Perception paradigm shift

     A well known, oft cited, euphemism is that “perception determines reality.” The logic of this statement is undeniable because, though it is often debated, each person's perceptions and experiences are the basis of how they react to the world and what they believe to be true. While one person's perception will not determine another person's reality, it does not make either person's reality less true. In the gun control debate, it has been the dichotomy of perceptions of guns and gun ownership that has put advocates on both sides at such extreme odds. As with most things in life, the positive or negative associations that we have with guns growing up determine how we are going to react to those stimuli in the future and in our adulthood. The problem with using solely our perceptions to determine our realities is the fact that it creates skewed realities that are often based completely on fear and not on fact.

     One of the biggest perceptions about guns that exists in the anti-gun lobby is that all guns are bad or evil and that everyone who has or carries a gun, with the exception of police, is a bad person who is intent on committing a crime, threatening someone, or is probably up to no good. Most often, this perception of guns is stemmed from either a lack of experience with guns, a negative experience with guns, an influx of negative views of guns and gun violence from the media, or all of the above. It is human nature to fear or have a negative opinion of things that we are unfamiliar with, especially when those things can cause legitimate harm or death. It is understandable if someone does not like guns because they have had a negative experience with them, but it often seems that anti-gun lobbyists focus solely on the negative aspects of firearms and give no credit to the positive aspects or the fact that the number of law abiding gun owners far outweighs the number of illegal gun owners. Millions of gun owners enjoy various shooting sports that range from hunting to target shooting to competition shooting, and have completely safe and responsible experiences with firearms without ever having a negative experience.

     While many do not believe it, shooting sports actually develop a range of skills that can be useful in a number of everyday activities and are something that many people find to be enjoyable. The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) “was chartered in 1961 to promote a better understanding of and a greater participation in hunting and the shooting sports” and has sought to proliferate shooting sports and to promote firearms safety for fifty years (“NSSF's History”, 2011). It is organizations such as the NSSF, the Boyscouts of America, and 4-H that help to foster young adults into productive members of society, and all three organizations believe that “...the skills and disciplines of shooting to assist young people and their leaders in attaining knowledge and developing essential life skills” (“Shooting Sports”, 2011). All of these groups and the vast majority of shooting sports events focus so much on firearms safety and proper firearms handling that shooting sports are actually one, if not the safest, of sports that can be enjoyed by people of all ages and skill levels, even those with physical disabilities (Soldivera, 2004).

Since our perceptions determine our realities, why not begin to alter the negative perceptions of guns by giving more people positive interactions with firearms? The skills that are imparted when learning the fundamentals of shooting and while participating in shooting sports are meaningful skills including focus, concentration, self discipline, hand-eye coordination, decision making, safety, and responsibility. Perhaps if more people had access to structured shooting events and were taught the basic fundamentals of firearm safety and ownership from a young age there would be less firearms related violence and more responsible gun ownership. It is possible that by simply altering our perceptions of firearms and by promoting safe and responsible gun ownership and firearms related experiences we can alter the reality of gun violence. 

Resources:

“NSSF's History” (2011). National Shooting Sports Foundation, retrieved from <http://www.nssf.org/industry/historyNSSF.cfm>.

“Shooting sports” (2011). University of California 4-H Youth Development Program. Retrieved from <http://www.ca4h.org/Projects/SET/ShootingSports/>.

Soldivera, R.A. (2004). “Name this sport” National 4-H Shooting Sports. Retrieved from <http://www.4-hshootingsports.org/Name_this_sport.php>.

Open carry: Why so afraid?

     The open carry movement has been gaining speed all across America, and has garnished heated opinions from both sides, begging the question: why so afraid? The simple answer is simply that we fear the unknown or what we don't understand, and people on both sides of the debate have reasonable fears about the topic. Those against open carry are afraid of the person with the gun and are afraid of the gun in general, while open carry advocates are afraid of being a victim and of losing their right to carry a weapon to defend themselves and others. Both sides of the controversy have legitimate concerns that need to be understood for the benefit of all.

     Those against the open carry of firearms have legitimate reasons to be afraid, but many of those concerns simply arise from a lack of knowledge and understanding. I have found that most people who are against firearms usually have little to no experience with them outside of movies, television, and the news, which all tend to portray guns as something evil that should be feared. It is completely logical that people who have no positive experiences with firearms would be scared and would question the intentions of someone who is carrying openly. One of the arguments that arises surrounding open carry is that the intentions of the gun owner are unknown and that the person could be dangerous and intend on committing a crime or hurting someone using that firearm, and this is a completely legitimate concern. While it is an unfortunate fact of life that there are many “bad” people in the world who commit crimes and hurt people, there are far more law abiding citizens who are carrying a firearm openly in an attempt to deter crime and to protect themselves and others around them. California law provides that it is legal to use lethal force, or exercise what is known as legal homicide, in self defense or in the defense of another where serious threat or bodily injury may arise, and that is exactly why many people want to carry a firearm ("Homicide", 2011).

