Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the reality and rhetoric of gun control in light of promises in the Democratic primary. The fact is that many of the ideas raised by the candidates have merit but they are likely to be marginal in their impact on real gun-related fatalities.
Here is the column:
The Democratic presidential debate down in South Carolina this week has proven once again the famous line that there are “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” The line is the perfect warning to the unwary about politicians citing statistics. The quote itself is widely misrepresented as the work of Mark Twain or British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, so it seems nothing can be trusted when it comes to statistics, not even quotes on statistics.
Some false statistics, however, are so facially absurd that they are indeed harmless except to the most gullible. That was the case when former Vice President Joe Biden attacked Senator Bernie Sanders over a vote that had favored the gun industry. Biden declared that, since the vote, 150 million Americans have been killed by guns. He also said the vote happened in 2007, when it was actually in 2005. Many people immediately scratched their heads, thinking they may have missed a holocaust that had claimed roughly half the population. Later, the Biden campaign insisted it was just another one of his gaffes and the real number is 150,000 Americans.
However, even that figure is wrong, but a Democratic primary is no place for the factually preoccupied. Trillions have been pledged for reparations, free college tuition, free medical care and free child care, all to be funded using math that would embarrass Bernie Madoff. First, on the threshold statistical controversy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims that all gun deaths since 2007 total about 450,000. Thus, Biden went from overstating it by more than 300 times to understating it by three times. It is possible to get this figure down to around 180,000 by excluding the 60 percent of gun deaths that occur due to suicide.
The much greater danger, however, is not the statistical but the legal misrepresentations on gun control, and those are not confined just to Biden. After all, cracking down on guns is one of the defining issues for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has pledged to “stop this nationwide madness.” In the debate, Biden dramatically glared into the camera to speak directly to the National Rifle Association: the NRA: “I want to tell you, if I’m elected NRA, I’m coming for you, and, gun manufacturers, I’m going to take you on and I’m going to beat you.” The other Democratic candidates have made similar claims that they will reduce gun violence significantly with executive orders and laws.
Such statements are far more dishonest than the statistical flight of fancy promoted by Biden. Gun ownership is an individual constitutional right under the Second Amendment. A constitutional right cannot be reduced or changed by either executive order or legislation. You can only work on the margins of such exercises of constitutional rights, which belies the promise by Bloomberg that these measures would make an “enormous difference.” Elizabeth Warren declared that “we need a president willing to take executive action” to end gun violence without any explanation what she can do to limit an individual right, let alone do it unilaterally.
It is true that, in the 2007 case of District of Columbia versus Dick Anthony Heller, the Supreme Court held that “like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” But like other constitutional rights such as the freedom of speech, legally imposed limits cannot deny the right itself but only place reasonable limits on its use. Thus, it may be possible to limit the size of ammunition magazines or such devices as bump stocks. Certainly, background checks would be allowed.
Red flag laws allowing interventions are also likely to pass muster. But those limits are unlikely to “enormously” reduce gun violence. The vast majority of gun possessors, and many of those involved in massacres, would pass background checks. Indeed, there remains a serious question of whether states could outlaw weapons like AR-15s. Even if the Supreme Court upheld such a ban, there are over eight million AR-15s in private hands, and a wide variety of guns with equal or higher firepower.
Then there is the problem that most gun deaths involve a single round fired by someone into themselves rather than into others. In 2017, six out of 10 gun deaths were suicides. Less than 40 percent were intentional murders, and the remaining gun deaths in the country were accidental or law enforcement shootings. While gun suicides reached their highest recorded level in 2017, nonsuicide deaths that involve guns have been declining and stand significantly lower from its high point in 1993.
While the other candidates on the debate stage forced Sanders into a rare flip on his vote to protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits, it was another example of a misleading promise. I actually opposed the 2005 bill that protected gun manufacturers and sellers from lawsuits because it was unnecessary and because I generally oppose legislation that limits tort liability. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, however, was not the sweeping immunity claimed by Biden and other candidates.
It barred liability for injuries due to the fact that firearms were later used by criminals. The bill saved the industry some litigation costs, but the industry would have prevailed in such actions anyway if they were tried. Product liability and tort actions against manufacturers have uniformly and correctly been rejected by the courts. Guns are lawful products, and holding companies liable for later misuse of such products is absurd. You might as well sue an axe manufacturer for the Lizzy Borden murders.
