On June 15, 2022, Quillette.com posted an article titled "The Cause of America's Gun-Death Epidemic? It's Guns". I strongly disagree with much of what the author says, and put together a rebuttle. Quilette declined to publish my article, which they have every right to. I've decided to "self-publish" here, mostly for safe keeping.
Inanimate tools are not to blame for
human behavior.
A rebuttal to Michael Shermer’s “The
Cause of America’s Gun-Death Epidemic? It’s Guns”
In “The
Cause of America’s Gun-Death Epidemic? It’s Guns”, Michael Shermer claims
irrefutability of the idea that severely restricting legal firearms ownership
will slash the majority of firearms-related deaths dramatically, if not
completely. I will concede some validity
to specific aspects of this claim, but I will also strongly question the
fundamental bases of his approach and the practical applicability of his
proposals. Additionally, I will argue
semantics. Many people will consider
this last to be an invalid approach. I,
and quite a few others, however, will maintain that Mr. Shermer’s semantic
plays, identical to those used by many of his social and political perspective,
are misleading and do not allow for a whole-of-concept approach to what we believe
is THE fundamental issue: a mental health crisis at a cultural-level.
To begin:
The claim that there have been 260 mass public shootings in the United States so
far this calendar year.
An
immense stumbling block to communication between the viewpoints on any subject
is semantics. How do we each define
anything? How do we each use any specific word? When we don’t use words the
same way, or define them similarly, it becomes difficult for us to reach across
the aisle and have effective dialogue with those we see as opposition to our
social and political viewpoints. What
I’m getting at is: “how do YOU define a mass shooting?”
Since the
recent Uvalde, TX incident, which Mr. Shermer uses to exemplify a different
aspect of this subject, I have seen some claims regarding “mass shootings”
which I consider misleading. What is a
“mass shooting”? The Gun Violence
Archive (GVA), Mr. Shermer’s source, defines it as any incident in which 4 or
more people are shot in a single incident.
This is a usable definition if all you are looking for is a generalized
view of GUN DEATH (emphasis mine).
However, lumping criminals shooting at each other in with Active Shooter
Events is highly misleading. While those
of Mr. Shermer’s social perspective may discount the underlying intent and
social setting of an act of violence, I argue that it is important. Limiting the definition to that of the FBI’s
“Active Shooter Event”, there are significantly fewer. The FBI’s Active Shooter site does not seem
to have 2022 statistics readily available, but looking at 2021
as a recent example, they cite 61 as having occurred, while the GVA lists 692
“Mass Shootings”.
Certainly,
there may have been quite a few more “Mass Shootings” than “Active Shooter
Events”, but what does that mean?
Comparing the definitions, “The FBI defines an active shooter as one or
more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a
populated area.” While the GVA only defines it as ”four or more shot in a
single incident”.
The FBI’s
definition should be broader than the GVA’s, given no lower limit to the number
of people shot, only that it occurs in a “populated area”. That includes religious venues, parties,
parks, schools…anywhere in which large numbers of people may congregate. Contrasting that with the GVA’s, it should
include significantly more, but doesn’t.
I browsed
the GVA’s list of incidents and noticed a couple of characteristics: all of the events I followed the links for
(which was only a handful) occurred in dense, urban settings, and occurred
between criminal elements using illegally possessed firearms. A shooting between gang members in Chicago,
involving illegally purchased firearms, resulting in 13 injuries may well fall
under “Mass Shooting”, but is the gun to blame for human criminality, the
criminal tendency to violence, and the likelihood of people who tend to behave
impulsively to end up in a criminal lifestyle?
No. Does the firearm make it easier for a criminal to kill people? Of
course. If we blame the gun, as Mr.
Shermer’s phrasing, and that of the GVA, appears to, we seem to be outsourcing
responsibility from the criminals to the tools they use. You blame the tool used, and believe that we
should be protected from threats, including from ourselves, by removing one of
the tools used. We (“pro-gun”, pro-civil
rights) blame the individual, and believe that we should be free to do what we
wish, so long as that does not harm anyone else. When it does, and only then, action should be
taken by The State, specifically against the individual at fault.
