Logic = There are cases where people wearing seat belts died in car accidents, so, obviously, we should not pin our safety hopes on seat belts.
15
BTW, to add to the noise here from the pro-gun zealots. Background checks are not onerous or time-consuming. I had one done last Black Friday for a deer rifle that only took 10 minutes to clear. Most amazingly, after I'd special ordered a custom-made handgun during the summer of 2001, it arrived on a very auspicious day: I had a background check sail through in about 3 minutes on September 11, 2001.
2
Better to improve the background check system, both to improve accuracy and to ensure that all issues are entered into it. More streamlined appeals in the case of false positives should be simpler. Ditching the background check system and requirements because of some false positives is the wrong way to go.
Currently, as flawed as the system might be it is worth it if it keeps firearms out of the hands of men who have engaged in domestic violence. Also, when an owner has a claim of domestic violence against them or a restraining order they should be required to hand over any firearms to be held to be returned at a later date or if found to not be capable of being a responsible firearm owner they should be sold. The money, minus a small commission to pay for the sales system, should then be handed over to the former owner.
Stats: The shooting death of a teacher in San Bernardino, California, by her estranged husband was hardly an outlier – an estimated 50 women a month are shot to death in the US by former or current partners
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/11/domestic-violence-shooti...
Finally, I would not want to count on a person(s) with a concealed carry engaging in a firefight as I highly doubt they have been trained as well as police officers who already hit other people. The community college shooting here in Oregon a student with a CC didn't pull his out. He was scared of the police seeing him as the gunman.
4
What preposterous nonsense. Why does the Times bother to publish this sort of thing ? Minor inconvenience and modest cost is weighed against the disastrous consequences of firearms getting into dangerous hands, while at the same time trotting out an utterly baseless figure of "millions of law-abiding citizens" who are prevented from buying guns for protection if reasonable background checks are competently enforced ? Please.
14
i didn't realize that i was reading a complete crank 'til i hit this "One answer is to have more civilians carry permitted concealed handguns. "
cowboy fantasy passing itself off as a policy suggestion. no thanks.
6
Shootouts in public, and law-abiding citizens' guns stolen, lost, given away, mishandled, and found by kid rooting around in the closet. Great idea.
3
I clicked on this article because anything to reduce gun violence is of interest to me. However, to argue that gun violence can be reduced by avoiding 'false positive' background check is absurd at the very least. You can complain and make the justifiable argument that as long as someone is not a crazy killer should be allowed to have a gun is one thing. It has absolutely nothing to do with background checks on criminals and most certainly "fixing" the background check to avoid false positives will not have any impact whatsoever on gun violence. Do you really believe that gun violence in America can be reduced by allowing as many people as possible who pass criminal background checks to have whatever guns they like? Do you really believe each of these individuals who have no criminal background is safe gun carriers who know how to handle guns? Can you really guarantee that these gun owners when forced to shoot at someone who they believe are a criminal will shoot only that individual and spare anyone around the proposed individual? It is these type of nonsensical arguments that America has been unable to tackle gun violence to begin with.
2
Mr. Lott’s argument against enforcement of background checks hinges on the notion that gun ownership affords “protection” to law-abiding citizens. Sorry. That argument fails. Accessibility to firearms increases the risk of death by firearms (Ann Intern Med. 2014;160:101-110). One might more accurately argue that by reducing risk of death, we benefit law-abiding citizens when background checking mistakes prevent gun purchase.
4
Shame on you for publishing this liars op-ed.
6
What a pile of garbage. Some problems with some background check and we should abolish the process? Poor people who want guns cannot afford background checks and suddenly social inequality is so unacceptable? This Op Ed is a transparent effort of disinformation to serve the NRA.
6
Wow! A lot of folks out there don’t like guns and don’t like John Lott. I think he’s right in that the Background Check system needs to be cleaned up. I’m a gun owner and have sold and purchased firearms in Maryland and Virginia. There is a world of difference between the two states, ranging from convenience to cost. I don’t think checks on private sales will do much of anything. But. If you want to start checking private sales, the way to start is by making them voluntary, free, use the internet, not dealers or police, and provide a carrot such as indemnifying the private seller against lawsuits arising from the sale of the firearm if they run it through a background check system.
1
My solution: (1) Repeal the Second Amendment, which is not only a hopeless anachronism, but has been misconstrued as granting every American a God-given right to own as many guns and as much ammunition, of whatever type, as even the most demented lunatic might desire; see, e.g., Las Vegas. (2) Melt down most of the more than 300 million guns now in private hands in the United States. (3) Once America is no longer awash in weaponry, demilitarize our police forces.
Wishful thinking, I know. But has anyone come up with another rational and effective approach? No.
2
Will be a tough one to get agreement on, but that's even true within the Dem (and/or Rep) party. There is a suspicion among gun enthusiasts that the far left wants to take away all guns. If Congress could just create some simple regulations (an oxymoron) that stopped gun sales (Internet, trade show, and otherwise) to felons, mentally ill, or anyone previously convicted of carrying a gun without a license, we'd all be better off. As far as the government database being inaccurate or agencies not following procedures, that must be fixed in concert.
1
Mr. Lott is back with some of his trademark distortions. He tells us that the background check system denies 377,283 applications a year, but that the federal government only prosecutes 460. He says "According to my own analysis" the reason there were relatively few prosecutions is that everyone else was wrongly denied clearance to buy a gun. What???
John Lott admits that he never delved into the question, but he leaps to a stunning conclusion. My assumption would be that most of the other denials were because the purchasers didn't meet requirements.
Mr. Lott has long been a shill for the National Rifle Association. I don't trust his conclusions because I don't trust his honesty.
8
I do not need a gun to "protect" myself and my family and neither do you. We are more likely to get hurt or killed by such guns, including children and babies, than defend our families.
You are right. Background checks are not the way to go.
End the Second Amendment. Take away America's guns.
Yes, I am coming for your guns. You don't need them.
1
"Take away America's guns."
How do you propose to find them? Do you really think people will voluntarily turn them in? Do you think the police will relish this assignment? Don't count on the 15% of the 91,000 officers mentioned at the front of this article to do it.
I suppose you'll get rid of the fourth amendment so you can do blanket searches without warrants to do that too and the fifth amendment so they can be seized without compensation.
2
Why does the NYT editorial board give space to such malarkey? Is this in agreement with the NYT's overall stance on the USA's problem with gun violence? Our main problem is that law-abiding poor people can't afford guns because the background check might cost them an extra $125?
Would Nicholas Kristof get similar column space in an NRA publication? Fox News? Brietbart?
Why is the NYT publishing such pieces? Fair and balanced? No thanks. We're paying for our subscriptions. If anyone is interested in seeing how the other half thinks, we're more than capable of finding their viewpoints online with a quick Google search.
I want a partial refund.
5
When you hear gun advocates perseverate on their rights under the Second Amendment, we should all know that the Anti-Federalist faction tried to attach specific language to the Second Amendment that would include hunting and self defense. These proposals were overwhelmingly defeated by the James Madison led Federalist.
1
This is nonsense: 'Preventing millions of law-abiding citizens from buying guns for protection'? Give us a break. And you want the 'general government revenue' to pay for the cost of the checks? What budget would you take that from, the one for the police so there would be more places where there are none and you can pack heat to protect me? The Crime Protection Research Center a wholly NRA funded 'think tank'?
4
suicide deaths by firearm were 21,386 in the US 2014.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm
1
Background checks are only as good as the information in the system, which has proved to be untimely and not reliable in all cases. If you eliminate the stats from Philadelphia, Chicago, and LA, the USA is as safe as Japan.
Pennsylvania has had a 'record of sale', gun registration by any other name, for every handgun sold from around 1931 forward. Interestingly enough, the prosecution of "straw purchasers" averages about 2 per county per year!
Why? A Cambria County DA said because its "too hard".
You would think that gun crimes are on the increase. Quite the contrary, while they are widely reported, FBI stats tell us that violent crimes are actually down, even in the face of millions of gun sales. Could "More guns, Less crimes" be true? I believe it is indeed.
4
It's interesting how Republicans cry foul when people are denied buying a gun when a background check shows they have a similar name to someone who should not legally own one, but there is complete silence from them when citizens are purged from voting rolls and denied there basic right to vote for the same reason. Kind of a skewed priority there.
4
False positives are obviously an inherent facet of any sort of investigation, whether scientific, medical or military. Should men stop getting checked for prostate cancer since there are bound to be some false positives? Same question for women getting checked for rest cancer. In both cases the answer is no!
I'm scratching my head about the Trump'scases that the DOD failed to report for background checks. Personal liability for a DOD higher-up whose underlings made the booboo? I'm not sure Gen. James Mattis wants to be held personally liable for his agency's failure to report Deven Kelley who, until his armed rampage in TX last November, was guilty of nothing more than imitating Trump aide Rob Porter punching out wives or girlfriends! (I deplore abuse of women, of course. I wish the Commander-in-Chief deplored it too. )
But, hey, "not disarming law-abiding citizens?" With only a few exceptions most mass shootings in the US are perpetrated by people who are indeed quite law-abiding--that is, up to the point where something in them went snapped and lots of people died or were injured as a result. There would have been no red flag in most shooters' histories that would have kept them from getting guns. Or building an arsenal, such as the Las Vegas shooter. An unarmed guy having a seriously bad day and finally going haywire is just another night at work for big city cops. However, give that guy a gun ("to protect himself") and the results will probably make the news
1
We need a multi-pronged approach...
better background checks...and that includes for ALL purchases at gun shows and between individual sellers/buyers
National Database to record all purchases and ANALYZE buying patterns and then FLAG/put a HOLD on particular buyers with disturbing purchasing patterns
LIMITS on the total number of weaponry and ammo one can own
No private individual should be allowed to purchase automatic weapons, bumpstocks, or anything else that goes beyond mere hunting or 'protecting' oneself and one's family
STOP referring to gunshot deaths as ACCIDENTS, when they involve CHILDREN who managed to get a hold of a LOADED weapon that a negligent ADULT left within arm's reach of a child. The responsible ADULT should be CHARGED with involuntary manslaughter. (I am sick to death of reading of countless stories of young children killed in such a way, and all because of reckless, irresponsible adults. These were not ACCIDENTS, but the result of child 'abuse' and negligence.)
1
The problem is in order to enforce gun control we have to kill gun culture, which while violent is still a culture and incredibly hard to kill.
1
Background checks, properly conducted, can indeed provide one critical protection against unwanted violence. The author is making a series of arguments for improving the system--not trashing it.
2
Any data on how many people have been killed as a result of law abiding citizens not passing background checks? My guess is not that many.
3
"another major problem with the background check system: false positives that stop law-abiding people from getting weapons that they might need to protect themselves and their families." This is a major problem??? I have lived my whole life without a gun and I do not feel vulnerable or scared!!
1
Citizens owning guns for purposes other than hunting is nothing but cowardly, and certainly not potential heroism— that’s simply a goofy fantasy and is ridiculous. I assume that such folks yearn for a civilized society. Humans must interact with humans - person to person- in order to have a functional society. Humans having to interact with deadly weapons in the hands of someone living out their hero fantasy leads nowhere good.
Find some courage to be a human force for change not a deadly problem. Every war has had its end when two human beings sit across a table without weapons and begin creating a process for each side’s salvation. Guns thwart the chance for this ultimate process to unfold.
1
A neighbor a few streets away was jumped in his driveway by two men who followed him home from the grocery store. He was 68 y/o at the time. The men were dragging him to his front door where they could do whatever they's come to do. Fortunately his girlfriend saw all this happening from a window. When the front door opened she greeted the men with a 38 Special revolver. One died right on the doorstep the other about a block away.
Four years ago an 83 y/o woman was attacked in the parking lot of the Cotswold shopping after shopping for groceries. He knocked her down and she broke her hip. A store employee gathering carts tried to help her. The assailant beat him up and bit a chunk of skin him. Then he drove over him in the woman's car and broke his leg.
How's that for humans interacting with humans?
2
Anyone remember the Dallas shooting, all those macho men with their AR-15s were running away from the fire right into the police who couldn't figure out what was happening? Not one of those macho men stayed to help. As a former combat Marine I can tell you that the first thing you do is find out where the fire is coming from, not turn your back on it. America has armed these adolescent men who have no clue, with very deadly weapons. Why would anyone need an assault weapon? The few false positives could actually save lives.
4
Until we have a national background check, entered into a data base, end careful monitoring to stop straw purchases, we will not stop the many guns that start as legal guns but enter the black market. To do this we would need to force states from Ohio to Texas to track all purchases. They do not do so now.
Whether you can stop a person who has never committed a crime is another question, but we CAN stop the supply of guns to criminals.
Oh - arming citizens with concealed weapons is, in most cases, madness.
4
"Oh - arming citizens with concealed weapons is, in most cases, madness."
Why is it madness? You have likely walked by people carrying concealed firearms dozens of times in your life and never knew it.
4
I actually like living someplace where the state has the primary right and responsibility to wield force to enforce laws. I don't know where this romantic longing for vigilantes came from. I don't want "ordinary citizens" protecting me. In a real crisis, 99% of these folks with their itchy trigger fingers are just as likely to shoot me, my kids, my dog, or their own buttocks in a real crisis. When a cop under threat makes the wrong choice and shoots an unarmed civilian, we argue for more training, yet somehow we think arming more ordinary people with no or minimal training will make the world safer. Give me a break. We have all the data we need from all the OTHER developed countries in the world: fewer guns in circulation and tighter gun control makes a country safer.
4
Based on the headline, background checks are not the answer to gun violence. I don't know anyone who thinks they are necessary and sufficient, so this is a "straw man" argument.
So what do I think is necessary and sufficient as a means of ending gun violence? Repeal the Second Amendment, and ban guns in the states that don't want them.
Remember, when guns are illegal, only the police will have guns. Come to think of it, maybe they shouldn't have them, either.
Such a "solution" is no solution. Empirical evidence clearly demonstrates that more guns equals more murders, in every society. Without a modicum of rational thought the argument that more guns would prevent deaths should then also rationally mean that greater fire power would also mean fewer deaths. By extension that faulty rationale would mean to institute total peace on earth we should all go around carrying nuclear bombs. Total irrational bologna.
1
People don't need guns to protect themselves or thier families. Having a gun in the home increases the risk of death or injury caused by a gun
1
Guns on everyone, all the time, and everywhere ? Sure, sounds like a perfect recipe for a much safer country. One is only left to wonder who are all these people in this country that wish to live in the wild west, where do they live , and why are they so hell bent on laying the table for a feast of crows and a famine of common sense ?
1
John Lott and all his "studies" have been discredited over and over by competent researchers and academics. Why is he even given this platform?
9
"Better a mass murderer has a gun than a "sane" person is denied a gun" This is a paranoid misunderstanding of the criminal law doctrine that "better a guilty criminal be exonerated than an innocent man be convicted"
Background checks for tenants, employees, employers, country clubs, schools... but not for a tool designed to kill? The answer to gun violence is to give everyone a gun so everyone can join in?!
How is this not a blueprint for bloody chaos? Even were I to trust the judgement of the average person on the street to be a 'good guy' when a 'bad guy' starts shooting (which I most definitely do not), what exactly qualifies that person with regards to observational skills, aim, mental stability, etc?
It doesn't mean much that a body of people trained in the use of handguns would support concealed carry: they mostly deal with other people who are trained and certified in the proper use of handguns, and have to re-certify every year. Of course that seems prudent to them. How about grandma? Uncle Harry the lush? How about crazy cousin Henry? Concealed carry for them, eh? Sounds like a bid to start a new industry in body armor in the United States, to me. Sounds like an NRA-funded op-ed hoping to drum up more sales and support for the insupportable.
2
It appears to me there is no meaningful or effective answer to gun violence in the US that the NRA and its surrogates will accept, because ultimately this is about gun maker profitability. The NRA wants more people buying more guns to "protect themselves" from more people buying guns, in an endless cycle of profitability - the costs to society at large be d*mned. As long as politicians and manufacturers can keep the general populace afraid and distracted, they can keep raking in the dough. Come on American's wake up. We cannot contain or reduce violence by promoting more and more of it.
2
The expense of guns prevents many law-abiding citizens from getting the guns they need to protect themselves. So we should give them guns so they can exercise their Second Amendment rights? No -- in many states, the inability to pay for food, medical care, or a gun does not create a right for any of these things. The right to life does not mean that you will not die if you cannot afford the proper treatment for your cancer.
Anyone who is negligent about keeping a gun from being played with by any child in the house is not a law-abiding citizen in many states; if these laws were enforced before the negligence was revealed when someone got shot, the number of guns in circulation would drop.
The answer is to do what Australia did years ago.
6
And it works well in North Korea, I'm told.
3
For many years of my youth I lived in Westerville, Ohio, a sleepy suburb of Columbus best known as the headquarters of the fight for Prohibition. This past Saturday Westerville became the latest victim of gun violence when a domestic disturbance resulted in the deaths of two of the town's police officers.
I'm pretty sure they had guns...
2
So it MUST be the firearms fault. Why are we not throwing all of these evil firearms in jail?
1
Some poor neighborhoods here in Philadelphia are utopian paradises for those who hold the views of the NRA and Mr. Lott regarding good guys needing guns. In these places where shootings occur virtually daily, most of the bad guys have guns, but (understandably) so do most of the good guys—in both cases legally or otherwise. The good guys, despite their heavy hardware, can’t seem to materially cut back the shooting by the bad guys and it just goes on unimpeded.
3
It's sobering to look at the gun violence stats so far in 2018:
6338 total incidents
1748 deaths
3028 injured
28 mass shootings
These stats don't include suicides
http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/
The "right to bear arms" has become a license to kill in the U.S. The carnage will continue until the gun lobby is extracted from the legislative equation and sane people amend the constitution to put clear regulations and controls on gun ownership. Until then no one is safe.
5
There is no one answer to gun violence; but a lot of them added together. The best was exhibited by Australia. We should follow. No large magazines (perhaps six max). No cop killer bullets. No silencers. No automatic fire; bolt action, lever action, pump action only. And most importantly, no war weapons. That means a huge government buyback of all assault weapons. No one has any use for assault weapons other than killing large numbers of people. All guns registered into a national database.
I suppose some allowance should be made for those that feel a need to play John Wayne. So have selective gun ranges build secure storage facilities and have those few people keep their assault weapons there for checking out and shooting.
Full disclosure; I used to be a police officer.
5
Since laws don't protect us 100 percent of the time, why not get rid of all of them? And why do we bother with healthcare? Or fire departments? Or the military?
3
It is better that 10 convicted felons with severe mental illnesses buy semi-automatic firearms than that one innocent person suffer a bureaucratic step.
2
Those law-abiding gun owners, once they pull the trigger at the stadium, church, or school, are no longer law-abiding but now mass killers with a personal armory at their home. What started as perhaps a hobby, spending thousands on more weapons than they have fingers for "personal protection" is instantly a social nightmare,and the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center wants you to think that nothing can be done about it.
2
Ok. Since we don't know when folks will snap, they should all be thrown in jail. I have chosen myself as the one who decides goes to jail. You first. Take yourself to your local prison and turn yourself in.
1
Mr. Lott's solution that private armed individuals could prevent mass shootings is unrealistic for a major reason. When Representative Gabby Giffords and others were shot at an outdoor get together, one of her aides actually was carrying a licensed firearm but he did not draw and fire it, and the reason was not any lack of grit or courage. He knew that in the confusion that law enforcement would not be able to distinguish a civilian "good guy" with a gun from a "bad guy' with a gun and he quickly could become a target and a casualty of friendly fire.
8
This is one of the few times that I have disagreed with every word of an opinion in the Opinion Pages Section. Our Country does not enforce existing laws: ie: texting while driving. The only way to deal with people who feel they can shoot others without thinking twice about doing it, is too take their lives by stopping them while they're committing the act, or capital punishment within the first year or two after being found guilty. Rehab, background checks, more guns on the streets will not deter enough criminals from thinking they are in "Dodge City".
2
There is no one answer to gun violence, any more than there is one answer to any major problem. There are many, small, less comprehensive elements which can add up to progress.
Also, perhaps if this system results in false positives, preventing gun owners from accessing their rights, we should not use the same system with its false positives, to strip legal voters from the voter rolls.
2
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Stopping everyone buying guns would do much more to allow law-abiding people
to protect themselves and their families.
4
My only disagreement with this column is that the author misses a key political point: False positives are a prime, if not the prime, reason that the gun-owning community reacts so strongly to proposals to broaden background checks.
Some background information before I continue. I'm a life member of the National Rifle Association and I have a concealed carry permit. Clearly I support our second amendment rights. Also, I have had problems with false denials several times in different states and I don't know why. For example, when I moved to Colorado and tried to buy a gun my application was denied. I appealed and the denial was reversed. When the denial was reversed I was told that I had initially been denied permission to buy a gun because of "a mistake in the records" and that "it won't happen again in Colorado". I could not find out what the error in the database was or how I could correct it.
I agree that people who should not own guns should be prevented from buying them. I think that any reasonable gun owner agrees. So why the tremendous resistance from the gun lobby when proposals for expansion of background checks are floated? Simple. Nobody trusts the system because it is so unreliable. The solution is to fix the system and wait until gun owner's trust the system. This is the 21st Century. A country as rich, powerful, and technically capable as the U.S. is certainly able to fix the incredibly shoddy background check system that we now have.
3
If, "well ordered militia" has no standing, what else are we free to disregard? Pass all the gun control laws you can think of, there are simply too many weapons out there. With enough money and a minimum of effort, I can drive less than 25 miles and buy any and as many weapons as I want. Prohibition should have taught us something. All the thoughts and prayers are fine for the political dog and pony, but there's only one real way to stop the killing and that isn't going to happen.
Question 8 on the ATF's Form 4473 (which you must complete as step 1 of the background check process) is "Social Security Number (optional)".
So now the author wishes us to believe that there are many "Devin Kelley"s with names, numbers and social security numbers similar to someone deemed unfit to buy a gun.
I strongly doubt it ! Almost as much as I doubt the idea that having more guns in the hands of untrained people is going to result in anything other than more dead innocent bystanders.
2
'I need my human-killing machine, and I need it now!'
Right?
In spite of the farcical defense of the Second Amendment, the issue persists. There is a pervasive notion of 'enemies at the gates' and some Wild West fantasy of shooting down a moustached, cartoon villain that clouds any sensible legislation on this issue. When powerful PACs and lobbies are added to the equation -- I need not name names, lest I spontaneously burst into hellfire for uttering the moniker of the Beast -- it is impossible to truly help 'citizens defend themselves'. From guns, that is.
I have posted on several gun legislation related pieces on NYT, and each time, I come back to the FBI's comprehensive study from 2015 which offered detailed information and proscriptions on open and concealed carry ownership in the US. Without being tedious, only a small percentage of instances in which a citizen carrying a firearm was present during the time a violent crime was being committed, actually resulted in that weapon successfully deterring or stopping the perpetrator. More often, the study found, the carrier wounded an innocent bystander. Still more likely, these firearms are used the commission of suicides, accidental deaths, or domestic abuse. Hmm, inherent right of the citizenry, or dangerous weapon only necessary for the armed services, law enforcement, and hunting?
1
*Government fails to fix flaws in the system
*False positives prevent the rights of citizens
*Denial of citizens' rights according to the constitution, particularly the most vulnerable
*Poor accounting for those having their rights taken away and then restored
*Adding monetary costs to preserve this right
Oh wait, you're talking about guns? I thought you were talking about voter registration.
My bad.
3
While I expect that Mr. Lott could site some anecdotal one-off incidents where the "good guy with a gun" fantasy pushed by action films and the NRA might have prevented something, I expect that if there was actual research that produced actual credible data on that point he'd be referring to it. The notion, while appealing from a stifled masculinity standpoint, is ridiculous.
Would a background check system incur false positives and make it less convenient for some people to buy a gun? Undoubtedly. Is that an acceptable price to pay to get a foothold on reducing mass murder and accidental deaths from firearms? Absolutely.
The core of his argument here is the central anathema to the gun industry and lobby. It has nothing to do with the rights of the individuals mentioned in the article, it comes down to more controls means less guns sold, and less profit.
What we need defense against are gun advocates who endanger all of us non-gun toting people by promoting a vision of the "wild west" as normal and desirable.
I've never owned a gun and like most people feel a lot safer for it.
That's right, let's not make anything even an iota better because it won't make it perfect!
Gun control works all over the world and our mass-shooting rate (28 so far in 2018) goes to show what happens when you don't have them.
It is only the delusional that believe that more 'concealed weapons' equate to a safer society. And this author is not only delusional, but relies on an argument that is so logically inferior as to be a joke. If, in fact 91 percent of "law enforcement" carries a concealed weapon, that is not proof of safety.
Officers trained to handle guns are not a proxy for the general population. And, if trained officers under duress feel the need to fire 41 bullets at an unarmed man sitting on stoop in NY, you can just imagine what a frightened civilian would do.
Given the fact that this is a government program and that most people in the country have Social Security numbers, one has to wonder why the checks are done by name and birth date. These should be secondary checks at best.
One reason that background checks don't help all the time is that many of the worst killers are your "law abiding citizens" right up until they pull the trigger. The NRA is right there defending their rights to have as many of any type of gun they want. But when when they go on their anger or hate filled rampage they are disavowed as not one of us but someone with a mental problem.
It's in the aftermath that we find that that many are by killed angry, enraged, or hate filled men. How do you background check for that?
I guess we could start by denying men guns. That would be a big start. Yes, there are women who kill with guns but 90% of murders are committed by men and men are almost twice as likely to use a gun than a woman. So we'd hack off the largest part of the problem in one fell swoop. The guns would remain in women's hands to provide for that well regulated militia we hear so much about.
If men are uncomfortable with women owning the guns it might give them an inkling of the fear that others live with under their ownership and control where so many of us are victims. The idea isn't to turn the tables and victimize men but to take the toys away that they are more likely to use.
Of course it won't work unless we add genetic locks to guns and it isn't going to sit well with men who would rather maintain their relationship with guns. But if you were honest and trusted your fellow males to give up their guns you know we'd be safer as a result.
1
We all should be able to agree on one fundamental premise: no one wants to get shot. The question is then how to avoid that.
1.) More guns does not equal fewer chances of getting shot. This is the deep flaw of Lott's argument.
2.) Americans have a right to own guns.
3.) Therefore there should be a high bar to gun ownership, including background checks for all gun purchases, and required training and certification as well.
4.) Myths of gun ownership like the one Lott relies on, the need for gun owners to "protect their families", need to be debunked. Check FBI statistics for numbers of shooters stopped by private armed citizens: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/office-of-partner-engagement/active-shooter...
A very small number… and how many stopped mass shootings? Zero.
5.) No one but military and police forces should have access to fully-automatic weapons, or weapons which can be converted to full automatic fire. Same applies to large magazines.
Even if all these get implemented, people will still get shot. But a lot fewer.
1
"false positives that stop law-abiding people from getting weapons that they might need to protect themselves and their families" What exactly are they protecting themselves from? And, where is the statistical information that guns were used to protect a family? Shooting someone who comes to the door seeking help does not count.
1
John Lott proposes the Archie Bunker equalizer solution. (Archie Bunker's Editorial on Behalf of Guns for Everybody - Archie and the Editorial Season 3 Episode 1). Arm everyone. Was it too much for him to cite examples of Scotland and Australia who have been able to ratchet down gun violence through sensible legislation?
This is a great example of good writing and poor reasoning.
The “tragic” case of Ronnie Coleman’s false positive was resolved within the existing framework. The extra bureaucratic step of getting a unique transaction number does not quite match the tragic consequences of Devin Kelley’s false negative.
The fee for background checks does not “disarm law-abiding poor people” any more than the price of cigarettes “deprives” them of their smoking habits.
PoliceOne’s survey has about as much to do with the background check issue as the Eagles’ Super Bowl victory has to do with the Phillies’ prospects next season.
The high quality of the writing here indicates that the author is smart enough to recognize the low quality of his arguments. It’s just that there are no good arguments to be made in support of his position.
1
How is God's name is someone with a handgun going to stop a mass shooter armed with multiple weapons (often) and/or an assault rifle? We should ban assault rifles and adopt the licensing system for handguns that another commenter recommends.
Ok, tell me if you've heard this one. Australia bans guns to stop crime, as they are a democracy, it's not a problem. Europe, either bans guns outright or makes ownership so onerous, they may as well be banned. They are all democracies, so, no harm no fowl. North Korea and China bans guns, because, guns lead to the problems of western society, rife with corruption and decadence. Two heavenly spots, we all aspire to live in, one day.
The only thing you can take to the bank, if guns are banned in my country, there will be a lot more criminals. Gun crimes, as counted by possession, will sky rocket. But, I'm not blind to the possibility of a gun ban. The 18th Amendment and the 21st Amendment is as bright a warning light as is needed. The pendulum doth swing to both sides.
Alright. Enough hooey. Let's get to spending those tax cuts. MAGA!!
