February 17, 2008
Ban private guns now
Columbine, Virginia Tech and now Northern Illinois University. In most of the US any adult can, with less effort than it takes to rent a car, get hold of enough firearms to wage a small war. It is therefore not surprising that, with mind-numbing regularity, some mentally unhinged individual walks into a lecture theatre, shopping mall, office or school and uses the firepower contained in his arsenal to kill or maim large numbers of fellow citizens. In the ghettos, gangbangers who feel they have been ‘disrespected’ fire their automatics and semi-automatics in the general direction of the alleged disrespect, killing and wounding targets and bystanders indiscriminately.
In addition to these headline-grabbing mass-murders, there are the regular, everyday gun-related deaths: some 14,000 routine killings were committed in 2005 with guns as well as some 16,000 suicides by firearm and 650 fatal accidents (2004 figures). Admittedly, many of these deaths, especially the suicides, would have happened anyway, but there is no doubt that rampant gun ownership in the US costs many lives: it’s just so much easier to kill someone with a gun than to knife or club them to death.
Of the fourteen years I lived in New Haven, Connecticut, seven were spent on East Pearl street in Fair Haven, which was but a couple of blocks from one of the combat zones. At night I would have gun fire as background noise when going to sleep. A gun store opened at the end of my street, but was zoned out of existence again when its clientele began to look as dangerous as its contents. The American love affair with the gun is either a social disease – indeed a form of collective mental illness – or a manifestation of massive institutional failure - an example of Mancur Olson’s nefarious logic of collective action at work.
There are estimated to be about 80 million gun owners in the US, and well over 200 million firearms in private ownership. One can understand the unique historical circumstances that gave rise to this pathological state of affairs, but understanding the causes does not mean accepting the status quo. There is no reason why the US cannot rid itself, given the political will and some courageous leadership, of the insanity of private gun ownership.
There are circumstances where widespread private possession (if not ownership) of guns is an inevitable by-product of a particular form of military conscription, e.g. one based on a citizen’s army with an extended call-up period as member of the reserves (sometimes from a person’s late teens until his or her fifties), as in the case of Switzerland and Finland and Israel.[1] The US does not have this excuse. It has professional (for some reason also referred to as volunteer) armed forces.
There are those deluded libertarians who believe that private ownership of guns is needed as a check and balance against the federal government. Well guys, I have news for you. Although your private arsenals are a threat to yourself, your family, your neighbours and the rest of society, they are not a credible deterrent to a federal government hell-bent on taking away your liberties. If it were to get to that point, you would be outgunned and chanceless. So you’d better work through more peaceful and conventional political channels to defend your freedoms.
The rational grounds for banning the private ownership of guns are that it creates serious negative externalities - harmful consequences for others that are not properly internalised/costed by the private individual gun owner. The risk of being killed or wounded, whether as the result of an accident or deliberately, is not compensated or balanced by commensurate benefits from private gun ownership. These externalities are what I have elsewhere called ‘rights externalities’, that is, serious infringements of the fundamental rights of others. These rights are the rights to life and the pursuit of happiness. So the government, in this case the federal government, should intervene with a law that can be summarized as: ‘if it goes ‘bang’, it is banned’.
The Second Amendment
Proponents of private gun ownership tend to take cover behind the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, part of the Bill of Rights proposed by James Madison in 1789 and ratified by three quarters of the states in 1791.
As passed by the House and Senate it 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 original and copies distributed to the states, and then ratified by them, has different capitalization and punctuation:
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.
To me the meaning of the second amendment, in either incarnation, is perfectly clear, and I can live with it. It grants a collective state militia the right to keep and bear arms. State militias can be armed. The National Guard can be armed. All the armed forces of the USA can be armed! But it grants or protects no right of individuals to keep and bear arms. Specifically it does not grant or protect a right of individuals to keep and bear fire arms.
That was easy! The Second Amendment permits a self-evident reading/interpretation that does not create or protect an individual right to bear arms any more than it creates or protects a right to arm bears. So what’s the fuss about?
If you are sufficiently unreasonable and obtuse, the meaning of any text, even one as straightforward and simple as the Second Amendment can be disputed. In the US, vast numbers of textual obfuscators with warped legal minds, many of them ‘strict constructionist’ legal scholars, have done their utmost to turn the Second Amendment into a blanket right for individuals to keep and bear any firearms for personal use. The irony that if they were right, individuals should be able to keep any arms for personal use, not just firearms, is lost on them. I would be able, were I to return to live in the US, to keep my own tactical nuclear warheads, my personal neutron bomb and my individual arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with multiple independently re-targetable warheads.
Strict constructionism requires a judge to apply the text as it is written and no further, once the meaning of the text has been ascertained (perhaps using tools such as originalism or purposivism). That is, judges should avoid drawing inference from a statute or constitution.
I have never had any truck with constructionism, strict or otherwise, or with originalism, purposivism or the various manifestations of litteralism. It’s a practical and methodological nonsense. They are the legal equivalents of fundamentalism and litteralism in religion, and comparable threats to civilized living and the rule of reason.
First, there is the practical difficulty-bordering-on-impossibility of determining the true intentions of someone like Madison, who died in 1836, with a degree of precision and confidence that would stand up in court. And of course the Bill of Rights reflected the influence of many others besides Madison. Living in a post-industrial society, we can never hope to recover the true mindset or intentions of a group of people who were the elite of a mainly rural and effectively pre-industrial society, ruled by landed gentry and merchants.
But not only don’t I know what the authors of the Second Amendment meant or intended, I also don’t care. Except as an academic or intellectual exercise in the history of political thought, I could not care less what the framers and authors of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights intended, thought or meant. That was then. This is now. What may have been appropriate, reasonable or at least excusable and forgivable in the last quarter of the 18th century may be inappropriate, unreasonable, inexcusable and unforgivable in the first decade of the 21st century. Most of the fathers (no mothers have ever been identified!) of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights believed in the subordination of women; many supported slavery; most thought nothing of indentured labour; universal franchise was not part of their mind set; capital punishment was just fine. Why should I be interested in the authentic, orginal views on gun ownership of this crowd?
So what does one do when times and circumstances change and old Constitutions, Bills of Rights, laws, rules and regulations may no longer make sense? Well, one interprets and one reinterprets the offending text or passage, until it means what you choose it to mean. This Humpty Dumpty approach to legal textual exegesis is the only one that makes sense in a world where meaning is forever changing and old meanings are forever lost, with no hope of recovery accurate enough to stand up in a court of law. Only when it is really impossible to bend a word, passage or clause to one’s will, is it necessary to write a new law, pass a new Amendment or create a new Constitution. With the Second Amendment of the US constitution this is not necessary. There is a perfectly reasonable reading/interpretation which holds that it allows the state militias to be armed. And for the strict constructionists among us (and for those who care about such things) this reading of the Second Amendment is as least as likely to represent what the fathers of the Bill of Rights meant or intended as the interpretation that the Second Amendment established the right of private individuals to keep and bear arms.
Why is there no effective gun control in the US?
One of the reasons very few Americans support a complete ban on private gun ownership, even of handguns, is that there are too many guns out there already, and that consequently many people reasonably feel that they need to be able to protect themselves by owning guns themselves. This means that the country may have got itself trapped in a perverse equilibrium - a kind of prisoners dilemma: When enough bad guys have guns, the good guys feel they have to have guns too to defend themselves against the bad guys. The fact that every gun, regardless of whether it is owned by saints or by sinners, poses a threat to others is not enough to stop each individual from making the individually rational decision that aggregates into a disastrous society-wide outcome.
Another reason the USA has not been able to pass any Federal gun control laws with teeth is the highly effective lobbying by profitable gun-dependent industries and organisations like the National Rifle Association (NRA) with it 4 million members, and the even more off-the-wall Gun Owners of America. They are extremely well-organised, well funded and well connected with many dedicated, not to say fanatical members. Most politicians live in fear of the gun lobby.
How do the remaining serious candidates for the US presidency, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democrats and John McCain for the Republicans, line up on the issue of gun control? For an opponent of private gun ownership or even a proponent of non-cosmetic gun control, the pickings are slim.
All three candidates, Obama, Clinton and McCain, support the right of private individuals to own guns (their interpretation of the Second Amendment). Let me quote Obama from the January 15 2008 Democratic debate in Las Vegas
“We essentially have two realities, when it comes to guns, in this country. You’ve got the tradition of lawful gun ownership. It is very important for many Americans to be able to hunt, fish, take their kids out, teach them how to shoot. Then you’ve got the reality of 34 Chicago public school students who get shot down on the streets of Chicago. We can reconcile those two realities by making sure the Second Amendment is respected and that people are able to lawfully own guns, but that we also start cracking down on the kinds of abuses of firearms that we see on the streets.”
Now Hillary Clinton in the same debate:
“I believe in the Second Amendment. People have a right to bear arms. But I also believe that we can common-sensically approach this, and backed off a national licensing registration plan.”
I won’t even bother to quote McCain, as he is an utterly lost sheep on this issue.
Leadership on this issue would mean making one of the following two statements:
Either: I do not believe that the Second Amendment grants individuals the right to keep and bear arms. Consequently I shall introduce Federal legislation to end private ownership of firearms.
