Asymmetrical Information

How many times must a bad idea be refuted? The advocates of gun control ought to read Steven Levitt's book "Freakonomics." There he explains that gun control is totally ineffective in reducing crime. There are, in gun control measures, two competing effects. On the one hand, when law abiding citizens carry guns as a matter of course, that serves deter criminals. On the other, bans on guns might reduce the number of "crimes of passion" and might also make guns slightly harder for criminals to obtain. These effects seem to roughly offset each other since, according to Levitt (one of the best econometricians in the world) there is no evidence that gun control laws reduce crime.

So what does reduce crime? More police officers and harsher sentences.

Levitt:

"Most of the supposed explanations... actually played little direct role in the crime rate decline, including the strong economy of the 1990's, changing demographics, better policing strategies, gun control laws, concealed weapons laws and increased use of the death penalty. Four factors, however, can accont for virtually all of the observed decline in crime: increases in the number of police, the risisng prison population, the waning crack epidemic and the leaglization of abortion."

-Steven Levitt
"Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990's..."

Actually it's not "harsher sentences" it's longer sentences. Older felons tend not to relapse. I doubt that if added water boarding prison would be more effective. There is almost no deterrence value with young men.

"in Britain, "home invasion" robberties, where the burglars beat up the homeowners to find out where the really good stuff is kept, are alarmingly common"

Do you have stats to back up this assertion? I lived in the UK from birth til the age of 28 (moved to Switzerland in 2002), and I have never ever heard of this happening to someone that I know, or is known to someone that I know, but I have had my flat burgled twice, and many of my friends' flats have been burgled.

It might have happened a few times, but I seriously doubt that it is "alarmingly common".

Speaking of contradictory positions, many people, usually Democrats, who can grasp the utter futility of trying to prevent people, from intoxicating themselves with the vegetable matter or chemical of choice, via the criminal code, somehow believe that the criminal code can prevent highly motivated people from possessing a small, easily concealable, metal object, in an environment where a few hundred million such objects are already in circulation. Furthermore, they give no thought to what kind of people may be among those who are highly motivated to have such objects.

Also, yes, every sexual offender's dream victim is the sort of woman who wouldn't think of taking physical action to defend herself, beyond turning on the light and reaching for the phone. One shouldn't forget, either, that burglurs do like to hit the same targets, until they find out that the target is too dangerous.

I have an aquantaince, whom I have not seen in years, in a city where I no longer live. He and his fiance made the mistake of buying a home too early, in regards to how fast the neighborhood was improving, and they were set upon by thieves on more than one occasion. His job often took him away overnight, and his fiance became pregnant, while the thieves became increasingly brazen about when they would attack (yes, having your home broken into is an attack), sometimes when people were home.

He and his fiance came home early from visiting relatives on a Thanksgiving weekend, because he had to work, to find what was still left worth stealing, mostly the larger stuff, stacked neatly by the window. Obviously, a thief had left to get a car, to make off with the booty which was too heavy to carry far.

This person, whose story was related to me later through a mutual acquaintance, then made what seems to me a logical, and just, decision. He asked his fiance to return to the relatives' home, got his father's shotgun, which he had inherited with a small amount of ammunition, out of the attic, turned out the lights, and layed down on the floor behind the couch, out of sight from the window. When the thief returned, a few hours later, he waited until the criminal had both feet inside the home, and then stood up and killed him.

I'm sure this account horrifies many as an unjustifiable use of deadly force. Luckily, for this person, he lived in a state where citizens are given broad leeway in defending their home, so after a grand jury convened, no charges were brought, although I have no idea of what account was given to the authorities. I certainly wouldn't have blamed him for placing a knife or a screwdriver near the criminal's body. My view is that a person must be able to use deadly force to defend himself or herself from predators who enter the person's home, and to say otherwise is to endorse a tyranny of the sociopathic, which has become the state of affairs in countries like Great Britain.

"Actually it's not "harsher sentences" it's longer sentences."

Brian, if you are going to be pedantic, you ought at least to make sure that you are right. A longer sentence is a harsher sentence. As for deterrence, I wonder whether you have read Freakonomics. Levitt certainly argues that there is a deterrent effect. Yet you claim:

"There is almost no deterrence value with young men."

Where is your evidence for this? I'm not sure mere opinion is worth much. Steven Levitt's opinion, though, is worth something, since it is backed by evidence:

"A strong, negative empirical correlation exists between arrest rates and reported crime rates. While this relationship has often been interpreted as support for the deterrence hypothesis, it is equally consistent with incapacitation effects, and/or a spurious correlation that would be induced by measurement error in reported crime rates. This paper attempts to discriminate between deterrence, incapacitation, and measurement error as explanations for the empirical relationship between arrest rates and crime. Using a modified version of the techniques of Griliches and Hausman (1986) for dealing with measurement error in panel data, this paper first demonstrates that the presence of measurement error does not appear to explain the observed relationship between arrest rates and crime rates. To differentiate between deterrence and incapacitation, the impact of changes in the arrest rate for one crime on the rate of other crimes is examined. In contrast to the effect of increased arrests for one crime on the commission of that crime, where deterrence and incapacitation are indistinguishable, it is demonstrated that these two forces act in opposite directions when looking across crimes. Incapacitation suggests that an increase in the arrest rate for one crime will reduce all crime rates; deterrence predicts that an increase in the arrest rate for one crime will lead to a rise in other crimes as criminals substitute away from the first crime. Empirically, deterrence appears to be the more important factor, particularly for property crimes."

http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5268.html

Anyway, this is a side-issue. I am not arguing for torture in prisons. I only wish to point out that gun control laws are ineffective and that policies that liberals tend not to like--policies that entail a higher rate of incarceration--offer the best hope for a lower crime rate.

Mr. Scarth I might recommend visiting samizdata.net, and reading their archived material under the category of "self defence", to get some statistics and anecdotes relating to violent home robberies in the U.K., and how the government treats citizens who have the temerity to defend their homes.

Robert Scarth:

10% of U.S. burglaries are "hot" burglaries where the homeowner is at home. In the UK 50% are "hot" according to the Telegraph newspaper.

Mr. Scarth

Personal experience can be an unreliable guide to larger trends in one's surroundings. I've never been robbed or burglarized either, despite being white and having lived for over 20 years in South-Central Los Angeles, one of the most infamously crime-ridden areas of the United States.

Here's a link to some stats, per your request. Go nuts.

A brief, relevant summary of my own digging in this source: Property crime seems to be declining in the U.K. in recent years, but reported violent crime is up sharply - roughly 50% since 2002. Looks like you may have timed that move to Switzerland pretty well.

Incidentally, the Swiss tend to have fully automatic military assault rifles in most homes because of their universal military conscription/reserve mobilization policies. Did you know this? Do you feel more at risk from your Swiss neighbors than from your former unarmed ones in the U.K. as a result? If so, why?

Mr. Eagleson - thanks for the link to the stats.

You are of course right that personal experience is unreliable, but I think its always good to check stats against what you have experienced - its a sort of bullshit early warning system, and sometimes its wrong.

Its quite common to see uniformed men carrying their automatic military assault rifles on the tram (particularly on Mondays and Fridays). It was a bit of a shock at first but I got used to it quickly.

I don't feel at more risk from my neighbours in Switzerland than I did in the UK - its comparing two very small risks, and not worthwhile; I'm more likely to get run over by a car or lorry and I can deal with that risk by looking before crossing the road. I don't know whether deaths by shooting are more common in Switzerland or the UK, but in the UK they (again in my experience) are always somewhere else - they never happened in an environment that I could identify with; they were mostly criminals killing other criminals, or poor people in run down areas of town being killed. In Switzerland that is not the case; a few months ago an employee of a bank near where I work shoot and killed his boss, a few of his collegues, and then himself. Middle class professionals shooting each other five minutes walk from where I work gives me pause when a young black guy in South London getting killed because he didn't pay his dealer doesn't because I can identify with the victims in the first case, but not the second.

If you speak with people in the security business (NOT COPS) and you talk to burglary victims and what they did, you quickly get the feeling that a weapon is the only choice. Self-defense techniques like Karate and others are just not suited for life-and-death moments.
Turning on the light is another very dangerous thing, because not all burglars are just "friendly thieves" but can be quite unpredictable in extreme situations, plus you reveal your location.
You just have to get to a half-burglar half-killer type and you will surely lose the fight if you are a) not determined and b) not properly armed.

Also, imo, private security is only one aspect of the 2nd Amendment, it also is a warning for the government, that it can't just bully around all people. You just should remember what Hitler did, when he took over the German government, he unarmed the population, because he did indeed know what an armed population can do (The NSDAP SA-troops are a good reminder).

