I would be glad I grew up around guns.

Whereas city kids grow up in an environment when pointing guns at people is the point of having one. Where my instinct would be to point the muzzle anywhere but until I decided to take a shot, the urban default is exactly the opposite. And considering the risks of hitting some innocent bystander in DC as opposed to letting a shell go in Calaveras County not even a bad tradeoff. Bottom line and netting out all risks allowing a 13 year old to shoot shotguns in Placer Co is not the same thing as allowing a 15 year old to have access to a Mac 15 in the Bronx. Whether Democrats or for that matter Republicans pick up the difference is an open question. But one where I don't expect informed rationality to rule.

[me]

I have several thoughts.

When Florida made it legal to carry handguns, criminals preyed on tourists coming from the Miami airport because they knew they weren't allowed guns on the plane.

One job I had, my boss was a woman and part of her territory was Miami. She carried a gun in the glove box of her care and another one in her purse. Twice she had someone break the pasenger window and try to steal her purse.

I had another boss and the headquarters was downtown Baltimore, one block from Waterside. He carried a gun because it wasn't safe.

When I sold roofing materials in Norfolk, one of the roofers yards was in so bad a neighborhood that visitors would have their cars shot at in broad daylight.

In Atlanta, a talk show host stopped at an ATM very early in the morning on his was to work. He drove a Mercedes and a suspicious man came diddy-boppin up to the car. When the host pulled his gun the man put his hands up and walkld away.

When serving as foreman on a jury in Georgia for an armed robbery trial, one of the questions was did we own any guns. The lady next to me said she didn't but her mother lived with her family and she had tree guns did that count. I was the only one that didn't.

Another man on the jury asked the judge why he had to answer. The judge said I am not asking and don't care but it is the defense attorny that is asking and he should answer. He said he had one gun. Later he admitted he had lots of guns and it was none of the governments business. I agree.

I went out and bought the biggest gun my wife could handle, a 40 caliber Glock, same as the FBI carries.

As for DC I will never forget the biggest anti-gun advocate, Carl Rowen. Remember him, he shot some kids in his backyard pool with a gun that was illegal in DC.

My gun in near my bed and if it has a lock I can't use it in an emergency. It has 3 safeties and that is plenty. You can drip it and it won't go off.

[Bawdyscot]

As a libertarian, I feel a person has a right to do whatever they want with their lives and bodies. If you want to eat crappy food and become obese, you have that right. If you want to spend your time getting high, you have that right. If you want to off yourself(as long as you don't take out anybody else), you have that right. So suicide isn't that big a deal to me. And this is just obfuscating the real issue - self defense.

What is a big deal is the right to protect yourself and your private property from someone who illegally wants to confiscate it. That is what the DC gun ban is all about. The right to have a loaded weapon in your own house for protection. As the law is written now, you cannot have a functional firearm(not loaded or unlocked) and can never have a handgun at all(I feel sorry for the elderly woman who has to load and then wield a shotgun before being accosted by a harden criminal).

All the peripheral issues, suicide, criminals getting the weapons from the victims, the amount of handguns, all of it, is subordinate to a citizen's right to defend themselves. In rural areas of this country you pretty much have to handle things by yourself and cannot rely on quick reaction by the authorities. Guns are a necessary tool. But in urban areas, though the police are more prevelant, in a home invasion situation a victim only has a few seconds to take action and the victim should have the ability to defend themselves even if that defense includes using a firearm.Maybe I feel this way because I come from a western state, I don't know.

One more thing, as I write this NPR is retelling the story of how the SDS got started at Columbia. Do any of you think the citizenry of this country would ever undertake activism like that if the government were the only ones who have guns? Jefferson wished citizens to abolish a government when it refused to act as the citizens wish; could this happen if the government has all firearms?

[Bruce Webb]

Me you need to look up non-sequitor. Combine your story of the ex-boss that kept a gun in her glove box (and so available to a car prowler) and the guy that strolled up to that car with the armed citizen and the outcome is not always positive. The notion that unsecured guns out of positive control of their trained owners is a net positive for public safety is nutty.

Guy in Montana prepared to defend his family against bears or human intruders when the deputy is N hour away with a Winchester Pump? Rational. Suburban women office manager leaving a loaded handgun in their glovebox in Fairfax County? Nutty. That people' can not put those differences in perspective? Sad.

[James Killus]

There are claims that Barry Goldwater once said in a telephone interview about semi-automatic rifles, "If any SOB can't hit a deer with one shot, then he ought to quit shooting."

It's both sad and bizarre that folks in the hunting culture think that gun control advocates want to confiscate their hunting rifles and shotguns. But that has nothing to do with "where the votes are," which is in suburbia.

During the Newark riots in the 1960s, a friend of mine's father got out all the guns in the house (and there were many) loaded them, and put them on the living room table. They lived in an all-white suburb over 40 miles from Newark. My friend never did figure out what his father thought he was doing.

Some people have a set of outlandish fantasies about repelling home invasions, fending off burglars, and "protecting their property," with their guns. What they get is accidental discharges (sometimes with bodily harm), suicidal teenagers, and their guns stolen when they are not home. There is also a certain sort of gun owner who routinely threatens his family and acquaintances with firearms, either directly or indirectly.

But these are rational arguments, and this is not a rational discussion. Folks like the NRA spend substantial amounts of money making sure of that.

I will say that I want anyone who discharges a firearm within the city limits of my town to have to fill out as much paperwork as a policeman does. When you have a next door neighbor, it is simply not possible to fire a weapon without a strong chance of it leaving your property. Not having bullets come through the wall ininvited should be some sort of right.

[kthomas]

In my experience, most anti-control folks almost never change thier attitudes until they get shot or see someone get shot.

If it were my decision, hand-guns would be illegal and only for law enforcment, but rifles (no automatics) would be legal. High school students would be given training, probably using a lever action. It would be mandatory training, such I would make economics a mandatory course.

Thanks for the story, Prof. Thoma. Reminded me of my own childhood.

[JeffF]

"Canada has widespread gun ownership..."

I believe Canada has widespread rifle and shotgun ownership, but handguns are much more restricted than in the US.

Once, in the course of a gun control discussion, I looked up the murder by means data for the US, Canada, and various other wealthy countries. The US was quite a bit higher overall, but what was striking was the differing rates by means. The US was higher with all means of murder but most of them were a similar percentage above the other countries. Stabbing, poisoning, strangling, shooting with long guns, bludgeoning, etc all fit the pattern. Every means fit the pattern except handguns where the US was many times higher than in any of the other countries. I checked several of the countries and they all seemed to have much more restrictive handgun laws than the US, and they varied on other guns.

Personally I think this is primarily because handguns are incredibly effective in the most common murder situation where a person gets angry at a person they know and tries to kill them. A handgun gets the prospective victim dead with a speed and surety that other means of murder can't match.

It seems clear to me that restricting handguns would significantly reduce murder (eventually).

It is equally clear that restricting long guns, even scary guns like assault rifles, would not.

[TigerPaw]

FYI, on the Cdn conservatives promising to do away with the national gun registry. This had a LOT to do with the fact that it had large cost overruns when it was set up. Yes there were complaints about it as a concept (mostly from rural people), but the main fuss came from the cost.

To date they've still not done away with it, though I believe they announced a hold on new registrations and/or a pause on investigations where people have failed to register.

[wogie]

Memories, Mark. I share some of them. I too was taught to hunt and guns safety -- mostly pheasant and duck. I haven't hunted for years now, and your recollections take me fondly back to a time that probably is gone forever. And I was a city boy!

As far as hand guns, I tend to be on the fence -- at least for home protection. Problem is, unlike when I was growing up and a cop walked the beat (and knew everyone), today the police ride in cars and merely respond after the fact. And the threat is greater today. So, like I said -- I'm on the fence. However, I do oppose strenuously the idea of permitting concealed weapons to be carried, which a number of states permit today.

[evagrius]

I couldn't care less about hunting rifles. The people who have them use them for hunting and that's fine.

It's handguns and military weapons that concern me. Why anyone has a handgun or military weapon, outside of the military or police, is beyond me.

Gun control is mainly about handguns, not hunting rifles. Kinda hard to walk around a city with a rifle. It's not that way with handguns.