My
primary point with this introduction is that these semantics, and the context
of their use, lead a casual reader to believe that there were 692 Active
Shooter Events (ASEs). This has a more
significant emotional impact than “…rival gang members shot at each
other..” I see this as a deliberate
manipulation of the readers’ emotions.
Understandable in the over-generalized context of Gun Death, but
nuance is necessary to understand and properly address the deeper problems. Criminals killing criminals is quite a bit
different than criminals killing innocent civilians.
Two
paragraphs later, Mr. Shermer states it “obvious” that “But for the gun, none
of these mass public murders would have happened…”.
This ignores
incidents of “mass public murders” using other weapons. The most notable was in Nice, France, where a
moving truck was
used to kill 84 and injure hundreds.
The U.S. Department of Justice has commented
that they have no realistic idea how many times automobiles are used in the
commission of crimes of violence because it hasn’t been properly studied. As some in law enforcement predicted decades
ago, a reduction in criminal access to firearms is likely to lead to an
increase in the use of automobiles as weapons.
“Substitution effect”, which is denied by some, but recognized by criminals. I’m not sure how to address that without
solid research into the use of automobiles as weapons, which simply isn’t
available. Mass Killings are committed
with any tool the offender can find. A mass
stabbing in Japan lead to 19 people killed.
Another, in China,
saw 33 people killed and 130 injured. These numbers should not be dismissed. Mr. Shermer’s statement that mass murders
would not happen without guns is inaccurate, and discounts the Substitution
Effect he later dismisses as invalid.
Those wishing to engage in violent acts will use whatever tool they can
find, be it a gun, an automobile, a knife, anything.
I’ll
again touch on the correlation with automobiles, but with some restraint. The “pro-gun crowd”, which I prefer to call
“pro-Civil Rights”, often compares automobile-related deaths and injuries to
those involving firearms. There are many
good reasons to do so. I’m going to use
some comparisons, and use President Biden’s own comments about firearms-related
deaths surpassing those of automotive deaths as the counter to anyone who says
they aren’t the same. “If he can use it,
so can I”. Not the most adult argument,
but the others would take much longer to articulate.
Returning
to the point: it’s inarguable that firearms-related deaths would drop,
but to claim that mass murders would not happen without guns is completely
ignorant of human ingenuity with tool use and violence. Mass murders have occurred with knives,
automobiles, and every tool humanity has invented. To be sure, firearms make mass murder easier
in many ways, but they will still happen after civilian firearms ownership is
more tightly restricted. Those wishing
to kill large numbers of people will find another way. If Mr. Shermer had said that banning certain
firearms would make mass killings more difficult, I would agree with him. However, the claim that none would happen is
far from realistic.
Mr.
Shermer does make a point that many with my perspective see as fundamental to
the subject, but then uses the logic in a way that we would not recognize. “…every act of gun violence has a unique
deeper cause”. Yes, absolutely, and if
we address those deeper causes, it won’t be necessary to trample the rights of
the millions of gun owners who use their firearms for completely legal, most often
entirely benign, purposes. To
oversimplify, if we could magically take firearms away from everyone, globally,
we would still face the facts of mental illness at the individual and cultural
levels (which occasionally manifests violently, though to be sure mental
illness does not EQUAL violent tendencies), and violence in basic criminality,
as well as impulse-management issues (“crimes of passion”), and other
underlying psychological and cultural causes.
To contrast, if we effectively addressed the mental health of
individuals and our culture, one could (again, oversimplifying) arm every
individual on the planet without fear of them misusing those guns for
illegitimate purposes.
Would
anyone deny that western culture is experiencing dramatic increases in mental
illness of various kinds? Generalizing
from the available material, such as the Psychiatric Times article “Mental
Health in America: A Growing Crisis”, among a multitude of other sources,
our collective mental health needs are unmet and degrading. This is another rabbit hole I’ll only skim
around, and I’ll simply say all of humanity, though specifically America in
this context, would benefit more from effectively addressing mental health than
from taking firearms away from those who are not violent. Suicide? Of course it’s a problem, and a
growing one. Taking firearms away from
the general public would increase survivability for individual attempts, but
many people experiencing suicidal ideation will attempt it multiple times. Looking at the underlying reasons any
individual might attempt suicide, recognizing that approximately half
of suicidal people will try multiple times, and addressing why they feel
the need to do so, would more effectively reduce suicide deaths than simply
taking away one tool used. Further,
addressing the cultural issues leading to criminal violence would do more to
reduce that facet of the subject, as well as reducing criminal violence using
other tools (knives, automobiles, baseball bats, ad nauseum…) than simply
limiting one tool. If one is going to
downplay the Substitution Effect, I ask for an explanation of why England has
instituted restrictions on knives.
