How to Drastically Reduce Gun Violence
by Benjamin Studebaker
Yesterday, 28 people were killed in a Newtown, Connecticut school, including 20 children, as most of you will have probably already heard. There has been an outpouring of emotional support and sympathy for the victims, their families, and the town more broadly, but this is wholly insufficient. Our sympathies are of no use to the next group of homicide victims. And let’s not kid ourselves–somewhere tonight, there are other children out there blissfully unaware that their lives will be similarly cut short by some vicious murderer whom they have yet to meet. Our inaction condemns these people to die, and we must not abide that. So rather than post Facebook statuses about how bad you feel after the children have already been killed and their lives and the lives of their parents already ruined, let’s get serious and have a serious discussion about how we can start drastically reducing the number of people killed by murderers with guns.
There are two broad groups of measures I’d like to investigate:
- Reducing the number of people with guns
- Reducing the number of people who want to kill other people
Both are important–while it’s often said that “guns don’t kill people; people do”, it is important to note that when people do kill other people, they usually do it with guns, and those guns enable them to kill much larger numbers of people than they otherwise would. If the Connecticut shooter had been armed with a knife, I very much doubt the death toll would have been nearly so very high.
First off, gun reduction. We are usually told in America that getting rid of guns is a futile business, that reducing the number of guns would have no impact on the number of criminals with guns, or the number of people killed with them. This is a theoretical argument, one which often people feel they do not have sufficient empirical evidence to either confirm or deny, so the argument tends to just go back and forth, with nothing being done. We cannot have that–it is imperative that we do something, so I shall try to resolve the empirical argument. Too often the guns issue is looked at exclusively with a view to American laws on guns and their effectiveness. None of these laws have been comprehensive in the way that European gun laws have been. In cities and states that explore gun bans, guns can still be imported from neighbouring towns or states. In Europe, the gun laws are national, with outside imports very much reduced as a result. Let’s explore the relationship between number of gun deaths and number of guns on an international level, then see which theory has the right of it:
The data I used is easy to find online here, here, here, and here. I’m no statistician, but the two factors seem pretty obviously related to me. On the strength of this empirical evidence, we can throw out all the arguments that claim that decreasing the number of guns does not have a positive impact on reducing gun violence. It’s very clear that, if we could reduce the number of guns in the United States down merely to Canadian, let alone say, British, Dutch, or Japanese levels, we would see a significant decline in the number of people being killed with guns. Let’s really drive home the point here:
Country | Number of Times Higher Death Rate in USA | Number of Times More Guns per 100,000 in USA |
Japan | 128.6 | 148.0 |
United Kingdom | 40.9 | 14.3 |
Netherlands | 19.6 | 22.8 |
Spain | 14.3 | 8.5 |
Australia | 8.7 | 5.9 |
Germany | 8.2 | 2.9 |
Italy | 7.0 | 7.5 |
France | 3.0 | 3.0 |
Canada | 1.9 | 2.9 |
Switzerland | 1.4 | 1.9 |
How did the poster children for safety–Japan, the UK, the Netherlands–get so many guns off the street? In the aftermath of World War I, Britain had a tremendously high number of guns. Here’s what they did:
- 1920 Firearms Act–Required certificates to purchase firearms, these lasted three years, and specified both the type of gun that could be purchased and the amount of ammunition. Allowed police constables discretion as to who could have the certificate. Made the right to bear arms, dated from 1689, conditional on permission from the police and the Home Secretary. Crime to own a firearm without a certificate, punishable by 50 pound fine (far larger than it is today) and 3 months in prison.
- 1933 Firearms and Criminal Use Act–Cannot possess a firearm unless the bearer can prove to the officer that it is being used for a lawful purpose. Crime to use a firearm to resist arrest, punishable by 14 years in prison.
- 1937 Firearms Act–Raised minimum gun age from 14 to 17, total ban on automatic firearms, “self-defence” no longer considered an acceptable justification to apply for a certificate, more policy liberty to fix conditions on certificates, extended certificates to more weapons left out of earlier laws.
- 1968 Firearms Act–Codified in a single document all firearm regulation.
