The Third Gun Control Article: My Personal Take

In my previous two articles, most of my discussion focused on statistics, policies, and laws, and at times I may have taken a sort of devil's advocate position to fully explore those aspects of the gun control issue. In this, the final part of the series, my focus will be on my own personal experiences related to guns. Through examining my own personal gun microcosm, I'll lead into what I've decided would be the most reasonable way to handle the regulation of gun ownership and use in the United States, in a way that would satisfy at least my own sensibilities.

Not surprisingly, my first experiences as a kid with anything resembling a gun probably alternated between madly squirting people with a squirt gun and my own fantasy gun battles I staged using my cap guns. I loved westerns, especially the TV show Wild Wild West, so I had to always be in possession of at least one cap gun, preferably the type with the paper rolls of caps. In fact, one of the earliest extant photos of me shows me wearing my cowboy hat, sporting a two-holster gun belt, and brandishing a toy gun with a mesmerized look on my face. I'm about a year and a half old in that photo.

When I got a little older, I joined the neighborhood boys in a game that we called simply "Guns." The game involved splitting into teams and then fanning out throughout the neighborhood or the forest, or wherever we happened to be, and attacking each other by shooting with cap guns, water guns, smoke bombs, firecrackers, etc. Here and there, there may have been a BB or two, or one of those guns that shot the little yellow rubber pellets. The supposed goal was to capture the other team members and win, but most of us were just happy to be shooting things, blowing things up, and running around, not really caring about who won.

Part of the Tradition

From TV and my neighborhood activities, I was very positively disposed toward guns. No one in my immediate or extended family hunted at the time, and I wasn't aware of any of them having any guns from the past or for any sort of protection, but I did know a lot of kids whose families were hunters by tradition. I'd say at least a quarter of the kids I knew had family members who were active hunters at the time, and several of the kids hunted, too.

In Vermont it was a very normal thing to hunt, for family members to hunt together, and for older family members to introduce their kids to hunting. The tradition was so established that there was even a special camp in the winter every year, which several of my friends attended sometime between the ages of 8 and 15 or so, that was solely for children to learn gun safety, broader hunting safety, and I'm not sure what else, but probably reasonable hunting-related things. I'm pretty sure the camp was run by the Fish and Game Department, and this was kind, gentle Vermont, so I only heard good things about it. The goal was to produce safe, considerate hunters rather than rapacious killers.

One of my many friends named Chris, hopefully that's anonymous enough, had been brought up in a hunting family, so by the time he hit his teens, he already owned a few hunting rifles—I think they were a 30-30, a 30-ought-6, and a 22, to be specific—and was a good shot and a knowledgeable hunter. I was actually there when he received the 30-30 as a present (or was it the 30-ought-6?), and his father took us to the field out back to demonstrate it to us by shooting a milk jug filled with blue water on the other side of the field.

I wasn't super interested in hunting, though I loved nature, but I thought guns were just dandy, so I was happy when Chris asked me if I'd like to go shoot some cans and bottles, using his 22, in the shooting range he'd set up in the woods off to the side of the field. As expected, it was really fun, and I turned out to be a pretty good shot, so I maintained my enthusiasm. At later opportunities, I embraced the chance to shoot BB guns and sling shots, as well, and I always wished I had a BB gun, but I never had the desire to own a "real gun"—I'm not sure why exactly. Probably because I was already a hippie and didn't know it.

Once we entered our teens and had other priorities, guns and hunting weren't quite so interesting anymore, and it ended up being years before I had any further direct contact with guns. However, in the meantime, I did get to know some hunters a little better, and the ones I met came from very different backgrounds.

Running the Gamut

As a late teenager and in my early 20s, I worked for the Vermont Highway Department during the summer. As a result, I was driven and drove myself all over the state, to some of the most obscure, rural places you can find there. My coworkers were mostly native Vermonters of many generations, blue collar, and lower middle class (as was my family, although we lived in a "city"). Since family and local connections were pretty strong in those days, in our travels we would stop by and visit folks in those obscure places, and it was then that I got to see some of the more hidden rural poverty in Vermont. That tied in with hunting because some of these people were poor enough that it was really important for them to be able to get their allotted one or two deer a year just so they could put some meat on the table. And often all the males in the family would hunt to improve the odds that they'd be able to feed the family.

At the same time, I got to know a back-to-the-lander who had voluntarily adopted a low-impact lifestyle that sometimes included hunting. He didn't have to hunt to survive, in a way, but to maintain that lifestyle it was helpful for him to do so. That said, at times he struggled with it—and discussed his struggle—from the standpoint of not wanting to take the life of another living creature. But ultimately he decided that if done respectfully and from a standpoint of stewardship and sustainability, he could continue to hunt.