Mr. Shermer refers to my approach
as the “overdetermination problem”. I
don’t see an issue with that. I would
refer to his as an “underdetermination problem”. Rather than addressing the root causes of
violent behavior, he would limit access to one of the tools used, imposing
severe legislation on an immense group in reaction to the criminal acts of a
very few. Millions of Americans own a
wide variety of firearms, and at most go hunting and kill a deer. Many more simply shoot paper, or soda cans. Contrast that to the relatively minuscule
aspect of the gun-owning population who engage in violence. Using that logic, we should be exceptionally
prejudiced against the overall Muslim population for the actions of a few
extremists. Is that approach not
criticized regularly? Are mass
punishments not considered unethical?
How is this different?
I do hear the retort: “This is
different because children are being killed and we can do something about it.”
Certainly, we can, but not at the expense of the 99+% of us who legally own
firearms and pose absolutely no threat to society whatsoever. Civilian firearms ownership might even be beneficial to society. The linked article shows
that approximately 10% of active shooter events in 2021, as defined by the FBI,
were stopped by armed civilians. That is
not a statistically insignificant number.
A little
further into the article, Mr. Shermer uses the JFK assassination as an example
of his point. In a discussion with similarly
minded people (I recognize the confirmation bias and ask forgiveness.) we
question his semantics. Lee Harvey
Oswald’s gun killed JFK? From that
standpoint, it could be argued that JFK was killed by hydrostatic shock INDUCED
by the impact of the bullets from Oswald’s gun, not the gun itself. Should we then outlaw hydrostatic shock? Yes, that sounds silly, but then would we
restrict the possession of the firearm, absolving Oswald of some
responsibility, burdening non-violent firearms owners with the consequences of
an individual’s criminal actions? Why does such a significant, vocal, aspect of
society hold the tool responsible for the actions of the person, and
specifically with regards to firearms violence?
Gun manufacturers are threatened with lawsuits, but automobile and
alcohol manufacturers have no responsibility for the 11,000+ deaths from DWI crashes each year?
My side of the aisle sees this
comparison as directly, utterly relevant.
If we’re going to place blame on the tool used, should we not do it
across-the-board with every machine and tool humanity uses? Should we not also restrict automobiles from
those with no DWI convictions because we can’t predict who the next intoxicated
driver will be to murder school children? How about banning those same from
being able to purchase alcohol? Perhaps
we could initiate a National Instant Check System for alcohol and automobile
purchases? If someone has a history of
substance abuse, how can they be trusted to soberly operate an automobile?
I
strongly disagree that “overdetermination” obscures necessary action, or even
that legislation is the best approach.
Legislation may be necessary for some issues, or even some parts of
issues, but Americans have become dependent on it to solve problems that might
better be addressed with education, with enhanced access to mental health
resources, with a recognition of objective values such as respect for other
people, with a return to valuation of adulthood and the related impulse
management. Instead, we have the
legislative equivalent of Maslow’s Hammer:
When the only tool one has is law, one sees every problem as
necessitating legislation.
The
subsequent comparison of murder with firing squad executions almost made some
remote sense to me, up to and including the statement that a criminal murder
“…was a crime perpetrated voluntarily by one person”. It fell apart, though, with the conclusion
that somehow illegal violence committed with a firearm is the responsibility of
the gun, while legal violence is somehow the responsibility of The State.
Why the divergence when each is an act of violence
perpetrated by people against people?
The State can find other means of violence in pursuit of justice (lethal
injection, gas chamber). Is this not an
example of the Substitution Effect? Does
ultimate responsibility not fall on The State, and its designated actors? The only difference seems to be the legality
of the use of violence. Is it ok to kill
simply because a representative of The State has said that it’s ok? The executioners might not have known which
of them had the live round, but they still each went into the execution with
the knowledge and intent that they could be the one firing the live round, and
they still aimed and pressed the trigger.
