The Patchwork Quilt
Many of the people who usually argue against gun control have been relatively quiet recently, in the wake of the Newtown massacre. They probably understand that this is not the time to make their argument. Certainly, at this time, making the argument that they have the “right” to bear semi-automatic assault rifles with high-capacity magazines so they can enjoy target shooting would not be welcomed. In fact, they are not even making their usual argument that “this is not the right time to talk about gun control,” which is saying something. Right now, anyone who says that would likely be shouted down, for understandably good reasons.
When they do start making their argument, we should not give them credence for no other reason that they’re being made and we have to respect alternative opinions. If those opinions are built upon nonsense or lies, we should call that out and not allow the argument to gain credence or sway people.
Gun control opponents have kept their criticism mostly reserved in the wake of the Connecticut shooting, but they are sure to pipe up should legislation hit the floor next year.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, on “Fox News Sunday,” noted that stricter gun control does not necessarily mean crime rates will go down.
“Washington, D.C., around us ought to be the safest place in America, and it’s not. Chicago ought to be safe. It’s not, because their gun laws don’t work,” Gohmert said.
He said lawmakers should “look at the facts.”
Gohmert’s argument is flawed; it is one that has been made as long as I have been participating in online debates in the early 90’s. It is that places with strict gun control laws still have problems with gun crime; therefore, gun control does not work.
It’s a persuasive argument only if you don’t look at it too hard. After all, if gun control works, then why is there still gun crime in places like Chicago, New York, or D.C.?
The answer is actually not too hard to understand: it is called the “patchwork quilt” effect, one that gun advocates have long cultured and taken advantage of.
Take New York, for example; the state has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country, and yet gun crimes still happen there. One key point of information is that between 70 and 85% of all guns used to commit crimes in New York come from out of state. Imported guns will invariably be more expensive and harder to get; that criminals resort to them is evidence that New York’s gun laws are working fine; the problem is that one can buy guns easily and virtually without any checks from gun shows in states like Virginia.
The patchwork quilt means that gun control in any one location, even a whole state, is relatively meaningless if someone can simply cross a city or state border and buy as many guns as they like with little or no regulation or accountability.
Gohmert’s example of D.C. is particularly on the spot, as a criminal there need only drive half an hour out of town to a regular gun show at the Dulles Expo Center outside the airport.
This is why gun laws have passed at the national level only a few times in the past half century (usually when assassination attempts are made on presidents); the NRA and other advocates fight any national laws tooth-and-nail. They fight hard at the state level, and only a certain amount at the local level.
What we get, then, are the fabled “20,000 gun control laws” in the country, in response to which gun advocates then smarmily assert, “even 20,000 gun control laws do no good!” Even clueless gun control advocates buy into it; I remember Rosie O’Donnell embarrassingly say that we need “40,000 gun control laws.”
We have to get rid of those 20,000 laws. And replace them with one law. Nationwide, thorough, complete.
The patchwork quilt helps nobody but criminals. And the NRA. Two groups that have always been awkward bedfellows, but in bed with each other they have been.
What we need to do is make gun laws like those in New York or Washington, D.C. apply everywhere in the country. That’s one way to patch up the holes.
That’s not the only set of holes in the patchwork quilt, however. Take Adam Lanza, for example. He tried to buy a gun at a local shop, but was turned away by a 14-day waiting period, as well as a background check that may have also prevented him from purchasing the weapon. In that respect, gun control laws worked.
Obviously, Lanza circumvented them. How? Because his mother apparently either kept her guns out in the open or gave Adam the ability to access them. If this is true, one may ask what would have happened if Ms. Lanza had been more responsible and kept her guns securely locked in a gun safe? This lack of proper storage is a serious cause of children’s’ deaths; around 3000 children and teens each year die from accidental or self-harm gun incidents. Three thousand. Each year. That’s a 9/11 each year, with every single victim being a minor. And yet we have accepted this without question. Of that number, 80-90 are under the age of 5—the equivalent of 4 or more Newtown massacres every year.
One clear solution is to require someone who purchases a gun to first prove that they possess a gun safe, and make punishment for gun owners who fail to use one as powerful as we can.