So, in keeping with my earlier experiences, I remained positively disposed toward hunting and agreed that guns were perfectly fine tools for that activity.

A few years later, I came home to visit my mother, and stuck on the refrigerator was a photo of a beautiful coyote…lying dead in the back of a pickup truck. I was shocked. It turned out that her boyfriend at the time had gone coyote hunting and had shot that beautiful animal himself, and he was very proud of his accomplishment. At the time, I was still relatively "pro-hunting," but I had—and have—little tolerance for killing for sport or for whatever other reason when you're not even going to eat the animal whose life you've taken away.

Not long afterward, on that visit or another one, I came home to find a pistol lying on the staircase to the second floor of my mother's condo. It was there in full view, just four feet from an often-unlocked clear glass door to the outside, where anyone could A) see it, and B) step in and grab it. At the time, I wasn't even thinking of those two elements, though. What had my attention was the realization of how ridiculously powerful that tiny thing—a 9 mm pistol not much bigger than my wallet—could be. I was a bit stunned. Something that small could be used to kill 10 people, with the wrong person holding it. How could such a thing be made and then sold to people? What could justify that?

I wasn't happy with either of those gun-related experiences, and, perhaps needless to say, I was happy when my mother moved on to someone else.

Beyond Feeding Your Family

Based on my life, I'm used to thinking of guns as something you use for hunting an animal you intend to eat. Sure, as a kid I accepted their use in the lawless days of the Wild West, and in wars for the past few hundred years, to "hunt" people, as well, but these days I'm certain that the people involved in those things would've been far better off if they hadn't had guns, and didn't have them now in current wars. I would rather that police officers, too, didn't have to use guns—I was always enamored of how British police didn't carry guns—and I bet you that in some ways police here would be better off without them, as well. However, I realize that it can be important for the person doing the policing to—if possible—have more physical power/firepower than the people they're trying to control.

Once you've covered those four uses, I guess the next use that would come up would be "self-defense." A certain vocal minority of people talk about having the right to protect their family and their property. Others claim that allowing the public to own concealed weapons acts as a deterrent for would-be criminals. And still others claim they have the right to keep arms in case the government no longer serves the public needs, and then they'll be equipped to overthrow the government—yeah, right. More problematically, some people live in very dangerous areas where it's not safe to be out on the street at night, even if you have no choice.

When I think about the self-defense use, I have to admit I feel the least comfortable about this type of reasoning for people to be able to own guns. My discomfort is not that I feel their reasons are totally unjustified, however. It's natural to want to protect yourself, the ones you love, and things you've earned and built. What disturbs me is the knowledge that this kind of ownership is what has lead, and is continuing to lead, perhaps in an accelerating way, to the general proliferation of guns.

A lot of things are going on in that area. First of all, the more guns that are made, the more guns that will be available for killing people. It's a simple fact. Second, and connected to the first, the more guns that "law-abiding" citizens own, the more guns criminals are going to own after stealing them from the law-abiding citizens. Third, the more guns that are around, the more likely situations are going to escalate into people being shot and killed, when the same situation before this proliferation might have led to far less serious consequences or even no consequences at all.

We Want Your Guns

The argument of being able to protect "you and yours" rests on your being with them and all of your guns at the time someone becomes a menace. The simple fact is, though, most criminals aren't that stupid or that menacing. The majority of criminals don't really care about you or your family and probably don't want to hurt you at all; they just want your stuff. And if they want your stuff, they'll watch for when you're away from your house, they'll break in, and they'll steal it. If you have a handgun you carry with you and a bunch of more powerful weapons that you keep in the house, well, you now had a bunch of more powerful weapons.

It's quite common for criminals to break into houses specifically because they're looking for guns. They're a priority because it's very easy to sell them, they're easier to carry than TV sets, and you can get a good amount of money for them. Not to mention you also can use them to increase your criminal capabilities. After a successful gun theft, the criminals will have more of your powerful weapons than you will.

Actually, one of the times that my back-to-the-land friend stopped hunting for a while was when someone broke into his house and stole all of his guns. All it took was a few minutes, and a law-abiding person with guns no longer had any guns, and a criminal had several.

So many guns are stolen that there must be piles of them in some places, car trunks full of them. I've heard—and perhaps this is old news—that so many criminals in England have guns now that the police have had to resort to carrying them, too. I wouldn't doubt a goodly number of those criminals' guns came from the houses of "law-abiding" American gun owners and got shipped to England under the radar.