Thus, even if you remove immunity protections, ban certain magazines or devices, require background checks, or even ban a couple weapon types, the reduction in gun deaths would not likely fall significantly. Individuals still would have a constitutional right to possess guns. Moreover, the vast majority of guns would remain unaffected. That does not mean we should not try to reduce those fatalities or pass these measures. Any saved life is worth the effort. But candidates are misleading voters in suggesting that, if elected, they can dramatically impact the numbers of these cases.
Of course, none of that would make for a memorable debate moment for any of the candidates. Biden would be less than riveting if he glared into the camera and poked a figurative National Rifle Association in the chest while saying he would take them on and “marginally reduce the minority of deaths associated with nonsuicidal gun incidents.” That is the reason why there are lies, damned lies, statistics, and presidential debates.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
Bring back dueling
Bruce – I approve this comment. 😉
You do realize there are 120 million gun owners with half a million guns.
Do they not realize that many will not voluntarily register or surrender firearms?
Molon labe
Jack Clancy,
I think there actually about 300,000,000 guns in the U.S.
Your math says each gun owner averages 1/240th ownership, wish that was true.
Again, the role of the federal government in controlling street crime is properly quite limited. Restricting and prohibiting the cross border traffic in certain articles, collecting data, and providing technical assistance in certain rarefied realms (which transcend the common skills of state police) pretty much exhaust what the federal police should do in containing ordinary crime.
The most thorough failures here are to be found in the state legislatures and state body politics. State constitutions and state law tend to vest policing in units of local government which are suboptimally small. Step one should be to reconstitute local police forces, so that you have multi-county sheriff’s departments providing law enforcement outside the cities and metropolitan forces inside the cities. This will allow for specialization and skill development among non-metropolitan forces while providing for metropolitan forces the necessary tax base to provide for the manpower to suppress crime in urban slums.
Gun control? Since 1989 there have been over 19,000 homicides in Democratically controlled Chicago. A person is shot once every 4hrs and 14min. http://www.heyjackass.com
The community organizer we elected president had a chief of staff elected mayor. Over his years in office there were 4,500 homicides.
Again, what we know is that the frequency of violent crime is insensitive to regulations governing the ownership of firearms. Mass confiscation might make a difference. Normal people who take an interest in this issue surmise that that’s the ultimate goal of the cookie-pushers whinging about guns and they’re looking forward to the Hawaiian judges issuing creative judicial opinions allowing it.
The frequency of violent crime is sensitive to investments in law enforcement. Academic sociologists tried for a generation or two to sell the idea that this was not the case and were most upset when Rudolph Giuliani and Wm. Bratton demonstrated that their academic research was rubbish. However, investing in law enforcement is not something liberals want to do. They are hostile to law enforcement.
You see, we have elevated rates of violent crime largely due to the activities of people who are on the client list of the liberal clerisy. Objecting to criminal violence is something ordinary people are given to. Ordinary people are deplorables and they lack the status to question the positive or normative judgments of the clerisy or to impose standards on the clerisy’s clientele without the clerisy’s permission. Also, the normative judgments of ordinary people are jejune and inconsequential. What is the function of intellectuals, but to tell us that things are not as ordinary people perceive them?
So, we have this whinging about gun control because the liberal clerisy needs someone to blame, and they stick the bill for violent crime with ordinary people who own guns rather than with the feral young men who actually commit violent crime (who they favor over ordinary people). The fraud and the attitudinizing is just disgusting. This is how liberals think and behave in our time, and why the cause of justice demands liberals have no influence in this society.
You’re partially right but not entirely in that rather than sticking the bill for violent crime on young feral men they should actually be accepting blame themselves. Because most shootings are drug related. This is the party of drug culture and the party of favoring drug criminals. Right now Bernie is actively pushing licensed legalized drug sales for inner cities. There is no doubt where their allegiance lies and it’s not with the law-abiding, let alone the Constitution that qualifies law.
Because most shootings are drug related.
They aren’t,
JONATHAN you are 100% correct and I enjoy your post.
The 2nd Amendment does not say that there is an individual right to have a gun. It was interpreted that way by SC. A historically accurate reading is that it protects the right for states to have militias. Basically the federal government does not have a monopoly on having an organized armed force. The SC giving their interpretation of the constitution makes it the current law of the land, but it does not make it the only interpretation, nor the correct one. Let’s please not forget that.
