I Don’t Even Know Where To Begin…
Jeffery Fagan, professor at Columbia University, and Stephen D. Sugarman, professor at U.C. Berkeley, have a plan on how gun manufacturers can help curb gun-related homicides in the U.S. If their credentials alone don’t make you chuckle at this premise, reading their actual plan might. If you can call it a plan.
They grant:
Gun manufacturers insist that these deaths are not their fault, preferring to pin the blame on criminals and irresponsible dealers.
But then hope:
By using a strategy known as “performance-based regulation,” we would deputize private actors — the gun makers — to deal with the negative effects of their products in ways that promote the public good.
The very first step of their plan entails gun manufacturers granting that they are, in some way, culpable in gun-related deaths. Once they get gun manufacturers to admit they’re responsible what do they suggest their next move be?
How would gun companies go about reducing gun deaths? The main thing to emphasize is that this approach relies on the nimbleness, innovation and experimentation that come from private competition — rather than on the heavy-handed power of governmental regulation.
Really? The plan is, “They’ll figure something out?” Oh, sure, the professors are kind enough to suggest a thing or two but, in the end, they’ll leave the heavy lifting of their plan to the gun manufacturers themselves. I suppose this is smart on their part. If they actually had a real list of suggestions to implement, and it failed, the gun manufacturers would have someone to point the finger at. Instead, it’s up to the gun manufacturers to figure it out for themselves and if it fails, well, they probably didn’t try hard enough.
Here’s something to wonder: Why do two liberal professors wish to forgo government regulation? Isn’t that where they typically ply their trade?
What is to be done? The conventional regulatory approaches seem to be failing.
Government regulation doesn’t work. Or, rather, they can’t seem to get gun regulation laws to pass or stick that they like. Appealing to the government isn’t working because, surprise-surprise, most Americans like guns (even if they don’t happen to own one). And those same Americans realize that, as tired as it sounds, regulation only works against those that obtain their firearms legally.
They go on to compare their performance-based plan (which isn’t really a plan because they’re leaving all the planning up to someone else) to No Child Left Behind (something I thought liberals said is bad for our children), pollution-control, and tobacco-control.
Thing is, they fail to recognize, as the Supreme Court pointed out, that the American citizen has a right to firearms. Additionally, to compare any performance-based plan for gun control to No Child Left Behind or pollution regulation is apples and oranges. If No Child Left Behind is working (as these professors seem to think it is) it’s because someone wasn’t doing their job and the program made them accountable. If too much pollution is getting dumped, it’s because Company X did the dumping and we can prove it.
If a person is murdered, it’s because the guy holding the gun did it.
All of these scenarios stop at the person guilty. The teacher not teaching. The company ignoring environmental laws. The man holding the smoking gun. If we’re expecting gun manufacturers to share the guilt in the crime of homicide, why don’t we go after the company that produced the chemicals Company X dumped? Why not ask them to implement some performance-based plan to ensure their customers don’t dump chemicals?
I’d love to be a fly on the wall during that discussion.
But what do you expect from two left-wing college professors?
A plan that isn’t a plan that hinges on someone saying they’re guilty when they’ve been professing their innocense the entire time.
I will say this though: I applaude them for appealing to private industry to find a solution to the problem. Too bad it occurs to them to do this after they failed to get the government involved first. It’s a bit like asking for a five-spot after your hold-up failed, but, what’s the saying? Better backwards than never?
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38 comments
Certainly two right wing professors never came up with anything nutty.
I think that to analogize it to No Child Left Behind you have to consider the gun criminal in the role of the student and the gun manufacturer in the role of the teacher.
I suppose you are right that making gun manufacturers incur the costs of developing such solutions assumes they bear a certain responsibility for gun deaths. And, whether or not the American public believes they are indeed morally culpable, I think it is true that they are not (under normal situations at least) considered legally culpable. But, even if we think it is wrong to impose such costs on the manufacturers, there is a way to impliment the professors plan (or at least a similar one): instead of punishing the companies for not meeting certain targets, just reward them financially for meeting those targets. Such a plan recognizes that the reduction of gun deaths is a public good and a public responsibility, but at the same time makes use of the special knowledge and innovativeness of gun manufacturers to reach that goal and would not unfairly burden those manufacturers with undeserved responsibilities.