Jane, I'm having a heck of a time reconciling your decision to paraphrase a comment on urban vs rural gun safety by writing "Guns don't kill people. Black people kill people," with the next statement that a person unfamiliar with crime "must be living in some small town in South Dakota, based on her posts...."

Surely you meant to write "must be living in some small yet racially diverse town in South Dakota," right? Because if you suggest a rural area has a different crime rate than a big city, you would be a horrible racist like Mavis Beacon.

BGates, c'mon. The commenter doesn't think that Matt shouldn't be allowed to have a job, even though he lives in an urban area. No one thinks that having a gun makes me dangerous. "Urban areas", when the topic of gun control comes up, is a euphemism for the poorer, darker skinned people who commit crimes in those areas.

I'm not advocating disparate treatment of New York vs. South Dakota by insurance companies; it's just a fact.

Personally, I do think its important for the People to be armed (for Max's - and James Madison's - anti-tyrannical reasons more so than private security, since having a gun in your home make is X times more likely that you will be killed by a gun, where X = more than I think is worth it for the chances of having occasion to defend yourself with a firearm). Anyone have the statistics for the value of X?

That said, I'd like to respond to the Enfant Terrible comment that you cited first. There is an interpretation of the 2nd Amendment that it refers only to the right to keep and bear arms in a military context (a la Switzerland). This wasn't an uncommon attitude earlier in US history (see: the legal thought surrounding Jacksonian-era gun control legislation). Some contemporary scholars argue that "bearing arms" was used exclusively in military contexts in the late 18th century (see: the use of "to bear Arms" in the Declaration of Independence).

Since the Amendment leads off with "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State," I would note that: self-defense is not a well regulated militia; and, the security of persons is at no point mentioned in the text of the Amendment, just the security of the state. Note also that early proposed versions more strictly enumerated rights of individual self-defense, so that was left out for a reason.

The counter-argument: the English Bill of Rights made provisions for people to 'keep and bear arms' in the sense that we use it now (well, for Protestants, anyway). Therefore, the right you're talking about is a little further down the page in Amendment 9.

Enfant Terrible wasn't joking so much as embodying a longstanding tradition of American legal thought - and for my money, the textually correct one, regardless of my personal political agenda.

Dedalus, is it thus your view that the 2nd Amendment denies the Congress or Executive the power to prevent an individual from joining the military? It seems as if the rest of the first ten amendments are designed to limit the reach of government, initially, national government, prior to incorporation. It just doesn't seem to make sense to read the 2nd Amendment as such an anomoly

The main problem with "militia" is that the meaning of the word has changed. In the time of the Founders it referred to every able bodied (non-Tory) male who would defend the community. Paul Rever and the Minutemen were part of the milita - aka anybody with a gun and the will.

Switzerland is an excellent example of an actual milita. Everyone is trained and does service, but they also are all expected to pick up weapons with no notice and to meet and defeat any enemy from any direction. This is not the National Guard model of 1 week to get organized, get equipment, and get on a bus to somewhere, but to run to your apartment, pick up your gear, and figure out if you're killing Jacques, Heinrich, or Vladimir (or Giuseppe, but that's a REALLY low probability).

The criminal justice system should ensure that there is no recidivism. Bring back the bloody code - death to all felons. A very significant deterrent and it ensures that neighbourhoods aren't held hostage to criminals. Even given the assured deaths of innocents, there would be less innocent people killed than the current situation of deaths in your living room thanks to drive bys.

Scarth: As to murders in workplaces... you'll note that Switzerland has a VERY low crime rate and doesn't have the population diversity that gives you ghettoes and crime. The UK has serial killer doctors and other white collar murders that seem to ahock yu so much, but much of it gets lost in the No Humans Injvolved homicide that you don't care about. Nicola Horlick barely escaped when her $10M house was invaded http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article380521.ece

Now if every person in the UK had an SA80 at home, and self defense was legal, the UK would be MUCH safer. Invading a house is pretty easy now, since only criminals have hand gun (in small UK flasts its rather hard to use a shotgun effectively) and very few non-criminals have guns in the cities. Thanks to the government of the UK not wanting to incarcerate anymore people... hmmm.

Ok Isocrates - all you have is an abstract and a reliance on authority. One premise I don't buy is this one.

"Incapacitation suggests that an increase in the arrest rate for one crime will reduce all crime rates; deterrence predicts that an increase in the arrest rate for one crime will lead to a rise in other crimes as criminals substitute away from the first crime."

Crime substitution? I can see product or import substitution but crime isn't as fungible. It's not easy to move from bank robber to con man. Criminals tend to commit the same sorts of crimes. I would look further at the paper but the point is largely moot. When I wrote that paragraph I thinking of the failure of the death penalty as a deterrent.

http://www.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/dp/dppapers/mike.deterence

Will -

at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, the US had disbanded the Continental Army due to the fear of a national standing army. The militias - which were 'regulated' by the states, for the most part - were the only form of national defense. Note that the word "People" is capitalized, implying that the right does not extend automatically to all people, but instead to the People as a collectivity. This could be read as "The federal government will make no law prohibiting the existence and exercise of well-regulated militias, because they're really important since we just disbanded the army."

Hey - I think you're right to compare colonial militias to the Swiss model, but note that such a system could easily have weapons held not by individuals but 'kept' under the auspices of the milita itself. I'm not sure if the Framers would have though this wise, but its easy to see based on the capital "P" how the legal argument can be made that they weren't making any assertion about the right of people in general to keep weapons in their households.

Mr. Scarth

Its quite common to see uniformed men carrying their automatic military assault rifles on the tram (particularly on Mondays and Fridays). It was a bit of a shock at first but I got used to it quickly.

Worked in Western Europe for a couple of years in the late 70's. Had the same initial reaction to the submachine guns carried by the Brussels PD. Might have had something to do with their rather Graustarkian uniforms too. I find that's often the thing about foreigners - they're foreign.

Middle class professionals shooting each other five minutes walk from where I work gives me pause...

Me too. Unfortunately, taking guns from ordinary citizens doesn't necessarily end such things. We've had incidents involving former and off-duty cops misbehaving with guns here in L.A. in recent years. Ex-cops are well-known risks for suicide, of course, but a few always seem to want compnay when they go. As long as people of any kind are entrusted with firearms, there will be lapses. Personally, I will welcome our new robot constabulary overlords;-)

Of course, statistically - as you noted in a London context, and as I have frequent occasion to note in a within-a-five-mile-radius-of-home context - the reliable numbers are turned in, year-in and year-out, by our dusky neo-tribal barbarian brethren settling their commercial disputes without resort to the services of the business bar.

dedalus275

since having a gun in your home make is X times more likely that you will be killed by a gun, where X = more than I think is worth it for the chances of having occasion to defend yourself with a firearm). Anyone have the statistics for the value of X?

Nationally, in the U.S., X is unquestionably a positive integer greater than 1. Hence, this statistical "truth" is perenially popular among those opposing private gun ownership. But "X" is not very dispositive of anything from a policy perspective in the form stated as it neatly obscures local truths that are more relevant.

For example, X does not speak to the question of which particular gun is involved in any particular killing. Having a gun because one lives in a high-crime area and then being killed with some other gun despite one's precautions may be bad luck, but it is not the obvious consequence of simply having owned a gun for quite rational self-defense purposes in the first place.

One interesting statistic, it seems to me, would be Y, where Y is the incremental chance of being killed with a gun in a given neighborhood if one has a gun vs. not having a gun. I suspect, but cannot prove, that Y is a negative number. I am unaware of any statistics collected by any law enforcement organization that could settle this issue. I suspect that the reason for this is not that such statistics are inherently uncompilable - quite the contrary - but that the results would prove politically unpalatable to the mainly Democratic and anti-gun political overlords of most of our high-crime American cities including my own.

Another interesting statistic would be Z, the incremental likelihood of being killed with one's own firearm in a particular neighborhood context vs. being simply killed in some other way - perhaps, say, by a stray round from a nearby one of the aforementioned tribal territory disputes or even during a non-firearm-involved domestic violence or suicidal funk episode such as the anti-gun people are forever warning us about in other contexts.

Again, the raw facts required to generate such a statistic are collected as part of standard police investigation protocols, but will probably never be rendered into statistically revelatory form because the results would not likely please the mainly anti-gun powers-that-be in U.S. major metro areas.

I infer the above because I cannot believe, were the outcome otherwise than I surmise, that we would not long since have been regaled with sordid tales of statistics Y and Z by the Brady Bunch and all the other ideologically-motivated gun grabbers out there.

Dick -
those numbers would be much more telling than X, to be sure. The value for X
I found was 2.7.

