Guns Redux

At this point, I am neither a proponent nor opponent of gun control.  I generally think the federal government should stay away from gun control, but I don't have any problems with municipalities, counties, or even states limiting access to firearms.  Colorado, for example, should probably think about gun control.


Every time we are faced with mass murder, the whole discussion becomes soured.  Extreme events lead to extreme reactions, the visceral replaces the reasonable.  There are equivocations on both sides.

• How are gun deaths qualitatively different than, say, stabbings?  Or, to point to a more recent trend, bombings?  A long time acquaintance of mine was recently beaten to death in a fight in Los Angeles: is his death somehow cataloged differently because he was beaten?  Why do we fixate on gun deaths as opposed to violent deaths in general?
• Obviously guns make killing easier, but (especially in light of the above) is that really the metric we care about?  The numbers* show that the US sports over 88 guns per 100 people (not that 88% of Americans own guns, just to be clear).  Only Serbia gets within 30 of that number.  A quick look at homicide rates from 2000 puts the US at 4.55 per 100,000, 65% of which are committed with guns.  Countries that have a higher death rate but do not allow legal gun ownership: Zimbabwe (7.24 per 100,000, 66% by gun), Latvia (10.03, 13%), Estonia (10.45, 15%), Belarus (10.13, 33%), Barbados (7.49, 40%), Costa Rica (6.57, 51%).  Countries that allow gun ownership, with higher death rates, and lower gun death percentages: Lithuania (10.01, 22%), Ukraine (8.93, 4%), Moldovia (8.13, 6%), Poland (5.61, 8%), Uruguay (4.61, 55%).  Countries that make the US look like Mayberry: Columbia (62.74, 83%), Guatemala (25.47, 73%), Mexico (14.11, 25% . . . wait, 25%?!  Apparently, they hadn't fully made the changeover from machetes to AKs by 2000**), Paraguay (12.05, 61%).  What does all this tell us, other than the fact that those Baltics/Eastern Europeans WILL KILL YOU WITH THEIR BARE FUCKING HANDS?  It's not clear what all this means . . . and that, friends, is the point.  There are no easy answers.  I dare say that one of the ideas that starts to surface from all these numbers is the old saw that "guns don't kill people; people kill people".  Those wacky Former Soviet Republics sure don't need guns to kill people; do we believe the US would be radically different?
• If guns disappeared tomorrow, we would see less bloodshed in the streets (turf wars wouldn't have the same body counts), but would other types of homicides be dramatically changed?  Would the jealous, enraged lover be hindered by the switch from gun to knife?  This especially holds true for mass murder, the very event that always triggers our national hand-wringing over gun laws: guns are ridiculously easy to get in the US right now, but if they were gone, do we think for a minute that James Holmes wouldn't have just walked in to that theater and tossed around some pipe bombs?  He did, after all, rig his apartment with explosives.  Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris used several pipe bombs, though most of them didn't go off (Holmes likely would not have made that mistake).  In the Arab and Persian states, bombs are now the weapon of choice, and there's really very little a government can legislate to keep people from building bombs.

On the other hand . . . 

• That meme with the rock being the first weapon used by one human to kill another, so maybe we should have rock control?  Yeah, shut the fuck up.  Maybe 15% of the population could kill me with a rock, and that number goes down to 5% if I get my hands on a baseball bat or tire iron first (and to that five percent: PACK A FUCKING LUNCH).  On the other hand, any idiot with a gun can kill me.
• Can we please (please please please please) finally be done with the redneck fantasy that an AK in the hands of a patriot keeps the government from taking over?  One word: DRONES.  They always have a bigger gun.  And, while we're on the topic, who do you think the government fears more: A) a 17-year-old computer geek with a MacBook Pro and bad intentions, or B) a thousand knuckleheads with automatics?  If you guessed "B", you are living in a fantasy world.  You know those drones I mentioned earlier?  They get plenty of al-Qaeda, and they can get you.  And you can't shoot them down.  But you know who can bring down drones?  Computer geeks, like the students from the University of Texas who spoofed the GPS signals for a drone and put it on a crash course before rescuing it themselves.  And what did they have?  Guns, no.  Computers, yes.  Now, are there any questions?  Maybe if you used your computers for more than porn and Neo-Nazi websites . . .
• I don't even really buy the self-defense angle.  Guns are good against knives, ball bats, clubs, etc., but against other guns?  The thug is 1) gonna have the drop on you, and 2) has probably drawn on someone before, which means there isn't going to be any hesitation on that trigger.  Whereas you, unless you are military trained and battle tested, probably are going to have a split second of indecision before killing a man.  The thug, not so much - that is, after all, what makes them thugs.  And yeah, I know you say you're a badass and wouldn't hesitate, but I don't believe you.

The narrative always goes bad whenever we have an extreme event like the latest Colorado shootings.  Everyone misses the point . . . on purpose, it seems.

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*  As always, I grabbed the first numbers at my disposal.  They are certainly not fresh numbers, and perhaps not even completely accurate.  And, as always, I welcome corrections from the statistical department.  I can't see that revised numbers would dramatically change my point.
**  Sure enough, 2010 numbers show Mexico up to 59% homicides by gun.