Just a thought, anyway.
Seriousness aside, it’s too bad the the professors didn’t suggest a “cap and trade” plan (which would have provided ample ammunition for punny jokes).
As is often the case, I’m not exactly sure where I’m at on this because, while I utterly agree that gun ownership is a Constitutional right (indeed, it’s not just a Constitutional right, I think it’s a fundamental human right), I don’t necessarily have a problem with making manufacturers culpable at some level for the damages incurred by their products. I have zero problem, for example, with legal requirements for safety features on automobiles. Seat belts, for example, used to not be standard on cars in part because public perception was that a seat belt was only put on something dangerous, so they were resistant to buying cars with seat belts, and manufacturers didn’t want to put them in there except as extra-cost options. The solution was just fine so far as I’m concerned; using the Constitutionally mandated power of interstate commerce regulation, they simply required that cars sold around the United States had to have seat belts as standard equipment. Theoretically if you manufactured and sold an automobile entirely within one state, you could skirt that, but no one would.
This also points to a frequent bone I have to pick with certain conservatives who claim to love the Constitution but then suggest that government regulation is a bad thing. The two concepts can’t be meshed; regulation of commerce is one of the few duties of Congress that is explicitly spelled out in the plain text of the Constitution.
Furthermore, conservatives, almost to a person, advocate all sorts of government regulation: "You shall not engage in prostitution in this jurisdiction" is regulation of commerce. "You shall not sell or purchase marijuana in this territory" is regulation of commerce. "You will not sell or buy a car without a government-recognized title" is regulation of commerce. "You will not drive 100 miles per hour down residential streets" is government regulation, if not of commerce then of common sense safety procedures. "You will not sell gasoline for vehicular use if it contains this list of prohibited air pollutants" is regulation of commerce. And so on and so forth.
So, can we and should we regulate gun sales? Why not? "You shall not sell guns with features that make them likely to explode in the hand of whoever uses them" would be one start on that–and considering that poorly made guns have a habit of doing exactly that, crippling or killing those who use them, that’s not a bad idea for a regulation if it doesn’t already exist (which it probably does in some form or other).
General Motors is responsible if they make a car whose brakes are likely to suddenly stop working with no warning. Can we craft similar regulation making gun manufacturers responsible for certain problems? Sure. It’s a question of what; they can’t be responsible for irresponsible use per se, but then, they can be responsible if they don’t provide certain minimum safety and precaution features, or if their sales network doesn’t meet certain standards. Although we already have such regulations, there’s probably room for improving them.
The manufacturers’ plan writes itself. Require everyone to buy a new American-made gun annually.
If that doesn’t work, in accordance with liberal practice, boost it to twice a year.
Better yet, buy everyone a gun of their very own.
I don’t see how holding gun manufacturers responsible for the damage done by the illegal use of their products and requiring automobile manufacturers to put seatbelts in their cars. I think a more apt analogy would be holding both the gun and automobile manufacturers responsible for the damage done by a drive-by shooting.
Are a large number of the guns in your dealer network winding up in criminal hands? If so, you may have some moral culpability and a responsibility to do something about it.
I won’t even comment on the fiasco of gun registration, resistance, failure, success, of Canadas’ gun registry. To read the papers, it has done nothing much to make our "true north, strong and free" any safer for anyone. Now, with a sometimes accepted "it doesn’t work" burocracy, that can’t be shut down, ( hey, once it is created, it’s sole purpose is unto its’ self existance) but the fees collected now being returned to the few who tried to do right.
Actully I guess I just did.
I liked the point of there not being movements to hold the cemical manufacturers’ responsable to make sure the customers don’t dump the cemicals. It appears rediculious. Thus holding it up, as all great commedians do, to be examined. It pushes the point past crudability. Yet where is that point.
Back in the dusty corners of my mind, I remember a lesson on the first laws. There were ten. Most had to do with property. I don’t remember them. Number 10 was
If a mans’ bull, escapes, and causes the death of an other man, for this there is no solution.