I'd say it's the complexity of Y and Z that make them unknown... I fear most Americans think 'marginal' is a butter substitute.

sorry, couldn't think of a pun for 'incremental'

note also that the number 2.7 will be contradicted by MANY on the other side of the gun control political game, but I didn't have time to dig up any counterarguments that sounded well-reasoned.

Note that the word "People" is capitalized,

It is?

Paul -

from Wikipedia:

The Second Amendment, as passed by the House and Senate and later ratified by the States, reads:
“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.”

The hand-written copy of the Bill of Rights which hangs in the National Archives had slightly different capitalization and punctuation inserted by William Lambert, the scribe who prepared it. This copy reads:
“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.”

Both versions are commonly used in official Government publications.

I went with the ratified version.

I wouldn't hang an entire argument on capitalization, which texts from that era show had rather different rules than we use today. Much more like modern German, which capitalizes all nounds.

Another point on capitalization--anyone with info on the capitalization of "people" in the 4th and 10th Amendments?

I've seen alternative transcriptions in which some or all of "Militia", "State", and "Arms" were not capitalized, but this is the first I've heard about a version in which "people" is. The Supreme Court in Miller quotes the amendment with "people" uncapitalized.

In any case, I share Rob's doubt about putting any great weight on the Framers' idiosyncratic and (apparently) fugitive capitalization.

Based on the additional commas, the Court is citing the version from the National Archives in 'Miller.'

Though I'm not a legal scholar, I haven't seen a version of the 4th, 9th, or 10th with a capital P. I'd argue that those amendments are lower-case-"p" amendments because they refer to the rights of individuals (or vice-versa). But by now you knew I'd say that.

I'll back off the punctuation argument for its 2 obvious flaws - that of shifting grammatical norms and the questions about whether the version ratified was in fact capitalized. However, these minutiae do affect the law, as with the recent legal decision that became an argument over the placement of a comma (was that an American one? a contract law case, as I recall). There is a difference between "People" and "people," but I think my case can be made without relying on a capital "P."

dedalus, check the US Code Section 10, where Congress has defined the militia as organized, as in organized bodies of troops (like the AL State Guard, NOT the National Guard), and the unorganized militia, defined as every able-bodied and law abiding citizen between 18 and 65. That's the current legal definition. I am a member of the unorganized militia.

1. I'm glad that the 2nd amendment gives everyone a right to enlist. I'm 56. That means I have a constitutional right to demand to enroll in the National Guard? And the same right would extend to, oh, a gay, or a person aged 16 or 65? I mean, if it's a constitutional right?

2. As far as capitalizations, let alone commas, neither were standardized in the late 18th century. I have a letter somewhere from the Library of Congress stating, with regard to commas, that the originals sent to the states for ratification were lost when the Brits burned the Capitol, and the existing returns of ratifications surviving in state records vary with regard to 1, 2, or 3 commas. Remember, everything was hand copied back then, and scribes punctuated and capitalized as they thought best.

Of course, when discussing the militia of the Founding era, it should also be noted that the militiamen were expected to show up for muster with their own weapons-i.e. privately owned, not state owned, firearms.

The Supreme Court's decision in Miller hinged on the fact that no evidence had been provided to the court of the militia/military usefulness of a short barreled shotgun. In fact, the SCOTUS decision actually only remanded the case back to the district court to determine this fact (where the case never proceeded, due to the fact that one of the defendants was dead and the other in prison on an unrelated charge.)

By this standard, firearms such as machineguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and military pistols are more protected by the 2A than double-barrel shotguns made for hunting or guns made expressly for target shooting.

In order to buy the anti-gun, collective right theory espoused by those horrified by the Parker decision, one has to embark on a variety of flights of fancy, including:

(1) One must believe that independent clauses do not contain the meaning in a sentence and may be excised entirely so that the dependent clauses' true and far more important meaning may be clearly understood.

(2) One must believe that the Second Amendment is merely a clumsily and confusingly worded redundancy that poorly restates powers of the government relating to raising and maintaining armies.

(3) One must believe that "the people" absolutely refers to individual rights throughout the Bill of Rights (such as in the First and Fourth Amendments), but means the National Guard in the Second Amendment.

(4) One must believe that the founders were mental defectives who did not recognize that self defense is the fundamental natural right and that without it, no others rights have any meaning.

(5) One must believe that the founders weren't bright enough, having written the Second Amendment, to realize that the right to self defense is operative only for the strongest unless those less strong are allowed the means to overcome them, ie: the most effective weapons available.

We could go on and on, but suffice it to say that some people have an amazing capacity for denying logic and for self deception.

The National Rifle Association says that, "Guns don't kill people, uh, people do." But I think, I think the gun helps. You know? I think it helps. I just think just standing there going, "Bang!" That's not going to kill too many people, is it? You'd have to be really dodgy on the heart to have that.

Get it? Guns don't kill people. Black people kill people.

Interesting inference, given that the paragraph that doesn't mention race, it just says that it's easy for criminals to get guns in urban areas.

I have noticed that cars kill people, electricity kills people, dogs kill people, slipping and falling on ice kills people, choking on hard candies kill people, fire ants kill people, poisonous snakes kill people, water kills people, operations kill people...my goodness, let's make those all illegal.

From a Mark Styen column:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/12/07/do0702.xml

"In America, it's called a "hot" burglary - a burglary that takes place when the homeowners are present - or a "home invasion", which is a much more accurate term. Just over 10 per cent of US burglaries are "hot" burglaries, and in my part of the world it's statistically insignificant: there is virtually zero chance of a New Hampshire home being broken into while the family are present. But in England and Wales it's more than 50 per cent and climbing."

I suppose I could dig up the same stats. They're pretty well known.

Madison in Federalist #46 shows that the founders were perfectly capable of distinguishing between states and people. #46 goes on at some length, playing with the concepts of federal governments, state governments, and the people. Note in the passage below Madison is talking about the people, who are armed, having the additional advantage of subordinate governments to collect their will.

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it."

The militia was the fundamental basis of land warfare in the English-speaking world until WWI. Aside from specialists such as engineers and artillerists, only guards of the executive and garrisons of forts were kept in service during peacetime. The one time a peacetime military was kept in force, the New Model Army under Cromwell, it promptly conducted a military coup, which did not endear anybody to the model. After the Restoration the peacetime standing army was abolished again, and was not restored in any force until 1914.

For a good book about the militia system in America in the period up to the Revolution, read David Hackett Fischer's Paul Revere's Ride. There is just no doubt that the Founder's intent was to permit a generally armed populace. The equivalent of today's National Guard was termed "select militia" or "trained bands", who met and drilled frequently. "Militia" in the sense of the Second Amendment unquestionably meant the general male population above sixteen, who had to present themselves with their personal weapons four times a year, at "militia-muster" or "quarter-days".

Fischer brings up an interesting and little-known point, that the Massachusetts Minutemen (who were select militia) in 1776 were led by combat veterans from the French and Indian Wars, including many who had participated in the amphibious invasion of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia in that war. As such they were actually better-trained than the Crown forces they faced at Lexington and Bunker Hill, who were third-rate, newly-raised regiments pulled off of riot duty in England and had no real combat experience.

Militia in the eyes of the Founders were the whole male citizenry, and they were expected to be the bulk of the effective armed forces.

Dedalus, you are basing one leg of your argument on the subordinate clause of the Amendment. Were you paying attention in seventh grade English when you were diagramming sentences? A subordinate clause provides additional information but does not change the overall meaning.

I met someone in the Swiss Army. He told me there is no such rule to have a fully automatic weapon in the home even though I have often heard it reported. Can anyone point to an authoritative link that proves or disproves this?

For those of you who have never read your state code and for our friends who are not in the US, there is a military code of law in US federal legislation and also in state legislation. If you are in the US, by law, you are automatically part of what is termed the "unorganized militia". Most states even have a draft system that lies there, thankfully never used. So essentially the majority of adults in the US have at least a tangential military status that would satisfy even the militia only interpretation.

The gun control lobby ignores the state codes and weave their fantasies as if they did not exist. So sad.

Is vulnerability a virtue?

I always thought of the 2nd Amendment as being a last-gasp defense against tyranny.

At the time of the Constitution, there were still people concerned about government that would escape controls, that would brutalize it's citizens. So I think of the 2nd Amendment as providing a reassurance to the citizens of the US, that they would be allowed to retain their weapons.

To my mind, the 2nd Amendment is intended to permit the citizens of the US to retain the firepower to successfully rise up in revolt. Doing so would, of course, violate the law, if constitute actual treason. And that would be the point -- if the people and the government had gotten so far apart in goals and fairness, then the people need the means to correct (replace) that government. This is in direct accord with 'When in the course of human events ..'.

