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The gun control and concealed carry debate that has swept over campus recently and has persisted in our nation for so long is, and always will be, fundamentally pointless and stupid. The problem is not whether we should have guns or not; what really matters is whether we can change our society to where gun control becomes a moot point.
Both sides have legitimate points. For all the Second Amendment fans out there, studies do show that most gun control policies, particularly at the national level, have no appreciable effect. And even if we could see some statistically valid effect, the facts are quite simple. The Bureau of Justice Statistics report that America still has a much higher rate of violent crime than any other industrialized nation, even with all the fancy, hi-falutin' laws about guns and crime policy we've created over the past few decades.
But the statistics also support some of the key points that gun control advocates make. Take, for example, John Lott's book More Guns, Less Crime, the Holy Writ of Opponents of Gun Control and Advocates of Concealed Carry. According to this book, civilian possession of guns reduces violent crime. And yes, several studies have corroborated this very point, but a number of studies have also found that more guns can actually increase crime.
In fact, due to the immense national debate over gun control, the National Research Council of the National Academies conducted a study on numerous aspects of the links between firearms and violence. It devoted an entire chapter to Lott's thesis about concealed carry, looking at several studies that attempted to measure how effective concealed carry laws were at reducing violent crime.
In plain English, the panel concluded that we can tweak our statistics to prove concealed carry can prevent crime or cause crime, and our fancy equations and charts have enough room for error that is wide enough to drive a truck through. The ultimate point is that our surveys and statistics are incapable of proving concealed carry to be effective or not, unless we come out with new surveys and new models.
So it is pure nonsense to say that all studies prove that gun control is effective or concealed carry reduces crime; the studies show mixed results. Note: the NRCNA study is entitled Firearms and Violence and is available in D.H. Hill library both in print and e-book.
The lesson we should learn is not that guns are good to have or bad to have, because what lies at the root of our violent crime problem is our society. The textbook example is Switzerland: most adults in Switzerland own guns, as mandated by military service. Yet the Swiss have one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world, and non-Swiss commit most of that crime. More importantly, the Swiss provide top-notch education and health care for their citizens, who enjoy a very high standard of living. Guns are not tools of violence to be used against others; instead, the Swiss use them to defend their freedoms and provide harmless recreation.
Yet we are not Switzerland, nor do we appear to be ready to make changes so that we might emulate that nation. And until we do, the words of Black Panther H. Rap Brown will continue to prove true: "violence is as American as cherry pie."
E-mail Paul at viewpoint@technicianonline.com
