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Guns and safety

Aaron Swartz, a gifted young programmer, has an interesting idea — remove society's need for guns by inventing a fast-acting tranquilizer. He has invited emailed responses to his proposal, but I'd like to present my response here. I've wanted to write down my thoughts on the Second Amendment for a while now, and this seems like a good opportunity. This is still a response to Swartz, however, so please do read his proposal.

First off, let's dismiss the idea that a fast-acting tranquilizer is medically possible.

I don't have any medical documentation to back me up, but there has been significant desire for such a drug for almost the entire history of human civilization — and we don't have one yet. Today, everyone from kidnappers to game wardens could benefit from such an invention, but it doesn't exist. I could go on from here to discuss speed of drug transmissions, what tranquilizers actually do and the dangers that a very fast acting tranquilizer would also be essentially a poison, but that starts to get out of my area of expertise.

However, there are inventions similar enough to Swartz's idea to merit discussion here. Both energy weapons and chemical sprays have been introduced to our society as nominally sublethal weapons. These weapons have been adopted by many people, perhaps most importantly by police officers. These weapons give the police both a threat of violence that isn't lethal and a way to subdue someone.

So there is merit to Swartz's idea, and it has already been adopted by both the police and civilians. But can we replace guns in general with Mace and Tasers?

Obviously not in the case of law enforcement. The weapons noted above are not effective at long range and protective gear exists to protect from their effects even at short range. Officers need to be able to project force at long range, force that cannot be easily protected against. Note that long range is a relative term, chemical and energy weapons are limited to about 20 feet. The obvious examples are situations like raids, standoffs, hostages and the (thankfully rare) heavily armed criminals.

But aside from law enforcement, certainly restricting civilian access to firearms would make us more safe, right? Here we run into the United State Constitution's Second Amendment, as gun ownership is protected there.

Mr. Swartz is currently studying the US Constitution, so he doesn't seem to be taken in by one particular argument against the second amendment — that it is designed to allow State militias, not private ownership. For everyone else — all of the first ten amendments are under the heading "Bill of Rights" and represent limits of government intrusion on individual liberty.

Instead Mr. Swartz seems to take the argument of safety. This is the idea that not having guns would make everyone safer than we would be with them. I'm leery of putting words into someone's mouth, but I get the impression that he would like the Second Amendment to be itself amended, for the reason of safety. And certainly something like Columbine could not have happened without firearms.

His reason for amending the Second Amendment is good and moral, but let's destroy the safety argument anyway.

I'm looking at "Leading Causes of Death by Age Group: North Carolina Residents, 2001" a PDF document available from the North Carolina Center for Health Statistics. I choose North Carolina because I'm from NC and familiar with the situation "on the ground," and NC is a southern state and so we should see elevated gun deaths here. I choose 2001 as that is the most recent data they have.

On the table "All Ages" there are only two violent deaths listed in the top ten -- "Other unintentional injuries" and "Motor vehicle injuries." Motor vehicle injuries took 1,606 lives in 2001.

Looking at deaths by age group, motor vehicle injuries pops up as the number 2 cause of death for 1-4 year-olds. It is the number one cause for both 5-14 year-olds and 15-24 years-olds. Starting with 25-44 year-olds motor vehicle deaths start to drop and for everyone 65 and older it is off the top ten causes.

Let's look more closely at those 15-24 year-olds. In 2001 there were 380 motor vehicle deaths, 163 deaths attributed to "homicide and legal intervention," 134 suicides and 106 unintentional injuries.

I'm sure you can see where I'm going here. While we can't say how much banning firearms would impact homicides (much less "legal intervention"), it is clear that requiring someone to be 25 years old to operate a motor vehicle would provide clear results against the number one killer amongst 15-24 year-olds.

Mr. Swartz, convenience trumped safety and human life to the tune of 380 deaths in North Carolina during 2001. And there isn't even a constitutional protection for driving. Even something as limited as restricting some driving privileges in North Carolina for younger drivers was controversial. And this "graduated license" idea has only been adopted in a few states.

I would also go as far as to question the idea that personal safety is the most important civic goal. From gun control to CCTV to things like the Patriot Act, Americans today seem far away from the words of Patrick Henry when he said:

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

The idea that we can all be "safe" is not only unattainable but makes intrusions on our liberty palatable, if not welcome.

Today fear of terrorism is allowing the government to erode the Bill of Rights under the argument that the constraints are inconvenient for police, that they are prevented from delivering safety to us. But the Bill of Rights are supposed to be inconvenient, so that Police powers aren't abused.

By the way, how many loyal Republicans want the powers granted by the Patriot Act in the hands in the hands of the next Clinton-Reno?

At the risk of sounding like a paranoid wing-nut, it seems that today connivence, wealth, and the dream of personal safety has led Americans to turn over our hard-won liberties to increasingly powerful federal agencies. Are we are accepting with open arms the same kinds of intrusive, uncontrollable government powers that the founding fathers fought against.

And that brings us back to the Second Amendment.

Why do we have the Second Amendment? My recommendation is to take a look at the Federalist Papers, a series of essays written as the US Constitution was being debated. This collection is one of the best representations of the thinking behind the US Constitution.

Here I'd like to draw attention to Federalist #29, "Concerning the Militia" (which discusses anti-Federalist fears of a too-strong Federal military) and in particular this passage :

The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens.

In particular note the last sentence.

There are still people living in countries where the legal, just demands of its citizens and civilian government are thwarted by the country's military leadership. The Second Amendment is specifically designed to prevent such a thing from happening here in America.

Perhaps the Second Amendment is archaic ... maybe we have nothing to fear from our country's famous military-industrial complex ... maybe corrupt politicians will never conspire to subvert the Constitution ... maybe.

I, for one, prefer an America with al its inconvenient shackles on its government — rather than risk gaining shackles of my own.