The benefit of the 2nd Amendment and the possession of arms (guns, bows and arrows, knives, martial arts, etc.) is two-fold. The knowledge that the government is subject to both lawful and violent oversight helps avoid the excesses and tyrannical behaviors that concerned the founding fathers. And the citizens, aware that they still retain this last-ditch remedy, are reassured that they will be less likely to need to resort to violence against their government.

On the other hand, recall that national security considers how likely the US is to be attacked by foreign or domestic enemies. If Iran began funneling the amount of guns and explosives into NYC today that arrive in Iraq each day, how long could any semblance of civil order persist? The larger the base of armed citizens, the less likely someone will try.

Besides, I like the bumper sticker that states, 'An armed society is a polite society'.

Brian,

I too doubt that the death penalty, as currently used, is a significant deterrent. It is too rare to alter criminals' incentives much.

It has always seemed to me a strange claim, though, that under no circumstances would the death penalty be a deterrent. Suppose the country decided to shoot, on sight, anyone caught double parking. Do you really believe that this would have no effect on the rate of double parking?

In general, the crucial question is whether criminals respond to incentives. I believe they do, and that Levitt's research bears that out. The more severe the penalties associated with crime and the more certain the punishment, the less attractive crime is--consequently the crime rate drops.

As a practical matter, we are unlikely ever to use the death penalty often enough to make it important in reducing crime (and maybe that's for the best); nevertheless, it would deter some criminals, were it common enough.

Hmmmmm.

@ dedalus275

Since the Amendment leads off with "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State," I would note that: self-defense is not a well regulated militia; and, the security of persons is at no point mentioned in the text of the Amendment, just the security of the state. Note also that early proposed versions more strictly enumerated rights of individual self-defense, so that was left out for a reason.

That is a remarkably ridiculous interpretation that isn't supported by any court decision in the history of the United States of America. And silly enough as it is, it's one that many pro-gun control proponents hold onto since nothing else they've got has even the remotest hint of legitimacy.

As case in point is the court decision that ruled Washington DC's ban against carrying a handgun *inside the owner's home* to be unconstitutional and threw it out.

And btw the term "militia" applies to any organized body of men. Even if they're simply a loose association of neighbors. Even if it's just one person with a firearm. Why is this? Because the bloody Constitution was written during the colonial era. You know. Log cabins. Widely dispersed homesteads.

As for this ridiculous nonsense about capitalization. It's idiotic and not worth my time to even bother with.

Hmmmm.

I too doubt that the death penalty, as currently used, is a significant deterrent. It is too rare to alter criminals' incentives much.

The death penalty is useful not as a deterrent to future crime by example. Instead it's extremely useful because many career criminals commit hundreds of crimes. By killing them you prevent the specific criminal from being alive to conduct those crimes.

Look at the Jessica Lundsford case in Florida. If the pedophile rapist and murderer Couey had been slaughtered the very first time he acted on his pedophile desires then that little girl would be alive today.

Which is why I'm extremely in favor of upgrading any act of child rape to the status of a capital crime.

As for any arguments against capital punishment because of the length of time it takes. This is pretty simple really. It seems that most efforts in defeating capital punishment revolve around repeated claims of bad legal representation which often result in a new trial, simply charge the legal firm responsible for the bad legal representation for all court costs for their representation plus the repeat trial. That'll end that nonsense.

> note also that the number 2.7 will be contradicted by MANY on the other side of the gun control political game, but I didn't have time to dig up any counterarguments that sounded well-reasoned.

Kellerman hasn't figured out that a successful self-defense may involve shooting someone, but need not. In fact, the majority don't.

Hmmm.

Actually the most amusing thing about gun control is that it's completely ineffective for another unrelated reason.

The manufacture of firearms isn't a secret.

Which means that the blueprints for most firearms designs are easily available or can be easily made using fairly basic tools. Once these blueprints are available then they can be programmed into a CNC machine. This is how most firearms are made today where a computerized triple-axis milling machine mills steel or aluminum blanks into the appropriate shapes. So if you cannot easily purchase firearms then it isn't outside the bounds of reason to be able to manufacture them.

Which is something that's starting to happen in the UK as the UK police are finding dozens of illegal manufacturing shops producing simple firearms for the criminal crowd.

The biggest and best reason that gun control laws don't work is that criminals (by nature o.O) don't follow laws. Hence no matter how bad the law (or good) it only affects those people that follow it (the victims) and does not deter or even hamper much the criminal.

It simply makes the target easier (you've got a knife, he's got a gun... good odds?)

One of the definitions of 'regulate' is 'to reduce to order, method, or uniformity'. Thus, in the Second Amendment context, 'regulated' simply means 'trained'.

A coupla things:

dedalus275: "I would note that: self-defense is not a well regulated militia; and, the security of persons is at no point mentioned in the text of the Amendment, just the security of the state."

The bill of rights does not protect the security of the state, it limits state powers. Saying an ammendment was written to preserve the state's power to defend itself is goofy. Sates already know how to grab power- they don't need any encouragement. Ammendments LIMIT state power. So any gain of an ammendment is for the benefit of the non-State.

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If guns are only for military purposes, then why do cops carry guns? The purpose of the police is to 'promote domestic tranquility' and 'provide for the common defense' on the very local level.

It would be very easy to argue that if the army needs a grass-roots supporting force (militia), then a grass-roots police force would make about the same amount of sense. There are holes here, but this manages to let the air out of the 'guns for the military only' argument.

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If the National Guard is the actual militia, then why don't Guardsmen keep their weapons at home? The text of the second ammendment makes it clear that the militia is critical for national security to work, and 'the people' bearing arms is vital in turn for the militia to work.

So in the language of the second ammendment, either the National Guard is not the militia, or it is completely incapable of fulfilling its militia mission. Discuss.

By Federal law, the militia and the National Guard are distinct, and the NG is NOT the militia. It is similar in classification to the regular army

More gun facts than you can shake a stick at, answering many of the questions discussed on this thread. Learn the real facts. Check it out:
http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/4.1/GunFacts4-1-Print.pdf

I so love having my intelligence attacked on the internet that I'm back for another round...

unorganized vs. well regulated:
Heartless Libertarian and Jim Bennett, thanks for adding a lot of info to this debate that I didn't have. My argument was contingent upon "well regulated" meaning "select militia." Perhaps Fischer offers some more information on this, but I would love to see someone sell me one way or other on the relationship between "well regulated" and "select." My 2nd quote from Miller below comes close...

Mike + triticale:
Dependent clauses are entirely capable of modifying meaning to clarify and delimit meaning in independent clauses. This particular adverbial dependent clause serves to provide context but not to shift meaning in the independent clause. However, it is the only amendment to contain a prefatory explanation of its purpose, which leads to the confusion over the role of the dependent clause as a modifier of independent clause meaning.

Your argument about definitions of "the P/people" in the Bill of Rights is likewise a good one; my capital P argument has been called into enough question by nonstandardized grammatical practices that I don't have a good refutation of this. I might concede if I weren't having so much fun defending this.

"One must believe that the founders were mental defectives who did not recognize that self defense is the fundamental natural right and that without it, no others rights have any meaning."
I'm not sure I agree. It seems to me that the natural right you speak of is in the 9th, not the 2nd. Just because a right is unenumerated in the first 8 amendments does not mean that it is unprotected.

A thought experiment:
How would you judge the amendment's semantics if it read: "Since guns are hazardous to the safety of the people, the government reserves the right to regulate and ban them." [this is not a question about the truth or falsity of the dependent clause, just about your thoughts on dependent clauses in general. if you could prove that guns actually increased general safety, would it have any effect on this hypothetical amendment?]

A special thanks again to those addressed my arguments with consideration and class. I'll leave you (for now) with 2 quotes for US Supreme Court decision in Miller:

"In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument."

"The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. 'A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline.' And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time."

i'll try to check in here tomorrow...

This has been gone over a number of times before, but the assertion that a gun in the home is more likely to kill a household member (usually the number quoted is '42 times as likely' or some such) and the assertion that most uses of firearms in the home are legal instances of self defense are not mutually exclusive.

Why is this? Lets look at the stats here for the States. About half of gun deaths are suicides. Almost all of the other half are murders. If you're shooting someone else or yourself in the house, you'll probably succeed. However, most defensive uses of firearms don't even involve shots fired, let alone anyone dying. So, you can contrast the number of murders comitted by family members, vs. the hundreds of thousands of times someone chases off a burglar with their pistol or shotgun, and arrive at those two assertions.

Also interesting, is that responsing police officers are more likely than victims present for the crime to shoot the wrong person -- either through misidentification or simply through poor aim.

