Taking Bearings

I’ve been intending to revisit my policies since the tragic murderous mass shooting in Uvalde last year. Alas, there are no easy answers to prevent such evil. Moreover, the Second Amendment’s interpretation by the courts must trump my personal preferences. Regardless, we collectively need to get after the serious business of crafting effective gun laws that reduce gun-related violence while still protecting the inalienable right of an individual to self-defense.

Across a range of issues, history and complex arguments are now constantly sifted by Left and Right partisans to fit ideological boxes. When it comes to gun policies, our hyperpolarization greatly diminishes chances for consensus on rational, evidence-based, and effective measures.

America’s gun culture, Constitution, and the broader philosophical underpinnings of the inalienable right to self-defense are inexorably intertwined.

For both better and worse, we do have a gun culture in America. It is in our founding and frontier marrow. It has brought us glory and freedom; it has brought us sorrow and shame.

Those on the Right who deny that we have a gun culture deny both our history and current reality. Such denial is as silly as those on the Left who simplistically look to places with very different histories, cultures, and attitudes about gun use for laws and policies to import. In such cases, wishing we had the gun culture or laws of other countries becomes nothing more than impotent virtue signaling.

I am sickened by those who use guns to kill people who do not deserve to be killed. My heart also breaks when anyone–especially the tender and innocent–is cruelly killed by twisted monsters using guns.

But neither misplaced fear and loathing of guns nor “thoughts and prayers” over the misuse of guns help us toward crafting reasonable, enforceable, and evidence-based laws that reduce gun-related deaths without stripping away the inalienable–and in the United States, that term is critical to this debate–right of an honest citizen to mount a reasonable yet effective defense of person, family, and property.

In many ways, the United States remains exceptional, a relatively recent outlier in social and governmental experiments. The foundation of our republic is a natural philosophy that establishes an inalienable right to self-defense that implicitly establishes our individual right to defend ourselves, our family, our property, and our other rights.

I am, of course, referring to natural philosophical concepts, including the right to own property–which inherently means the right to protect property.

It is also important to note that our inalienable rights were clearly intended to be individual rights, not rights of the state.

 

Simple declarations that there are too many guns in America are not helpful.

In a society awash in guns, no one is buying guns and giving them away indiscriminately. Moreover, people and groups wanting to ensure that guns are reasonably available for purchase by those who determine they have a legitimate need for a gun as part of their inalienable right to self-defense are not “pushing guns.” Gun purchases are mostly made one at a time, based on individual decisions. Higher rates of gun ownership are not associated with higher rates of murder. According to 2019 data, California had a rate of 4.9 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, while Texas had just .1 higher at 5.0 per 100,000. Because of its larger population, California records about 550 to 600 more murders than Texas annually, yet nearly twice as many people in Texas own guns as in California.

The wholesale, or even significant, removal of guns from the United States is a fantasy that flies in the face of the philosophic concepts upon which the country was founded. Even if it were possible, given the realities of geopolitics–smuggling, porous borders, etc.–any overly broad bans on guns won’t do more than save us from a small percentage of homicides based on impulsive actions. While that would be positive, it would also shift the balance of lethal power wildly toward the criminal elements of society and thus diminish the right of honest people to a reasonable and effective means of self-defense.

We also need to be observant of evidence. Contrary to the claim that more guns means more violence and deaths, until recently, violent crime was in a decades-long decline while–during the same period–gun ownership soared.

 

Gun phobia and “ban guns” hysteria are not helpful.

Some people have developed an almost visceral dislike of guns or anything they perceive as related to “gun culture.” I’ll grant that some of this reaction, especially in the aftermath of despicable acts committed with guns, is genuine. I would also argue, however, that there are those who see guns as a form of protection, who think some portion of the anti-gun lobby simply seeks to disarm law-abiding gun owners. The more conspiracy minded extend this to include attempts by totalitarian and authoritarian governments and political parties to disarm their political opponents. While this is an extreme argument, it is not without global historical precedent.

It is always important to remember that legally owned firearms are used for lawful purposes much more often than they are used to commit crimes or suicide.

Regardless, gun phobia and “ban guns” hysteria are not helpful. Guns are useful tools when properly used, and there are people who have a need for guns and who, at a minimum, are well trained and are responsible with their guns. Rules that help keep guns–which are inanimate objects–out of the hands of people who should not have them, or should not have them in certain places, are laudable but too often not followed.

 

Simplistic memes, slogans, and policies crafted without evidence or by partisan ideology simply help us evade the tough task of formulating effective gun laws.