[Patricia Shannon]

I don't have a gun. I carry a can of pepper spray if I have to walk outside at night.
But I am opposed to gun registration, at least for some kinds (shotguns, rifles?), because I think it reduces the chances of a tyranny being instituted by those like the Bush crowd. If you don't think they would do it if they thought they could, you're not paying attention to them.

[gordon]

There seems to be a pretty clear connection between attitude to firearms and links to rural life. It certainly is true of my own family - my father was brought up in a rural environment and enjoyed hunting (both fowl and deer). He taught me to use and respect guns and rifles, and he always despised pistols ("nasty, dangerous things"). I offered to pass on what Dad taught me to my own son, who has never lived anywhere but in a city, and he just isn't interested.

[dilbert dogbert]

Prof, Thanks for the beautiful story of guns, you and your family. I missed that family/gun connection as my parents were the first generation off the farm. My grandparents(both sides) were well off farmers and sent the kids (7 on moms side and 13 on dads) to college or at least offered the opportunity. Think about saving up for college for that crowd of children!!!

My mom and dad ran as far and as fast as possible away from farm work.

Thanks for offering a look into your life. Maybe economists are not all unfeeling robots.

[JD]

The most important thing that nobody has mentioned is that oftentimes a given problem is made worse by banning it or regulating it more strongly. The simple reason for this is that it will just create an underground, black market with more serious problems. For instance, take prostitution - think of what would happen if governments decided to devote more time, money and energy to really eliminate it. The truth is, it will never go away, so conditions will worsen, you will have bribes, etc, AND other negative effects could be created. Exactly the same logic applies to guns. If we banned guns, a myriad of new problems would be created that would make the problem even worse than before.

[Bill Markle]

Get as many stories as you want as easily as you want. Type in "shooting death" in any browser. This is your son or your daughter, or your neighbor's. If one has no connection to this, then one must be lacking some emotional facility or must be extraordinarily suburban.

Localrss
Trial begins for man accused in child's death
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 | 5:44 PM

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The trial is underway for a man accused of killing a 4-year-old boy in a drive-by shooting.

Robert Anderson was killed almost seven years ago while playing outside his home near 13th and Komensky.

His mother, Barbara Singleton testified Wednesday about what she witnessed on that day in 2001.

The suspect is Terrence Ligon. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
(Copyright ©2008 WLS-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

[JeffF]

"The most important thing that nobody has mentioned is that.."

Ahh the old "the secondary counterintuitive effect usually outweighs the straightforward primary effect while ignoring numerous counterexamples of exactly what is being suggested in favor of a few examples of secondary counterintuitive effects outweighing primary effects" argument.

[Michael Cain]

I grew up hunting small game in Iowa, but gave it up after a deer hunter's shot hit the tree trunk six inches above my head. Every hunting "accident" that I can recall involved someone breaking one of my Dad's gun safety rules. I have no problems with gun ownership -- but everyone who discharges a firearm, particularly in any location where there are people within range of a stray shot, ought to be required to appear in court and justify it.

[donna]

Hubby is a gun owner and enjoys shooting at the range -- and with his FBI friends. He's attended the FBI citizen's academy and shot at their range.

Both our boys have gone to the FBI family days and got to shoot the big guns, after learning the appropriate safety rules. The FBI is very big on gun safety, of course.

My liberal friends are always a bit shocked at all my bumper stickers being so liberal-friendly and then they see the NRA one. I just smile and say, "We support ALL the amendments."

Treated as a dangerous tool, guns are fine. My own attitude is that you punish the behavior, not the tool or the owner. But not all kids are raised as well as mine, or as well as you were, Mark, unfortunately. I think a gun safety course ought to be required to purchase a weapon, and gun shops should be required to offer and teach them. You need a license to drive a car, you ought to be able to prove you have the safety knowledge to own a gun.

[mrrunangun]

A no-longer-young lady of my acquaintance went on bear hunts in the Michigan woods with her brothers and their friends in her younger days. Among other gear, it was regarded a good idea to take a .45 handgun with you on such expeditions in case you became nervous and missed and the bear closed on you. She kept the .45 and in later years when she was between men she would sleep with it. One winter evening while living in a not-so-low crime area, she was awakened by a man trying to jimmy her bedroom window in the side-rear of her house. She took the safety off and once he had the window up, she put a round past his head. He decamped and went over her fence without knocking the snow off of it. She nicked a piece of brick off her neighbor's house and paid the repair. This is the only credible story I have of successful home defense by use of a handgun by anyone of my acquaintance. The best home defense weapon is a pump. Work the slide once and any nondeaf intruder will take off pronto.

[donna]

Oh, and my dad was a hunter so we had hunting rifles, always locked in the gun case, which was not in plain sight in the house. We occasionally had elk, deer, quail, wild turkey, and javelina and once, buffalo meat. Good stuff.

[dale]

I am born, raised and still living in a small NW Oregon town. Male family members and friends mainly hunters. Rifles and shotguns always around. Personally, I have never been much interested in hunting. But back around 1980 or so- I became concerned that only right wing extremist- survivalist types seemed to be exercising their rights to own hand guns. So I made it my business to buy a hand gun and learned how to use it. I've taught my kids to shoot and handle guns safely as well.

I used to read gun magazines. I still glance at them at friend's homes. The degree of paranoia and right wing politics expressed in those publications is alarming. There is a LOT of truth in Obama's bitter remarks- especially concerning guns. I have friends and family- males who would never vote Democrat. Solely based on the gun issue as framed by the NRA and the Gun magazine industry. This is a real- not imagined problem in small town America.

There are not a lot of left wing gun owners who talk about their situation.

[dissent]

In the city in which I live (San Francisco) there are 60,000 guns.

I live on a ridge with a view, in part a view of a housing project. A few weeks ago I was emailing when I heard a hubbub and looked out my window into the project: sirens, a few police, a fire truck, an ambulance. I saw a couple of guys sprint up the hill, I saw cop cars chasing. Another day in the 'hood.

The next day I read that two guys went up to a man in a van on that street. They were wearing ski masks. They stuck the guns in the van and shot the driver dead. Probably the same guys I saw sprinting up the hill.

Across the street, there's a bus stop. Not long ago, a couple of ladies were talking to some police there, and I went over to ask what had happened. A robbery at gun point, early evening.

Recently a few guys walked out of their house nearby a little after midnight to stop in at a bar around the corner, and a SUV with four men in it pulled over. The men in the SUV came out with shot guns. A couple of the guys out for a walk to the bar started to run. BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM, I heard that in my house as I was getting ready for bed. Luckily, no one was hurt.

After all these things happened I realized: this is happening because gun lovers have let this country be filled to the brim with guns.

This is happening because gun lovers claim that traditional American values include the right to fill a city like mine with guns.

I am sick of this. REALLY sick of this.

It's not true that only the opinions and values of rural, conservative Americans matter. My blood runs just as red, and I don't want it spilled because of guns.

[jm]

Although I hunted and target-shot when young -- and reloaded my own ammunition -- in my 30's and 40's I believed in strict gun control. At the time, the fact that I spent most of the '70s in Japan encouraged me in that belief. But in the '90s my beliefs changed, and side effects of my knowledge of Japan and fluency in the Japanese language were major factors in that change.

Although many people think Japan is an extremely safe country, that is so only if you don't get in the way of the mob. A major reason why Japan's banking problems were so difficult to resolve was that gangsters were invited in --- or invited themselves in -- as silent partners in many real estate deals gone bad, and made plain to the bankers that trying to foreclose would be a literally fatal error.

IIRC, seven Japanese bankers were murdered by gangsters during the '90s.

The gangsters' monopoly of gun ownership was also a factor in the real estate bubble that preceded the bust -- since they had nothing to fear from the populace, they could intimidate people into selling their property with impunity.

In Japan, only the outlaws and police have guns*, and the police are just as often in cahoots with the gangsters as they are here.

I used to think the NRA slogan, "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" was rather ridiculous. I've changed my mind.

*Very limited legitimate private ownership of hunting weapons is allowed, but the controls are so strict you might as well say they're outlawed.

[save_the_rustbelt]

During the first three days of deer rifle season in Michigan 500,000 men and women take to the field with rifles, and no one remembers when anyone murdered anyone. There are always a few accidents, but I think more deaths by heart attacks.

Michigan is begging for more hunters by the way, too many deer are killed at meetings with Chevrolets.