"In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument."

I have always found the oddest thing about the Miller decision to be the above excerpt. Miller, I seem to recall, was handed down in the early 30's. At this time there were literally millions of Americans walking around who would have been happy to explain to the learned justices just what the military utility of a short-barreled shotgun was. But it seems, for entirely unaccountable reasons, none of them were ever asked. The men I refer to were, of course, veterans of the trench warfare of WW1.

The sawed-off, pump-action shotgun was a standard item of armament, especially for sapper teams. It was used to quickly clear an area of enemy trench of its defenders upon a breach being made. The weapon was refered to as a "trench broom." As submachine guns had yet to be invented - or at least militarily deployed - during The Great War, the trench broom served where compact rapid fire capability was needed.

As others have noted, explicitly military-style weapons appear to have extra 2nd Amendment legitimacy based on the logic of Miller - despite the factually ignorant omission involved in ruling short-barelled shotguns out of said class. A conundrum indeed for supporters of assault rifle bans and similar anti-military inspired gun rights depredations.

i might point out that Lindsay Bayerstein is originally from Vancouver Canada.this may influence her thinking on this subject as she was not brought up on Vancouver's downtown eastside more likely in Kerrisdale or Point Grey.there are home invasions with guns going on in Vancouver the big difference being the invaders know the chances are slim the homeowner will be armed.up here it is the criminal element that have the guns.most liberal types wet their pants at the thought of actually taking on criminals in any meaningful manner.the sentencing for crimes involving firearms in Canada is somewhat on the weak side and the bad guys know it.

As a probably now-irrelevant aside, I finally found my pocket Constitution (from Lexis/Nexis, no political partisans they):

It shows Militia, State and Arms, but people. "People" isn't capitalized anywhere in the BoR.

Dadelus, what do you say to the Federalist Papers quotes? I have them highlighted in my copy...

"A well regulated Library, being necessary to the education of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read books, shall not be infringed."

Discuss. Does the sentence above give the people the right to keep and read books, or are they only allowed to associate with them in the Library?

"A well regulated Pharmacy, being necessary to the health of a free State, the right of the people to keep and use medicine, shall not be infringed."

The meaning of the sentence become clear when you substitute arms for something less menacing.

The biggest and best reason that gun control laws don't work is that criminals (by nature o.O) don't follow laws.

Weak argument. Gun controls do work in states that actually have strict laws, and enforce them. Like Japan. Or Canada. Or Britain. All of which have gun homicide rates a fraction (like, less than a third) of the level of the US.

This is not to say that criminals cannot acquire firearms in these countries -- it's just a lot more difficult for them to do so, and so guns tend to be used far less frequently in the commission of crimes than is the case in the US. In the US, it's not so much the case that "gun control laws don't work" as it is a case of "the US doesn't really have any controls worth talking about."

Americans, rightly or wrongly, value the right to buy and possess firearms in a hassle-free manner more than they value keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals.

It's possible to have a robustly regulated system that both permits responsible non-criminal citizens to possess guns and makes it very expensive and difficult for criminals to acquire them. What's not possible is to have a non-robustly regulated system that lets the good guys have them and makes it difficult for the bad guys to get them. Any firearms regulation regime, in other words, that has a prayer at succeeding in restricting the possession of guns by criminals is going to at least inconvenience law-abiding citizens who wish to possess them. But an inconvenience (mandatory permitting, background checks, insurance, safety courses, retail regulations, taxation, etc.) need not mean a ban.

I'm with Max. If the burglar is rational and working from the "stealth business model," maybe he runs at the first sign of trouble. But so many burglaries, especially in the suburbs, are committed by young men with a drug problem.

Suppose you turn on the light and the burglar in the hallway is a crank head who hasn't slept in two weeks and needs something quick to stay with it. You want a gun or do you want to hope the police arrive in time?

Don't ask for stats. It only needs to happen to you once for your life to be ruined.

"I have always found the oddest thing about the Miller decision to be the above excerpt. Miller, I seem to recall, was handed down in the early 30's. At this time there were literally millions of Americans walking around who would have been happy to explain to the learned justices just what the military utility of a short-barreled shotgun was. But it seems, for entirely unaccountable reasons, none of them were ever asked. The men I refer to were, of course, veterans of the trench warfare of WW1."

1. In the Anglo-American system, courts don't actively seek out facts, they evaluate the evidence presented at trial by the opposing counsel - and there hadn't been a trial. The case reached the Supreme Court as an appeal by the government from a lower court decision dismissing Miller's indictment on 2nd Amendment grounds.

2. Courts hearing an appeal don't decide facts. They decide issues of law, and in rare cases whether the trial court went through a reasonable process to determine the facts. So if Miller's counsel had been able to make it to the SC hearing (he didn't, and instead Miller was represented only by the written record of arguments made by his lawyer in lower courts), this would not have been the place to bring in witnesses.

3. The Miller decision remanded the case to a lower court for trial, and pretty clearly told Miller how to win it: just bring in witnesses who had used short-barreled shotguns in legitimate warfare, plus presenting evidence and arguments that this wasn't such an exceptional weapon that it would normally be stored in an armory with the artillery and belt-fed machine guns rather than being a weapon a militiaman would own personally and bring from home when called upon to serve.

Miller died so his case never went to trial, but it looks to me like that's the only way he could have "lost" this case. (Assuming that short shotguns really were issued by the Army and used in WWI).

So if you apply this reasoning to Parker vs. DC, it's clear that Parker should win. The Glock semi-auto pistol that Parker wants to keep in DC is similar to weapons issued individually to nearly all military officers and many enlisted men. In any modern army, the second-most common issued firearm is such a pistol. DC laws are quite intentionally written so as to ban them for most people, not to regulate them. DC is a federal jurisdiction, so you don't even have to consider whether the 2nd Amendment applies to the states, or should somehow be unique in not being extended to the states by the 14th's equal protection and due process clauses...

The one problem is, this proves too much for many people. If the world's second most common type of individual military weapon is protected, then surely the world's most common type is - that's shoulder-fired machine guns like the AK47 and M16. (These are real assault rifles capable of firing several cartridges with one trigger pull, unlike the made-up category of semi-auto "assault weapons" = scary looking guns.)

But if you don't like what the Constitution says, there is a proper way to change it, the Amendment process. Using a forced mis-reading of the plain text is not only dishonest, but it provides a roadmap for other rights to be violated when they become politically incorrect.

Weak argument. Gun controls do work in states that actually have strict laws, and enforce them.

Jasper,

Where is the evidence for this? Canada and Switzerland had lots of guns and low crime rates for decades. As I mentioned earlier, Steven Levitt's studies have shown no relationship between gun control laws and crime rates. If evidence matters to you, you should accept that the favorite remedy of the left for crime doesn't work.

"Gun controls do work in states that actually have strict laws, and enforce them. Like Japan. Or Canada. Or Britain. All of which have gun homicide rates a fraction (like, less than a third) of the level of the US." How about the non-gun homicide rates? AFAIK, these are also lower in those countries - so all you've proved is that the Japanese, English, and Canadians are less apt to murder, regardless of the means.

Apparently we must all be reminded that the Bill of Rights does not "grant" any rights. It merely enumerates pre-existing rights which the Federal government may never infringe. The right to keep, and/or bear, does not come from the Second; it has seniority. If you revoked the Second tomorrow, I would still have the right to keep weapons. It was endowed by my creator. Sorry about yours.

"Perverse grammatical deconstructionism being inimical to the funding of the English department, I have seen your 'capital P' and it is a raging Beast."

> Gun controls do work in states that actually have strict laws, and enforce them. Like Japan. Or Canada.

Canada has a largely uncontrolled border with the US. (California's agriculture inspections, looking for tourists carrying fruit, are often more rigorous.) The vast majority of Canadians live fairly close to that border. Many of them regularly cross said border.

We know that Americans will "smuggle" guns across state borders. Why don't Canadians?

BTW - We know quite a lot about the folks who commit violence. Canada has proportionally far fewer of them than the US does. (Folks who disagree are invited to compare being a poor black person in Detroit with being a poor white person right across the bridge in Canada.)

Markm

But you would first have to control for differences in the populations between these countries and their respective histories.

For example, Japan is one of the most homogeneous countries around, and until probably the 19th Century, mere possession of a means of defense, whether it be a gun or a sword, by someone of the wrong class, was a capital offense. Often no trial, just summary execution. Canada and the UK have traditionally, though in parts not nearly as much any more, being more homogenous than the U.S.

There are also plenty of countries with higher gun related death rates. The problem is that Mark here cherry picked his comparisons to make his point. But while accentuating the similuarlities, he ignored the differences.

