Tuesday, January 15, 2013

My take on the gun control conversation

Sorry this is long...
I was asked to give some of my insights as to what I see in the gun control discussion. Something to understand is guns have been a part of my life back to my early youth (5 years old or so). I was given my first rifle when I was 12. I was a firearms coach at the Naval Academy for incoming freshmen (Plebe summer). I have qualified expert multiple times with handgun and rifle over the years. I am an NRA certified pistol instructor and Range Safety Officer. But…I am labeled a “thinker” by some that know me. That means I like to think of myself as open to new ideas and my mind can be changed. I do not follow blindly, but rather come to my own conclusions. This subject is something I’m passionate about for many reasons, but the below is written in an attempt to minimize emotions.
I see the gun control debate homed in a number of concepts or issues…but have run out of energy for the night. Here are a little of my ramblings I have written on the subject.

1. The Constitution
The main argument back and forth is the definition of the Second Amendment. There have been numerous debates on the significance of the wording and punctuation. Most in favor of guns believe there are two separate statements where the “well regulated militia” and the “right of the people to keep and bear arms”, where the right of the people is the meat of the Amendment.
The other side of the argument is the focus on the well regulated militia, with the standing Army and/or National Guard fulfilling the role of the militia.
Taken as it stands, there is no clear interpretation. However, there are other documents from the period written by framers of the Constitution. I look to the Federalist papers and others as a good reference for the thoughts behind the Amendment. Most refer to the right to bear arms as a means to protect oneself, in some cases from a tyrannical government. These statements are founded in the Crown’s attempt to disarm the colonies just prior to the Revolution. I have seen little to refute this.
Are people afraid of a Government they can’t resist? We are a nation ruled by the people, for the people. Our elected representatives are meant to be servants of the people, rather than ruling the people. What keeps the government in check if the people have no check on the government?
There is an argument that the Second Amendment is outdated; we no longer need to fear our government. This may be a fair argument. We have fair transparency worldwide, with international opinion ruling much of what we do. Our government will not easily turn to oppression. So why do the people need protection from the government?

2. If the government is no longer a threat, society still is. There are bad people out there.
My wife is a brown belt in karate and Judo, yet during one self-defense class I was working with her and wanted her to need to do the move right and resisted. Even though she has a decent background in the concepts and skills, my larger size and strength were enough to allow me to stand there unmoved by her attempts.
In my own experiences…I am a now second degree black belt in karate and green belt in Marine Corps Martial Arts. I’m not exactly small, and have held my own against opponents in the pursuit of these titles. While working with the Marines I was able to hold my own against even bigger people as long as my skills and experience were higher than theirs. When it came to working one on one with the black belt instructors, and getting within arms’ reach, even the 5’8” 170 lbs Marine could eventually take me down while the 6’2” 220lbs Marine could take me in seconds.
While the best defense is to not be there (ie. Avoid the situation completely), it is not always possible. A firearm does two things for a person. The first is providing the protection of distance. A handgun is effective at 6 inches or 30 feet. The second thing it provides is equality. A 5’ tall woman with a handgun is a lot more equal to a 6’+ attacker than if she was unarmed (see above where Heather couldn’t throw me).
So what about non-lethal methods like pepper spray? First, range is limited to a lot less than a gun. Second, there is a higher chance of accidental exposure because of wind or splashing. Third, there is a limit to how many “shots” you get with pepper spray. Keep that in mind when considering typical assault statistics that show the average assault has three attackers. A taser is worse than pepper spray because only the first shot is at distance – follow up shocks must be at arms’ distance or less.

