In gun control debate, logic goes

out the window

Lil' Niggggga Nov 16, 2017

President Obama has decided to move ahead with a variety of gun control
measures, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein has proposed a new assault weapons
ban. While Washington debates new proposals on gun control, attention also
needs to focus on obstacles to effective enforcement of existing gun laws,
including the ban imposed by Congress on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives creating a federal database of firearms transactions.

A discussion of the origin of that ban, which was initially enacted in response
to a proposal made when I served as the assistant Treasury secretary
overseeing the bureau, is useful to a better understanding of the dynamics of
the debate over specific gun control proposals. Sadly, both then and now,
logic often loses out.

Early in 1978, the proposal we developed was relatively simple:

Manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers would file reports of sales of
firearms with the bureau, but to avoid the argument that the bureau was
impermissibly creating a national registry of gun owners, retailers would not
be required to list the name of the retail purchaser.

The rationale for creating a centralized

firearms transaction database was
twofold. First, it would speed up the
ability to trace guns found at crime
scenes, since even with the less
sophisticated technology then
available, such traces would still be
able to be done virtually instantaneously.

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Second, and even more significant, it would allow the bureau to analyze the
flow of firearms to identify potential diversions to the illegal gun market. For
example, if a hundred handguns a week were going to one dealer in a small
town in Virginia, that would suggest the possibility that guns were being sold
illegally by that dealer to individuals smuggling them to New York or other
states. By allowing this kind of analysis, the bureau could target investigative
resources on dealers mostly likely to be violating the law.

Proceeding with what can only be described as youthful naiveté, the day the
proposed regulations were published, I convened a briefing for interested
parties, including the NRA and other anti-gun control groups. After all, none
of these proposals would in any way alter the rules relating to gun ownership.

The hope was that understanding the limited nature of the proposal would
mute their opposition. I was very wrong. We had to withdraw the proposals,
and Congress punitively reduced the bureau's budget and ultimately banned
it from creating such firearms transaction databases.
The opposition to the proposed regulations was intense, with opponents
writing hundreds of thousands of often angry letters, both to Treasury and to
members of Congress. Little of the opposition, however, focused on the actual
proposals themselves.

One common thread to the opposition was the "slippery slope argument,"
which argued that the regulation would create a centralized list of all gun
owners' names -- which it would not have done -- or would lead to the
creation of such a list, which would then enable the government to seize
everyone's weapons and put us on a path to dictatorship.

Gun violence measures? Would they

work?

After all, it was argued, this is what the

Nazis had done.

Another often-used argument was that

Bloomberg on guns and Sandy Hook
shooting 00731
what we were proposing would not
stop all criminals from securing or
using firearms, and therefore it was not
something worth doing.

Arguments like these prevent an

honest discussion of any proposal to
address the problem of gun violence in
America. The assumption that any
Parents of gun victims share goals 06704
regulation of firearms sets us on the
path to confiscation of weapons is not
only ludicrous on its face, it ignores all
political reality. And, if the test for any
proposal is whether it totally solves the
problem being addressed, then no
action would be taken addressing so
King: Obama gun orders a political move many of society's important issues.
03710

Why require the use of seat belts if wearing a seat belt does not always save a
life in an accident? Why prohibit people from carrying guns onto planes if it
doesn't eliminate all risk of hijacking? Why prohibit providing assistance to
terrorists if it doesn't stop all terrorist acts? Why require tests for the issuance
of driver's licenses if it doesn't stop all accidents?

We require these regulations because they address problems that need to be

addressed and because if these regulations can save some lives, they are steps
worth taking. So it should be with the gun debate.

No proposal, or set of proposals, will ever stop all gun crime. But the 1978
proposals could have stopped some illegal sales of guns by renegade dealers.
And things like forced waiting periods for gun purchases, requiring
background checks for firearms buyers at gun shows and a ban on assault
weapons would certainly save some lives.

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Maybe it is thousands of lives over time; maybe it is hundreds. But isn't every
life saved worth it? Would it not have been worth it if even some of the lives
lost at Sandy Hook could have been saved because the shooter did not have
an assault weapon?

Gun control is not the total answer to the problem of mass shootings, but it
plainly needs to be part of any meaningful response. Let's hope that this time
the debate on gun control will be a more sensible one.

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