Basaed on the statistics, it's probably true that not owning a gun is, on average, safer for a given individual than owning one.

It's also true that allowing gun ownership is a deterrent to criminals in some situations, as evidence by the huge "hot burglary" disparities.

But ultimately, neither of these matters, because it's an issue of individual freedom.

We once tried banning alcohol sales because some people use it irresponsibly. It didn't work very well.

One interesting factoid here is that last I knew, of all the crimes in the country using automatic weapons over the last 50 years, all except for one (at last report) had involved weapons that most were illegally imported, all were illegally acquired, and all were illegally utilized (the exception apparently being crime by a policeman using an automatic weapon owned by his police dept.) Regulation of automatic weapons started during the Depression has been quite successful - at keeping automatic weapons out of the hands of law abiding citizens.

And, no, at present, I don't think that automatic weapons are necessary for home defense, as was the issue in Parker. There, I see you having two real choices, a hand gun, or a short barelled shot gun (my preference, given my nearsightedness). Outside your house, you are essentially left with a hand gun as a viable option.

A study of burglary by a major university reported that out of 100 burglaries, 98 brought no ill effects to the burglar. In the remaining two burglaries, one resulted in a prison sentence and the other resulted in gunshot wounds. Which of these two outcomes poses the greater deterrent?

Jasper: "It's possible to have a robustly regulated system... What's not possible is to have a non-robustly regulated system..."

I think the Constitution ('well-regulated') agress with this part of your otherwise gun-grabbing hippie beliefs. :P

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Isocrates: "Weak argument. Gun controls do work in states that actually have strict laws, and enforce them."

Isocrates draws examples from other countries, but these countries were probably not won by militias and probably do not value militias like the US. The 2A says the militia is VITAL to national security, and that bearing arms is vital to the militia. No other country shares this frontier mentality... but that's just another reason why we're the best. :P

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Bruce: "There, I see you having two real choices, a hand gun, or a short barelled shot gun (my preference, given my nearsightedness)."

Yikes! That's like saying 'I can't identify my target, so I'll spray the whole area.'

The best home defense weapons are your eyes and ears. And a telephone. And a hand and a mouth to make use of said telephone. And a brain doesn't hurt... and a powerful flashlight. And a second hand to hold the baseball bat.

And a hip. Hip, you say? The hip is where you rest your shotgun after racking the action. "chuck-chuck! Anything down there that's breathin', head for the door if you wanna stay that way."

Then you'll be in need of other body parts, as your well-protected wife then emerges from safety to give you the thanks you so richly deserve. Here's to you, toting-a-shotgun-while-walking-around-in-your-underwear man.

The yglesias thread reminds me of fruitless debates with dishonest gun control supporters on talk.politics.guns back in the day. Freeman- are you the same Freeman from stanford who used to frequent tpg?

"Weak argument. Gun controls do work in states that actually have strict laws, and enforce them. Like Japan. Or Canada. Or Britain. All of which have gun homicide rates a fraction (like, less than a third) of the level of the US."

Have those rates gone down, up or been unchanged since enacting those laws? How has the US gun murder rate changed over the last 150 years? Why is there a focus on "gun murder rates" to the exclusion of non gun murders? What do non gun murder rates look like?

"Any firearms regulation regime, in other words, that has a prayer at succeeding in restricting the possession of guns by criminals is going to at least inconvenience law-abiding citizens who wish to possess them. But an inconvenience (mandatory permitting, background checks, insurance, safety courses, retail regulations, taxation, etc.) need not mean a ban."

It does translate into a ban when licenses are issued on the whim of gov't officials who do not desire to issue any licenses, ("Shall Issue" vs "May Issue"). Then there are unreasonable requirements... if the state says you must have passed a specific firearms proficiency test at the "Department of Guns" office, an office that doesn't exist because it's never been funded, thats essentially a ban.

"Basaed on the statistics, it's probably true that not owning a gun is, on average, safer for a given individual than owning one."

Not exactly. It's far more accurate to say that people who own guns are on average less safe than those who do not. Your wording suggests that the ownership is the cause of the reduced safety. The problem with the statistics is that correlation is not causation. It's far more likely that the less safe one perceives his situation to be, the greater incentive to own the means of defense, or to seek some other means to mitigate the risk. That produces a negative correlation between safety and gun ownership.

Or as I've pointed out in other contexts, there's a correlation between having large muscles and working out frequently at the gym. Do the muscles then cause the workouts?

Mike writes "in order to buy the anti-gun, collective right theory...one has to embark on a variety of flights of fancy, including [(1) through (5)]."

For me, while point (2) is pretty strong, the strongest point is one you didn't state: (6) Coming out of a tradition which included guarantees of much stronger individual rights (and a history of religious minorities being selectively disarmed, and an environment where you can't hope just to call the professional police force when you need protection), this amendment made it through the ratification process without leaving a written record of a contemporary anti-Federalist critic arguing that an individual guarantee was needed?

Given the history leading up to the English Bill of Rights, for example, I think it's noteworthy that 1780s religious minorities --- Catholics, perhaps --- didn't worry that the collective right for local governments to choose to arm some citizens might be an inadequate substitute for an individual right.

The thing about martial arts may be true for the competition fighting, but it isn't true for what Tim Larkin teaches.

Link's in my name/url.

"The best home defense weapons are your eyes and ears. And a telephone."

This is starting to be true now that people have cell phones which cannot be trivially defeated with wire cutters. However, see Warren V District of Columbia. Police protection is not an individual right.

Might as well join in the tpg reunion.
Ymarsakar:->The thing about martial arts may be true for the competition fighting, but it isn't true for what Tim Larkin teaches.

Cool stuff there. Empty-hand martial arts are great for those people young enough, trained enough, etc. to use them. So tell us, what martial art would you suggest for an overweight, diabetic heart patient who lives alone and works 40+ hours/week with a long commute?

I'd suggest to that person the 'way of the gun". Other things, like losing weight and controlling diet and working out to get the blood pressure down would all be a good thing. But if our hypothetical person finds a freelance socialist entering his dwelling at 0 dark :30, a good flashlight and reliable sidearm will work a whole lot faster than any other 'fu' that can be mentioned. No, it isn't 100%, but nothing else is, either, least of all the crime-scene-janitors in nice uniforms.

Lot of good points here. And a lot of bad info, too. First, the legal definition of a militia has changed somewhat from the historical one of 'All men between the ages of 21 and 45' It is now ' All men between the ages of 18 and 45, and Female National Guardsmen, both Enlisted and Officers'. It was last updated in the mid 1990's, so it is reasonably current. Note that specifically exempted for protection under the Second Amendment are members of both the Federal Armed Forces and the State Armed Forces, with the exception of Female National Guard. It is also interesting to note that women, with the exception of the above, apparently do not have the 'right to bear arms', something that has apparently escaped the notice of NOW for decades.:)
I once asked a Dedicated NOW acquaintance about why that was, after showing her the relevant US Code. The look of anger (How Dare They treat Women Different), followed by Horror (But if I complain, that means the Right-Wingers are Right!) actually caused her to faint on the spot! I kid you not!
To the best of my knowledge, shotguns were indeed issued to US Forces serving during WWI. At least pictures of training that were at the Ft. Devens Museum showed Doughboys being trained on them. And the Germans were very outspoken in objecting to their use. (I suppose the Laws of War at that time required the bullets to be sequential, rather than parallel) And the opinion in Miller, the Supreme Court went to great lengths to confirm that the Militia is indeed every man (except women). Note the USC Code that defined what a Militia is. Also note that machine-guns, Tanks, Rocket Launchers, etc. have not been banned specifically because they are 'weapons of War'.

Me, I like the 'John Wayne Gambit' when discussing Gun Control or 'Violence is Never the Answer' true-believers. You get them to espousing their point, agreeing with them at every step. Then punch them in the mouth. Pick them up, repeating what they had just said, until you get them talking and excited again. Then punch them in the mouth. Repeat.

It does translate into a ban when licenses are issued on the whim of gov't officials who do not desire to issue any licenses, ("Shall Issue" vs "May Issue"). Then there are unreasonable requirements... if the state says you must have passed a specific firearms proficiency test at the "Department of Guns" office, an office that doesn't exist because it's never been funded, thats essentially a ban.

I agree with much of this. That's why I think there's a stong case from a pro gun rights perspective to be made for a national standard. You know -- you meet the statutory requirements or standard (no recent felonies, 21 years of age, take a safety course if you're a newbie, etc, etc.) -- and no local official with a chip on his shoulder (or an underfunded budget) in New York City or Cambridge can tell you you can't buy a gun. Because it wouldn't be up to him. But in exchange for this unfettered national gun rights regime I propose regulations (with teeth!) emphasizing personal responsibility, and aimed at plugging up the absurdly porous membrane between legitimate and criminal ownership of firearms.