It’s amazing - and frightening - how many commentators here would suppress the free speech rights of someone with whom they disagree.
1
Since none of the commentators here are commenting as government agents, they are not in a position to suppress anyone's free speech rights.
1
Then what is the answer?
At least keep guns out of the hands of those most likely to misuse them, people with known criminal backgrounds or other warning signs (certain mental diseases).
The headline on this article implied the presentation of an idea to reduce gun violence. Disappointed I find it is instead it is just another NRA talking point in favor of gun violence.
The utterly vacuous NRA mantra, "guns don't kill people; people kill people" reigns. But any suggestion to identify and limit the people who may kill with guns is openly denounced by the NRA and the gun lobby.
The US has more guns per capita than any other developed country and has more murders per capita. It is brutally obvious from that statistic that a profusion of guns does not have the effect of providing protection. A reasonably bright 6th grader would reasonably come up with the solution to limit the number of guns that get into the hands of the wrong people. Mr. Lott, by contrast, not having the cognitive sense of a 6th grader is opposed to each and every measure that would limit the ownership of guns in any way shape or form.
1
Everywhere that gun carry laws have been liberalized the crime rate has gone down. More guns, less crime. Let that sink in...
3
Everywhere gun laws have not been liberalised, crime has also gone down. I believe this commentator is actually the author of a dubious book called "More Guns, Less Crime". There is an interesting debate in Scientific American where he challenges some studies that suggests that while overall crime has gone down, in counties where there are more concealed carry permits, gun deaths go UP.
Yes, theatre would be an argument ended if it were true, but it's not. It's more of a Rush Limbaugh or Alex Jones fact.
Everywhere you have guns, accidental injuries and deaths from firearms and suicides using firearms have gone up. Let that sink in.
1
Moratorium on ammo production? Pound your own rounds!
3
Obama tried something like that. Every federal agency bought millions of rounds. One of the more interesting, but common factoids, the SSA bought 12 million pistol rounds. As a result, commercially available ammunition prices skyrocketed. People still bought ammo, maybe not as much. 100 rounds of .22LR was $8 to $10. Now, about $5 and a lot less, if you buy in bulk.
Now that threat of gun control has waned, ammo prices have dropped by 50%. And some gun makers have lamented they've gone back to a more normal production level. And gun prices are way down. 3 years ago, a rock bottom price for an AR15 was $800. Now there in the low $400's.
Obama was the poster child for gun sales. Santa Clause couldn't give away Coca-Cola, like Obama sold guns.
1
Yes of course,...And drivers’ ed., license tests and car registration do nothing to lower auto accident rates. And by extension,.. all laws do nothing to reduce crime. What we need are more armed vigilantes wandering around with concealed weapons, just itching to be heros in the Charles Bronson mode, while hiding behind stand your ground laws to commit homecide.
So much fun going to a pub knowing I and my fellow citizens are all drinking and packing. And when the shooting starts it will be abundantly clear, just who are the good guys and bad guys,..the good guys will be wearing white hats.
7
You and your buddies would be the bad guys as you aren't to be drinking and carrying firearms. Pretty simple.
The Japanese allow gun ownership but almost zero gun deaths each year. If their system works for them it should work for America.
2
The Japanese system requires a lot of investigation and training before someone is given a gun license. See this description of one couple's pursuit of a license:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/behold-the-four-month-process-of...
Such a system might be effective, but it would never be instituted in the United States.
Because America is the same as Japan. Just one thing, Japan has a higher rate of suicide, and firearms aren't used. Explain.
1
This is true of Canada too.
Here I was, expecting an actual solution or at least an intelligent contribution to the gun violence plaguing our country. Nope, apparently, the answer is to give more people access to guns! Really?
6
If everyone is packing heat one must ask what happens when police show up at a scene where "good guys" with guns are trading fire with "bad guys" with guns? How do they decide who the real perps. are? How does the next "good guy" with a gun who shows up late to the party know who to shoot at? Even a child can see this rapidly turns into the OK coral. Everyone packing is the dumbest idea ever. Hard stop.
5
I hear this response a lot, but the reality is for the VAST majority of incidents, the police arrive after the incident is over. They're not rolling up to the scene as the shooting is going on. So really, this hypothetical doesn't really occur at all, or at least it barely ever occurs.
2
There's is more to it than if someone starts shooting then anyone carrying does as well. A little secret, the human controls the firearm, not the other way around. I know, sounds crazy when all you hear is how firearms are magical objects that go around committing violence and murder. It actually is the human controlling it that does this, not the firearm.
1
John Lott is a rabid pro-gun, anti regulation mouthpiece for the gun industry. He believe that if more people owned guns there would be less violence. He denies that the real statistics are that gun injuries and deaths by criminals are buried in the landslide of gun deaths by people legally owning guns.
7
He used to be anti-gun until he researched the facts.
1
I stop reading anytime a writer advances the fiction that ownership of a gun enables a person to protect his or her family. In fact the odds of someone in that family dying from gun violence (including suicide) rise.
5
Most mass shootings appear to be suicides, basically. Suicides by angry people who want to go but take others with them as an expression of their anger. In the past, you had a few options for killing yourself and you could leave a nasty note behind to let everyone who'd mistreated you know how awful they were. Now, with the easy availability of guns of mass destruction, you don't have to write a note: you just kill a bunch of people and that says it all.
1
In the past people could go to the local hardware store and buy machine guns and dynamite, no background check needed. You could order firearms from Sears and have them delivered to your door, no background check needed.
What were you saying about the past and the availability of firearms?
1
Thanks, Mr. Lott, for souoblem.rnding the true depth of a severe national problem.
Simply stated- I thought this was a parody- a joke.
4
This article is useless in addressing actual firearms issues in a country that is more dangerous to citizens than any other democratic developed economy. The thing that makes America exceptional is the clueless manner in which millions of citizens are under the superstitious delusion that their freedom from government is ensured by owning firearms, and pretty much anyone should be able to do so.
Shootings have become so common that they are almost not news beyond the day-to-day reality of killing in our society. And yet the rationale of "protecting" one's self remains credible to those too clueless to realize that guns are actually more dangerous to the owner and family than the supposed value it has as protection. The author of this piece ignores that reality.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
2
With hundreds of millions owned, why are there not hundreds of thousands dying since firearms in the home are so dangerous?
Obama's CDC report done in 2013 says defensive gun uses are, at the lowest, around 300,000 a year. How many have died from their home kept firearm? More than that? Half of that? A quarter of that?
Senator Ted Kennedy was denied boarding on commercial flights between Washington DC and Boston on FIVE occasions by airline employees who knew him because his name was on a 'no fly' list. Was that a reason to scrap TSA and the 'no fly' list? NO! Also, it is a misrepresentation that people buy guns for self defense. 50% of all guns in America are owned by 3% of our population; so called 'super owners' who own an average of 17 guns each. That is not for self defense.
2
Ever hear of this thing called Due Process? Why do you dislike the Bill of Rights so?
If those folks on the do not fly list are so dangerous they shouldn't be owning firearms, why are they walking around free? Shouldn't they be in jail? Why are they not?
I disagree with, but understand in principle, your supposed urge to present many sides of many issues.
But as in hard news coverage, so in editorial: you allow for a diversity of opinions best by forcing people to be accurate in their statements of facts.
You have spent three years permitting Trump and his posse to make the most outrageous and inaccurate statements and accusations and claims of success with out stopping, mid-article, to correct them where they are stated.
And here, knowing as you surely do that Lott is a long established liar and academic fraud, that he is paid to promote hideous ideas regarding guns, that he is the creator and beneficiary of the "Research Center" you list to pads his credentials, you allow to go unchallenged frequent and obvious misstatements of fact, and outright lies.
This constricts rather than broadens debate, it cements viewpoints in opposition, and it, frankly, constantly brings up the question of just how tone deaf a major media outlet can be and still claim to be an honest broker if ideas.
4
When Lott was anti-gun I'm sure all his facts were actual facts and he wasn't a liar then.
This whole piece is so ridiculous as to be laughable. One paragraph stands out, though:
If people believe that background checks reduce crime and benefit everyone, everyone should pay for it, out of general government revenue. Pushing background checks on private transfers as proposed during the hearing disarms many law-abiding poor people.
Now, where I live, a private automobile is a near-necessity. Following the author's logic, if my vehicle fails a safety inspection, then the public should foot the bill for my brake job. But of course it doesn't work that way. It falls to me to somehow budget enough to keep my car on the road legally if I want to drive.
3
If a person's firearm breaks down, it is the owner's responsibility to fix it.
How many background checks and 4473 forms do have you filled out to buy a car?
As far as the safety inspection, work to change the laws. It's your government forcing you to get the safety inspection, and it isn't about safety.
Poor John Lott. As so many commentators herein have said, the man just can't see the obvious fact that the incidence of gun violence is the promiscuous availability of firearms.
1
No, it's the lack of humanity in humans.
Firearm ownership goes up, crime has gone down. I guess that means crime actually went up, right? So 2 + 2 = 4 which means that 4 + 2 = 2. Got it.
Why do you give John Lott a space on the page? His commentary makes no sense. Put him in the comments section if you must.
False positives? Someone would have to wait to buy a gun until the background information was checked out and corrected. That is a problem only in NRA world where gun manufacturers are worried about not selling enough weapons.
3
You can't banish someone from a debate. If they want their opinion to be heard they will find and audience. Maybe you could come up with an actual rebuttal explaining your opinion instead of wishing your opponent would disappear.
John Lott should not be published in The New York Times. It is often said but nevertheless untrue that there are at least two sides to every issue. There are zero good arguments for tolerating the mass carnage in America, and the idea that more guns are the solution is something almost no one believes, not even Lott, who goes online under fake names ("Mary Rosh") to defend his own work. Lott no doubt makes a lot of money shilling for the gun industry, but he doesn't believe a word of it. He's always citing statistics that he knows are flawed.
Sometimes ad hominem attacks are appropriate. This is one of those times. I do wonder, since conservatives think the Founders are somehow "theirs," what the people who established this country would say if they could see what guns have done to it in 2018. In any case, Prof. Jack Rakove led a group of academics who filed a brief for the Heller case that looked at the Second Amendment in depth. The report concludes: "Once explored, this context establishes that the private keeping of firearms was manifestly not the right that the Framers of the Bill of Rights guaranteed in 1789."
But if we need to repeal the Second Amendment, we should. Yes, John, you're right: There is indeed a war on guns. And I will do whatever I can to make sure my side wins. Heaven forfend that someone be inconvenienced in their attempt to purchase a gun. Horror of horrors! ... As if this is an urgent issue. People like you should be ashamed of yourselves.
2
Yes, let's make them cheaper. "A gun in every cupboard.!" That will make us safe.
NYT is this really a guy to give a platform to? This is pandering to the NRA: both those politicians they are funding and their own financial sources.
How about a bit more investigation of the Russian/NRA connection?
In whose interest is it that we suffer a self inflicted epidemic of gun violence?
1
Of the 33,000+ Americans who die from gunshot each year about 2/3rds are suicides and 80% of those are white men. And military veterans are disproportionally represented in that deadly cohort. Checking white male military veterans will cover the most at-risk background. Mental health is another key risk background factor that needs checking. Mass shootings are relatively rare. While 95% of gun shot deaths involve people of the same color aka race.
1
I'm confused, as I thought advertisements were separate from Editorial in the New York Times.
But here's Mr. Lott with his oblivious op-ed arguing for more, not less access to guns, and how we can stop mass shooters by arming more 'good guys with guns' to act as what, exactly -- Part-time would-be heroes?
Background Checks are not, in fact, the answer to gun control. But they'd be a good start, and it'd get us closer to democracies whose gun deaths per capita are a hundredth of ours.
Imagine if we treated guns like cars -- you'd need a licence obtained after written and practical tests; when you bought a gun, there'd be a formal transfer-of-title for every gun sale, and each gun stamped with a VIN-style number (removal or alteration was punishable with fines or jail) so it could be connected from owner to owner. You'd also need mandatory private insurance, with a minimum of $1 million; insurance providers, interested in safer customers to pay for riskier ones, would then take up the burden and cost of performing background checks as part of determining the cost-per-gun for insurance, and would do so far more diligently than the private sector. You could even create a brief amnesty period where any gun you didn't want to insure or have a VIN applied to could be given back to the State's Firearms licencing division.
Mr. Lott is wrong; then again, he's paid a lot to be. I'm mulling canceling my subscription -- The Times shouldn't be hauling the NRA's water.
2
Yea, lets treat firearms like cars. Sounds great! Here, check out how that would work. I will give you a snippet of the article:
http://thewriterinblack.blogspot.com/2015/02/license-guns-like-cars.html
"If we license guns like cars, then, first, licenses are only required for cars and the operators thereof, that will be operated on the public streets. No license required for use on private property. (Note: Don't bother challenging me on this; I used to drive autocross and have not only seen, but driven, more than a few cars that are not licensed, titled, or otherwise registered because they were never intended for use on public streets. In fact, most of them weren't legal for public streets.)
Licenses will be available to individuals as young as 16, learners permits (for operating with supervision on the public streets) as young as 15 (depending on the State)."
The 2nd Amendment says nothing about the personal ownership of guns and is a relic of slavery. The NRA has spent 40-years maligning the public’s perception of the Amendment. There has always been some form of gun control in the cities and states of the United States. The issue is how to craft rational gun control to reduce gun violence. The massacre at PULSE nightclub in 2016 suggests that the LGBTQ community could lead the way in this discussion. Visit my website at www (dot) ChuckStewartPhD (dot) net to read an academic paper on this topic. Together we can reduce gun violence. Thank you for your time. Chuck Stewart, Ph.D. Just visit www.ChuckStewartPhD.net and click on the Pulse link.
1
I am one of those rare progressives who also believes in the Second Amendment and that the vast majority of gun laws are either useless or ineffective if the goal is to prevent gun deaths and violence. I wish more progressives and liberals would think this through more. My view is practical and "public health" oriented. Here is what I know: 1) millions of Americans own guns and there are many millions of different types of guns they own. It is very rare that owners commit any acts of violence with those guns. 2) The vast majority of gun deaths are the result of suicide or poor gun safety. So why not put our money and effort into: 1) emotional gun safety - resources for those with depression and those with anger issues ("Put it down, give it to a friend, walk away, get help"). 2) Have the government (not the gun owner) pay for gun safes and other gun storage mechanisms as well as back ground checks. Gun manufacturers can also help cover this cost. 3) make the penalties for using or threatening to use a gun in a crime or domestic violence situation steep and unrelenting. Long prison terms if a gun owner is so stupid to think their gun is meant for this purpose.
Who doesn't believe in the 2nd Amendment? I don't know anyone who doesn't. That doesn't mean there can't be changes made.
The fundamental problem with background checks is that they restrain freedom of trade. The gun industry must make significant profits to afford to support professionals such as Mr Lott. Background checks are job killers! No other consumer product is subject to such statist nonsense. What's next? Background checks for buying medicines, tobacco, driving a car, renting a car, getting hired as a nanny, for voting? Madness!
The author of this piece believes that solving the problem of having enough firearms for every man, woman and child in America, is to have even more guns out there. Concealed.
Of course this type of thinking is why we heave all the shootings, both intentional and accidental.
Because it will be the concealed carriers who will always be good guys, in Mr Lotts universe. These good guys, never suffer mental problems, never have outbursts of anger, and never go nuts and climb up in a hotel room and shoot people from a snipers perch.
So we sit back and let the country be flooded with firearms, then folks like Mr Lott come along, and say OMG, we need to put more guns out there to protect ourselves from others with the guns that are there because of our lax gun laws.
Some very odd thinking there, Mr Lott.
If you have the money to buy a gun, you can pay for your own background check, just like if I buy a car no one else is expected to pay for my required auto insurance.
27
But actually, if you buy a car, everybody, whether they have a car or not, pays for the roads you drive on, the government infrastructure that provides your driver license and prevents non-approved people from driving, and the police who protect the roads and enforce the laws, through their taxes.
1
I don't, but I'll bet I'm shelling out for the road you drive it on.
Not only that, but if we borrow any of the cost of the car, we pay for the credit check.
"According to my analysis, the reason is simple . . . "
The laughingstock that is John Lott brazenly pleads his analysis?
Here's an analysis of another analysis by John Lott--from that well-known far-left outfit the Cato Institute.
https://www.cato.org/blog/fatal-flaw-john-r-lott-jrs-study-illegal-immig...
1
The Times fails to inform its readers that the Crime Prevention Research Council is pro-gun think tank. John Lott's writings have been widely discredited. https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/. And speaking of background checks, the Times should have done one on John Lott before giving him space on their op-ed page.
5
John R. Lott Jr. is not a credible person and not an honest person.
Check his history as outlined here:
https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/
We don't need these industry hacks undermining gun control efforts. They don't care about the lives lost, the life-long injuries caused by gun violence. They care only about the paycheck they get from the gun industry.
(to the NYT moderators: please have the courage to approve this)
2
Why is the NYTimes giving a voice to Mr. Lott? He has been exposed for multiple instances of fake reporting. He is not a reputable academic. See https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/ A forum for dissenting voices? Yes. A forum for fraudsters? No.
2
These gun fetishist screeds are getting to tired. The writer proposes that background checks are too expensive and should be paid for by all Americans? The gun buyer who had to "get a unique transaction number" was forced to endure "another bureaucratic step"? Oh the humanity! Perhaps the writer would like the federal government to simply supply every baby born in America a nice shiny new gun on the day of his or her birth. Would that be enough?
2
Or we could go back to the second amendment and stop ignoring the bit about a "well regulated militia". Wanna play with guns? Join the military. Or the police. National Guard. Anything except the gangs the NRA and the Crime Prevention Research Center like to promote as 2nd Amendment patriots.
The nonsense the republican congress just passed which forces states and cities with common sense concealed carry laws to allow concealed carry from any state in the Union is the most unconservative idea I have ever heard. States' Rights? Hah!
If states like Alabama want to allow any yahoo with a pulse the right to bear arms in schools, churches, malls, and theaters fine. You want to visit NYC or Denver leave your gun at home. You can't bear to be apart from your gun, stay the heck out of our cities.
Remember what all those "good guys with guns" were doing while the Vegas shooter was ending 50+ lives? They were running for cover.
Hogwash, to you Mr. Lott Jr.
2
Well-regulated does not mean "subject to regulatory regimes." It mean, "properly functioning," like a well- regulated timepiece.
Citation needed. Thanks in advance.
Poor gun owner had to wait to get a gun because his name was similar to a deranged psychopath. Sad story, bro.
1
The names in NICS that are "confused" are most often hispanic, because over 50% of the names in the database are there for "unlawful immigration."
NICS in fact discriminates against law abiding hispanics who wish to defend themselves.
I guess it would be silly to ask when California will end background checks for illegal immigrants.
Spot on. The only answer to gun violence is even more gun violence. Background checks and regulations be damned, let's go for the gusto!
1
There's no "war on guns" as the title of Mr. Lott's book suggests. But there damned well ought to be.
3
My first thought upon reading this was "where am I?" This sounds like something from the Daily Signal!
Upon reflection though, I'm glad that the NYT decided to publish this man's opinion. After all, we should be open to all opinions.
However, Mr. Lott is misguided at best. But then, it seems that most people, when it comes to guns, are misguided - even those of us who want there to be less guns and more checks.
Why on earth is it BETTER to make it easier to get a gun? Even for so-called "law abiding citizens"? In my mind, and like I said I may be misguided, getting a gun should be something that should be extremely difficult to acquire. If your name is mistakenly on a list, then you may have to spend some time getting it off, but surely that's a small price to pay if you really want your gun.
What I find most disturbing however is this notion Mr. Lott seems to hit quite a few times that the government or those of us who want LESS guns, are somehow making "poor" people less safe. It's my experience that those who want something - anything - bad enough will find a way to get it. If a "poor" person wants a gun, then they should spend their hard-earned money to get one. But don't blame me.
We live in a country basically awash in guns. We seem to foster a culture where we believe anyone with a gun is a crack shot and brave as hell. None of these things are good. If you want a gun - jump through the hoops.
The left's inability to understand and protect the unalienable rights bestowed to us by the creator, which the BoR enumerates and protects the citizens from being denied by their own, non-benevolent government, is astounding. Way to rile them up John.
1
Background checks do nothing about the guy (and it's always a guy) who has never been in trouble with the law or the mental health system before but decides one day that he's fed up with his old lady, or his ex, or his boss and co-workers, or the cops, or the perverts at the gay nightclub, or the other kids at school, or the whole rotten world, and decides express himself with lead.
One thing missing from this screed: Logic.
3
Why does the New York Times lend credence to John Lott? All media should require him to explain who Mary Rosh is.
2
NYT, why are you giving a gun advocate who delivers flawed research paid for by the NRA and gun manufacturers a platform in your paper? Is Alex Jones going to pontificate next?
3
This is just a feeble attempt at merchandising, Mr. Lott just wants more consumers to by more expensive guns so that they can play John Wayne in the neighborhood. I hope NYT charged advertising rates for publishing this.
2
No background check system will be perfect, therefore we must do nothing. Standard specious argument. You fool no one, Mr Lott, except possibly yourself.
3
Wow, every lunatic fringe crackpot lie in the NRA playbook has been stuffed into this editorial. I'm all for the Times publishing op eds showing different sides of an argument, but this garbage is not "fit to print." In fact the opinions expressed in this piece are downright menace to any civilized society.
1
I’m surprised that the NYT would give space to Mr. Lott.
1
I actually read this garbage, but I feel like I spent the last few minutes in the Twilight Zone. This guy is delusional.
1
I can't believe the NY Times would publish such ridiculousness. "More guns" as the answer? Please. No.
1
Yes - finally a sane approach. Let's give everyone a gun and allow carry everywhere - even mandate it. That way, disagreements that used to be settled with a debate, a curse word, or a middle finger can now be settled the "manly way": a duel at 5 paces. Even toddlers will benefit from this and schools will save on costs: no more having to learn how to get along with others or color between the lines.
Of course, the same "right to carry" MUST then extend to every state house in the country AND to the US Congress (as well as in every bar, football game, airplane, etc...) geesh...
1
NYT, do you know who this guy is? Really not worthy of gracing your op-ed pages. If you felt like you needed a pro-gun piece I'm sure you could have found someone better.
1
John Lott’s research is not reliable. Simply a shill paid to write on one side of the issue only.
1
Of course, the answer to gun crime is more guns. Always, no matter what. NRA shill.
1
Please publish credible writers about gun violence like Dr. Daniel Webster in Johns Hopkins University or Dr. David Hemenway in Harvard University; not Lott.
1
How about:
-- we recognize both clauses of the 2nd Amendment, as opposed to the recently truncated version now in operation?
-- we make the consumer gun industry a not-for-profit affair, helping to normalize discussion of the legal homicide amendment (2nd)?
-- that authors of op-ed pieces encouraging us to dismiss one approach to reducing mayhem caused by privately-owned weapons be ready to supply another, at least equally plausible substitute?
1
A handgun is much harder to shoot accurately than depicted in the movies and on TV, especially the smaller pistols used for concealed carry. Add to that the need to be sure of what lies behind and beyond your target lest your bullet hit an innocent down the street, and the fear and adrenalin in such a situation and you have a recipe for disaster. Last year in my town two armed men attempted to rob a local merchant located on the busy main street. The merchant was armed and shot at the would-be thieves ten times, missing them entirely. Bullets sprayed out into a street where shoppers were walking. No one, somehow, was injured or killed, but only through luck.
I submit that this typifies the citizen v. bad guy far more than the citizen who pulls his handgun and drops the villain from 25 feet with one or two perfectly aimed shots.
We need a system that works. Banning guns doesn’t because people have a right to personal protection (not to mention target shooting and hunting) The current system is flawed and to fix it government must necessarily be involved. So get intelligent folks together, analyze the subject, and fix it once and for all.
This from a gun owner with two weapons for personal defense and two for target shooting.
1
The government is an organization that seems determined to be as inept as it can possibly be (starting with an election process that allows for somebody like
Donald Trump to be 'elected' President). Any organization that allows for
that can't really be trusted to do anything else.
Background checks would not have prevented the Va Tech shooting, the Aurora movie theater, Orlando, Newtown or Oak Creek, WI. Could have made it more difficult for the murderer in Charleston. And so on.
I will soon re-new my Conceal Carry Permit for the state of NC. Twice now I have filled out a comprehensive 4-page form and been fingerprinted. Cost to me was $80 each time, plus I had to take a day-long training class before my first application.
i don't mind at all this approval process for the permit. But it won't stop mass shootings and it won't stop the annual 25,000 suicides by firearms which is a much larger problem than the mass shootings. Within a month or so of the Newtown massacre, about an equal number of children were killed by accidental discharge of firearms, but that drip and drop of a death here and a death there goes unnoticed. These are the real issues and background checks do nothing to stop the loss of life.
We are a violent society and I admit that I have no idea how to change that.
I see that Mr. Lott rapidly flipped from a thesis about how improving background checks wouldn't help stop mass shootings to actually arguing that background checks cost money, are sometimes inconvenient, don't lead to enough prosecutions, and blah-blah.
This is not surprising, goven that Mr. LOtt helped write the single phiniest and yet often-cited "research study," of gun violence, the one that ginned up the numbers about "millions," of crimes stopped annually by gun toters, the one that's generally been used to interfere with the checks system.
It served, in fact, as among the justifications for the Virginia legislature to bar their state's checks system from coordinating with the Feds, thus allowing the Virginia Tech shooter to buy two Glocks and a passel of ammo.
32 people died.
The argument about reducing gun violence by allowing "millions of law-abiding Americans" to buy guns never makes sense to me. This opinion piece gives no data about armed civilians preventing gun violence. It just says that some former law enforcement people support arming more people. There is no war on guns. There is a war on the safety of American people by those who want no limitations on gun ownership.
I remember an episode of All in Family where Mike and Archie were discussing airline highjacking. Archie's solution was to give a handgun to every passenger when they boarded and collect the handguns when the deplaned. It seems the author is proposing the same solution..."more civilians carrying permitted concealed handguns". If a criminal starts shooting and "good guys" start returning fire, how will the police tell them apart? What will happen to other innocent bystanders as the bullets fly? What will be the liability of a "good guy" who shoots an innocent bystander by mistake?
This whole debate is never-ending, but misses the point: until guns are restricted to make them as difficult to buy/obtain as most everyday items, nothing will change. Consider the hoops you need to jump through to get:
- cold medicine
- drivers license
- marriage license
- booze and weed (we can buy weed where I live :))
- fishing license
- building permit
- cutting down trees on your property
- fireworks
- boarding a plane
Or, we could just outlaw most non-hunting guns and call the problem solved, but that would make too much sense.
Those who so vociferously argue for banning guns in society should think through their advocacy very carefully. If they get their way what is left is that government employees alone will be the only ones to own guns. I’m excluding the military because they are only armed for specific missions or when in a theater of war. The legions of armed government employed extend well beyond your local police. They are politically active and aggressively represented by well healed unions. They are a political interest group unto themselves. I am not talking about shooting back at government officials but that gun ownership is a crucial symbol of a citizen’s political equality to a or any government official. One is not superior to the other. Those who would sacrifice their freedom for security will soon find themselves neither free nor secure. A freedom lost can rarely be regained.
I would be laughing if the subject of this essay were not so serious. The author fails to give even one example of a person wrongly denied access to a gun who later was later victimized. He fails to give one example of a person who could not afford a gun because of background check fees who was later victimized. He fails to give one example of a person with a permit to carry a concealed gun who successfully intervened to save a life. The premise of this essay is that having a gun saves lives when the facts are clear that the exact opposite is true.
After reading this article, I'm convinced that background checks or probably not the best way to change the gun control laws, Ok. But giving more people guns is definitely NOT the answer either. And especially self proclaimed "law-abiding gun owners"! There must be better solutions on the table...?
Fully implementing and enforcing laws is a legit concern for debate and further exploration, but as a statistician I do take exception to the false positive claim. The potential cost of false negative, in my opinion, is much more egregious than that of a false positive. All systems have errors and inefficiencies to some extent. Public policy should be weighing, not perfection, but which inefficiencies are most egregious. A person who "needs" gun for protection has other avenues for correction, like contacting law enforcement for protection. But the risk of allowing someone who shouldn't get a gun to actually get a gun (the false negative) should carry much more weight than that for those who "want" a gun and cannot get it. The false positive argument stinks of the NRA, in my opinion. The author himself contradicts by saying that there have been 377,283 denials between 2006 to 2010. That's far lower than the "millions of law-abiding citizens [prevented] from buying guns for protection." And for those who say you can't change gun laws because it's in the constitution, I recommend you study the document further because that's what amendments are for.
Credit and employers are now examining an individual's Facebook and Twitter feeds to assess their legitimacy. Soon very reliable mechanisms will be implemented using social network histories and biometrics. When that happens, a very powerful way means to exert social supervision of a person's stability will be available: I can't see you a gun until at least 10 of your friends (who are already rated as reliable) rate you as reliable.