- 1988 Firearms Amendment Act–Applicants must provide good reason for possessing a firearm (self-defence considered invalid), firearms must be locked up, ammunition must be locked up separately from the firearm, full ban on guns for criminals, firearms amnesties were declared in which guns were handed into the police.
- 1997 Firearms Amendment No.2 Act–Handguns banned with few exceptions.
What about in the even more restrictive Japanese case? In Japan, the only guns a person can buy legally are shot guns and air rifles and even to get those you have to do all this:
- Take an all-day class and pass a written test, offered once a month.
- Take and pass a shooting range class.
- Take and pass a mental fitness class.
- Take and pass a drug test.
- Pass a background check.
Then you have to inform the police of the specific location of the gun in your home, along with that of the ammunition, store the two in separate locked compartments, receive a police inspection once a year to ensure compliance, and retake the classes and tests every three years. Rather than starting from a right to bear arms, the Japanese start from a prohibition and go on to add exceptions:
No person shall possess a firearm or firearms or a sword or swords
These are all policies the United States should emulate, starting with the removal of the second amendment so that courts cannot strike down these measures. Policies should be implemented by the federal government at the national level to ensure that guns are not just imported from other states or municipalities. We should target a gun violence rate first equivalent to the Swiss, then to the Germans/French/Canadians, and then finally to the British/Dutch/Japanese.
Now, some of you will note, and note rightly, that there is still room for discrepancy at a given level of gun ownership. The Germans, French, and Canadians all have around the same number of guns, but their gun violence rates differ. We should also target the sociological factors that influence people to become murderers in the first place by attacking poverty, social alienation, mental illness, lack of education, and so on down the line. The Germans, who manage to maintain Australia-level gun fatalities at a Canadian-level gun possession rate, are a good example in these areas.
But doing the one does not mean ignoring the other. We must reduce both the tendency of people to murder and the lethality of the objects with which they murder so that, when they do murder, they are less effective. You’ve seen the chart, you know it works. The rate of gun deaths in the United States is unacceptable, the data points to a clear and obvious policy solution, every day we delay in implementing that solution directly leads to more people, more children, dying as those in the Connecticut massacre, the Colorado movie theatre, Virginia Tech, Columbine, and the anonymous thousands on the streets of America’s cities and towns every year died. Think of the waste, the terrible loss to the nation that are all these murdered people. And for what? The right to bear arms? What value does that have? What positive social advantage comes from people having guns that countervails the thousands upon thousands of people who are killed every year in this country with guns?
Ban them, confiscate them, and melt them down. Do it now.
[…] compiled from here, here, and in reference to some of the material from a previous post. What we see here is a very weak relationship actually in favour of the reverse of the […]
[…] for the American right on gun violence–on the one hand, it can submit to the argument that guns lead to gun violence; on the other hand, it can admit the need for more redistribution of wealth and social spending. […]
. We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be bmaeld for the acts of criminals and madmen, the organization said. Instead, we will now take our commitment and meaningful contributions to members of Congress of both parties who are interested in having an honest conversation about what works—and what does not. Honest conversation? I have yet to hear anyone blame law abiding gun owners for the acts of criminals or madmen . And to say otherwise shows that the NRA can’t have an honest conversation with themselves, or they are intentionally being dishonest in their rhetoric to distort any dialog with the American public. Typical alcoholic thinking..blame everybody but yourself.
The NRA cultivates and appeals to a right anarchist paranoia among gun owners, convincing them that any gun legislation is motivated not by a genuine concern for public safety but by a desire to squelch resistance to the state. What these gun owners do not realise is that the state has tanks and fighter jets and flamethrowers, and the guns currently in the possession of most Americans would be of little use against it.
I just took another look at that video..and all I can say is There but for the grace of God go I. You’ve got to be prtety effed up in the head to have spent 7.62 cartridges and m-13 links tatooed all over your arms.. Screaming for attention. I’m bad!