So it was shown that from the earliest time that laws were recognized as having limits. Try to describe an ideal. Realize it is not possable. The fact that we keep trying, shows the nobility of man. Fools we are. So use fools tools to define where,what, and who we are at this time. There is always humour out there some where.
As the saying goes, two wrongs don’t make a right. Stop deflecting.
Feel free to post and criticize something two right-wing professors came up with here (if you have the privileges) or on your own blog. Stupid ideas should be trounced universally.
But let’s talk about this stupid idea right now, okay?
Kevin :
Two wrongs don’t but three left do..
Just trying to help; or at least just trying.
Heh.
I also hear that while two wrong don’t make a right, two Wright’s make an airplane fly.
[…] OUCH: “Jeffery Fagan, professor at Columbia University, and Stephen D. Sugarman, professor at U.C. Berkeley, have a plan on how gun manufacturers can help curb gun-related homicides in the U.S. If their credentials alone don’t make you chuckle at this premise, reading their actual plan might.” […]
Two nuts said:
"Put simply, gun makers — whose products kill even when used as directed — would have to take responsibility for curbing the consequent public health toll."
So gunmakers attach a huge "Not to be shot at humans, use as directed" tag to the trigger and require yet another signature and all is well.
> Are a large number of the guns in your dealer network winding up in criminal hands? If so, you may have some moral culpability and a responsibility to do something about it.
"May" isn’t good enough - either you can say when they do or you can’t, and I’m betting can’t.
For example, if you make a lot of guns, odds are that more of them will end up in criminal hands than a manufacturer who only makes 5 guns year.
Okay, so you didn’t really mean "large number" but meant "disproportionate percentage". (I note that dumbly written laws are enforced, so it’s unclear why you should get a pass.) Is it really sensible to compare the percentage for Purdy (very high end shotguns) with Raven (inexpensive self-defense guns)?
Note that the highest percentage is likely to be for the models that are commonly carried by cops.
If we’re going to penalize manufacturers for "bad dealers", will we let dealers discriminate, say, by race?
Note that the social benefit for "cop guns" and inexpensive self-defense guns significantly exceeds the social benefit of high-end shotguns. (Assuming, of course, that you see self-defense and police as a good thing.) Why don’t the relevant manufacturers get any credit for that?
I wonder of the good professors are willing to live with the results? For example, I could make a good case that if we would kill members of gangs off, the murder rate would go down. Or statistically speaking, African Americans are more likely to commit murder so should the firearm companies be allowed to kill off members of the African American community in order to meet their quota? Or, people living in Chicago and Washington D.C. have a higher rate of murder per hundred thousand citizens than citizens living in other areas, so should we dispose of them in order to lower the rate? So you think killing the segments of society who are more likely to commit murder is a little extreme, so put them in prison. Or if you don’t like putting them in prison, you could send then to re-education camps. You would have to get rid of habeas corpus in order to do so, but what the heck, at least the gun companies could succeed in lowering the number of murders.
Now I have no idea if Professor’s Fagan and Sugarman are serious about their idea, but I consider it ludicrous. If you are going to charge someone or some agency with achieving certain results, you have to allow them the tools to achieve those results and I am very confident that neither professor would be willing to accept any plan put forth that had a realistic chance of succeeding. So if they truly believe in their idea, they are idiots. If they don’t, they are simply dishonest. Normally I would say they are dishonest, but with some of the positions and ideas advanced by professors these days they could very well be idiots who actually believe they have hit upon an idea that will work.
Bad bet, if we just use the same methods for tracking such things that we do now to track auto theft rings and whatnot. There’s a reason the car industry puts VINs and other things all over vehicles, and fighting theft rings is one of them. Tracking hit and run drivers is another, to a lesser but still valid extent.
Given that I’ve been a 2nd amendment advocate for my entire life, am in fact a gun owner, and have made it utterly clear that I consider gun ownership not just a Constitutional right but a vital human right that should be extended to all free human beings, I’m not sure what the point is for copping an attitude with me. All of your concerns can be addressed by well-crafted legislation, although bringing them up would tend to help improve such theoretical legislation.