(I unholstered a handgun once in anger. My wife woke me up, had me look out the window, and some clown was breaking into the window of the single mom (3 kids) who lived next door at 3:00 am. I suspect he had a rape in mind. Before I got out the door it was resolve though. She was babysitting her ex-husband doberman, and the dog flew out the window at the guy's throat, and he took off running like an olympian.)

As best I can tell there have been guns in my family at least since 1800 or so, and the only shots fired in anger were during the civil war and WWII.

On another note, Ohio has had licensed concealed carry for about 5 years, and to the best of my knowledge no holder of a CWC permit has committed a crime, and only a few have been revoked (non-violent misdemeanors). No measurable impact on the crime rate.

Best home security, lights, locks, dogs, awareness. Second best, a loaded weapon secured with a trigger lock.

[jm]

BTW, Mark, your post is beautifully written.

[curtd59]

You know, there are a lot of reasons why gun ownership is a good thing, but I only care really about the first:

-The fist purpose of firearms is to make the government fear the populace, and the populace confident that it can overthrow the government.
-The second purpose of firearms is to defend your life, family and property from those who would take them from you.
-The third purpose of firearms is for hunting and supplemental food if need be.
-The fourth purpose of firearms is for recreation.
-The fifth purpose of firearms is for aesthetics. (Sort of like how some women collect shoes.)

They're very dangerous. But then again, that's the point of them so it shouldn't be a surprise. But I do not want someone to protect me from my own idiocy. And I don't want to protect others from theirs.

[outsider]

During the Mao-Mao uprising in S.Africa, it was required that everyone carried. Crime dropped to near zero. A town in Southern U.S. mandated carry. same result. I carried across country 40 years ago. Ca. plates, long hair, two week beard, foreign convertible...stopped for gas in Bogaloosa Mississippi. A man my age (early twenties) ambled up to my car placed his forearm on my door displaying a rebel battle flag tattoo on his forearm and leaned in to "talk". His eyes then rolled over to my Grandfather's backup Colt Automatic I had propped up by the transmission tunnel and politely asked "How much gas sir?".

Colonel Colt equalized. I am trained, military, Father, Grandfather. Leads to polite exchanges.

[outsider]

During the Mao-Mao uprising in S.Africa, it was required that everyone carried. Crime dropped to near zero. A town in Southern U.S. mandated carry. same result. I carried across country 40 years ago. Ca. plates, long hair, two week beard, foreign convertible...stopped for gas in Bogaloosa Mississippi. A man my age (early twenties) ambled up to my car placed his forearm on my door displaying a rebel battle flag tattoo on his forearm and leaned in to "talk". His eyes then rolled over to my Grandfather's backup Colt Automatic I had propped up by the transmission tunnel and politely asked "How much gas sir?".

Colonel Colt equalized. I am trained, military, Father, Grandfather. Leads to polite exchanges.

[lonesome moderate]

Tremendous piece, many thanks for taking the time to write this up. Urban America needs to understand the rural gun culture better than it does, and you have certainly helped.

[Stephen Heyer]

Barkley Rosser: “I would suggest that a bigger problem, but one much less widely discussed, is the link between guns and suicide rates. I have a post up on this at econospeak, I put up in conjunction with the anniversary of the VA Tech massacre, which was also a suicide, among other things. This relation is extremely strong, at least across the states within the US (international data must deal with cultural difference, thus low gun Japan having more suicides than the US, and it has a more favorable view of suicide, hara-kiri and all that).

“The main source of the problem is simply that it is so much easier to kill oneself with a gun without having the chance to regret it and get over the depression fit, or whatever. Sorry I am not linking, but 90% of suicide efforts with guns succeed, whereas the success rate with other methods is around 3%.”

It seems the story is not quite that simple. Always remember:

"It's a curious fact of life that many of the things that seem logical, right, proper and obvious sometimes are just plain wrong." (Professor Ann M Roche, 2000, director Queensland Alcohol and Drug Research and Education Centre in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Queensland)

I’ve seen a number of longitudinal studies that indicate that when guns are removed from a society the rate of male FIREARMS suicide goes down BUT THE TOTAL MALE SUICIDE RATE REMAINS MUCH THE SAME.

It seems that confusion arises because men and women choose very different means. Just lumping all suicide statistics together produces error.

Women tend towards much less lethal means, often a suicide attempt really is a call for help (shows they are much brighter and more sensible than men). Men, however, tend to choose more lethal means than women and if one is removed (guns) just switch to another equally lethal means (hanging in one study I saw, which is even slightly MORE LETHAL than guns, though how I cannot imagine).

As a final thought, a number of people with experience in the field of motor vehicle accidents have suggested that motor vehicles are a popular form of male suicide and murder-suicide, but they are never recorded as such. If they were,m suicide statistics would look somewhat different.

[wcw]

In re suicide, amusingly my family comes from one of the high suicide-rate countries in Europe. I think it's the weather. It almost certainly isn't the guns.

In re guns, my grandfather was a policeman (in the selfsame European country) and a champion marksman. He had an old PPK in his bedside drawer, a '30s Luger in a box in the attic and an ancient-but-reliable bolt-action target rifle in the shed. I knew how to shoot, but never really wanted to hunt, so didn't. Opa didn't mind. As for cities, I feel safer wandering around unarmed. If someone really wants to shoot me, he's going to. Otherwise, my having my own gun is just a threat.

I grant, being tall and not being stupid (don't have drug debts, kids) helps.

[Stephen Heyer]

wcw: “I grant, being tall and not being stupid (don't have drug debts, kids) helps.”

Definitely, and not looking rich.

I love traveling alone in temperate South America (Argentina, Chile and Uruguay) and do so for months on end.

I take great care to dress like the ordinary working or lower middle class people, don’t carry obvious valuables, never flash money, stay at ordinary backpacker hostels and take trouble to be polite and never condescending to the locals.

And of course, I look fairly big, tough and ugly. I’ve never had serious trouble (thank God).

[reason]

curtd59
-The fist purpose of firearms is to make the government fear the populace, and the populace confident that it can overthrow the government.
Thats what elections are for. But if you prefer civil war...

[Cyrille]

Bawdyscot:
"What is a big deal is the right to protect yourself and your private property from someone who illegally wants to confiscate it."

Well, that amounts to death penalty without a trial as a punishment for theft. Surely that is over the top. To even consider shooting at someone for burglary, yikes...

On a side note, considering the libertarian use of such words, that sentence almost amounts to death penalty for the taxman.

[Stephen Heyer]

A very, very brave post by Mark Thoma. I just hope not brave in the sense the public servant Sir Humphrey Appleby used when suggesting that some well meaning idea of his minister Jim Hacker was foolish to the point of the (politically) suicidal in that great English comedy Yes Minister.

Considering how unpopular I would expect Mark’s reminiscing to be to the typical reader of his blog I’m surprised and pleased how tolerant the response has been.

Perhaps, things have changed and people are becoming genuinely tolerant and interested in other people and other lives rather than just supporting fashionable groups and ideas and seeking to suppress unfashionable groups and ideas.

I’d suggest that folks with pro-gun beliefs that are perhaps… a little radical cool things in their posts so as to not embarrass our gracious host.In moderation PC is a goodness, merely good manners. It is only when PC is used to suppress debate that it becomes a badness.

[reason]

Steven,
actually, I think most people here would agree with Mark, except for the bit about not liking registration (and perhaps liscencing). Seriously, no body likes beaurocracy of any kind, but we put up with it when there is clearly a purpose behind it. How many people seriously object to having to have a driving liscence? In charge of a deadly weapon? You need a liscence!

[hari]

@ Mark -

I guess I was one of those who asked you to tell a bit about your childhood in Yuba City.

*Guns* is an amazing and true family story..."I hated the cleaning part...." tells it all.

I never used a gun in my seventy years of life but I too caught a lot of river ducks...by hand! We used green camouflage on our heads to swim close to them and catch them by hand. As simple as that. Mummy always appreciated when we came back with hands full of river ducks (and clean them using boiled water - to get rid of the feathers). If you've not eaten a good fresh duck roasted or barbecued, you don't know what you're missing.

The other aspect of rural life (Yuba City) is the knowledge one acquires of nature and its seasonal invitations and whatnots. Your story and relations with grandpa/uncles/aunts is fascinating...reminds me of my life on the sugar plantage with eight uncles and three aunties ... thirty grandchildren when Granny died at 92.