Or: I believe that, unfortunately, the Second Amendment grants individuals the right to keep and bear arms. Consequently I shall propose a Constitutional Amendment that repeals the Second Amendment. Subsequent to ratification of that repeal, I shall propose Federal legislation to end private ownership of firearms.
Both Democratic candidates support legislation to permit law suits against manufacturers, to hold these responsible for crimes committed with the weapons they produced. Suing firearms manufacturers for crimes committed with the help of the guns they manufacture is a legal nonsense as long as private gun ownership itself is legal. Clearly, if the products do not function properly or do not satisfy Federal or state safety standards, litigation would be appropriate, but that applies to dishwashers as well as to guns. McCain voted for prohibiting lawsuits against gun manufacturers in July 2005 when both Obama and Clinton voted against.
Gun control can be found neither among the 26 issues listed on Barack Obama’s official campaign website, nor among the 14 issues listed on Hillary Clinton’s official campaign website - an illustration of the fear instilled by the pro-gun lobby in the gutless Democratic presidential candidates. John McCain’s official website does list the Second Amendment among 11 issues. It makes for depressing reading, as the Senator is blatently whoring after gun-lobby support. He even opposes bans on assault rifles and on armour-piercing ammunition and is co-sponsoring legislation to lift a ban on gun ownership in the District of Columbia.
For what it’s worth, Obama and Clinton both get an F rating (the worst rating) from the NRA, while McCain gets a C+ (Huckabee, effectively out of the race for the Republican nomination, gets an A). The Gun Owners of America gives Clinton and McCain both an F- while Obama gets an F.
Conclusion
It is quite likely that dynamic social processes driving private gun ownership in a country like the US are path-dependent and subject to positive, amplifying/self re-enforcing feedback effects: once society-wide gun ownership reaches some threshold, I become more likely to want to own a gun myself if someone else becomes a gun owner. Depending on where such a process starts off, and what shocks perturb it along the way, it can end up in different equilibrium states, one of which matches the current US configuration: widespread private gun ownership and widespread slaughter of the innocent. In such a world, incremental change, that is, little bits of legislation, at local or state level will be ineffective at best. Only a big push at the Federal level can work.
Ideally, there would be a simple Federal law which says: all private ownership of firearms is banned, unless your profession is on the following positive list … (the list could be updated in line with evolving work-place requirements by a Federal commission). In practice, that is likely to be too much to swallow for the US body politic. So some modest intermediate steps may be all that is possible in the short run.
Measures that should be able to gain majority support among the electorate would include the following (all this should be done at the Federal, not at the state level; all measures (except for (5), obviously) should apply to existing as well as to new gun owners and to guns and ammunition that are already in private ownership as well as to new purchases):
- Photo licensing, fingerprinting, mandatory training, testing and periodic re-testing for all gun owners.
- Extensive and thorough background checks and psychological evaluation of all gun owners. The background checks should take no less than a couple of weeks. Psychological evaluations should be repeated every ten years or so.
- Making gun owners responsible and liable for use made by others of their guns.
- Licensing and registration of all gun sales and (changes in) ownership.
- Waiting periods of at least 10 working days for new gun purchases.
- Raising the minimum age of gun ownership to 21.
- Limits on the number of firearms a private citizen could own (one would be a good number).
- Banning sale to and ownership by private persons of automatic and semi-automatic weapons, assault weapons etc.
- Banning the sale of armour- and bullet-proof-vest piercing bullets and other cop-killer ammunition.
- Mandatory trigger locks for all privately-owned firearms.
But such minor incremental steps should never cause us to loose sight of the final objective. That is a society where the benchmark rule is that any and all private ownership of guns and other dangerous weapons is banned. Necessary and logical exceptions to that benchmark rule should be few and far between; professional hunters and game keepers obviously need the tools to do the job; certain private security guards may need to be armed; the control of certain kinds of vermin may require the use by farmers of shotguns or light-calibre rifles. But hunting using firearms or other dangerous weapons for sport or as a hobby, as opposed to hunting for a living, would fall victim to my proposed ban. Frustrated hunters can go stalk the game they used to kill or maim. Or they could take up fishing, darts or tiddlywinks.
The curse of widespread private gun ownership has done more to worsen the quality of life in the USA than any other man-made institution since the end of legal segregation. It is time for the country to look in the mirror, see at the gun-toting maniac staring back at it, and decide to do something about it. Abolish private gun ownership now.
[1] Switzerland and the Finland have gun death rates by suicide comparable to those in the US, but much lower gun death rates by homicide and by accident.
Willem, thats all very well but how do you know that the USA is not a special case where all hell will break loose once the majority is disarmed? Has there ever been a US state that tested unilateral disarmament?
Posted by: Tom | February 17th, 2008 at 3:24 am | Report this commentDear Prof Buiter,
You are going too far when asserting that “when times and circumstances change and old Constitutions, Bills of Rights, laws, rules and regulations may no longer make sense.. . one interprets and one reinterprets the offending text or passage, until it means what you choose it to mean.” Such an approach is as radical as constructivism, and worse in its consequences, which is legal and social chaos.
The answer to such a conundrum is to distinguish between material and immaterial aspects of the law. I do not agree that we cannot enter the mindset of a bygone age. For example, we can freely converse with the ancient Greeks when dealing with geometry. Some thoughts are absolutes: these are the more abstract areas of human thinking. Similarly in law, the material aspects of the law (the ‘essential law’), are the more abstract ones, as for example the principle of the separation of powers. These are also the most immutable, as they are based on unchanging aspects of human nature. The US constitution has proven to be a wellspring of essential law, material and immutable. However you are right that the second amendment is not a part of that, at least not as generally interpreted. We need to be able to distill the essence from the founding fathers quite remarkable legal edifice (actually the contemporary legal thought of the time in England: the US constitution is a formalisation of the English one).
RCS
Posted by: Ron Cohen-Seban | February 17th, 2008 at 6:43 pm | Report this commentTo RCS: you are quite right; I overegged the pudding. Your statement of the distinction between more abstract, immutable aspects of the law and the concrete, constantly varying attempts to express them in practical, operational rules was succinct and elegant. The only part I disagree with is that the US constitution is a formalisation of the English one. The separation of powers, and checks and balances more generally, are central to the US constitution. There is no separation of powers, and there are effectively no checks and balances (other than the bloodymindedness of the English) in the English constitution.
The ideas of the continental European Enlightenment (and those of earlier great thinkers like Erasmus, Spinoza and Grotius) were in my view more important influences on the US constitution that the English constitution of the time.
Posted by: Willem H. Buiter | February 17th, 2008 at 8:08 pm | Report this commentBoth Willem and Ron Cohen-Seban are right about England. The latter is right about the English influence on the Americans. The former is right about both the influence of the continental enlightenment and the constitution of Britain today.
The conduit between England and America was, of course, Montesquieu, whose interpretation of the English constitution after the “Glorious Revolution” of 1689, in “De l’Esprit des Lois”, had an enormous influence on the founding fathers of the United States. (See the following article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Secondat,_baron_de_Montesquieu.)
In the 18th century, the British government was still accountable to the King, while the two houses of parliament were far more independent of the executive than they are now. The law, too, was more autonomous than it is today. So the separation of powers in England was then real, as Montesquieu argued.
Indeed, the American president is essentially an elected 18th century British monarch. While he controls the executive, he cannot determine legislation. The supreme court represents the independence of the law. The arrangement reflects Montesquieu’s interpretation of the correct constitution for a free society, based on the English model.
Meanwhile, with the reduction of the monarchy to a cipher and the need for the government to control the House of Commons, which is now the predominant house of parliament, the division of powers has largely disappeared in Britain. This is a great pity. I agree entirely with Willem on this important point.
Posted by: Martin Wolf | February 17th, 2008 at 10:38 pm | Report this commentI am intrigued by Martin’s contention that the 18th century British constitution did have a real separation of powers, as opposed to the elected executive dictatorship we have today. I will have to read more on this. I know that de Montesquieu believed the British constitutional monarchy to be the true model of the separation of powers, but I thought this was just one of many misinterpretations of Britain by a Frenchman.
The constitution that de Montesquieu so much admired was, of course, imposed as the result of an invasion and conquest of England from the European continent, by Willem III of Orange, in 1688. The prince of Orange may have been invited to invade by the Immortal Seven, but the guest had requested this invitation and chose to arrive with more than 14000 foot soldiers, 4000 horse and a serious fleet to back him up. Not for the first time, institutions, arrangements or even a constitution often seen as quintessentially English or British turn out to be the offspring of continental European parents.
Posted by: Willem H. Buiter | February 17th, 2008 at 11:36 pm | Report this commentOf course, the whole reason Americans were encouraged to own guns was to fight off the British. Particularly, we don’t like the upper class Britians. So the professor should come on back and try to take our guns away.
Posted by: Frank from Detroit | February 18th, 2008 at 9:54 am | Report this commentWillem is, of course, right about the role of the Dutch, in general, and Willem III, in particular, in the Glorious Revolution. But such conquests of a larger country by a smaller one are only possible with consent. One might argue that the English elite replaced one foreign ruler (Scots-French-Catholic) with another (Dutch-Protestant).
