Gun-control spokesman's response to my email.

deltacharlie: Yes....but only those of us with knowledge of the secret handshake, duma55!

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I've decided to keep my dialogue with Mr. Jones going to see if he continues to respond with such in such a unprofessional way, here is my response to his response:

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Mr Jones,

I read where you said that it would take a tragedy, like the one at VT to make what you describe as "progress". I have three questions: First, why was ensuring that the students at VT unarmed better than having them able to defend themselves? Second, what types of "progress" would you suggest? Finally, as a political science professor, don't you recognize that legislation passed in the aftermath of a traumatic event is typically ill-considered, and that it often results in bad law (such as the patriot act)?

""I hate to say it but it's going to take the kind of massacre that kills
lots of children. That's the only way we are going to see progress," Jones
said.

"I think it's got to be worse than (Columbine). I mean, you didn't see
anything in Colorado" in substantive new gun control laws after 15 people
were killed at Columbine High School in 1999.""

In all honesty, I believe your comments were disgusting when made, and reveal the duplicitous nature of gun control advocates who cry out that America's insistence on having a means of self defense is illogical, while waiting for a time when fears rise to try to enact illogical legislation.

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Quote:
Wasn't the EEEEVVIILLL NRA secretly fomenting people to boycott F&S and their advertisers?

I think they know the NRA isn't directly behind this. The NRA may back us up on this one and that helps, but we're getting things done, and being heard, without the financial or vocal power of the NRA. That is what is scaring the anti's. They have no solid target to hit because all of this is coming from you, me, and millions more out there. They can't very well come out and say that the millions of tax-paying voters that want to defend themselves are wrong. That would show themselves for what they are. This is the American public in action, and when the public starts demanding that their rights come first, the power-mongers lose the control they have. Thus gun-control. Once the guns are gone, there's no way the people can take the government. Freedom from oppression, foreign and domestic is one of the things the 2A is supposed to defend.

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Yep, I've gotten a lot of this stuff--all from the arm 'em to the teeth crowd, but so far yours is the most interesting. I was making a PREDICTION, not a wish. It is easy to see that these things are going to keep happening

Most Americans FAVOR stronger gun laws, before this (check Pollingreport.com--56% versus 9% who want more lenient laws), so the issue is why the politicians are not in line with public opinion.

While you are absolutely right about ill-conceived legislation, oftentimes that is what it takes to get anything done (hence my PREDICTION).

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Sir,
First, I appreciate the complement. I would like to apologize for the length, but I do not believe that an opportunity to discuss a problem with an intelligent person should ever be treated lightly.

I certainly never suspected you had a wish. I apologize if it came across that way. It would take an absolutely evil person to desire the death of innocents to advance an agenda, and I believe that kind of evil comes only a few times in a generation. I understand that you actually feared for people, and that this would "have to" happen.

Sadly, I too believe that these things will continue to happen.

I would not consider myself an "arm them to the teeth" person. However, I do think that firearms give those who are most powerless in the face of a physical threat (women, the handicapped, victims of violent mobs, and the elderly) a chance to assert their human rights. I believe that when victims are disarmed, aggressors will act as violent as the Princeton prison psychology experiments suggest (and the tragic events surrounding Matthew Shepard's death demonstrate). I think that when you strip away the rhetoric, a choice of fight or flight is more desirable than always having to run.

As to why politicians are not enacting more stringent regulations, I think you are asking an imprecise question. Politicians know that they get voted out of office for doing things that upset voters. They also know that voting to restrict firearms further will get more people to vote against them than to vote for them.

The real question is: Why are people who say they support more gun regulation less likely to vote on that issue than those who say they do not support more regulation. I think the reason for that is that when people think about it they vote for things they are most familiar with. Those who understand the issue only as framed in 30 second soundbites will usually support more gun control, while those with a deep familiarity will usually support the same level of restrictions (or sometimes less).

An Example: In one case you have a man who spends 10 or 12 hours a day in the office so that he can keep his McMansion in the suburbs, he is probably concerned with money (taxes), job security, and retirement. On another case you have a woman who carries a pistol with her to her job in a hospital where she works the graveyard shift. She knows a lot more about firearms and knows she had to do a background check twice (once to buy the gun, another for her Concealed Carry License), she had to go to training before getting the CCL, and that she nor any of the people she knows have ever been irresponsible with a firearm. If asked the man would say that he supports making firearms harder for bad guys to get, because he knows bad guys get them, and anything to make that less likely would be good. However, the woman knows she has had hers for years without incident, and that firearms are already pretty difficult (time consuming) to get and carry legally. She also knows that any new laws make her life more difficult, while not effecting those who are not as law abiding as she.​

Thank you for answering the question I had, whether you thought that legislation passed in haste was usually flawed ( I understand your answer to be that it is too difficult to get the majority of representatives to agree otherwise). While I strongly disagree and believe that it nearly always ends badly (99%), I am curious about your suggestions. What kind of "progress" for gun control do you think would have helped prevent this awfulness?