3. High Capacity magazines
There are several arguments against high capacity magazines for both rifles and pistols. The main one is the ability to have “so many” shots at your disposal with high capacity magazines. My first issue here is the definition of high capacity. It is an arbitrary number. The Beretta 92FS (M9 in military designation) has a STANDARD capacity of 15 rounds. That means as designed and built, the magazine holds 15 rounds. A 10 round magazine is actually a reduction from standard capacity to something less. What I would classify as high capacity is something like the Glock used against Congresswoman Giffords that had 30 (33?) round magazines. Why are there magazines that size for a gun? Mostly because of the pistol competition world where a 1/4 advantage means a difference of 1st or 2nd place.
So what’s the big deal about capacity? Why can’t gun owners be OK with 10 rounds? Let’s start with the three attackers in an assault. The point of shooting someone is to shut them down. This can be disrupting their nervous system or some other major system like respiration or circulation. The brain will shut down if it is overloaded or is no longer receiving enough oxygen.
So what does it take to cause this disruption? It usually takes more than one shot. Recently a mother was forced to defend herself from a single attacker in her home. She was hiding in a closet hoping he would go away. Instead he found her and she unloaded 5 of six shots into him from her revolver, yet he was still able to stand up and walk away to be arrested later. That’s five shots to the body, from close range. What if it was three attackers? An expert (Jerry Miculek) can reload a revolver in less than a second. I know I can’t.
If that person is on drugs, it could be worse. There have been stories of law enforcement being faced by a crack/meth head that was absolutely crazed and still coming at them after being shot by over 10 rounds from a service pistol.

4. Why do we need military-style rifles?
Let’s go back to that part where we are defending ourselves from a tyrannical government. In that vein, we should be as well armed as the military. Does that include tanks, Apache/Cobra helicopters, and the like? Well, some of that was decided per the National Firearms Act of 1934, and revised with the NFA of 1968 (good info on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act). The foundation in 1934 was to counter gangsters, but in 1968 was refined and starts to include “destructive devices” which addresses many of what I consider to be absurd questions regarding owning an M1 Abrams, etc.
Now we can address the title of assault rifle. An Assault Rifle is a rifle that has “select fire” capability. This means the typical rifle will have three settings: safe, semi-auto, and auto/burst. Semi-automatic is defined as one round is fired for each pull of the trigger. Automatic and burst both result in multiple rounds fired for each pull of the trigger. This could be firing until the trigger is released or the typical burst of 3 rounds. Early M-16’s had the fully automatic capability, but were changed later to 3 round burst because full auto is difficult to control. Even 3 round burst is less than ideal except when used as covering fire (shooting in the general vicinity of the bad guys to keep them from shooting back as someone moves from behind cover). Firearms that fall into this category, while not illegal to own, are very limited in availability. In fact, the only way to legally own an automatic rifle, without being law enforcement or fitting other very specific categories, is if the rifle was made and registered prior to May of 1986.
There is something to understand about military arms. Throughout American history military and civilian arms have progressed in lock step. In many cases, civilian arms were ahead of military arms. Advances in the civilian technology were quickly adopted, and vice versa. Ignoring technology, most improvements in marksmanship have been made on the civilian side and transitioned to the military. This is most evidenced by the pistol competition community in the last 40 years. IDPA and IPSC have transformed the training our military receives, making them a more effective fighting force even though pistols have remained basically unchanged since the military’s adoption of the M1911 handgun 102 years ago.
The term “Assault Weapon (AW)” is poorly defined. In 1994, Senator Diane Feinstein’s Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) was based on cosmetic criteria. What kinds of things? If the rifle had two or more of the following it was classified as an AW: Bayonet lug, flash hider, pistol grip, collapsible/folding stock, or grenade launcher. Even the Violence Policy Center agrees the criteria were cosmetic. This image is of two rifles that are functionally identical, but one meets the letter of the law for a 1994 AW http://modernsurvivalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/ruger_banner.jpg. It fires a .22 long rifle round, which is the exact same round the Boy Scouts of America allow boys 10 and older to shoot. It’s low power, and easy to shoot.
The main point of contention from the gun lobby is the fact that there has been no increase in firearms related crimes since the sunset/expiration of the 1994 AWB. In fact, in 2011 there were just over 350 crimes committed with ANY rifle, let alone a poorly defined assault weapon. This means rifles make up less than 4% of all firearms related murders.
So why are they such a “target”? Part of it is they are certainly scary looking. Another is that any rifle is more effective than a pistol. They can be used at short or long range. The bullet may be smaller, but higher velocity can make it as effective or more effective. Despite all of that, they are not prevalent most likely because they can not be easily concealed like one or more handguns can.