In response to Frank from Detroit, I don’t think the British are much of a threat today. I presume Americans believe they are defending themselves against other Americans. The so-called militias seem to think they are defending themselves against their Federal Government. This is a nice irony - a constitutional article justified by the need for a militia to fight against a foreign enemy is now justified, instead, by the need to fight domestic enemies, of which the most threatening is held to be the government created by that very same constitution.
Posted by: Martin Wolf | February 18th, 2008 at 10:18 am | Report this commentYou are right on all counts regarding the destructiveness of guns in the USA. There are two all-powerful lobbies in the USA, the so-called Israeli lobby and the gun lobby, each well-organized, well-funded and well-run by die-hards. All to the detriment of the citizenry as a whole.
Each lobby primarily exists to forestall any and every reasonable attempt by any politician or impartial analyst to state the obvious since the obvious happens to go against the interests of the lobbies. Money and effort are directed towards viciously attacking any critic of the current policy or proposer of a change to policy. The reasons are always couched in lies having to do with “limitations on personal freedom” or “failure to support allies” in the laughably hyped and fallacious “war on terror”.
In either case any mainstream candidate for any significant national office - not least the Presidency - views any attempt at changing either policy as simply not worth the effort. The politics of the USA have been dominated by extreme right-wingism since President Reagan was elected. This was true even during the term of President Clinton because much of his tenure in office coincided with the advent of domination of Congress by extreme right-wingers. As a consequence no effort to reduce the weaponry in private hands has been remotely possible.
Now however there is a chance - at least if someone like Senator Obama is elected and if he so desires - to show the flimsiness of “mainstream Washington thought”. Fundamental policy changes such as elimination of guns in private hands (other than those used for game-hunting for example) or change in unconditional support for right-wing Israeli policies and actions or for a rationalization of healthcare funding or similar policies that would greatly benefit the overall electorate and citizenry at the expense of private interests would have a good chance of happening. The necessary number of citizens/voters already support such actions but we have not had a sufficient number of politicians with the courage and brains to fight the vested interests and make the changes. It could happen however.
Posted by: Wendell Murray | February 18th, 2008 at 10:56 am | Report this commentActually, they were concerned from the getgo that the federal government would simply take the place of the British government and that’s why the right to bear arms was so important. Early on the former revolutionary soldiers and the former officers squared off, which basically became the basis for our two party system. The only reason the officers didn’t take total control is because the soldiers still had their guns. The professor isn’t very aware of American history. What he’s suggesting would mean the upper class simply take control presumably they would be backed up by the UN and yes, the British. People with this mindset are a bigger threat then people who own guns.
Posted by: Frank from Detroit | February 18th, 2008 at 10:59 am | Report this commentSo, Willlem, tell us. How are things going now that the UK and the rest of the EU, not to mention Australia, have disarmed their law-abiding citizenry? Have all the terrorists and criminals turned in their firearms yet? Can you get back to me on that soon, please? Thanks.
Posted by: Ted from Cleveland, Ohio | February 18th, 2008 at 11:42 am | Report this commentWhy on Earth should a complete ban on guns be the final objective? Nothing in your otherwise reasonable observations necessitate this conclusion.
Posted by: Brad Johnson, Canada | February 18th, 2008 at 12:07 pm | Report this commentSuppose the intermediate steps you suggest were adoped and reduced violent deaths to a degree comparable to a ban? What purpose would then be served by preventing those of us who genuinely enjoy shooting at paper targets from peacefully pursuing our pastime?
The US most certainly has a gun problem which requires a fix — namely a whole lot of tighter regulation — but you seem to want to add your own cultural preferences in with the soup.
Has a blanket ban on handguns made the UK any safer than your suggested intermediate steps would have done? I highly doubt it.
evan andersen
Sir, i could not agree with you more. Gun control needs a lot more control at this point in the US. Recreational use, hunting etc. should be the only way to govern this stuff with long tests and criteria to buy a gun. evan andersen thinks that it need to be looked at as cool to not have guns and that our president should take a stand on the issue.
evan andersen
Posted by: evan andersen | February 18th, 2008 at 12:29 pm | Report this commentFrank, could you please provide some descriptions of a few countries that have banned firearm ownership and are now under the control of the upper class, the British, and the UN to a greater degree than the USA is?
And Ted, the goal of the prohibition of firearms is not to end all gun-related violence. To do so is impossible. Rather, the goal is to minimise said violence. Each death is a tragedy, but a smaller number of such deaths is still better than a larger one.
Posted by: Andrei Timoshenko | February 18th, 2008 at 12:44 pm | Report this commentIn the US however, more children drown in private swimming pools than by fatal gunshots.
We need guns as much as private pools, … shall we ban them both?
Posted by: martien | February 18th, 2008 at 1:18 pm | Report this commentDear Willem - Bravo! I agree that we do not live in the wild west anymore. I want my kids to be safe and more guns will only be a detriment.
PS - Ted and the rest: maybe if every college student in the US was equipped with a gun, then the campus massacres might have been prevented, no?
Posted by: Martin Wilhelmy | February 18th, 2008 at 1:38 pm | Report this comment“The so-called militias seem to think they are defending themselves against their Federal Government. This is a nice irony - a constitutional article justified by the need for a militia to fight against a foreign enemy is now justified, instead, by the need to fight domestic enemies, of which the most threatening is held to be the government created by that very same constitution.”
Martin,
In the US the history of militias is one of local “required” defense. Able bodied men over 18 were obligated to be armed to protect against various threats, mainly native american (Indian) attacks.
The Minute Men came from that mold.
While it’s unlikely that the Indians are going to be attacking any time soon, it’s certainly the case that the State wants to(and has been) eroding the power of the citizen.
In the US, the right to bear arms is a much needed check on the States evolution.
Think Cheney:
”
In the 1980s Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld discussed just such emergency surveillance and detention powers in a super-secret program that planned for what was euphemistically called “Continuity of Government” (COG) in the event of a nuclear disaster.
At the time, Cheney was a Wyoming congressman, while Rumsfeld, who had been defense secretary under President Ford, was a businessman and CEO of the drug company G.D. Searle. Overall responsibility for the program had been assigned to Vice President George H.W. Bush, “with Lt. Col. Oliver North…as the National Security Council action officer,” according to James Bamford in his book, “A Pretext for War.”
These men planned for suspension of the Constitution, not just after nuclear attack, but for any “national security emergency,” which they defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988 as: “Any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.” Clearly 9/11 would meet this definition.”
Posted by: groucho | February 18th, 2008 at 1:44 pm | Report this commentI would say that Britain is controled by the upper class. Certainly your leaders would never be elected in the US because they’re so stuffy. Of course, when you’re ruled by some group you get used to it, particularly if you’re part of that group. Almost everyone reading and definitely all of those writing for this paper are upper class and you’re trying to make a decision about important laws in a foreign country (that could easily kick your ass!). Talk about elitism. If you’re wondering why I’m reading this paper it’s because I got tired of all the partisanship in the American media although I see you have something similar.
Posted by: frank p | February 18th, 2008 at 2:15 pm | Report this commentMr. Buiter makes a mass of logical sounding arguments all of which ignore a crucial point. Short of a Nazi like house to house search removing all guns from private US hands simply will not happen. Such a scheme even if pursued would be only partially succsful at best and would be fiercely resisted. Like many fine sounding leftist schemes it could be accomplished only with substantial force. Does he really believe the kind of coercion required the stated goal would be a good thing? Sometimes the cure can be much worse than the disease.
Posted by: Ray Wilson | February 18th, 2008 at 2:40 pm | Report this commentYes, Buiter, the gun situation in the UK is so
Posted by: Dave Young | February 18th, 2008 at 2:45 pm | Report this commentmuch more civilized than here in America
After reading this article, I wonder if Prof. Buiter has ever fired a gun. Guns do, it seems make killing a simple process, but short of eradicating the existence of every gun on the planet, I think one would be hard-pressed to ensure the safety of citizens by making firearms illegal. Cocaine is illegal, and it kills people every day.
Posted by: John Bullard | February 18th, 2008 at 3:27 pm | Report this commentWillem, very enjoyable piece, though by asking for a total ban you that ensure nobody in the US with the ability to act will listen to you.
Frank from Detroit, and Ted from Cleveland, I get the feeling you don’t really know Europe very well.
Which is fine, why should you? But let me reassure you: strict gun control does not mean no guns and no fun. It does mean very, very few gun murders, and a much safer and more pleasant urban environment.
The Republic of Ireland has incredibly strict gun control laws (and is very familiar with terrorism). But my father has had the same rifle since he was twelve. (A beautifully accurate Winchester .22) He’s had a shotgun for well over fifty years. They are licensed. No one has ever tried to take them off him. No one ever will.
He taught me to shoot safely before I was a teenager. Neither of us feel particularly oppressed because we can’t own handguns, assault rifles (or landmines, missile launchers, neutron bombs… all societies have a cut-off point for private weapons ownership, even the US.)
When I go to France, I eat wild boar shot by the mayor of the tiny village I stay in.
By and large in Europe we eat what we kill. We shoot with guns which make hunting a genuine test: you have to get close and be accurate. (If you can’t be pretty sure of a kill-shot, you just don’t shoot.) Hunting with assault rifles is not hunting, it’s just killing things. You might as well use artillery.