Finally, I have a good friend in your area who would be thrilled to take you to a firing range, if you would be interested in seeing guns in action (they are not as spectacular as movies make them out to be). Of course he would need to make sure that you were cognizant of some basic firearms safety, so before stepping onto the line he would want to teach you a few things (should be under a half hour) since you would be under direct supervision while at the range.

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In Australia a massacre in Tasmania of 35 people led to stronger gun laws, that resulted in steep declines in gun deaths.

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Indeed, where there are stringent laws, there are lower gun death rates.

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Otherwise we ignore the 30,000 gun deaths in the US per year,

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I assure you I usually don't get to my email so quickly! A less busy day.

I don't really like the idea of everybody concealing weapons and carrying them around, but I can't disagree that having a firearm in the home can make one feel better. But one needs to remember how many accidents happen in the home. I suspect more women have been killed by drunk husbands with guns than were able to defend themselves.

One regulation that would have made it more difficult to get the gun: this guy at Tech was in a mental institution, apparently, and that should have been flagged by US law, but it seems to be up to the state government to decide when. I can think of lots more: all handgun buyers have to pass a license test after attending class. Nothing more than we require of drivers.

Your observation about hasty legislation is correct, and sometimes we correct and sometime we don't. My favorite is the sentencing legislation passed because of the alleged 'crack cocaine' epidemic; we can't get rid of the damn things and we keep sentencing drug users and penny-ante dealers to long-term prison stays, even if it costs the taxpayer a fortune for little if any payoff.

I actually own three guns--an old pistol that my father had as a boy, and two rifles. Lots of snakes at my place down in Texas. As a boy in Alabama, I was quite familiar with shotguns, and hunting, so I do know a little bit.

Best

Bryan

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Bryan,

I appreciate the responses, and I hope that your days are balanced, with enough work to do and enough time for refreshment and sleep. I really appreciate the time you are giving me, as most people (students) pay significant amounts of money for your time, attention, and lessons.

Having a firearm in the home (and on my person) actually makes me safer, so long as I am concientious. While what my friends and I call "negligent discharges" may happen if someone is irresponsible, it is far less common that often portrayed. Since you own firearms, I am sure that you have experience in handling them safely.

The subject of women being killed by their husbands is more complex than I think you are representing. Battered women often feel powerless and worthless, unable to save their own lives. Further, and tragically, battered women are still killed by their husbands even when the husbands are shattering ribs with their fists, or choking thier victims. A worthless batterer has no need for a tool to make himself feel larger than his victim. Finally, a woman who made a big difference in my life, who shot her abusive husband in the chest with a shotgun when he started to abuse her son. She saved her son's life, her life (and by that she later saved mine), by defending her loved one.

I REALLY agree with you about some of the crazy laws related to the problem of drug abuse. We keep making more laws, and increasing the sentencing for little effect. We cannot get rid of the drugs, since they are desired by a certain segment of the population, and they are easily manufactured or imported from unethical sources. We increase prison sentences because we thing that the drug abuse causes real violent crimes. When it has no effect we double down, and then double down again. It is senseless.

I think that the regulation related to mental illness in my state is "involuntarily committed". To be honest I am not sure, since I am not crazy. I could not support the idea of prohibiting those who have recieved psychiatric care in the past or those on psychiatric medicines from obtaining firearms either because of two unintended consequences. First, I believe that anything we do to further stigmatize mental health care will result in fewer people persuing it. I think the danger presented by a person with mental issues having a gun, is less than that presented by an unmedicated, untreated crazy person with a gun. Second, It does not take a whole lot for me to imagine someone like Alberto "There is no right to habeas corpus in the constitution" Gonzales declaring that people with certain ideological viewpoints are unbalanced.

I think that your comparison to drivers licenses is pretty good. However did you know that if you bought a vehicle and never drove it on public roads (like a farm truck), you wouldn't have to register it and you wouldn't have to get a license either. Basically you only have to pay sales tax. So I agree with you that carrying a weapon on public streets should be regulated by the state.