Don't think that this isn't coming? A violation of 2nd Amendment Rights? Guess again. It's inevitable.
We license drivers and cars, inspect the vehicle annually and apply a sticker. And we have to be insured to drive a car. And we have a local government agency to run it. Hmm, that sounds like a pretty good system for gun ownership.
The NRA and the nannies both will be quick to remind you that owning a gun to kill someone is a right while driving to work is a privilege therefore none of what you say about cars should be applied to guns.
Two things. One, I've never bought that driving is a privilege and not a right. Oh sure, states have enacted laws to make it so, but just like the right to breath isn't included in the constitution the right to travel is so fundamental it wasn't thought to be necessary to call out. Two. No right, other than gun ownership it is claimed, is thought to be without reasonable limitations (such as shouting "Fire!" in a theater).
"According to my analysis, the reason is simple: a high percentage of cases are dropped because the applicant was wrongly denied clearance to buy a gun."
Can this analysis be shared? Only prosecuting 460/377,283 cases sounds like a problem of the government not having enough resources. To claim that the government decides not to prosecute nearly 99.9% of the cases because they are false positives is to simultaneously claim the government uses a check with a high false positive rate, but has some low false positive check to decide not to prosecute. If that really is the case then it sounds like we need to find a way to bring the background check up to the accuracy of this second check.
One wonders if his opinion is the same for rules regarding the no-fly list. Does he fall on the side of someone with a similar name to a terrorist? Should we get rid of that precaution because it causes onerous bureaucratic red tape for some citizens?
Of course, the easiest way to get rid of background checks is to stop selling guns entirely but I'm not holding my breath.
Somehow I have little sympathy for those who somehow lost their right to purchase guns who then are restored that privilege that then have a difficult time purchasing because records are slow to be updated.
I’d rather see resources spent on making federal agencies follow reporting related (as Air Force did not) And even $ spent taking guns away from those convicted of domestic violence nationwide.
Very weak argument John. It would be easy to mandate a maximum charge for the background check so the disadvantaged people you are so "concerned" about could afford background checks. They run from $10 to $25 in my experience. I am an NRA member but don't cotton these weak trumped up arguments.
When you take the class for concealed carry permit they tell you you are not a member of law enforcement, your fire arm is to be used as a last resort. Anyone with the slightest bit of common sense knows responding police don't know you are a good guy and will be treated accordingly. Yet the more gun crowd say they know the cure. Using a gun might be your only chance to survive but it could also get you killed.
To anyone listening the solution is to put a tax stamp on any weapon that takes a detachable magazine. People will lose interest in them as people lost interest in short barreled rifles when a stamp was a plied to them.
There is no reason that background checks have to drive up the price of guns; NY and WA add high feeds for ideological reasons to discourage the purchase of guns.
I've purchased 6 firearms in the last year through licensed dealers. A NICS check involves five minutes of effort by the dealer, if they're *really* slow at typing and have poor eyesight.
John Lott does himself a disservice by not quantifying the number of false positives but instead asserting a high number. This is as deceptive as the anti-gun people conflating suicides with homicides and claiming that states like Vermont need tougher gun laws to combat "gun violence". But Lott's criticism of astronomical fees to do a background check is valid--the clear purpose of these fees is not to make us safer but to deter gun transfers. Likewise, I would like to see a better discussion of how people who should not be on the NICS list can get off of it (I know at least one) in today's polarized and risk-averse environment.
Surprised the NY Times ran a Lott piece given its strident anti-gun editorial stance, but glad they did. Its about time a competing voice got into the Grey Lady on this subject.
"So what should be done when the background check system fails to stop mass killers from attacking? One answer is to have more civilians carry permitted concealed handguns. "
This is the New York Times, isn't it?
I'm doubtful that the average wimp, like myself, really wants to make that decision to kill another human being for reasons short of he's murdering a lot of people with his own automatic rifle(s) And if he is, we are running for cover out of instinct.
Police officers spend six months in an academy, and then many years of learning how to use deadly force, when it's proper. Their visceral fear is diminished by not only their training, but often by protective vests.
To make the central argument of the NRA, is to engage it seriously. Of course, background checks isn't a real deterrent, but its a political meme that allows one to straddle the liberal and conservative truisms. Guns don't expire, and with the hundreds of millions now in the hands of the public, eliminating them is hopeless, as then it would only be the really bad guys who follow the rules to give them up like what happened in Australia, with a fraction of our population.
Gun violence is a public health issue like obesity, smoking and drunk driving. And legislation like background checks and waiting periods ( which are key to reducing impulsive suicidal acts with firearms) have been proven effective. But technology played a key role in other public health issues such as electronic rollover stabilizers and air bags in drunk driving and they can play a key role in reducing gun deaths. Specifically RFID smart guns that can only be operated by the authorized user do no violate anyone's Second Amendment rights and can save thousands of lives in reducing child gun accidents, suicides with a third party firearm and the 80% of crimes with a firearm involving the 350,000 guns stolen annually in the US each year
This article is based on the idea that people require guns to “protect their family.” Household gun possession is more likely to result in an accident or suicide involving a family member or friend than it is to deter or eliminate a stranger intent on doing harm to a family member.
The combination of a tribal siege mentality, racism, and misplaced machismo creates a false vision of a strong, brave, (usually) man firing off rounds of bullets to save his family from an assault by evil strangers. This rarely happens, but many people seem certain that such an opportunity is in their future.
Fewer guns means less gun violence. More guns means more gun violence. And more gun violence means more innocent people shot as well as more guilty people shot. Since there are vastly more innocent people than guilty people in America, it seems clear that more guns will harm more of them.
The thought that what a bad guy with a gun requires is more good guys with guns to shoot him leads inevitably to a conclusion where more people are shot, and not only bad guys. This is not dissimilar from the idea that giving North Korea a “bloody nose” is worth putting millions of South Korean and Japanese lives at risk. But then again, they’re not Norwegian, so it’s OK.
The answer to gun violence cannot be more guns. It cannot be an entire populace walking around armed with concealed weapons.
A simple Gedanken proves this assertion. Imagine a world filled with guns, but absent humans. In this logical extreme, there is no gun violence against humans. Imagine another world, filled with humans but absent guns. In this other logical extreme, there is no gun violence against humans.
Therefore, it is proven: gun violence against humans requires both guns and humans. Reducing either, reduces the violence. Guns don't kill people without human action. But more guns kill more people, whether intentionally (homicide, suicide), or accidentally (hunting accidents, guns left in a state where unintended humans access them).
If background checks limit guns and gun use, then we should have more background checks.
The fear people carry is fake. Using twisted logic (and Mr Lott's manipulation of data and anecdotes is provably twisted, violating multiple rules of logic), advertisers like the NRA and Mr Lott 'convince' people they are, or should be, afraid. And then they 'convince' them that guns are the answer to their fear.
Reject fear. But if you cannot, then reject guns as the answer to your fear. There are less expensive means to address that fear -- expensive not only in terms of money, but in terms of infection of other people with your fear, and injection into society of increasing numbers of devices which provable kill people.
1
I think that the empirical evidence that more guns lead to more gun violence is irrefutable.
Suppose every one of the concert goers in Las Vegas had been carrying a concealed weapon, what difference would that have made to the death count?
Case closed on the more guns, safer society argument.
1
I have a hard time believing that we all need guns to protect ourselves. What on Earth are we protecting ourselves from that lethal force is necessary? The gun lobby, as well as our President, would like us all to live in constant fear for our lives from unseen boogeymen hiding around every corner so that we would be compelled to arm ourselves. If crime statistics are to be used as evidence, violent crime is in the decline, in stark opposition to the foreboding those people vociferously profess.
I would think that greater home security would be a safer and less expensive alternative to having dangerous weapons in the house. As for arming oneself outside the home, I have a hard time imagining when I would find the need to kill someone while out running errands or driving to and from my workplace. It is prudent to avoid conflicts by living a peaceful life and not welcoming trouble as well as always being situationally aware while out in public.
It just seems to me that being armed would attract violence and conflict, not prevent it.
The title of this article, "Background checks are not the answer to gun violence," is completely misleading, since it suggests that the author is proposing some other answer to gun violence. He is not. All he says is that background checks are bad--so bad that they are preventing poor people from buying guns! (As if the author really cares about poor people.)
And then there is the case of Ronnie Coleman, whose name was confused with someone else and who was then "advised to get a unique transaction number from the background system to prevent this confusion in the future, adding another bureaucratic step to the process." Oh heavens, what a terrible burden on Mr. Coleman, having to get a unique transaction number.
So what is the author's great solution to gun violence? "To have more civilians carry permitted concealed handguns." Brilliant, just brilliant! Those law-abiding gun owners surely would have been able to prevent the Las Vegas mass shooting! Imagine if hundreds of armed concert goers had started firing away at that hotel window--or perhaps at each other--that would have put an end to it....
The gun situation in America is madness, pure madness.
Here's the problems with background checks.
First: firearms are regulated on a state (and in the case of Concealed Carry permits, at the county and city level) by state basis. Everybody has different rules.
Second: GIGO, Garbage In, Garbage Out. Or what happens when jurisdictions don't submit information to the FBI, or don't bother to send complete information.
5
The article draws one in with the tag line: "there are better ways to prevent mass shootings."
But these "better ways" are reserved for the penultimate paragraph, where we're told that concealed carry is the answer. Evidence cited? Law enforcement professionals are for it.
For such a billing, this is some scant evidence and Mr. Lott does nothing to explain to us 1) why the results of an opinion poll should tell us anything about the efficacy of concealed carry, 2) why we shouldn't take the results with a huge grain of salt given the "of [those] who responded" (i.e., not only is it not an empirical study, it's not even a scientific poll!), and 3) why this evidence is better than or dispatches with studies that raise worries that concealed carry laws may actually increase gun violence.
So in the end, we have a nice analysis of some of the problems with background checks but nothing to offer with regards to the plague of mass shootings in this country.
1
Charging a law abiding citizen $125 for a background check for a right guaranteed by the US Constitution is a blatant violation human rights! Imagine the holier than thou "its racist, xenophobic, anti Semitic, misogamist, xenophobic ... " shrieking accusations there would be in this paper, and the "protests" with looting and arson that would be orchestrated, if those special-victim identity voting blocks dependent on the democratic party for government welfare $$ or the privilege to violate immigration laws/regulations had to pay $125 to register to vote!
There's a huge difference between the right to life and to vote and the right to own a high-powered killing machine. And the constitution does not give an absolute guarantee of that right, which it gave in the era of muskets.
Namecalling those amongst us who want to be able to go about our daily business without worry about some hothead with a gun is not an argument, it's a sign that you've gone over the edge in your rage.
Killing people under anything but the most extreme provocation is wrong. Nobody needs to be able to kill dozens of people in minutes. And if everybody had guns in such an event, many more people would die.
13
A right is a right. You can't charge a tax to exercise a right, even if it's one you Bostonians don't like.
This author has severe ethical problems: his main asset is he's popular with Republicans who want to push more guns and put the rest of us at risk.
He emerged after Sandy Hook: nothing like exploiting children's deaths to promote more guns and lies as the solution to our lack of respect for something more "sacred" than the right to own high-powered killing machines; the right to life and safety!
"The GOP’s favorite gun ‘academic’ is a fraud: The journalistic quest for neutrality has led to a sacrifice of intellectual integrity."
"Not only was Lott’s assertion that more guns leads to more safety formally repudiated by a National Research Council panel, but he had also been caught pushing studies with severe statistical errors on numerous occasions. An investigation uncovered that he had almost certainly fabricated an entire survey on defensive gun use. And a blogger revealed that Mary Rosh, an online commentator claiming to be a former student of Lott’s who would frequently post about how amazing he was, was in fact John Lott himself. He was all but excommunicated from academia.
"Despite his ethical failings, Lott rose from the ashes in the wake of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School to once more become a prominent voice in the gun debate."
---
Meanwhile, the most extreme gun owners are eager to provide "second amendment solutions" if they lose elections and get their corruptions exposed.
6
The article cited (you can google the title) also mentions that Mr. Lott often pretends to be other people to boost his reputation.
3
I reject the assertion that most people buying handguns are doing so "to protect themselves" in any rational sense of what that phrase implies. This is a romantic fantasy in most cases, not all. When the gun lobby claims that "they are going to come and take your guns away" gun sales go up 100's of percent. Those many extra thousands of guns are not protecting anyone. They put their owners lives and those of family members and guests - especially children - at greater risk.
In the case of legitimate and demonstrated need background checks aught to be part of the process one has to go through to carry a handgun; so should training, a meaningful demonstration of competency with the weapon, and screening that the carrier is able to behave ethically with the weapon should be too.
10
Baloney. Over 500,000 concealed carriers in MI alone and ZERO evidence to support your claims. Dr. Lott is right - More Guns, Less Crime.
10
More guns equal more gun crime. This is obviously true at the limit - with zero guns you have will have zero gun violence. There also is a tremendous amount of statistical evidence that the seemingly obvious idea that "more guns will result in more gun violence" as well. The fact that MI has 500,000 concealed carriers is not an argument for or against you position.
Massachusetts has some of the toughest guns laws in the country and is last in gun deaths. Michigan is actually above the national average.
2
I disagree with some of Mr. Lott's positions, but I commend the Times for publishing an opinion that does not conform to its editorial position, something the Times often fails to do. At the same time, I condemn the reader who is "appalled that the NY Times would give him space for this specious column."
3
Mr. Lott has previously been proven as a shill and as a bad scientist, all via empirical provable transgressions. The problem isn't that this editorial doesn't 'conform to the Times' position,' it's that it doesn't conform to the Times' standards.
As for condemning readers who are "appealed that the Times would give space to this specious column," what have they done wrong in your eyes, other than a little research into who pays Mr. Lott's rent and grocery money?
Quit being gullible because you like your bang-bang toy,
JJR.
Evidently Mr. Lott's piece does conform to the standards of the Times, since it was published. My objection is not to those who research, analyze, and critique Mr. Lott's work; I object to those who would deny him space in the Times and elsewhere because he does not meet their standards, so as to preclude free and open discussion.
FYI: I have never owned a "bang-bang toy" or any other kind of firearm. But your nasty and demeaning attitude toward those who do own guns partly explains the difficulty gun law advocates encounter in Congress.
Yes, insane people should not be allowed to buy or possess guns or sharp objects.
2
Finally an op-ed in the NYT that makes sense. It may be a first.
1
Only if you want it to make sense. The author's facts and conclusions are supported only by his own specious research.
Didn't somebody shoot at the church killer in Texas? Would you consider that, then, to be a successful example of US/Texas gun policy? '26 dead, but it could have been more if we didn't have more guns'. What a joke.
2
You do understand that
this is reality, not Hollywood
we have no idea what happens to human beings when they fearful
you want more untrained, gun-wielding citizens in the streets
you are no hero
you are the problem
4
Too. Many. Guns. Period.
5
Part of the answer to gun violence is banishing disgraced "academic" frauds like John Lott from the debate.
3
Clearly, you want to take guns away from people but do you also want to take away free speech?
So the solution to background checks is more people with guns. So
unds like a theme
3
As sure as the sun rises in the morning, here's another shill for the gun industry advocating for even more guns. Pathetic.
5
AG, kudos...
You folks have finally realized that having a single narrative isn't the sustainable path for the NYT...
It's not about the token counterpoint op-ed, either...
It's about hosting and facilitating the metanarrative that is contemporary social and political reality...
Even simple democracy doesn't cut it, any more...
Almost like George Carlin's "football and baseball"...
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor7.shtml
There's good democracy (enlightened progressives, accepting Hillary but liking Bernie) and bad democracy - aka - populism, that elects trolls and cretins, because these populists are the human embodiment of the troll/cretin identity-demographic...
All that matter is how fast the US is growing vs...
> Last year
> China
If you're not growing, you're growing old...
How about some sort of grand bargain - for example...
For every gun death in America, we invite 100 immigrants into the country - if they agree to settle within five miles of where the murder occurred, for five years...
Got as good a chance as getting to 60 votes in the Senate, as most other things they're talking about this week...
4
any fool can see there better way is to ban handguns, or all guns.
1
The idea that more people with guns would provide more security reminds me of an old French (quite funny) movie, where a marketing department designs a promotion campaign and announces on commercials on the radio that the next day, agents of the company will walk through the streets with an egg in their hand. Customers are invited to also take an egg, and whenever they spot an agent with his egg, they must break their own egg on the agent's head, and they will get a free sample of the new product. Of course, there are no agents, just customers with eggs in their hands, and all hell breaks loose as they break eggs on each other's heads. It's exactly what would happen if bullets start flying, and everyone in the room draws a gun and decides to shoot at the bad guy, which is easily identified because he has a gun… (actually there was a TV show where a redneck gun lover claimed that if people in the country music festival in Las Vegas had had guns, they could have responded to the gunner – although in reality it took ages to identify he was shooting from a building hundreds of yards away)
4
you say 'Mr. Coleman was advised to get a unique transaction number from the background system to prevent this confusion in the future, adding another bureaucratic step to the process.' I was expecting you to say that in the time it took him to get his gun, he was gunned down by a bad guy and did not get a chance to protect himself as he has no gun. Lets get real here- we have a gun problem unprecedented in the history of mankind, and you are complaining about ' adding another bureaucratic step to the process'. pleeeeeeaaaase!!
2
Black is white to every gunster.
They will argue nonsense, deflect, fabricate statistics, assert without proving, all in the service of the NRA's ultimate goal: unlimited guns for all, open carry 24/7.
2
It is so sad to read that poor people are being denied the right to waste their money on funding the gun industry. Very sad especially to read this obvious nonsense in the NYTimes. This piece is blatant industry gun propagandistic marketing and should not have been published.
1
The Good Lord wants us to have second amendment rights, and to be ready to draw at the drop of a hat.
2
Of course background checks are not. Nothing is. Just give everybody more guns. Please. Give us a break with this madness.
1
The commentors are destroying this fraud's writing and arguments.
Cut your loses NY Times and take it down.
Or leave it up so it can be eviscerated and completely rebuked.
2
I expected a sane counter-opinion. What a waste of time.
1
I hate to say this, but this shill is right. Kind of.
Background checks, as proposed by most politicians in the United Sates, are not the solution. What we need is comprehensive background checks similar to Switzerland, Australia, Israel, the UK, Japan, Canada, and the rest of the civilized world. This is obvious. Unfortunately, this gun lobby shill is allowed to present this common sense idea and then muddy it with gun lobby propaganda immediately afterward. His arguments are not only blatantly false but they are ignorant and dangerous.
Dear NY Times: STOP LEGITIMIZING THIS PROPAGANDA BY PUBLISHING IT. John R Lott Jr is a widely discredited gun lobby shill. He has falsified his research numerous times. He has posted on Internet forums under the name 'Mary Rosh' to defend his "work" and been caught doing it. This man should not be given the time of day by a legitimate and respected publication, SO WHY ARE YOU PUBLISHING HIS PROPAGANDA?
80 % of researchers who have studied gun violence agree that background checks will reduce gun violence. Over 90% of Americans, including >75% of NRA members, want increased background checks. Do you think publishing this heinous and ignorant propaganda somehow provides "balance?" Stop. Please. This is not a balanced argument. This is allowing a small minority equal voice to the vast majority, including verified science that proves this article is wrong. Would you publish an article arguing the world is flat? Then why publish this?
2
John Lott = Wayne LaPierre’s favorite gun research “expert”. That’s all you need to know.
4
This should have been published as an"article within an article," where the Times points out its numerous fallacies and the dubious motivations and veracity of the author. The commenters have done this very nicely. But I guess it's legit as an opinion piece, as long as everybody recognizes that it's just one guy's thoughts about the topic, however wrongheaded.
Good. Let's have so many false positives that no one else can buy a gun in this gun-infested country.
Many killers are thrill seekers, betcha.
If they could find another avenue to thrills, they might not want to shoot holes in people.
We need legal, socially constructive, THRILLS
Here is a credible article on use of weapons for self defense.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/defensive-gun-ownership-...
So, you'd think the NYT would maybe vet the information in this "opinion piece". Especially since John Lott was previously exposed as his own biggest fan, Mary Rosh.... (And lying about data, etc...)
Anyway, I Googled his tale of woe concerning Frank Wise of Jacksonville, FL - poster boy for being unable to vote as a convicted felon - er, I mean - unable to purchase a desperately needed gun for self-defense because the gun registry because he was convicted of check fraud for bouncing two checks. The search found nothing, absolutely nada. (I was thinking he would be a NRA poster boy in their literature.) Furthermore, I researched the law itself, to check the criteria - the first on the list (from Wiki) : "Has been convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year" - one year in prison for bouncing two checks? Punishment in Florida is pretty harsh for fraud (cough, cough..) Wonder if Frank Wise had his voter's rights denied?
Maybe the NY Times should pull a background check on it's guest opinion writers and deny their piece if they were exposed previously as liars and plagiarists. Asking Lott for his source of information about poor Frank Wise would've been wise....
2
Did NYT bother to vet the study this guy references? Are the editors in anyway troubled by his call for increased conceal carry of firearms and the end of troublesome background checks because it denies millions the right to buy firearms for protection and RIGHT AWAY. Protection from what? Other gun nuts? Why the hurry? Propaganda like this doesn't help those of us who want a safer, reasonably sane society. Wake up.
Lott is a fraud, and should not be published in the Times. Gross statistical errors in his 'research', fraudulently misrepresenting himself under another name... the list goes on and on. https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/
2
That was one self-serving load. Aw, an added extra bureaucratic step? BGCs add to the cost of a weapon? Too freaking bad. We want to live in safer communities not in some wild west dystopia, Johnny. The idea that more guns make people, families, communities and society safer is demonstrably false. Yes, there are plenty of anecdotes about armed citizens who prevented crimes or protected themselves with firearms. But for every one of those, there are 10 incidents of accidental death, suicide or murder exacerbated by all too easy access to deadly firearms. Gun control advocates are not anti-gun, they are for safety in our communities. There's nothing anti-gun about advocating for safe, sane and responsible gun ownership.
2
Just outlaw guns...simple.
3
.......and what portion of this author's income connects to the NRA????
2
I didn't ever expect a realistic article on firearms to ever be in the NYT.
1
Summary: **Background check system is inefficient, often produces false flags; and is expensive, keeping guns out of the hands of those who really need them for protection. But let's not widen the background check system to private sales, because that will keep more guns out of the hands of more people who may need them.**
I am a Conservative Constitutionalist, but this is trying to rationalize an agenda. How about simply fixing the analysis and execution of the background check system; reduce the cost; and absolutely include every gun sale, whether private, at a show, or through a dealer? Makes sense.
54
The author used approximately nine hundred words to say what really could have more truthfully stated in less than ten. Which is, "Only more guns will solve gun violence."
It's an absurd notion, dressed up like a pig painted in lipstick within this lank propaganda piece. They peddle their lies to consumers via fear and attempt to cover up their real agenda to everyone else via a barrage of garbage and fallacious sophistry.
9
Repeal the Second Amendment and replace it with one that will allow our legislators to pass common-sense laws regulating the ownership, possession, and use of firearms.
For now, every person in range of the village idiot's firearm of choice must take the risk that he will accidentally discharge it, or will misunderstand a situation or mistake his target and will purposely discharge it. And the carnage goes on...
8
Such as get rid of the gun altogether. Note to NRA members, there was no set rules of spelling and punctuation when the Constitution was written there for your interpretation may be wrong.
5
How about this for a solution: Outlaw guns.
11
What a crock! First, we really don't know if background checks would not be effective in helping to curb gun violence such as mass shootings. We haven't tried it on a long-term basis. Background checks coupled with registration of guns and banning the use of assault weapons, again over a long period, could be effective in substantially reducing gun violence. Obviously, what we are doing is not working. I am continually amazed that those who favor gun sales with no restrictions and who oppose any regulations seem to think there can't be positive results from gun control. Just look at most other countries. It can be done while also allowing people to buy guns for protection and hunting. Compromise is always the solution, but the the gun lobby is adamantly opposed to any compromise. So here we are.
6
I appreciate the attempts of the NY Times to present fair coverage of complex issues by offering sometimes unpopular Opinion Pieces. However, it would be adviseable to vett contributors for their credentials and prejudicial bias in presenting misleading and untrue statements.
In this case, the journalistic quest for neutrality has led to a sacrifice of intellectual integrity. Mr. Lott is in no way a responsible journalist and is a crusader for the gun lobby, presenting propaganda.
Please take a few minutes to read about Lott's credentials:
https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/
I'm surprised this Op-Ed piece is not on Fox News, but of course he has presented there many times.
7
So does his argument about the uselessness of background checks extend to other areas of life? Why have background checks on pilots or teachers or White House staffers. I bet Lott cares only about background checks as it relates to guns. There's just something about this phallic symbol that goes beyond reason.
4
Are you kidding me? It would be a problem for more people to have issues obtaining guns with more strident background checks? Am I actually reading this correctly? What planet is this really? Can you hear me screaming from here?
5
Thos is all the reader needs to know about Mr. Lott [from his Wikipedia biographical entry}:
"He has authored books such as 'More Guns, Less Crime,' 'The Bias Against Guns,' and 'Freedomnomics.' He is best known as an advocate[1][2][3] in the gun rights debate, particularly his arguments against restrictions on owning and carrying guns. Newsweek referred to Lott as "The Gun Crowd's Guru."[4]
"The Gun Crowd's Guru".... a true grace to the NYT op-ed stable.
7
So background checks for gun ownership isn't the answer because some innocent people get caught up in false positives and can't own guns.
First of all, mistakenly denying someone the right to own a gun doesn't cause mass shootings. If the goal is to save lives, this mistake isn't quite a mistake.
Second, that number of false positives is miniscule. And third, that particular violation of the stupidest amendment doesn't bother me at all.
6
When I see a headline like "Background Checks Are Not the Answer to Gun Violence", I immediately scroll down to see the credentials of the author. John Lott is a well known pro-gun huckster and a talking head on Fox News. Should we be surprised that the work of his "Crime Prevention Research Center" is regularly dismissed as "junk science"?
6
david(check)ny
A gun is not a guarantee, it is a chance. Much as abortion and being an illegal alien is a right, self defense is a right. Raising your hands to a shooter and exclaiming you don't believe in guns, will probably be the last thing you say.
The solution to the problem in the story is, everyone that does not pass a back gets a written reason for the denial and a list of specifics.
David, for every reason you have for no one owning a gun, there are a lot of violence survivors that would disagree. You live in NYC. I bet you could get a cop in minutes, if you called. West of the Mississippi, the response time could be much longer.
As an example of armed citizens stepping up, David Kelly was stopped from killing more people than he did. Although Kelly did not face an armed citizen in the church, it was two armed citizens from Sutherland Springs that engaged him outside. After wounding Kelly they chased him for 5 miles. Kelly crashed through a fence and died in his truck. Had those two not engaged Kelly, he may have gone on to to kill others. It's not like Kelly had any reason to stop.
To review, David, this is America. You have a choice. Don't have a gun, call 911. I'll go with plan B(e armed).
This guy literally wants the taxpayers to stop feeding the poor and start subsidizing liddle gun owners.
MAGA?
6
Wow - just reading the article and having a little backround info on gun violence and statistics I found this sounding awfully right wing-ish, but then five minutes of research on this guy and we see a huckster in action. Here's a good start to learning about John Lott: https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/
3
"One answer is to have more civilians carry permitted concealed handguns." I might be tempted to agree IF we had mandatory gun safety courses that would be required before a person be allowed to walk out of a store with a gun. We make people pass a driver's test before letting them get behind the wheel of a potential weapon. Why wouldn't we require it before letting someone have an even more efficient and deadly weapon like a gun? God forbid that someone who has no idea how to use their gun pull it out during some kind of chaotic event and start shooting. Although frankly you can't fix "stupid," just witness how many idiots text while driving...
2
Boo, hoo! A few prospective gun owners have to wait extra time to buy weapons. It's ludicrous that a gun sale has to be approved if the background check is not completed in a fixed amount of time. Anyone remember Dylan Roof, the Charleston church shooter whose purchase was mistakenly approved? If the background check takes too long or a buyer has to resolve an issue, too Damm bad! Very few people NEED a handgun and precious few practice regularly and have enough training to successfully take on an armed opponent. Even trained law enforcement officers are lucky to get 15-20% of shots on target. The rest of us don't want to get caught in the crossfire between the bad guy and these Clint Eastwood wannabes.
5
John Lott? Really?
And next, reporting on public health, perhaps Gloria Copeland, who says that Jesus is our flu shot, so who needs inoculations?
And maybe Dick Cheney revisiting the WMDs in Iraq.
And what the hey, bring in Trofim Lysenko on genetics and agribusiness.
John Lott has a reputation that merits his inclusion on Weekly World News and Scott 1000-sheets-per-roll. As long as you're opening the Op-Eds up like this (one guesses you need balance between sanity and rubber-room nutty more or less the same way you covered the 2016 campaign), why require any fact-based argument here at all?
