I have spent a great deal of time over the last two decades debating gun-control advocates both within the United States and abroad. Naturally, the circumstances and details of these debates can be different, but the fundamental claims they make are broadly the same. Here is an attempt to distill into one conversation the criticisms that commonly appear, and the sound arguments I have found effective in countering them.
They often begin with someting like: “Charles, we have to do something about guns.”
“Okay, I’m listening,” I respond. “What do you want to do?”
I want common-sense gun control.
Such as?
Well, we could start by accepting that the Second Amendment doesn’t even protect the right to keep and bear arms. That idea was made up by Antonin Scalia in 2008.
Ah. I’m afraid that you’ve fallen here for a debunked conspiracy theory. In truth, the right to keep and bear arms has been a part of American life since the 17th century. It was respected in colonial America—and in many colonial and state constitutions—long before the Constitution was written; it was acknowledged and reaffirmed by every major legal scholar of the 18th and 19th centuries; it was explicitly extended to all Americans by the drafters of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, the two postbellum Freedmens Bureau Acts, and the 14th Amendment; and it was accepted by 80% of the American public prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Heller. The U.S. Bill of Rights protects individual liberties; there is no such thing as a “collective right” in that document. The right, as the Second Amendment makes clear, is “of the people.”
Fine. But it’s an amendment. It was, itself, a change. Doesn’t that tell you something? It, too, could be amended.
Not really. The Second Amendment is, indeed, an “amendment” to the original Constitution, albeit one that was added only two years after the Constitution went into effect. But, contrary to your implication, it wasn’t the result of shifting political attitudes or of a debate over policy, but of a desire to make sure that Americans’ fundamental liberties were clearly protected. When James Madison introduced the proposed U.S. Bill of Rights into Congress, he made it clear that he had included only those provisions that were entirely uncontroversial. As a historical matter, the term “amendment” is a misnomer when applied to the first 10 changes. They are more accurately described as the price of admission for the ratification of the Constitution, as that was the agreement at the time.
Okay, but surely things have changed?
What has “changed,” exactly? Human nature? Man’s capacity for evil? The intrinsic right to self-defense—be it against an individual who would do you harm or a government that has turned on its people?
The modern world is just different. Look at our technology!
Actually, I agree with that. The modern world is different. And, in some ways, it is true that the Founders couldn’t have imagined how we now live. But, that cuts against the argument for gun-control rather than in its favor. When the Founders talked of “tyranny,” they were referring most immediately to a largely benign British Empire that, until it started to meddle in unacceptable ways, had mostly left the American colonies alone. There is no way that they could have conceived of the scale of the horrors that would be inflicted in the 20th century by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, communist China and others. The case for the Second Amendment was watertight in 1789. By 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, it was unassailable.
But America isn’t like those places, is it?
No, mercifully, America is not like those places. But it’s a little bit odd to make that point while you’re trying to remove one of the reasons that America is not like those places, isn’t it? America is free in part because of the U.S. Constitution. You can’t start removing or undermining parts of that Constitution and just assume that everything would remain exactly the same after you’d done it.
Ha! So you think that if America became a tyranny, the people could fight back with small arms?
Yes, I do think that. And, perhaps more importantly, I think that America would have no chance of becoming a tyranny while the people remain well-armed. But I must ask you: Can you hear yourself? You’re positing the possibility that the United States would become a tyranny while worrying about the citizenry being armed. What, in the last three centuries of human history, has given you the idea that the problem to be solved is that free people have arms?
Crime has given me that idea. Criminals use guns! We have to stop that.
How?
By banning guns!
By banning guns for whom?
In the past, laws that permit the government to choose who may carry firearms have invariably been used to disarm minorities and the poor.
For everyone!
There are half a billion privately owned firearms in the United States. Even if you could convince the public to (a) repeal the Second Amendment, and (b) usher in a societal change that would rival the failed prohibition of alcohol, it would still be the height of naivety to believe that the criminals that you were attempting to disarm would be affected by the ploy. By definition, criminals do not follow the law. The only thing that deters them is the fear that other people—that is, the people who don’t commit the crimes—will be able to fight back.
You’re talking about the myth of a good guy with a gun?
The myth? It’s hardly a myth! Concealed-carriers in the United States are among the most law-abiding people in the country. Indeed, data out of Texas and Florida shows that they are up to seven times more law-abiding than the police. And you only need to open a newspaper to discover that concealed-
carriers stop crimes on a regular basis. Why, I must ask, would you wish to take the guns away from the people who aren’t the problem?
Okay, so if you need someone to act as a deterrent, why not let the police have guns and take them away from everyone else?