I recently saw a partisan meme saying, “Well-regulated militias don’t kill schoolchildren.” Below the meme was a comment about how the Second Amendment had been radically reinterpreted as an individual right because soldiers returning from World War II wanted to keep their weapons. That’s manifestly false, but even if it were true, those WWII veterans had good reason. Across history, “well-regulated” militias have killed–and in many places in the world still do kill–schoolchildren. Those returning soldiers wanted to keep weapons because they saw what horrors both criminals and well-regulated regular armies, militias, and governments could manifest.

 

Mass shootings with semiautomatic weapons are horrific but should not alone drive gun policies.

While mass-shooting events like Sandy Hook and Uvalde are heart wrenching and horrific, they actually constitute a very small percentage of gun violence. The principal public safety concerns with respect to guns are suicides and illegally owned handguns, not mass shootings. Mass shootings, as unfathomable as they are, account for less than 4 percent of gun-related deaths.

 

Attempts  to ban “assault weapons” are  impractical and unnecessarily divisive 

The evidence is abundant that automatic and semiautomatic weapons can kill many people in a short period of time. Even the most skilled soldier can’t use a knife to kill or injure people as quickly as a deranged killer or terrorist can with a semiautomatic weapon.

Accordingly, there are good reasons to treat the dangers posed by high-capacity automatic and semiautomatic weapons as fundamentally different from those posed by rifles, shotguns, and non-semiautomatic pistols. I do that in the policies proposed below.

We live in a world, however, where risks and risk assessments can quickly change. The single-shot and slow-to-reload muskets in use when our rights were codified could not reasonably be considered an effective means of self-defense against today’s weapons and threats.

People who use what I term the musket argument often get this backwards and actually make a case that people can mount to establish a need for individuals to own semiautomatic weapons. Even if the codification of “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” is seen as relating only to the right of the state to a well-regulated militia, a musket will no longer suffice. Moreover, our inalienable rights were clearly intended to be individual rights, not rights of the state.

Focusing on banning semi-automatic weapons is unhelpful; bans are impracticable for the reasons outlined, not likely to be as effective as desired, and so highly politically divisive that they impede reasoned compromise on gun policies.

There is precedent, of course, for limiting or restricting even inalienable rights in some circumstances. On that basis, there is hope that effective gun policies and laws can be crafted.

The realities of the lethality of semi-automatic weapons, along with an increase in homemade guns and guns that can be made of harder-to-detect materials, are incorporated into the policies I propose later on in this essay.

 

The evolution of my personal philosophy and practices

My personal views about weapons are grounded both in experience and expertise, but I’ll also admit that I am, philosophically, a cowboy at heart. I’m also a strong “you will need to pry it from my cold dead hands” and “come and take it” supporter of the Second Amendment. Despite those beliefs, however, based on evidence, I have long advocated for reasoned gun controls far more stringent than exist today. I am also always willing to adapt my thinking in response to new evidence.

I strongly argue that we should value our Second Amendment responsibilities as much as our 2A rights. I believe that with ownership of a weapon comes the responsibility to learn to use it legally, safely, and effectively, if needed. This includes, but is certainly not limited to, proficiency in shooting.

I was introduced to the responsibilities of owning a weapon as a child and, as a young man, I received extensive expert training with weapons, including courses in combat, close-contact, and urban shooting. As a naval officer, I earned expert marksmanship medals with both pistol and rifle. Without practice, however, those skills rapidly deteriorate. Accordingly, I make a dedicated effort to keep up with gun laws, use case studies, new training methods, and my own proficiency.

I have used a variety of weapons both personally (on the ranch, hunting, fishing, shooting, etc.) and professionally. There are photos of me taken earlier than my memories extend in which I am walking with a BB rifle, hunting birds. My first kill was a bird perched on a wire. I remember a mixture of pride, regret, and fascination with the still and lifeless bird. When I was eight years old, my grandfather gave me a single-shot .22 rifle and two bullets that were intended to last the summer. With the first bullet, I killed a skunk that was a bit too close to the house. The odor was strong, and my grandmother was not pleased. I used the second bullet to shoot the lock off the shed where my grandfather stored ammunition. Thankfully, my grandfather laughed at my ingenuity, but I was still not allowed more bullets until the next summer. By the time I was 14, I vowed never to kill any animal I wasn’t going to eat.

What turned me off hunting was the attitude and lack of skills many wannabe hunters displayed. I had my fill of doctors, lawyers, and such invited to the ranch who had yahoo attitudes and poor shoot skills. They had no respect for hunting, the land, nor the animals they killed.