3
This is the dumbest op-ed I have seen in the NYT in a long time. Why are so few perjury cases prosecuted based on rejected gun applications? Because hardly any perjury cases are prosecuted in any case whatsoever, and people get caught lying under oath all the time (I'm a lawyer; I see it). The conclusion here, that it's a result of a high percentage of false positives, is totally conclusory. And nothing in here suggests that such rejections are any more serious than when the credit card reader mistakenly rejects my card and then takes it on the second swipe. Or that it's serious--even the kid named in the beginning doesn't wind up getting killed because his purchase was delayed; it was just delayed. NYT, do better vetting.
4
This man is a fraud. Lott's research from which he claims that more guns lead to less crime has been scrutinized and found to lack statistical support, lack credibility, or have serious flaws by the Stanford Law Review, 15/16 researchers on the National Academy of Science’s National Research Council, The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, and Adam Lankford of the University of Alabama.
Gary Kleck, a criminologist at Florida State University who once wrote a glowing review of the first edition of Lott’s book, reexamined Lott’s work and found that he hadn’t accounted for missing data. “It was garbage in and garbage out.” Even Kleck, who conducted a controversial, yet often-cited survey on defensive gun use, observes, “Do I know anybody who specifically believes with more guns there are less crimes and they’re a credible criminologist? No.”
David Hemenway, the director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, has concluded that “virtually all of Lott’s analyses are faulty; his findings are not ‘facts’ but are erroneous.”
Then there is the whole "sock puppet" incident. An online commenter, who identified herself as a former student of Lott’s at Penn named Mary Rosh, lavishly praised her former professor and attacked his critics online. It turned out that Rosh and Lott shared an internet address, and Lott admitted that he was Mary Rosh.
“In most circles, this goes down as fraud,” wrote Science editor-in-chief Donald Kennedy in the magazine.
4
Shame on the NYT for allowing Lott to propagandize to the American people in an opinion piece. To me this piece is no different then letting the tobacco industry write an article about how not everyone who smokes gets cancer therefore it is safe or let the fossil fuel industry say since government regulations drives up our costs there is no point in any environmental protections. This article is disgusting and sickens me; it is trying to distract from a real problem which is easy access to guns and make it seem like an application process (which by definition will a process) is a villain here when the latter is nothing more than a false boogie man. Mr. Lott says "If people believe that background checks reduce crime and benefit everyone, everyone should pay for it, out of general government revenue." What an entitled attitude, don't forget well-regulated; Rather then letting Mr. Lott shamefully try to pass the buck onto everyone else, it should be the gun owners costs to pay for the gun. Just like care owners have to pay for the application process to drive a car. Lott always mentions "law-abiding" citizens but somehow these law-abiding citizens don't want to follow these laws? Not to mention he seems to forget the other law-abiding citizens, the ones who don't want to own a gun but want to keep it out of the "wrong hands" which is basically almost any person at the wrong time!
4
Well, I suppose even The New York Times needs to run an advertorial from time to time from the NRA. This piece is largely ridiculous, with incorrect data, false assumptions and screwy reasoning. It will be interesting to find out how many millions of dollars was laundered through the NRA by the Russians to support Trump's campaign. In the meantime, as a veteran, gun owner and possessor of a concealed carry permit I fully support more gun control and not less. Arizona used to have an excellent concealed carry permit process in which I participated, which required a full day course on carrying a concealed weapon, qualifying on the range with your weapon and an FBI background check. The far right Republican legislature got rid of that program a few years back and now any citizen in this state can carry a concealed firearm legally without a permit. That is the epitome of irresponsibility. And ask any cop or sheriff in this state if they support that law or the responsible one that preceded it and they will unanimously tell you they support the more restrictive of the two laws.
I was at a Starbucks recently, seated at a table and some idiot bent over in front of me and the concealed pistol on his hip was pointed right at my face. Guns are dangerous. They can kill. Ask General David Petraeus, who was accidentally shot and almost lost his life at a firing range. More regulation, not less is the answer to fewer unnecessary deaths!
3
Sensible gun control...generational work:
http://greigolivier.com/sensible-gun-control.html
Continuing its leisurely drift to the right, NYT invites John Lott, notorious academic fraud and marginally rational advocate for guns every where, every time, for every reason.
Especially appreciated for creating, and adding the luster of research, to the argument that we would all be safer if everybody had multiple guns, Lott's argument here is the the same old same old tricked up in the quasi-legitimacy of the Lott-created Crime Prevention Research Center.
Ironic since Lott is member of the old gun nuts club preventing real research on guns from ever seeing the light of day. Another gift to all of us from Republican know-nothings in Congress: "We don't need facts, we already know what we believe. You don't need facts either.".
As for me, and in spite of the spurious economic and ethical qualms endorsed here without comment by NYT, I would far prefer to risk the occasional, easily corrected, false positive on a purchase application than just hand another truckload of weapons to some nut job who thinks liberals, kindergartners, and foreign-looking people are lethal threats to America.
2
Let’s just stop saying people “need” guns to protect themselves. That is just garbage.
1
95% of us get through the day without guns. And supposedly we're the ones that are weak and frightened.
Background checks are, rather obviously (obviously enough that this entire article is an intellectual fantasia) insufficient to constrain firearm violence. As are insurance background checks (med check ups) in constraining heart attacks in public places.
Bureaucracies are inefficient and corrupt (the Kafka corollary to Murphy's Law); so let's throw our hands up and & 'hollar like we just don't care' . . . seems to be summary of author's position, accepted by NYTs as 'expert' but whose biases while hinted at are not clearly identified . . . this entire oped piece could have been covered by a URL to other Lott jr. writing with a leader saying doesn't like fire arm constraints.
(oh yeah as other's point out, when trying to rent a new apartment a prospective landlord can know about 3 late (by less than a week) utility payments made a decade ago (while undergoing chemo), can use that info as determinant of my willingness to abide by lease agreement, but a back ground check is somehow useless in determining individual propensities concerning firearms?)
2
Concealed carry ... why not just pack a high power rifle or a bazooka ... that'll take care of perps ... no ?
1
The author’s bias is stunning. No one should be permitted to carry a gun without tactical training. I have it, it works, and it costs money. I also do not carry a gun though I own one in the event of a burglary.
What we need are mandatory checks for all new and used guns, including transactions at gun shows. The cost? Not $125, as the author claims.
It costs a licensed dealer 2 dollars. My gun range confirmed that last week. So where does this shill for the NRA get his numbers?
1
The problem of false positives in gun background checks—seen in the larger context of the gun-fueled violence, vigilantism, and siege mindset that afflict our society—is exceedingly trivial, and Mr. Lott shows incredible tone-deafness in writing (and the NYT in publishing) this odious little piece.
3
In a desperate emergency, all gun advocates can say is it's a "sacred right" to kill more and more people.
No solution, no matter how small, is acceptable to the marketing behemoth that has convinced too many Americans to be afraid, be very afraid.
The epidemic of killing, assisted by high powered killing machines, goes on and on.
When will people remember that no matter how angry they are, there is something else that is more sacred, not only to the victim but the wannabe killer. All these people who think they are Christians, how do they think that killing is forgivable under anything but the most extreme provocation?
Life is sacred. Taking lives, not so much.
2
In addition to fixing the background check systems we also must change the way gun dealers review and screen applicants. Many gun dealers are extremely rigorous in screening potential gun buyers. Many more are not. I recently witnessed a local gun dealer tell a man, who had passed a background check that he would not sell him a gun. The purchaser had been talking and acting in a manner that raised red flags for the dealer.
In my view what is lacking is a system that would enable a dealer to alert authorities and other dealers to be aware that someone questionable is trying to purchase a firearm. If authorities would receive such notice they could then do a deeper background check and maybe even visit the potential buyer at home. Until cleared the name and other critical information could be entered into a warning system.
I know that civil libertarians and others will strongly object to my suggestion. However in my view it is too risky to sell a firearm to everyone who can pass a background check. The criteria should include questions from gun dealers who are face to face with people.
I heard the would purchaser speaking in the incident I mentioned. I wouldn't have sold him a paper clip. At one point the dealer declined to show him any pistols at all. Sometimes experience behind the counter can mean a lot and stop a potential tragedy.
I am a sometimes competitive target shooter. Believe me not everyone who passes the background check should be allowed firearms.
2
Enforce existing laws and share data among all agencies.
This is not being done, so we have Las Vegas et al.
Civil Service should be more than just a way to earn comfy retirment.
So the argument is that gun ownership is so important that correcting wrong information is too much for people to bear. Is the nation going to ban credit reports because of a few mistakes in the system? No, but gun ownership is so much more important than a credit rating.
The writer may wish to consider the case of Dodge City in the 1800's. The killing stopped when guns were banned. Everyone recognized that people with guns are dangerous, putting the lie to the "good guy with a gun" myth.
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/02/opinion/l-dodge-city-believed-in-stric...
We have a solution at hand: Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) introduced a bill to require gun owners to carry liability insurance, subject to a $10,000 penalty.
Let actuaries price the risk: the more guns, the higher the premium. Safe storage, a big discount. Let market work. What capitalist can argue with that?
2
The idea of the concealed carry gun owner, coming to the sudden defense of innocents in the chaos of a mass shooting situation, is utter nonsense. Few trained policemen can shoot accurately under high stress situations. A friend who was on a highly ranked college shooting team later taught gun safety classes to young policemen. His stories would make your hair stand on end. Most people can't hit the side of a barn in broad daylight. It's time to end the fantasy that the average nitwit will shoot with James Bond accuracy in an emergency. Finally, just about every policeman will tell you that the last thing they want, is another armed person running around a shooting scene. The chances of people mowing each other down are exponentially increased. Yes, we need strong gun controls laws that make sense. Adjust background checks to meet the needs of real life.
111
Given the millions of concealed carry holders in the US. I don't see many articles about them "mowing" people down.
I have a permit, but I would think long and hard about involving myself in a situation you describe, but if a bad person was about to execute me and I had a gun, I would use it to protect myself. I'm not Rambo...I would be moving to the nearest exit and only use a gun as a last resort.
1
Gun violence is horrible anywhere, but in the Philippines it's being directed against Duterte's enemies...allegedly against drug users. In Duterte's case, however, the rumors say that someone close to him will assassinate him. If that happens, the people may be freer of gun violence, but I wonder if the gun violence will diminish. At least Détente's violence policy will be over.
Here's one: Stop making and selling hand guns. Sell rifles for hunting and the rare need for home defense. Hand guns just are not necessary. Oh, unless the other guy has a handgun. A really big shame and sham it got this way...
what about defense for women being assaulted outside their home? also SCOTUS decided that a handgun was a right after DC tried to ban them like you suggest.
There is no better rebuttal of this argument than the words of someone who once thought the same, and learned from experience that concealed carry will not stop mass shootings. https://twitter.com/Calebkeeter/status/914872808110510080
Mr. Lott has spent his career developing arcane pseudo-intellectual arguments resisting any kind of control over deadly weapons.
His credibility is zero. There is no gun control legislation of methodology that he and his fellow zealots would support.
I fail to understand how any measure, however Lott and crew might dismiss it, can make things worse. For goodness sake do something!! Anything!!
1
New York City was making a lot of progress at finding illegal guns and seizing them. And crime was dropping.
A liberal judge stopped the program and crime went back up.
And instead of focusing on people who have guns illegally, you want to start with the legal gun owners first?
1
Big Government handouts for the poor downtrodden gun owners.
Now I've heard everything.
Those who promote more guns to solve gun problems are not thinking rationally. Statistics show that guns in the home lead to more death and injury to those living in the home than to those who might be threatening the home. Yes, let's fix problems in our background check system, but let's also remove self imposed barriers that prevent the government from dealing with the gun violence epidemic in a productive way. I know, I know, if we become too lax the government will learn who has all the guns and will try to take them away. Or the Second Amendment guarantees we can own any kind of gun we want even if not part of a well regulated militia. This gun crazed fantasy and paranoia does nothing but lead us into an American gun violence nightmare that we now think of as normal with no hope or end in sight.
1
Most gun deaths in this country are SUICIDES. Of the murders by gun, a disproportionate number are domestic abuse situations.
Why? Simple math: Bad day + impulsivity+ gun= tragedy.
Mr. Lott: You should be ashamed of yourself. As a gun expert, you know better, and that renders you as COMPLICIT. How shameful for your family to have your name associated with such a dark product and such a destructive recommendation. As an expert, you surely have the real facts at your disposal.
I am sure you know, as an example, that people with guns in their homes are something like 4x as likely to die from gun violence. So tell me again what benefit you are proposing to these proposed concealed gun owners? You are essentially convincing the to bring a defacto, proven, instrument of death and into their home for a purported thwarting of some potential crime that may not happen......but if it does will likely be facilitated by, ahem, a gun.
Responsible people should not be gun owners because responsible people should know better. No amount of lockers or safety preclude the fact that their dollars are being used to buy gun and thus fund what has become a national crisis. We talk about herd immunity--where is the social responsibility of gun owners to OPT against buying such a destructive product?
We regulate driving and drugs, so we SHOULD regulate guns. If the government wanted to wage war on its citizens, your piddly rifle is nothing in comparison to the arsenal at their disposal.
2
Jeez, it's terrible when law abiding good guys have to endure bureaucratic hassle to expand their arsenal to "protect their families" (News flash: their families are far safer without a deadly weapon in the house). As bad as the many thousands who are killed an maimed each year because this country alone allows it? I think not.
The argument hinges on the premise that guns protect people. That is an assumed idea unsupported by fact. Except for law enforcement, there is only anecdotal evidence that one is made safer by owning a gun. Purchase a firearm for hunting or shooting sports, but not for personal safety.
1
One of the worse problems we have concerning gun deaths is the crime of straw buyers who give the weapons to people who are not allowed to purchase them. My opinion of why this crime is allowed to continue is because of the optics it would reveal. Many of these buying crimes are done by relatives or friends of the gang members who are committing most of the murders and those pictures would not be politically correct on TV or the newspapers. The number of innocent people killed every year would drop substantially if we took away the gang related deaths. Let the gangs use knives if they want to kill each other.
What an incredibly weak argument for making guns still more ubiquitous.
2
Gun ownership should have exquisitely costly and onerous registration. Gun owners like to note that they only shoot paper targets, that they're not crazy violent like Stephen Paddock, Omar Mateen and Adam Lanza. That's what they all say, every one of them, until they start aiming at us.
1
Anyone wonder why the NRA and all other 'gun rights' group use John Lott's stats and info, etc? All of it is flawed and supports their position.
https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/
https://www.armedwithreason.com/shooting-down-the-gun-lobbys-favorite-ac...
https://www.thenation.com/article/who-is-behind-the-lie-that-more-guns-m...
Note: Republicans and the NRA have blocked the CDC and other agencies from collecting real data about gun violence. This allows frauds like Lott to flourish.
2
Can we stop pretending that shills like Mr. Lott who run bogus think tanks like the "Crime Prevention Research Center" have a legitimate voice that needs to be heard? Regardless of any current or future evidence on the impact of easy access to guns in America, Mr. Lott will always come down on the side of easy access to guns - there's no deep thinking of any sort in any argument he will ever make.
2
I have rarely seen more fallacious reasoning packed into such a small space.
1
Two ways in which we keep talking past each other:
1) Every 2nd amendment fan that I have ever met believes that there is a "right to insurrection" dating back to our Founding, and they believe that it is patriotic to be armed and ready.
2) Child-rearing has changed dramatically in the last 50 years, and self-discipline and impulse-control is no longer the first goal of child-rearing. I am not sure that people without strong impulse-control are safe to own guns.
1
I'm a gun owner: competitive shooter, collector, historian (many of my firearms are from the 1800's) and hunter safety instructor. This column is not worth the paper it's printed on (for those still reading hard copy).
Background checks ARE an answer, at least a partial answer, to keeping felons from obtaining firearms. I purchased my first firearm in 1978. The background check takes 5 minutes or less to run. The author claims no one can afford a background check on private sales (i.e. no federal firearms licensed dealer is involved), but provides no evidence whatsoever to back it up. He doesn't even explain how the check is accomplished.
We are simply told that "millions" who can't afford the additional expense will go without needed firearms and, of course, be killed shortly thereafter. (Pardon my sarcasm, but my firearms are locked in a gun safe. Keeping a loaded firearm floating around the house is not a priority.) The author doesn't explain why the general public can't go to a gun store (where the background check is free) to purchase a desired firearm.
There are lots of reasons to be wary of unnecessary or unwise restrictions on gun ownership. This column identifies none of them.
1
It is simply ridiculous to argue that requiring background checks is an onerous burden on responsible people. Somehow the owners of the estimated 300 million guns in private ownership today have found ways to navigate this bureaucratic labyrinth. And some are not the brightest people you’re ever going to come across, frankly.
That’s the nature of our gun debate today, a clash of worn out arguments. Yes the constitution talks about a well ordered militia... does that mean a convicted wifebeater should be allowed to buy an Uzi? How about a howitzer?
The NRA has succeeded in turning this issue into an emotional force in which people respond with knee-jerk, irrational views about even the most common-sense suggestions towards increasing public safety. And, strangely enough, even the majority of the NRA members agree the background checks are a good idea.
Guns are too expensive for poor people? Maybe the NRA should hand out vouchers if that’s their concern. Or maybe your organization could contribute. And do you know why you only have data from 15 yeas ago? Because the NRA doesn’t want the federal government to do any research on guns.
It’s odd to me that the headline for the online version of this op-ed is “Background Checks Are Not the Answer to Gun Violence” but the headline in the physical newspaper is “Making Background Checks Work.” These two headlines tell two different stories to me.
But even odder is Lott’s absurd conclusion that MORE civilians should carry guns. There’s absolutely no evidence that more guns make this country safer. Maybe the background check system should be improved but what does that have to do with increasing the number of concealed carry permits? Wouldn’t that be an argument for more stringent background checks?
This, on the same day that a woman is trending on Facebook for firing a gun at her neighbor’s kids for being too noisy. I could care less about second amendment rights.
The photo shows somebody copying information from the gun (or the tag) onto the background check form. That would be the seller doing so, not the buyer. So the caption is, let us say, an 'alternative fact'.
But the image of a "buyer" holding a gun while filling out the form emotionally supports the author's point better, doesn't it?
Lott's primary argument is that the background check system sometimes fails to stop people who should not receive a permit, sometimes denys permits to people who should not be disqualified and is mostly unfair to poor people. He concludes that the best solution to fixing problems in the background check system is to allow more civilians to carry concealed handguns. I was taught about writing a position paper in seventh grade. A good paper ought to show specific examples to support the position and provide explanations about how the facts support the argument. I'm afraid Lott may have missed some important lessons on writing. The evidence he mentions do not support his argument as he gives us no evidence of poor people being denied permits, or poor people being injured as a result nor does he give evidence about how allowing more concealed carry permits will fix the problems with the background check system. Perhaps he could consider finding a tutor?
We should ban high capacity ammunition cases and assault rifles which are designed to kill human beings. These devices make it easier to kill large numbers of people in a short amount of time. States can have their own militias to fight the federal government which is the argument the gun manufacturers promulgate to promote sales. Semiautomatic handguns, shotguns and long rifles are more than enough for home protection and hunting.
1
Instead of passing more silly new laws which, in essence, say "this time we really, really, really mean it" we should enact Federal legislation which will require all gun owners, from manufacturers to dealers to final customers, to carry firearm insurance and hold them STRICTLY LIABLE for ALL harm caused by their guns regardless of who uses them. That's vicarious liability, as with cars.
We need all guns and ammo to be traceable. As with cars, guns should have Certificates of Title so we know who owns what gun at any given moment. And the ammo? When I buy eggs at Trader Joe's each egg is imprinted with a code. We can't do that with ammo so we can see who is buying what and in what quantities?
Do this and people will safeguard their guns and transfer them legally. Of course if the guns and ammo are stolen and the owner was not complicit or negligent in allowing the theft to take place the gun owner would be off the hook. You're not fool enough to leave your car parked on the street with the windows open and the keys in it are you?
Nothing that I have suggested conflicts with that pesky Second Amendment.
1
Lott has been an apologist for the NRA and gun fetishists everywhere, for decades. As usual, his "prescription" is more people with concealed carry permits. Unfortunately, in the vast majority of cases, such a permit does NOT have anything to do with proficiency with a firearm. We need a lot more than comprehensive background checks. We need limits on online purchases of ammunition, we need restrictions on who can purchase body armor, etc etc etc.
I agree that background checks are not the answer. Too many crimes are committed with legally obtained guns. Eliminating private ownership of guns is the answer.
It is utterly insane to think that we'll all be carrying concealed weapons and that, somehow, this will make our society better. Other countries have been able to avoid tyrannical leadership through normal democratic processes. Why do we, and only we, "need" guns to prevent tyranny?
We have more guns than any country in the world and also more gun violence. This is no coincidence. The experiment of arming the people has been an utter failure. Time to repeal the second amendment.
1
The vast majority of Americans are not trying to disarm (as stated in the final sentence) anyone. They are just trying to make buying/owning a gun as difficult as getting a high school diploma- it takes time, but most people get one.
Thanks for the tip about the head of the Safe Neighborhoods program. One government program from Bush that needs to be abolished.
1
Sad that these people all seem to pontificate using inaccurate info on what shouldn't be done but they never, ever talk about my rights to be able to walk down the streets, unarmed without fearing some crazed lunatic will gun me down. It's always the same thing, 'nothing can be done".
baloney. lies and exaggerations to rationalize gun fetishes and overblown cowboy gunslinger mythology. Mandatory training, safety instruction and stringent, comprehensive background checks! Nowhere in the seconds amendment is the right to buy a gun in 24 hours nor the right to buy dozens of guns.
A fundamentally weak opinion piece that is exclusively negative, and offers no positive solution to gun violence other than the "good guy with a gun" argument. Nearly 12,000 people are murdered each year as a result of that faulty logic.
1
Really?? More guns is the answer? That is so obviously false that it should not have to be discussed again. Please refer to every other civilized country in the world and you will find a hundred better ideas than give the people more guns. Wow
1
Ah, yes, the old "law-abiding" gun owner canard.
Most of America's gun-wielding mass murderers were law-abiding citizens.
Until they weren't.
1
Astonishing logic, Mr. Lott. Your proposed solution to the problem of too many innocent people being killed with guns is to make sure there are many more folks carrying guns in every walk of life. I would respectfully suggest that you may find it educational to visit a few other countries where gun violence is rare to non-existent; you just might learn what most of the civilized world learned long ago---- that more guns are never the answer.
I find Mr Lott's concern for the poor touching, but let's look at an equation. How many people killed by guns, I'll-gotten or otherwise? Thousands. Lives lost because a delay in obtaining a weapon due to a false positive? Zero or very nearly. So, on the one hand we have human lives and on the other paperwork and $125. Tough call.
If the NYT is going to publish "alternate views" can they be at least well written, well informed and bearing some relationship to reality?
Oh boo hoo, sometimes background checks mean someone can't get a gun. Owning a firearm is not an essential requirement for good living, like having a job, a car or being able to vote. The entitlement of these folks to have a weapon of mass destruction amazes me.
1
I was a long time precision target shooter so I know guns and believe we have the right to own one, with certain common sense restrictions. However, if the NRA manages to buy enough votes in Congress to get the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act through, it will be a disaster. The GOP is gungho on states rights so let each individual state decide! The idea of carrying a gun anywhere, anytime, for any reason is lunacy, especially from states where no permit or demonstration of safe proficiency is required. You will see a spike in gun related suicides, gun accidents, gun theft, gun threats, violent argument shootings, misidentified shootings, etc. What happens when a citizen, who might have formerly been somewhat responsible with a gun, drifts into drug addiction or mental illness? Do you think he/she will voluntarily give up their gun? The pressure of college and university study has been causing a rise in stress related problems. Which would make you feel safer: if every single student on a college campus was carrying a gun, or nobody was carrying a gun? The NRA wants America armed to the teeth and ammo’d up. Political tribalism is getting worse. If I go to a red state cafe, after a Democrat sweep, and have to start worrying about how many more angry people around me are carrying guns, I’ll stop going. That’s bad for business and bad for America.
2
Guns equal gun violence.
If you want less gun violence, get rid of the guns.
If you have more people with guns, you get more gun violence.
More guns equals more gun violence.
Even using a gun for “protection” is the use of a gun, which is a form of gun violence.
If you want a stop gap measure, stop selling live ammunition to the public. The gun loving public can do their “sport shooting” with rubber bullets with a smaller charge.
Ten people in a room, all with guns, can become a scene of gun violence.
Ten people in a room, without guns, cannot become a scene of gun violence.
Therefore, no guns, equals no gun violence.
1
Mr. Lott is a gun advocate. The name of his organization is designed to fool some of the people all of the time.
He, and his ilk, fail to accept the fact that guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people. So, let's see - is it easier to eliminate the people?
That or you could just assign liability to gun manufacturers. Takata airbags were responsible for around 20 deaths. According to US news, Honda will spend roughly $200 million over four years attempting to correct the safety default. Why don't we have the same expectation from gun manufacturers as we do for car manufacturers? 20 deaths is a drop in the bucket compared to mass shootings, suicides, and homicides.
Complaining about background checks is a joke. Background checks are even a joke of a solution. I guarantee the gun industry would self-correct if they were spending 10 million dollars per wrongful death. Instead we have hatchet academics spinning non-solutions.
Let's give Lott his wish to sell privately to whomever he pleases without background checks, but only if he's held criminally liable if that gun is used in a crime.
Aside from whether the NY Times should have provided a platform for a noted individual who has falsified data, and created fake, online, sock-pocket identities to promote his research, it was good to see that Prof. Lott included his mantra in the penultimate paragraph. That mantra - more guns in civilian hands, specifically, those permitted to carry concealed handguns, will solve our gun violence problem. If this mantra were true, the United States, which is awash with guns would be the safest country. There are many legislative and non-legislative means to reduce gun deaths and injuries in our country, none of which include adding more guns to the mix, including on college campuses.
1
While I have some measure of confidence in NYT to bring alternative viewpoints to the country's longest public health disaster, use of the famously debunked writings of Mr. Lott does no favors to any perspective.
Thinly disguised conspiracy theories built around a exceedingly modified version of United States history have no place in public discussion and, as intended by the author and his ilk, muddy the waters of civic discourse.
Let us discuss the role of guns in our country, but let's not do so by calling fiction fact where it suits us, or by assuming someone with history of carrying water for the gun industry with haphazard quasi-academics can illuminate anything for us but the violent, ultra machismo, and double-speak environment we must withstand to thrive today.
2
Mr Lott repeatedly states that lack of access to guns blocks poor people from obtaining weapons to defend themselves. I have no objection to any law-abiding citizen owning a gun -- but what, exactly, are the conditions that make this ownership necessary? (I can just hear the raucous cackling from city dwellers laughing at this white, suburban male. Maybe I deserve it.)
Funny how that works out. Any inconvenience placed on buying a gun always trumps the human losses caused by unfettered access to guns. Well, I guess that's what you should expect from someone who sees guns killing Americans every day and runs out to write a book titled THE WAR ON GUNS.
1
This is ludicrous. Please tell me how many lives have been saved by the general public owning firearms?
1
If citizens were defending themselves with guns as regularly as there are mass shootings and murders by guns wouldn't there be big headlines? Wouldn't cable TV news channels (who have nothing but time!!!) be covering this ad nauseam? Am I missing something? Should I be checking the "Citizen Gun Hero" section of the NY Times? Is that near the obituaries?
There was a very thorough study done in this publication a few months ago basically showing that the overwhelming number of guns possessed by U.S. citizens is the primary cause of mass shootings and gun violence....Not violence in the media, mental health, violent video games, etc....
Why in heaven's name would the Times carry such an absurd article?
Lott is making the "perfect is the enemy of the good" argument by saying that background checks are imperfect and, as a result, don't protect us from mass murderers. His solution is a hash of ideas that would actually make things worse -- especially proposing that what this country needs is more armed citizens patrolling the streets and malls of the U.S., ready to shoot first and aim later.
This is drivel, dressed up to come across as a reasonable plea for "sane" gun policy. There is no such thing as a "sane" gun policy as long as Americans continue to delude themselves (or to be brainwashed by the NRA) that the right to bear arms is protected by the Constitution.
2
"Many of those people are trying to buy guns to protect themselves. "
Protect themselves from whom? Other people with guns. The answer to guns is--more guns!
It's very simple. If we as a country wish to give everyone unfettered access to guns, we all need to accept that a certain number of perfectly innocent Americans, peacefully going about their daily lives, will every day be shot dead. It's the Second Amendment Lottery. Unfortunately, the odds on that one are much better than Powerball.
1
John Lott is a famous gun-rights advocate. You know John -- I'd be really happy to have the cost of universal tight background checks made at public expense. Let's do it!