Next, assault rifles. Ban them. Ban them all. Ban any ammunition cartridge with a capacity higher than 10 rounds. Across the board. No exceptions. There is no legitimate reason for these weapons and for large-capacity cartridges to be used.
Please do not tell me about heavily-armed drug lords breaking into your living room. Do not tell me about armed resistance to a new Hitler who has taken over the nation. These ludicrously absurd arguments no longer have a place in our discourse. If you hunt, you can damn well pause to reload.
Naturally, much else needs to be done. Mental health issues of course: to better understand mental illness and disabilities; to discard certain stigmas that keep family members from admitting certain realities, keeping them from accessing treatment; and to make mental health treatment available, perhaps beginning a nationally subsidized social health care system dedicated to this problem, so that neither cost nor availability ever be a reason people do not avail themselves of help.
After that, there is still much to address: parenting issues, for example, and issues regarding even basic civility and compassion may be relevant. Less tolerance for the culture of violence. And more.
Let us not allow ourselves, however, to be distracted from one area where we absolutely need to begin cleaning up. It will take time. There may not even be noticeable results for some time; do not allow this to sway your resolve.
Remember, this is not just Newtown, nor Aurora, nor Columbine. It’s not just mentally unstable young people who go on shooting sprees. It is the thousands of children who die each year, and the thousand more adults who perish as well. So even as we are motivated to do the right thing by one specific event, do not allow the arguments focusing on any one specific incident to blind us from the necessity of dealing with all the problems facing us.
So all those recent panic-buyers of guns, ammon, and high-capacity magazines were right!
I used to think that county-level gun control would be a good compromise, which was an extension of Howard Dean’s argument that state-level gun control was good enough.
But the Tides Center would-be attacker disproved that. He lived with his mother in a rural N California county, where anyone should have access to anything if we have a uninfringible right to keep & bear arms.
But his collection of urban assault weaponry was limited by California’s gun control laws, and so when he was stopped by the CHP in Oakland that night he wasn’t able to overpower the cops.
Yes, the horses are out the barn WRT all these “scary guns” circulating among the gun community.
But if we apply stricter gun control, year by year there will be fewer assault weapons and fewer high-capacity mags.
This is not a 5 year program, it has to be a 50 year horizon.
http://blogd.com/wp/index.php/archives/4832
Jon was right!
Personally, my reading of the second amendment does give the state the right to regulate ownership of arms. The word ‘regulated’ is in the very amendment.
The amendment implies that in purchasing a gun, you are enlisting as a reservist in your state’s militia. You have the right to own and bare a gun, that means, I guess, the right to buy a gun, but the minute you buy a gun, you are subject to be ‘well regulated’ as the amendment says.
I’ve never bought more than a bb gun. But ownership of a gun should be tied to a title. A copy of the title is forwarded to the state and you are automatically enlisted you as a reservist in the militia for your state… subject to being called up at any time. You then are subject to a 30 day background check to make sure you are not a security threat to your own state’s militia before receiving your gun. In the purchasing of the title, you must be vouched for as safe by two persons. You must attend militia training at least once a year.
You want the freedom and empowerment that comes with the second amendment, you should also be subject to its restraints and regulations.
What do other countries do? Here’s two Anglo-Saxon countries from Nicholas Kristoff’s column on Sunday in the NYtimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-do-we-have-the-courage-to-stop-this.html?hp
Australia:
“… In Australia in 1996, a mass killing of 35 people galvanized the nation’s conservative prime minister to ban certain rapid-fire long guns. The “national firearms agreement,” as it was known, led to the buyback of 650,000 guns and to tighter rules for licensing and safe storage of those remaining in public hands.
” The law did not end gun ownership in Australia. It reduced the number of firearms in private hands by one-fifth, and they were the kinds most likely to be used in mass shootings.
” In the 18 years before the law, Australia suffered 13 mass shootings — but not one in the 14 years after the law took full effect. The murder rate with firearms has dropped by more than 40 percent, according to data compiled by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, and the suicide rate with firearms has dropped by more than half.”
And Canada, from the same column:
“…It now requires a 28-day waiting period to buy a handgun, and it imposes a clever safeguard: gun buyers should have the support of two people vouching for them.”