There's No Such Thing as Gun Control

Yay politics. Well, not really.

“Gun Control” seems to be a perennial topic these days - whether it’s the latest atrocity in the USA, or European governments seeking to tighten regulations. But it’s a term I take great issue with for one simple reason: It’s meaningless.

Ask yourself this:

What is Gun Control?

There’s the problem. “Gun Control” is at best an umbrella term that could include:

• Background Checks
• Age limits
• Licensing of individuals
• Licensing of dealers/the trade
• Registration of Firearms
• Regulations disqualifying convicted criminals from acquiring or possessing firearms
• Outright prohibition of one or more categories of firearms
• Minimum secure storage requirements
• Border inspections to prevent the smuggling of firearms
• Police operations to prevent the illicit manufacture of firearms
• Effective Enforcement of the above

And within those are a glut of possible different implementations.

If you ever find yourself having a discussion or reading an article about “gun control” that isn’t making the effort to specify at least some of those points, then there’s a fair chance you are reading propaganda. When a Fox News anchor rails against “gun control” in the US are they saying a 12year old should be able to buy firearms off the shelf like chocolate with no restrictions, or are they objecting to a ban of some description? The vague framing is usually deliberate - they don’t get into specifics because they’re shock jocks seeking an emotional “gut” reaction from their audience. Of course so too are the reactionary politicians clamouring to be seen as “Tough on Crime, Tough on the Causes Symptoms of Crime” without worrying too much about “details”. Such is the nature of our toxic, partisan “in-or-out” politics of 2019.

Invariably, what is offered is a false dichotomy - if you are for “gun control” then you must be against liberty or freedom (and conversely that to be “against gun control” is to be directly supportive or complicit in school shootings). This unhelpful position is picked apart very well by Brene Brown in her article Gun Reform: Speaking Truth to Bullshit, Practicing Civility, and Effecting Change.

Common interpretations

Europe

For much of Europe, a healthy and mature relationship with firearms exists and “Gun Control” typically amounts to a regime of licensing and registration within which individuals can acquire broad ranges of firearms - up to and including things like historic and antique machine guns for bonafide collectors (although such things are not usually available on a “normal” licence). If you are doing licensing “right” then prohibitions should not be necessary. You would only need to prohibit firearms outright if you don’t trust your licensing agency to do the job properly.

Most countries license the individual, and an individual can then hold one or more firearms although a minority of countries (such as the Republic of Ireland) license the firearm itself. A dealer must order in the model you want, but only when it arrives and the serial number is known can the buyer apply for a license in respect of that specific firearm. This is wildly excessive compared to most registry schemes where the dealer and buyer simply inform the Police that person x has acquired firearm y.

In the UK we have gone a step further and prohibited the private ownership of pistols and most semi-automatic rifles even within the context of Home Office Approved Shooting Clubs (with some very limited exceptions for ~20 Olympic Pistol Shooters and a handful of Section 7 Collectors). Unfortunately our homicide rates are no better for it when compared with our European counterparts but since politicians wearing both Red and Blue rosettes do not consider British Police to be as competent as their French or Italian counterparts, the prohibition stands.

USA

To the NRA of America, Gun Control inevitably means the prohibition of one or more classes of firearm. Over the past 40 years they have morphed from a Sporting organisation promoting safety and charity skeet shoots into a political lobby group. They hold up the UK and Australia as the poster-children for where “reasonable restrictions” ultimately lead. This of course is an extreme case and represents lying-by-omission since it ignores the 27 EU states where this is demonstrably not the case.

On the other side of the coin, the Everytown movement has pushed for universal Background Checks, whilst some politicians have aired a desire to entirely ban AR15-style rifles - both technically represent “Gun Control” but represent wildly different approaches. Approaches which are often glossed over according to a news network’s political affiliations.