But how about a deal? Mandatory insurance for all gun owners under strict liability, with insurance coverage limits high enough to pay for what their guns can do, paid for by them ... and jail sentences for the reckless and cruel incompetents with guns.
I'm tired of guns falling out of waistbands and purses and shooting the innocent. I'm tired of children getting guns and shooting themselves and others.
And I am tired of the deal the public gets every time somebody commits a senseless crime with a gun -- lock them up or don't lock them up. Either way the public is paying a crazy price for "gun freedom."
The old west knew all about stupid angry kids with guns; most of the "cowboys" were really that -- often under 18. There was a reason that the old-west mining and cow towns had no-carry laws!
Yep, the "battle of the OK corral" was fought because the Earps were enforcing Tombstone's no-carry law on the Clantons.
Back then though if you shot somebody without a gun, that was murder. You shot him in the back, that was murder.
Now all you need to do is say you're scared. We got a guy in Florida who still hasn't gone to trial for killing a man in theater for texting on a cell phone and throwing popcorn in his face. Shot through his wife's hand to do it. Guns-R-Gud. Lott says so.
Mr. Lott, you are either misinformed, ignorant, or biases----or all of the above----when it comes to guns.
There is no problem of millions of law-abiding citizens being prevented from buying guns to protect themselves. Most citizens who want guns already have them. Unfortunately, there mere possession of guns puts them and their families at far greater risk of being shot or killed by gunfire.
But, there is a real problem for millions of innocent Americans who are worried that their loved ones or themselves will be killed during normal activities like sitting at home, going shopping or out to the cinema, or just going to school to learn...More than 33,000 Americans killed by guns every year and more than twice that number injured. In fact, more Americans have died from firearms than all American who have perished in every war this country has fought since its birth.
That is what has to be prevented, Mr. Lott!
1
Yawn. We Americans always somehow manage to try to reinvent solutions to our problems. So many of our problems from gun control to health care have been properly managed and solved in other countries. We Americans need to pull our head out and look around, this is not all that hard. The difference is this country has allowed, through Citizens United, a complete and total lockdown on reasonable solutions. Corporate interests have hijacked our country, and electing President Chump has made obvious one thing: Americans are gullible and are not paying attention.
1
To build on a point already made and be more blunt: Mr. Lott is full of it when he talks about people protecting themselves. That is the weakest, stupidest myth perpetrated by the gun lobby. Hardly anyone can find an instance of an ordinary citizen using a gun to stop a bad guy. Now let's count up all the instances of an ordinary citizen being pistol whipped or shot with their own gun, or using it to shoot their spouse, or having their child find it and kill themselves and a friend. The whole debate is a kabuki theater. The simple fact is that countries with lots of guns have lots of murders and those with few guns have far fewer. We tolerate gun deaths because a whole bunch of people are compensating for personal inadequacies, believe the cowboy myth, watched too many cop movies, and just plain like guns. We are being killed so a bunch of emotional five year olds can play at being tough guys. The exception to this is hunting, but even this doesn't justify all the non-sporting weapons in our communities. We are an idiotic society that needs to grow up...or continue tolerating innocent people being shot. My money is on the latter, and I'm staying in a state with strong gun control.
This is drivel - lots of anecdotes and unproved assumptions that are either inadequately backed up or downright wrong. The assumption that guns are a necessity for protection makes it sound like there is a manic murderer behind every tree. Seriously?
The police are bad enough - I don't want some lunatic with a gun trying to "protect" me.
So Lott has concerns about 'false positives' that prevent 'legitimate' people to purchase guns. What about 'false negatives' and their bloody consequences, Lott?
The NRA used to be the educator in gun safety, now they are just a shill and major lobbyist for weapons manufacturers. It's all about the money.
No sympathy here for someone denied a gun permit because of an error. The “protect my family” excuse is not supported by facts, just empty paranoia.
As far as who pays the fees, I don’t want to help the paranoiacs. If it’s so important to have a gun, you should be happy to pay. I don’t pay your fees to own a car or a house.
The “law abiding people” are always so, until they decide to shoot someone. Then they become “deranged” to the gun lobby.
1
This is absurd. Background checks have been proven to be absolutely useless. Stop selling guns, and especially hand guns and assault rifles and see if that does not at least stop some schools massacres. SCHOOL MASSACRES. WHAT THE LACK OF KNOWLEDGE HERE IN BEYOND REASONING
gun violence lack of good parents. lack of morals lack of Spirituality education work ethic.
laws useless.
Question for my liberal anti-Christian friends. If it was proven that religious education in grade school and high school reduce gun violence significantly would you go with it
The notion that the federal government needs gun registration information to round up the guns of law abiding citizens is ridiculous. People who are worried about that should stay away from the NRA. In this world, there are no secrets. It would.be not hard to find out who has guns. We have an air rifle for farm pests. I odered some ammo on line. The next thing I knew I was being solicited by the NRA. Wonder how they knew about my deadly pellet gun. Hmmmm...
1
Mr. Lott, I know you and your organization. The CPRC is little more than a fraudulent propaganda mill that spits out junk research to prop up Republican talking points.
For example, you published a "study" arguing against gun-free zones, claiming that they don't help prevent mass shootings. However, when doing so, you changed the definition of "mass shooting" to get a more favorable figure (you changed the number of victims required to qualify as well as only including incidents in public areas, not private - as if that makes a difference) and cited locations with guns as "gun-free zones." You called the Navy Yard shooting a mass killing in a gun-free zone, even though there were armed guards present (one of whom the shooter took a gun from). Not only that, but you cited your own previous research as a source, in which you used those different definitions!
You have written books like "The War on Guns." A member of your advisory board wrote a book with a title that explicitly links gun rights to white heritage ("To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origin of an Anglo-American Right"). Ted Nugent is your secretary. Former Sheriff David Clarke is on your board of directors - yes, that Trump shill who lied about ISIS numbers in the US and got an all-expenses paid $40,000 trip to Moscow in 2015 to meet with Russian officials linked to the Russian mob.
So, no, I won't agree with you. We need a central gun database and fewer guns, and yes, I'm willing to have my taxes support it.
"...false positives that stop law-abiding people from getting weapons that they might need to protect themselves and their families."
What on earth are these people so afraid of? What are the odds of "needing" a gun to protect your family? If you care about your family's safety, I suggest focusing less on guns and more on the things that could truly threaten your family - including poor financial planning, alcohol, screen time, verbal and physical abuse, poor communication. Heck, the regular purchase and consumption of Pepsi and Doritos poses a bigger threat your family than an intruder. Get a grip, people.
How many murders and crimes are prevented my legal and concealed guns?
Why do police shoot to kill instead of just disabling suspected gun carriers?
Would you feel safer if everyone around you had a gun? Would you want someone to shoot you because they thought you had a gun or you made them angry?
This is such a ridiculous argument. (1) We should not have a background check system because the system is not perfect. Maybe we should eliminate medical records because they often have mistakes in them? (2) There are so many people who NEED to protect themselves with guns that we should err on the side of giving everyone a gun. Perhaps, we should let everyone get narcotics without a prescription because sometimes the pharmacy makes a mistake and denies someone their pills?
Why not just have everyone wear two six-guns hanging from their hips? Let kids do duels in the playground? Have target practice drinking parties in the backyard? And how do we get away with sales tax on automatic weapons as they are an inalienable right? This country is SICKO.
Not sure I care about this position. Seems like the author is trying to take attention away from the real issue.
More citizens carrying guns - you must be kidding?
Background checks! You must be kidding me. I have tried to purchase a shotgun for home defense three times in the two years. Have been reject by the FBI and their nics program each time. No felonies. No domestic abuse. I have a permit to purchase a handgun or anything with a pistol grip from my local police department. Still no reason given from FBI. Submit an appeal and maybe in a year or two we will let you know why you have been rejected. They are that backlogged. Send us a set of fingerprints if you can. What a joke. Gun shows. There’s an idea. Can’t seem to get one legally no matter how hard I try. I’m almost thinking that the NRA has a point. Last time I looked I have a right to a gun for home defense. Good luck with that. Honest to god truth.
I’m giving the Times the benefit of the doubt and assuming that the paper is publishing Lott’s column to serve as a punching bag for commenters. Certainly the Times is well aware of Lott’s checked reputation and his prolific output of junk science on behalf of the gun industry and junk science. Readers can refer to: https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/ But so as to avoid relying on ad hominem arguments, let me take a look at his points.
Start with the title. Who in the world says that background checks, or any other single measure, is “the answer?”
Then he cites the failure of the military to communicate a mass shooter’s history. That’s a system failure that need to befixed, not an argument against background checks.
Then there’s his complaint that mixups will prevent individuals with clean records from getting guns. Certainly procedures can be improved to address this problem, but a certain amount of remediabl error has to be balanced against public safety. Certainly Lott wouldn’t have us abolish no fly lists because law-abiding people with Arab surnames could be caught up.
Most ridiculous is his concern that fees of $125 will deprive the poor from defending themselves. I’m sure Lott has no objection to imposing car registration fees and mandatory insurance on poor people who need to drive to work. For public safety, those expenses are imposed whether or not one can pay. If Lott worries about burdens on the poor, he can argue for lower gun prices.
More guns, more protection? That is an oxymoron. Here is the statistics for the US. For every 10 people killed by fire arms, 1 is in self defense, 5 is in criminal acts, and 4 is suicide.
Doesn't this make obvious that the 'shibboleth' of self defense is a non-starter?
As with most gun fanatics, the author flippantly dismisses any and all solutions to the deadly human disaster that they are directly responsible for foisting upon America. Innocent men, women and children die every single day as proponents of virtually unrestricted gun sales go to any length defend their adolescent addiction. Every editorial they pen is a bloody valentine to the rapid fire killing machines they obviously love so much more than people.
There are more guns than people in the US. That's all you need to know.
There is no *one* answer to gun violence. Anyone who thinks there is hasn't thought deeply about the problem.
I don't weep many tears for gun buyers who have to shoulder the fees for purchasing their guns. All hobbies have costs. Boo hoo.
What we need are politicians with spines willing to first acknowledge that we have a massive, massive problem with poorly regulated gun sales, and then be willing to actually do something. They're too afraid to stand up to nutjobs like Ted Nugent. Ted Nugent? That burnout? Come on, man, time to relegate him to the great sale bin at the back of the record store.
Over the last two decades, John Lott has made a name for himself through his shockingly shoddy and self-self serving research methods. No one has been able to verify his study findings--not even Lott himself. In 1997, critics asked John Lott to reveal his records. Lott simply claimed that his hard drive crashed! In 1998, he claimed, without evidence, that the FBI had produced a survey that defensive gun use prevents 2 million crimes per year. No one in the FBI has ever confirmed the existence of this survey. In 2003, Lott was caught creating the online sock-puppet "Mary Rosh" to was poetic about his research methods and call himself "the best professor I have ever had." In 2006, Lott filed a lawsuit against Steven Leavitt for (rightly) critiquing his research methods and equally dubious conclusions, saying that such academic research was tantamount to character defamation. Unverified research. Academic dishonesty. An unwilling to accept criticism from peers. Any one of these events in isolation would have ended anybody's academic career. Ultimately, John Lott is to gun "research" what Exxon Mobil is to climate science or Philip Morris is to cancer. Shame on the New York Times for providing this quack with a platform.
Background checks inconveniencing people trying to buy guns because their names are similar to convicted felons. Now what does this remind me of.... Oh that's right, citizens being purged from voting rolls because their names are similar to convicted felons. The thesis of this article I find suspect. Citizens being denied their rightful franchise because of Crosscheck is a national disgrace.
Are you kidding me? I note that the author doesn’t bother offering even anecdotal evidence (much less statistics) of how potential gun owners inability to arm themselves resulted in their falling victim to crime.
Were it not for paranoid fear-mongers and race-baiters (cheers, NRA and Fox News), Americans would not feel so compelled to walk around strapped. How about returning to the old national narrative, the one where we are all brothers, on the same team, whatever our color or origins? Wouldn’t that Make America Great Again? Too bad that story is lousy for gun sales. Oh well.
I can't believe you are printing this sorry warm-over of the "More guns will protect us from guns" argument. Birthers--or Flat Earthers--next week?
Having a gun in the house correlates with increased occurrence of gun injury in that household. Won't having more guns in the street have the same effect on the street?
1
It isn’t surprising the author “More Guns, Less Crime” would argue that background checks are not the answer to gun violence. John Lott has long argued making it easier to carry a concealed handguns would virtually eliminate mass shootings yet as state after state has made it easier to carry concealed, the United States remains plagued by an appalling number of mass shootings.
Lott argues without substantiation that “false positives are a major problem of the background check system." The real problem, however, is that background checks are rarely required when guns are resold in the private (secondary) market. Without the background check there is no way to determine if a prohibited buyer is purchasing the gun.
The two sides of the gun debate agree on little except for the prohibition on the purchase or possession of firearms by felons, by individuals who have been adjudicated mentally ill, or who are subject to domestic violence restraining order. The question John should have to answer is how we enforce the prohibition if we do not extend the background check to all gun transfers.
There are roughly 35,000 gun deaths a year, another 60,000 non-fatal injuries, and 400,000 plus victims of gun crimes. These are the numbers we should focus on, not the almost certainly remote possibility that someone facing imminent danger will be improperly denied a gun. For effective gun violence prevention we need universal background checks and all relevant data put in to the system.
7
The following is from the September 25, 2008 Economist
FINLAND'S government is introducing tougher regulations on handguns following a mass shooting at a school on Tuesday September 23rd, the second in under a year. The country had been among the most lenient in the world, allowing 15-year-olds to keep a handgun under parental supervision, requiring no medical or psychological tests and no minimum wait for those buying weapons. The gun-death rate (whether murder, accident or suicide) in rich countries is highest where there are more guns: America, Switzerland and Finland are in the top four countries for gun ownership per person. The death rate in Britain, which banned handguns following a school shooting in 1996, is 0.1 for every 100,000 people
Death rate from guns per 100,000
Finland 4.6 Switzerland 6.2
New Zealand 2.3 South Africa 32.
United States 10.6 Austria 2.5
Australia 1.7 Israel 3.1
Canada 2.5 Brazil 18.
France 3.0 Germany 1.2
Belgium 3.7 England .1
Sweden 1.6
11
It remains my view that use of the Second Amendment in its original context would require owners of militia-class weapons to belong to state-managed militias, and to muster with their weapons and ammunition for regular inventory and training. In early America, there were no government police forces, and state-managed militia were the law enforcement services; recognizing police auxiliaries as "militia" would restore the Second Amendment to its original rationale, and would tend to (but not guarantee) ensure that most people who acquire such weapons would use them for lawful purposes.
7
You precisely demonstrate my point: the 2d Amendment is ambiguous.
Repeal it and replace it with one permitting our legislators to promulgate common-sense laws regulating the ownership, possession, and use of firearms. No ambiguity. No contorted interpretations. Just a straightforward statement.
Good points, and note that when the Bill of Rights was passed, the plan in the USA was to have no standing federal army - this in a time when we had various Indian nations as well as Britain, France and Spain on our borders.
The same men who passed the Bill of Rights also passed the Militia Acts of 1792, which very clearly tied membership in a state militia to national defense against external and internal opponents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_Acts_of_1792
My hunch is Mr. Lott has never stared down the face of the gun (neither have I, for the record, and I hope it stays that way). He has not considered how he's basically demanding an untrained yet armed citizenry to essentially become law enforcement.
What could possibly go wrong?
18
Law-abiding citizens are disenfranchised by background checks. But you know what? Law-abiding men-women and children are also disenfranchised by guns. I love how we tiptoe so delicately about the rights of gun owners, while innocent people's right to not die of gun violence is never taken into consideration.
22
Brilliant! I didn’t expect a satirical op-ed about this topic. Had a good laugh and made my day.
Coming up with the idea that false positive background checks are in the way of the ultimate and urgent public good of having more gun owners, and then even spinning it further to demand that the public pay for it.
Not forgetting to dismiss false negatives, and advocating concealed carry made me doubt the satirical nature halfway through, but the great punchline reassured me: “... will only disarm law-abiding Americans.”
18
Background checks are not the answer. Including the first clause of the Second Amendment in interpreting it ("A well regulated militia...") rather than ignoring it is part of the answer. That would allow localities where guns have no place in private hands to ban them, as was the case before the Supreme Court deleted that clause from the Constitution.
And the NRA and its ilk should be treated as the threat to society that they are.
14
This is a travesty that this letter was allowed to be published in this highly respected news source. Guns kill the people every day. The more guns there are in the country (both legal and illegal sales), the more gun related violence. This article makes no mention of that, and overzealously makes the case that honest citizens require cheap access to guns. This is just not the case. Driving up the cost of gun ownership is good for the country and for all of us. Anyone who needs access to this very dangerous technology will be required to spend time, money, and effort to obtain a gun.
14
If you think that poor folks need financial assistance getting a background check, I have a solution. Put a tax on bullets. You don't need an arsenal and stockpile of ammunition to protect yourself and your family. Just a few bullets should be enough. If you want more ammunition, then paying a tax on that extra ammo (so that poor people can also protect themselves) seems totally reasonable. You could also put a tax on the sale of guns to help pay the expenses of victims of gun violence. If we can tax cigarettes and alcohol, then we should be able to tax guns and bullets. There are all kinds of possibilities when you think of it!
12
I recall researching an FBI account or study of just how many people actually use a firearm for deterring or actively confronting a perpetrator in the act committing a crime or threatening them out in the world or in their home.
In other words the need for a gun for self protection.
The number was tiny (less than 300 incidents in a year) compared to the US population and the total number of guns.
The gun lobby puffs it up to scare people.
So, the rational for ownership is overblown.
Also, the percentage of Americans who actually own a weapon is, I believe, at low point now when compared to the last 30 years.
The milenials, the future of America, won't be gun owners.
They could care less.
They are more liberal and more sane.
8
The only way to stop gun violence is to have fewer guns. Period. Time for serious attorneys to start litigating gun cases the way the right to life folks have limited abortion through the courts--it can be done.
12
My goodness. Someone's gun purchase might end up delayed? They may have to fill out another piece of paperwork? Unacceptable. Not when they need this gun immediately for self protection or to play superhero and prevent the next act of terrorism perpetrated by undocumented immigrants! Enough. My head hurts from the twisting of logic required to legitimize gun zealotry.
10
Every time I read of a gun crime, I ask "who gave them the gun? They don't grow on people's arms." The answer is the gun industry, whose propaganda tells people that they can't trust the police and that they need guns to protect themselves.
A century ago George Bernard Shaw wrote the comedy Major Barbara, in which the ironic hero is a gun manufacturer, who says things like "nothing of importance gets done unless somebody is willing to kill if it is not done". But that's not funny anymore.
6
Unless you are trained in the use of firearms and firearm shooting situations, and that means more than just knowing how to point and pull the trigger, you have no business being a public vigilante; more people with guns is not the answer. People taking more responsibility for guns is an answer that the gun lobby does not want to hear. To own a firearm in the United States, you should be trained, permitted, and have the firearms you own registered so, for example, the first-responders, coming to your house on a domestic violence call, will know that you are armed. (And the first domestic violence call should result in you losing access to your weapons.) The firearm registration should be kept up to date, you should have to confirm your ownership annually. You should be required to carry liability insurance so if your weapon is used in the commission of a crime or someone is hurt or killed through your mishandling of the weapon, the victims can obtain compensation.
You want to own a firearm, you should help carry the societal cost for having all those guns in the general population. Your right to a firearm is not a right to impose the related costs onto me.
13
I have frequently hiked in isolated places and never felt the need to have a gun.
Indeed, I think having a gun would be more likely to cause me to inadvertently injure myself, even though I am moderately proficient in the use of firearms.
4
This author is one of the gun lobby's favorite "tools". I am sorry Mr. Lott that gun safety rules "inconvenience" gun buyers. That is laughable. Tell that to somebody living the rest of their lives in a wheelchair due to gun violence. Tell that to the children who lost their mother because their "good guy with a gun" father murdered his ex-wife.
You solution to gun violence is to add more guns onto our streets? Sorry Mr. Lott, life isn't a John Wayne movie. More guns results in more deaths. Every research paper out there proves it. The police chiefs in every major city across this nation have come out against national concealed carry. It is insanity.
I do agree that the background check system can be better. There shouldn't be any private sales. Period. Like cars, there should be registration. Ammo purchases should be tracked. Huge purchases in a short amount of time should be red flags. Family members should be interviewed to see if there are any anger management issues with this buyer. Any domestic abusers should be banned for life. Yes, the system should be better; it should be stronger.
So sorry Mr. Lott that public safety inconveniences you. Most people in this country are not gun owners. And the bottom line is we are sick of the NRA and their paid for politicians in Congress holding the majority of this country hostage. Enough.
10
I shall fall asleep mourning the tragedy of Mr Coleman needing to go to the extraordinary step of obtaining a unique transaction number before purchasing a weapon. That extra bit of dealing with bureaucracy is the very definition of "cruel and unusual".
8
Hard to tell if this is sarcastic or not. So much that comes from the 2nd Amendment people sounds crazy to me. Every problem seems to be solved by getting guns in the hands of more people and as fast as possible.
School shooting? We need more guns in schools. We need more good guys with guns to keep the bad guys with guns. People should have the right to carry a gun where ever they are. Not being part of the gun culture, it is hard for me to understand why this would sound sane unless you were selling guns.
I don’t have an issue with someone who wants a gun in their home to protect themselves. I don’t think it is safer for me though if everyone around me is carrying a gun whether or not I have one.
A car is much more important for most people’s lives. Their primary purpose is to get people from one place to another although can hurt people so I have to be trained and licensed to drive one.
Handguns on the other hand are made to hurt people, otherwise wouldn’t be much of a deterrent. Why should they be so different?
John Lott once again demonstrates his fast and loose claim to logic and "facts." He cites one example of a person who was a false positive on a gun background check hindering his ability to get a gun (horrors!) and then insinuates that just because the vast majority of background check denials don't get prosecuted in the criminal courts means that those were all false positives. He claims to rely on his "analysis" with no citation to any peer reviewed study of this issue. Maybe the criminal courts are so crowded that prosecutors simply have other more pressing cases to try.
4
Exactly. It's smoke and mirrors to placate those who want to get rid of the real problem: too many guns, period.
Who decides when someone is mentally unstable enough to not own a gun?
At what point do you do this?
Who can predict at what point a person will become mentally unstable? Why did no one predict what Stephen Paddock was going to do?
Then what do you do?
Every other country on the planet does not allow gun ownership the way we do. No matter what argument you try to put forth, those questions have been answered by people in other countries. Safety, security, self-protection, etc.
Just saying "because we have the Second Amendment" isn't good enough any more.
It's a human law which can be changed by humans.
We just have to decide, as a people, do do what's best for everyone and not "what's best for me, just because I want it."
This is the lesson for everything if we want to evolve as human and a planet in general.
What's best for everyone?
3
If I have to pay for a background check to teach Sunday School in order to make sure children are safe, someone who wants to buy a gun should pay for a background check in order to make sure children will be safe. And as to the 377,283 people who were “wrongly denied” getting their guns for “protection,” I don’t recall reading about the death or injury of 377,283 people whose imminent “danger” put them so in harm’s way that there was a mass event. That is a ridiculous red herring. In fact, red herrings are all that I ever hear coming out of the right to bear arms lobby. The deaths coming nearly daily from guns are too often of children, killed by someone entering a school, someone driving by, by the guns in their own household being used against them in violence, accidents and suicides. Their right to life supersedes anyone’s right to a gun.
2
The only solution to gun violence has to start by repealing the Second Amendment.
6
Who is this nut job? "...The answer is to have more civilians carry permitted concealed handguns..." Clearly a gun industry shill.
There are two things that civilians can own that can cause mass mayhem and death; guns and automobiles. To drive you need to pass a written exam, have many hours of supervised practice, then pass a comprehensive practical test, with on-going re-exams over time. To use a gun? Maybe you have to make it through a safety course (likely given by a gun store) without falling asleep.
Enabling more people to conceal-carry, who are effectively untrained in competent and safe use of firearms, may be a great way to increase revenues from gun and ammo sales. However, it's a recipe for even more tragedies. Yes, you'll get the very occasional story of an armed citizen stopping a "bad guy." you'll also get thousands of stories of accidental injuries and deaths.
Laws and regulations designed to prevent automotive deaths aren't always effective, but we still have and enforce them to lessen the carnage. We should do the same for firearms. You want fewer mass murders? Do more to prevent people with mental issues from getting firearms. Do more to take firearms away from people who have restraining orders on them, particularly for domestic violence. Do more to require competent ownership, use and storage of firearms. You know, the "well-regulated militia" part of the Second Amendment.
8
Well written comment. The last sentence makes me wonder why Justice Scalia somehow was able to ignore that part of the second amendment in his decision that it guaranteed an "individual" right to carry a firearm. Every "bad guy" was a "good guy", and law abiding citizen, until the day he decided to be a "bad guy".
Here's another possible answer to gun violence: Fewer guns.
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I suppose Mr. Lott thinks he is appealing to his perceived audience by attempting to pull at our heartstrings:”Pushing background checks on private transfers as proposed during the hearing disarms many law-abiding poor people.” Geez.
2
A voluntary National Buyer's ID would be very helpful. For a small fee (say $45) buyers could be screened with a fairly thorough background check, much like used for a CHL. The National ID would be valid in all US States. It would be voluntary for the first 10-12 years because, otherwise, it would never be approved.
The market would prefer this. Sellers, both private and retail, prefer to know the buyer has passed a background check. Retail sellers would enjoy lower insurance premiums if most of their customers were documented to be holders of such a National Buyer's ID.
It would NOT track purchases with ANY kind of database that does not exist today. Pay attention: this means (just like today) FFL sellers would record buyer's ID credentials and maintain that sales record -in-perpetuity-.
The National Buyer's ID would require a 3 year renewal. This insures that background information is kept current. Factors that would prevent renewal of a CHL would apply to this ID as well.
After 6-10 years, this would become the expected way to buy or sell a gun. Our society will have changed, for the better.
Anti's need to stop trying to impose "overnite fixes" on a society that was based on the 2nd Amendment. Real change will take time.
The Crime Prevention Research Center is a pro-gun organization. Rumor has it that they are funded by the NRA but I can't find hard evidence of that.
He's a discredited "academic" regarding his beliefs about background checks. The link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130304061928/http:/www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~la...
So of course he will be against background checks. Read this editorial with this information in mind.
7
Can hardly restrain my grief that sometimes a person will mistakenly fail a background check and have to acquire their guns only with difficulty. Boo boo.
5
Lott is a discredited researcher who was unable to produce supporting data when challenged and has been exposed as creating fake internet personas to incestuously praise his work. Read his wiki bio. He’s funded by the blood-soaked armaments industry.
That said, it’s clear that background checks don’t work. The USA has shocking quasi-war zone levels of gun carnage and the reason is shocking levels of civilian gun ownership. If Lott and his ilk were right, the USA would already be a shining example to the world of peace and harmony thru implicit threat of lethal force. Instead it is a warning to the rest of the world of what inevitably ensues when you vest civilians with the power to dispense frontier justice on a whim. That’s why no other first world nation has a second amendment, and no other first world nation wants a second amendment. It’s nothing but a collective suicide pact.
2
The downtrodden and defenseless gun buyers -- "the most vulnerable people"
Laughable.
2
Perhaps background checks are not THE answer....THE answer would be for no ownership of private weapons - reference Australia. However, ANY legislation would indicate that our government was not in thrall to the NRA. All those "thoughts and prayers" have not kept the victims from Sandyhook, Las Vegas, Orlando, San Bernadino, the streets and social meeting grounds of America, in the forefront of our emotional or rational thoughts or prayers. Maybe if each one of us suffered the loss of a loved one to gun violence, eh?
1
I kept reading this, thinking that the author was going to come up with some major policy answer to gun violence.
Instead, he recommends this "One answer is to have more civilians carry permitted concealed handguns."
What? We're supposed to combat gun violence by putting more guns on the street. Not only does that not seem logical, but the data does not support this.
The US already has more guns that any other country - in fact, the rate is almost twice as much as Serbia, the next highest country. The US gun violence rate is 25 times higher than the other 22 high-income country. Thus, there is absolutely no data to suggest that more guns equal less gun violence.
The New York Times won't publish an article without checking and double-checking sources and facts. How can it let an op-ed piece be published that has so little basis in fact?
4
""Pushing background checks on private transfers as proposed during the hearing disarms many law-abiding poor people."
In other words, anyone should be free to sell a gun to a sociopath. Background checks might cost you money.
Guess what, Mr. Lott? Your profit motive costs LIVES.
1
"One answer is to have more civilians carry permitted concealed handguns. Those law-abiding gun owners can help protect places where there are no police"
State and local Law enforcement officials overwhelmingly do not support this proposed solution.
The authors other proposed solutions is nothing more than specious self serving NRA Propaganda.
1
Not selling guns is the easiest way of all.