As years passed, my evolving attitudes drew more of my time and interests toward fly fishing. When fishing, I carry a .357 in a shoulder holster, in case a bear with a bad disposition appears. In 50 years of fly fishing, I’ve had to draw it only twice, and never had to fire because other measures sent threatening bears off in other directions. I hunted elk with a bow in the mountains of Colorado, but I never took one. I had enough of the mountain hunting experience helping friends pack out meat from their kills up steep cliffs in freezing snowstorms.

While poor sportsmen were rarely invited back to the ranch, I had enough of appalling and meaningless death helping out with dove hunts hosting lawyers and business types out from the city who shot birds for fun while drinking beer. They had no intention of eating their kills. The better of them at least gave their birds to the Mexicans working on the ranch. During deer season, it became my job to track down and put wounded animals out of the misery some inept hunter had inflicted upon them. Years of those experiences quickly removed my taste for hunting, except to teach my son the essential skills.

Most of my own time hunting was spent just walking the pastures or riding a horse back into the draws. I would tie up by the windmill, pull an orange from my jacket, and read a book until it was time to head back to camp for dinner or a series of shots from some distant part of the ranch required investigation. Multiple shots often meant that another hunter needed help packing out the meat–or that the hunter had missed and a wounded animal would need to be hunted down. The last time I shot a deer that wasn’t already wounded by another hunter was in 1994, when I harvested a buck to show my son how to field dress a deer. After that, I retired my .300 Browning rifle to the saddle or firing range in favor of carrying my Browning side-by-side 12-gauge to hunt quail.

For more than 20 years, I earned top scores on combat-shooting courses that required shooting under unusual and difficult circumstances. I now favor a Walther 9mm semi-automatic 17-shot clip for personal protection. Although I am certainly well past my prime, I keep up with my defensive skills and I am confident that, if needed, I can still kill with or without a weapon, shooting with either hand.

I still have a multi-state license to carry a concealed weapon, but normally I do not carry a pistol in the United States except when out on the ranch or hunting, fishing, riding my motorcycle, or traveling to certain cities. I do, however, always have ready access to a secured weapon, and so I am careful not to inadvertently travel with it through the gate at NAS Pensacola or other places where weapons are prohibited.

 

My personal prejudices and biases related to gun policies

My dad was a cop. I support policemen, and I hope I would be the first to stop and help an officer in danger or distress. I have also taken action against bad cops. But to the essential main point, it is my responsibility and nature to respect laws and law enforcement but also provide for my own self-defense.

Accordingly, if someone is threatening by word or action to: (1) hurt a cop, a woman, a senior, a child, or anyone defenseless; (2) point a gun at me; or 3) be part of a threatening mob illegally detaining me, I’m going to exercise my right to defend myself and others with up to deadly force (with or without a weapon) as needed.

That position is hardwired in my brain because, in such situations, there is only time to react. Calling law enforcement is part of the protocol when time and the situation allows, but my responsibility to act to defend myself and others before law enforcement arrives is paramount. This may include securing a situation and waiting for law enforcement to arrive, or it may require use of a weapon before they arrive.

Rioting, theft, arson, or other deliberate destruction of property that involves reasonably threatening trespass of my home, land, or vehicle (car, boat, plane) is also subject to the application of deadly force (with or without a weapon) as needed.

With that personal preamble, I argue that we need better and more rational gun laws because good gun laws can help create a more civil society as well as protecting those charged with keeping the peace.

 

Potentially effective evidenced-based gun policies that respect both Constitutional rights to own and carry arms as well as protect an individual’s right to self-defense:

This will surprise many of my Texas friends: I am personally opposed to unlicensed carry (also called Constitutional carry) because so few people are skilled enough with a weapon or able to exercise good judgment with regard to weapons, but I respect the Constitution and the Court’s rulings in this regard.

The balanced policies I do advocate are not more burdensome than the requirements for pilots and many other professions.

In addition to drastically improving mental health screening and care, I argue we should:

(1) Continue bans on automatic weapons: Maintain a federal ban on automatic weapons. Make it a federal offense to modify semiautomatic weapons or be in possession of devices that can modify semiautomatic weapons to mimic automatic weapons in terms of mechanism or rate of fire.

(2) Observe higher minimum age requirements to buy some weapons:

(2.1) Age 18 for traditional hunting rifles and shotguns;

(2.2) Age 21 for pistols and semiautomatic weapons, with exceptions for those age 18-21 serving in the U.S. military, National Guard, or in law enforcement, who would be issued a federal voluntary weapons license (FVWL) as described below. Other exceptions might be considered, but would involve an applicant taking a sanctioned training course and passing a psychological evaluation as per FVWL requirements discussed below.

