Legal Commentary

Gun Control--Posner's Comment

By Richard Posner

The conservative position on gun control has been that people who commit crimes (whether they use guns or some other weapon, or no weapon for that matter) should be punished heavily, depending on the gravity of crime and the probability of detection of crimes of that character, but that the possession of a gun should not be punished. This position is not responsive, however, to the problem of lunatics who use guns to commit mass murder as a prelude to committing suicide. When neither deterrence nor incapacitation is effective against some type of crime, preventive measures must be taken, and they include raising the price of some essential input. Because guns are more lethal than knives or fists, measure to raise the price of guns will not cause large-scale substitution into these other methods of murdering people; but it is important that measures to raise the price of guns also be taken against other efficient methods of mass murder, including explosives and biological weapons.

Becker's post explains convincingly how to raise the price of guns. I want to address the question whether Americans'love of guns is primarily an economic phenomenon or primarily a cultural one, for if the latter maybe some other method of reducing the demand for guns would be more effective. Most countries that we consider our peers, or at least approximate peers, have far lower rates of gun ownership. The proximate cause is restrictive gun laws, but these are democratic countries and they would not have such strict gun laws if their population had the same love of guns that ours does.

Building on Becker's interesting discussion of social interactions, one might speculate that the reason for widespread gun ownership by Americans is an arms-race phenomenon. Given a high rate of gun crimes, law-abiding people feel threatened and arm themselves. The more people who are armed, and thus the larger the demand for and supply of guns, the easier it is for criminals to procure guns through theft; also, the criminal demand for guns rises because criminals want to protect themselves against armed victims. And the more armed criminals there are, the more gun ownership by law-abiding people--the potential victims of gun crimes--there is. The result is a spiraling increase in gun ownership.

But I do not find this explanation convincing, since the spiral could be broken by the type of measures that Becker describes that would raise the price of guns. Moreover, it is apparent that a vast number of Americans like guns, rather than thinking of them merely as instruments of self-protection. Their attitude towards guns is different from their attitudes toward locks and alarm systems.

History seems relevant here. The United States was born in a revolution in which the arms used by the revolutionaries were to a large extent privately purchased and owned. Hunting was widespread (in contrast, in England and other European countries, hunting was a monopoly or aristocrats), and guns were also required for personal defense against Indians in frontier settlements, which were numerous. Hostility to standing armies led to the adoption of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which created a right to bear arms tied to a policy of relying on the state militias as a defense not only against foreign invaders but also against domestic tyranny. Private ownership and use of guns continued to play a large role in American life with the settlement of the West amidst Indian threats and widespread lawlessness memorialized in the immensely popular "Westerns" of twentieth-century cinema. The Colt .45 revolver (the "Peacemaker") became the symbol of the pacification of the West. Private violence, much of it gun-inflicted, characterized the South in the Reconstruction era and later much of the country during Prohibition. Violent criminals such as Billy the Kid and John Dillinger became celebrated and in some quarters even admired. I am not aware of another developed country that has had a similar romance of the gun. The paranoid Right in the United States fears that efforts to disarm the population are a prelude to a military coup d’état, though they do not explain how the possession of pistols, rifles, and shotguns would enable civilians to foil such a coup.

Suppose, then, that the demand for guns is more cultural than instrumental, in the same way that the demand for particular foods is often a function of upbringing rather than cost, nutrition, or healthfulness (though these factors of course influence demand). How might such a demand be altered? Higher prices could do it, but the problem is that as long as the cultural demand is strong, the political system is unlikely to adopt measures that would make guns significantly more costly. The National Rifle Association, an enormously skillful lobbying organization, has persuaded the public that measures to keep guns out of the hands of criminals are bound to limit, as a practical matter, gun ownership by the law abiding as well.

Government sometimes engages in campaigns of public education to change people's habits; smoking is a notable example. Political opposition can be circumvented, to a degree anyway, when the campaign is mounted by a federal agency that enjoys a degree of autonomy--the Surgeon General of the United States, for example, although a presidential appointee, has often displayed a degree of political independence. In addition, the politics of gun ownership and gun control are not uniform across the country. In most cities, and throughout much of the northeast, guns are more feared than loved. High-visibility local politicians, such as Mayor Bloomberg in New York and Mayor Daley in Chicago, can command large audiences for messages proclaiming the desirability of stronger gun controls. A few more college mass-murder suicide episodes, and antigun messages may begin to strike strongly responsive chords.

Full post as published by Becker-Posner Blog on February 18, 2008 (boomark / email).