And let's say someone does break into your house while you're there. You come out with a gun and start shooting. If that criminal is still alive and has a gun, too, he or she is going to shoot back. Are you going to assume there's no chance a stray bullet might hit you, your spouse, your kid, your dog? You might just scare off the criminal, but if you don't, you're putting your own life and the lives of others at risk by having that gun in your hand. That goes for when you're out in public, too, where the danger of someone getting hit by a stray bullet might be even greater.

It's risks like these that have convinced me that the best thing for all of us is to reduce the number of guns available, the types of guns available, and the number of people allowed to carry guns to the lowest amount possible.

Laying Down the Law

If I were to make a set of laws that would give me peace of mind, here's what they would look like. And all of these would be retroactive—nationwide—with no grandfather clauses allowed.

1. Ban the sale of guns for personal protection.
2. All owners with a license to carry a gun for any reason other than hunting would be required to turn in their guns and would be reimbursed at a "used" price, but only if they could demonstrate that they acquired them legitimately.
3. Ban the manufacture and sale of semi-automatic, automatic, and similar guns and large capacity magazines.
4. Dismantle and recycle or repurpose for police use all guns recovered from criminals and criminal ventures.
5. Require one-time licensing and periodic eyesight and sanity checks—at no or very low cost—for those who wish to own a gun. Background and medical record checks for all.
6. Require registration for all guns. With every gun registration, include two copies of a transfer of title for when the gun might be sold to another person who has gotten a gun license. One copy would go to the new owner, and the other would be mailed by the old owner to the registrar with the new owner's information. The new owner would have to register the gun within a week of the registrar's receiving the form or would be visited by the police to either relinquish the gun or register it with them along with paying a penalty fee.
7. Continue to allow the sale of guns for hunting. Hunting rifles would be allowed, along with a limited number and type of handguns. (Some hunters carry a handgun for certain situations; for example, when they are able to shoot a deer with their rifle but find that it is still alive and suffering when they get to it.)
8. Require a greater amount of hunter safety training before anyone can get a license to purchase a hunting rifle and hunt with it. Hunters will no longer be exempt from gun licensing.
9. Require proof of living in or visiting an area that allows hunting, having the intention to hunt or a history of hunting, and having a license to hunt before being allowed to purchase any gun.
10. Require all guns to be kept securely locked when not in use.
11. Require practice or learning of hunting skills by children to be actively supervised by a licensed adult gun owner at all times.
12. Except when removed from a locked area or mount using heavy tools or other unpreventable destructive means, all gun owners will be at least partially legally and financially liable for any accident or crime that occurs using a weapon that they own.
13. All guns must be stored unloaded and away from the cartridges used in them.
14. If accidents or crimes that occur using licensed gun owners' guns stay at a very low level, then these storage laws should suffice. If not, police will begin random unannounced checks of owners' gun storage areas and will fine owners or confiscate the guns if they're not stored securely or are stored loaded.
15. Allow restricted use of non-hunting guns, including legacy outlawed guns, for recreation at specially licensed gun ranges that maintain possession of all weapons with strict security. These would be open to use by anyone 18 or older, or minors when accompanied by a parent, after a brief mechanical/safety training session. All firing sessions would be observed/supervised by trained employees.
16. Biathletes would be allowed to purchase the sport's specially designed rifles and use them for competitions after meeting licensing/background requirements similar to what hunters need to meet.

It would take time, but applying such strict measures would gradually pull more and more guns off the street, without enough new ones being made or sold to replace them. Eventually, far fewer criminals would have guns, the police would have plenty of guns, accidental shootings would decrease, hunters would be safer and more effective, and the people of this country would be much safer. A lot of people might not be thrilled with my proposal, but I think in the long run it would be quite effective.

So concludes this trilogy of articles. Stay tuned for more on this topic and others as the situation develops…or, more likely, fizzles.

A Loss for America: The Failure of the Background Check Bill

A special guest post by Matt Polen

I don’t consider myself a political person by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not particularly well-informed, nor am I ill-informed. I am merely what most call – an American. I watch the news and glean from it what I can. Admittedly, the news I watch is not “fair and balanced” and would probably be referred to as “the liberal media.” I am OK with that. I can admit that my leanings are considerably more to the left and therefore more aligned with CNN and NBC than the hateful propaganda of Fox. I love watching The Daily Show, and the little snippets I see of Fox News on there are enough to let me know what I am missing and to form the opinion that it is nothing of import. Scare tactics, bullying, hatemongering and agenda-pushing are not my cup of tea.