(3) Require two forms of identification for sale of weapons and ammunition: Purchases of weapons or ammunition require two forms of government-issued photo identification (driver’s license, passport, etc.).

(4) Establish voluntary weapons license programs that accord responsible gun owners wide use of weapons: Establish a FVWL required to carry a weapon across state lines. States may individually decide to create a SVWL with similar (but not more stringent) requirements. In all circumstances, a FVWL can serve as a state SVWL.

(4.1) Obtaining a FVWL or SVWL would require:

(4.1a) a criminal background check for felonies, prior weapons violations, domestic violence, pending charges, etc.;

(4.1b) the successful completion of a mandated psychological screening;

(4.1c) completion of mandatory range safety training at law-enforcement sanctioned gun ranges that includes live fire range exercises that include at least introductory safety lessons related to semiautomatic weapons.

(4.2 ) The license must be renewed every three years.

(4.3) A FVWL would automatically be issued to those serving in the U.S. military, National Guard, or in law enforcement. Veterans of those institutions who honorably served would need to renew their FVWL every six years.

(4.4) We should also establish hardship exceptions to FVWL or SVWL requirements. Those who cannot afford the costs of FVWL licensing can apply for grants to cover such training from a fund supported by licensing fees, concerned organizations, and special federal fees on weapons manufacturers dedicated to such a fund.

(4.5) FVWLs and SVWLs can be suspended for cause (set forth by federal and state legislatures) by order of a local law enforcement agency or court for a period of 30 days pending a court or higher court review and subsequent order to reinstate or revoke. Upon suspension, a show cause filing must be made within 3 days to an appropriate court or administrative review body. Subsequent denials or revocations are appealable and, if the applicant ultimately prevails, the agency filing the original show cause petition shall bear all costs of litigation related to the suspension plus liability for actual damages related to said defective suspension of FVWL or SVWL.

 

Weapons and Ammunition Sales (Public or Private)

(6) Establish enhanced waiting periods for some weapons.

(6.1) Without a FVWL or SVWL, there would be a mandatory 5 business-day waiting period for all weapons and ammunition purchases. The only exception would be sales of ammunition at (and limited to use at) law-enforcement sanctioned gun ranges.

(6.2) Without a FVWL or SVWL the sale of any semiautomatic weapon would require a 30-day waiting period.

(6.3) Akin to suspicious activity reports related to financial transactions by banks, any attempt to purchase a semiautomatic weapon without a valid FVWL or SVWL would be reportable to local and state law enforcement agencies.

 

(7.0) Restrictions on sales Private sellers and gun shows would be prohibited from selling weapons to those without a valid FVWL or SVWL. It would be a felony to knowing privately sell or transfer a semiautomatic weapon to someone not holding a valid FVWL or SVWL. Gifts or transfers of non-semiautomatic weapons intended primarily for hunting, fishing, and sport shooting among immediate family members (grandparents, parents, children, etc.) shall not be prohibited, but transfers of semiautomatic weapon must be made using a licensed gun dealer as an intermediate (and subject to the limitations stated above).

 

(8.0 Limit Weapons Carrying in Certain Venues When Law Enforcement Is Present

(8.1) Except by law enforcement officers or agents, it shall be a felony to knowingly carry or possess a weapon in licensed child-care facilities, schools, universities, hospitals and clinics; government buildings housing courts, law enforcement, or regulating agencies; and/or places of voting.

(8.2) People have a right to ban others from carrying weapons into their homes, on their property, etc. Congregations have a right to ban weapons from religious observances held on their property. Business owners have the right to ban weapons from areas of their business. provided they post “no weapons allowed” restrictions where a person may reasonably be expected to observe such a restriction prior to entering. It shall be a misdemeanor to unknowingly violate such a restriction by holders of a FVWL or SVWL, but a felony if the failure is proved to be deliberate, continuing, or conducted with a specified class of weapon (e.g., semiautomatic pistol with extra clips, semiautomatic rifle, etc.)

(8.3) Stadiums, sporting events, licensed public concerts in parks, etc. that provide armed security may prohibit all weapons provided they post “no weapons allowed” restrictions where a person may reasonably be expected to observe such a restriction prior to entering. It shall be a misdemeanor to unknowingly violate such a restriction by holders of a FVWL or SVWL, but a felony if the failure is proved to be deliberate, continuing, or conducted with a specified class of weapon (e.g., semiautomatic pistol with extra clips, semiautomatic rifle, etc.)