" . . . or if their sales network doesn’t meet certain standards."
Yeah, this should work well. Start listing the delineations they should use to decide to whom they should sell, and to whom they should NOT sell.
Let’s see . . . for the "not" side . . . since they’ll have to have a "not" side . . . let’s pick some discrete groupings of people that disproportionately engage in crime with guns . . . obvious first choice, poor inner-city minorities. (Don’t yell at me - that’s per fed stats.)
Okay, see any problems with this scheme yet?
[…] my self-imposed 10 minute break before proofing my work, I see that Instapundit has linked to Kevin D.’s take (over at Dean Esmay’s place) on the same […]
I know where to begin: outreach towards those at greater risk of suicide.
What with how the firearms death ratio in the usa is actually about 60% suicides and only 40% homicides, and all.
Might not hurt to point out that black people compose the narrow majority of actual firearm homicides despite being only 12-13% of the total usa population, either.
I mean, if we wanted to actually do something informed and practical about reducing gun death tragedies in this country.
I’m starting to get tired of being the only person I know of who both knows facts like that and can also be bothered to point them out when it’s relevant.
Just off the top of my head . . .
I can buy a computer that won’t let me logon without my thumbprint but I can’t buy a gun that won’t work without my thumbprint.
No guns with proprietary ammunition which you must show your registration for (voluntary).
You know, I wouldn’t mind having a gun, protection and all that, but I would be afraid of my kids and my kid’s friends. I’d have to get one of those big steel cases for the damn thing just to keep my kids from shooting themselves. Then I’d have to unlock it before I could shoot any burglars.
And as far as I can tell, nobody is making a gun for me or addressing my concerns. Instead, all I get are solemn lectures on personal responsibility and teaching my kids frontier values. And when two guys suggest that maybe some improvements are in order all you can do is make fun of them.
Look, my kids are idiots, okay? And if they aren’t, their friends are. You guys, on the other hand, all need to ride back to the Ponderosa.
All gun control schemes directed against new guns are meaningless. Guns, you see, are effectively immortal. As a collector, concentating on 19th Century Military cartridge arms, I am well aware that old, old guns are quite deadly, very nearly as so as the most modern. Many, many people died of gunshots in the American Civil War, of, for that matter, in the War of Spanish Succesion. Criminals mostly use old guns which have been in commerce for a long time, anyway. Unless the plan includes some sort of magic spell which would make 200 million or so old guns disappear, it is total nonsense
Can’t do that! That’s racism and profiling.
How about a plan on how University Professors can help curb gun-related homicides and other crimes by college graduate in the U.S?
I hope they will not insist that these crimes are not their fault, preferring to pin the blame on criminals and irresponsible dealers.
First, it’s against the law for Congress to legislate a National Gun Registry…
From GunCite (http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_registration.html), here are some reasons why:
Gun manufacturers are no more liable for the misuse of their products than toothpaste manufacturers are for one getting cavities because of improper application of the toothpaste.
The only people responsible for the gun violence are those
goblinscriminals who perpetrate the crimes. If they didn’t have guns, they’d use knives. If they lacked knives, they’d use clubs and cudgels.Because it is only a small step from registration to confiscation, the focus must be placed directly on the aberrant behavior instead of the tools used to commit the behavior.
Why not place GPS tracking collars on all convicts upon the occasion of their parole? That way tech-savvy police departments can combine a database that contains the known locations of known offenders with the acoustic signature of a gunshot (http://www.saysuncle.com/archives/2007/01/08/gun_shot_detector/) within the jurisdiction? That will go a lot further to discouraging the behavior in question without compromising our collective liberty–not to mention our ability to shoot back.
Sorry, forgot to add the "why" to the first part–as in why it’s illegal for Congress, or any part of the government, to maintain a registry.
From the Firearm Owner’s Protection Act of 1986: (http://vlex.com/vid/19190853)
"No such rule or regulation prescribed after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions be established."
‘Nuff said on that…
"This also points to a frequent bone I have to pick with certain conservatives who claim to love the Constitution but then suggest that government regulation is a bad thing. The two concepts can’t be meshed; regulation of commerce is one of the few duties of Congress that is explicitly spelled out in the plain text of the Constitution."