“I was following orders”, or some variation thereof, hasn’t been
acceptable as an excuse since the end of WWII, but now it is when arguing a difference
between murder and State-sanctioned execution?
That seems like a double standard.
And so,
we segue into The State’s responsibility in acting against criminal violence,
as shows up later in the article. Mr.
Shermer uses the Active Shooter Event (ASE) in Uvalde, TX as an example of “armed
good guys” not being an effective counter to criminal violence. This event has captured the political realm,
and the gun rights cause, for a number of reasons. Mr. Shermer’s use of it as an example is
notable because part of his argument is based on misinformation about law
enforcement tactics in addressing active shooters. No, the “well-armed good guys” did not sit
around, restraining parents from saving their own children, cowering away from
the situation. Uvalde Police had
officers inside the school approximately three minutes after the assailant
entered. They effectively cornered him,
and isolated him in a location where he barricaded himself. Those officers suffered gunfire from the
assailant, but effectively stopped the killing by putting the assailant in a
position where he no longer had access to victims. That is one of the goals of the common
tactics currently employed. Once the
active shooter is barricaded, there is no longer need to press the threat, and
others can be evacuated away from the scene while law enforcement attempts to
negotiate with the aggressor. During
this, there was a contingent of more than 20 law enforcement personnel inside
the school attempting to get the door to the room in which the assailant had
barricaded himself open. It proved impossible
(for technical reasons) until they were able to locate a key to the room. At that time, they made entry and confronted
him. Nobody was sitting around,
wallowing in cowardice. No law
enforcement personnel were allowing children to be killed. The agents and officers inside were beside
themselves with frustration and anger that they were stymied from engaging the
threat by a locked door. Parents were
prevented from entering the school because they would have presented the
shooter with more targets, potential victims.
Their children were already being evacuated through windows and doors in
other parts of the school. In the end,
it was “good guys with guns” who ended the situation, and all of the reports
otherwise are misreporting on the part of the media and bad information released
by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Using
that incident as a springboard to address the larger subject of “a good guy
with a gun”, it was only days later that a
legally-armed woman with a pistol stopped a man who attempted to shoot-up a
party. No members of the party were
injured; the assailant was killed. A
criminal, intending to kill innocent civilians, was stopped by an armed
civilian.
This
scene plays-out tens of thousands of times every year, possibly more. A FBI study conducted between 2007
and 2011 found that Americans use firearms an average of 67,740 times every
year of the study in legal, justified self-defense. This is the most statistically conservative
number available. Some other studies
have found that firearms are used in self-defense millions of times every year. Sticking with the lowest number, is 67,740
self-defense uses insignificant? Some
groups believe so. “If it saves just ONE
life”. Ok, while we can’t realistically
posit how many lives were saved within that number (some uses might merely have
saved property), we may be able to guess that it’s quite a bit more than
one. Even the authors of the study acknowledge
that their numbers are likely low because of the reticence on the part of many
legal gun owners to report defensive uses, and the fact that many small
departments do not report their statistics to the FBI.
Many of
Mr. Shermer’s view will argue that only The State should be able to take action
against criminals. Anything else is
“vigilante” in execution. This
presupposes that The State is responsible for individual security. Unfortunately for that approach, placing
responsibility for individual security with The State is unreasonable and
impossible. The U.S. Supreme Court has
ruled many times that state actors cannot be held responsible for the security
of individuals. The case that comes to
mind easily for me is Gonzalez v CastleRock, but there are many others. Even the case of Deputy Scot Peterson, who did
not stop the shooter in Parkland, is taking years to play-out, and I expect he
will not be held responsible because of the related SCOTUS rulings. Perhaps he is a coward for not confronting
the shooter, but as a representative of government, he has zero constitutional
responsibility for the security of the individuals in the school. I predict any conviction will be for
something else.
