As I read and hear the gun lobby repeat its "truism" that if you regulate gun sales only the criminals will have unregulated possession and ownership of firearms, I am not amused. What is disturbing about that "truth" is the assumption that weapons used in the commission of crimes are the sole object of regulation of sales. Herein is an editorial comment on what I a poor layman can raise in objection to the universal applicability of the "truth" of the NRA and likeminded persons in the gun lobby.
Handguns usable for self-defense, some easily concealed on your person, can be kept safely in the home (gun safes typically). I would argue that the more safely kept in the home, the less likely available to disrupt a home intruder, an intruder with purposes of theft, kidnapping, or mayhem. So regulations that concern safe keeping of firearms are premised on a legitimate concern of providing safety to ourselves, families, and visitors to our homes, public byways, businesses, churches and synagogues, et cetera. This is on the same order as fire safety regulations, a proper subject of so very many areas of our society including the home. A blanket that too readily catches on fire is and should be an object of regulation and sale of such goods in commerce. And so should firearms which even with safeties on and gun safes are inherently as dangerous if not more so than blankets that too easily catch fire. Resistance to meaningful regulation of dangerous instrumentalities is legendary (to wit the seat belt laws of the various jurisdictions) and smoking in public places and even private places such as business premises.
The same principal of negligent safe keeping of fire arms is not relevant for use of the legally registered and regulated possession of weapons used eventually for purposes of suicide. Suicides unless only attempted or assisted are not punishable as crime. So the NRA "truism" is problematic in the grand scheme of things as they actually are. Suicide is still criminal behavior even when the perpetrator succeeds.
We have as of yet not legitimized suicide as a right (in fact most states prosecute doctors for assisting suicide). In states in which physician assisted suicide is condoned, a determination must be made that a non-criminal assistance to a suicide occurred. The determination requires an expensive and judicious review of the incidence of an occurence of a physician assisted suicide. Such deaths at least do not involve firearm usage, but typically other means. No one specifically needs a physician to commit suicide by firearm. As firearm possession and usage are prevalent and pervasive in our society, firearms provide the ready means to off oneself (even as the arresting officer knocks on the door or a loved one seeks to deter us from our self-destruction).
We persist in referencing the "suicide" a victim. Would the gun lobby have us ignor the rhetoric, the tradition, the immorality, and the efficacy of practice of suicide as a solution? For one thing personal freedom is judicially taken when a person even has ideation of his or her own suicide. If the person is armed and the family knows he or she is suicidal, tragedy is impending and family with capacity to act must legally ask for intervention (psychiatric or police in a given context) or expose themselves to civil liability (personal injury claims) if the suicidal person is bent on a threat of harm to others when the "suicide" plans to target others before he or she commits suicide. A family may have a defense to liability for not intervening, but it would be strange indeed if they did not have culpability once they know of ideation of suicide or steps to accomplish the suicide.
However, destabilized individuals with weapons legally possessed become notorious for the evil of "death by cop" and the prevalence of firearms just makes the lethal conduct easily accomplished. Heavily armed police officers are now the norm as a result of the threat to their personal safety even when making a traffic stop in which only traffic violation is the precipitating reason for the arrest. Just ask the surviving family members of law enforcement officials who have lost their life to such a suicide and too the law enforcement officials who have serious bodily injury as a result of the suicide's use of firearm(s).
Society is now asking after the Newtown massacre of 2012 if the prevalence of firearms in society is an unacceptable result of historically effective National Rifle Association lobbying tactics on Congress. The gun lobby would have us believe only a minority of the dangerous and mentally ill persons have or easily can obtain firearms under current state and federal laws. No change in the law the NRA argues is to be offered such that catastrophes such as Newtown will not occur in the future.
Even if you believe in a change in the law, the expense of enforcement is problematic (which the NRA does argue as well). Why? Not all mentally ill persons are a danger to themselves or others and so a huge expense occurs in trying to determine which mentally ill persons should be denied the right to bear arms. The gun lobby will spend itself and its NRA funding dry to prevent addressing this issue of mental instability and a moving target population which includes those who are becoming destabilized as they deal with life changes and misfortunes. The rank and file NRA member needs to ask the NRA to stop throwing obstacles in the way of the change that must occur to protect the innocent, including law enforcement officials, not just school children and spouses.
Second, the use of a legally possessed firearm for self-defense does not forestall the use of such a weapon in a crime. Most poignantly it does not do so in cases of family or relationship abuse where mere possession of deadly weapons leads to threat of harm, enhanced then in effectiveness of instilling fear by firearm possession by the intimidator. Since the gun has to be unloaded and in its lock up, the "controller" in relationship dynamics typically has the firearm in reserve to provide the fear aspect of intimidation to occur in the target(s) of his intimidation. Family members, not necessarily the intimidator, will defend themselves from the threat and even become the killer who then has to succeed or fail in a criminal defense of use of reasonable force to effect one's or another's personal safety from the actual impending incidence of deadly force by an abuser with a firearm.
Third, the law enforcement theme in politics, is that we need to protect our law enforcement personnel and volunteers from the criminal element. Often, the criminal element is a formerly law abiding person who may have his or her firearm through registered sale and criminal background check. Check the statistics on death and maiming of law officers by persons who considered themselves formerly "law abiding." I am sure that the recidivist criminals are likely to present a threat of harm to law enforcement officials greater than the general population, but that does not mean that police officers need not fear the first time occurrence of assault by firearms by a person not previously a convicted criminal (or for that matter a person who by mental defect is not permitted possession of a firearm).
I suspect the society most of us would prefer to live in is one in which all of our personal freedoms are maximized. I know I value freedom of speech and assembly and religion a great deal higher than a right to bear arms, but I know the exercise of these rights are limited by needs for public safety and restrictions imposed on time and place and permit. If I thought my religion could occupy for its religious services an area in front of the traffic into a political convention, I'd soon learn that a Republican or Democrat Party would by the afforded means (a police escort) assure me safe passage to a roped off area for free exercise of my freedom of religion, assembly, and speech. Anyone resisting removal would be beaten up, handcuffed, and jailed even if non-violent. It happened at the Republic Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 2008 (which is not to say some protestors, intending disruption by acts of violence, did not criminally exploit the situation).
So let's get past the fear of gun registration, licensing, and taxing of firearms which would ultimately curtail gun violence in society and even help forestall the rampant execution of wild animals for the sport of the kill when no purpose of foodstuff or agricultural use is contemplated, and our wild animals are endangered by profligate killing with automatic discharge weapons. If you want to take on a bear with a knife, have at it, but please do not tell me you are hunting bear with an automatic weapon and for sport.
We need the tax and registration revenue to combat the criminals in our society, and so the gun owners have to underwrite the use of firearms in the commission of crimes. Sorry, but it's the way to go to help de-escalate the violent society the United States has become. I persist: in making this advisory to those so enamored of gun rights: your right to an armed militia to overthrow your government is limited by the words of the Second Amendment, specifically these words: "a well regulated militia." A private militia with a conspiracy to overthrow the government is a criminal conspiracy. Do not delude yourselves!
Rather, like we of the freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion crowd (the 1st Amendment crowd), I suggest you embrace the regulations and taxes essential to procure your lawful exercise of your gun rights while paying the social costs so radically enhanced and multifold due to the fire power and efficiency of modern weaponry of the firearm. My freedom of religion does not kill people, but people with firearms are killing themselves and others (including children and police officers doing their duty) do. So people with the firearms have to pay for the social costs of firearms the same as the cigarette smokers who run up our medical expenses for myriads of diseases and cures not borne by the individual but by everyone else.