All of this is not to say though, that I don’t have strong views on issues that are politicized or political in nature. Again, I am an American, and that means that I can have strong views on things about which I may not know much. This may not be a solely American trait, but I certainly see us ranking higher in this skill than say math or geography compared with other nations. Opinions are like quicksand. They are deep and murky; you can get stuck in them and before you know it they are pulling you under. Some opinions are popular and easy to define and defend. Others are not so popular and are challenging and complex. What seems obvious is not always so. Sometimes the popular opinion is wrong – it is the path of least resistance, it is simply the most utilitarian, it benefits you personally – and that is when tough decisions need to be made.

The people we elect to make these tough decisions, the ones that affect not only our own lives but those of all those around us and, at times, the world at large, are our elected officials. These people represent us. We entrust them with the very ability to be our voice when the sound of 1 in 100 million is not enough. They are, as their very title suggests, our REPRESENTATIVES. When every individual voice cannot be heard, they represent the masses, their constituents. Constituent is defined as a person who authorizes another to act on his or her behalf, as a voter in a district represented by an elected official.

Today’s failed vote to expand background checks on gun owners or potential future gun owners is a failure of our elected officials to represent us. In polls leading up to the vote, the numbers were showing quite clearly – between 60% to 90% - that Americans supported this proposed legislation. And indeed they should. Who in their right mind is opposed to keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill? You can make all the arguments you want about our 2nd Amendment rights and the slippery slope that this represents or that criminals will find ways to have guns, and to that I say go for it. We regularly have curtails on laws – even the most fundamental of them. Freedom of speech is one of the most widely protected and integral tenets of our freedoms, but you still cannot yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater. But the right to enter that same theater with a loaded weapon, that we cannot curtail? And the argument that criminals will always find a way to get their hands on weapons? If the reason to not pass a law is because criminals will break it, then why have any laws at all? Isn’t the very reason that we have laws because people kept doing the same thing over and over again – that thing being something that we as a society deemed unfavorable and therefore relied on our REPRESENTATIVES to create a law prohibiting it?

The idea that if you outlaw guns then only outlaws will have guns is preposterous on so many levels, but the fact is that it doesn’t even matter. The bipartisan proposal – yes, an actual bipartisan proposal from a Congress that has been so bitterly divided across party lines to the point of almost complete paralysis – that was defeated today was not about outlawing guns or making gun owners turn in their weapons or register the ones they own that had not previously been registered. It wasn’t about putting limits on the amount or type of guns they own or the amount or type of ammunition those guns fired. It wasn’t about taking away our 2nd Amendment rights. It was about giving the vast majority of the American people – some who are gun owners and many who are not – the peace of mind that, even if only in theory, someone is checking to see if we are willingly and ignorantly putting literal loaded weapons in the hands of violent offenders and/or the mentally ill.

It’s a difficult thing to wrap my head around. With Columbine and Aurora and Virginia Tech and Arizona and Newtown to just name a few – all of these fairly recent examples of gunmen with signs of mental illness, how do you oppose such a thing? You would usually say, ‘What does it take? Does a guy have to walk into a school and shoot a bunch of kindergarteners for us to take action?’ Apparently not even that is enough to defeat the mighty NRA. It is just plain appalling. It’s a scary world we live in when one of their own was shot in the head and even that isn’t enough to make them pass an essentially ceremonial law that may, probably not, but may prevent such an abhorrent act from happening to one of the constituents they purport to represent.

What I can’t figure out though, is what is scarier: the fact that our government has failed us so fundamentally on this issue or the fact that, according to the votes our representatives cast on this issue – as the voice of those whom they represent - the majority of Americans feel the need to stockpile limitless weapons and ammunition independent of any regulation whatsoever. Either way, neither the Republicans or the Democrats won today, but you can be damn sure that America lost.

Copyright © 2013 by Matt Polen

The Second Amendment Is Obsolete: A More Extreme Perspective

Although the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are a good set of general guidelines with admirable intent, they were written for a world that existed over 200 years ago, when our priorities were much different. As a result, those who insist on the strictest interpretation of all parts of those documents are insisting that, essentially, we deny any social, political, technological, and linquistic changes and achievements that have occurred since then. If we were to adhere strictly to every part of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as they were written, we would not only be denying the state of the nation as it exists today, we would be limiting our ability to compare and compete with the world around us as it makes progressive changes and moves into the future. That's why the Constitution was written with the option for amendments as needed.

For example, in the 1700s, automobiles didn't exist, so no one would have thought to have mentioned them in the Bill of Rights. But we've now had public access to automobiles in the U.S. for over 100 years and nearly universal automobile use for the past 50. In fact, in many parts of the country, no matter how poor you may be—and sometimes specifically because you are poor—being able to operate an automobile is essential to being able to earn money and continue even the most basic level of survival.