How about the non-gun homicide rates? AFAIK, these are also lower in those countries - so all you've proved is that the Japanese, English, and Canadians are less apt to murder, regardless of the means.

As far as I know, the difference in gun homicide rates between America and the rest of the rich world exceeds the comparable difference in overall homicide rates. And that means, as common sense would indicate, that the ease with which American criminals obtain firearms contributes to the fact that Americans are more likely to be murdered than the citizens of other rich nations. A knife wound to the heart yields a 30% fatality rate. The same wound by a gun increases that rate to 80%.

A higher general level of murder in the US also, of course, is part of the picture. But that only strengthens the case for more effective regulations aimed at keeping criminals from obtaining firearms. America, in short, needs effective gun controls more than relatively tranquil Japan.

Americans, being more at risk of violent criminal action than the residents of relatively tranquil Japan, have more need of effective means of self defense. My feelings on this issue are influenced by the fact that the woman I married is one of several people I know who deterred criminal action thru non-lethal use of a firearm. She didn't know if the nice young man who has kicked in the door of her apartment was there to quietly burgle her or to rape and dismember her, but either way he thought better of it upon finding himself downrange from a .32.

As I mentioned earlier, Steven Levitt's studies have shown no relationship between gun control laws and crime rates. If evidence matters to you, you should accept that the favorite remedy of the left for crime doesn't work.

I'm not familiar with Levitt's studies on this subject, but, if you're describing them accurately, then all I can say is many serious thinkers on the subject don't agree with him, and even a cursory look at the statistics seems to counter what you purport his position to be. The US, for instance, has an overall murder rate about 2.5 times that of Australia -- a nation with stricter gun regulations. America's gun murder rate, however, is about fifteen times higher than Australia's. That looks to me like prima facie evidence that more widespread gun possession by criminals drives murder rates in the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns_and_crime

Look, I'm all for a robust right to own firearms provided one is a responsible, law-abiding person. Truly I am. I just want the government to improve the atrociously poor job it does (at least in comparison with other rich countries) at preventing non-law abiding citizens from doing the same. There ought to be a barrier between legal and criminal gun possession. But in America instead of a barrier we have a porous membrane.

Americans, being more at risk of violent criminal action than the residents of relatively tranquil Japan, have more need of effective means of self defense.

I haven't uttered one word to the contrary.

A statistic about the use of guns that I heard a number of years ago:
Crimes committed with guns: ~ 1,000,000 / yr
Crimes prevented with guns: ~ 1,000,000 / yr
deaths from guns: ~ 10,000 / yr

I take from this that guns are a good thing. A lot of crime prevented; at worst a break even versus not having guns. And a well armed society satisfies the need cited by the second amendment.

Jasper, the thing about your international comparisons is, a lot of those countries had much less restrictive laws decades ago--and much lower murder rates than the US even then. For that matter, the US had much less restrictive gun laws decades ago (you could order handguns through the mail, for crying out loud) and much lower murder rates.

(This sets aside the question of who is being murdered in these countries: gang members or ordinary innocent people, for which I don't have the answer)

As long as their are people whose livlihood depends on smuggling large quantities of contraband from thousands of miles away, there will be plenty of guns for criminals.

> I just want the government to improve the atrociously poor job it does (at least in comparison with other rich countries) at preventing non-law abiding citizens from doing the same.

That's nice, but there's no reason to believe that gun control laws are at all relevant. (BTW - I've been in the listed countries. In each one, I've been offered "black market" guns.)

However, I'm willing to do experiments. Let's try the proposed measures on another substance, say cocaine. It's easier, because there's no domestic source and it is consumed. If you can't stop illegal acquisition of cocaine in the US, what reason is there to believe that you can control illegal acquisition of guns?

The other part of experiments is that you reject failed ideas. The US has lots of gun laws. How about identifying and repealing some of the ones that have failed?

rc,

Bruce: "There, I see you having two real choices, a hand gun, or a short barelled shot gun (my preference, given my nearsightedness)."

Yikes! That's like saying 'I can't identify my target, so I'll spray the whole area.'

Yikes right back at ya! What your response really says is, you haven't a clue how firearms actually are operated, but you nevertheless feel free to expound on their usage. What Bruce is mostly saying is that his eyesight, especially in low-light situations, makes it harder to use the sighting system on a handgun, compared to the much different system used on shotguns. And like many folks who haven't ever used a shotgun (and perhaps never even seen one fired) you have a grossly exaggerated idea of how quickly the shot disperses. The widest pattern available from conventional shotguns (cylinder choke) generally results in 70% of the pellets striking within a 30" circle at 25 yards. In case that number has no significance to you, it's in the same ballpark as the width of a common suburban residental building lot. At a typical indoor home-defense distance (5 yards is actually pretty generous here) that represents a circle of about 6". While this represents a greatly relaxed aiming requirement as compared to a handgun, it's hardly "spraying the whole area."

No wonder home break-ins are common in Europe. Not only are the robbers assured that the homowners are unarmed; it's considered an outrage even to suggest that homeowners should be able to defend themselves with firearms. See, e.g, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/6458317.stm

needs effective gun controls

I would agree. What would you say these effective gun controls are?

Personally I advocate the immediate death penalty to anyone who commits a crime with a gun, but, then, I'm a misanthrope.

Who owns firearms, and whose wife and son are trained in their use and operation.

Since I made the post (and got named!), I hope you'll take the time to respond to my comment. I argued that there is more gun homicide in urban areas than rural ones. This is actually a fact.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1448529

You call this fact racist. It's not. It's a fact. (Gun suicide and accidental deaths are far more common in rural areas - by your logic merely stating this means I think white people are moronic and self-loathic yokels.) And just FYI, I can come up with a number of reasons why guns are more dangerous in population-dense environments that have nothing to do with skin color.

And a question, do you have any statistics on "Home Invasion Robberies" in the US and Britain. My googling only turned up scare articles without evidence and triumphalist stories of self-defending gun owners. Any facts to back up your assertion? Legitimately curious.

Mavis, colour me sceptical. There is no current theory of urban violence of which I am aware that does not centre around the large minority underclasses. Discussion about the urban problems of guns thus becomes a discussion about not letting poor, brown people have guns. No one reasonably thinks that if the rich white people on the Upper East Side got their hands on a piece, gun crime in New York would suddenly explode. *Maybe* once a year some M&A lawyer would kill his wife, a phenomenon that occurs just as readily in North Dakota.

Meanwhile, the stats on burglary can be found at www.crimestatistics.org.uk It is not just some right wing factoid; it is actually true that half of the robberies in England occur when the homeowner is present.

Thanks for the response. There is a ton of urban violence committed by and among poor people with dark skin. It's a huge problem. The reason for that is highly contested: poverty, close quarters, cultural issues?

Accusing me of using urban as a code word for black (and latino?) simply isn't fair. Urban and rural environments are different and have different problems. Any google search shows that crime and violence prevention organizations of all stripes divide data that way. I don't think you even really disagree with this, I just think you were scoring a cheap shot against somebody who believes in gun control. Regards.

Mavis, you are, of course, welcome to your opinion. But as I explained in another thread; I don't think it's racist to notice that in America, the people who commit the majority of crimes are poor minorities. What I think is racist is the implication that it is therefore okay to take guns away from them (though it would of course be all right to let people in North Dakota have them). . . or otherwise act as if they are therefore, as a group, not to be trusted in the way that we trust other people. Clear?

I get your point. But the flip of that argument is that guess who gets murdered by these guns? Blacks and latinos in urban areas. In fact, your indifference to the matter - treat them like the North Dakotans! who cares what the outcomes are - suggests a racial bias. Of course, you're not really indifferent. You just happen to think that guns make people safer (I think, I'm not a regular reader). I believe the opposite. It's not about trust or racial paternalism, it's about problem solving.

If you can't stop illegal acquisition of cocaine in the US, what reason is there to believe that you can control illegal acquisition of guns?

Because other countries have done so, so we know from example it's not impossible.

Jane writes:

Discussion about the urban problems of guns thus becomes a discussion about not letting poor, brown people have guns. No one reasonably thinks that if the rich white people on the Upper East Side got their hands on a piece, gun crime in New York would suddenly explode.

I think this gets to the heart of it. I agree: I don't think crime would explode if rich people on the UES acquired guns. And I also agree: gun control advocates like me think it's a bad idea that lots of poor people (who, by definition in this country tend to be disproportionately non-white) can get weapons very easily. But I think this is an eminently defensible position, because those same poor people tend to cause a disproportionate amount of violent crime. To me this is just basic Public Safety 101. Of course we should make it more challenging for our most crime-ridden population segments to acquire firearms. Duh!