     In California and most other states it is legal for a citizen, who is not restricted from owning or possessing a firearm, to carry a firearm without a permit as long as it is carried openly or in plain sight in a holster and no ammunition is attached to the weapon (“California Open Carry”, 2010; O'Connel & Jargon, 2010). Under California law a weapon is only considered loaded if ammunition or an unfired casing is within the gun and is in a position to be fired, which includes a loaded magazine in a pistol whether or not there is a round in the chamber. Those individuals who are carrying firearms openly are generally trying to accomplish two things: the first is to help to create a safer society by deterring crime and the second, which is arguably most important, is to get rid of the negative stigma attached to guns and to provide a walking example of the sheer number of law abiding gun owners that exist. The intentions of these law abiding gun owners are pure enough, but the problem is that openly carrying a firearm has become so shocking that is has almost had the opposite effect from what was wanted. Open carry advocates wanted to raise awareness about guns and how many law abiding gun owners there are, but unfortunately there are so many negative stigmas attached to firearms that their plan has almost backfired. People have become so afraid of firearms that the do not want to see them in public, and have tried to pass legislation that would make it illegal to open carry a firearm altogether.

     The problem remains: what are you afraid of? Open carry advocates feel that they are making society safer from the evil criminals despite the fact that crime has been steadily decreasing for the past few decades, and those opposed to open carry are afraid of the evil law abiding gun owners who are going to commit heinous crimes; despite the fact that crime has been steadily decreasing for the past few decades. One of the problems in this and most issues surrounding gun control is a simple lack of understanding by both parties involved. The biggest problem is that the media often skews facts in one way or another and helps to create a massive dichotomy in which there are only two sides to every story and there is no middle ground. Open carry in itself is not evil and has not lead to a massive increase in crime, but open carry enthusiasts need to realize that simply carrying a gun is not necessarily going to stop crime and that not everyone gains comfort in seeing their pistol. It has often been stated by open carry enthusiasts that “An armed society is a polite society” but do we really want to live in a society of forced politeness? Why so afraid?

References

“California Open Carry” (2010). California Open Carry.org. Retrieved on April 18, 2011 from <http://www.californiaopencarry.org/CaliforniaOpenCarry.pdf>.


"Homicide" (2011). The Free Dictionary by Farlex - Legal Dictionary. Retrieved April 18, 2011 from <http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/homicide>.


O'Connel, V. & Jargon, J. (2010). "Stores land in gun-control crossfire". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on April 18, 2011 from <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541304575099433593489048.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop>.

The Grey of Gun Control

     Gun control is one of the controversial issues in the United States that people on both sides refuse to view in anything but black and white. Gun control advocates such as the Brady Campaign, an organization that is is for very strict gun control legislation, preach that all firearms are bad and make implications that all gun owners are dangerous. On the other hand, many Second Amendment advocates seem to think that any gun law is bad and seeks to take away their rights. This black and white concept is one of the many problems facing politics today, and it is especially a problem when dealing with the public's opinion on gun control. It is a well known fact, though many do not wish to believe it, that a vast majority of the public form their opinions based almost solely on what they see in the media, what they hear from their friends, and what they read in those annoying “forward this to every person you've ever met” emails. We have all been taught that “everyone is entitled to their opinion” and we therefore have to respect that opinion, even when it is baseless or illogical. The saying that we should be teaching our children is that everyone is entitled to a researched opinion based on fact. If everyone had opinions based more on fact, then it would be much easier to respect the other side, and possibly easier for everyone to get along and make a compromise; and the issue of gun control is in great need of compromise.

     Gun control advocates seek to create new gun laws that will make Americans feel safer by keeping guns out of dangerous hands. The idea behind gun control is a good one, but the problem arises in the implementation of those laws. Studies have shown that stricter gun control laws actually have little to no effect on violent crime rates (Moorhouse & Wanner, 2006). With that said, contrary to what many pro gun advocates seem to imply, not all gun control laws are bad. The gun control advocates and gun lobbyists need to find a middle ground and create gun control laws that are reasonably strict so as to help keep guns out of the wrong hands, but at the same time not infringe on law abiding citizens rights. While the implementation of harsher background checks and uniform waiting periods are an inconvenience for those legally purchasing firearms, if the system could help to save more lives, most law abiding gun owners would put up with the inconvenience. If the federal government could universally implement a more thorough background check system, more citizens who should not posses firearms might be denied. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, “In 2008, 1.5% of the 9.9 million applications for firearm transfers or permits were denied” but not all states use the same background check process, with some background checks being more thorough than others, catching more invalid applicants than other states (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2011). If the federal government implemented a universal thorough background check system that all states had to comply with, more guns might be kept out of the wrong hands that would be purchased legally. Unfortunately there are no laws that will keep people from acquiring firearms on the black market, but maybe a better background system will prevent even a few more guns from getting into the wrong hands.