Yes, the Supremes are wrong, once again.
Molly:
Just dead wrong historically and legally.
Absolutely wrong in every respect.
M727272 should just retire.
DBB:
I’ve written on the topic. How about you?
Why do you not explain how she is wrong? You simply telling her she is wrong does not make it so.
Because he’s busy right now. And it’s not his job to refute her position. It’s her’s to refute his. The plain meaning of the language of the Amendment describes a personal right. Explain why this is not so. Molly cannot do it and neither can you.
TIA:
You’d think even to the dumbest among us, Madison placing the right to bear arms second in the Bill of [Individual] Rights, might have triggered some recognition of category even to those dull synapses. Alas, presuming even basic cognitive reaction by libs is problematic.
Mark,
Has there ever been a time in history that a disarmed citizenry was made more secure in their right to life, liberty and property?
Randy:
Because to refute every malicious lie and lazy mistake takes too much energy. If you want to learn about the history of the right, feel free to read this piece:
https://jonathanturley.org/2011/01/16/their-rights-as-englishmen-a-brief-history-of-the-second-amendment-part-i/
Then you can read Professor Vandercoy’s research which meshes nicely with Heller. Molly’s brain atrophy started with this line:
“The 2nd Amendment does not say that there is an individual right to have a gun. It was interpreted that way by SC.”
Well, duh. Ever heard of Marbury v. Madison? it’s kinda what they do! And as every Constitutional case goes, it starts as a history lesson that Molly couldn’t or wouldn’t read. So I’ll help her:
“And even if “keep and bear Arms” were a
unitary phrase, we find no evidence that it bore a military
meaning. Although the phrase was not at all common
(which would be unusual for a term of art), we have found
instances of its use with a clearly nonmilitary connotation.
In a 1780 debate in the House of Lords, for example, Lord
Richmond described an order to disarm private citizens
(not militia members) as “a violation of the constitutional
right of Protestant subjects to keep and bear arms for
their own defense.” 49 The London Magazine or Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer 467 (1780). In response,
another member of Parliament referred to “the right of
bearing arms for personal defence,” making clear that no
special military meaning for “keep and bear arms” was
intended in the discussion. Id., at 467–468.15”
This simple historical answer that guts her argument and gleaned from a cursory read of the opinion that SHE cites is precisely why I feel no need to disabuse the unlearned of their surmises or suffer fools gladly. Like I always say: read more; pontificate less and look a hell of a lot less foolish to those who do read.
Mespo, did you ever post part two?
Jim22:
You know I wrote it but never posted it. Maybe I’ll do it in a comment.
Mespo’s lame attempt to read Heller as from on high, when it was an outlier opinion finding a right 215 years after our founding by a 5-4 majority composed of 2 judges appointed by a President elected by the SC 7 years before and written by judges who loved legislating from the bench while claiming original intent.
In fact, the 2nd amendment is archaic, based on a militia which no longer exists, and hasn’t for well over a century. Militias are defined as under the training and funding of the Congress and under the order of the president elsewhere in the constitution. That militia does not exist and is the obvious predicate for the right to anyone who understands plain English.
We need universal background checks, and federal banning of high velocity, low caliber/recoil, semi-automatic weapons. These are military grade, designed to maim and kill humans with the minimum effort and maximum control of the shooter, and destroy tissue and organs in ways beyond the ability of doctors to repair.
btb – the militia is part of the Arizona Constitution. Militia fall under the state, not the feds.
The 2nd Amendment does not say that there is an individual right to have a gun.
Oh yes it does. Find another circumstance where the formulation ‘the right of the people’ refers to something other than a personal right. That reference is made to the militia tells you that this right includes military arms.
Liberals cannot stop lying or striking poses.
Whatever the preamble, the statement itself is unequivocal, “The right to keep and bear firearms shall not be infringed.” A preamble to a statement may explain that statement, but it does not alter it.
The history, if you care to know it, is that during the English civil war of the 1640s Charles I summoned the militia to fight on his behalf with their best weapons. At the war’s conclusion he then decided to confiscate their weapons. That did not sit well with his subjects. So in 1689, Parliament enacted the English Bill of Rights that specifically granted Protestants the right to “have Arms for their Defence.” They put it in writing specifically to prevent the King from disarming people, especially those he considered a threat to this reign. That’s the origin of the 2A.