Leaving aside the other problems associated with disarming a free people, may I ask if you’ve ever been to the United States? Or, if you have been to the United States, if you’ve ever been outside of the cities? America is an enormous place. Even if it were a good idea to limit gun ownership to the police, it would remain the case that the vast majority of areas in America are too big or too remote to be effectively policed.
Then make them gun-free zones!
Are you serious? The solution to the threats posed by criminals or by wild animals is to put up a sign saying that nobody is allowed to be armed and that the bad guys must follow the laws?
Okay, fine, but shouldn’t we at least decide who is allowed to carry a gun and who is not?
Do you mean that we should prohibit felons, children, tourists and the mentally ill from carrying firearms? Because we already do that.
No, I mean that the government should choose which citizens are allowed to carry and which are not.
Ah, I see. Do you know how that has worked out in history?
What do you mean?
I mean that, while I accept that this may not be your motivation, the history of gun control in the United States has been inextricable from the history of racism and discrimination. In the past, laws that permit the government to choose who may carry firearms have invariably been used to disarm minorities, the politically unpopular and the poor.
Well, obviously, I don’t want to do that. I’m nice! But could we perhaps impose some strict training requirements and high fees?
So that only wealthier people can exercise their rights?
No, so that the country is safer.
What evidence do you have for the proposition that limiting the rights of law-abiding people would make the country safer? Many states have now abolished their permitting systems completely, and the change has had no effect whatsoever on crime.
What about background checks? We don’t have any!
That’s not true. All commercial sales require a background check; all sales over the internet must be shipped to a dealer, who performs a check; and there is no such thing as the “gun-show loophole.” Private, intrastate transfers are not federally regulated, because, as well as being intrusive, expensive and practically impossible, federal regulation would require the creation of a gun registry.
Gun control so often fails because a majority of Americans want to keep their freedom.
What’s wrong with a gun registry?
For a start, they don’t do anything to prevent or help solve crime, which is why many of the most anti-gun jurisdictions in the United States, plus countries such as Canada, have abandoned theirs. They’re also a problem for civil liberties, as they can leak—or be leaked. And, historically, they have been used by tyrannical governments to enable confiscation.
Fine. Then ban semi-automatics.
What is a semi-automatic?
It’s a machine gun.
No, it’s not. That’s an “automatic.” A “semi-automatic” is a standard firearm that fires one round with each depression of the trigger. Far from being exotic, the term “semi-automatic” describes more than 200 million firearms in the United States, including the most commonly owned rifles and the vast majority of handguns sold. The technology has been around since the 1880s—during the presidency of Grover Cleveland.
Well, we can at least ban the AR-15.
Why?
Because it’s an assault weapon.
What does that mean?
It means that it’s more dangerous than other guns. It’s a weapon of war.
It’s neither of those things. It’s a standard semi-automatic rifle, of the type that has been owned in America for 140 years; moreover, it’s used so infrequently in crimes, that the FBI doesn’t even bother to keep statistics. In 2019, rifles—that’s all rifles, not just so-called “assault weapons”—were used in around 2.6% of all homicides committed in the United States. By way of context, that’s about as many homicides as were committed with clubs and hammers, about half as many homicides as were committed with hands and feet and about a quarter as many homicides as were committed with knives.
But we banned them before. We can do it again.
Actually, we can’t. The Second Amendment protects weapons that are in common use, and the AR-15 most definitely meets that description. Besides, every study shows that the ban on so-called “assault weapons” that was in effect between 1994 and 2004 did nothing. I thought you wanted to improve things?
Well, we have to do something. And we would, if it weren’t for the NRA!
This is a misconception. The NRA, among many other things, does political advocacy. The NRA has been highly effective in persuading the public to help protect the right to keep and bear arms, but it enjoys no power in the American system of government outside of that role. The primary reason that the gun-control movement has failed to achieve its objectives in recent decades is that the public steadfastly opposes its agenda. The simple truth here is that, in both Congress and in the states, the votes aren’t there because the voters aren’t there.
But the courts have blocked common-sense gun control!
It is certainly true that the courts have upheld the original meaning of the Second Amendment in recent years. But, as of yet, the practical effects of this have been limited to a handful of recalcitrant states whose laws were so extreme as to have forced the judiciary’s hands. Thus far, the shift in favor of the right to keep and bear arms has been driven by the electorate, not by judges.
Gah. I just hate guns.
And that’s your prerogative. But all you’re telling me by noting that is that you, personally, aren’t a threat to anyone. That’s good. But it doesn’t help us solve the problem, which is that there are people who aren’t like you who exhibit ill-intent toward others. Those people don’t care whether or not you like guns. They don’t care about gun-free zones. They don’t care about permitting processes. This is why law-abiding citizens need the right to keep and bear arms.