The USA is a funny place - with limited federal legislation on the matter, a patchwork of state-level regulation exists. In some places reasonable steps are pursued such as Illinois’ Firearm Owner ID Cards. A basic form of licensing (without registry), the idea is that only background-checked individuals can acquire firearms or ammunition. This is remarkably similar to Europe - but undermined by criminals being able to travel to neighbouring states with looser laws. Some legislation borders on the wacky as jurisdictions try to do something that is within their power and won’t be struck down in court as unconstitutional. Various legislatures have limited the capacity of magazines whilst the (now sunset) Assault Weapons Ban prohibited the sale of firearms with particular cosmetic features. This is and was utterly pointless. Nowhere in Europe has enacted such cosmetic frippery, sticking to (largely) evidence-based regulations that achieved specific public safety goals.

Japan

Contrary to popular belief, Japan has not “banned everything” and recognises that farmers in particular have a need for firearms. But their legislation is incredibly strict with intrusive background checks and competency tests. The process of becoming certified will run to north of £600. Japan has extremely low homicide rates overall - whether by shooting, stabbing or “other”, but in the same way that US crime levels cannot be compared to Europe without noting the lack of social welfare; emergency healthcare (how many developed countries can leave you bankrupt from medical bills?) and opioid crisis, it would be remiss to compare the US or Europe to Japan without also recognising their vast cultural differences. Although Japanese Police are routinely armed, annual use of firearms by Police often counts in single figures.

This is all “Gun Control” but can you really claim to be having a meaningful conversation if you’re not dipping into the details and context?

Does it make a difference?

The example often given is that Britain (with its strict gun laws) has low levels of violent crime, whilst the US (with lax laws) has high crime. Of course any fool can draw a line between two points - that does not mean there is a correlation, much less that you can infer a causal link.

When we zoom out and include the rest of the “developed” world - namely the EU, plus Switzerland, Iceland and Australasia what seems clear is that most developed nations have homicide rates lower than 2 per 100k people, which compares very favourably with the ~4.5/100k average for the US.

Yet most European nations permit the private ownership of most types of firearm - subject to licensing. Only the UK has gone “off the deep end” and prohibited entire classes of firearm. For its effort though, the UK’s homicide rate is a very average 1.2/100k. Better than Estonia (2.2) but much worse than Switzerland (0.5), Italy (0.67), Spain (0.7) or Iceland (0.9).

There is clearly something more nuanced going on here that gives lie to the idea that the private ownership of firearms correlates with crime. The basic trend seems to be that licensing is wildly effective in bringing down homicide rates, but prohibitions are not. Once you have implemented a basic series of background checks and establishing bona-fides (such as membership of a club) then further restrictions (such as prohibiting pistols entirely) is well into diminishing returns. Experience in the UK shows that twenty years after prohibiting pistols in England, Scotland and Wales, our levels of homicide and firearm crime are low, but entirely in line with countries which did not such as the entirety of Europe and indeed Northern Ireland. Moreover, Government figures indicate that the most common firearm used in firearms crime is a pistol. Criminal fraternities are certainly not getting them from legal shooters (who don’t have pistols), and it’s well established that they are being smuggled in, or simply manufactured illicitly within the UK.

This is why nuance is so important. Ask many British shooters if they support “gun control” and they will not be able to answer simply. They will all support the sensible and rigorous licensing process, but many will feel the 1997 prohibitions on pistols have been utterly pointless (even Lord Cullen did not recommend it, going so far as to call it “draconian”):

9.113 If for any reason that course is not to be followed I see no alternative to considering the more draconian alternative of a ban on multi-shot handguns. However, in such circumstances I would suggest that the ban should be directed to the possession of such handguns by individual owners rather than the possession of handguns by shooting clubs, since it is through possession by individuals that the risk, in so far as there is a risk, of homicide or serious injury arises. Thus I do not consider that the banning of handguns for target shooting or the banning of shooting clubs would be justified. I have no particular recommendation as to the legislative means by which effect would be given to such a ban.

But I digress.

If you’re going to write about gun control. Please, for the love of all that is accurate, study up, understand the issues you are writing about and get specific. Talking about gun control in broad terms inevitably comes across as a rant. It’s not specific, it doesn’t help formulate useful policy - it adds nothing of value to the debate and is trivially dismissed. There is far too much “in-or-out” partisan nonsense in the mainstream discourse and the world is a worse place for it.