So who is
responsible for my security, and yours, if not The State? Aren’t the police supposed to stop violent
criminals? Why can’t we simply rely on
them, and abdicate any self-reliance to The State? Another complex issue that I’ll be able to
only skim the surface of. I’ve already
mentioned legal obligations, and the fact that law enforcement has no
constitutional responsibility for the security of individuals. Taking a step from there, where does The
State’s responsibility begin and end, and where does the individual’s
responsibility, if any, fall? I’m going
to use a timeline provided in “Self-Defense and the State”, a 2008 paper by Kimberly Kessler Ferzan of the University
of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School. While
Ms. Ferzan adroitly avoids taking sides on the issue, she does an excellent job
of exploring the subject. In this paper,
she lays-out a generalized timeline of a hypothetical criminal attack, and
describes where The State has responsibility, and where an individual, as the
victim, is able to act. An individual
cannot take preemptive action against a threat without it being unjustified. An individual must not act after-the-fact or
it is vigilante justice, essentially murder.
However, at the instant their attacker engages, the individual is the
sole party in a position to defend themselves.
The State does not have the resources to protect every person at any
given time, while each individual has the ability to develop the capacity for
self-defense, defense of family, and of society, if they choose. If the individual chooses to abdicate that
responsibility, turning it over to The State (which has no responsibility to
them, and lacks the resources to defend individuals), they deliberately leave
themselves defenseless in hopes that an absent State actor will miraculously appear
to save them.
As The
State has no responsibility to the individual, the individual is the only actor
in a position to defend themselves, and historical statistics show that
firearms are effectively used an enormous number of times in self-defense by
individuals, why are we going to restrict law-abiding individuals from
possessing an effective tool for a task they have sole responsibility and
ability to engage in? In order to
restrict those same tools from use by criminals and potential criminals? Once again, we are proposing to pre-emptively
punish the majority for the actions of a small minority.
“But you
don’t NEED an AR-15!”
Well,
define “need”, and so what. I don’t need
my BMW motorcycle, and I can easily kill someone with it if I chose. I don’t NEED my 65” OLED television, and it
could be used as a weapon (though not nearly as easily). I’m going down a slippery slope with my
examples, but my question is “What does ‘need’ have to do with it?” When did “need” come into play? Who is making the determination of
“need”?
“AR-15s
are not good for self-defense”. I’ll not
beg to differ, I’ll DEMAND to. AR-15s,
and all of the firearms of remotely similar design, are exceptional
self-defense tools for a myriad of reasons.
If you want a technical list of why they work wonderfully, feel free to
ask. Otherwise, it’ll take too much
space and this piece has already experienced some significant “mission creep”
from my original intended word count.
Suffice to say, this genre of firearms is designed in ways that make
them exceptional defensive tools, and there are many documented instances of civilians using them as such.
One of
the largest disagreements between “my” side of this issue, and that espoused by
Mr. Shermer may likely stem from a difference in how we apply ethics. In Johathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and
Religion, Haidt articulates his research finding in exploring how humans derive
ethical principles. This came to mind
because of a comment made in response to his article.
A “RayAndrews” makes the surprising
comment, in the replies to Mr. Shermer’s article, that “American gun nuts…value
their assault rifles more than they value their children”. This claim is atrociously disrespectful, and
reflects a significant difference in ethical approaches between our opposing
perspectives. Perhaps we value our
firearms BECAUSE we value our children.
Perhaps we value the ownership of tools which can be used to effectively
stop criminal behavior because we DO value society. I’ll wager this doesn’t make sense to
RayAndrews and Mr. Shermer because of how they view the application of an
ethical foundation we share, but which we don’t approach similarly.
Looking at the center standard
deviations of gun owners (recognizing outliers in every personality spectrum), we
believe that we are responsible for our own defense, our own security. While most may not train to the extent that
law enforcement does, they are still more than minimally competent. Some go so far as to train to a skill level
that far surpasses the majority of law enforcement. Even with a relatively low level of skill,
these people are taking responsibility for themselves, their families, their
communities, and society at large. They
are taking the steps necessary to intervene if faced with an unavoidable,
violent confrontation, and allowed the opportunity. Infinitesimally few are of the illusion that
a firearm provides invincibility or magic powers to stop crime. They merely want the ability to do something
constructive, something positive, to stop a criminal attack when possible. If not possible, if the opportunity isn’t
presented, then they’re in the same situation they would have been otherwise. From a macro-level view, they are shouldering
the responsibility of providing for the security of society. 99% of firearms owners will never have to use
them as other than hole punchers in paper targets. That remaining 1% may only save property, or
they may save lives, their own or of those around them. There’s no way to know, but why take the chance?