Let's remember that until he fired the first of hundreds of rounds at the crowd below, Stephen Paddock was the NRA's legendary "Law Abiding Citizen"
3
Background checks, closing gun show loopholes, limiting magazine capacity, and so on are all rear guard actions.
The logic of the second amendment is clear: as a precondition to our right to bear arms, one must be a member of a militia. We have it. It's called the National Guard.
1
Welcome back to the Wild West, prior to any professional police force and National Guard. This idea ignores the regression to a primitive society, seeming to believe that we still live at the edge of a wilderness or in one. Thereby, given the at least 300 million firearms now everywhere in this country, that there is now clear evidence of a basic common sense notion--the more guns, the more gun violence. That "American Sniper" was shot at a shooting range, for Pete's sake. Do you think anybody else there was carrying a gun?? Uh, huh. And studies show that people are more likely to shoot people they know (including themselves!) and care about than for protection against attack. I was inclined to have the gun people own more so they'd wipe themselves out, but I thought of the tragedies of children also being hurt and killed. More guns spirals into more gun deaths; very, very significantly less in countries have far less guns. Duh!
1
We have the highest number of people who carry firearms in the civilized world. We should have the lowest amount of gun violence.
Lottgic.
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Ah, those poor folks unwarrantedly denied the opportunity to buy a gun. I believe I'll stick with a form of the precautionary principle. If there is any doubt or ambiguity, don't allow the purchase.
1
The fix is easy.
1 - Make the government responsible for paying all costs associated with remedying a false positive plus $5,000.
2 - Make all government employees failing to report a disqualifying event that subsequent leads to an ineligible person to obtain a firearm personally liable to $5,000 to be deducted from that persons government paycheck.
Done. Fixed. Solved.
Who should be allowed to decide if you get to exercise your rights?
A: no one, that's what "rights" means
Why is the Times wasting its space .on this specious argument when our congress is actively trying to promote the spread of concealed weapons throughout the U.S. The 'concealed reciprocity act" mandates that all states that issue concealed carry permits for licences must honor the ability of individuals from other states to do the same. This could lead to explosion of concealed weapons in cities like New York. This law could set a precedent for the federal government's ability to overrule state gun laws. The hypocrisy of "state's rights" GOP is amazing.
3
It shouldn't be more difficult to vote than it is to buy a gun.
2
Seriously? Some guy in Texas might not get another gun, so we shouldn't have background checks at all? Let's just give everyone a gun and hope the good guys outnumber the bad guys? We're counting on "good" armed citizens to protect our country? Madness.
3
I agree that if private sales background checks are the answer, society should pay for it. A few years ago, liberals blocked a proposal to open the NICS database up to private sellers. Why? Because the goal of the left is to inconvenience, expense, and burden law abiding people, not to reduce crime. Universal background checks (which adds a $50-$100 fee to each purchase, even when selling a gun to one's cousin) is a good way to do that
John Lott has be debunked by peer statisticians repeatedly. The military just issued orders to recover guns from 4,000 more people who should not have been allowed to purchase guns. We caught the military not following the law and they are redressing their failure. As long as there is a process for false positives to undo mistakes, Lott hasn't a leg to stand on. We have false positives on air flight checks. Lott also makes another error, people do buy guns because they believe they will make them safer, but there is no evidence, no rash of stories of good guys stopping crime. What there is are solid statistics that states with higher rates of gun ownership like Alaska, Nevada, and Louisiana, have the highest rates of violent crime. And Google “Officers are three times more likely to be murdered on the job in high gun ownership states in comparison with low gun ownership states" If Lott is concerned with not hurting the innocent, he might pay more attention to the risks to innocent bystanders and cops responding to domestic assaults. Lott has a record as a shill for the NRA. His "research center" is about research the way Fox is about News.
2
I simply fail to see why I have to live in constant danger from the irresponsible gun owners among us. Yes, they are a small percentage of all gun owners. But that small percentage is doing tremendous damage. The easier it is to own and carry guns, the more that likely it is that this small percentage of irresponsible gun owners will intersect your life or the life of someone you love. I happen not to be a criminal nor a drug dealer nor do I live under daily threat from rattlesnakes or bears. Those people should probably own guns. I don't need one and I am safer in a world where the people around me don't have them either. Frankly, most of the gun owners I know are absolutely the last people I would trust to manage a firearm. I'll change my opinion when all the gun owning parents of our mass murderers stop saying "We knew he was having problems but we never thought he would kill his girlfriend and 15 other kids at his school ..." My safety shouldn't be dependent on your incredibly poor judgment. When you care about my child's life, I'll care about your "rights". Until then, I want to pass as many laws as I can to force you to consider that other people's lives matter -- not just yours.
1
More and more and more and more....guns have not made us safer. Why would we want even MORE guns on our streets?
John Lott: How about you put your efforts into objective studies that could back your claim, or not, that more people carrying guns will reduce the harm of guns.
With each mass shooting, apologists for the NRA call for less restrictions on gun control. One answer is to have more civilians carry permitted concealed handguns. Impressive people such as the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author, most recently, of “Increase Your Firepower: A Scholarly Look at Killing Others,” bring forward reasonable approaches that all can agree on. For example, we do need to fix the background check system. But let’s really fix it. Let’s ditch it altogether. Instead, let’s have background checks of the potential victims of gun violence, especially children and other unarmed people who are a threat to psychotic gun owners. Only when each person, especially older white men who are scared to death to leave their homes without a loaded handgun, has easy access to horrific weapons like those used in warfare, will America ever be safe. Let me be the first to salute a true hero of public safety, John R. Lott, Jr. But tell me, great hero, and please make it brief, is there a hole for me to get sick in?
2
This article is nonsense. The background check system is not preventing "millions of law-abiding citizens from buying guns for protection" and any claim to that effect without even a shred of supporting evidence is outrageous. Moreover, the cite to the ridiculous PoliceOne survey is ludicrous. One might as well survey folks at the NRA convention for their thoughts on wise policy. There is a reason that gun owners and non-gun owners alike massively support universal background checks, and this article gives no reason to doubt that judgment. In addition, the idea that more gun carrying will reduce crime has been thoroughly refuted by the best empirical evidence. More gun carrying does substantially increase the number of criminals with weapons, though, since it elevates the large number of guns stolen each year. The most likely thing to happen for a gun purchased for self-protection is that it will be stolen (about 400,000 guns are stolen each year), not that it will be used to resist crime. Gun owners should worry less about the cost of background checks and worry a bit more about arming hundreds of thousands of criminals each year.
2
As teenager, I lived in Israel and LOVED its system of practically every citizen allowed / and duly caring an unconcealed weapon. My teacher had one, so did my young son's daycare worker, so did every Senior student (of legal age), and parent in my high-school. At our wedding, both my teenage groom and I spotted Uzis on our shoulder. This is the best defense. And such times are finally fast approaching, which I welcome. The Govt will not protect us from the "bad" people, only we can do it. Go to a shooting range and feel the bliss of hitting a target from 500 yrs. It is divine.
"Many of those people are trying to buy guns to protect themselves."
From what? I've been on this planet for almost 75 years and not once did I ever feel I needed a gun to protect myself.
Just tell those in fear of their lives it's not necessary to buy a gun. Just tell them to stop watching Fox News and listening to the likes of Rush Limbaugh. Fear will just evaporate.
1
What if the person using a valid concealed carry weapon shoots, misses and hits innocent people? Can I use my concealed carry weapon and return fire? I hope I also don’t miss.
How interesting. An op-ed criticizing the background check system, written by a man who consistently writes that more guns is the answer to gun violence. Now that’s credibility.
The fundamental problem is why our culture produces such a large number of people who worship guns and amass arsenals of powerful semi-automatic weapons, made and intended for use in military wars,
At some point, an Adam Lanza gets access to his Mom's cache or a once sane man becomes anxious and paranoid. Then disaster strikes in the form of mass murder.
We live in a sick and dangerous country, background checks or not.
1
I'll admit, the teaser headline caused me to click on the article and give it a quick skim. My fast read quickly showed some gaping holes a few of Mr. Lott's facts and conclusions.
Lott states over 377K citizens were denied the ability to legally purchase a firearm due to a failed background check. This figure seems without value unless one knows the total number of applicants. A quick check of the DOJ study linked to Lott's column shows that in 2010 1.2% of all applicants were denied. Nearly half were denied due to a felony conviction with another 20% denied because they were fugitives.
Lott also claims that background checks "disarm many law abiding poor people." Lott provides a $125 figure for the cost of a background check in Washington State. A very quick look at federally licensed firearms sellers in Washington show that many charge in the $50 range for providing the check for a private sale.
Lott's final premise is increasing the number of concealed handgun owners would provide protection from mass killers. His argument would be stronger if he could cite statistics that show that fewer such tragedies occur in states that have a greater number of CHL holders.
Effective arguments rely on accurate facts. In old time military firearms training, a complete target miss was called a "Maggie's Drawers" from the white flag the target monitors waved at the shooter. In this op-ed, inaccurate facts cause Lott a complete miss-and a waving white flag.
1
Is this guy serious or is this a parody?
All taxpayers should pay for poor little gun-buyers' background checks?
Arm all citizens with handguns?
2
Background checks are part of the many sensible gun controls in place for years.
Yet all the mass shootings in the US every year add up to a bad holiday weekend in Chicago. When we get serious about preventing gun violence we'll target the young, male, people of color who every year commit the overwhelming majority of it. The NYC statistics are typical:
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_planning/yea...
It's deeply touching that the author is concerned about poor people being prevented from buying guns because they can't afford background check fees.
Too bad he's not concerned about the over 30,000 people killed by guns annually in this country.
It would be nice to have a real solution to gun violence in the US, but I no longer have any hope it will happen.
Let me get this straight. Mr Ronnie Coleman of Virginia was inconvenienced because of a mishap in his background check.
Meanwhile, the victims of the Sutherland Springs, Tex killer, lost their lives because the background checks weren't vigorous enough.
I don't know, Mr. Lott, which of those problems sounds worse to you really?
1
All of this detailed debate and nit picking is irrelevant. The statistics are in, and the conclusion is unmistakable: more guns equals more deaths. In the developed countries with strict gun laws, gun deaths are a small fraction per capita of what they are in the U.S. (40 times less in the U.K.). Gun ownership here verges on a mental disease (caused in part, originally, by fear of emancipated slaves, but later perpetuated by the gun lobby and its fear mongers). We don't need all the guns to be safe. To the contrary, they make us very unsafe.
1
No the answer is not having more people carry concealed handguns and no it does not stop mass killers from attacking. Stop making guns a "fun" sport. It is not only about the mental illness of an "active shooter" it is about how are citizens able to buy so many guns. America needs to focus on the dispensing of guns to reduce all the lives lost. We are so focused on the "rights" and not focused on the victims of mass shootings and all the other gun victims. The world is watching you America and you are a violent society on your own people with your own guns.
Anecdotes and weasel words ("high percentage" -- which is?).
Mr. Lott's solution -- more guns make us safer -- certainly has worked out well in the most armed country in the world, which also happens to have the most gun deaths in the developed world.
Us.
Let’s simply cut to the chase... the only truly workable solution: ban guns in our society (law enforcement excepted). They deliver little or no value, while facilitating a devastating impact on us all, physically, socially and mentally. The sports enthusiasts who can’t live without them can join locked-down gun clubs that keep them on-site in safes. There, they can go and shoot guns to make them feel big and strong, the feeling which hopefully will last them all week, and the next weekend they can go back again to re-extinguish their fears, and re-ignite their cowboy fantasies of shooting bad guys.
1
Here’s another thought on how to reduce gun violence: Fewer guns.
1
What utter, complete nonsense.
There is not a shred of evidence in any credible study ever conducted that would suggest if only more people had guns to defend themselves, more deaths would be prevented. For every (very isolated) incident where a bystander or homeowner had a gun available, what sufficiently skilled to use it effectively and successfully mitigated a personal attack, there are many more cases where a personal firearm is used to kill friends, family members, or to commit suicide.
The math is incredibly simple: more guns, more people die...
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It would be helpful if you used sources to back up your claims ... I suspect you haven't got any.
Nowhere in Mr. Lott's piece does he express any concern for life. His agenda is clear: Have as many guns in circulation in the US as possible. His rhetoric about liberal" people reflects an animus against people who threaten his agenda. Opinions like this make all gun owners, including those who seek reasonable gun control laws, appear to be bloodthirsty.
The answer to gun violence is to melt guns down and make something useful out of it. Also, anyone crowing about government overreach infringing on their 2A rights, can take a long walk off a short pier. Society doesn’t need people who put their right to own any kind of weapon they want over sensibility and the right of others to live and not be shot and killed.
So let me get this straight: it’s a problem if gun buyers get a false positive from a gun owner check. However it is not a problem if thousands of voters Also get false positive when trying to vote. I get the feeling that the author of this opinion is if not a member then a shareholder of the NRA
This is just more of the same ridiculous line that more guns is the answer to gun violence. It matters not how obvious the correlation and the causality of gun violence and the abundance of guns.
The background check system is not perfect. Well then let's do away with background checks by all means.
Guns are for self protection. So by all means let's expand concealed carry.
More guns means more protection. So why not have the government issue every citizen a handgun. That should guarantee universal safety.
These are ridiculous arguments made by ridiculous people. How about this as an alternative. If a gun owner breaks a single law, discharges his weapon illegally or shoots an innocent person for any reason, then that gun owner goes to jail for life and forfeits his entire personal wealth to the victim. Might that improve the safe use of guns?
It is now February 12th, we are 43 days into the new year. So far in the US there have been 1,746 gun deaths and 28 mass shootings. So of course giving more people access to guns is the answer!! Why didn't I think of that?? I am in awe of your sagacity and ability to arrive at unorthodox solution to truly vexing problems. Could I beg a boon? Would you mind taking your wisdom and innovation to Gaza, for say 20 or 30 years? I'm sure they would value your insights.
You could summarize Lott's argument as: gun control laws are not perfect, so we should do away with any that exist.
Has he never heard: "The perfect is the enemy of the good"?
Does that mean someone who will unreasonably insist that a solution has to be perfect is the enemy of the person ho proposes a good and reasonable measure?
“If people believe that background checks reduce crime and benefit everyone, everyone should pay for it, out of general government revenue.”
Wrong!
Get a passport, pay a fee
Get a drivers license, pay a fee
Actually, we should place much larger taxes and fees on guns and ammo
"So what should be done when the background check system fails to stop mass killers from attacking? One answer is to have more civilians carry permitted concealed handguns."
So ... this is how low our nation has sunk. We can't blame this on the Russians ... but I'm sure they're laughing at us as we, in our national madness, blow each other away, starting with the children.
All of us should pay for others' gun licenses? And their dog licenses and automobile registrations and, hey, why not parking tickets? About one out of every 30 Americans has a concealed carry permit; Mr. Lott should urge us to stay in crowds.
Mr. Lott is correct. Background checks are not the answer to gun violence.
He is deadly wrong in his assertion that more people should have guns, and we would all be safer as a result. More people do have guns, and look where we are today as a result.
His spewing of claptrap regarding guns is definitely not the answer. He is the problem, not the solution.
It is very clear that the individual who wrote this column has absolutely NO idea whatsoever what is going on in the outside world. Once again, the bogus, totally ridiculous claim that more guns will prevent tragedies such as mass killings America leads the world in, is utter nonsense and always has been. If this is the case, why is America not the safest country in the world and why does it have more people incarcerated than any other country in the world? Clearly, neither of these two scenarios have made America any safer.
I am afraid guns and violence are an ingrained part of American culture and always will be and dead people are just collateral damage.
So, the guy from "Crime Prevention Research Center" is the guy that's concerned greatly about "false positives" on BG checks? Crime prevention and arming people? (As long as they are "law-abiding" - whatever they means to each person.) What sort of processes should a person go through to obtain and maintain "concealed carry" permits? Should an involuntary psychiatric hold (72 hrs in section 5150 within Calif. - for example) keep a person from concealed carry, temporarily or permanently? That could get complicated, since a person can sue over holds - such as a suit claiming someone lying when reporting something worth a psych hold. I guess the answer is held by either of the two extremes on the gun debate and not at all possible to work out a balanced and adult solution. Let's be real. Who has the most pull in politics about gun policy? NRA.
Yeah just what America needs, a bunch of law abiding untrained gun owners protecting us in places where there are no police. First of all, where are these areas specifically that the author speaks of? The middle of a forest somewhere where you would be more likely to be mugged by a moose? Relying on untrained individuals with conceal carry permits for "protection" is not anywhere remotely the answer to America's gun problem. I have not read the author's book "The War on Guns" but if it's message is anything like this article I'm guessing it's full of thinly disguised advertising for the NRA as well.
This article assumes that most people who buy guns are doing so to protect themselves. That premise is required to buy into every conclusion.
But there are a lot of reasons people buy guns. They buy them to be macho, they buy them for sport, they buy them to collect. To make the delays caused by background checks remotely a problem, this guy needs to show that there is a link between being denied a gun and being the victim of a crime.
But there is no such link. This whole article is just vapid, hot air.
John Lott is also the author of a 1998 book called "More Guns, Less Crime"---a book that forms the basis of the current gun-rights movement, with a premise that has been discredited over and over by studies and statistics. The truth is: More Guns, More Death and Injury.
The right does not display the same concern about "false positives" when they are looking for duplicate Hispanic names in voter registration databases. For the purposes of voter suppression, false positives aren't a bug -- they are a feature.
1
"Ronnie Coleman, a Virginia resident" was inconvenienced by bureaucratic error. This is unfortunate. 33,000 Americans are slain every year by gunfire, and countless more are gravely injured. This is obscene.
1
The moment a liberal includes suicides in "gun violence" is the moment I know I'm dealing with a dishonest hack.
i'm pretty sure the answer to gun violence is getting rid of guns.
2
Yes, let's do everything we can to streamline gun acquisition and get more guns out on the street. How many cops were shot this past week again? The gun crowd has NO shame.
2
Everyone is a “law abiding citizen” until they are not. I’m so tired of hearing that there are good guys and bad guys- i.e., people who will kill even if they can't access guns, and people who will never kill no matter what weapons they can access. This is a simple-minded fantasy.
The reality is that people are killed by ‘good guys’ with guns: the “law abiding” father who forgot to lock up his gun, killing his kid. Maybe it was the man with no prior convictions for anything who has a mental breakdown and shoots his wife, or himself.
You also pretend that no crime is ever stopped by restricting access to guns. In the anti-gun control world, ‘bad guys’ will either still guns or find some other way to kill, therefore, restricting access to guns is pointless. This is demonstrably false. Story time:
There once was a law abiding citizen who wanted to kill people at his university. He tried to get a gun but was delayed because of some gun-control measure. Because he really wanted to commit these murders, he selected another weapon. He drove into a crowd, but he didn’t kill anyone. I was there, and I would have been one of the first people he encountered. Gun control saved my life. It is so much easier to kill with guns than other weapons. Obstacles to gun access can be just enough of a barrier that prods a person to select a less damaging weapon, or that gives him time to cool off.
You think saving Mr. Coleman some paperwork is more important that saving my life.
This isn't a coherent or credible argument against background checks. Gettin more guns into the hands of "poor people" should not be the goal.
2
The author is quite light on the data in this article— other than his anecdotes about false positives and fees and a study showing that police officers support concealed carry there’s not a lot here. No data (or even anecdotes!) on how background checks “disarm many law-abiding poor people” or how guns make it easier for “poor people to defend themselves”. Readers deserve better.
"Ronnie Coleman, a Virginia resident, was not allowed to buy a gun in 2012 because another person from his hometown in Texas who had a felony conviction also had a name and birth date “close enough” to his to cause a denial."....And so what is that supposed to prove? Poor baby, he had to go a little extra effort to buy a gun, but the felon was blocked. And the poor guy who was once a felon and had his rights restored, well big deal. Look. I have to take my shoes off and go through a metal detector to fly on an airplane. Its inconvenient. Ok. So maybe purchasing a gun should be a little inconvenient. Maybe people need to be reminded that firearms are a deadly serious matter.
1
One wonders if any kind of agreement is possible on this issue. From my perspective as a physician who has cared for a number of children grievously wounded or worse by accidental encounters with the legal family gun, I can think of no rational reason for private gun ownership. The notion that a person without police training and experience in
life and death situations will miraculously save the day is adolescent fantasy. Has the writer of this opinion watched a 9 year old shot through his brain by his 14 year old brother die in front of him? I have and it dampens the zeal for the nonsense promoted by this article.
305
Thank you for saying this. As a volunteer with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, and a local lead for our BeSMART program - which advocates for safe firearm storage within homes and vehicles - we need more input from those in the medical and emergency response community who have dealt with the aftermath of "accidental" deaths of children due to improper storage of guns and ammunition.
More guns (concealed or not) is not the answer. Getting firearms out of the hands of children - and the adults who behave like children - is one of many ways to curb gun violence in this country.
7
Well.
Mr. Williams, your comment left me flabbergasted, open mouthed and then I burst into tears.
....and I don't cry easily.
Guns will be shown to be "THE" moral question of our lifetime. People like Mr. Lott--who clearly know better but peddle wrong information in the service of personal gain--have shown their utter lack of decency, morality or respectability.
I am so sorry for what you described and I am so sorry we have not been able to stop evil people from facilitating that tragedy.
3
If emotion could be removed, there may be agreement but just because you've seen a kid shoot another his brother in the head shouldn't mean I can't own a firearm & enjoy competency qualification courses, self defense, and competitive shooting sports.
4
In the summer of 1946, my four years older brother, who a decade or so later represented the USA in handgun and riflery at the Australian Olympics, wanted to achieve his NRA Instructor's badge, and I, his 11 years old sister, was the handiest means to achieve this. By the end of the summer, I had my Expert targets, but wasn't old enough to apply. However, I did have all the lower patches, which I sewed onto my bookbag. At the time, the NRA seemed a benign champion of gun safety and old-time competence. Then the weird transformation--or was it a revelation?--began, and with it a corruption of the truth. For example, in 2004 an NRA advertisement announced "This Dog Don't Hunt" under an illustration of a pointing apricot-coloured Standard Poodle. The generic poodle, is, of course, the original pan-European water-dog; among much other indication, a Roman coin shows a dog in pattern flanked by two men with ducks hung by their necks from a belt, then as now, (These days, after the Procrustean divisions caused by the dog-show movement which dates from the latter half of the 19th century, we're left with Italian, French, Russian, Spanish, Porgugese, and so on, varieties.) "This dog" emphatically does hunt, and for a couple of thousand years. I wrote to the NRA and months later received a patronizing reply; and upon receipt I reflected that this organization which had straightforwardedly supprted me in competence in the 1940s was now baldfacedly sponsoring a lie.
56
It's hard for those of us who are decent people to understand that evil walks among us.
In the whole NRA/gun industry cloud, there are several levels of participants--some are just dupes, who have bought into the gun culture as a means to aggrandize themselves.
However--deeper into that murky cloud of evil are the people whose companies manufacture weapons. People who LITERALLY benefit with material gain from the advancement of other people's tragedies.
Those sorts of people cannot be counted to look out for the societal good; indeed they have shown their true colors by their avocation.
2
A logical answer to what to do about gun violence, would be to limit the number of bullets that could be fired from a gun. Go back to the 6 loader and the rate of mass shootings will be greatly reduced. But old Wayne would freak at that so congress wouldn't ever do it.
4
Assuming such a law could be enforced, it might work and the Supreme Court might even find it passes Constitutional muster.
But there was a time when Russia claimed they had no gays because it was banned. And one might wonder why we have a heroin problem here, it being banned and all.
I'm sorry. I am 67 years old and have NEVER needed a gun to protect myself. I can't think of a time in my life when having a gun would have improved ANY situation. The idea that good guys with guns can stop the bad guys is idiotic and dangerous. Think of the Las Vegas Massacre for example. Moreover, having a gun available can turn a good guy into a bad one in seconds, and makes suicide easier. Sure there are people who work nights or live in very rural areas, but for the most part, nobody needs a gun to protect him or herself. If you think you do, you may be running around with a "bad crowd."
13
If you can find it, I just posted a comment about two situations that I was in where I came close to needing a gun. I ran out of space for the third situation where I wish I would have had one.
Here it is: I was camping with my wife and infant son, in a national forest campground. There were a lot of people there, we were near one end of it. In the middle of the night, a motorcycle gang/group roared in, set up camp in several sites close to us, and began a huge fire and yelling "kill!" "Kill!" Just chanting. I'm serious.
Then a group of them came to our tent, where we were sleeping and started yelling for us to "get out." They wanted our spot. A few minutes later, when they walked away, I quickly got my wife and child into the car, I pulled up the tent and threw it on top of the car, not waiting to take it down, and left.
What would have happened if one of them had persisted? It was frightening. 40 years ago and I can still remember it vividly.
If you haven't been the victim of this kind of thing you can't really appreciate it. But it does happen, and there was NO ONE to protect us. I was outnumbered, out-sized, and vulnerable because of my wife and child.
Don't dismiss these kinds of things because you have never experienced them. The other two incidents I describe in my comment are like these---they are not because I run with a "bad crowd."
Problem: Too hard to get guns to everyone because checking is imperfect?
Solution: Get guns to everyone by not checking anyone?
Source: Retired and active cops/
Aren't they the guys who made us create :Black Lives Matter? Police oversight committees? Lawyers for convicted innocents whose rights cops had violated?
Lott seems to have ingested NRA hot air. Deflate him. Make Congers oppose free carry, carry across state lines, school carry, church carry, gun show non-checking. Mr. Lott: How would the Vegas kill-scene have improved had every music fan started shooting at the hotel, the streets, maybe each other? Tell us, Lott, or do the right thing and work for a safer America, not for making the worst industrialized place less safe..
6
Does Mr Lott have any data for the number of times concealed carry weapons have prevented mass shootings? And how does that stack up against the tens of thousands of deaths due to accidental discharges and suicides?
166
I would also like the statistics of how many false positives which prevented someone from buying a gun ended in their death because they did not have a gun to protect themselves vs the future fantasy or possibility that a law abiding citizen will stop a crime with legally concealed gun.
2
I would also like to know how many times guns stop a "home invasion"? How often do these happen and how often is a gun used to "protect" a family? Why does this phenomenon occur in the US and not in other advanced countries? This is the argument I hear the most yet I have never known anyone who had a home invasion and it certainly is not something which occurs on a daily basis, unlike gun accidents or mass shootings. I think it's a mass paranoia encouraged by the gun industry which does not allow statistics to be published.
4
that's easy... never...
1
Instead of beginning with background checks, we should begin with 'why does the person need a fire arm? I there is no good reason - like 'My house has been broken into & I have good reason to believe it may be broken into again.' - you should not have a gun. Period.
1
Because it is a Constitutional right.
We're sorry Ms Wolf but your application for Homeowners insurance has been declined until you can demonstrate a good reason for needing it, like your house just burned down and you have reason to believe it will burn down again.
The NRA is driven by $$$. Not gun safety, not innocent lives stolen, not any moral code. The more guns, the more gun deaths. What’s the answer? Fewer gun sales. Guns are a business, not some embodiment of the 2nd amendment. If there was no profit motive in selling guns, there would be no NRA. We need gun laws not tied to the questionable intent of “the right to bear arms”. We need laws that respond to our times. Overcrowded cities and an ever-present media memorializing mass shooters call for a re-think of these laws. I don’t have the answers but I voted for representatives who need to discover the answers. The gun genie has been out of the bottle for too long. Owning guns to protect ourselves from other people who own guns? What kind of solution is that? Yet here we are. Instead of putting our energy into deporting and barring immigrants, we need to spend some time and money protecting ourselves from ourselves. Don’t leave it up to a group of lobbyists who spend millions of dollars touting an agenda that enriches makers of arms designed to kill civilians. Nothing noble or patriotic in that.
6
A favorite bit of propaganda from the NRA and its adherents is equating deaths from gun violence to deaths from car crashes. Aside from the speciousness of this argument is the disingenuous basis from which it springs forth.
Unlike the NRA which has made it illegal for the government to study gun violence and for the ATF to maintain a searchable database of guns the government has several agencies that study vehicle and highway systems safety. Add to that billions spent by the manufacturers and the insurers on car safety and the combined the effect is greater safety on our roadways. Even as absolute number of deaths are creeping up again (although deaths in terms of vehicle miles traveled and percent of population continue a downward trend) both the government and industry are looking at how to reduce distracted driving and the other causes of injury and death on the roads. The NRA and the industry are doing what? Advocating for more people to carry more guns to more places.
If the NRA and its followers allowed the kind of effort we seen go into vehicle and highway safety we would see fewer deaths from guns. But that's not what they are interested in or else they would do it.
If we as a nation cared we could apply a "good ol' American know-how" level of development with the modern technology to address the gun violence in this country. But too many profit from governess by fear and wanting us to forget a can-do spirit that has overcome even greater obstacles.