 

(9.0) Other restrictions specifically regarding semi-automatic weapons:

(9.1) With regard to semiautomatic weapons, carrying or use of multiple or high-capacity clips (clips allowing 10 or more shots) beyond one’s home, regular place of residence, property (e.g., land), requires a possession of a current and valid FVWL or SVWL.

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Additional facts and factors important to formulating additional or alternative evidence-based gun policies.

As a scientist – or at least someone trained as a scientist – I am heavily bent toward “all evidence accounted for” arguments. For any reasoned gun policy to work it must in some way address the following facts (as of January 2023) often omitted distorted or otherwise not thoughtfully addressed in our civil discourse about guns:

 

(1) We need more effective laws, not just laws so that we can say we’ve done something to curb gun-related violence and death. In 2019-2020 the lowest murder rate in the country is New Hampshire and they have what many legal experts consider to be among the least restrictive laws. States like Idaho, North Dakota , South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Colorado, Nebraska, and West Virginia all have lower per capita murder rates than Massachusetts and its highly restrictive gun laws. Washington D.C. has among the most restrictive laws yet consistently ranks high among the cities in terms of murder rates. In contrast, places known for an openness to “gun culture” and least restrictive laws like Texas, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania are all solid mid table in per capita rankings of murder rates by state.

There is no clear relationship between strict gun control legislation and homicide or violent crime rates. A small number of factors significantly increase the likelihood that a person will be a victim of a gun-related homicide. As above, legally owned firearms are used for lawful purposes much more often than they are used to commit crimes or suicide.

 

(2) We need to have an open an honest non-racist discussion about race and gun violence. The per-capita offender/perpetrator rate related to gun crime is also roughly eight times higher for African-American offenders than for white offenders, and their victim rate was similar. About half of homicides are known to be single-offender/single-victim, and most of those were intraracial; in those where the perpetrator’s and victim’s races were known, 81% of white victims were killed by whites and 91% of black or African-American victims were killed by blacks or African-Americans.

Specifically, we need to discuss why race correlates so strongly with both perpetrators and victims. Race is certainly not a causative factor, but that simply means we need to dig deeper into cultural and social issues like poverty, lack of education, opportunities. It is frequently said that African Americans and other people of color are disproportionally victims of gun-related crimes. Indeed, FBI data shows that African Americans are more than eight times more likely to be victims of gun related crime. However, what is often left unsaid is the fact that the vast majority of perpetrators of crimes against blacks are other blacks.

Many people pull back from quoting or discussing these statistics for fear of being thought racist, but the numbers speak to an issue that can’t be ignored by anyone genuinely concerned about reducing gun violence toward ALL people. No one is well served by silence, especially if we can openly discuss and prove that race itself is not a causative factor but rather the byproduct of problems like poverty, lack of education, and equal opportunity that we can more directly and effectively address. We decry mass shootings in school, and extend to them intense media coverage , but many more young people of color are killed by gun violence in our cities without much more that a quick reference in local news.

 

(3) Gun violence statistics are not easily reducible to red state / blue state analysis. While gun control advocates attempt to portray legal gun owners and users in Republican majority or Republican-led red states as the problem with relation to gun policies and create false and/or deceptive memes about red states having higher rates of gun violence due to their embrace of gun culture and resistance to gun control measures. A more complete analysis of the data shows that gun-related murders and crimes are carried out either primarily — or in highly disproportionate numbers — by demographic cohorts in those red states by cohorts typically associated with strong support of the Democratic party in urban areas under the control of local Democratic leadership. The problem of black-on-black violence in particular does not recognize political boundaries.

I am of course referring also to the cultural attitudes expressed by President Obama’s comment at a San Francisco campaign fund-raiser in 2008 about small-town Pennsylvania voters who, bitter over their economic circumstances, President Obama said “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustrations. Although then presidential candidate Obama quickly pulled back and regretted those remarks they left a scar on rural red state psyches that polls show still lingers in 2023. Similar cultural and political scars are created by broad calls to ban guns and/or take away guns, The NRA and some gun-rights advocates then lash back in response with call as to reject even reasoned discussion of evidence-based proposals for fear of a slippery -slope approach to gun control that will ultimately hinder responsible citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights.

 

Summary

Until we can engage in respectful dialogue, with gun right advocates and gun-control advocates each focused-on evidence rather than stereotyping and political posturing, we have little chance of crafting effective gun policies.

 

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Resources:

Rand. Mass Shootings in the United States  https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/mass-shootings.html

Pew Research. What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.  https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/