So why haven't we amended the Constitution to include a special right for automobiles? "You have the right to own and operate a motor vehicle to provide for the survival of yourself and your dependents," it might say.

Bringing Rights Up to Date

It hasn't been around for 100 years, but how about the Internet? Many politicians and analysts have observed that populations who don't have access to the Internet won't be able to compete with those who do in a modern global economy. For example, Vermont, which is planning to have high-speed Internet connections available for the entire state, including rural areas, by the end of 2013 (Remsen, 2013), seems to be implying that people have a right to a high-speed Internet connection. Hmm… "You have the right to high-speed access to the Internet, that it may aid you in realizing your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Why is it that guns, which are made solely to destroy living things—or blast apart clay disks, paper targets, cans, and bottles—get so much consideration today, when much more important things that enable us and improve our lives take a back seat?

Back in 1789, there were a whole slew of good reasons why guns appeared in the second amendment rather than the tenth. The most important reason was that the country had just emerged from a war on its own soil with a world power that was still a military threat. At the same time, the French to the north and the Spanish to the south were very real threats, as well. These three threats were realized before long in a naval conflict with France, the War of 1812, and the Mexican-American War. The justifiably angry Native Americans were also a threat. These threats coming from all sides from different hostile groups all justified "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" to maintain "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State." And remember, the U.S. was still a wild land, with bears, wolves, and mountain lions still lurking about outside its towns and cities—kind of like L.A. is today.

Times have changed. We haven't had a war on continental U.S. soil for almost 150 years. And wild animal attacks happen now and then in very limited areas but can usually be prevented without the use of any weapon. In most parts of the country, we have no need for guns at all, let alone large quantities of guns capable of killing large quantities of people when wielded by one person. We also have no need for a militia, contrary to what a few backwards cults of nutcases might think. The second amendment is obsolete.

The Right to Avoid Registration

Evan Hughes, Vice President—NRA of the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, was interviewed in a recent article regarding the group's stance on Obama's proposed changes to gun laws. (Burlington Free Press, 2013) Hughes' response was typical of other groups advocating unlimited gun ownership. When discussing requiring a background check for any transfer of gun ownership from one person to another (including within a family), the article said, he was of the opinion that "to do so would effectively mean requiring gun registration." And, the article continues, "That he sees as running afoul of the constitutional right to bear arms." [Italics mine]

What a horrible violation of privacy, having to register your gun! You should be able to keep your gun ownership a secret, so no one knows if you have one or not, right? That way, in effect, you're protecting the people who don't have guns, because bad people couldn't be certain whether those people might have guns or not. And if you start shooting at a bad person and seem to run out of bullets, they don't know if maybe you have half a dozen other guns concealed on your person, ready to blaze away. That's a real deterrent!

Well, a lot of us aren't interested in having that kind of deterrent all around us.

In the wild west, just about everyone had a gun, and people were killing each other all over the place every day. Maybe that was okay when it was one frontiersman shooting another on a deserted street, but we've got a lot more people around these days to get hit by the stray bullets of people who are ready to start shooting at a moment's notice.

Dirty Little Secret

On the other hand, the way some people talk about their guns, it's almost as if they're somehow ashamed of owning them, like it's their dirty little secret, comparable to a stash of nudie magazines. If we return to the car comparison, yes, it's a financial and logistical burden to have to register every car you own and renew that registration every year, but for some it's a matter of pride. If you've got a new Caddy, you're going to want the people at the DMV to know how sweet it is. And the millions of vanity plates out there are all proudly announcing, "Yes, I registered my car!" If gun owners think their guns are so important and impressive, why aren't they stepping up to proudly announce, and register, every gun they own?

I will admit that sometimes I've wished I could have kept it a secret what cars I've owned, like that one I bought for $600 that seized up and died in the middle of the highway, but I'm happy to make that sacrifice of my reputation for the sake of the benefits involved. If someone steals my car, however crappy, it's way more likely I'll get it back than it would be for me to get my TV back if someone stole that. My car's got a paper trail a mile long. If the cops were to stop the thief while he was driving around in my car, my registration would make it possible to immediately determine that he's doing something illegal.

Gun registration can offer even more important protections. For example, like myself, you may have seen a police drama on TV at some point in which an officer says something like "Looks like Jake has a permit for a pistol, so you guys be careful going in there." When police officers are going to the scene of a crime or disturbance, such as a domestic dispute, they'll be inherently safer if they know whether it's likely someone involved may have a gun—"armed and dangerous"—sound familiar? If they know, they can be sure to wear bullet-proof vests, keep their distance, approach more carefully, use a bullhorn, etc.