     Gun control advocates such as the Brady Campaign like to imply that all gun owners are dangerous and we therefore need to implement strict gun control laws in order to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. Gun control enthusiasts will often mention the dangerous people with concealed carry permits who commit crimes, according to the Violence Policy Center from May 2007 to present, there have been 288 unlawful homicides committed by concealed carry permit holders. At first glance this is a shocking number, but when we look at those numbers honestly, it appears that they are using scare tactics to get people on their side (Concealed carry killers, 2011). According to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Licensing, Florida alone currently has 793,809 concealed carry weapons (CCW) permit holders and if those were the only CCW permit holders in the United States, those 288 unlawful homicides would have been perpetrated by .03% of CCW permit holders (2011). The actual percentage of CCW permit holders that have committed crimes is so insurmountable that it is insulting to actually mention it. Gun control enthusiast also like to downplay the number of citizens who lawfully use a firearm to protect themselves. Two different studies done in 1995 and 1997 respectively found that in the five year period preceding their study, there were 1.5 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses, including both handguns and long guns such as rifles and shotguns (Kleck & Gertz, 1995; Southwick Jr, 1997). Even if the estimation of defensive gun uses is high, there is still a significant number of people who are legally using their firearms to defend themselves from an assailant, and there is a large number of law abiding gun owners who legally use their guns to protect themselves.

     Pro-gun lobbyists such as the NRA need to realize that not all gun control legislation is bad, and the gun control enthusiasts need to realize that there are far more law abiding gun owners than not. The NRA serves its purpose very well and protects its constituents by representing their opinions in the legislative process. As a card carrying, life member of the NRA, I both agree with they do and disagree with other things they do. Gun enthusiasts like to point fingers at the Brady Campaign saying that they use scare tactics to get people to join their cause, but the NRA is often no better. Both sides like to massage data to help their cause, but they need to see that at the essence of the gun control battle, the idea is to keep law abiding citizens and gun owners safe. As an owner of multiple firearms, I would hate to see unfairly harsh laws put into place that would end up punishing me as a law abiding citizen and responsible gun owner, in order to “keep the public safe.” There is a middle ground in the gun debate, we just have to all work together and compromise in order to create a fair balance between public safety and our right to keep and bear arms.

References

Bureau of Justice Statistics, (2011). Background checks for firearm transfers, 2008 - statistical tables Retrieved from <http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/html/bcft/2008/bcft08st.cfm>.

Concealed carry killers. (2011). Violence Policy Center, Retrieved from <http://www.vpc.org/ccwkillers.htm>.

Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Licensing. (2011). Concealed weapon / firearm summary report Retrieved from <http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.html>.

Kleck, G. , & Gertz, M. (1995). Armed resistance to crime: The prevalence and nature of self-defense with a gun. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 86(1), 150-187. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Moorhouse, J. C., & Wanner, B. (2006). DOES GUN CONTROL REDUCE CRIME OR DOES CRIME INCREASE GUN CONTROL?. CATO Journal, 26(1), 103-124. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Southwick Jr, L. (1997). Guns and justifiable homicide: deterrence and defense. St. Louis University Public Law Review, 18(1), Retrieved from <http://saf.org/LawReviews/SouthwickJr1.htm>.  

Civilian Concealed Carry: A cheap and effective way of reducing crime

     Permits to carry concealed weapons, specifically a concealed firearm, are allowed in some form or another in most states, and have been the issue of much debate with myriad analysis of their effectiveness on crime rates and safety. It is unarguable that public safety must in all regards be protected and maintained when issuing Concealed Carry Weapon Permits (CCW) to make sure that those persons who may pose a threat to public safety do not obtain a CCW permit. With that said, every state has controls and laws in place that regulate who can carry a concealed weapon. CCW permits allow a civilian to legally “...carry a pistol, revolver, or other firearm capable of being concealed upon the person...” after fulfilling the requirements set place by the government which include training, fingerprinting, background checks, and a list of character references, and are issued “after a finding that the applicant is of good moral character, that good cause exists for such a license, and the applicant is not prohibited from possessing firearms” (California Penal code 12050, cited in California Office of Attorney General, 2007). Much research has been conducted on the efficacy of CCW permits and the deterrence of crime and it has been found to have a deterring effect on crimes involving victims.