Of course your kids will have more fun getting market (collectors) valuation on your gun museum. Thanks for the tale of guns...

[Frank Seabury]

Something about the post makes me a little uncomfortable. With very little alteration, it could have been about 'southern culture" and defense of the Confederate Flag.

[swells]

Thanks much for the post. There are so many parallels to my own life. Even down to the gold mining with a dredge that I still do most every weekend when the rivers aren't too high. The dredging does no damage whatsoever as even a moderately heavy rain moves much, much more material than my dredging does or even remotely could. It is important to not undermine the banks and nobody I know does that.

A little perspective on my current situation. I have several guns. Shotguns, rifles and pistols. I live in a rural area, way back in the woods. I'm an atheist. I'm white and my wife is black. It's the rural south so there are still a lot of comments and other BS my wife and I have to put up with. It's not out of the question that we could be targeted for our relationship but it's getting less and less likely. There are many, many meth addicts, etc. around us who steal anything not nailed down and have no compunctions about hurting people if they get in the way of their habit. I don't hunt. Some of my guns were passed down thru the family. The pistols weren't. The chances of my being able to call the police and get help in any timely fashion are nil. The pistols are for protecting myself and my wife. We have no children. The pistols are always loaded and close to hand.

[Gil]

Yes indeedy! Strange how the 2nd Amendment has the words 'well-regulated' in it! I can't see why everyone shouldn't get a gun licence just like a car licence in that those who have the licence showed they have competency in owning and using a gun. I don't see how this is anything along the lines of banning guns especially for the honest person. But still what's the point of having guns if the law doesn't back you up if you shoot in self-defense? In most Western countries you'd probably be the one getting arrested (such as Australia before the 1997 general gun ban).

[swells]

I should add that I have no objections to measures that make it easy to track a use of any gun back to the gun itself and the individual that possesses it. I have no problem with people being held responsible for what they do.

[Alex Tolley]

Mark, I do hope that most hunters act as responsibly as you do.

However, I do want to take issue with you over the idyllic descriptions of guns and hunting that you so eloquently evoke.

Firstly, it is doubtful that you made a clean duck kill every time. Sometimes you wounded the bird and were able to dispatch it later. Other times I suspect that it got away, wounded. Certainly nature is "red in tooth and claw", but civilized humans don't have to act that way too.

Secondly, you describe the loss of duck numbers. There are probably several factors involved, but hunting them puts further pressure on them. Hunters may not see themselves as adding to extinction pressures, but as a group, they are. At the turn of the C20th, the Passenger pigeon was hunted to extinction in the US. I think that behavior is unacceptable today.

In the UK, fox hunting was only relatively recently banned, because of the barbarous nature of the way the fox was killed. The arguments that the fox hunters used to justify their "sport" were not so dissimilar to yours.

I recognize that as an occasional fisherman after tuna and salmon off the California coast, that I am hypocritically doing what I have argued above against hunting. However, I do recognize that I am contributing to the loss of these fish stocks. especially salmon, and I am conflicted over my actions.

[hari]

Are problems of gun ownership in US linked to elitism or not?
How come most of the opposition comes from educated and left of centre classes?

Mark must tbe required to license his museum of guns!

[Stephen Heyer]

Reason,
Having watched the whole USA gun debate from the very beginning from the safe distance of Australia, I think I understanding the gun movement’s stubborn battle against any and every restriction, no matter how reasonable.

In short, the gun control movement made no secret of the fact that they intended to use each tightening of the law as another step towards their final goal of completely banning guns.

At first, the mainstream gun groups (NRA etc) were supportive of reasonable, even strict restrictions. However, they soon learned that the extremists in their ranks were correct and any “weakness” only led to the gun control mob charging straight over the top of them, then demanding the next step towards total probation.

Something similar happened in Australia.

Sadly, it often happens that progressive movements force their opponents into more and more extreme positions out of pure self-defence. They learn to fight bitterly to defend every inch of ground in retreat and to make common cause with groups they would normally cross the street to avoid.

The odd thing is, I suspect that if the major, mainstream gun organizations in both countries had been put in charge of gun laws they would have long since been so strict they squeaked. Firearms would be restricted to kosher target and hunting weapons and shooters would be as stuffy and strict as Mark Thoma and I remember them.

More so in fact, as plenty of shooters then were not so responsible, but give the large, stuffy sporting associations a half century’s unthreatened control and it would be a matter of conform of not get hunting/firearms licenses.

Oh! And I’m all in favor of proper training and licenses for any potentially dangerous object, but not licenses used as a form of restriction. The Australian firearms training and licensing system, despite being set up as a form of restriction, actually seems to be working well.

[reason]

Steven Heyer,
that slippery-slope argument is just paranoia (and it works the other way as well). Of course some people will want more and some less. Healthy democracy is pretty good at reaching working compromises - any step in one direction alienates another group of people. The Australian example you quoted yourself should convince you of that. More common sense is needed. No rational person thinks that farmers shouldn't be able to protect their sheep from dingos or that city hooligans should have access to bazookas.

[jamzo]

some pennslyvania gun statistics

nra membership 250,000

950,000 general hunting licenses 2007 (850,000 deer hunting)

2002-2006 2 million rifles, shotguns and handguns were purchased or transferred

death by gun in philadelphia 343 in 2006 and 330 in 2007and 63 through march 2008

The Second Amendment says, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." In the D.C. case, the Supreme Court is expected to interpret the amendment for the first time since it was ratified in 1791.

The older Pennsylvania provision declares, "The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned."

these laws can be changed

hunters are willing to submit to licenses

but unwilling to submit to licenses

[Patricia Shannon]

Nixon.
Reagan.
Bush.

[reason]

Patricia Shannon...
I'm curious to know what your contribution above has to do with this topic. Is that what you think as you shoot ducks?

[Patricia Shannon]

reason, if you read the other comments, including mine, I wouldn't have to spoon feed you. These were presidents who might very well have turned our democracy into a tyranny if they could have.

[SanFranciscoJim]

I too was raised more or less with a gun in my hands, got my first BB gun at 7, my first .22 at 12, and have gun safety as second nature. I also did a stint as a medic in the 82nd Airborne, so I fired lots of different weapons. On of the things medics do is "range safety officer" and if you are well liked and interested in guns, the guys running the firing range will let you help them fire off the extra rounds at the end of the day. So I got to shoot a lot of different weapons.

I am certainly not anti-gun and am a supporter of both the NRA and the ACLU.

But I kind of doubt the rhetoric that having an armed populace helps keep tyranny in check. Didn't pretty much everyone in Iraq have an automatic weapon under Saddam Hussein? That didn't stop him from rounding up dissidents.

[reason]

Patricia Shannon,
I thought so, but the joke was too good to miss, and other people may have needed to have that pointed out. But seriously, though, as I have seen others point out (David Brin for instance) why do you think that it might not be the SUPPORTERS of authoritarians who use their guns to keep them in or bring them to power. The resistance, will unfortunately inevitably be divided. (Think of Europe in the 1930s & 1940s here.) At best we could make it difficult for them to take over, but a military dedicated to the constitution (and not to the administration) is our best line of defence. That is why the attempted takeover of the military (especially the air force) by Dominionists is such a concern.

[piglet]

"The fist purpose of firearms is to make the government fear the populace, and the populace confident that it can overthrow the government."

The fact that people are still clinging to that fairy tale after eight long Bush years is more telling than anything that has been said in the gun control debate. The populace of this country doesn't act like it has any intention to fight for its rights against a tyrannical government. And Bush doesn't act like he fears the populace in his war on civil rights, his imperial presidency, and his class war on behalf of the super-rich. People in many other countries would have been on the barricades years ago. Get real, folks.

[Curt Doolittle]

RE: "But if you prefer civil war..."

That is not necessarily a logical conclusion. In political affairs, Potential is enough to preclude action. (ie cold war MAD). The writings of all rulers we have on record in history confirm this as they express exasperation at an armed populace or a returned army from the field, and the difficulty they have in oppressing those people so that "they can do what is good for them".