There are tons of things that are explicitly spelled out in the Constitution as powers of government that would be a bad thing if done frivoulously or without good reason. As a quick example, Congress has the power to declare war. That doesn’t mean it is a good idea for us to declare war on every other country today.
Beyond that of course, the commerce clause does have a variety of interpretations and its present very strong interpretation wasn’t adopted until the New Deal legislation and only after quite a bit of controversy. It is entirely reasonable to believe that the current expansive interpretation of the commerce clause is not the original intent of the framers and not a good idea.
"Furthermore, conservatives, almost to a person, advocate all sorts of government regulation"
Undoubtly true, but also trivially irrelevant. Several of your examples are of course not federal regualtion at all, and thus not pertinent to whether the federal government has such power. More to the point though, once again, just because certain measured ideas are good, that doesn’t mean that all possible applications of an idea are good. I think it is good to imprison criminals who steal from people. I don’t though think it a good idea to impose a life sentence on jay walkers. It is possible to hold both beliefs and still be consistent.
"So, can we and should we regulate gun sales? Why not?"
Because there is an ammendment to the constitution which specifically gives individuals the right to own a gun. Regulation that would unduely interfere with that right would be a violation of the constitution, as well as a bad idea because indviduals owning the means to their own protection is a benefit to society. Just like regulation that would interfere with free speech is a bad idea and likelyunconsitutional.
All regulation should be looked at carefully to make sure that it actually accomplishes its goals at an acceptable cost. Often it does not, and this is a good reason to be generally skeptical of heavy handed regulation. Additionally, it is often the case that the regulation may not be at the most effective level, some situations are more suited to a local focus then a state or federal focus, and a general assumption that the closer the decision is to the people effected by it is a good one. These types of considerations should be magnified when a regulation would interfere with a right that is reserved for an individual. Freedom of expression and the right to bear arms being excellent examples of this. A higher level of scruntiny and a general bias against such things is certainly appropriate.
Dave Justus’s last blog post..High court strikes down gun ban
Here’s an idea (can’t decide if I’m serious or not) –
Have the gun companies regularly offer free firearms training classes in communities all across America so that citizens are familiar with various types of guns and know how to at least how to handle and fire. Why, the government could even fund such an endeavor (that would make both the left and the right happy, correct?)
The upside would be that accidental deaths might be reduced, bad guys might find a generally more level battle field is not to their liking / advantage (and therefore not take that risk), gun sales would go up and nudge the economy and the USA would again be vilified by the rest of the world while at the same time have a sense of unique communal security other places would kill for. If you get my meaning.
Win, win, win!
Actually, my bet is looking better.
In the case of with-gun suicides, the gun is recovered, but murders are different - the weapon often isn’t, even when the murder is "solved".
But, let’s ignore that.
Even if we assume that one can count accurately, I pointed out that the count doesn’t have the desired properties. I presented a number of problems with the proposal (large number is inappropriate, gun type matters and so does benefit) and the response is a complaint about "attitude".
I’m new here - where do I find what forms of criticism are acceptable?
There are other problems - if a "bad dealer" sells mostly one brand but also sells a couple of others, those others get a pass with any "count" scheme.
I didn’t mention that a huge fraction of "crime guns" go through multiple hands and those chains include dealers outside the original manufacturer’s control. (Example - a manufacturer sells to a police department who later trades the guns in and they’re resold. Or, someone buys, trades in, and the gun is resold. How can the first manufacturer have any control in either case?)
If there’s an actual problem with a dealer, the only reasonable way to deal with it is directly. This has far fewer problems.
> of your concerns can be addressed by well-crafted legislation
Even if we assume that it’s possible to write good rules along these lines (you have to actually draft said rules, not simply assert that it’s possible), odds are that the actual legislation won’t be good.
[…] as Dean Esmay points out here, these two university professors cannot even take it upon themselves to fleah out their apparently […]
Acksiom: I know those facts, and I find them relevant. [shrug] Well-crafted legislation and voluntary programs to address them seem like a good idea to me. And believe it or not, there actually is such a thing as well-crafted legislation.
