By Jacob Sullum
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
The day after his 20-year-old son, Christopher, was shot
down at a deli in Isla Vista, Calif., Richard Martinez blamed his death on
"craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA." Gun-control
advocates quickly seized upon Martinez's remarks, using his grief to obscure
the illogic of their position.
None of the items on the anti-gun lobby's wish list makes
sense as a response to the crimes of Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old college
student who murdered Martinez's son and five other people on Friday night. Far
from demonstrating the lifesaving potential of gun control, the Isla Vista
massacre, which took place in a state with firearms laws that are among the
strictest in the nation, exposes the false promise of policies that aim to
prevent violence by limiting access to weapons.
"Why did Chris die?" Martinez asked at a news
conference on Saturday night. "Chris died because of craven, irresponsible
politicians and the NRA. They talk about gun rights. What about Chris's right
to live? When will this insanity stop?"
The next day, Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign
to Prevent Gun Violence, declared that Martinez "got it exactly
right," because "Americans are dying every day because of the
corporate gun lobby and the politicians it has in its pocket." Those
forces, Gross averred, are blocking "real solutions."
Such as? The only specific policy Gross mentioned was
"expanded background checks." But California already has those: All
gun sales in that state, including private transfers, must be handled by
licensed dealers, and every buyer has to be cleared by the California
Department of Justice, as Rodger was for each of the handguns he bought in
2012, 2013 and 2014.
Rodger passed those background checks because he did not
have a disqualifying criminal or psychiatric record. In California, that means
not only that he was never involuntarily committed, but also that he had not
been put on a 72-hour psychiatric hold for evaluation as a possible threat to
himself or others within the previous five years.
The YouTube video Rodger posted and the 140-page
autobiography he distributed on his "Day of Retribution" gave clear
indications of his violent intent. But until that point, he did not seem like a
threat.
Yes, Rodger was depressed, socially isolated and
desperately lonely. But how many people who fit that description become mass
murderers? The difficulty of predicting which of the world's troubled oddballs
will turn violent is the reason "expanded background checks" cannot
stop this sort of crime.
California also has adopted two other recently popular
gun-control measures: It bans "assault weapons," identified by
certain military-style features that all of Rodger's guns lacked, and it limits
magazines to 10 rounds. Rodger was carrying 41 such magazines along with his
three legally purchased pistols, although he killed himself before he got
around to using the extra ammunition.
According to his autobiography, Rodger began plotting his
revenge against the "beautiful girls" who would not give him the time
of day and the "obnoxious young brutes" they preferred as early as
the summer of 2011. So he obviously was not deterred by California's 10-day
waiting period for taking possession of a firearm or its one-per-month limit on
handgun purchases.
One can imagine policies that might have stopped Rodger,
but they are neither practical nor constitutional. If the government not only
banned guns, but also somehow managed to confiscate the 300 million or so that
Americans already own, that would have put a damper on Rodger's plans, although
he used knives to kill half of the victims who died and used his car to injure
others.
The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik says banning knives or cars
as "instruments of death" would not be reasonable "because these
things were designed to help people do things other than kill people." In
other words, guns, unlike knives and cars, have no legitimate use.
If you believe that, banning guns makes perfect sense.
But most Americans do not agree with Gopnik, and neither did the Framers.
No comments:
Post a Comment