Toward a Real Conversation about Guns

We are long overdue for a serious conversation about guns in this country – not just a debate over their regulation, but a meaningful discussion of their place in our culture. There is much research to analyze, many policy considerations to weigh, and many stakeholders with different interests in the outcome of this conversation. But it is a conversation we need to have, and we should begin by clearing away some of the obstacles to doing so.

In the past 48 hours, I have seen the same old NRA talking points making the rounds on the internet, dressed up with catchy phrases and mocking graphics. These talking points do not contribute to the conversation, but are designed to distract us from it. They are poor substitutes for reasoned argument, and the people who parrot them only make it harder for us to solve one of the most complex and important problems in our society.

One popular talking point paints gun control advocates as stupid or naïve for believing criminals will obey gun control laws. While this may give opponents of gun control the childish satisfaction of feeling superior to those with whom they disagree, it is so unmoored from reality as to be entirely meaningless. First, the underlying premise is wrong – no one believes that even the strictest gun control regime will entirely prevent criminals from obtaining and using guns. Beyond that, the implied conclusion – that regulating guns will not reduce gun-related crime – is wrong.

This talking point is meant to conjure up the specter of innocent American families cowering helplessly before roving gangs of armed thugs, after having been stripped by their government of the only means they had to protect themselves. Strange, then, that this scenario is not playing out in countries with stricter gun control regimes than ours. In fact, what we see in those countries is – surprise! – lower rates of gun-related crime.

There are 270 million guns in the U.S., or roughly 88 guns for every 100 people. That makes us the country with the highest per capita gun ownership rate in the world. War-torn Yemen comes in a distant second, with roughly 55 guns for every 100 people. Among “developed” countries, second place is more or less tied between Finland and Switzerland, with roughly 45 guns for every 100 people.

The U.S. also has the second-highest gun-related murder rate in the developed world (second only to Mexico with its drug war). It is close to 20 times higher than that of most other developed nations. We cannot pretend this has nothing to do with the fact that we are swimming in a sea of guns. And we cannot pretend that taking some of these guns out of circulation will not reduce our gun-related murder rate.

A second popular talking point builds on the absurdity of the first, and claims that gun-related violence has nothing to do with guns and everything to do with the absence of God from our society. In other words, pay no attention to the obvious connection between high numbers of guns and high levels of gun-related violence – we can prevent mass shootings by encouraging more regular church attendance!

The U.S. is the most religious industrialized nation in the world, with about 85 percent of Americans believing in God and 75 percent attending religious services at least once a week. If high rates of gun-related violence are attributable to godlessness, one would expect the U.S. to have lower rates of such violence compared to countries like Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, where 54-85% of the population identifies as atheist or agnostic. This is not the case. In Sweden in 2010 – likely the most secular country on earth – there were only 18 gun-related homicides. This, despite its relatively high gun ownership rate of 31 guns per 100 people. Clearly, people can restrain themselves from shooting each other to death without religion, and religion does not keep people from shooting each other to death (see, e.g., all religiously motivated violence ever).

A third popular talking point asserts that reducing the number of guns will not result in fewer murders because would-be murderers will simply use other weapons. One right-wing graphic notes that the 9-11 terrorists used box cutters, Timothy McVeigh used fertilizer, and the Nazis used gas. But so what? Those grossly oversimplified facts offer no support for the underlying claim that reducing the number of guns will not reduce the overall murder rate. They are meant to distract people from recognizing the obvious logic that reducing access to guns will result in a lower overall murder rate. The vast majority of homicides in the U.S. are committed using firearms. Imagine if, overnight, half of our guns disappeared. We'd be down to maybe 44 guns per 100 people – still toward the high end of the spectrum for other developed nations. Can anyone honestly believe that our murder rate would stay exactly the same? Can anyone seriously think that every future gun-related murder would be perpetrated using some other kind of weapon and not a single death would be prevented?

What these talking points boil down to is the fact that some opponents of gun control are more concerned with maintaining unfettered access to the weapons of their choice than with the people who die from gun-related violence. They will cry crocodile tears over the deaths of 20 beautiful children this week, and then fight like mad to keep us from thinking about the guns behind those deaths. We cannot afford to be fooled into thinking guns have nothing to do with gun-related violence. We need to come to grips with the fact that they do, and we must consider the possibility of accepting some restraints on our ability to have them so that fewer people die in the future.

We don't have to go as far as the U.K. did after its own tragic school shooting, the 1996 Dunblane massacre, prompted it to ban most private handgun ownership. But we need to consider all of the possible solutions to the problem of gun-related violence in our country, including tighter gun control regulations. Ridiculing gun control advocates and falling for fallacies only makes the problem worse. I hope we are capable of a more intelligent dialogue about what is, in the end, a matter of life and death for all of us.