In 1768, George III ordered disarming colonists and seizing ammo coming into the colonies. By 1774, the British were routinely conducting warrantless searches and seizures of firearms – a precursor to “stop and frisk”. No matter how much progressives try to re-write the history, the real history is that gun confiscation was a major cause of the American Revolution and the 2A was always an individual right.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1995/05/31/when-the-redcoats-confiscated-guns/e38d0810-af85-4949-8d93-3da746601e65/
Scott;
Actually, the individual right goes back to Alfred the Great:
https://jonathanturley.org/2011/01/16/their-rights-as-englishmen-a-brief-history-of-the-second-amendment-part-i/
It is absolutely an individual right. You have NOT done your history. And if you haven’t done your history then you should not be making such sweeping unqualified statements.
Actually, it does. If you knew anything at all about the militias of the day, you’d know they were responsible for providing their own weapons. By the way, the 2nd Amendment is not about guns. It’s about ARMS, which includes everything from pocket knives to cannon and other weapons of war. The modern National Guard did not exist until the early 20th Century.
You have no authority to challenge the sovereign, the Constitution, or modify any portion of it.
Americans have the right to keep and bear arms in order to be prepared as individuals to expeditiously join the militia of their choice when it is necessary to provide for “…the security of a free state.”
The 2nd Amendment does not say that militias solely have the right to maintain an armory.
The 2nd Amendment does not say a well-regulated militia shall not be infringed or that the need for the security of a free state shall not be infringed. It says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Oh, and, by the way, it does not say the right shall be mitigated, transformed or, otherwise, modified by the judicial branch for any purpose, it says the right shall not be infringed in any way, shape or form as the 2nd Amendment is not qualified and is, therefore, absolute.
________________________________________________________________________________
2nd Amendment
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.
________
“Before the Supreme Court heard the case, the D.C. circuit court of appeals nixed the ban, too. ‘According to the court, the second comma divides the amendment into two clauses: one ‘prefatory’ and the other ‘operative.'”
– Christina Sterbenz, BI
Your research skills are less than impressive:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/27/us/washington-hiv-aids-felony-bill-trnd/index.html
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Thank you. First I have read of it.
Reasonablely sure this has no chance of reaching the Governor’s desk.
I taught statistics in my younger years. If you want the facts and insightful critiques of anti-gun papers, buy John Lott’s “More Guns Less Crime”.
Many in my area have weapons and a good number carry permits. Burglars don’t know where the guns are. Crime is low.
The low crime in your area may be because of all the guns in the hands of citizens. But without you providing clear evidence of a causal link, your implication is an example of the correlaton/causality fallacy. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation)
Randy, I believe studies have been done to demonstrate the correllation but this is something where one can’t provide absolute proof. Of course those that wish to get rid of guns haven’t proven their arguments at all except by using tortured numbers.
I urge you to and many of your friends with similar thoughts to you to hang a sign out on your front lawns like a bunch of reporters were urged to do. The sign should say this is a gun free zone and then we can compare what happens to your home vs the homes where guns exist.
Correllation does not imply causation but when a lot of similar correllations occur one has to start thinking more about the subject matter. Further, that those wishing to get rid of other people’s guns refuse to place such signs (gun free zone) on their property demonstrates a commonly held belief by both sides.
I was hoping the professor would have touched on the truly biggest deception of them all, “Universal background checks”.
I would love to see the reasoning that would empower the federal government to override the plenary powers of the individual states by mandating the process by which citizens of a state could be restricted from transfers of firearms held within that state to another citizen of that state. It seems that the current ATF process is only legal because it is bootstrapped by the Commerce Clause. No interstate commerce, no power to regulate.
Yup.
Didn’t that Heller decision hold to the limitation that one can have firearms for the ‘protection’ of their homes? And I’m still confused about the militia/individual ownership dilemma. Not sure the 2nd amendment says what a lot of people think it does…
Gun ownership at home wouldn’t touch suicide stats, certainly. But helpful legislation could be built around what ‘home’ entails. Seems gun legislation is a momentum issue as well, i.e. it builds with a lack of legislative effort to keep it in check. The pathological grows in the dark, after all.