I was amused by your remark, Ted:
“How are things going now that the UK and the rest of the EU, not to mention Australia, have disarmed their law-abiding citizenry? Have all the terrorists and criminals turned in their firearms yet?”
I’m guessing it’s meant to be sarcastic. But in case it’s a genuine question, and you missed it on the news over there… in Ireland, after a lengthy and difficult diplomatic and political process, Ireland’s terrorists did disarm, fully.
Previous military attempts to “defeat terrorism” in Ireland and the UK, including internment without trial, torture, and assassination of terrorist leaders, had failed entirely to do this, but did hugely increase recruitment numbers for what had started out as a very small terrorist organisation.
I merely mention it…
I can understand your resistance to gun control, but you should come hunt in Europe some time and maybe overcome some of your fears.
Indeed, I myself rather miss the pre-Giuliani New York I first visited in the late eighties, when you would step out of the way to avoid a drunk, swinging a handgun, staggering down the street… It was always entertaining, but I wouldn’t want to have brought up a kid there.
-Julian Gough
Posted by: Julian Gough | February 18th, 2008 at 3:35 pm | Report this commentLondon, Tipperary, Berlin
http://www.juliangough.com/journal/
“The novel reinvented while you wait”
I just saw Frank P’s comment:
“Almost everyone reading and definitely all of those writing for this paper are upper class and you?re trying to make a decision about important laws in a foreign country (that could easily kick your ass!).”
I’d just like to reassure Frank that my dad (see above) has no educational qualifications whatsoever, inherited nothing from anyone, and worked his way up in life entirely under his own steam (Europe is rather more socially mobile than America thinks.)
We might be well-spoken, but that doesn’t mean we’re all upper class…
-Julian Gough
Posted by: Julian Gough | February 18th, 2008 at 3:45 pm | Report this commentLondon, Galway, Berlin
http://www.juliangough.com/journal/
?The novel reclassified while you wait?
Dear Professor Buiter:
What leads you to believe that a prohibition on gun ownership would be any more successful than our drug policy?
Your misguided faith in government would doom law-abiding citizens to be disarmed when confronted by criminals in places where the police don’t seem to be able to contain the violence, vide New Haven.
Gun ownership does not cause violence; social disfunction causes violence. Back in the 50s highschools had rifle clubs but no Columbines; kids would bring their rifles to school like they bring saxophones today. Switzerland has high gun ownership (including fully automatic high-powered rifles) combined with low murder rates comparable to gun-phobic Japan’s.
As to the efficacy of firearms in helping individuals combat regular forces, I would remind the professor of the panic wreaked on Washington by two rogue snipers some years back. A few marksmen can spoil even the best laid government plan, if they have the support of the population; need I say Ramadi & Fallujah?
Gun crazy America also happens to be crazy about free speech and would never tolerate the absurd speech codes enforced in the UK and Europe. So, Professor, let’s agree to disagree. You live over in gun-banned, speech-controlled Europe and I’ll be content with preserving my 2nd Amendment & 1st Amendment rights here in freedom crazy America. It’s an American thing; you wouldn’t understand it.
Posted by: Saleh Daher | February 18th, 2008 at 3:47 pm | Report this commentOf course, sociopaths and others who don’t comply with laws against home invasion, rape or murder can hardly be expected to comply with gun laws and would view the certainty of a totally unarmed populace as a splendid opportunity.
Posted by: J James Fitzsimmons | February 18th, 2008 at 3:48 pm | Report this commentI understand that Britain has a higher crime rate since the extreme gun bans were passed, as has Australia.
Additionaly missing from consideration are cases where possession of a gun as a show of force has prevented violence and saved innocent lives.
Julian, my grandmother was a cousin of Charles Haughey’s father. She had to split to Detroit illegally by way of Canada around the same time her cousin was running guns in an attempt to overthrow the British government. My great-grandfather, who was Haughey’s great-uncle, turned up in a ditch. (He didn’t have any guns.) The Irish people were opressed for so long because they weren’t allowed to have guns. This is probably why your father kept one hidden. Do you think Ireland would even exist if it weren’t for America? Did you know Charles Haughey’s grandmother lived in New York? Same thing with Canada, where my father comes from, although the Frenchmen kept lots of hunting riffles. This is why the British gave them some a special deal. My family comes from St. Dennis, where the Lower Canada Rebellion started. The great thing about America is everybody thinks like me. I went for a walk a few weeks ago and there were all sorts of people shooting off machine guns in the woods. 12 rounds a seconds. Most of them were probably military vets (this is near a former base). Maybe because of where I live now they sent me a catalog from www.jgsales.com. They’ve got a wide selection of “semi-autos”. I don’t own one myself, but it’s nice to know I could get one in about as long as it takes the mail to arive.
Posted by: Frank p | February 18th, 2008 at 4:17 pm | Report this commentAh Frank, you’re related to Charlie Haughey! Wonderful. Oddly enough, he’s a heavily-armed character in my most recent novel. Indeed, he tries to shoot my hero with a semi-automatic.
For the benefit of non-Irish readers, Charles Haughey is described in the book as “…heroic leader of the Fianna Fáil Party, former Taoiseach, Celtic Chieftain of all the Gaels, gun-runner, phone-tapper, tax-dodger, fornicator, cute hoor and Saviour of Ireland.”
An amazing figure.
I fully accept your various points, but history moves on, and laws which were appropriate in the violent formation of a nation are not necessarily appropriate decades or centuries later. Europe used to be permanently wracked by war. It ain’t now, and the gun laws reflect this.
Personally, I have no opinion on this, and have no desire to change America’s gun laws. I was just trying to explain Europe to America, because I feel our gun laws here are misunderstood in the States.
You might enjoy my novel, given that it contains both your relative and lots of guns. I should warn you, it is a wildly comic and exaggerated version of Charles Haughey, and modern Ireland! Think the Simpsons with swearing.
It is not done for a European to speak highly of himself or his work, but I suppose I could mention that the opening of the novel (”The Orphan and the Mob”) won the biggest prize in the world for a single short story last year, with AS Byatt and Monica Ali among the judges.
So it’s not total rubbish. (We are allowed go that far in our own praise, under EU law, but no further.)
I think Amazon.co.uk ship to the US…
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1905847246/wwwjuliangoug-21
Tell me what you think (you can email me through my website. My homepage is not US workplace-friendly at present, I’m told, so I’ll give you the link to the blog…)
-Julian Gough
Posted by: Julian Gough | February 18th, 2008 at 5:04 pm | Report this commentLondon, Ardcroney, Berlin
http://www.juliangough.com/journal/
“The novel reinvented while you wait”
With regards to Frank P’s last comment, I think it should read the “sad thing” rather than “the great thing about America is everybody thinks like me”
In addition is he hinting that Americans are now waking up the fact that they have been sponsoring terrorism in Ireland all these years?
Posted by: Stephen C | February 18th, 2008 at 5:06 pm | Report this commentAs Stephen C points out, it is one of the amusing ironies of recent history that large numbers of Americans, including leading US businessmen and politicians still in office, supplied Irish terrorists with money and guns for decades, so that they could kill British and Irish people, many of them civilians.
I do not recall the tracking down, arrest and torture of any leading US businessmen or politicians for “funding terror” in Ireland and the UK.
Not that I mind. Indeed, as a satirist, I thoroughly approve.
-Julian Gough
Posted by: Julian Gough | February 18th, 2008 at 5:32 pm | Report this commentLondon, Cashel, Berlin
http://www.juliangough.com/journal/
?The novel reinvented while you wait?
In Canada they have by far more guns per capita– I suggest you watch michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, and they Canadians have about 500 murders per year out of a population of 30 million!!!
Posted by: mike | February 18th, 2008 at 6:07 pm | Report this commentI suggest the Americans are distressed from lack of healthcare, huge debt loads and general lack of financial security, I mean you cant get sick in the U.S. 1/2 of bankruptcies are due to medical bills, a 1/3 due to divorce, college tuition fees are skyrocketing way beyond what wages can pay for– we should examine cortizol levels in the American mind
Oh yeah and besides swimming pools, someone ought to check the stats on work place deaths- by far more people die working than get shot
Posted by: mike | February 18th, 2008 at 6:09 pm | Report this commentAs a non-American, I wouldn’t expect Professor Buiter to fully appreciate, or interpret, the Second Amendment of the the American Constitution correctly.
You see, as a globalist professor, Buitler is a member of the economic and sociopolitical elite. It troubles him that people, so different from him in political orientation and economic caste, have access to such a powerful means of self-determination as firearms.
When the Professor speaks of living in New Haven, Connecticut, on East Pearl Street, he neglects to inform the reader that Pear Street is one of the most exclusive neighborhood in the state of Connecticut; which itself is one of America’s riches states.
Furthermore, Professor Builter never addresses the extreme poverty contained in many sections of New Haven; including those sections he refers to, stiltedly, as the “combat zones.” Additionally, he conveniently never mentions that New Haven, Connecticut is a city heavily populated by black people.
Moreover, like most elites, the Professor conflates several issues in order to justify his antipathy towards America’s constitution and particularly our inalienable right to bear arms.