I hope I'm not being presumptuous in assuming that real-world police officers in at least some jurisdictions have access to information about who has gun permits. If they don't, they should. And, really, they should be able to access information about every single gun that's out there; not just handguns and AK-47s, but hunting rifles and shotguns, too. Why is that? Well, for one, at the short distances you'll find in an average house, a shotgun can kill you just as dead as any handgun can. The same would go for a hunting rifle, too, really; however, another example might be more fitting for hunting rifles.

The fact pattern of most mass shootings is that the shooters are, essentially, cowards. They choose defenseless and/or unsuspecting people, such as young children, movie-goers, teens, shoppers, vacationers, etc.; they either shoot them from far away or use a high-capacity weapon so that people can't defend themselves; and they kill themselves before they can be caught because they don't have the guts to face punishment. For the killers who shoot from far away, a hunting rifle would be far more accurate than a pistol.

Useful but Deadly

Returning to my earlier example, automobiles seem to be a good thing to compare with guns in other ways, too. Cars are tools that can be very useful in providing us with a means of survival, but they also can be very capable of killing people with just the flick of a wrist or even a finger. Granted, it's much more difficult to conceal a car in your coat pocket, but in most other respects, a car and a gun involve very similar dangers, in addition to whatever utility they may have.


Those who are totally against gun control feel that we all have the right to own whatever guns we have the resources to purchase, and that we all can use such guns to protect ourselves when we feel that our lives or property are being threatened by someone. Many people might disagree with that. For the sake of argument, would this same right carry over to automobiles? "I have the right to own whatever car I have the resources to purchase, and I can use it to defend my life and property if they're being threatened?" How many people think it's a good idea for it to be legal to use your car as a killing machine?

So far, we don't license people to drive with the provision that they can use their cars as killing machines. We license people to drive so they can operate a vehicle responsibly to meet their transportation, work, family, vacation, avocation, and survival needs. And how do you get a license to operate this device that can have positive and productive uses but also has the potential to very easily kill people?

The Mountain and the Molehill

As a typical example, for new drivers age 18 to 24, Maryland requires them to hold a learner's permit without a moving violation for nine months, take a driver's education course "consisting of a minimum of 30 hours classroom instruction and 6 hours behind the wheel instruction training" (Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration, 2013), and have a minimum of 60 hours of supervised driving practice, before they can even take a driver's test. If a new driver is 25 or older, the supervised practice requirement goes down to 14 hours, and they can take a driver's test 45 days after they get their permit.

The state also requires all new drivers to have a provisional, limited license first and wait 18 months before they can earn a full license. For all drivers with a provisional license, if they're convicted of a moving violation within 18 months, they have to go back and get more training, then be provisional again for 18 months before they can get a full license.

So, regardless of age, the least requirement is that a new driver needs to have a total of 50 hours of training and practice and has to wait 45 days before getting a provisional driver's license, and another 18 months to get a full license, in Maryland.

Comparable to most states, in Maryland, that's not the end of it. Once you have a driver's license, you have to have it renewed every five to eight years, and if you're age 40 or older, you have to have your eyesight checked while you're renewing to make sure you can still see where you're going. There aren't too many more requirements for a while, but once you become elderly, then some states, such as Maryland, may require you to actually retake the driver's test to show that you can still responsibly operate a vehicle.

If you have to go through that many hoops to be able to drive—and continue driving—a car, then why is it often much easier to buy a gun at a gun show, which you can do in some states without having any training or license whatsoever, or, only marginally less easy, buy a gun from a sporting goods store after completing some minimal training and waiting, at most, 40 days?

Well, in fact, in Maryland, all the education you need is to go to this site—http://www.mdgunsafety.com/—and take a 30-minute online class, then you fill out some paperwork, have a gun shop run a background check, and in eight days you can have your own handgun. Wow, that's way easier than getting a driver's license! Let the shooting begin!

Of course, I should note that Maryland requires you to renew your gun license after two years, then every three years after that. However, there's no vision requirement, and there are no limitations on those elderly licensees who may have limited abilities to use a gun accurately and safely. On the other hand, it's important to remember that, in that state, you don't need a license at all to buy a hunting rifle or a shotgun. You only need a license for handguns and assault rifles. That's comforting to know.

Easy Kill, Time to Go

How can anyone justify making it that easy to own and use something that can so easily kill people intentionally or by accident? And Maryland isn't even the weakest when it comes to gun purchase and registration requirements.

