I'm much more concerned about who has a gun than what gun they have [View all]

[Recursion]

Over the past few decades we've seen by my count 4 major types of legislative initiatives about gun rights and restrictions:

1. Regulations of features and types of guns, eg the Hughes amendment and the assault weapons ban.

2. Restrictions on who can purchase guns, from whom, eg the Brady Law and the ongoing attempts to close the "gun show loophole" (a name I hate, but we're stuck with it)

3. Expansions of who can carry guns in public, eg the transition of multiple states to "shall-issue" (anyone not legally disqualified can receive a concealed carry permit)

4. Expansions of where they can carry those guns, eg concealed/open carry in parks, churches, nonsecure airport space, etc.

1 and 2 have been (to the first approximation) pushed by Democrats and resisted by Republicans, and done at a Federal level (though the recent state gun laws in NY, MD, etc. probably represent a tectonic shift towards state action by Democrats).

3 and 4 have been (again, approximately) pushed by Republicans and resisted by Democrats, and done largely in the state houses (though Republicans are now trying to consolidate some of their statewide gains Federally (concealed-carry reciprocity, carry in national parks, etc.)).

Lesson one that comes to mind is that dealing with issues state by state can be much more effective, particularly if it stays under the national radar.

In general, I like 2 and 3, and dislike 1 and 4, so I don't really have a partisan "home" on the gun issue (and I'm not remotely a single issue voter on this). I like 2 in particular because that's what really worries me: some people can be trusted with guns, and some can't. If someone can't be trusted with a gun, I don't give a damn whether it's an AR-15 or a revolver. And if he can be trusted with a gun, the type of gun he has isn't something I worry about. There's not some mystical power in an AR-15 that turns people into criminals. Magazine limits are interesting, and I don't think they're unconstitutional or an undue burden on gun owners, but the vast majority of people who use guns in murders never need more than the first or second bullet.

It is to the detriment of everyone that the only thing that gets us talking about gun control nationally is random mass shootings. They are horrible, they are frightening, and they soak up media attention, but just to be blunt they aren't the problem. The problem is not that dozens of people are killed every year in mass shootings, but that nearly 10,000 people are killed every year in "normal" shootings and nearly 20,000 people use guns to take their own lives.

It's detrimental because it makes us ask the wrong questions, such as "how can we keep the mentally ill from getting guns?". Mentally ill people are orders of magnitude more likely to be victims of gun crime than perpetrators. And while only a bare majority of mass shooters use handguns, essentially all "normal" shootings are done with handguns, as well as nearly all gun suicides.

It's detrimental because mass shootings are much more likely to be done with first-purchase weapons than other shootings, so we concentrate on first-sale restrictions rather than investigating trafficking (though that said I completely support 100% background checks on all transfers, preferably done through a federal firearms licensing scheme).

It's detrimental because (donning asbestos suit now) it makes people ignore the laws that the GOP and NRA are blocking the government from enforcing and attempt to pass new laws that somehow won't be equally hamstrung.

In my opinion, fully funding and staffing the ATF (including a permanent director) and instructing them to engage in some high profile stings of shady illegal dealers and buyers would do much, much more to reduce gun crime than passing new laws (which I don't trust would be enforced any better than the current ones are).