He opines about the tragic shooting at: Columbine High School, Virginia Tech University and now Northern Illinois University, without informing readers that in each of these cases, the shootings were a direct effect of people having been placed on psychotropic drugs.
THAT’S RIGHT! IN EACH CASE HE SITED THE SHOOTERS WERE TAKING PRESCRIBED, AND IN SOME CASES - TAXPAYER PROVIDED, PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS! You see, America’s school systems are rife with government paid pseudo professionals - playing doctors - who are prescribing these dangerous drugs to our children. Why? For nothing more than, what was referred to in my day, as having ants-in-your-pants.
It is often stated that the last vestige of a coward is calumny. That said, I offer you a very, very brief lesson in American history.
When America was nascent, it wasn’t yet the American citizen who threw overboard the tea into Boston Harbor during that now infamous act of insurrection. Those were British citizens. They were unhappy with the treatment they were receiving from their native government. So upset were these 18th century terrorist, that when writing their on rules of domestic political governance, the American Constitution, that they sought to guarantee certain freedoms; including, but not limited to: freedom of speech, religion, assembly and the right to bear arms.
The right to bear arms being found prerequisite in another great American document the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence mandates that Americans cast aside, even by force of arms if necessary, any government that does not respect the inalienable rights, (having been granted by God), being moralized in the U.S. Constitution; including the new government they were establishing in America.
Quoting directly from that document, it states in part: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles”.
So, in point of fact, contrary to Professor Builter suggestion otherwise, the U.S. Constitution does in fact grant and protect the right of individuals to keep and bear arms; and any honest, straightforward reading, (excluding Professor Builter punctuation and capitalization machinations), clearly recognizes such.
Another error made by the good professor, which I would like point out, is where he talks about the Bill of Rights being proposed by James Madison.
Like any good Jesuitical globalist presenting their sophistry he forgets to remind the reader why James Madison proposed the Bill of Rights in 1789. The Bill of Rights was created, not from any Madisoian largess, but because the citizens of our new fledgling nation WOULDN’T HAVE RATIFY THE DOCUMENT WITHOUT THOSE CHANGES…. as they didn’t trust the government; not even the one they were about to create!
You see, the constitution of the United States of America, doesn’t protect citizens from foreign governments, or foreign terrorist, or foreign enemies, or even each other… it protects them from the greatest threat to their freedom and sovereignty: THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT.
And with the greatest threat ever to emerge to America’s sovereign well-being, that of globalism, corporate communism, corporatism, the New World Order, transnationalism, the global community… call it what you will; Americans are on guard, and sensitive, to purveyors of anti-Americanism and pro-globalization propaganda. And this frightens Professor Builter, as well as the other globalist around the world; especially those within the American government including people like Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, Barak Obama, Senator John McCain and President Bush.
One final note of edification, before I close. America is a constitutional democratic republic… not a democracy; as globalist would have you believe. If you don’t understand the difference, do some research… you’ll be the wiser for it.
Regards,
Si Contino
Posted by: Si Contino - citizen of the USA | February 18th, 2008 at 7:44 pm | Report this commentCitizen of the United States of America
Anyway, hunting is slowly fading away, but was a very popular activity in much of the US especially after the second world war. Duck hunting in particular has declined in popularity, while the pursuit of elk (the equivalent of red deer) in the Rockies remains a big deal, not to mention an excellent source of meat. Many of the eastern states are so overrun with white-tailed deer that I’d feel a civic duty to hunt them if I lived in Pennsylvania.
Thinking of Pennsylvania, that state’s citizens had a long tradition of killing woodchucks, deer, and grey squirrels (which made good sandwiches). I don’t recall serious problems in the rural parts of the state, which historically have had low homicide rates, unlike some other rural areas (e.g. eastern Kentucky).
Given that effective gun licensing or bans are impossible, proposals in places like West Virginia to teach hunting skills to high school kids may actually help stock the state with responsible adults.
Posted by: David Martin | February 18th, 2008 at 8:14 pm | Report this commentAs other posters have noted, it’s not so much the number of guns but the ease with which they find their way into bad hands that seems to be the problem. In fact, Hitler did take guns away from citizens based on local registries. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that Franco and Mussolini did. Communists certainly kept a tight reign on guns. Much of Europe, in fact, has been under totalitarian rule for the past century and has grown used to living without guns in the face of periodic spasms of war and social upheaval. Similarly tightening gun possession in the US would likely reduce the body count of school shootings and street crime. With only knives, many criminals would many to kill several people, rather than eight or ten, which would be worthwhile. America still would need to address social factors, such as poverty and addiction, in order to make a real dent in all the tragic deaths.
Posted by: Jim | February 18th, 2008 at 8:21 pm | Report this commentWillim Bulter wrote a compelling article with an eye catching headline. He appears to be a brilliant scholar with the typical elitist philosophy.
Two thoughts.
If guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns.
When is the last time a “gang-banger” applied for a license to carry?
Truly enjoy the debate.
Posted by: Erik | February 18th, 2008 at 8:34 pm | Report this commentTo Martin & Willem (if I may) on the separation of powers:
Perhaps the earlier English (or is that British?) constitutional struggles of the early to mid 17th century are being underplayed in your prior comments.
Opposition to Stuart absolutism was evident in the courts (under the venerable Chief Justice Edward Coke), in parliament and – most starkly - in a civil war.
Coke’s innovations included an extension of Magna Carta rights to all private citizens and the introduction of judicial review of the sovereign’s actions. In Proclamations (1610) 77 ER 1352, Coke submitted that the sovereign was subject to the rule of law.
(Incidentally, he is also believed to have helped write the charter of the Virginia Company and copies of his writings were carried over on the Mayflower in 1620. Both John Adams and Patrick Henry later quoted from Coke’s treatises in speeches supporting the revolution.)
The English Parliament’s 1628 Petition of Right pre-dates the Bill of Rights that accompanied the Hanoverian succession of William of Orange by over half a century. John Pym claimed that the rights defended by it had a lineage extending back to pre-Norman times, originating in English common law. In other words, the (contentious and indeed contended) practical separation of powers between the executive, judiciary and parliament could be said to have profound pre-Enlightenment roots in England.
Secondly, may I observe that Britain’s constitution is largely unwritten, or at least it is not codified into a set of integrated, formalised and static documents, that were produced by a convention. Perhaps that is no bad thing, given the problems identified by Professor Buiter caused by a US constitution that is metaphorically set in concrete. To be blunt, to external observers it sometimes appears that the 1787 US Constitution is often venerated as a sort of quasi-religious text, which by good fortune was delivered by a group of omniscient political prophets. (Perhaps we Europeans should simply file both that and the mystifying US love of guns under that country’s exceptionalism. To do otherwise is to provoke a purple faced rant.)
The latest major change to British constitutional law has been the explicit incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into law via the 1998 Human Rights Act. Again, given the contentious ramifications of this legislation and the abrogation of its key elements due to specific contexts (such as mainland terror campaigns), the wisdom of formalised, static documents embodying a state’s constitution is – I would submit – not an incontestable benefit. Nor does static constitutional statutory law appear to act as an invulnerable defence of a citizen’s rights.
Lastly, can I note that in 1999, there were 28,874 gun-related deaths in the United States. (Source: Hoyert DL, Arias E, Smith BL, Murphy SL, Kochanek, KD. Deaths: Final Data for 1999. National Vital Statistics Reports. 2001;49 (8).) By comparison, for that year in the UK, there were 207. (Source: Parliamentary answer on 25th October 2007.)
Posted by: Oliver | February 18th, 2008 at 11:15 pm | Report this commentGun laws in America are probably “worse” than you think. Those who want stricter controls won’t like looking at the obvious trends on this time lapse chart. (I am a strong gun rights supporter.)
http://www.gun-nuttery.com/rtc.php
“May Issue” basically means local law enforcement can give out permits to whom they choose. Too often, this can be just their pals.
“Shall Issue” means that if carry permit applicants meet certain requirements, they get a permit no matter what. Those permit holders do have to continue to behave or they lose the permit.
“Unrestricted” means no permits are required for adults. I think about 100 years ago, most states were unrestricted regarding carry, though certain cities/towns I’m sure had restrictions.
It seems to me that most of the mass shootings from the last couple decades, occur at locations where guns aren’t legal. The killers obviously aren’t deterred from breaking laws about carrying a firearm, when they are determined to commit murder. From my perspective, the victims are usually without any method of self defense in those closed quarters.
Was the world actually a kinder, less violent, less brutal, place before firearms existed? I say no.
Vermont gun laws
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0210e.asp
“Vermont has the least restrictive gun-control law. It recognizes the right of any Vermonter who has not otherwise been prohibited from owning a firearm to carry concealed weapons without a permit or license. Yet Vermont has one of the lowest crime rates in America, ranking 49 out of 50 in all crimes and 47th in murders.”
Posted by: Dennis | February 19th, 2008 at 12:14 am | Report this commentFirst thing both Nazi and Communist Soviet occupiers in Europe did was to confiscate citizens’ personal weapons, and secondly, their gold, jewelry, gold teeth, etc.
New England states such as Connecticut (or Washington, DC for that matter), make it almost impossible to own guns. I didn’t see much crime in West Virginia (where a 10-year old can get a hunting license) …
More electric chairs will keep guns our of criminals’ hands.