I can find no evidence that disarming a population has been good for it. There is some possibility that arming everyone and giving them property rights is one strategy - the 'citizen' strategy, and another that disarming everyone and removing from them property rights is another - the 'subject' strategy. Both strategies seem to work and toward different ends. Asia has been superior at subjugation - that is certain. And while each of us questions whether we would like to be a citizen at times, (a natural philosophical question for situational anarchists who think that laws and social order are for everyone else but themselves) I would not venture that all of us wish to be subjects. (Although, that is not really true. Statistically speaking anyway, when the question is asked indirectly as what people would trade for security, or what they would trade in order to abandon their necessity of calculation and competition, there are at least a fifth and as much as a third of the population that would willingly become a subject rather than a citizen. Whether this fact is a class value, an education problem, or an intellectual-ability problem or some combination is still an open debate.)

Arms are both the symbol and fact of enfranchisement and always have been. The opposite is also true. If there is no enfranchisement, then there need not be arms. Egalitarian democracy is enfranchisement. So perhaps we should just continue to flirt with the increasing chance of surrendering ourselves to totalitarianism. And if a socratic straight man enters here and asks "but it is common sense?" the answer is that common sense is common only because the problem is commonly shared. If the problem is gone then so is the sense, and people focus on different bodies of common sense knowledge.

It is far harder to induce into a population puritanism (conservatism and long term thinking and far easier to introduce hedonism (consumption and short term thinking). Typically farmers are easiest to make into puritans because they have all the cultural tendencies that such an environment burdens one with. Urbanites, steppe warriors, and hunter gatherers do not.

This difference in perspective is the difference in values. And one should not make the assumption that one must understand a strategy in order to employ it. We are in a field where the Invisible Hand has proven that we understand little of what we do in the aggregate, and only recognize and name what we have invented much later on.

And to put this debate in a more contemporary but broad context: As, for the first time, more than half of mankind lives in urban areas, and urban areas become even greater centers of poverty (and rural people the wealthy instead of the other way around), our moral codes will change from those of farmers to those of urbanites. In history, this has led to very destructive outcomes for every single civilization. (They've all died or stagnated and been externally dominated.) But it may be possible that we will evolve a new set of moral (cooperative) principles, like we did when we became farmers. But as it stands, there is still a great gulf between the urbanites (perception of the utility of others, capital availability, and in particular the disassociation of causation amid the cacophony of it) and those people who still have the farmer morality (hyper sensitivity to capital availability and hyper association of causation because of the perceptability and tangible impact of it.) Mises is kind of cute at times because he thinks as a Trader and forgets that we need a body of ethics for producers in order for there to be traders for example.

The question will boil down to whether economic calculation (in the Misesian and Hayekian senses) is possible using the institutions we currently have in a majority-urbanized setting or whether new codes, institutions, and technologies must be developed. I have been working on the problem a long time and I tend to think that we can solve demand problems and increase production but I cannot see that we will solve the social coordination problem. It may be that not only trade, but also the farming ethic is necessary to coordinate this many human beings. Maybe not, but we don't have a way of doing it yet, and the pricing system, property rights, banking, fiat money, and insurance don't appear to be sufficient. The form of mathematics we use, and the financial instruments we have invented, exotic as they are are not even sufficient to manage the current problems we face.

So, in this light, Gun ownership (or of arms really) is not just a health and safety problem. That would be a precariously short term view of human existence. It is a health and safety issue only if the tempo of human existence is within grasp of our average person's meager perceptions, and the slow tempo of civilizations only audible to those with vastly more knowledge. Or, it may be possible to say that these longer term problems, like pollution, are problems we should leave to those who follow us. (Or not.)

So again, this is not just a difference in perception between urbanites and rural people. It is a difference in class (having handed over control to the middle class, we are now handing it over to the consumer class). It is a difference in what we see as enfranchisement. It is a difference in what we see as the value or danger of government. It is a difference in the perception of costs. It is a difference in the interpretation of historical events. It is a difference in objectives. And the only resolution for that conflict of differences is in observing the result of the theories over time.

But as a person who must choose a political stance, I for one will use the evidence of history rather than the passions and limitations, error and hubris of contemporary reason in a world where the normative social order here in the west has experienced a temporary economic bubble (at least for the past half century) that has softened the conflict we have with one another, and especially between classes at the same time when population density and the potential for conflict has dramatically increased. When our western advantage has ceased, as has been happening since WWI, but is accelerating rapidly now with the adoption of anglo capitalism's technologies around the world, we will not see this advantage and reduction of conflict as sustainable.

It is perhaps interesting to understand, that enfranchisement and equality, argument, reason and debate, and eventually what we consider objective truth and science, are the result of the battle tactics of early european warrior classes, and the need to enfranchise the majority of the male population to employ them, when the social order is the tribe, village or polis. This is the source of western military superiority, and well as our egalitarianism, democracy, logic and science. In other words: arms and the responsibility for wielding them at the expense of one's life is the source of the competitive advantage of western civilization, which we call, individualism. And there is no evidence that if you remove that shared responsibility that the rest of the social oder remains intact. In fact, as the middle east, tribal destroyer of empires has demonstrated, and four thousand years of Chinese history has demonstrated, it appears that just the opposite is true.

In this light it is trivial, and perhaps childish, and even potentially suicidal for one's culture, to try to cast an argument of this significance as a health and safety issue. Seat belts and guns do not have the same purpose. Because no thing has a single purpose. It is the set of purposes and the affect of those purposes over time we must weight in determining what we will enforce by the force and violence of laws. And the understanding that laws tend to institutionalize our silly and fashionable ideas when the marketplace of human interaction would dismiss and correct those ideas for us. Competition is good for the production of goods and individualism is a good. Competition is bad for the production of bads, and laws are bads. It is in knowing the goods or bads that helps us know when to make laws and when not to. So, we should not meddle with things we do not understand, or which we understand weakly in the light of history.

Perhaps it could be said that I err, because while having the temporal perspective of Methuselah, it may be preferential to have the currently fashionable temporal perspective of the May Fly - an intellectual hedonism that suggest that we can solve any problem that faces us, but perhaps a hedonism that has greater faith in our innovative ability. A study of history with an economic lens rather than a class struggle lens (which is really the source of this debate whether the participants understand it or not) leads to the more unfashionable conclusion: that arms are as they are for a reason. And that reason is fundamental to our prosperity.

Cheers.

Curt

[Cynthia]

Prof. Thoma,

First you tell us that you believe in the free-market fairy, then you tell us that you've got a thing for guns. Next thing you'll be telling us is that you have a portrait of St. Ronnie over your fireplace.;~)

Seriously though, there's nothing nutty about using guns as part of your work or as a way to put food on the table, but it's just plain nuts to be using them for anything else!

[reason]

Curt...
You may be right, but probably are not. (It sounds like pseudo-intellectual twaddle to me.) But please write such long comments on your own site and provide a link.

[Curt Doolittle]

RE: "piglet says... The fact that people are still clinging to that fairy tale"

That does not follow. (and assumes that you're correct in your theories when the consequences will not be known for decades.) It simply means that the people capable of, and willing to, have an uprising are not those that choose to. Compare this to the number of people who tried to assassinate Regan and Clinton. Want is not action because want has no cost. A lot of people used to want to be Britney Spears and copied her hair style. That is action. It's not important but it's action. A lot of people want not to be fat. But act otherwise demonstrating their real choices. Following your argument to logical conclusion proves my point. (after a few steps anyway)

Cheers

[dilbert dogbert]

Rusty,
I have read stories that people in deer country make their homes in the basements during deer season. I have also read that women have to be careful going out to hang out the wash on the line during season. The stories were mostly about drunken Detroiters going on a deer hunting spree.
With guns as well as the law "bad cases make bad laws".

[no body]

Alex - the uproar about hunting in the UK is over the use of dogs to hunt.

Around my neck of the woods game hunters tend to bow hunt - a bit more sporting that way. The rifles come out during cleaning the moose, when predators are a concern.

Most bow hunters think the English fox hunt is barbaric.

[piglet]

"But please write such long comments on your own site and provide a link."

I second that.

Historically, as far as I can tell, the big concern has always been over the control of the army, not about individuals with arms (that's why the Swiss still take pride in their militia army). The US government has the most powerful army ever seen at its disposal and I find ludicous the idea that they shiver at the thought of hunters armed with rifles in Minnesota (or wherever). It would be more interesting to speculate how the US army would respond if the government attempts to use it against political threats. I don't see this happen, since the US population is already perfectly submissive to the authorities and the idea of an uprising is laughable. But in the event, would soldiers and military commanders refuse to obey unconstitutional orders? Is there any reason for that assumption? After what happened in Iraq, Guantanamo, etc.? And what if they just use contractors, as they do in Iraq?