     The issuance of more CCW permits would be a simple, effective, and inexpensive means for the government to reduce crime rates. A comprehensive study by J.R. Lott Jr and D. Mustard in 1997 “...examined crime rates over 16 years across 3054 US counties. It accounted for changes in arrests and convictions, detailed county demographics, drug prices, and general variables such as unemployment, income, and poverty. Strong evidence links the number of concealed handguns to lower violent crime rates and fewer deaths” (Lott, J.R., 1998). Lott and Mustard's research showed that “[t]he declines [in crime] begin directly after the concealed handgun laws pass, and the crime rates end up well below what they were prior to passage of the law” (Lott, J.R., 1998). These results are completely logical, in that criminals are going to be less likely to attack a victim who is armed because it will be more likely to be a confrontation in which the criminal will be injured or killed. If more states moved to “shall issue” laws, in which CCW permits are provided to citizens after meeting specific requirements such as training, background checks, and similar conditions to ensure that only law abiding citizens who are of good moral character obtain these permits, there could be a drastic reduction in crime. The issuance of CCW permits would have minimal cost to the State as most cities and counties already impose a fee that helps to offset the costs of training and background checks involved in the process, and the fee could be standardized and increased in order to minimize any tax dollars spent on the issuance of the permits. Lastly, because the issuance of a higher number of CCW permits would deter more crimes, it would essentially have the crime deterring effect of the state having employed vast numbers of police officers without any of the involved costs.

Photo courtesy of the internet, unknown source, modified from original size

     Many of the arguments against concealed carry are illogical, are not backed by research, and include logical fallacies. One of the major concerns that every day citizens seem to have with the issuance of a higher number of CCW permits is the illogical idea that “the streets are going to turn into a wild west style shootout!” As stated in my previous blog, the vast majority of gun owners are law abiding citizens who would not use their weapons in an illegal way because of their fear of the legal repercussions they would face. Those seeking to obtain a CCW permit are made to go through a training class in which they are taught when they can and cannot use their weapons and how to safely use and carry their weapon. With the strict laws surrounding CCW permits including the background checks and character references, only those found to be of good moral character would be allowed to carry a concealed firearm. Many proponents of harsher gun control laws and harder to obtain CCW permits cite tragedies such as the 1999 Columbine High School shooting and the Virginia Tech shootings. Referencing these atrocities as arguments against concealed carry laws are completely illogical because the perpetrators in those shootings were not concealed carry permit owners and therefore were carrying their concealed weapons illegally. If anything, these can prove to be examples of why concealed carry permits should be more abundant, not harder to obtain. There are a number of people who would logically argue that if more people were allowed to carry concealed weapons, especially in schools, tragedies such as these could have been avoided or at the least minimized. It is logical that if a number of students or especially faculty had been legally carrying a concealed weapon, the terrorists who committed the mass shootings of their unarmed victims could have been deterred or even subdued with less casualties. The argument of allowing the carry of concealed firearms in school is obviously an extreme, but the logic follows, if more people were carrying concealed weapons, criminals would be less likely to attack a victim out of a concern for their own safety.

References:

California Office of the Attorney General, California Department of Justice. (2007). California firearms laws 2007 Retrieved from <http://ag.ca.gov/firearms/forms/pdf/Cfl2007.pdf>.

Haider-Markel, D. P., & Joslyn, M. R. (2001). Gun Policy, Opinion, Tragedy, and Blame Attribution: The Conditional Influence of Issue Frames. Journal of Politics, 63(2), 520. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Lott, J. R. (1998). Do Shall-Issue Laws Save Lives?. American Journal of Public Health, 88(6), 980-982. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Gun control: the ineffective, expensive means of protecting America from itself

     Gun control is an extremely complicated and controversial subject that has people on both sides of the debate fueled for a fight based often on emotion with little critical thinking involved. When we take out the emotion and do some hard research on the subject it is ultimately discovered that gun control is logical on the surface but ultimately is an extremely expensive and effective way to have absolutely no significant effect on crime rates. A comprehensive study by John C. Moorhouse and Brent Wanner looks at thirteen of the most of the popular studies on the efficacy of gun control laws in the United States and then conducts an extremely comprehensive study of their own that looks at the efficacy of gun control laws testing and compensating for the myriad variables and outside factors that can otherwise effect the outcome of their study. Their study found that there was no evidence linking stricter gun control laws and lower crime rates nor was there any evidence that lax gun control laws lead to higher crime rates (Moorhouse & Wanner, 2006).