By the way, was Jack the Ripper ever found in the UK?
Posted by: cody andre | February 19th, 2008 at 12:35 am | Report this comment‘By the way, was Jack the Ripper ever found in the UK?’
No, he fled back to the USA.
Posted by: James Buchanan | February 19th, 2008 at 1:27 am | Report this commentThe professor need not bother with the section under the title “The Second Amendment” because a far better rebuttal to it can be found in the conclusion of the United States Court of Appeals For the District of Columbia Circuit which renders all of Willem Buiter’s points moot is publicly available (1). I trust it is intellectually dense enough for the good professor to submit some time to.
Subject to that there is the need to point out some additional issues:
The notion of banning private arms by changing the definition of “militia” to be that of a collective state (the National Guard), is disingenuous and no different than defining the “press” as being NPR and PBS and thus limiting the rights of all other publication under the first amendment.
As thorough as the Prof. Buiter attempted to be I am surprised he did not find the need to counter the old adage that “If you outlaw X only outlaws will have X”. It is the reason no serious scholar would argue for a worldwide nuclear weapons ban, because were all “responsible” nations to give these up, they would submit themselves to those that have not. I challenge Prof. Willem Buiter to make a reasoned argument against this principal rather that a parody as so many other on his side of the argument have.
Furthermore as an economist I would also expect the Prof. Buiter to consider the black market element of the policy he supports, by banning these weapons, a market would be created that would flood organized crime with a new income stream, as if cocaine and heroine were not enough already.
I would also like to note that those who are mentally unhinged will find recourse no matter what methods of destruction are available. I point to the Daegu Subway fire incident of 2003, in which 198 people were killed by a man with two gallons of lighter fluid and a match (2), or the Bath School incident of 1927 where an insane faculty member killed 45 students and teacher as well as his wife with dynamite (3), or the Oklahoma city bombing with 144 dead, involving little more than gasoline and fertilizer. Perhaps it would be better to let the crazies have firearms rather than encourage them to resort to these other methods in which the potential to kill is far more severe.
Finally, in a time were as a nation, Americans rights are slowly being stripped away, nothing is more frustrating than the political dichotomy in which the rights that one party does not cull, are culled by the other and vice versa. In the end the US electorate is left with no rights at all.
Sources:
Posted by: Justin Kelly | February 19th, 2008 at 1:30 am | Report this comment1. http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200703/04-7041a.pdf
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daegu_subway_fire
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster
Daniel Polsby, formerly of the Northwestern School of Law, and currently dean at the George Mason School of Law, wrote the following article back in 1994:
“The False Promise of Gun Control”
Daniel D. Polsby
From the March 1994 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.
http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/polsby.fpgc.html
“Gun-control laws may save some lives, but they can never stem the flow of guns, and they divert attention from the roots of our crime problem … that for certain people, predation is a rational occupational choice.”
And here is the clincher: “Over the long run, however, there is no substitute for addressing the root causes of crime — bad education and lack of job opportunities and the disintegration of families.”
I find Prof. Polsby’s analysis to be much more convincing than Prof. Buiter’s.
Posted by: Curious | February 19th, 2008 at 3:32 am | Report this commentHuh? Ban private guns? What are you smoking? We’ve had a “War on Drugs” in USA for over 35 years - has that stopped the import of illegal drugs? No! Even if 100% of all honest people gave up guns and all USA gun MFG was stopped, the criminals would just import guns they same way they import drugs. In England on any given day, innocent adult men are stomped to death by drunken/punk yobs. Why? Because UK men have no guns. God created man, but Samuel Colt made men equal. Guns are a form of controlled power. If you want me to be weak and without power, my inclination is to suspect you and you motives. Now what’s that you might say in UK - “sod off”…? Yes, I think that’s it. To those who want my guns, I say “sod off!”
Posted by: Rex | February 19th, 2008 at 4:21 am | Report this commentI too have enjoyed the discussion. Guns are everywhere. I don’t want guns, but have them..inherited. I realize their presence represent a threat (both to me/loved ones & the bad guys). They are unloaded. But, I can find the clip in the dark and quickly if I can’t run from an intruder. I grew up with guns & hunting. I remember taking my shotgun to class in high school for a demonstation speech on how to clean one. Imagine that now. I grew up riding in a pickup with two (shotgun & rifle) in the rack behind my head. It was like having a car jack/wrench in the car. Imagine that now. I used it to shoot at and scare coyotes from fresh born calves (maybe harvest a few quail). The cat is out of the bag. Pandora’s box is opened. Time marches on. What is amusing is these red necks clutching their guns while their beloved redneck president sacks their civil liberties. Innocent until proven guilty my ass, tell that to the guy caught with drugs and has cash, cars, homes confiscated…often resources being used or proceeds given to local athorities that made the arrest. I have no simple solutions. I suspect there aren’t any. Eventually some nut is going to start shooting and some not crazy person will shoot back….hardly a solution. Europe has it right…US has it’s advantages…crazy gun policy isn’t one of them. For others, as John Lennon said, “happiness is a warm gun.”
Posted by: David | February 19th, 2008 at 4:22 am | Report this commentThanks to Professor Willem for making a very compelling case for the abolition of private gun ownership in the US. Even increased regulation would be a significant improvement on the current (patently absurd) situation.
The problem of unregulated gun ownership is in part a symptom of wider problems with America’s system of government and its democratic institutions. Excessive corporate influence in government and the media, the ability of special interest groups to shape legislation and an educational system badly in need of reform are the shaky foundations that are perpetuating the problem of out-of-control gun ownership as well as many of America’s other ills.
Posted by: Naoise | February 19th, 2008 at 4:36 am | Report this commenton “Curious’” reference to prof. polsby’s analysis. “…is no substitute for addressing the root causes of crime - bad edu. lack of job, disintegration of familites.”
come on..really? i thought it was Mcdonalds all these yrs…
two things that really matter.
1. those ‘roots’ are likely to stay in the US as they have for many generations in ‘everywhere else in the WORLD”(to make you feel better, probably worsened after the industrial revolution.) why do you state the obvious?
did Buiter really say that gun control can substitute for all that? no…. believe me, he got that. so lets move on already.
2. if so, take the friggin guns away so the alienated, massed up, overdosed, disenfranchised, devastated bastards don’t go kickick my ass cause i don’t know about you but i have better chance fighting off knives than pistols.
Posted by: hate the obvious | February 19th, 2008 at 5:54 am | Report this commentWhat earthly power prompted you to domicile on East Pearl Street? I know that the Yale community confines itself to the East Rock neighborhood. Its private, albeit deputized, armed constabulary, augmented by motorized, foot and pedal patrols, does a passable job of maintaining safety. Your choice of residence places you far outside the mainstream academic community in New Haven, and into the fringe that makes a political statement by their choice of abode and locale. You should start with the avowal of your political premise, which is extreme in its egalitarianism, questionable perhaps. It is peculiar that you present yourself as a man of reason, being in fact, an enthusiast and a radical.
Posted by: Chauncey Marlborough | February 19th, 2008 at 5:59 am | Report this commentOne stat to consider. Majority of US gun crime is committed with stolen weapons. The black-market for guns in the US is quite large. Growing up, it was just as easy for me to purchase a stolen weapon as it was to buy pot or get someone to buy me alcohol.
Posted by: RJ Reynolds | February 19th, 2008 at 6:48 am | Report this commentThis type of proposal is not groundbreaking. I would suggest writing more about the second order effects of such a proposal. What are the pros and cons? Costs? Remember, private ownership of marijuana or cocaine is illegal in the US, and being in Connecticut, you are probably aware of how easy it is to come across those illegal items.
Frank P.,
If I remember correctly, the last UK Prime Minister from the upper class was Sir Alec Douglas-Home in the early 1960s. In contrast, George W. Bush comes from the closest thing there is to an American upper class.
Learning to speak well, and becoming informed in world affairs, does not transform an individual from a working- or middle-class background into a member of the upper class; conversely, an upper class background by no means implies the other two (as demonstrated so well by George W. Bush).
In general, social mobility is considerably higher in Europe (and especially in Scandinavia) than in the USA, so being born into a rich family counts for far less. The UK is an exception to the European norm, with UK social mobility having declined substantially since the early 1980s, so that it is now nearly as low as the US level.
In summary, if any Western country is run by an ‘upper class’ (which is to say a rich elite, if not an aristocracy as such), I would say it is the USA — certainly more so than any country in Europe, even the notoriously class-ridden UK.
Posted by: Thomas S. | February 19th, 2008 at 9:13 am | Report this commentI thank Oliver for his good comments on the history of England in the 17th century. I do have a question, though. Why have the nutcases who defend the right of individual citizens to own such weapons not argued for private ownership of nuclear weapons? After all, nuclear weapons don’t kill people; people do.
My own view on this is quite simple: a society that is happy to put people into prison for possession of some marijuana, but lauds private ownership of assault weapons is in the grip of powerful myths. But they are certainly not myths of personal freedom.
Posted by: Martin Wolf | February 19th, 2008 at 9:49 am | Report this comment“Nutcases”? Isn’t the moderator supposed to maintain an elevated intellectual tone? As police are historians, I think that the right to self defense is rather basic. I do not need nuclear weapons for self defense.