Seriously, though, the types of controls I would like to see enacted (some of which would center around making guns more expensive) would apply to everyone equally, and so nobody would face racial or ethnic discrimination in his effort to buy a gun. I'd make the system comparable to getting a car. You'd have to go to a registered dealer (there would be, like, 500 of them nationally instead of the 50,000 we have now). You'd have to get it registered. You'd have to get it insured. You'd have to possess a license.

It would be a pain in the butt, but we'd survive. And it would be a small price to pay for much safer streets.

> I'd make the system comparable to getting a car.

There's no requirement that one buy a car from a "registered" dealer. There are no restrictions on who can buy a car. There is no requirement that one register a car.

There are requirements on cars that are driven on public roads and on folks who drive on public roads, but that's very different.

And, since the vast majority of "crime guns" are already acquired outside the legal system, there's no way that constraints on legal channels will reach them.

Because other countries have done so, so we know from example it's not impossible.

Do those other contries share a "border" with Mexico?

> Because other countries have done so, so we know from example it's not impossible.

Actually, we don't know that. We just know that death by gun is less common in other places.

We also know that death by gun varies widely in the US, even between adjacent neighborhoods, with exactly the same gun laws.

There are two ways to stop folks from shooting other folks. (1) Stop folks who would shoot other folks from getting a gun. (2) Stop folks from wanting to shoot other folks.

Since the vast majority of folks who want to shoot other folks in the US want guns, if you're going to argue for (1), you have to demonstrate that you can stop folks who want a gun for criminal purposes from getting one.

If you can't stop cocaine, why do you think that you can stop guns? (Guns, like cocaine, can be smuggled.)

And, since the vast majority of "crime guns" are already acquired outside the legal system, there's no way that constraints on legal channels will reach them.

I think you're dead wrong here. I would posit that the vast majority of "crime guns" are indeed acquired by someone inside the legal system. And then they pass into illegal ownership/use. I mean, you're not seriously suggesting that most of the guns used in crimes are sold directly by the factory to criminals, are you?

Do those other contries share a "border" with Mexico?

No, but those other countries are regularly infiltrated by smugglers. Heroin can be bought on the streets of London or Stockholm. Guns, can, too, but just a lot less easily than in America, with its 50,000 gun dealers. My point is, not sharing a border with Mexico doesn't render a country immune from smuggling, and susceptibility to smuggling in general has very little to do with whether a state is capable of protecting its citizens from armed criminals.

Actually, we don't know that. We just know that death by gun is less common in other places.

Well, no, I think it's pretty obvious that guns are distributed less widely among criminal elements in the rest of the rich world than in America. A simple glance at the telling statistics (what % of crimes involve the use of firearms, frequency of firearms arrests, numbers of illegally possessed firearms confiscated by police, etc, etc) should leave us with little doubt.

We also know that death by gun varies widely in the US, even between adjacent neighborhoods, with exactly the same gun laws.

Not sure what you're point is here. I don't think anybody disputes the fact that South Central is more dangerous than Beverly Hills.

...you have to demonstrate that you can stop folks who want a gun for criminal purposes from getting one.

Also not quite sure what your point is here. Are you seriously suggesting we ought not to try and stop "folks who want a gun for criminal purposes from getting one"?

If you can't stop cocaine, why do you think that you can stop guns? (Guns, like cocaine, can be smuggled.)

I don't think I can "stop" guns. No country can. I just think it's possible to impede their use by criminals more effectively than is the case currently in the US, by looking at the successful efforts of other rich countries.

> A simple glance at the telling statistics (what % of crimes involve the use of firearms, frequency of firearms arrests, numbers of illegally possessed firearms confiscated by police, etc, etc) should leave us with little doubt.

Jasper still hasn't noticed that Canadians have exactly the same access to guns that NYers and Detroiters have, yet don't shoot each other.

Jasper significantly overestimates the amount of smuggling volume required to supply a new gun for every gun crime in America. Wright did the arithmetic - it's a small fraction of the marijuana smuggling volume.

And then there's illegal manufacture. (That's why cocaine is easier to stop - you can't make it with stuff that you can buy in most every town.) I've actually made a semi-auto, and I flunked metal shop.

> Are you seriously suggesting we ought not to try and stop "folks who want a gun for criminal purposes from getting one"?

I'm pointing out that the limits of that approach are fairly strong. You can't do much, so there's no point in doing things that have more effect on "good ownership".

> I just think it's possible to impede their use by criminals more effectively than is the case currently in the US, by looking at the successful efforts of other rich countries.

Does Jasper actually believe that gun control laws are the only relevant difference?

In the UK's case, I note that the differences that Jasper finds compelling predates the gun control laws and that the laws didn't change things.

It is not just some right wing factoid; it is actually true that half of the robberies in England occur when the homeowner is present.

If that is drawn from official crime reports, there's a reporting biase built into it. It sounds like a lot of Brits don't think it's worthwhile calling the cops on an ordinary burglary with only property loss, but every home invasion where a resident is beat senseless and has to go to the hospital gets reported (unless the cops are throwing out reports so their statistics don't look so bad).

OTOH, if the UK does have a lot of unreported crime, that doesn't help the case of those arguing that their gun laws work, does it?

Jasper still hasn't noticed that Canadians have exactly the same access to guns that NYers and Detroiters have, yet don't shoot each other.

Exactly the same access? You're badly misinformed. Canada imposes much stricter limits on the type and quantity of weapons for sale, regulates the retail distribution network more thoroughly, enforces tough registration requirements, etc. While it's true that some American cities have enacted strict firearms regulations, it's also true that nearly all Americans are no more than a few hours' drive on the interstate from a jurisdiction where the regulations are lax.

Jasper significantly overestimates the amount of smuggling volume required to supply a new gun for every gun crime in America. Wright did the arithmetic - it's a small fraction of the marijuana smuggling volume.

Why even talk about smuggling, when in the US we have a vast, far-flung, and loosely regulated domestic firearms manufacturing and distibution sector? But, if your argument here is that a strict domestic firearms regulation system would be ineffective because of smuggling, you have to explain away the success of other rich nations that manage to keep their criminals from arming themselves to American standards despite the existence of smugglers. Are you suggesting that US law enforcement personnel or customs officers aren't as skilled as their rich world counterparts?

Does Jasper actually believe that gun control laws are the only relevant difference?

No. I strongly suspect Baltimore won't be as safe as Oslo in your lifetime or mine. I also strongly suspect an effective system to keep guns out of the hands of criminals would make Baltimore much safer.

You can't do much, so there's no point in doing things that have more effect on "good ownership".

Nonsense. Other rich countries do a lot more, to great effect. Your pretending otherwise won't wish this reality away.

As I wrote in Yglesias' comments, the 2nd Amendment was clearly meant as a limitation on the power of the Federal Government, and I think the individual states were left free to do whatever they wished with regards to gun control, though I doubt The Framers even considered the possibility of gun bans by the states.

Now, the wording of the amendment is really clear despite what the anti-gun movement claims- it clearly states that this is a individual right that the Federal Government cannot infringe.

It has become accepted law that the 14th Amendment was meant to apply the same Bill of Rights to the States, for example, the State of Florida cannot infringe on free speech or one's right to worship. By extension, this must also mean that the 2nd Amendment is also incorporated and limits the state's power to infringe on the individual right to keep and bear arms. If not, then I don't see how one incorporates the other amendments in a logical, nonarbitrary fashion.

Jim O'Sullivan: "What your response really says is, you haven't a clue how firearms actually are operated, but you nevertheless feel free to expound on their usage."

You're right, Jim. I'm dumb and you're smart.

Jim: "The widest pattern available from conventional shotguns"

Bruce: "a short barelled shot gun (my preference, given my nearsightedness)..."

You see, my main skill is reading comprehension, not pistol marksmanship. So when some nearsighted yay-hoo prefers to let loose with a 'short-barreled shotgun', conventional shotgun stats mean nothing to me. I'm a bit short-sighted myself, yet I know the importance of light and sight picture before I start blazing away with twelve guage double aught.

In likelihood, Bruce is a safe enough shooter- those who care enough to write care enough to know.

But his 'I'm blind, so I'l carry a bigger gun' statement is worthy at least worthy of a good razzing.

Unless, of course, you believe that the second ammendment means, 'I can do whatever the hell I want.'

-------------------------
Yancy Ward: "and I think the individual states were left free to do whatever they wished with regards to gun control"

I guess you could argue that, but the rights of the people to bear arms were dfined in terms of