[…] a press conference with its reaction to the Newton Connecticut shooting. Given that I opted to give my opinion on the issue of gun violence reduction, I think it is necessary to discuss what the NRA is saying […]
[…] While such a policy cannot be a substitute for controlling the weapons that, statistically, lead directly to violence, it is nonetheless very much the case that improving our collective mental health would also be […]
[…] incident, I’m in support of it because statistically, countries with strong control laws are substantially safer than countries without them. To argue, as some did, that this specific mass shooting, or other […]
Jon Stewart kinda went to the point at the end of his bit 2 post back. When you or I say gun control, that’s what we are tnlikag about. We have rational discussions about registration, sale and transfer, magazine size and military design. My big thing is training and certification. Lots of different approaches and I know that neither Barbara or any of the regulars have advocated for confiscation.When gun nuts hear the words gun control’ they think gun confiscation’. It’s no accident the gun magazines have been predicting and warning and stoking the fires of paranoia for years! Any gun enthusiast has been getting a steady stream of predictions that they are going to take your guns so they can take away your rights and then they are going to execute you like Stalin and Mao. I’m sorry to say this because it goes against my basic belief in finding common ground negotiating compromise. These people can’t be reasoned with. When gun control is proposed, regardless of what is actually there, some of these kooks will go off violently. And when the government doesn’t confiscate their guns, they will declare it’s because they scared away the feds.
Indeed, it’s a self-reinforcing propaganda loop–good point.
[…] on differences between Britain and the United States, which, conveniently segues into my own previous discussion on gun violence and gun control, which did much in the way of referencing the British case (I have […]
[…] parents of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to pass gun control. Despite my documented support for control, to let this most illogical of arguments pass without criticism would, from where […]
Oh, the irony!There is nothing bteetr than having your plan for violent revolution going viral on youtube!Whay’s that, you say?If you aren’t doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about, what with all them cameras around! And such.These guys are going sprayed bug crazy because it is suggested that high capacity clips and military style weapons be regulated?I would like everyone to stop and think about how many MILLIONS of threatening E-mails elected officials are getting these days.If the crazy fuck in the featured video has the stupidity to go on record publically on film saying he is willing to start a shooting war, just think how many crazies are sending threatening e-mails from the comfort of their undisclosed single wides in the hinterlands of Redneckistan.Patriots my ass.I know too many just like him; they work harder at avoiding work than doing their assignments, then have the gall to spew crap like this.
Well put, sir, well put. I’ll certainly make note of that.
Hi, your table is kinda confusing. Is each column comparing the U.S. to other countries? Because I think it would make more sense to compare other countries to the U.S.; i.e. the U.S. is 1, or 1.00, or 100%, or whatever, and other countries are, say, 200% if twice as safe, or twice as dangerous, or whatever you’re trying to say. You know what I mean? I may not be doing that good a job explaining it.
Each column is comparing the United States to other countries. So, for instance, 128.6 times more people die of gun violence in the United States than in Japan, and there are 148 times more guns per 100,000 people in the United States than in Japan. You are correct that I could have done it the other way around, and that perhaps it would have been simpler. I shall note this in future.
[…] How to Drastically Reduce Gun Violence (Dec 15, 2012, 387 hits) […]
[…] that I don’t have a left-leaning position on some of these issues. There is, for instance, substantial statistical evidence that the more guns are in civilian hands, the more instances there will be of civilians shooting […]
[…] society. We know that a big part of this story is the proliferation of guns in this country–I ran the figures on that shortly after the Newton, CT […]
Just catching up on your posts – excellent as always! Sometimes I may not agree with each point, but that is the joy of reading what other people think and why. Thanks for writing, looking forward to reading more.
You’re very welcome. Thank you for reading!
[…] a result, British police officers do not have to worry anywhere near as much about being attacked and killed with […]
[…] a superior alternative–off the top of my head, I’ve done this with both health care and gun policy. I’ve chosen to study in the UK for undergrad (and will return for my PhD this fall) because […]
[…] does the UK’s mental illness rate matter? Because the UK has one of the lowest gun violence rates on the planet. Britain has less gun violence than many countries with significantly lower rates of […]
[…] https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2012/12/15/how-to-drastically-reduce-gun-violence/ […]