[piglet]

P.S. It is often assumed that militia armies are politically more dangerous for the ruling classes (which suspect is part of the rationale behind that famous second amendment) but I'm not so sure about that. The Swiss army had no qualms opening fire in 1918, killing workers, to crush a peaceful General Strike. The government called units from rural areas into the cities, most of them poor farmers, to shoot at their equally poor worker compatriots. Similarly, but more significantly, the ruling powers in Germany 1918/19 were able to use Freicorps militia to crush socialist rebellions. Again, many of these troops came from remote rural areas and had been fanatized by conservative and church propaganda against the "socialist threat". They were led to believe to act in self-defence against godless, unpatriotic, Communists.

Does that scenario bear any resemblance with US gun mythology?

[Curt Doolittle]

Reason

Have been through this depth of argument with you before. But you are not up to the task. "Sounds Like" is not an argument, an analysis or a contribution, but an acknowledgment that none exists.

But it's a good idea to provide a link. Thanks.

[Curt Doolittle]

RE: They were led to believe to act in self-defence against godless, unpatriotic, Communists.

But wasn't that the basic problem and didn't all monarchies fall because of that movement? Was the resulting disaster of communism worse than those monarchical governments warned?

It's not that they were destructive and godless.

I'd prefer to live under one of the German princedoms than one of the governments we live under today. It was probably the high point of western civilization.

[Adams]

Very nice post.

I hope Obama reads it, because he made cardboard figures of rural Americans. The superficiality of his comments supports the impression that he is ignorant of the complexity and depth that drive the interests and preferences of people outside his realm of experience.

OK, you can do the liberal, intellectual analysis. Some gun owners may be compensating feelings of ... (whatever). Some may be committed libertarians. Blah, blah, blah.

And you can cite statistics that prove guns kill people. Blah, blah, blah.

Gun ownership and stewardship are a part of the history of this country. Along with family farms. They are inseparable from what millions of Americans know and feel as good.

Maybe, like slavery (e.g.), guns are ultimately an evil or politically unacceptable part of that history. They can certainly be put to evil purposes.

Maybe we'll decide that relatively unrestricted gun ownership is no longer compatable with the realities of today's society.

But trivializing and stereotyping gun owners is not different from trivializing and stereotyping other groups.

Demeaning. Revealing. And politically dumb.

[piglet]

Well, there is still Liechtenstein. You can try applying for a Green Card there.

[Patricia Shannon]

piglet, no need to cite examples from other countries. In our own country, police and national guards have killed strikers.

And some of us are old enough to remember Kent State.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre or Kent State massacre,[2][3][4] occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. Four students were killed and nine others wounded, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.[5]

Some of the students who were shot were protesting the American invasion of Cambodia, which President Richard Nixon announced in a television address on April 30. However, other students who were shot were merely walking nearby or observing the protest at a distance.[6][7]

There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of eight million students, and the event further divided the country along political lines.

[Eric Dewey, Portland OR]

Prof Thoma, thanks for posting this.

Most interesting to me was your comment that you were afraid to post it - and I'm glad to see so many supportive comments to you.

I'm not a gun person. I'm deeply concerned about the epidemic of gun violence in the US. I've felt for some time that I should become acquainted with guns and learn to use them simply as a precautionary measure - in college, I worked the night shift at an inner-city 7-11 store, and once had the occasion to be confronted with the threat of a gun, an experience that will change your life.

After reading this post and many of the excellent comments, I feel better about the whole gun debate knowing that there a some out there on both sides that are willing to discuss it.

From an economic perspective, what about the old truism about guns and butter? Your experiences with guns seem to be more about community and nourishment and less about self-defense (or offense).

If economics were really able to solve distribution problems without societies feeling like they had to go to war, would so many people still think they needed to have guns?

[piglet]

Patricia: "And some of us are old enough to remember Kent State."

I intended to mention that but it slipped my mind... The point of citing other countries, though, was to see whether it might shed some fresh light on this US-typical debate. Don't you think so?

[Bruce Webb]

"In short, the gun control movement made no secret of the fact that they intended to use each tightening of the law as another step towards their final goal of completely banning guns."

Well yes and the gun rights people make little secret that they are motivated by fantasy and paranoia as with this post.

"-The fist purpose of firearms is to make the government fear the populace, and the populace confident that it can overthrow the government."

Sometime the typos are just as revealing as the intended meaning.

Clearly they like their hunting but many of these guys are living a fantasy world filled with Black helicopters with Blue Hatted soldiers. The notion that this government is seriously afraid of gun owners as a collective is ridiculous, there is just an understanding that not everyone should have access to weapons that can be converted to fully automatic status with a mail order kit (or in some cases just a file).

(Hint to curtd59. Rambo and Red Dawn are not in fact documentaries, and the A Team was not a reality show. Sheesh.)

[Bruce Webb]

"During the Mao-Mao uprising in S.Africa, it was required that everyone carried. Crime dropped to near zero."

Sounds like urban legend to me. Leaving aside the fact that the Mao-Mao uprising was in East Africa and specifically Kenya, I would expect that most white settlers would have been well armed to start with and that that fact would be well known to the Kikuyu who made up the Mao-Mao. When you are farming in lion country carrying both a long gun and a short gun would seem a near necessity. The Mao-Mao uprising while accompanied by many criminal acts was fundamentally political. And I see no signs that the outcome was controlled in any way by mandatory concealed carry.
http://africanhistory.about.com/od/kenya/a/MauMauTimeline.htm

It is always interesting to watch people of a libertarian bent argue that 'an armed society is a polite society' while pointing to Switzerland while being able to totally ignore that shining example of a 2nd Amendment paradise, a place called Iraq that now and again still pops in the news.

Now it is true that Arabs are traditionally hospitable, but it would be hard to argue that the politeness quotient in Iraq has been notably raised by near universal gun ownership.

[Bruce Webb]

This from Alex Tolley is I think totally wrong.

"Secondly, you describe the loss of duck numbers. There are probably several factors involved, but hunting them puts further pressure on them. Hunters may not see themselves as adding to extinction pressures, but as a group, they are."

Duck hunters through buying duck stamps funded much early wetland protections and groups like Ducks Unlimited are very active and productive in protecting these habitats. I would be very surprised to see an actual finding that hunting is in fact putting extinction pressures on ducks. In fact off the top of my head I can't think of any duck species facing such pressures, at least in this country.
http://www.duckstamps-prints.com/servlet/the-Federal-Duck-Stamps-cln-Federal-Duck-Stamps-RW47-1980-Thru-RW50-1983/Categories (beautiful works of art btw)
http://www.ducks.org/conservation/ Ducks Unlimited

A little search turned up the Laysan Teal of Midway Atoll NWR, technically US soil, but hunting (by humans) is not the culprit here. And a further search pulled up two duck species in southern China, but I suspect population pressures there are unrelated to sport hunting.

The biggest protection that wild ducks have is that rich white guys will pay fabulous sums of money to support duck clubs that in turn directly maintain habitat all so that those rich guys can take their multi-thousand dollar shotguns and blow some of the birds from the sky. Counterintuitive perhaps but I think true.

[piglet]

I don't know about ducks but I have seen the huge flocks (can you say this?) of snow geese that gather in spring and fall in Québec, in a wildlife refuge called Cap Tourmente, on their way to or from the Arctic. They keep track of population numbers there and these populations were exploding, and putting enormous pressure on extremely vulnerable Arctic ecosystems. The reason is that these birds find a lot of food on agricultural areas in the Southeastern US where they stay for the winter (if I remember everythuign right). Hunting is very limited and hardly makes a dent. Most surprising to me was that at the annual "Snow Geese festival" in fall, you couldn't even get a taste of snow goose, despite there being such a surplus.

I think whatever our opinions about gun control, we should put those negative stereotypes about hunters to rest. Many hunters are truly passionate about conservation. Of course not all, and there are always negative examples. But overall, hunting is probably good for wildlife and conservation.

[Barkley Rosser]

So, about time I checked back in here after putting up the first comment. First I commend Mark as I should have initially on being willing to talk about his personal views and experiences, especially as they may not be in accord with those of many who read this blog. So, good for you, Mark, most of us anyway know that you are a good guy.

