Bad Gun Argument

For those who oppose gun-control, there's a frequently stated concept that these psycho handgun mass-murderers would be prevented were everyone else allowed to be armed. This came up with the Virginia Tech case and in the few hours after the Ft. Hood massacre some gun-control partisans exposed their ignorance by using this argument ironically/mockingly (the fact is that army bases are quite gun-free). The Styx would like to inject some rationality in this debate.

Primary Point: Evolution and Crime

First of all: there may be a fancy sociology-deviance-criminology term for this, I don't know yet, but I'll call it the Adaptability argument (or the Better Mousetrap, Better Mouse argument): that antagonistic agents will adapt to the expected environment. Put in simpler terms: if a psycho gunman knows his future victims will be armed, he will arm himself better. So instead of bringing a handgun, he'll bring dynamite.

I think Gladwell wrote about this with the anti-hijack tactics in the 1960s-70s. There were a high quantity of airplane hijackings in that era; then the law-enforcement tactics got better at eliminating the easy hijacking, which resulted in fewer attempts, but those that were attempted had a much higher casualty result.

Now one can plausibly argue that having a highly armed populace would be the equivalent of the better law-enforcement in the hijacking case. More guns = fewer mass murders. True, if you buy the analogy, then instead of using guns the murderers will use explosives, lets say, but that may be desirable to the gun defender. The fewer number of possible mass-murderers means, probabilistically, that in such a large country, I'll be less likely to be randomly shot. It's sorta why we say that air-travel is better than car-travel - the car accidents are smaller in body counts but far more frequent, while the air crashes are quite rare, but when they happen, they take out hundreds.

Analogies can be fun, you say. But here's the problem with using hijacking as a pro-gun (air-crash) case: ease of access. What does it take for a guy to go on a gun rampage? Uh, a gun. What does it take for a guy to hijack a plane? Much more planning.

In fact, speaking as a social scientist, it would behoove us to analyze why the gun violence occurs and how the crimes are committed. I'd predict, from what I remember reading about the data, that the murderers are often either (a) insane, or (b) on drugs/alcohol. Which means that their brains aren't working right at the time of the crime. Which means that logic & deterrence will have less of an effect than we'd like. If a person kills because the voices in his head tell him to, then he's going to try to kill. And, as I said above, if the voices warn him that everyone will have a gun, then he won't use his gun, he'll use his legally modified sub-machine gun or explosives.

Therefore, when dealing with nutjobs/addicts, the best defense won't be deterrence, it will be arms control. Ipso facto and QED.

Secondary Point

And, as I said in the earlier post, the key point the gun-advocates miss is that we don't know which citizen, when he buys his weapon, is a (potential) criminal or a (potential) whacko or a (potential) hero. Sadly, most of the pro-gun websites I've visited (when looking for good blog-pics) are also disturbingly racist. That means that these pro-gun people are often the same people who will use their guns not against criminals or varmints, but against their fellow citizens! And my Jewish tush will be on the their top 3 hit list.

Sadly, that means that most of the people who are most forceful about their gun rights may precisely be the people I want most to keep guns from.
The best argument for the pro-gun crowd is one that is nearly unassailable: it's in the Constitution. This means that all my logic, or statistics (if I find 'em), or their cries about freedom and crime-control, are meaningless. Because it's the law of the land.

Top pic from here, second pic is frequently seen on the intertubes. Third pic from here.

Kurt Vonnegut & Don Imus

Well Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at 84. This happened the same day that Don Imus was fired by MSNBC (and suspended by CBS) for saying nasty stuff.

The contrast between these two is instructive. Vonnegut was (until yesterday) the most important living American writer - because he was imaginative, knew how to write true satire, and generally he knew right from wrong. He was often compared to Mark Twain - and that's a fine comparison because the two were fine-thinking humorists. As such, even though I often disagreed with Vonnegut's politics, he was a hero to those of us who try to see the world realistically and communicate that realia to others. He was successful while most of us aren't. Hence, a hero.

Seeing Vonnegut a few months ago on The Daily Show was a defining nexus of this moment in time's highest culture. It was like witnessing Einstein meeting Freud (which never happened) or Twain meeting Churchill (which did). True, Jon Stewart and Kurt Vonnegut aren't at the stature of the above four, but we take what we can get.

Then there's Don Imus. I have not listened to the show for any decent length. I first heard of him from a relative, back in the late 80s, who liked the show because Imus told sick, racist jokes. Since that description, I have steered away from anything to do with him. Which was why I was so surprised a couple of years ago when I heard that he was a powerful interviewer of the powerful political elite. Huh? The racist-joke slimeball interviews presidential candidates and NYTimes reporters?!

Naturally, I am happy that Imus has finally been hoisted by his own petard. But the more important question is why he had been able to continue for so very long? Related to that question is: why did this obviously noxious and racist bonehead get caught LAST WEEK for what he has been doing for years?

The same holds true for Ann Coulter. She has been saying unconscionable things for years. Yet she gets smacked down for calling Jon Edwards a bad word. Huh? Especially since, if you've seen the footage, she actually did not call Edwards the fg-word. It was actually a botched joke. [Which, when it's as obvious as it has been in the case of Kerry and Coulter is a valid defense; it also applies to a recent flap over Garrison Keillor and can even apply to Imus's last straw.]

Why does it take so long to catch on to the vile nature of people like Imus and Coulter and why does the tide turn, often, on a small action and not on a grand error?

The same is holding true for the current government, by the way. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc were obviously criminal incompetents from day one. Yet America only figured this out around September 2006. Not after Katrina, not after no WMD, not after the economic policies written by Daddy Warbucks. It was before the Foley scandal, too. It just kinda happened. And the big revulsion - the one that should be in place now - has yet to happen. What I mean is that just as Imus and Coulter are now exposed for being the kind of people I knew they were years ago, so too Bush & Cheney will be exposed... it's this freakish new law of perception... but I don't know how or when it happens.

It does fall under the Tipping Point kind of dynamics, for sure. It's frustrating to me because until the point tips, the slimeball in question is given honor and access. Imus and Coulter were given respect, Bush and Cheney still are, yet when the point tips people will see them and revile them just as I see them and revile them now. Yet my revulsion, before the point tips, is heretical and unacceptable.

This is why it's an irony that Vonnegut dies the day a slimeball is unfrocked. Because Vonnegut saw the truth and was able to tell people about it. Yet his books were often and still are banned and reviled. While people like Imus walked free, Vonnegut's books were even burned. But I, like Twain and Vonnegut, can look at these ironies, inconsistencies and infuriations and find solace in the attempt to tell the truth of it all.