Posted by: Anne Buiter | February 19th, 2008 at 4:18 pm | Report this comment“God created man and woman; Sam Colt made them equal.”
Let me explain, Martin.
A nuclear weapon would destroy your house and neighborhood if you used it to defend against home invaders.
They are primarily offensive weapons.
Handguns are the best defensive weapons to have if your home or person is attacked. They are effective,portable and can be used against an individual assailant.
That is why your policemen carry them instead of a nuclear weapon or just a truncheon as they did in the past
Assault rifles by definition are capable of full or semiautomatic fire. Full automatic fire means
Posted by: J James Fitzsimmons | February 19th, 2008 at 4:44 pm | Report this commentholding the trigger back causes the weapon to cycle continuously, while a semiauto requires a pull of the trigger for each shot. They are restricted in the USA. Somehow many journalists seem unaware of this.
Hope this helps.
“Nutcases”? Isn’t the moderator supposed to maintain an elevated
Posted by: Anne Buiter | February 19th, 2008 at 5:03 pm | Report this commentintellectual tone? As police are historians, I think that the right to
self defense is rather basic. I do not need nuclear weapons for self
defense.
“God created man and woman; Sam Colt made them equal.”
A nuclear weapon would be far more effective against an overweening federal government, wouldn’t it? Surely it would far more effective, for that noble purpose, than a mere handgun. And one wouldn’t actually have to use it on Washington. The threat to do so would surely be enough to keep those diabolical federal agents away. Deterrence works, doesn’t it? Indeed, isn’t that one of the premises of the gun lobby?
By the way, most of my policemen don’t carry handguns even now. Nor do most of my fellow citizens, with the results detailed by Oliver. The problem, obvious enough to anyone who is borderline sapient, is that one person’s weapon of self-defense is somebody else’s weapon of offense. Indeed, it can be both in the hands of one and the same person. This really isn’t rocket science. But if Americans are happy to make guns freely available, while putting people in prison for life for using drugs, who am I to try to stop them? I could not do so, in any case, as has been pointed out by many participants. But I can certainly argue against this nonsense in my own country.
By the way, I am not the moderator of this forum, fortunately. I am just another enthusiastic participant.
Posted by: Martin Wolf | February 19th, 2008 at 6:25 pm | Report this commentI thought Sam Colt just made them equally dead. Anyway, I won’t be doing the dishes tonight.
Posted by: Willem Buiter | February 19th, 2008 at 7:14 pm | Report this commentR.J. Reynolds,
If the majority of US gun crime is committed with stolen guns, this is surely a reason to restrict legal ownership of them, is it not? Apparently, many Americans who legally buy guns for self-defence (or to ward off federal agents) are shockingly irresponsible in securing them, and are thus dramatically, if indirectly, increasing the capacity of criminals to harm other citizens. Are US gun owners taxed to pay for all the damage that results from their irresponsibility?
The comparison with chemically addictive drugs is not, in my view, entirely appropriate: (i) an addict has a biological urge for such drugs, which is not the case with respect to guns; (ii) guns are more difficult to produce and import illegaly than drugs. As an example of the second point, much of the world is awash with AK-47s, but unlike illegal drugs, we don’t often see them being smuggled into Europe by criminals (even though many would probably like to have one).
Posted by: Thomas S. | February 19th, 2008 at 7:20 pm | Report this commentDrugs and guns are indeed different: drugs give pleasure to the consumer, while guns hurt other people. Drug addicts harm themselves first. People with guns are quite likely to harm me first. So I would much rather legalise drugs than guns.
Posted by: Martin Wolf | February 19th, 2008 at 11:14 pm | Report this comment“People with guns are quite likely to harm me first. So I would much rather legalise drugs than guns.”
Martin Wolf, Drugs don’t kill people, drug addicts kill people; themselves and those they rob and beat to death(no gun involved, just pipes and bats)for the money to buy their fix.
Posted by: groucho | February 20th, 2008 at 3:10 am | Report this commentMartin,
I fully agree with your view on this matter. I was responding to the suggestion that the ineffectiveness of US laws banning certain addictive drugs implies that a US law banning guns would be equally ineffective. Laws banning certain addictive drugs don’t work here in Europe either, but laws restricting/banning private gun ownership largely do. It is at least possible, then, that a US law banning guns would also work.
Posted by: Thomas S. | February 20th, 2008 at 6:20 am | Report this commentTo Martin:
Picking up on the nuclear weapons theme, no doubt there are RANK (as in the think tank, not the adjective) game theory models about thermonuclear weapons proliferation which might – with some adaptation – explain the mass adoption / retention of guns within a specific society. After all, the ‘enhancement of personal safety’ justification for gun ownership trotted out within this forum makes use of use of implicit & explicit threats of ‘tit for tat’ response. This appears to exhibit similar characteristics to Mutually Assured Destruction scenarios of nuclear weapons exchange at a micro rather than macro level.
Perhaps this could be worked up in a ‘Prisoner of Circumstances’ dilemma, in which the rational behaviour of an individual living in a dysfunctional society with high degrees of gun ownership is to participate via gun purchase. The result is (ceteris paribus) sub-optimal for all, via a markedly increased homicide rate, despite the optimising choices made by individual citizens.
Witness the fears articulated by a myriad of international relations think tanks of nuclear weapons proliferation within the Middle and Far East, as countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Japan, etc, are projected to (rationally) engage in their own arms races in response to developments in Iran and North Korea.
Sadly, as with gun ownership, disarmament is rare. Libya and the Republic of South Africa are the only two examples that come to mind of countries that have dismantled nuclear arms research programs under (broadly speaking) their own volition. Once the scenario shifts, with a significant adoption of arms by a key player (or players), the pay-offs and rational strategies of participants of the game (whether as an individual citizen faced with the choice of gun ownership, or a country within striking range of nuclear missiles) change dramatically.
On a more optimistic note, perhaps the incentives used (in the case of Libya) provide additional inspiration. In addition to the regulations sought by Professor Buiter, are there incentives that could be used to sugar the pill of general gun disarmament? Sponsored (yet regulated and controlled access) gun ranges and paid amnesties spring to mind. Alternatively, is mass gun ownership a unidirectional shift in a modern liberal society which is not prepared to use the autocratic and invasive measures of seizure and control necessary for elimination? What are the hysteresis costs of gun elimination from a society?
Perhaps there is an echo of the attempts to regulate intoxicants here. I would contend that prohibition of alcohol failed in the United States due to enduring mass consumption by a significant proportion of society. Is marijuana use at the same stage? What is the tipping point?
Note how perceptions of risk, as marijuana has been identified as a risk factor for schizophrenia, have influenced the public debate. The external consequences of marijuana abuse, through the costs of an individual’s mental illness to society at large, challenge the sort of personal rights of autonomy that currently allow citizens of liberal states to indulge in risk taking (or actively harmful) behaviour such as martial arts, rally driving, commissioning personal tattoos, etc.
To Willem:
Lastly, please forgive the impertinence, but may I suggest that since Professor Buiter has access to some of the world’s best academic experts in the fields of game theory, law, sociology and the micro-economics of public choice at the LSE, he is better placed than most to answer some of the questions above. No pressure…
Posted by: Oliver | February 20th, 2008 at 11:43 am | Report this commentGroucho says: “Martin Wolf, Drugs don’t kill people, drug addicts kill people; themselves and those they rob and beat to death(no gun involved, just pipes and bats)for the money to buy their fix.”
This is true. Since drugs are illegal, they are rather expensive and, since they are expensive, poor addicts commit crimes to pay for them. Answer: legalise them.
This argument is also, in an important respect, irrelevant. The drug consumed by others that is most dangerous to me is alcohol: it is a major factor in both urban violence and car accidents. All other drugs are trivial, in comparison (except tobacco, which mainly kills its users). So I assume Groucho is in favour of going back to prohibition.
Posted by: Martin Wolf | February 20th, 2008 at 1:00 pm | Report this commentI should have added to my last post that the chief reason drugs kill users is via overdoses and the main reason for overdoses (not the only one, I know) is that addicts do not know what precisely they are using. Again, that is a result of prohibition.
To return to the big theme, it may well be the case that gun prohibition would not work in the US. That is a very important issue. It is senseless to try to ban something if the public at large does not support you. I am merely saying that if you are going to try to prohibit something, prohibiting guns seems to me quite a bit more sensible than prohibiting drugs. But then I am not American and obviously don’t “get” this gun thing.
Posted by: Martin Wolf | February 20th, 2008 at 1:20 pm | Report this commentTo Martin (with regard to drug legalisation):
Er, up to a point Lord Copper…
Surely libertarian policies re. drug legalisation fall at two specific hurdles. Firstly, an addict is – by definition – not exercising true free will, which is surely one of the justifications for liberal social policy. Secondly, the consequences of drug induced mental illness and dysfunctional behaviour upon other members of society are profoundly malign.
Please forgive the pugnacious tone, but is it not simplistic and mendacious to imply that the sole driver of violent crime by drug addicts is economic? The disinhibitory effects of certain drugs, allied with the cravings of addiction, also affect the choice to commit both crime and violent acts. - Ask yourself whether people ever behave differently while drunk…
The point I made about the experience of alcohol Prohibition in the United States was that politicians there made a pragmatic evaluation that the social and political cost of the authoritarian measures necessary to control and eliminate alcohol consumption, along with the secondary effects of the harm generated by its criminalisation, were higher than the benefits. There was and is a tipping point. Have we really reached that yet with certain illegal drugs?