     Since strict gun control laws are ineffective at reducing crime, they are actually causing more harm than they are good. Looking at the issue from a purely economic standpoint, there are untold millions of dollars of taxpayers money that have been wasted in the implementation of strict gun control laws. All of the gun control laws that have been passed were written, debated, rewritten, and implemented all using taxpayer money through the legislative process; dollars and hours that could have been spent elsewhere and on more pertinent issues such as education so that less children turn to crime in the first place. Countless taxpayers dollars also have to be spent on the enforcement and regulation of these laws. According to the California State Budget for the Department of Justice, just over three million dollars per year is spent on the “Firearms Safety and Enforcement Special Fund” (FSESF) with a proposed increase for the 2010-11 fiscal year to $3.5 million from the previous fiscal year's $3.2 million (California Department of Finance, 2011). That $3.5 million dollars is only the amount that is allotted specifically to the FSESF and does not include amounts utilized from the general fund or other areas of the budget for the running of background checks and the utilization of government employees to enforce these superfluous strict gun laws. In a time of economic crisis, it would seem logical that programs that have been proven to be ineffective by multiple studies would be able to be cut from the budget, potentially alleviating millions of budget dollars to be utilized in another areas, but instead there has been a proposed increase in the funding for the FSESF of $300,000.

     While many gun control laws are ineffective, the underlying concept is not in itself bad. The primary idea of gun control is to keep guns out of the hands of criminals or other people who should not possess them. According to the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) their goal “...is to prevent terrorism, reduce violent crime, and protect the public. With respect to firearms, ATF works to take armed, violent offenders off the streets and to ensure criminals and other prohibited persons do not possess firearms.” (ATF 2005). In essence, gun control is designed to protect all of the citizens of the United States from those people who should not have firearms in an effort to lower crime rates. Controls such as waiting periods for background checks are exactly what they say they are, controls in order to keep guns out of the hands of felons, the mentally unstable, those restrained by protective orders, and other such people. The problem comes from one underlying fact of life: laws and protections can only go so far because by definition criminals do not follow laws. Why should law abiding citizens be punished by strict laws that have little to no effect on crime rates? Guns will always be available on the black market, which is the quickest, cheapest, and probably the easiest way to acquire a gun in the United States. If criminals want guns, they are going to get them, whether it be on the street or getting them legally. Background checks can only go so far, as a common police saying goes, “just because a person hasn't been convicted of anything doesn't necessarily make them law abiding, it just means they haven't been caught yet.”

     From 1998 to 2009 there were just over 109 million approved firearms transactions that were processed through the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) (FBI, 2009). According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the United States in February of 2011 is approximately 310 million people. Based on these statistics there was one firearm purchased for every three Americans in the past eleven years. Those numbers do not reflect the unknown number of firearms that have been legally purchased and transferred in the last hundred years. According to the BJS, in 2009 27% of the approximate 2.5 million violent crimes and robberies that occurred in the United States used firearms, meaning that there were approximately 688,000 violent crimes and robberies that were committed with firearms. Making the greatly underestimated assumption that the 109 million firearms purchased in the last eleven years are the only firearms in the United States, then only .6% of all guns in the United States were used in violent crimes and robberies in 2009. NOTE: this figure would not include any firearms purchased on the black market or legally purchased prior to 1998. While the fact that approximately 27% of all crimes are committed with firearms, it seems unfair to impose strict regulations upon the 99.4% of gun owners simply to control the theoretical .6% of gun owners who likely did not purchase their firearms legally in the first place.

References:

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Office of Enforcement Programs and Services, Firearms Programs Division. (2005). Federal firearms regulations reference guide (ATF P 5300.4). Retrieved from <http://www.atf.gov/publications/download/p/atf-p-5300-4.pdf>.

Bureau of Justice Statistics, (2011). Background checks for firearm transfers, 2008 - statistical tables Retrieved from <http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/html/bcft/2008/bcft08st.cfm>.

California Department of Finance, (2011). Department of justice (0820). Retrieved from <http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/GovernorsBudget/0010/0820.pdf>.

Federal Bureau of Investigations, Criminal Justice Information Services Division (2009). National Instant Criminal Background Check System: Operations 2009. Retrieved from <http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/2009-operations-report>.

Moorhouse, J. C., & Wanner, B. (2006). DOES GUN CONTROL REDUCE CRIME OR DOES CRIME INCREASE GUN CONTROL?. CATO Journal, 26(1), 103-124. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.