I also think it is important to think about what level of regulation by the state is right. No matter what, I think we need to provide for people who believe that their lives are in immediate danger. While a restraining order might be effective against normal people, killers and madmen tend to disregard them. Remember that battered women are often persued if they manage to leave the relationship. At some point many of them are confronted, and thy do not have a lot of time or money to get prepared. I think we need to provide options for people like them, should they decide they will defend themselves. http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?S=5441683

I would like to ask you to consider the similarities between the lost "War on Drugs" and a potential "War on Guns". When we increase the amount of firearms legislation in the country, only people who concientiously follow the laws, like you and I, will be effected. Guns like drugs, are highly desired by a certain proportion of certain segments of society. Guns like drugs are easily manufactured, or can be imported by unscrupulous persons. We would overburden the prison system by increasing sentences for crimes because of circumstances surrounding the crime (putting a knife to my throat and a gun to my head are both terifying for exactly the same reason). We keep increasing sentences for crimes because we think that guns cause the crimes, while forgetting that nearly every family in Switzerland has at least one fully automatic machine gun in their home. There is one thing that makes a potential "War on Guns" even worse than the "War on Drugs". While law abiding people might actually be made safer from the asymetrical coherence (the predator is stoned out of his mind, while I can make clear decisions), there is no way law abiding people are made safer by asymetrical power. When the predator has a gun, and I can only run or pray, I am not safer. Sadly I think this is what the Virginia Tech killings have proven.

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You are very thoughtful in your positions. There are actually two issues of state regulation: what should be regulated, and if it can be effective (and how to make it effective). So whatever we do will need to involve gun owners, police, and gun control advocates. I wish the NRA would come on board and help here. It's not the NRA when I was young; we all thought they were so responsible and took their courses.

I think some types of firearms need to be prohibited. The Second Amendment says 'bear arms', which could include howitzers and hand granades. I don't know how to regulate this properly, but I would suggest prohibiting 'assault weapons', defined sensibly, and maybe fully automatic stuff. I know this can be difficult, but it is worth a sensible try.

Then I would require stringent licensing for all handguns, including a battery of psychological tests and a full day of classes.

I would probably leave long gun regulation where it is, or maybe work to integrate records.

Yes, people might still carry illegal guns. But it would put barriers in the way of the hotheads, and even the Cho-types would probably be detected and refused a license for a handgun. Much harder to shoot people with a rifle in tight circumstances.

I don't agree that we would be safer if everyone carried guns. I study in part 'bounded rationality' in human decision-making, and I'm pretty sure when people get mad and have a gun available, they use it. If they have to go home and get it, they re-think. I think we'd have even more deaths.

Finally, I am not so pessimistic about lawmaking as I suggested. Sometimes problems build up over long periods of time, and we act to correct the problem. But lots of legislation includes bad aspects, and many times policymakers do in fact correct them. For every GW Bush, who refuses to admit any mistakes, there is an Arnold Schwartznegger, who may be the best politician in America today, who can reverse course.

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Thank you, I try to listen to smart people, and that has it's benefits. I really appreciate your responses, they are helping to illustrate some possibilities I have never considered before.

I wholeheartedly agree that there is always a question of what should be regulated, and what could be effectively regulated. As far as the NRA goes, it is important to remember that they try to protect my second amendment civil rights in the same way that the ACLU and NAACP protects many of my other rights.

Believe it or not, fully automatic weapons are legal in some states, but VERY expensive and have a bit of paperwork involved. If I recall correctly there are about a quarter million full-auto (one trigger pull fires multiple rounds) weapons in the country. I am also pretty certain that since 1934, there have been only two murders committed with full auto weapons, and one was a police officer committing the murder. With statistics like that, I cannot believe that anyone would assert we have a problem with full-auto weapons being used in crimes.

As far as banning "assault weapons", I have to imagine that someone misinformed you of their characteristics, and I suspect they did it intentionally to confuse the issue. First, people often confuse "assault rifles" as used by the military, and something called an "assault weapon". An assault rifle is a weapon which has a fully automatic mode of operation, which I described in the paragraph above. What some people refer to as "Assault Rifles" are all semi-automatic (one trigger pull fires one round), probably just like your rifles. These regular rifles have the misfortune of looking somewhat similar to a military rifle, and making people who are not familiar with them believe that they ARE military weapons. I believe that this is why some people refer to them as "military pattern", because they are trying to mislead others. Rifles were deemed to be bad because of certain cosmetic and ergonomic features, which some people felt were unnecessary. Pistol grips, flash hiders, bayonet lugs, and barrel shrouds all sound pretty scary, but do not really relate to a weapon's effectiveness. In this country we have not had problems with bayonettings, so why should it be regulated?

One I hear repeated over and over by people without a lot of experience is that magazine capacity is important to regulate. I disagree because it is ineffective when used against predators and damaging in some cases to good people. Believe it or not, I can change a magazine in about 2 or 3 seconds (and there are some people who call me a slow-poke). If a person "goes postal" he will bring as many magazines as necessary. Many people who carry concealed weapons only carry one magazine. In the event where they must take suboptimal shots to suppress the madman, they need as good a chance as possible (In the mall in Utah, where no guns were allowed, an off duty officer used suppressing fire to limit the madman's ability to find new victims). Further, and most nightmarishly, many weapon's normal capacity magazines were designed to hold more than ten rounds, and modifications to prevent them from containing the normal capacity of rounds actually reduced their reliability. The only thing I like less than an unarmed woman being forced to run from an attacker is an unarmed woman pulling a weapon that she can't trust.

