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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35540 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023

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There's a standard argument about gun control in the US that you hear a lot in the liberal bubble. Obviously, this argument does not appear to be very compelling to the anti-gun control side. It's pretty hard to find the counterarguments while embedded in the bubble, so I'm asking here in the hopes someone might explain them.

The argument comes from making a comparison between cars and guns. Both create about the same magnitude of danger when in the wrong hands, but cars are significantly more important for being able to function in modern society. Therefore guns ownership and usage should be regulated at least as strongly as cars are. In particular, car ownership has a strict licensing requirement including a safety/competency test and also requires insurance in case of accidents. We should therefore pass additional gun regulations requiring the same.

I can imagine the counterargument being in almost any step of this chain of logic:

  • For some reason, cars are actually far more dangerous than guns in the wrong hands, maybe when you appropriately consider the kind of car or kind of gun people most commonly have.

  • Maybe it seems that cars are more important for modern living, but actually guns are more important, maybe as protection against low-probability really horrible things---tyrannical government, breakdown of society, etc. I guess this would require making some kind of expected value justification, that the horrible thing is likely enough and guns ownership would actually help enough.

  • I can't really see anyone disagreeing with cars being regulated to the level the argument claims.

  • We don't need to pass additional gun regulations like those for cars. Because of so and so reason, guns are actually already regulated more strictly than cars. Just look based on this and this example how much easier it is to get a car than a gun (though as long as it's not actually super misleading, the stereotypical Texas Walmart example makes this hard for me to see).

Which of these points can actually be expanded into counterarguments you guys find compelling? How do you do so? Is there something else I'm not considering?

There's a standard argument about gun control in the US that you hear a lot in the liberal bubble. Obviously, this argument does not appear to be very compelling to the anti-gun control side.

Arguments from people from "liberal bubble" are not compelling to the "gun nuts" at all.

Why? Because people from these bubble are completely, willfully and proudly ignorant. Not only about guns, not only about reality of gun violence, but also about all gun laws and regulations that are already in the books.

Typical exchange looks like this:

"Fuck AmeriKKKa! Only in this country can every child walk to gun shop, buy machine gun and bring it to school!"

"attempt to explain that this is not how it works"

"Shut up, gun nut! You have small dick!"

What could dispel this pigheaded attitude? Only personal experience. This happens - when person from "the bubble" feels directly, personally endangered, finds that police are there not to serve and protect, but to bully and brutalize, and decides as last and desperate resort to buy a gun.

Many such cases - ask any gun shop employee.

These "bubble people" are among the least welcomed patrons (after stoned/drunk/crazy people and tattoed thugs in gang colors). They would tell you tales how they had to explain these customers there are such thing as gun laws, that they cannot just pick a gun and take it home right now (and face screaming and hysterical meltdowns).

The argument comes from making a comparison between cars and guns.

This is old argument that is based on exactly this kind of ignorance.

Actually regulating guns like cars would be something that most gun owners would be extremely happy with.

https://reason.com/1999/11/01/taking-it-to-the-streets-2/

Although anti-gun lobbyists who use the car analogy are pushing for additional controls, laws that really did treat guns like cars would be much less restrictive, on the whole, than what we have now.

...

The first thing to go would be the 1986 federal ban on the manufacture of machine guns for sale to ordinary citizens. We don't ban cars like Porsches just because they are high-powered and can drive much faster than the speed limit.

...

So-called assault weapons are actually ordinary guns that fire just one bullet each time the trigger is pressed, but they happen to look like machine guns. Just as we don't ban powerful Porsches (which actually can go very fast), we don't ban less-powerful vehicles that simply look like high-performance cars.

...

Also slated for elimination under the treat-cars-like-guns rule are thousands of laws regulating the purchase of firearms and their possession on private property. The simple purchase of an automobile is subject to essentially no restrictions.

...

If you keep your automobile on private property, there are virtually no restrictions.

...

Thus, we can get rid of all the laws concerning gun storage in the home, together with the laws that ban possession of guns by various persons on private property.

...

If you have a car on your own property, you can hitch it to a trailer, have it pulled to someone else's property, and drive the car on his property (assuming you have his permission). As long as your car is just being towed, you don't need a driver's license or plates. Thus, gun owners should be allowed to transport their unloaded guns to private property (a shooting gallery, for example) for use on that property.

...

But now suppose that you want to use your car on public property, such as a street or an old logging trail in a national forest. Then a licensing system does come into play–but only because the car will be used in public. For a license that allows you to drive a car anywhere in public, most states require that you 1) be at least 15 or 16 years old; 2) take a written safety test that requires an IQ of no more than 75 to pass; and 3) show an examiner that you know how to operate a car and how to obey basic safety rules and traffic signs.

...

Making the concealed handgun licensing system exactly like the driver licensing system would involve a few tweaks, namely: 1) reducing the minimum age for a license (21 or 25 in most states); 2) reducing the fees (which can run over $100 in many states); 3) mandating a written exam in the minority of states that do not currently have one; 4) adding a practical demonstration test, which most states do not currently have (but which Texas does); and 5) making the licenses valid everywhere, instead of just in the issuing state.

...

Once you get a driver's license, you can drive your car anywhere that is open to the public. Thus, we will have to repeal all the laws against carrying guns within 1,000 feet of a school, or in bars, or on government property.

...

So the one major way in which treating guns like cars would lead to more-restrictive gun laws would be to allow federal regulators to impose design mandates on firearms.

Even better than how I said it.

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