It's time to stop talking about the rights of gun owners and start talking about getting our priorities right. The right to be treated equally as a person, regardless of color, gender, sexuality, or gender preference; the right to have the access to the means for earning a living; the right to have access to the information you need to get along in life; even, heaven forbid, the right to all types of healthcare—those are all far more important than the right to own something that's made to kill. All this talk about compromise and all this kowtowing to the NRA is only serving to cloud much more important issues. Let's rescind the second amendment altogether and get on with it.

Sources:

Burlington Free Press. "Vermont leaders, police chiefs, gun advocates respond to Obama's gun-control proposals." January 16, 2013. http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20130116/NEWS03/301160016/Vermont-leaders-police-chiefs-gun-advocates-respond-to-Obama-s-gun-control-proposals

Maryland Department of Public Safety & Correctional Services. "Firearms Safety Training." Accessed March 12, 2013. http://www.mdgunsafety.com/

Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration. "Maryland's Graduated Licensing System." Accessed March 12, 2013.
http://www.mva.maryland.gov/Driver-Services/RookieDriver/dschool.htm

Remsen, Nancy. "vt.Buzz: Marshall leaves Connect VT for industry job."
Burlington Free Press. January 14, 2013. http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20130114/NEWS03/301140013/vt-Buzz-Marshall-leaves-Connect-VT-for-industry-job

What the Numbers Actually Say About Gun-Related Deaths and Gun Control

Since the terrible occurrence at Sandy Hook, we've all seen the news reports and heard the opinions and proposals from both sides of the gun control issue about how to prevent such disasters in the future. Often, the talking heads cite statistics and polls that seem to say one thing, then others say its exact opposite. Somehow, by coincidence, the stats and polls they refer to are consistent with the bias of whichever person happens to be talking at any given moment.

For example, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup poll, "58% of Americans now say they favor stricter gun laws." So says the mass media press, which is supposed to be neutral. For comparison, on the January 2, 2013, RT news show "Lone Liberal Rumble," Francesca Chambers, editor and publisher of the republican publication Red Alert Politics, cited a CBS poll that reportedly said 50% of Americans are against more gun control, then another poll that reportedly said 54% of Americans have a positive opinion of the NRA. Granted, a discerning viewer normally would know to assume Chambers would be biased, since she's from a partisan organization, but those who get their news only from such sources, directly or indirectly, are not going to be aware of other polls that yielded different results. So, theoretically, we have this national split of two sets of people, both of which think they're informed, but they've been informed of opposing or at least inconsistent "facts."

As is often the case with the news, the question is, what are the actual facts? Well, the polls I've mentioned above aren't that terribly divergent, but I've heard other results that vary more widely. Regardless, if you know how polls are conducted, then you know that their results can be highly variable and unreliable. For example, telephone polls tend to lean toward land-line phone numbers, and they rely on people being at home or willing to answer their phone at a specific time on specific days. Hence, they are inherently limited in the demographic of the people they survey—for example, to people who don't have cell phones and like to stay home on Tuesday nights. According to the Gallup organization itself, which says it is trying to improve its access to citizens with cell phones, "people in cell phone-only households tend to be younger, are more likely to be racial and ethnic minorities…."

If we can't get a clear reading on people's opinions about gun control, then what can we do? Fortunately, there is data out there that is based on official records and can provide some insight into the issue. It won't tell us what people's opinions are, but it can tell us how many people have died from guns, where gun-related deaths are happening, which states have weaker or stronger gun control laws, and if there appears to be any correlation between the strength of gun control laws and the number of gun-related deaths per capita.

Based on information collected from actual death certificates, the CDC reports the following in its National Vital Statistics Reports (page 11): "In 2009, 31,347 persons died from firearm injuries in the United States, accounting for 17.7% of all injury deaths that year. The two major component causes of all firearm injury deaths in 2009 were suicide (59.8%) and homicide (36.7%)." According to tabular data in that publication (pages 81-82, Table 18), the number of homicides was 16,799. The number of homicides attributed to guns was 11,493 people, which represents 68.4% of the homicides. The number of suicides attributed to guns was 18,735, or 50.1% of all suicides (the next greatest numbers were from suffocation—9,000—and poisoning—6,398; the remainder of gun deaths were due to accidents, etc.). For comparison, 1,874 homicides were committed by someone using a knife or other cutting or piercing object, which amounts to about 11.2% of all the homicides for that year. Six times more homicides were gun related than knife related. (Note that variations in counting and calculation methods will cause slight variations in the exact numbers, so the percentages and numbers may not match exactly. However, they are accurate to within a fraction of a percent.)