I certainly would not mind objective tests related to handgun functionality and law, however a psychological test has the potential to be abused. Anne Coultier would certainly believe I am crazy and the DSM used to define homosexuality as a disorder. It is not impossible to imagine a situation where religious Arabs are considered a threat likely to abuse their CCW "privilege".

I understand the bounds of human rationality; at one time Baywatch was the most popular show on TV. However, in states like Vermont and Alaska, where concealed carry does not even require a license, there are few instances of the road rage that concerns you. I would further add that I think that you do not really believe that if you were carrying a pistol, that you would shoot someone over a fender. I know that I have never met a person who carries regularly who has irresponsibly threatened someone, let alone fired her weapon in a rage. The experience I have actually indicates that people who carry are more likely to walk away from a potential confrontation that people who do not do so. Do you have evidence that is not true?

I tend to be more fiscally conservative than Arnold Schwartznegger, which is why I moved from California to a place where the laws more accurately reflect my preferences (New Hampshire). That is why I tend to support Constitutional Federalism, where there is a small framework of laws uniting the country, and the states have the ability to pass the regulations they believe will apply to their particular circumstances.

This has been a real pleasure talking with you. I wonder if you actually believe that "assault weapons" should be banned, could you explain why? It is something I have never understood.

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I am also pretty certain that since 1934, there have been only two murders committed with full auto weapons, and one was a police officer committing the murder.

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So I agree with you that carrying a weapon on public streets should be regulated by the state.

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If it were up to me, I'd regulate the length of weapons, like we regulate 'sawed off shotguns', under the rationale that such weapons are for mayhem, not self-defense (handguns better for that) or any other legitimate use. Clearly using one of these, like in Stockton CA, makes it easier to kill lots of people.

You are right on the abuse of psychological tests, but in the case of Cho it was a Va state screw-up.

As far as federalism goes: YEA! Many of my political science colleagues still see federalism as limiting (left over from the civil rights era), but I see it as liberating.

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I love my Constitution (I was a Marine, and I swore to defend it)! It seems to me that we have all kinds of nifty mechanisms in it to allow for corrections over time, but only as long as it commands the support of a supermajority of the legislators and the states. The tenth ammendment is a work of art. It allows for Civil Rights legislation to be passed, a state's prejudice be damned. It also allows for each state to come up with a health-care solution if it feels that one is needed (like Massachusetts). Sadly I think the common good portion of the interstate commerce clause is being stretched past the point of rationality, such as California's medical marijuana laws being ignored because somehow a product grown in the state, and given away or sold in the same state is "interstate commerce".

We have actually been regulating the length of firearms since 1934. Weapons need to meet both of the following conditions: barrel length (shotgun barrel >18", rifle barrel >16" and overall length (26" in both cases), or they fall under class II with the BATFE (somewhat similar to machine gun regulations). In fact I am pretty sure that this is what US vs Miller was all about.

SBRs and SBSs would be more useful for defending yourself inside a restrictively small space, such as a home. Long weapons increase the accuracy at a distance at the cost of maneuverability. Long weapons increase the chance for an attacker to successfully rush a gun or for it to get "hung up" on something at a critical time.

Police routinely carry weapons with short barrels. Police find them useful because the need for compact storage outweighs the need for distance accuracy. It is the same considerations that would apply to a hiker, fisher, or pilot delivering supplies over the wilds of Alaska.
Remington Law Enforcement Website

Our neighbors to the north do not regulate weapon length, and they have not had any problems they routinely attribute to length.

One weird thing people have to do is to always make sure their weapons are more that 1/4" over the minimum for three important reasons: there are officials who are not great with rulers, sometimes you need to have the weapon "recrowned", and could you imagine that you have a legal non-class II weapon, then accidentally damage it so it is now a few microns inside of class II? The BATF is "skeptical" of accidental conversions.

We must consider that people come in all shapes and sizes. I knew a young woman who was approximately 4'11" and she was not real comfortable with her shotgun, even though it was just over the minimum required to avoid the Class II taxes and paperwork. I imagine that there are similar problems for people who have lost an arm because of birth, accident, or tragedy of war.

Finally, I would assert that there is no firearm feature which makes it easy to kill a lot of people. Sadly (due to our inaction) about a million people in Rwanda were killed. In this case, the weapon used in the vast majority of this insane tragedy was a machete. I try to imagine what it must have been like to be an unarmed Tutsi being attacked by a dozen murderers, watching my family being raped and hacked to death while people cut off my limbs and laughed. Thankfully my imagination fails. Two things are certain; First, the hundreds of thousands of people who experienced this were killed with a sharp piece of metal, Second, their lives were not saved from the lack of availability of firearms.

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