4
Interesting. In my reading it is the gun control side that routinely equates vehicular deaths and 'gun violence' deaths. Since roughly two-thirds of 'gun violence' deaths are suicides, it is a troubling comparison because:
(a) There is no obvious connection between gun suicide and an assault weapons ban. Generally, one shot is enough.
(b) Similarly, there is no connection between suicide and limiting magazine capacity.
(c) There does seem to be a connection between suicide and access to firearms (relating to transiently depressed and impulsive younger folks, IIRC), but the overall US suicide rate (unlike our homicide rate) is well within the range of other OECD countries so there is no obvious crisis. And per the news, the latest suicide scourge is alcohol and opioids.
(d) Improving "gun safety" is extremely unlikely to prevent a suicide by the rightful gun owner.
1
You know what Tom, I see that you are correct that the gun control side uses highway data - but I've been involved in a number of debates with gun advocates that fall back on: "look how many people are dying on the highways, THAT is where you should be concentrating your efforts, not guns" as if there is no or little effort to control highway deaths. And naturally when such effort is revealed they fend off any suggestion that it be applied to gun violence as well.
For those who argue there are already too many guns in America to control, in Japan ammunition is strictly regulated. The local police log every round you own and when you fire one you must bring the empty casing to your local police department and the log is updated. Gun owners are subject to periodic checks of their homes by local police to see if your guns are stored safely and to account for your ammunition. Handguns are absolutely forbidden but a good friend of mine is a hunter and owns a single rifle ("Why would I need more?" he asks.) and doesn't for a moment chafe at the regulations. He was shocked to see the display of handguns for sale in a Vermont gun shop as well as bows. Apparently archery hunting is unknown in Japan.
3
What you have here, pitting the anti gun zealots against the pro gun zealots, is zealots all round, the issue politicized, polarized, like every other issue in the country.
I grew up in rural Alberta, oil and cattle country, where every single farmer I knew had multiple guns for multiple purposes. Our political divides are similar to yours, urban liberals, rural conservatives. Yet we don't have a pervasive gun culture, nor a vitriolic relationship between those who have and those who don't have guns.
In Canada, restricted firearms need to be registered. Long guns, as used by hunters and farmers don't. All owners of all firearms need to be licensed and all firearms secured and stored properly. That's it. Our gun deaths per capita are seven times lower than yours.
But that's just a fact that means nothing in a country where guns are killing tools of mass destruction and at the same time, symbols of personal freedom. The two are intertwined in the history and ethos of the country, enshrined in your anthem, and deeply revered hand over heart. You are not alone. Many in the world share that sentiment.
But there will come a time when we no longer need to carve out what has always been a temporary and paranoid freedom at the point of a gun. We're not there yet. We don't really see ourselves as all in the same boat. The others are out to get us, and we need to be armed. We are tribal people with tribal instincts, not quite ready for what awaits us. We will be soon.
1
I am a dual US/Canadian citizen residing in the former. Gun laws in the two countries are a perennial topic of conversation between my Canadian resident cousins and me.
I don’t understand or agree with US gun culture, but it boils down to this: the 2nd amendment. Gun ownership is a right in the US and a privilege in Canada.
Tinkering with the US Bill of Rights is a tall order, especially when mixed with unfettered NRA propaganda paid for by gun manufacturers.
Conceal carry permit holders in the US are statistically less likely to commit crimes of all sorts including gun crimes than the population at large. It sounds suspect unless you understand the overwhelming majority of gun killings are committed by young males in poor urban neighborhoods the result of drug profits and gangs.
I recently read (I forget where) that 3% of Americans own 50% of the guns: for an average of 17 guns per owner (in that group). I'm inclined to believe it. The US has always been a violence-loving country (game of football, anyone?) Not sure anything will or can change that. It's in our national DNA; another manifestation of 'American Exceptionalism.'
Well then, it should be a welcome relief there's no relationship between the number of firearms and gun violence. Private gun ownership in the US exceeds the world average by a factor of 4 or 5 (disclaimer: because we have more disposable income we own more of a lot of things than the rest of the world like iPhones and Christmas decorations but let's keep it simple.) Meanwhile, we are nowhere near the top for gun violence, barely middle of the pack.
Apparently, all those African, South and Central American countries "love" violence much more than the USA.
If Mr. Lott thinks more people carrying concealed weapons is the answer to gun violence, then let guns be carried onto the floor of Congress, into courthouses and into state legislative and other government buildings. Allow visitors to carry guns into the White House. If concealed guns make us all safer, then let people carry them into airports and onto airplanes. If Mr. Lott and "verified law enforcement professionals" believe that more concealed weapons are the answer to gun violence, then why should guns be denied anywhere?
4
Keep gun control. Add mandatory yearly recertification training for gun owners, stop people with domestic violence charges and those with substance use convictions from owning guns, that will reduce gun violence
3
If you have a lousy plumbing system in your house, you don't get rid of indoor plumbing, you repair or replace it!
The author shows that there are serious flaws in the N.I.C.S. system and, of course, he's right. But the answer isn't to do away with national background checking, it's to rebuild the system to be safe, effective and accurate, to allow law-abiding citizens to exercise their Constitutional right to arms, while preventing convicted violent criminals from ever having them.
It has not been shown that allowing more civilians to carry concealed reduces crime, and those states with the most lax carry laws, concealed and open, generally have higher rates of accidental or criminal shootings, including homicides.
Just recently, in a road rage incident, a 60 year old man was shot and killed by a 23 year old woman. She hasn't been charged so it's not clear if it was legal self-defense or not, but neither of them should have stopped in anger to confront each other. Had she not been carrying (and it was legally), would she have stopped or would she have driven away?
Or, as is Rule 1 of gunfighting: Be somewhere else!
But I agree with the last paragraph. More effort needs to be placed on real and serious fixes to the background check system and less on "feel good" useless and expensive legislation such as the pending bill in NJ to reduce magazine capacity from 15 to 10 rounds. It will do nothing to prevent 99.99% of gun crimes & cost millions of $$ to legal owners.
I don't understand one core premise in this argument; why would the denial of a firearm application lead to a prosecution, let alone a conviction? A past crime might be the reason for denial, but the denial itself isn't a crime. The statistics on prosecutions and convictions are moot.
Background checks might not be effective, but I can't draw that conclusion from this piece.
So the current system yields a few false positives. What difference does this make in a debate about whether we should have a better background check system?
3
False positives can be corrected and will not cost someone their life except in extremely rare circumstances.
So the system is a bit cumbersome and not always accurate. Use it anyway. Just make it better over time.
3
One answer is to have more civilians carry permitted concealed handguns. Those law-abiding gun owners can help protect places where there are no police.
No,no,and no. This canard hs been debunked over and over.
1
@ Julia Holcomb Leesburg VA
I beg to differ with your "No, No, ...". Open-carry guns are a powerful deterrent against crime.
If some people are accidentally denied a gun, that's just fine with me. The fewer private citizens with guns, the better. Mr. Lott seems to see the primary problem as an inconvenience for people buying guns. As with his larger ideas about guns, security, and the 2nd Amendment, he is tragically, offensively, criminally wrong.
3
I knew before I even read this op-ed just from the headline that more guns in the hands of more people would be the answer. Both policemen who were killed in Westerville, Ohio, on Saturday were heavily armed and knew how to use their weapons. They also knew that home from which they had received a hang-up 911 call was one that they had visited before on domestic violence calls concerning a woman, a child, and a violent man. The woman had come to the police station to get a protective order not too long before these killings and told police her convicted felon partner had a gun he wasn't legally allowed to have. So we have a known violent man who illegally has a gun, two weapons-trained police officers with guns, and yet both officers are killed. Three guns here--two legal. How should this one have been prevented John Lott?
3
Quentin Smith, a 30 year old convicted felon with an illegal gun ambushed two police officers (we're going to have to disagree on the definition of heavily armed) and your complaint is they didn't employ deadly force quickly enough? Think about that the next time the NYT reports a young, black male was "executed" by the police.
When are we as a society going to make the decision that the lives of those affected by gun violence are worth more than the concerns of people flagged as false positives on background checks or the billion dollar gun lobby?
4
There will never be a perfect system. Despite flaws in both systems, I believe we need to rigorously enforce both the gun background check system as well as the eVerify system for employment. We can reduce the burden of false positives by creating an efficient appeals process for anyone who thinks he was wrongly denied either a gun or employment.
But as I said, nothing is perfect. Just a few days ago two local police officers were killed by a man who was not allowed to possess a gun because of numerous prior convictions - including for domestic violence. He paid another man $100 plus the cost of the weapon to buy a handgun for him. The straw buyer was tracked down, arrested, and I hope he has the book thrown at him.
1
Isn't it heartwarming to know that gun advocates care about the poor?
It is disturbing, though, that a putative academic and "expert" cites an opinion survey as evidence that more concealed handguns would reduce mass killing, instead of discussing the (vanishingly rare? entirely nonexistent?) cases in which civilians with guns have prevented shootings.
1
Mr. Lott,
Thank you for providing your perspective on preventing gun deaths, but I have to say I find your arguments specious at best.
You cite a lot of data to support your position that background checks won't solve the problem. That may be true. But the crux of your argument, that more people should be able to arm themselves to reduce gun violence, lacks sufficient data to support it.
You say, "false positives that stop law-abiding people from getting weapons that they might need to protect themselves and their families;" but you fail to provide even anecdotal evidence in your piece to support the claim that armed citizens are safer. The fact that law enforcement officials support something doesn't mean it is a good idea.
Maybe if we actually allowed massive data collection and public health research on guns, we'd have data to support your claim. But, alas, we don't. And evidence from around the world seems to suggest that less guns in general makes for a safer society. For example, see https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-gun-policy-global-comparisons or do a quick google search.
HR
1
I agree with Mr. Lott that background checks are insufficient to keep firearms out of the hands of all antisocial elements, even if the background checks included the private history of mental aberration.
But the article as a whole reads as a disappointing essay by a leftist radical Democrat, who does not perceive the deterrent value of firearms, carried openly by citizens of good will and sound judgement.
Having to get a unique transaction number is a minor burden if a life can be saved. Of course, the background check system can be improved, and this is the purpose of the current efforts. Background checks at the time of purchase are one thing, but annual gun owner background checks of all current gun owners would be much more effective in sorting out violent offenders, domestic abusers and owners who "lost" their firearms or were negligent and had their arms stolen or illegally transferred. This should include annual mental health exams and interviews of spouses, families and co-workers. Gun ownership and use outside of the military and law enforcement should only be allowed from age 21 on, the legal drinking age.
Has any mass murder ever been prevented by ANYONE carrying a concealed weapon? Shouldn't we disclose that the organization you founded is not about preventing deaths but putting more guns into the system. I'm trying to be polite. But I do pay for my subscription and for that I expect experts and facts.
4
At last someone is beginning to speak the truth about background checks. Background checks have become a fig leaf for politicians who are not ready to to deal with the problem of out of control gun violence.
For background checks to work they would have to become so invasive that in order to get them through the courts we would have to repeal the Bill of Rights. Even then they would end up being based to on unproven science (since research into the problem is forbidden by federal law) and unlikely to work.
You are correct. What we need is a constitutional convention to edit the terribly written second amendment.
Lottgic: noun lott-gic
definition
a) the twist of logic whereby a country already ranked as first at something negative will improve in a positive manner when adding more of what is causing it to be the leader in the negative characteristic. Examples: Belarus leads the world in alcoholism, thereby we decrease the number of alcoholics by making it easier to purchase alcohol. Nauru has the highest BMI index, thereby we decrease the obesity rate by feeding them more, but less healthy food. Finally, United States leads the civilized world in gun violence, thereby we increase the amount of guns available for people to commit such violence
Lottgic.
1
In the folklore of the West, what was the first thing that the sheriff did when a newcomer came to town? He took their guns away. The firearm homicide rate in other developed countries is minuscule to that of the US. Perhaps they took a page out of our frontier history.
1
So, more guns will make me feel safer? I think not. In fact, it would be just the opposite.
Without ever taking a position on gun control or the efficacy of background checks, this article seems just a transparent attempt to justify transferring the costs for background checks from buyers to taxpayers based on a flawed, unproven assertion that somehow "false positives" are a major problem and law-abiding people are in danger because they can't get weapons.
1
So now civilian sheriffs are the answer. Even when trained, experienced police officers too often mistakenly shoot and kill innocent people? I expect more thoughtful analyses from the NY Times, even the op-ed section. Background checks are part of the answer, of course they are, and to publish this headline borders on irresponsible. Mr. Lott's argument that civilians are the answer to the US gun problem is far from nuanced, or supported by evidence including research on what we know when people face highly charged, stressful, uncertain or ambiguous conditions. Did anyone at the NY Times take a serious look or pause for a moment to consider the questionable survey Mr. Lott cited to support more civilians carrying guns? It's an online survey - from a site frequented by former and active police who support fewer gun laws. This is just not up to the standards here, sorry.
1
I agree that background checks are weak gun control. While better checks might prevent people already know to be criminals or mentally unstable from buying guns, they can't predict who will become criminal or mentally stable. Nor do they do anything from preventing criminals and the mentally unstable from getting guns through means other than purchase at a gun store. The only gun control that actually works is banning the sale and possession of guns. People say that if you ban legal access to guns, only criminals will get them. This misses the point. If the market for guns and the number of guns in circulation is reduced to almost nothing, then guns will be very hard (and very expensive) to obtain either legally or illegally. In fact, this is what the strict gun laws in other countries do. They make guns scarce so no one can easily get them, either legally or illegally. Until the US stops dilly-dallying with useless measures just to find something that might be able to get past the gun lobby, nothing will change, It's time to get serious and ban the sale, possession and carrying of most guns. If the second amendment needs to be repealed to do that, then so be it.
1
The answer to gun violence - indeed any violence - is Dispersal of the human species.
The Earth would be carved up in 10 square mile pieces for each individual and there would be no interaction, save for drones from Amazon delivering books and clothing (and now that Amazon owns Whole Food) and food too.
Without the friction of everyday life, there would be no reason for people to get angry with each other and to shoot each other.
Until the Dispersal program is implemented, there will be violence. Not among all people (since some people can handle human interaction and differences of opinion quite well), but among some people.
Until then, there will be gun violence - indeed knife violence, car violence, and hammer violence too.
Some people will even shoot and kill others in order to get their name in the New York Times, as part of its coverage (since the New York Times does not have a policy of non-publication of shooter's names, thus glorifying their nefarious deeds).
The author and my fellow commenters can go back and forth all day but, come on, let's face it, this debate ended long ago. The pro-gun people won. There are more guns than people in the U.S. Every mass murder now leads to legislation....IN FAVOR OF EASIER GUN ACCESS. Let's be done with it. Pass a law that the government provides every newborn, free of charge, 500 pistols, 500 rifles, 500 automatic weapons, and, oh, a half million rounds of ammunition. Require all citizens to shoot anyone who "looks suspicious". Mr. Lott will then write another article about how that's not enough, and the bought and paid for politicians will double those numbers.
1
False positives in background checks are a problem but can eventually be rectified with better accounting and technology. But the article misses the more important issue--abuse of the 2nd amendment.
Plenty of people pass background checks legally and by the types of assault weapons capable of murdering scores of innocents in a heartbeat. And some of them do just that. As to permitting more citizens to carry concealed handguns, that may help a little. But good luck when the bad guy has an assault weapon that thinks your concealed handgun is adorable.
The problem will continue to be the second amendment, a poorly written (not a complete sentence) and outdated paragraph on its face. Yes its clear the intention is the right for citizens to own a gun, which is fine. But the kinds of weapons available for purchase, and the fact that the forefathers imposed no type of litmus test (i.e., sanity, criminal background, etc) left interpretation ripe for abuse. For this reason, money and power (NRA and the legislators and jurists they control) will continue to thwart commonsense laws for the greater good.
For the same reason, a constitutional amendment will be necessary. Unfortunately that is the very high bar, given what that entails, that needs to be reached to install common sense. Maybe Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, and the like can make this part of their lofty healthcare goal.
1
A modest proposal.
Let's have gun vending machines on every corner on every street in America. Everyone should have instant access to firearms as the need arises.
Feel safer, now?
3
The gun lobby is synonymous with the gun manufacturing lobby, which is succeeding in making its product as addictive as opiates are to others. Guns are now a fetish turned into an ideology of power. So guns are going nowhere. Gun advocates live in fear when they do not have a gun on them. They want this to be the permanent American condition. The single-round 2nd amendment has been rendered meaningless. In a shoot out where everyone has a gun, no one is protected.
So arm everyone with concealed guns, & deputize them all to keep the peace...
Lets see your stats showing that if everyone packs heat, shootings go down.
Firearms fanatics aren't as interested in defense or protection so much as they are addicted to guns.
I challenge both pro & anti gun advocates to investigate the function of firearms as akin to an addictive substance, dopamine release, obsessiveness, power illusions, the whole thing. Addictions aren't rational, firearm fanaticism is a disease. Carrying guns everywhere, thinking about & habituating to all firearms all the time, everywhere, is a fanatical sickness that creates dependency.
If you want to reduce actual shootings, focus on controlling the ammunition.
Regarding costs, the cost of shootings for society is vast, but gun-manufacturers bear none of these costs. Force the firearm & ammo-manufacturing/dealer syndicate that profits from this carnage to microtag & database every bullet & casing they produce & track it from production through sale.
Force the manufacturers to pay for the background checks.
2
What utter, unsubstantiated nonsense, especially when Mr. Lott extrapolates the already suspect (and unproven) idea that there are tons of "vulnerable" people who are shooting gang members and protecting their turf from break-ins by random criminals to mass shootings. If police officers really are foolish enough to want everyone they encounter during a random traffic stop armed, that's also meaningless. I am sorry it takes some people a little longer to get a gun. This is the reality of modern life. Unfortunately, a gun at the ready to kill an intruder (a very rare occurrence) is also at the ready to be taken by a disturbed or angry teen to work, picked up by a curious child, or used in a suicide. All of these, of course, are much, much more common as the thousands of gun deaths in this country suggest much more forcefully that an unscientific, voluntary survey and a stray anecdote about someone who had a bad day dealing with bureaucracy (welcome to health insurance, college, work, banking, and all the ways in which we get confused with each other and have a few hours or days of annoyance sorting things out).
2
Is it just me? The argument here is that there’s not enough guns in our society because of ‘false positives’ that prevent ‘nice people from protecting themselves with guns? Over 30,000 dead; cops patrolling in places awash with firearms and suffering the consequences; ‘nice people’ who develop mental disorders, join other ‘nice people’ in radical groups; some getting crazy drunk in fights and domestic disputes; errors in judgment and in misidentifications; finally, how many of those false positives resulted in death or injury resulting from inability to defend themselves with guns?
" false positives that stop law-abiding people from getting weapons that they might need to protect themselves and their families." Why would American families "need" a gun to protect themselves when the data show that possession of a gun is more deadly than any imagined danger?
1
So, Mr. John Lott Jr. you normalize gun ownership by disguising it as a must have accessory for law abiding citizenship and defense of home and family. You say we should streamline, correct, make more efficient, the system for background checks. As if everyone who buys a gun is going to be a paragon of responsible ownership. Just like everyone who owns a car in this country I suppose. Yet highway deaths continue.
Remington arms is filing for bankruptcy. That is a good thing. They are the manufacturer of the Bushmaster AR-15 used at Sandy Hook elementary school.
Your theory on gun ownership in this country is as bankrupt as Remington Arms. And rightfully so.
Your attempt to normalize gun ownership is hollow and disingenuous.
3
Would Mr. Lott argue so passionately about voting ID laws with spurious requirements that disenfranchise large swathes of the population? Why are guns sacrosanct but not voting? He founded the Crime Prevention Research Center. And used a sock puppet online to defend his research. Take his arguments with a Diogenes sized grain of salt.
1
What the author fails to address, either intentionally or otherwise is what legitimate reason does Virginia have "selling" concealed handgun licenses to people who live in distant states where they could get the license from their home state.
Virginia is running a racket peddling CHL's to people in other states that have no business obtaining a CHL in the first place from anywhere much less Virginia.
I’m seeing a lot of mileage out of the words ‘law abiding citizens’ in this article. As if to have followed the rules introduces no chance of criminal intent nor action. What of killers who have mostly kept their heads low until they make a move? What of citizens that only kill after they’ve purchased a gun to protect their family?
I don’t want to see a system discriminate against lower-income citizens, but I don’t be see an answer, here, in decreased background checks and citizen militias.
What does this "law-abiding" mean? Everyone always says afterwards, "I can't believe it could happen here." And, "He seemed so quiet and nice. Always had a biscuit for my dog." Where does "law-abiding" get you in trump-think art of the deal? Are the "law-abiding" the meek that Jesus talked about: what would Jesus conceal-carry? Law abiding people are in despair, and if alcohol is added to an obsession with firearms as security objects horrible things happen. Every single day.
But who cares, huh? This guy knows his argument is specious, but he also knows that it "works."
1
I honestly don’t see how law enforcement is supposed to tell good guys from bad guys during a mass casualty incident when civilians are pulling out and using their concealed carry weapons. That is recipe for disaster and more accusations against people just trying to do their jobs. If I were a LEO I would stand back and wait for the shooting to stop before going in.
1
Please, if you're going to throw around statistics to prove your point, make them pertinent and on point. Also take the time to research both sides and include those stats, not genarizations.
This article is a perfect example of the difference between making decisions in politics vs. all other realms. In the non-political world, one accepts there is no perfect solution and there is a trade-off involved in everything. Think about buying a car, where to live, who to marry, etc. There are benefits and limitations in all human endeavors. But Mr Lott makes the argument any issue at all with a background check system, regardless of the benefit, makes it an unacceptable option. To me, the ability to make arguments that would be summarily rejected in any other sphere is why people dislike the political process.
90
Background Checks Are Not the Answer to Gun Violence
So what is the answer to gun violence? Not only does he just criticizes while offering no solution to the problem gun violence which is caused by easy access to guns leading to increased violence. What exactly is the answer to gun violence, Mr. Lott, why is it you offer no solutions? Could it be because your solution to sell guns everywhere hasn't worked and leads to violence when if there were no guns that would instead lead to another argument that people forget in the morning.
2
Mr. Lott has done a great deal of scholarly work on gun laws and crime:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lott
I am a liberal, life-long Democrat who has a CCW permit. My frustration is that there are states where I cannot legally carry my gun even though I have gone through a background check in my state (Washington).
We travel, camp, and hike on public lands. We are often in areas without any law enforcement and where we couldn't even call 911. We had a situation where someone basically threatened us. I was able to get rid of him without needing to use the gun. And although we were in a state where the CCW was not valid, we still had a right to protect ourselves at our home (our camper), so I could have used it if needed. But when hiking we can't carry it. In some BLM areas a single officer covers multiple counties. There is no law enforcement that can protect us.
We live in a rural area. We had a break-in to our home, at night, and fortunately the alarm scared off the would-be intruder. But it took our sheriff's deputy ONE HOUR to arrive to our home. If he hadn't been scared him off I would have needed the gun.
When grandchildren are here, the risk/benefit ratio of a gun changes so the gun is disassembled, a trigger lock is installed, and it is hidden.
The data show that Democrats and Republicans in rural areas have similar rates of gun ownership. This is why. Policies that might work for urban areas are not applicable to rural ones.
6
Sorry about your frustration and need to carry your gun wherever you desire. I'm glad you can't carry in NJ. I feel safer, no matter what way you describe yourself.
check out armedwithreason website to see counterpoints to your beliefs. Also shouldn't law-abiding citizens respect the laws of the other states?
1
Most of the first page of that website seemed to be attacks on Lott. Lott's research has been criticized, and it appears to me that at least some of the criticisms have merit.
And some do not seem to be valid. For example, the proliferation of guns in our society in the past 25 years has corresponded to a decrease in the crime rate. That finding is a correlation, not proving causation of course. But many of the findings of research that "supports" gun control are also correlational in nature--not true experiments that can control extraneous variables.
There is nothing in that website that contradicts the fact that my family has been threatened at times by bad people and that there was no law enforcement available to protect us. In response to another comment on this site, I provided another example of where my family was threatened and I had to take decisive action to prevent harm to us. We were behaving lawfully in all of these circumstances. Bad stuff sometimes happens regardless.
Those instances not "beliefs."
I see nothing that has been proposed that will reduce gun violence. "Eliminating guns?" You might as well pass a law mandating happiness.
Over 50% of gun deaths are suicides. Those are basically ignored. Why not a huge drive to provide better for the mentally ill? We could make a dent in that number of gun deaths, but instead we argue about magazine size.
I obey laws. I also took an oath to my wife. Which takes priority for you and your wife?
What works:
Learners permit.
Pass skills test.
License.
Registratin, title and insurance for each gun.
Ticketed or lose license based on type and severity of violations.
One might spot a pattern here: treat guns like cars.
Infrastructure already exists, simply a category for guns at the department of motor vehicles.
26
Guns are not like cars. There is no constitutional right to own, and use, a car.
Further, IF guns were like cars all gun violence would record alcohol or drug involvement, and the weather conditions. Then we would KNOW the true cause of social violence, rather than blaming the gun (or the car).
Please stop running into the same dead end.
Here in Texas the roads are full of those unlawfully in the USA who have no driver's license and no insurance.
Gunsters don't believe in laws. They are above the law. Read the NRA literature and e-mails which it sends to members, which is quoted and repeated like parrots.
John Lott worries that false positives disenfranchise America's teeming, gun-toting masses....although the radical, regressive Republican Party he supports has no problem with epidemic false positives in the Republican Interstate Crosscheck System that systematically removes voters from the voter rolls in Republistan.
So 1st Amendment suppression of voting rights based on false positives is fine, but the same false positives for 2nd Amendment gun freedom breaks his and the GOP's heart; that's just lovely.
On a broader note, John Lott is a known academic, research and statistical fraudster who has no business with a propaganda bullhorn in the NYT.
"A decade ago, Lott was disgraced and his career was in tatters. Not only was Lott’s assertion that more guns leads to more safety formally repudiated by a National Research Council panel, but he had also been caught pushing studies with severe statistical errors on numerous occasions. An investigation uncovered that he had almost certainly fabricated an entire survey on defensive gun use. And a blogger revealed that Mary Rosh, an online commentator claiming to be a former student of Lott’s who would frequently post about how amazing he was, was in fact John Lott himself. He was all but excommunicated from academia."
Despite his ethical failings, Lott surfed the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook to once again become a gun propaganda artist.
https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/
The NYT should formally apologize.
106
Like CNN, rather than actually talk about facts and the truth, the NYT has succumbed to this ridiculous concept of indulging in a "fake neutrality". There is not two sides to an argument when one side is clearly nonsense and over and over again has proven to be as such. This column is just another example.
It is interesting to note how the MSM attempts to indulge in these obvious failed arguments while at the same time " real progressives" (those without corporate benefactors)are rarely to be found in any of these op-eds.
1
As a person who thinks "militia" is an important word in the Second Amendment and does not see why any guns other than hunting rifles should be commonly available to the general public I want to thank the NYT for publishing this op-ed. I learned why some in the handgun owning community have a reason to be dismissive of background checks although I wondered why Mr. Lott did not simply suggest the use of SSNs. I also sharpened up my ability to recognize the falacious assumption that guns, particularly handguns, are suitable protective devices for the average person.
20
@carol goldstein Quite apart from the need for gun control, we really don't want to use SSNs for *anything* related to ID. There is hardly a database to be found that is secure, and SSN related identity theft is a nightmare (take it from someone who knows) leading to fraudulent tax returns and all manner of mischief.
The is a line on the application to provide a SSN, but providing it is optional and most people don’t. Don’t know if providing it would help, but I suspect doing so would be considered a first skid down the slippery slope of gun control and registration.
You really need to read the Heller decision- it is the law of the land.
As difficult as this is to hear, sometimes a government must pass laws for the general betterment of its population, even if a particular individual may feel like their rights have been trampled. Seat belts laws are a good example.
Background check laws for gun purchases MUST be passed. Statistics show that a VAST majority of gun owners agree. If any individual applicant denied a permit feels that they were unduly targeted, let there be a robust appeals process.
14
I'm okay with that provided that each unfairly denied person receives $1,000 a day from the federal government for the period he was denied.
Mr Lott is so concerned about the rights of the poor people who are denied the ability, temporarily, to buy a gun thanks to a false positive on a background check. Oh the outrage! But he says not a word about the victims of gun violence, whether the shooter passed a background check or not. What about the hundreds of people in the Las Vegas shootings who needed upin the hospital, with severe injuries they’ll be dealing with for years, not to mention the 59 who were killed? What about the students in the latest school shootings and the trauma they suffered seeing their classmates killed, let alone the dead students, or the 20 first graders killed in Sandy Hook elementary school ot the unspeakable loss to their parents? Apparently these people don’t matter at all to Mr Lott or at least not as much as the inconvenience of not being able to buy a gun. Even if everyone at the Las Vegas shooting had had a gun, it wouldn’t Have saved anyone.