5. But the AR-15 has no sporting use.
First, the Second Amendment does not say anything about hunting, sporting, etc. Second, yes, the AR-15 has sporting use. The AR-15 is a flexible platform that is widely used in both hunting and shooting sports. There are “varminter” versions that are extremely accurate and used on anything from prairie dogs to coyotes. The platform has evolved to the point the AR can be used with numerous calibers making it suitable for even large game (deer, elk, etc). Do I need 30 rounds for that? Nope. No ethical hunter will take a shot where he only hopes to hit the prey. In many states it is illegal to use a rifle that can have more than a handful of rounds loaded, so hunters use smaller magazines that hold 5 or 10 rounds.
Continuing the thread above regarding civilian competition improving tactics, techniques and procedures, the AR-15 as a platform is used heavily in high power competition (traditional long range marksmanship) as well as “three gun” which is a combination of pistol, shotgun and rifle use as the shooter moves from station to station testing a balance of skills across several firearms. NBC Sports even has (had?) a TV show about it called “3-gun Nation”.

6. So what about gun control? Why shouldn’t we have it?

Some look at “reasonable gun control” as the beginning of the end, depending on the definition of reasonable. We can look to Australia as a recent example of what gun registration and gun control brought. Initial controls that did not “sufficiently curtail” gun crimes, the laws became more and more strict until nearly all firearms have been banned. Piers Morgan uses England and Wales as the example of what life could be like without guns. Last year there were less than 40 deaths from guns. He fails to mention, though, that the violent crime rate is more than double that of the United States. So while they do have less gun crimes, they have significantly higher violent crime overall.
We have 49 states with concealed carry laws, 40 of which are shall issue or constitutional where a non-prohibited citizen may carry concealed without a permit. Why is it states like Florida, the first to enact concealed carry permits in 1987, has seen a consistent decrease in crime over the last 25 years?
The biggest hurdle to any new legislation is the inability to find a middle ground. The 1994 AWB did not do anything to decrease crime, as evidenced by the lack of increase when it ended. Senator Feinstein’s line of thinking now is that it didn’t go far enough, which is why it wasn’t effective. Her basic outline for proposed legislation makes most (all?) semi-automatic firearms to include rifles, shotguns, and handguns, either outright illegal or required to be registered in accordance with the NFA. They would also be illegal to transfer to any other person. Ever. Once the owner dies, the guns would have to be turned in to the government for disposal. Governor Cuomo went so far as to use the word “confiscation”.
Why should law abiding citizens subject themselves to being disarmed? The criminals certainly won’t turn their guns in. My estimate is it would take either house to house searches across the nation to hope to come close to getting all the guns in less than several decades, but violent crime will increase year after year.

7. So what would I do?
I would start by enforcing existing laws. Then…
a. Go ahead and require background checks for ALL transfers of firearms. There’s no reason my FBI NICS check couldn’t be tied to my driver’s license. Allow a check of someone’s legal ability to purchase a gun through the simple submission of driver’s license info on a web site.
b. Make the initial purchase of a firearm require a 10 day wait nationwide. All subsequent purchases can be made without a wait. After all, why do I need a cooling off period if I already own a gun?
c. Include basic firearms training for all children at approximately 7-8 yrs of age. Eliminating the mystique of guns and increasing awareness of safety/consequences would cut down a lot on accidental deaths.
d. Make concealed carry a nationally reciprocated item. A license in one state is good in any. This would require some national minimum standard.
e. Get rid of Gun Free Zones. A legally carried gun is no threat to anyone, and a criminal will not only ignore it, but the last Aurora shooting shows the bad guy will seek it out.
f. I have no idea what to do about the mental health aspect of this discussion. It’s a concern, but I see it as a larger discussion than gun control, with no easy answer.