This post seems factual, logical, and on target!
But is flawed.
Paladin. Have gun. Will travel
Have Gun Will Travel reads the card of a man. A knight without armor in a savage land. His fast gun for hire heeds the calling wind. A soldier of fortune is the man called Paladin. Paladin, Paladin Where do you roam? Paladin, Paladin, Far, far from home.
He travels on to where ever he must. A chess knight of silver is his badge of trust. There are campfire legends that the plainsmen spin of the man with the gun of the man called paladin.
There is no constitution right to own cars, so let’s get rid of them.
9th amendment.
impeccable lack of logic.
Suicide by guns is mentioned in the article here. Maybe 60percent of gun deaths are suicides.
There is an old phrase out in the American scene: Guns are quicker. The phrase should be spoken to every cigarette smoker or pipe or cigar smoker. They are committing suicide. The rest of us have to pay for their medical expenses and listen to all that apCray about “fighting cancer”.
So guns in every home can have a good purpose.
We also may need to form a well regulated militia to fight some evil government. Remember the “Brits”? T
Yeah. The Redcoats are coming. We may need all those AR-15s.
(Music)
Dumb smokers got no reason.
Dumb smokers got no reason!
Dumb smokers got no reason to live!
They got little bit eyes…
Little bitty feet.
Little bitty voices going beep, beep, beep!
Don’t want no dumb smokers!
Don’t want no dumb smokers running round here!
Right time and right message to those promising to “lasso the moon “ for those who would give them the power.
“Thus, even if you remove immunity protections, ban certain magazines or devices, require background checks, or even ban a couple weapon types, the reduction in gun deaths would not likely fall significantly. Individuals still would have a constitutional right to possess guns. Moreover, the vast majority of guns would remain unaffected. That does not mean we should not try to reduce those fatalities or pass these measures. Any saved life is worth the effort. But candidates are misleading voters in suggesting that, if elected, they can dramatically impact the numbers of these cases.”
*********************
It’s never been about preventing gun deaths. They couldn’t care less. It’s about gaining power over an armed populace —— the globalIst Job 1. Once you understand that, everything the Dim liars do makes sense. The founders didn’t guarantee us the right to keep and bear arms because they were worried that the deer population would rise up against us and subjugate us.
No, they were worried about the slave population.
DBB:
That’s why they armed the former slaves to fight in the Civil War. Do you know any history at all? Btw every action taken by white Americans didn’t derive from concerns about Black Americans,
It seems that I know much more about the writing of the First 10 Amendments. I am impressed with how defective the education of a lawyer is.
DBB:
A legend in his own mind.
Cite it then.
Like I thought I’d get from Benson:
Fools rush in…
The odd position of the Democrats, if one follows the debates, is they want a general restriction of the possession and ownership of guns, with an exception for young men “of color” who might be subject on city streets to stop and frisk.
Just Making Stuff Up.
You are exactly right. The 5% of the population that black men represent commit about half the murders in the country. Sooo, how come we don’t see David Hogg and other SJWs down there in the ‘hood holding rallies, trying to grab black thugs’ guns? Or, getting serious about locking them up for a long time when they are caught with guns or commit crimes with guns?
The fact is, the base of the Democratic Party lives in La La Land – a place where Identity Politics rules everything. And pretense. There are entities that will not run mug shots to avoid having to show the overwhelming numbers of black criminals. It is not just race where this obsession with pretense rules. The Left would rather see sick and dying and dead queers than stigmatize queers who are HIV/AIDS positive and continue to sodomize other queers without wearing a condom. Washington State is going to pass a law making the Intentional spread of HIV/AIDS a misdemeanor instead of a felony.
So my question remains, why would any sane, self-respecting white person continue to vote for Democrats???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Doubt it about Washington state. Give links or at a citations.
You live there. Look it up. I linked it the other day.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
So, something in your imagination, it seems.
I try to follow impending Washington state legislation , making my opinion known to my state senators and representative.
No sign of what you suggest.
The fact that David Benson lives there doesn’t mean that he knows what’s going on there.
Paul C. Schulte,
Look who’s asking for a citation!🙄
Amazing. It seems that death by automobile and death by gun are about equal in the USA. I had thought that the former was much larger.