Sasha: The law in question that you mention could easily be changed. There would be no Constitutional impediment to so doing that I can see. Regulation of manufacture and sale and transfer of firearms strikes me as fully in keeping with both the letter and spirit of the 2nd amendment.
I would utterly agree that the trend toward banning and confiscating weapons is disturbing, and it’s good to see America moving in the direction of liberalization on this issue instead.
Which reminds me, is "large count" graded on a curve?
I ask because if there is more than one manufacturer, odds are that one is "worse" than the other.
If we always shut down the "worst" one….
> Here’s an idea (can’t decide if I’m serious or not) – Have the gun companies regularly offer free firearms training classes in communities all across America so that citizens are familiar with various types of guns and know how to at least how to handle and fire.
Such programs are available in most communities. (They aren’t always sponsored by gun manufacturers but that doesn’t seem essential.)
One of the interesting things about the gun control discussion is that very few "new" proposals are actually new/untried.
The existence of a problem does not imply the existence of a solution, let alone one with "nice" properties.
anamax writ:
> (JAL) Here’s an idea (can’t decide if I’m serious or not) – Have the gun companies regularly offer free firearms training classes in communities all across America so that citizens are familiar with various types of guns and know how to at least how to handle and fire.
animax: Such programs are available in most communities. (They aren’t always sponsored by gun manufacturers but that doesn’t seem essential.)
The idea of the profs was to put the onus on the manufacturers for the use by others — hence my choice of who offered it (perhaps through contract with local retailers, dealers etc.) But hey, I’m not picky who offers it.
But more importantly — as for these programs being offered in most communities … oh really? Where? I live in a relatively gun friendly state in the south. I have NEVER seen a free program to introduce safe gun use, handling and shooting. Apparently public high schools in the some areas of the south used to (and some few still do, I think) offer gun safety and handling classes. More need to add that back in to the curriculum. Maybe Heller will help that.
If there were a free program in our community I would have taken it. Do you have any info on these programs and where they are offered?
I ended up taking a concealed carry class at a local range last year which I paid for. Never handled a weapon before. Recently took my 18 year old daughter (never handled a gun before) and went shooting with my Army officer son who was in town. Will go back with daughter as it is important that she be comfortable with hand guns (and probably rifles before we are done) not to mention she can hit what she aims at. Practical Shooting is a way to stay sharp. Something you never want to use, like insurance. As an aside — I am a white female over 60.
As a new thought I think I will suggest to the local gun guys that they approach the community colleges continuing education programs … but that will still cost those under 65 (usually free over 65).
If education is supposed to reduce poverty, sexism, racism etc. can gun use education reduce murder and increase safety?
Now there’s a thought.
[…] Instapundit, with a stop at Dean’s World, the link elevator descends straight to two professors writing in the LA Times that […]
I can buy a computer that won’t let me logon without my thumbprint but I can’t buy a gun that won’t work without my thumbprint. - blevine
And when the thumbreader crashes at the worst possible moment (Come on, no computer has ever done that. /sarcasm) we will have a new definition of "Blue Screen of Death".
JAL,
I may be mistaken but I think the NRA offers gun safety courses for free. (They may not be shooting instruction courses, but still…)
"I know those facts, and I find them relevant. [shrug]"
Yeah, but my point remains that I’m still the only one I know of who can be bothered to bring them up, and I’m getting sick and tired of that, in much the same way one gets sick and tired of constantly having to remind children to not to try to fry the cat in pure Nesson oil.
"Well-crafted legislation and voluntary programs to address them seem like a good idea to me. And believe it or not, there actually is such a thing as well-crafted legislation."
Um, dude? Whatever makes you think I wouldn’t believe it? I’m not a minarchist, y’know; I just start from the fact that government — the definition of the State via inter-Citizen contracts — is fundamentally based upon the regulation of the initiation and use of force, particularly by proxy.
There’s a place for the State in the world; it’s in my best interests for me to have a say in how the use of force by others is regulated, and in that regulation being enforced. The tradeoff in accepting some restrictions upon my own use of force is far more than worth it.
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