Alcohol use has been a feature of human society and culture since pre-history. Mass consumption and acceptance is the norm in the western societies under discussion. I would argue that this is (still) not the case for marijuana. Hence the social and political costs of its control are consequently lower.
I believe that the recent re-classification debates in the UK are also illustrative. Widespread exposure to and prior use of marijuana by the latest generation of politicians in Westminster, often while at university, probably had some effect upon the decision to downgrade its classification as a drug. This greater acceptance now seems to be eroding, as medical evidence has emerged that it may induce paranoid schizophrenia in susceptible individuals. (More powerful modern strains may have more potent effects in this regard. I.e. Past consumption of the odd sneaky joint, as fondly remembered by today’s politico or media commentator back in the days when he or she had regrettable hair and loon pants, may not be a reliable guide to the costs of current drug use.)
Nicotine consumption appears to be on the wane in western societies, due to social stigma, regulation (such as mandatory age constraints), punitive taxation and what the tobacco companies have termed government propaganda campaigns. Are these soft and slow tools all that are available to liberal societies wishing to pursue an illiberal social policy?
On a less earnest note, could I note that I perhaps overplayed Stuart absolutism in an earlier posting, since James I not only called tobacco a “noxious weed” in his 1604 ‘Counterblast to Tobacco’, but also executed England’s first drug dealer, Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1618. Neither act appears to have had much long term effect upon consumption.
Posted by: Oliver | February 20th, 2008 at 2:30 pm | Report this commentAmerica’s freedoms are not up for foreign debate. Debating gun control with Americans is like a Middle Eastern woman in an abaya trying to question the freedom of women to drive, work, vote and walk around town in miniskirts. Till you have been raised with that freedom, you don’t understand it.
Americans refuse to be sheep to their government. Willem says we wouldn’t stand a chance against our own government if it turned against us. However, if there are 80 million gun owners in the US, I would debate this issue by pointing out how bad armies perform against any armed civilan population.
“If you have a gun, you can always negotiate. If you are unarmed, you can only beg.”
Posted by: Moose | February 21st, 2008 at 11:50 am | Report this commentMaybe Dr. Buiter can answer an obvious question raised by the title of his article.. “Ban private guns now”.
Dr. Buiter obviously is no enemy of “public” guns. Only “private” ones are bad, we are to understand.
What magical powers do “public” guns have to guarantee that they will be used in ways that are more moral than “private” guns? What magical powers do “public” officers have than “private” agents that enables them to see right from wrong?
Dr. Buiter, do you own any history books? Can you tell us—a rough estimate will do—if more defenseless people going about their day-to-day business have been removed from this world with (1) “private” or (2) “public” guns??
Where is the call for bans of “public” guns?
How many civilian persons were killed by “public” guns in the last 100 years? By “private” ones?
Since these are all rhetorical questions anyway, let me just estimate myself: 50 million, 2 million. Which is the greater menace to mankind?
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I suppose it is a mere coincidence that the countries that are mentioned above as permitting large numbers of weapons in private hands did relatively well, compared to their neighbors, in the last World War…………………. Right.
The little pea shooters that Americans own are no match for the military? Have you been reading the news, Dr. Buiter? How well is the American military doing against a relatively small insurgency among a much poorer populace in far-away lands? How do you think they would fare against their own people? Better or worse? Yeah, you’re not thinking again.
I am reminded of what a scientist I know, who works for one of the national labs here in the U.S., once said. He was remarking about the ridiculous plans of some exposed terrorist plot. “If that’s what goes for a dangerous terrorist plot, the government is lucky that they haven’t upset US!” 80 million people with modern weapons, most of which are more powerful than the military’s .223 rifles, is one hell of an enemy.
Posted by: Mike Smith | February 21st, 2008 at 12:44 pm | Report this commentMoose says “America’s freedoms are not up for foreign debate.” Why not? Americans comment on China’s lack of freedom. Why should foreigners not be able to comment on America’s freedoms and (as I did) their absence, too? Of course, Americans are entirely free not to listen. That is what freedom of speech means. We are all free to criticise one another, I hope.
I don’t intend to go through the drug legalisation debate again here. That’s for another occasion. But I think there should be a response to Mike Smith’s comments. Public guns are unavoidable, because the alternative - a free for all, or anarchy - is worse. That is what Thomas Hobbes referred to as “the war of all against all”. So public weapons are an inevitable part of living in an orderly society. Furthermore, even in the US, the private possession of guns is hedged around by tight constraints on their legitimate use. That is why lots of people who have used them are in prison. The question is whether having private guns, in addition to public guns, improves individual freedom and security, oreduces it.
Posted by: Martin Wolf | February 21st, 2008 at 1:16 pm | Report this commentTo quote Martin Wolf: “The question is wheter having private guns, in addition to public guns, improves individual freedom and security or reduces it.”
It depends on what power of magnification you look at the issue and from what end of the microscope slide…
Our nation was freed from Britain largely due to private guns - which begs the definition of what a “private gun” and what a “public gun” really is…
To the British, the American Revolutionaries were probably seen as “private” gun owners, whereas General George Washington probably saw them as public gun owners… Public or private all depends on which end of the gun you’re looking at and which of the two has the political power.
Any revolutionary army is going to be seen as a band of private gun owners… and is therefore outlawed by those who outlaw private guns.
So if you ban private guns, you ban the rights of private citizens over the rights of public citizens - who will use that power over the centries to strip private citizens of the rest of their freedoms in order to ensure the safety of public offices and to win public favor on the dream that they are looking out for the private citizen. You eventually end up creating something of a “Nanny State”.
Great Britain is a fine example of people living under a Nanny State. You can’t even drive home with a set of kitchen knives from the department store without worrying about being arrested. They just had an amnesty on knives. What’s next? Rocks? Wobbly Chairs and rope? Second storey windows?
You can’t drive two miles down the road without policeman in a van photographing you with a radar camera. You can’t walk down a street in London without being scanned by facial recognition cameras.
You can’t even surf the internet without worrying whether something you might have inadvertently clicked on might get flagged somewhere by British authorities. If there is an intruder in your house, you can’t even defend yourself without fear of the intruder suing you…
All the while, the violent crime rate keeps increasing to the point where you don’t know who or what to fear anymore…
Meanwhile, any books of political controversy regarding the queen or members of parliment have to be smuggled in from the US because they get banned in the UK.
In the UK, every single killing means another law and another and another and another… I forsee a Great Britain one day where everyone will be walking around with matresses wrapped around themslves to keep from getting hurt.
Yeah… You’re right… we’d be so much more free without guns. It’s not to say we American’s aren’t heading down the same rathole as the Brits, but we at least have the power to negotiate on how fast we get there.
It’s all dependent on what you were raised with… It is like trying to convince an old woman in an abaya from the Middle East that it’s better to walk around in public in a tank top and shorts on a sunny day. That’s why I say our freedoms are not up for debate… Mr. Buiter can say what he likes… In the UK, everyone lives on top of one another because those who own all the guns, own all the land and deperately need all their land and their guns to go pheasant shooting. But the side effect is that it creates a society where people are closer together and it’s more difficult to get away with murders. Every small town in England is like a downtown Beijing neighorhood compared to the US.
No offense to the UK. I love visiting Mother England every chance I get and I quite frankly agree with you regarding our opinions of how other countries are run. I’m quite tired of being kicked in the teeth by those who hold our coats while we fight their battles.
There are those in the US that want to turn us into the UK. I say “no thank you” - and I’m half British.
Posted by: Moose | February 22nd, 2008 at 1:01 pm | Report this commentI won’t go into all the points raised by Moose. Most of it is hysteria. Why are American right-wingers so angry about everything?
But people live on top of each other in the UK because we have 60m people living in 242,000 square kilometers, while the US has 300m people living on 9,159,000 square kilometers. Americans can get away from one another far more easily than the British can.
Posted by: Martin Wolf | February 22nd, 2008 at 3:24 pm | Report this commentIsnt it wonderful, how effective the gun laws are in the UK, not a shot fired in anger?
Ireland has banned guns too. And they have absolutely no problem with gun crime.
Not least a teenage plumber who was killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time - he witnessed another murder and was executed. For nothing.
What about the couple who were murdered for their sons transgressions here in the UK?
Perhaps if they had been in the US they may have had the option to defend themselves?
Sorry, Willem, but this half-arsed ‘philosophy’ is beyond naive - you Dutch seem keen on handing in your guns.
Seems to have worked wonders for you, but thats because the 8000 boys and men from Srebrenica arent around to contradict you, isnt it?
Perhaps more guns is what is needed?
People have the right to defend themselves; even if that means owning firearms.
Posted by: CM | February 23rd, 2008 at 5:11 am | Report this commentEnding up as a stastic on one of Willems charts, because you cannot defend yourself, is not an attractive option.
This writer is too naive to even be believed. He has no knowledge of the facts nor real statistics. Actually crime is least where the states follow our second amendment and allow federally re