For me personally, I have a mixed bag on this. I live in Harrisonburg, Virginia, which recently officially became an official metropolitan statistical area. But it is not all that big and is in the very rural Shenandoah Valley, which went big time for Hillary, although Harrisonburg itself went for Obama pretty strongly. But, I know lots of people who live in the country, hunt, and have pickup trucks with gun racks that actually have guns in them a lot of the time.

In my youth I got a marksmanship medal in the Boy Scouts on the way to becoming an Eagle Scout, so I actually know something about guns. But, I have never owned one. Nobody in my family has. Even though my father was quite conservative, he was very against this, and we all got it from him. Why? A half uncle of his was killed at age ten in an acccident with a family-owned gun, and his mother said no guns, and it has passed on down. For me, the suicide issue looks a lot like this family accident issue, deaths that can happen that do not need to because of there being just too darned many guns around.

Bawdyscot,

So, I am not for punishing people who attempt suicide. In that sense I am for a "right to suicide." But, why make it easier for people to do it? It is, after all, irreversible if successfully carried out. Lots of people attempt it in a fit of depression that they will overcome if they survive the attempt. If they have a gun, they will have no chance, or have much less of a chance. I am very aware of this having a friend who did not own a gun who recently attempted suicide and failed. He has gotten over it, but if he had owned a gun, he would be dead now.

Also, bawdy, SDS was founded at the University of Michigan, and I do not recall them ever being particularly into guns. Irrelevant issue.

outsider,

They were the Mau-Mau, not "Mao-Mao," and they were in Kenya. Their leader, Jomo Kenyatta, became the first leader of Kenya after it achieved independence.

Also, how do you know that the guy in MS was out to cause you harm? A bit paranoid perhaps? Were you an Uneasy Rider having seen a movie? Or maybe you were afraid he had seen the movie.

Jefff,

I agree. It looks like handguns are a major part of this story. Lott and others love to go on about Switzerland and Norway and Finland, countries with higher gun ownership rates than the US, but noticeably lower homicide rates (although they do have higher suicide rates, Finland in particular being very high). But, those countries have much lower rates of handgun owership. They also all have strong laws about registering and other controls the US does not have. In Switzerland particularly it is tied to training for the military, with neutral Switzerland long having a universal draft to defend itself.

Also, these countries limit major assault weapons, as the US did in the 1990s. The suicidal killer at Virginia Tech used some of these assault guns that were banned during the 1990s in the US. I see no reason not to reinstitute those bans, despite the hysterical paranoia of the NRA (which can just go shoot itself to death, as far as I am concerned).

Heyer,

Although you quoted somebody, you did not provide a cite, only a declaration in caps, which is not usually a sign of credibility. Even if there is a study in Australia (and I heard of one in California) I will not be convinced that tightening gun laws will leave suicide rates unchanged. Guns are just too effective at killing people. To have an unchanged suicide rate, one would have to have an increase in the efforts to commit suicide. Do you wish to argue that there will be inceased suicide attempts because people are more depressed because of the increased restrictions on guns?
Maybe, mate, but kind of unlikely.

Adams,

Why should Obama read this? He has already caved on the gun issue as a policy matter. In that wretched ABC debate, he came out for the NRA position in the Supreme Court case about D.C.'s gun laws, that the Second Amendment actually does guarantee an individual right to own guns, in contrast to the traditional interpretations regarding how it is about maintaining a "well-regulated militia" a la Switzerland.

His "bitter" comments were not about gun rights at all, but unfortunate characterizations of people who are down economically in rural areas tending to own them, while being more into religion and hating immigrants supposedly.

More broadly, I have the sense that the top Dem leadership has decided to cave on this. No new efforts to get assault weapon bans, not to mention registration, permits, required training, or further handgun restrictions. No, they want to compete in West Virginia and Kentucky, and that means kissing the ass of the NRA and all the gun nuts, just like the party kissed the ass of all the pro-death penalty folks after the pathetic performance of Michael Dukakis in the 1988 prez race. Since then, Dem prez candidates have had to do things like show they are willing to sign off on executions of the young, the mentally disturbed, and, well, pretty much anybody (assuming they were a governor and had to deal with the issue), or say they are willing to do so, in order to have a chance to even get the nomination, even though I am sure that most of them know better about both guns and the death penalty.

So, now we are going to see them all do the same sort of thing about "gun rights." Gun control is dead, shot down by fear of the NRA, as dead as that guy at Virginia Tech.

[AndrewBW]

I grew up in Ohio, and although I was never particularly interested in hunting I had friends who were. The majority of them treated guns with caution and respect. I wasn't intimidated to be around them, and didn't mind that they owned them.

Later on I moved to New York City, where I lived during the height of the crack epidemic in the early nineties. It was not at all unusual to hear gun fire in the middle of the night – on the street, people on apartment roofs popping off their automatics. One morning I was walking up Broadway and two guys about half a block south of me opened up on each other. I dove for the curb and flattened like a pancake while one of them took off in his car driving north – in reverse – up the southbound lane. Once at a party someone pointed a loaded pistol at me as a joke. I got out fast.

[Stephen Heyer]

Bruce Webb: “"In short, the gun control movement made no secret of the fact that they intended to use each tightening of the law as another step towards their final goal of completely banning guns."

“Well yes and the gun rights people make little secret that they are motivated by fantasy and paranoia as with this post.”

Trying to marginalize inconvenient history as “fantasy and paranoia” is a tactic that worked well in the 70s, 80s and 90s but is now past it’s use by date.

I was there – were you? As I remember it the “paranoia” came later, and with some real cause (even paranoids have real enemies). At the time there was open discussion of this in the USA gun movements and of incidents where compromise and supporting reasonable laws just led to major losses.

In time the old, conservative (in the true sense of the word) leadership of the major gun movements who were rather supportive of sensible gun laws were replaced by radicals who had decided that there could be no compromise with people who were dedicated to their total destruction.

Were they right? I don’t know, but they seemed to have held the fort better than the original leadership with its tendency to compromise.

Whether that is a good or a bad thing, again I don’t know.

[JRossi]

Good post. Some urban types don't understand ( or don't care)how shooting is connected with growing up and fun with family and friends. That's the way it is. After more than about 12 hours in the city, any city, I'm ready to get the hell out.Most people like what they're used to.
I grew up with guns in a rural area, and I have a 22 for plinking. I don't hunt because I don't like to kill things and I don't need the meat, but I have no problems at all with hunters. I don't like handguns much. I sold mine when I got married. Automatic and semi-automatic military type weapons, which a few of my crazier friends have, should be illegal.
I plan to get my son a Red Ryder bb gun as soon as he is "responsible," which might be a while.

[Patricia Shannon]

piglet, I meant you no insult.
I didn't even know what country you're from. I know several of our community are from countries other than the U.S.

[Stephen Heyer]

Barkley Rosser: “To have an unchanged suicide rate, one would have to have an increase in the efforts to commit suicide.”

No, you just need a switch to equally effective means such as hanging. In actuality, I would have expected a significant decrease as some of the alternative means such a motor vehicles are never reported as suicide or murder-suicide even when the police and coroner know full well it was not an accident.

I have no idea what is going on there.

There is plenty of good and even more bad research out there – look it up yourself. Oh! And you’ll find some very interesting differences between the sexes and don’t disrespect people, they do adjust their effort to achieve the desired effect with the means available.

Anyway, endless debate over fine detail is starting to make this topic look like a typical gun / anti-gun blog which must be distressing Mark Thoma, so that’s my last word on the subject.

[dissent]

Our populace is very subservient to the elites and to our decades of conservative dominance. Guns had nothing to do with this.

Because of our subservience, we have lost ground: in wages, pensions, health coverage, and on and on. In Europe, the land of strikes, unions, and inflexible labor markets, those who work for a living have not lost ground. They are tougher than us, more independent minded, and their ability to stand up to elites has not atrophied. The fact they do not have our guns has hardly weakened them. Indeed, it's possible that we flatter ourselves that we have toughness and independence because of our guns, when in fact, because of the defects of our character, we have lost those qualities.

Our subservience is unique among western democracies. Guns don't protect us from ourselves.

[Alex Tolley]

Bruce Webb: This from Alex Tolley is I think totally wrong.