24
If there is one lesson that America has taught the world, it is that more guns is NOT the answer. If more guns made us safer, America would be the safest country in the world. We are not. We lead the world in deaths by firearms for one simple reason - there are too many guns in America.
33
The answer is quite simple- enforce the gun laws already on the books. Go to where the criminals are- block by block and house to house- and take guns away from convicted felons. It would certainly make my city - St Louis- much safer..
Totally agree. More guns do not really make us safer. If anything, it’s the opposite.
Red America, the U.S. House Districts held by Republicans, is one of the safest countries in the world. Red Anerica has higher gun ownership rates than Blue America.
Talk about deceptive advertising! This headline makes you think that the author is going to discuss some of the root causes of gun violence in our culture, and then, switcheroo! It turns out he is calling for more gun violence, not less -- more people having guns on the streets, not less. Since the author didn't talk about it, I will. How about caring more about the people that we see everyday when we walk down the street? Seeing everyone you meet or hear about as a person very much like yourself, so, not hating, but developing compassion, even if you might vehemently disagree with their point of view. Like I vehemently disagree with this author. I would really like to know: what is it that makes a man like this feel such a strong need to be armed? Why is it so important a cause when someone applying for a gun is inconvenienced and has to wait longer that usual, even much longer, before they can purchase it? Why is the gun such an important symbol for so many people in this country? I would honestly like to know that. Perhaps if we could truly understand each other, we whose viewpoints are so very divergent, some progress could finally be made in solving the real problem of violence in our culture.
17
Can someone please tell me how many crimes were prevented or stopped by a private citizen with a gun. "Those law-abiding gun owners can help protect places where there are no police", truth or fantasy?
16
Fantasy. Isn't there a commandment that says "Thou shall not kill."? Guns are basically for killing, not for protecting.
Truth, there are numerous sources for published incidents where private citizens protected themselves and their families before the police got there. I doubt that you'll take the time to find them as it doesn't fit your anti-gun narrative. How many crimes do the police prevent? Close to none, they necessarily react. Can you forecast when your home will be invaded? When seconds count the police will be there within minutes.
Check out the NRAs website for reports of armed citizens using firearms in self defense. I double dare you!
Outrageous. Borderline insane. To even suggest that the sale of a deadly weapon should not be accompanied with a background check (and a waiting period) is so indefensible that it does not require argument. We run background checks or teachers, even baby sitters. And the argument that gun registration is just a step to confiscation is equally pointless, as we register cars, license drivers, etc. More to the point, every gun buyer should actually be trained and licensed, as are drivers, so they can understand the breadth of their responsibility. This is not about the right to ownership, but the responsibilities the go with it.
20
So, let me get this straight. Background checks -- flawed as they can sometimes be -- can be used to screen prospective employees and prospective tenants, but not prospective gun owners?
Yes, background checks can sometimes lead to false positives, but more often than not, positive match records are missed more often than false positives are. Why? Because in the world of of employment and tenant screening, companies producing the reports have to take reasonable procedures to ensure maximum possible accuracy, which means that reporting a simple name-match record generally won't satisfy that standard. Companies also have to be accountable to the information they report, and consumers have a right to appeal information that appears on reports about them.
Seems to be that this kind of system is perfectly reasonable when dealing with someone who wishes to buy a deadly weapon.
Even better would be build a true nationwide record system with unique subject identifiers for use with prospective gun owners. This would solve the small false positive problem. Of course, this will happen right after pigs learn to fly.
137
Enjoying the meltdown of the left in the comments! Nice article John!
4
What makes you think that people who object to insane gun policies are necessarily "the left"? There is no organized left in the United States. Or do you use that term simply to mean "anyone who disagrees with me?" A nice trick to avoid engaging with any of the actual, real, substantive issues that have been raised by the criticisms of Lott's position, above.
There is clearly no constitutional individual right to firearms in the 2nd Amendment, properly read.
www.meaningofthe2nd.com
Beyond that, Mr. Lott is a known perpetrator of fraud. He had to fabricate statistics showing that widespread gun ownership makes society safer - since, in fact, it does not.
https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/
From the article:
“A little over a decade ago, he was disgraced and his career was in tatters. Not only was Lott’s assertion that more guns leads to more safety formally repudiated by a National Research Council panel, but he had also been caught pushing studies with severe statistical errors on numerous occasions. An investigation uncovered that he had almost certainly fabricated an entire survey on defensive gun use. And a blogger revealed that Mary Rosh, an online commentator claiming to be a former student of Lott’s who would frequently post about how amazing he was, was in fact John Lott himself. He was all but excommunicated from academia.”
I'm sorry, but Mr. Lott's article is nothing more than more NRA clap trap.
I'm less concerned about somebody wrongly being denied a gun than of someone who shouldn't have one actually getting it. If you're denied, you can always appeal and eventually get your firearm. But if you're a bad guy and you get your gun, things probably aren't going to go well.
And Lott conveniently omits the many, many studies that show a relationship between tighter gun laws and lower gun deaths and injuries. Coincidence? I think not.
Anyone who creates a fake persona, as John Lott did with his "Mary Rosh", to then go out and brag about himself, should not be taken seriously.
7
If you want to make guns safer require iwners to buy minimum insurance policies like cars. The insurance lobby will take care of the rest.
15
Gun violence is a public health problem. And like any "disease," good data is necessary to make reasonable decisions about the kinds of policies and regulations that might reduce death and injury.
But the NRA — supported by its GOP enablers — passed a law prohibiting the NIH from studying gun violence as they do cancer and other killers.
What are they afraid of? That their prescriptions for solutions would prove to be fallacious?
If Mr. Lott is so sure his solutions would be effective, then he should be willing to support research and data to validate them. Until he does, his "solutions" are just opinion.
7
Repeating the same lie over and over doesn't make it true. the CDC is not prohibited from researching anything. They're prohibiting from advocating for gun control.
We do not live in Tombstone.
The author pushes the myth that common citizens need to defend themselves against unnamed and not-defined foes. Home breakins? Angry husbands? Liquor store robbery? He wrote:"Those law-abiding gun owners can help protect places where there are no police. "
I am more afraid of a concealed-carry yahoo cowboy accidently shooting up innocent people than I am afraid of "those" criminals.
We need to challenge these myths - crime has fallen in the USA yet gun ownership has increased. It should be harder to get a gun than to fly on a plane.
13
Amen. And for what it’s worth, many of the old Wild West towns required people to surrender their guns while in town. There’s something to think about.
What becomes acceptable language is always where the battle needs to be fought. While Mr. Lott writes about the right to buy a firearm, THERE IS NO SUCH RIGHT. Mr. Lott, please show me in the Constitution of the United States or America where that right exists! Those who say it is in the second amendment need to go back to remedial English classes: the amendment protects the "right of THE PEOPLE", which is a plural noun, "to keep and bear arms". That the collective noun is used therefore clearly matches the first clause's mention of a militia, which must have multiple individuals in it to be a militia. The amendment protects the right of a "well-regulated militia" made up of "the people" to keep and bear arms, not an individual's right to do so. They repeatedly use the terms "person", "citizen" and other such individual terms in the document, proving they knew those words and could have used them in the second amendment if that was their intention. They did not. They were careful craftsmen in what they wrote throughout that document. We should honor that.
13
Two things: My husband, with a different last name from mine, has been mistakenly sued for divorced, had "his truck" impounded, threatened for nonpayment of tuition, and on and on. His locker partner in high school had the same first and last names. His photo appeared on the RIP board of his high school reunion. In each case, the error was easily corrected. Mistaken identity is not uncommon and it is not a conspiracy to prevent people from buying guns "to protect themselves."
Second: Guns do not make people safer. There is no conspiracy the "disarm law-abiding citizens" but the citizenry should recognize by now that disarmament is safer than standing behind a gun. There is overwhelming evidence that guns are only a threat, not a promise. The only thing that will end gun deaths is an end to the absurd American gun fetish. Background checks are a start...
6
This is a "False Flag" article, with a title, suggesting another way (besides background checks) to reduce gun violence.
Well in fact it is really about the authors opinion that MORE people should have instant access to guns, in their homes, or on their hips to "protect themselves".
His premise, is that so called false positives (on the NICS check) stop law-abiding people from getting weapons that they might need to protect themselves and their families.
We really need to look at his premise; that more guns in a home make the home safer. With children around, neighbors, or other family members entering the home, alcohol use in the home, (a suicidal teenager, dumped by her boyfriend?) this idea that having a firearm loaded; at hand 24/ 7 makes one "safer" simply is not true.
Gun proponents say, "you can just tell children, never touch a firearm" found in a home doesn't work. Firearms in a home, or vehicle, also get stolen to later be used in a crime, making all of us less safe.
Store your firearms in a safe, if you must have them in your home. A good alarm system too, to protect them from theft.
6
I'm not sure how the ability to get a gun translates to the ability to 'defend oneself' since people with guns are actually more likely to get shot.
And I think laws should err on the side of NOT allowing people to get guns, since that results in less violence, while giving a gun to someone who shouldn't have one results in mass shootings. This was a very biased and flawed article - the logic didn't even make sense.
6
John Lott makes a hypothesis that people are denied the ability to purchase a gun because of false positives on their background check. The gun industry should find the money to study the issue to prove the theory. Unfortunately this will probably not happen, because to often in the United States gun ownership is based on emotion and not fact. There are very few scientific studies done on gun violence since congress in 1994 threatened to reduce the budget of the CDC if they funded any study on guns. One fact in this debate should grab everyone’s attention approximately 100,000 people a year in the United States are killed or injured by a firearm. If any other consumer product were destroying lives at that level would we accept no action from our elected leaders?
5
More guns. The problem in this country is the vast number of guns, silly laws allowing pretty much everyone to carry guns pretty much anywhere, so that no one is safe from people with guns. Add to that, allowing ordinary citizens with no imaginable need for them to own semiautomatic weapons and armor piercing bullets. The founding fathers did not anticipate that the NRA and weapon manufacturers would solve the "problem" of declining sales by launching a campaign to make people feel unsafe, so that they feel the need to run out and buy more and more guns.
I grew up in a hunting family. I can shoot a gun. But I don't need one.
5
Totally. The real issue here is that it takes some law abiding citizens a little extra time and potentially money to get through the background check system (they should try contesting a false positive on the No Fly List for a real challenge!) Waiting longer to get a gun sounds like an incredible hardship compared to being a shooting victim.
2
People carrying, and haven forbid, having to use, need to be held fully accountable for any collateral damage as a result.
7
They are.
Mr. Lott writes about citizens who buy guns to protect themselves and their families. Are there any statistics to show that citizens actually were successful in attempts to protect themselves with a gun?
6
Oh boy ... you open a terrible can of worms with that question ... and Mr. Lott is a worm merchant.
Yes, there are cases where people have used guns to "protect themselves and their families" successfully -- some of these even are clear and undeniable defense against awful crimes.
But then there is an enormous morass of telephone survey data where people claim they used a gun in defense, and it's provably nonsense, but Lott and the NRA cite this stuff as though its real.
If you restrict yourself to looking at cases where a report of an attempted crime and successful defense was filed -- they are few. And you might well ask "gee you just shot a guy trying to harm you and your family, and you didn't file a report? Really?"
This leads to the bigger miasma of "showing a gun scared a criminal off." A lot if this is made up guff, some of it is in fact criminal gun-brandishing.
The rate of successful real defense needs to be compared to all the "gun accidents," the hot-tempered shootings that the people who did them later regret (or perhaps don't), and then all the crime and intentional murder they facilitate.
If you just look at the cost of gun violence, the death and the harm, there's no way that the successful defense rate can balance all of that.
I'm all for making it harder to buy guns, not easier. The bar for gun ownership should be very high, and if the system mistakenly denies ownership to a few people to keep guns from the wrong hands, so be it. Buying guns illegally is not the easy task that that pro-gun lobby makes it out to be, it's just one of the main arguments they use to negate gun control laws.
8
The solutions to gun violence we know do not come from new and always feckless gun laws or other community based initiatives. Must come from loving caring tough love family unit with one mom and one dad teaching children work ethic manners Spirituality/Scripture The importance of a good high school education, and the willingness to learn.
Without these core values , which by the way most liberals disdain, gun violence will never end.
When you blanket all liberals with not caring about their families, education and work ethic you discredit any point that you are trying to advance. Instead you reveal yourself to a traitor to the very Scripture you purport to quote and obviously do not live.
Jesus would not recognize you or what you stand for in any way shape or form. Go read The Book again and see if you can comprehend the kindness and understanding it contains
Gun ownership is often portrayed as the government wanting to “take our guns away”
Could there be a compromise that allows gun-ownership for hunting and personal defence but limits the ability of one person to cause mass carnage.
What if private ownership of firearms were limited to simple, slow-to-load, revolvers, bolt action rifles and break action shotguns. For personal protection a simple revolver (loaded slowly one at a time through a gate, no swing-out cylinders or speed-loaders) should be sufficient.
Private citizens should not have access to weapons with military-level characteristics. I appreciate that there are constitutional implications but the constitution was drafted at a time when a single deranged individual did not have the capacity to cause carnage and multiple slaughter amongst their fellow citizens. I cannot believe the founders intended that a single individual should have the capacity to cause carnage amongst their fellow citizens.
Coupled with a buy-back scheme for all the military grade hardware this might actually raise sales for manufacturers.
2
Background checks might be "overrated," but they should be doable, and are supported by the public, and obviously work outside the US (Switzerland, for example).
At this point, any change for the better seems to be impossible, and Lott, like everyone else parroting the NRA line, basically has no interest in either changing anything or offering any serious alternatives.
"Fix it" isn't a policy, it's just another empty slogan.
Background checks are not the answer to gun violence. I believe that people pushing for them are simply trying to do “something” about gun violence. Reducing the number of guns in our society is the answer, but since that suggestion is unpopular stricter background checks is pushed instead. But if background checks are they only possible answer I suggest:
1. All gun owners must re-register their weapons over a 5-year period. After that, possession of an unregistered firearm should result in significant jail time.
2. Gun registration should include a DNA sample as identity. Over time this will eliminate the false positive problem the author is talking about which is really a difficulty in identifying people in the modern world, not a gun registration specific problem.
3. All criminals, people with mental health issues that make them a risk of violence, domestic abuse offenders should have their DNA registered with a clearing house.
Of course, these three steps will not prevent all gun violence. Every criminal has a first offense. People with mental health problems have their first break. But this would eliminate a lot of gun violence. Gun owners might say that this imposes too high a burden, but right now, society at large is paying the burden. Why not ask the owners to pay for it?
92
I write as someone who has been shooting since I was 12. We need more than the above.
- Re-licensing/continuing education, for every gun one owns, periodically renewed.
- Stricter licensing commensurate with the dangers of guns. If you're in a conceal/carry class and you let a round go off as you're taking the gun out of the holster, your license for that gun and the conceal permit is revoked forever. It only takes one stray bullet to kill someone, and the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" overrides the rights of any single gun owner.
- Categorized licensing, as with cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc. If you are licensed to own a revolver and want a semi-automatic, you must have training and pass tests for that specific type of gun (just as you need a motorcycle license classification). Each gun of that type that you add to your collection would require a short continuing education course.
Continuing...
1
For many reasons, but principally the pressure to control illegal immigration, biometric identity will soon be coming to every employer, bank, store near you. Besides permitting predictive analytics for credit, we can expect "Minority Report" profiling of most people for most behavior.
I cite this not as an alarm, but as an inevitability of our economics, technology and politics.
Thanks anyway, Big Brother. I think I'll pass on your registration scheme, especially the DNA part. Neither my firearms nor my DNA are registered with the government. I'd like to keep it that way.
2
The point of private sale background checks is to harass, inconvenience, burden and expense law abiding people. If it wasn't, Democrats would agree to open the NICS database up to private sellers by web or phone and for free.
1
In the semantic surrealism of words being related to AS IF they were actually whatever they were constructed to describe- which they can't ever be as a group of connected graphic letters-neither false positives and negatives are relevant to minimizing gun-related deaths.The reality which we all live in, and with, but often choose not to consider, is one of ongoing uncertainty.Random, unexplainable outcomes. Unpredictability. Lack of total control notwithstanding our efforts; types, levels, and qualities. Background checks, just like any type of assessment process, are flawed. Are these policies good enough to achieve levels of consensualized goals that the diverse population living in the USA, who has not yet been shot, wounded, and killed, can live with, as all of US enable, daily, a physical, psychological, spiritual, social, economic, violating WE-THEY culture? Which shamelessly targets a selected, constructed, "the other." Without regard to a secular Second Amendment "preyed"and related to as if it were one of the original Ten Commandments. What about considering background checks for being "at risk" for toxic complacency? For infectious willful blindness? Deafness? Silence, when expressed outrage would be a sign of health? "Protective" not knowing and instrumental ignorance about what is that should not be?As well as about the ongoing absence of what is critical for levels and qualities of equitably shared, and experienced, well-being for individuals and systems?
Many errors with gun reporting and crime would be helped, if not eliminated, if the government would allow the agency that tracks guns to use computers and for the creation of a public database for gun deaths. The public has had to start building our own database but the process is long, expensive, and incomplete. There is no reason why we track car accidents with higher accuracy than gun deaths. No reason to require cars to be registered annually and guns only once. The test for driver’s licenses is harder in many places than the test for a gun license based on the number of people who fail the former on their first try. It makes no sense to heavily regulate a tool that can accidentally cause death (car) while barely touching the tool whose main purpose is to kill.
2
So heart breaking that some unfortunate gun buyer was inconvenienced by a minor problem in the background check system. I imagine the Newtown parents
would be just appalled at the unfairness of it.
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Flaws in the background check system are not the reason to throw out the baby with the bath water. The biggest problem with background checks is that those responsible aren’t diligent enough entering relevant information into the system, not that too many people are denied gun purchases by mistake. More guns lead to more gun violence. Period. The U.S. has by far the most guns of any country, and we dwarf other countries’ gun violence statistics. States with the most lax gun laws have more gun violence than states with more restrictive gun laws.
We know what the answer to gun violence is: To clarify that there is no right to civilian gun ownership, that the 2nd amendment does not say that each and every civilian has the right to own a gun, but that it speaks of "the people" as a whole, not individuals. As long as the 2nd amendment is mis-interpreted, children, women and men will lose the most supreme right of all each and every day, which is the right to life, liberty, and safety. Anyone who propagates lies like this contributor about "the answer to gun violence" doesn't truly recognize the right to life of the citizens of this country. The research is crystal clear: The more guns in a household, a community, a state, a country, the more deaths from guns. The US currently does not recognize that its citizens have a right to life. They have the right to be blown away by a gun. End of story.
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Background checks may not be perfect in stopping gun violence but it is a step in the right direction. We also need some common sense laws as to gun security in the home and better information sharing among law enforcement.
If Mr. Lott wants a perfect world then he better leave this planet because it will never be perfect.
I would rather have an extra step when there is this alleged confusion then someone who has mental health issues or used violence before from getting a gun legally. It is not as if people have to rush down to protect themselves that very day--we do still have police forces so far...
Thank you for the link to the survey at the policeone website, it is interesting that the actual text you selectively quote is “91 percent support the concealed carry of firearms by civilians who have not been convicted of a felony and/or have not been deemed psychologically incapable”: it begs the question that background checks are both practical and implemented. Even the survey creators, designing for this highly selective sample, recognized that such checks were essential.
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There is an emptiness in American consumer culture that breeds despair and violence. The brutality of our State and Federal governments is a significant component. The so called "Land of the Free" has an incarceration rate that makes the Soviet gulag system look small by comparison. The U.S. is the least generous of the OECD nations (our peer group) in providing basic services and safety net programs to its citizens. Both gun violence and our enduring appetite for drugs to numb the pain of our existence are symptoms of this growing cancer at the very heart of our nation's ethos.
In a country where every aspect of our life has been put into some big data science system, the Federal Governments and the ATF in particular are prevented from creating a national database to track sales or use of guns, whether the gun was used in a crime or for home defense.
That is just madness.
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Frederick, I see you are from Philadelphia - the home of violent recidivist firearm crimes in Pennsylvania. Now you are purporting to be a believer in 'registration' of gun owners and sales yet you ignore the categorical FAILURE of your ideas in Pennsylvania!! WHY would we do this Nationally when it doesn't work??
Pennsylvania has had MANDATORY BACKGROUND CHECKS on ALL Handguns (with Record Of Sale Registration) since 1931. This has done NOTHING to quell the violence in PA 'nor' the other top 5 violent cities in PA!! Nearly 'all' violence with handguns is committed by career criminals, prohibited from having handguns, 'with' handguns that come from within PA.
Now 'you' want to cover up the failure of the justice system to prosecute criminals by expanding a failed system that only serves your personal bias and support for gun control!
Do YOU want to fix these problems or stay mired in the mud puddle of lies pushed by anti-gun groups, the Lame Stream Media and self-serving Billionaires like Bloomberg??
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The ATF is prevented from building a master list of guns to confiscate. It's really that simple.
If you claim to know about crime in Philadelphia you would know that most if not all of the guns used on the streets of Philadelphia are bought as straw purchases from the rural counties around the cities.
The problem is not background checks, the problem is the technology available to make those check effective is NOT BEING USED!
This country that has been transformed by technology change specifically prevents police, prosecutors, or judges from using basic technology that is applied to every other part of our lives. The argument that our liberties hinge on the purity of one type of COMMERCIAL PRODUCT sold to a small but very vocal part of society is ridiculous.
If we applied the same logic we have on guns to anything else else, we would be banned from using DNA databases, Megan's law, criminal background checks, credit histories, etc.
Background checks have failed because the government is forced into "wilful ignorance" by a special interest lobby group with only 5 Million odd angry members. That is the perfect application of the phrase "Sic semper tyrannis"
I might go for more conceal carry permit if these carriers are also allowed into sensitive areas like the Capitol building, court houses etc., which to me is a sign that the law enforcement actually welcome more civilians carrying weapons.
I understand that on Air Force One only the secret service agents are allowed to carry weapons. Why is that?
If names and birth dates are not enough to accurately identify people, why not include also the last four digits of social security number? What is the chance that people with similar names have same birth dates and same addresses?
Whatever arguments there are for more guns, the empirical facts from other countries with stricter gun control clearly show that over all less guns does make a difference.
In this country, we do have a rights to bear guns. Do we not also have the rights to life?
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Stricter gun laws would clearly prevent some [not all but many] massacres and substantially reduce deaths in others.
In Tucson the shooter emptied a 31 capacity clip /magazine. When he paused to reload he was tackled and stopped. If his clip /magazine had held fewer bullet he would have fired fewer bullets [and therefore killed /injured fewer] before being stopped.
In Columbine the two killers were underage. They asked a girl friend who was above age to get guns for them. But when she went to a licensed gun dealer and learned she had to undergo a background check and fill out a form [and leave a paper trail] she balked. She then went to a gun show where she bought guns at a private sale where no background check [and no paper trail] was required. She gave the guns to the killers.
Thus we see in these two instances how universal background checks and limiting clip /magazine capacity are effective.
From 1994 to 2009 NICS blocks about 2 MILLION permit applications and gun sales.
Suppose one part in 100 thousand of those denied would have committed a mass murder. That is 20 such massacres prevented.
Suppose 1% of those denied would have committed a murder. That is 20,000 murders prevented.
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Here's my humble opinion. With the large volume of guns on our streets, I am all for anything we can do to prevent an injury or save a life from gun violence. So, if a background check slows down or prevents a murder or an accidental shooting, for me, it's game on. Let us do every little and big thing to prevent gun violence. The cost is too high.
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The flaw in this argument about background checks is that people think that carrying a gun will be protection. Carrying a gun is not protection.
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Then why do our police carry guns?
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When all is said and done I read the core of Mr. Lott's argument to be the inefficiency of the current background check system is that it precludes more legal buyers than it should. It is regrettable that we must err on the side of caution and folks with same names and "close enough" birthdays come up as false positives. As a strong gun rights advocate I still support our current system until it can be improved. I would rather see 10,000 false positive denials than one Devin Kelly "good to go."
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Mr. Lott begins his argument with a flawed premise, namely that guns protect us from criminals. I will grant him his minor premise that the background check system has flaws, but he must not swiftly pass over the deaths by guns of domestic partners, suicide by gun and child deaths from guns left loaded and unsecured.
Let us first agree there may be a problem with guns or not but there is most certainly a problem with reliable information about guns. We need to lift the proscription on research about guns and society, end gag laws preventing doctors from talking about guns and automate the antiquated firearms database now comprised of warehouses of paper records at the BATF. Then let's return and ask the questions for which we can then get answers.
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Except that states with strict gun control laws have fewer incidents of gun violence per capita than states with lax gun control laws. Law works.
The average American needs a gun like a fish needs a bicycle. In fact, having a firearm in the home greatly increases the likelihood that someone in the home will suffer a gunshot wound.
We need stronger laws. Civilians purchasing thousands of rounds of ammunition should call for a review and an inspection. Likewise someone accumulating firearms.
We've tried doing virtually nothing and it hasn't worked. Let's register guns and gun owners; mandate training; do annual background checks; create law enforcement divisions whose sole responsibility is seizing the firearms of people adjudicated unfit to own/possess a firearm.
Leaving a loaded firearm accessible to children and teenagers should mandate forfeiture of all firearms, a stiff fine and a mandatory jail sentence.
There is much more that can be done. Let's do those things.
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While I support the right of an individual to own a gun I believe our societal objective should be to reduce the number in circulation; not the opposite. I blame the horrible number of mass shootings and other gun violence squarely on those who fetishize guns sending a message to people that they it’s a good thing to own multiple weapons and pose for the family holiday pic holding them. This leads to fast and easy access to multiple powerful weapons when an individual has a mental breakdown with the predictable results we seem to have have become numb to.
Laws aside the message should be - guns may be necessary but are a dangerous evil that should be locked away and most of all not an object of desire.
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Very rarely are guns necessary except for hunters and hunters who make ill use of guns by hunting illegally should have their gun ownership prevented. I agree that owning guns appropriately should only be legal for individuals who have adequate protection of the guns.
All this noise, from both sides of the issue, will never solve this problem. I'd suggest we focus on responsibility. Law abiding citizens have the right to own weapons. With that right comes a responsibility that the weapon will do no harm to other law abiding citizens. Yes, gun owners will have to register those weapons. Those that wish to own a weapon will have to pass a back round check. Further, armed civilians trying to stop a crime will, in most cases, do more harm than good. John Wayne was a Hollywood actor and in the movies the good guy always wins... this is not Hollywood folks.
So, sure, own a weapon if you want... it is your right. However, it then becomes your responsibility.
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The answer to our national cultural gun sickness is very simple.
It's implementation is very, very difficult because all Americans suffer from the sickness, yes, not just the NRA and gun owners but all Americans from the rural areas of Alabama, to our inner cities, from Hollywood to Main St.
Just like with any other vice, dangerous object the answer is legality, responsibility, regulation and non promotion of the vice/object.
It has worked miracles with cigs., and drunk driving and has been an utter failure with guns.
America, are we ready, both left and right?
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Would Mr. Lott and the NRA and the pro gun lobby agree to the following procedures agreed to by organizers of large gun shows in NYS
“They [ operators of major gun shows in NYS] agreed to procedures that would track all guns brought into the show by private sellers. Each weapon is tagged so that operators could track sales and background checks. Private sellers have to account for every gun they bring into the show. If they sell a weapon they have to produce paperwork to prove that the buyer passed a background check and the buyer has to show proof that he passed a check before leaving the show with his purchase."
See “Enough” by Kelley and Giffords page 188
***********
"An investigation of gun shows in three states found that 63% of private sellers sold guns to purchasers who had told the sellers that they [the purchasers] probably couldn't pass a background check."
Winkler “Gunfight” page 74
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Perhaps the world where Mr. Lott lives the fees for background checks exist. However, where we live in flyover country, there is no fee for a background check and when I sell a firearm to a private party, we go down to the local sporting goods store together and they will do it for free. I agree the background check system needs repair, so why are Republicans not funding it in Congress? Add to that, a number of red states have indicated opposition to updating and maintenance of the data that feeds the background check system. One would think it would easily pass with bipartisan support. Further, where is the data to support his suppositions? 2010 is a long time ago and he provides no data on the total number of checks. In all, a weak argument.
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I don't believe you. I've never once anywhere in America heard of an FFL willing to do a background check for free (unless the FFL holder is a friend of the party, of course).
Not a problem. Our local business who is an FFL will do it for free.
I would add the same store does it for free at our banquets and gun raffles for various civic groups. It is commonplace out here in flyover country.
Do background checks really prevent anyone who really wants one from getting a gun? It is my understanding that there are many loopholes in
gun purchase restrictions as well as thriving re-sale opportunities practically everywhere. Our country is awash in guns and while background checks may hinder legitimate sales sometimes, they certainly aren't going to prevent a determined buyer. What might make a dent would be strict insurance and liability requirements for every gun, so that owners were responsible for the use of and later transfer of ownership. Money threats are more effective than appeals to common sense or public welfare.
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