The Government Does Not Fear Your Puny Guns

They love their guns in Elizabethtown. The little burgh just south of Fort Knox ("where they keep the gold") is a hotbed of everything 'mericn . . . guns, God, Ronald Reagan, John Birch, free markets, etc. Every other vehicle on the road here has a bumper sticker referring to random articles of true faith, even several different articles thrown together into a creamy right-wing custard.

The main ideas behind the gun stuff is anti-government. No, actually, that's not quite true: the main idea is fear, followed closely by an inadequacy that screams Freud . . . but let's leave that aside for a moment, and take these true believers as seriously as they take themselves. So: the idea seems to be that the second amendment exists to keep the government in line, and gun ownership is more than a right, it's a patriotic duty. Well, that's fine back when the country's army and police forces were a citizen militia, when it was the duty of the citizen to bear arms to help safeguard the fragile social contract, to actively participate in the policing of the state.

Today, the right to bear arms has taken the aspect of resistance, as opposed to the co-operative aspect of the citizen militia. The idea seems to be that "the government fears an armed citizenry" (verbiage taken directly from the bumper sticker of an F-150 that always seems to be commuting back to Louisville at the same time I do), and that, as long as we all have guns, we will keep the government "honest". The government has gone from being "us" to being "them".

For a moment, let's assume that we can all agree on what it means to keep the government honest, which we clearly do not. If we depend on our guns to control the government, then we are making two related errors: one, that our government can be broadly influenced by the level of force our "armed citizenry" can muster; and two, that those who bear the brunt of our violence would be the people repressing us.

You can be sure that the guy running around with the store keys hanging off his belt doesn't own the joint. In the same way, you can be sure you won't be shooting at real power. Just who do you expect to be prying your gun from your cold, dead fingers? That police officer keeping you from waving your guns around at your teabagger rallies may be the government's proxy, but he is NOT the government. As a matter of fact, the average police officer is more conservative than not (except, tellingly, when it comes to the subject under discussion: many, if not most, cops are pro-gun control). He (or she) is just a working stiff, trying to get home alive to live his version of the American dream. Incongruously, the knife's edge of what the teabaggers fear are the very law and order types they celebrate. As for the left, how can you claim you are fighting "the man" for the benefit of "the common man" when your guns are pointed at "the common man", not "the man"? The people who really run this country won't show up at your door with weapons - they have people that do their dirty work. The people between them and the muzzle of your gun are very much like you, no matter what you claim your politics to be. They are the ruling elite's shock absorbers, isolating them from the bumps in the road - and you, friends, are never more than bumps in the road to them.

"So that's the way it has to be", you claim . . . "you're either with us or against us". "Unfortunate collateral damage," maybe. Or, the old "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" nugget. Okay, fine. That's how revolutions normally run, it seems. But do you think your guns are really going to make a difference?

Let me clue you in to a little secret: THERE ARE ALWAYS BIGGER GUNS. AND THE GOVERNMENT HAS THEM. Got yourself a little stash of nines? They'll show up with the SWAT team, all sniper rifles and night vision scopes. Pull out your AK, and they'll show up with tanks and flamethrowers. Get yourself a seriously strapped posse, and they'll whip out their joysticks and fire up the Predator drones. There's always more weaponry, and the government has it. Talk about insurgencies all you want, but at the end of the day, insurgency is only as successful as the masters will let it be . . . you could go all Israeli on an insurgency, and it wouldn't last long. Or, it would only last as long as it takes to kill the insurgents. As long as you make violence the game, then those capable of the most violence will win. And no man, no group of men, is as versed in the art of violence and domination than the historical pillars of state and capital.


Indeed, the next war for independence will not be fought with muskets. And you're just as fucked if you're trying to fight it with an AK. Who do you think did the most for the black civil rights cause: King or the Panthers? We lefties fetishize the Panthers' revolutionary chic just like the teabaggers fetishize their guns . . . but ultimately, it is will, not violence, that wins the day. Beyond that, if you still think your AK is the ultimate fashion accessory for the next revolution, you're an idiot. "Lawyers, guns, and money?" Leave the guns at home, pal.

Ask the Chinese what it takes, since they apparently know: cash and computers. Kim Jong Il shakes his fist at Sam with some missile tests, the Chinese get into Pentagon computers. Who's gonna make you paranoid? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad talks about vanquishing the infidels, and the Chinese buy up huge chunks of our national debt. Who really keeps you up at night? I'm not advocating another bogeyman for our nightmares, but I am pointing out that the distribution of power is becoming (at best) tangentially related to weaponry on the macro level . . . and as above, so below.

* * * * *

I've been pro-gun control most of my adult life. I have lately come to count myself in the "guns don't kill people, people do" camp. The places that resist gun control most strenuously (the wide-open west, rural areas, etc.) probably don't need gun control. Gun control is not a bad idea in places like Baltimore, D.C., Detroit, etc., where people support it. See how well that works out? Guns aren't the problem, people shooting people is the problem. Gun control should always be considered a stopgap measure, a treatment a symptom rather than a solution to a problem . . . which doesn't mean it can't be useful in places where people are shooting each other at a ridiculous rate.

Unfortunately, guns have become fetishized, not just by the far right, but also the far left. They have become symbols far beyond their practical measure, both to those who want them and those who would rid the world of them. In the end, guns are just another silly obsession that distracts us from what is really going on.