For overall death by firearms (page 87, Table 19), which can include homicides, suicides, accidents, etc., the three states with the greatest numbers were California (3,094), Texas (2,691), and Florida (2,324). On the other extreme were Hawaii (47), Rhode Island (56), North Dakota (59), and Vermont (60). According to the United States Census Bureau, California, Texas, and Florida ranked 1, 2, and 4, respectively, for population as of July 2009. Hawaii, Rhode Island, North Dakota, and Vermont ranked 42, 43, 48, and 49, respectively. That would indicate that, overall, a lower population means fewer gun-related deaths. That makes sense; there are fewer people available to kill or be killed using whatever means, including guns.

However, although New York ranks third for population, it had fewer gun-related deaths than Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina, whose populations ranked 7-10, respectively, and even Tennessee, ranked 17. According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, New York has stronger gun laws than all five of those states. California, too, has strong gun laws, and it should be noted that although its population is 50% larger than the next most populous state, Texas, its rate of gun deaths is only 15% greater than the rate for Texas, and Texas rates in the lowest percentile for the strength of its gun laws, according to the Brady Campaign.

I matched up the state-by-state data for gun-related deaths and population and calculated per capita numbers for each state, which I converted to per-100,000 numbers for clarity and to save money on zeros. For example, the state with the highest number of gun-related deaths per 100,000 people was Louisiana, with 18.03, and the lowest was Massachusetts, with 3.14. When rating the states' gun laws, the Brady site uses a 0-100 scale and segments it into five unequally divided ranges, where 0-10 represents the weakest gun laws and 75-100 the strongest. To make life easier, I inverted and converted those ratings into a 1-5 ranking, where 1 is the strongest and 5 is the weakest.

The results suggest that, overall, weaker gun laws result in a greater per capita occurrence of gun-related death (Fig. 1). Of the top 19 states having the highest likelihood of gun-related death, 18 received the lowest rating from the Brady Campaign—my "5"—for the strength of their gun laws. The only state with a "1" ranking for strong gun laws is California; however, that state ranks as only the 13th lowest in terms of per capita gun-related deaths. On the other hand, five states had rankings of "2" for strong gun laws, and they, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Massachusetts, were the top five for lowest occurrence of gun-related death.

Figure 1. Gun Deaths per 100,000 People by State and Strength of Gun Laws

One factor that might be influencing California's rank in this case is the overflow of violence in recent years from the drug wars in Mexico, especially areas very close to the border with California. Strong gun laws would be less likely to reduce gun-related deaths from conflicts among cross-border drug gangs. Still, as mentioned earlier, California does have a low occurrence of gun-related deaths compared to most of the country, including the populous states of Texas and Florida.

One of the questions I've heard most often in relation to the gun control debate is whether anyone has actually shown that gun control results in fewer gun-related deaths. I've wondered the same thing, and I've been surprised to note the lack of any reliable figures being publicized. I've heard a few republican-leaning interviewees state that the opposite was true; however, they made such statements without providing any citation of a source or statistical support. That is, they made them within the framework of "Well, everyone knows that stronger gun control laws actually result in more deaths" rather than "Well, statistics from a 2009 study by the ATF have shown that stronger gun control laws actually result in more deaths."

I trust official statistics more than I trust what "everyone" supposedly knows. Based on the statistics available from reliable sources, the results of my research indicate that, in general, states that have weak gun control laws have more gun-related deaths per capita than states that have strong gun control laws.

Sources:

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, "Brady 2011 State Scorecards." 2011. http://www.bradycampaign.org/stategunlaws/scorecard

Chambers, Francesca. Comments during "Lone Liberal Rumble—Are corporations allowed to have their own religious beliefs?" Interviewed by Thom Hartmann. The Big Picture. RT Network. January 2, 2013. http://www.thomhartmann.com/bigpicture/lone-liberal-rumble-are-corporations-allowed-have-their-own-religious-beliefs

Gallup, Inc. "Does Gallup call cell phones?" Accessed February 12, 2013. http://www.gallup.com/poll/110383/does-gallup-call-cell-phones.aspx

Kochanek, Kenneth D., Jiaquan Xu, Sherry L. Murphy, Arialdi M. Miniño, and Hsiang-Ching Kung. "Deaths: Final Data for 2009." National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 60, No. 3. December 29, 2011. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf

Madhani, Aamer. "Gun control poll shows mixed results." USA TODAY. December 26, 2012. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/26/gun-rights-assault-weapons-newtown-shooting/1791827/.

United States Census Bureau. "Resident Population—July 2009." Statistical Abstract of the United States. 2011. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/ranks/rank01.html