Perhaps there’s an element of
wanting to be protected from ourselves on the part of those who want to ban
some or all firearms from civilians? Perhaps there’s a desire to not have to
carry the burden of responsibility? A benevolent
government will watch over us, take care of us, like a parent. When your infant grabs something potentially
dangerous, you take it from them because they can’t understand how to use it
correctly. If one wishes to remain in
such a protected state, that is certainly their prerogative. Many of us would prefer to exercise our own
sovereignty and take what we view as adult responsibility.
I’ve heard the argument that firearms are too
complicated for people to use correctly without immense hours of training that
are limited only to the military and law enforcement. From that logic, I will argue that
automobiles are significantly more complicated than firearms, and obtaining a
driver’s license in the U.S. usually requires little, if any, training and
testing. There are no background checks
for buying a car. No special licensing
specifically to manufacture or sell automobiles, as there are for
firearms. There are no federal laws
requiring specific methods of shipping cars as there are for firearms. There are no restrictions on who may own and
operate an automobile based on history of criminality or substance abuse. Does someone NEED a F-350 dullie? Imagine the damage that could do to a crowd
at even moderate speed. Can the average
person safely drive a Ferrari? Likely
not, so why let them even try when they’re most likely to hurt at least
themselves, if not others also?
Rather than stepping back to a time
when children were taught firearms safety in school, which also helped
reinforce mindful self-control with a recognition of consequences, we’ll simply
take guns away from everyone who complies, and bludgeon the remainder with threats
of State-sanctioned violence. Rather
than addressing underlying causes of criminality, suicidal ideation, poor
decision making, we’ll take a legitimate tool away from all who accept such
legislation. The State will protect us
from those who don’t comply, won’t it?
I could easily continue to argue my
viewpoint, but I had intended to keep this much shorter. There is an expansive list of points on which
the anti-gun advocates and I will disagree, from technical points to
ethical. We seem to have a significant
portion of this country, and The West in general, which desires to divest
itself of responsibility for its own security, and is repulsed by the idea of
being individually responsible for the collective. On the other hand, we have a large aspect of
our country that believes it can, and should, attempt to take some proactive
responsibility, if only minimal, for their community’s safety. From arming themselves for church, to
carrying a concealed pistol when out running errands, and nobody the wiser
unless a threat presents itself and there is opportunity to intervene.
I am knowingly oversimplifying, but
this is a reduction of much of the viewpoint of the side of the issue I
identify with. We advocate shouldering
responsibility at the individual level, and minimizing that of government. We believe that we should not be protected
from ourselves, and should be free to protect ourselves, our families, our
community, and perhaps society, if necessary.
I don’t disregard the legitimacy of
the concerns of Mr. Shermer and those who share his view on this subject. I fully recognize that their ethical structures
lead them to the conclusions they do.
Those of us who own firearms actually do share the same ethical
foundations they’re basing their views on, and also want to live safely. We simply see it as being our own
responsibility to achieve that safety.
We believe that people have an obligation to take care of themselves,
their families, their communities, proactively, not passively delegating that
to an entity that lacks the correlated responsibility. While the idea of teachers being armed is
abhorrent to some, we see it as worthy of applause. Carrying concealed weapons is not looking
for violence, it is being prepared for violence if it comes to us. We don’t fantasize about shootouts in the
mall; we think about the possibility of being stuck in one, and plan for how to
get our family and everyone near us out of the situation as quickly and
effectively as possible.
I cannot support building a society
in which firearms are banned except for use under very strict circumstances, in
which “assault rifles” are removed from civilian hands, and in which you can delegate
your security concerns to The State, which has no legal responsibility to
you. If you do believe that is the best
route, feel free to follow the U.K.’s example, as appears to be happening. Subsequently ban knives, after the disregarded
Substitution Effect leads to criminals using those. After that, I’m sure another implement will
be used by criminals, and warrant legal restrictions. I, and those who share my ethical approach,
cannot approve of that world. Not
because we value an AR-15 OVER our family, but because we value our
family, and so desire the tools to protect them.