"Secondly, you describe the loss of duck numbers. There are probably several factors involved, but hunting them puts further pressure on them. Hunters may not see themselves as adding to extinction pressures, but as a group, they are."

Duck hunters through buying duck stamps funded much early wetland protections and groups like Ducks Unlimited are very active and productive in protecting these habitats. I would be very surprised to see an actual finding that hunting is in fact putting extinction pressures on ducks. In fact off the top of my head I can't think of any duck species facing such pressures, at least in this country.
http://www.duckstamps-prints.com/servlet/the-Federal-Duck-Stamps-cln-Federal-Duck-Stamps-RW47-1980-Thru-RW50-1983/Categories (beautiful works of art btw)
http://www.ducks.org/conservation/ Ducks Unlimited

Mea culpa. This link has data that shows the US duck population has not declined in from 1955 - 1999.

http://www.nepa.gov/nepa/reports/statistics/tab4x2.html

We do know that recreational and commer4cial salmon fishing is contributing to declining fish stocks. Shame on me for over-generalizing.

I have no idea about rich duck hunters, but a San Jose neighbor used to duck hunt with his son somewhere in CA.

[reason]

Curt Doolittle
I'd prefer to live under one of the German princedoms than one of the governments we live under today. It was probably the high point of western civilization.

You just lost your audience. Just one word - Rawls.

[piglet]

Theer was no insult, Patricia. But what is your opinion?

[save_the_rustbelt]

"I have read stories that people in deer country make their homes in the basements during deer season. I have also read that women have to be careful going out to hang out the wash on the line during season. The stories were mostly about drunken Detroiters going on a deer hunting spree."

Dilbert:

Mostly myth, based on a few accidents, mostly years ago. Anyway, many of us spend a lot of time in our basements, tv, fridge, etc.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Apparently the shooting war in Chicago this week is gang members fighting over women.

Last fall I was in Phili while a shooting war was in process.

At the time the city council was too busy throwing the Boy Scouts out of a city building to worry about the carnage.

Strange.

[Cyrille]

Ah, reason, each mention of that word brings me pleasure.

It cannot be said enough. I was reading how Atlas Shrugged polled as the most influential book after the bible for the US congress.

I fail to see how a Theory of Justice could fail to top both of them (OK, I also fail to see how Atlas Shrugged can make it to the top 1000).

[Cyrille]

For those who think that no good ever came from disarming a population, I would like to draw their attention to a little-known place called Europe.

Now, I am not for a second saying that there is not one gun in Europe -but pretty much nobody has any for "lawful citizen protection". Police and some gangsters do have them, OK, but again no self-defense there.

Somehow, that place has failed to degenerate into a place of rampant crime. While USA could not quite be described as such either, I would venture that it comes much closer to it. Why would one conclude from that that no good ever came from disarming?

[Barkley Rosser]

Stephen Heyer,

I went a googling and found the recent data on male youth suicides in the US. There is something odd going on with the 10-14 year olds. Indeed, the rate of death by hanging has gone up, now in first place, while that for guns and poisoning has gone down. However, it remains the case that the success rate from guns is much higher than from hanging, and the overall rate has gone down. Maybe those younger males are getting into the attempting to do it to get attention like the women.

The group that seems to be using guns more, with the expected effect of more effectively killing themselves off in the US, has been males over 55.

BTW, in case it is not clear I am not "against guns." I have many friends who have them and use them. I am for responsible use, and see no reason why we cannot have in the US something like what they have in Norway or Finland or Switzerland (without its universal military draft), where there is high gun ownership, but pretty strict controls on their use, which ones can be owned, and who can have them.

[Patricia Shannon]

piglet, I would say I worded my comment carelessly, perhaps. I didn't mean you shouldn't have referenced other countries. I just meant to point out that there were cases in the U.S. of the killing of innocent citizens by government troops. Since the discussion is largely about whether the U.S. should register guns, I felt that cases where the U.S. government misused its power should be mentioned.

[BJ Feng]

There are already too many guns in the US for a gun ban to work. A gun ban will only prompt lawful citizens to turn in their guns while criminals will still have access. That's why Washington D.C. is still one of the most violent places to live in despite a gun ban.

As for Virginia Tech, the campus instituted a total gun ban almost right before (one year or so) the killer went on his rampage. The gun ban not only didn't work, it helped the killer. Virginia Tech has a lot of ex-military personnel, had they been allowed to carry, someone could have stopped him, but because the lawful obeyed, the killer was able to spend hours shooting people at leisure. The police were incompetent, and the killer thought so little of the police that he went to the post office to mail his multimedia presentation after the first killings. Obviously he wasn't worried about being caught or stopped. After a nice two hour siesta, he returned to another building on campus and started killing again.

The gun ban sounds nice in theory, but it doesn't work in practice, and can't work because there are already so many guns out there that criminals can get one easily.

Besides, gun ownership is one of the fundamental rights Americans hold dear. It keeps power with the people. We are not Europe, we have our own value system and our own identity. They've helped us advance this far. And don't say Europe didn't have its own problems of violence. In the French ghettos, dozens of cars are torched every night by thuggish youths. Americans scratch their heads and wonder how this is tolerated, but it is, the French are happy to eat their baguettes while their cars are set on fire, we are happy to shoot those who try--cultural differences, that's all.

[Barkley Rosser]

BJ Feng,

I have heard this argument about VA Tech about a million times. It is baloney. Nobody was going to stop Cho. He had on piles of body armor just so he would not be stopped until he ended it himself with his own suicide, which in some sense is what this was really about.

I would point out that if the Clinto-era ban on certain sorts of assault weapons, which he used, had been in effect and had kept him from buying them, the lower numbers of rounds of shots in the next best ones would have left about one third fewer dead at VA Tech.

[Stephen Heyer]

Hi folks,

This has drifted a long way from Mark Thoma’s original intent. If we really want to discuss the fine detail of mass killings I would suggest adjourning to an area on the Internet devoted to such things. This is why bloggers like Mark are frightened to mention guns even when they might have good reason to.

Barkley Rosser,

Good research. Speaking here on social and mental health issues (which in my opinion Economics is right in the middle of) I’m really, really encouraged by the lower “success rate” of 10-14 year old males.

I would guess, I repeat, guess, that important factors making this lower than in some previously studied cohorts of older males may be:

1. Children having greater difficulty arranging the privacy and time required: They are rescued by friends and family.

2. Your suggestion that sometimes it is a cry for help and setup to fail. Given that we now know that 10-14 year old males’ brains are still a long way off maturing into the full adult male brain, and given that male/female social roles are not as distinct as they once were, this seems likely.

3. Incompetence.

The first 2 are definitely social goods. It is really hard if a young person feels that attempted suicide is his/her only option for drawing attention to their despair, but I know children in that situation.

I’ve always maintained contacts right across the social spectrum so I am directly aware, for example, of families where the parent/parents is/are into drugs, spend their social security money on drugs and don’t even feed the children. This seems to be a much smaller percentage of the population here in Australia than in the USA, but it is still distressingly large.

Tell you what, if Benevolent Tyrant Heyer (BTH) was running things social security would arrive in the form of adequate, even generous shelter, food and clothing for the family and absolutely free schooling, school books, school outings and school lunches for the kids, and only a little cash pocket money for the adults.

Oh! And I’d introduce the Chinese Block Mother system. People who neglected or abused children would be liable to receive Attitudinal Readjustment Therapy (ART) by a bunch in huge, indigent grandmothers wielding 7 foot bamboo staffs.

It’s interesting that the word “hamartia” in the oldest Gospel, Mark, that we translate as “sin” actually means “missing the mark” or “character flaw” or mistake. In other words Jesus was tolerant of sinners because he seems to have recognized that many “fell into error” rather than being evil. The one group he has no sympathy for and makes no bones about what will happen to is those who harm children.

I’m one with Jesus on that one. Harming an adult is one thing, but harming a child can screw up the next 90 years of their life.

Anyway, that’s my rant – apologies to The Mogambo Guru for ripping off his style.

[Stephen Heyer]

"indigent" should of course be "indignant".

[reason]

Of course the argument about only criminals having guns, is missing something - there is a substantial change - the criminals now have ILLEGAL weapons. The police can act proactively. You would be surprised here in Europe how often people are charged with having an illegal weapon, before they have done something nasty.