The tradition of American gun ownership is so deeply entrenched, such a romanticized part of our history that most discussions of gun control rapidly disintegrate from logical arguments to partisan squabbling. There also seems to be an automatic assumption that one's view on guns falls neatly along party lines: all Republicans/conservatives oppose any gun regulations whatsoever, while Democrats/liberals would like to ban all private gun ownership.

It's not so simple. I'm a pro-gun Democrat/liberal. However, there are a growing number of people in our country of all political persuasions - many who have lost friends or family to gun accidents or violence - who would like to see the end of private gun ownership.

We've all seen these bumperstickers: "From My Cold, Dead Hands"..."Gun Control Means Using Both Hands"..."Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People"...and the classic: "If We Outlaw Guns, Only Outlaws Will Have Guns". While the first two come across as ornery old-fashioned Marlboro Man koans, the latter can't be discounted quite so out-of-hand. They actually have kernels of truth. Chuck Klein explains in his Guns & Ammo Online article, "Time for a 28th Amendment,"

The words "arms" and "people" mean different things to different persons. To some on the far left, the only "people" who should be allowed to "keep and bear arms" would be active-duty military personnel and police. On the other hand, the extreme right has touted that "people" means any and all persons. Militia extremists are convinced "arms" means anything in use by the military, including tanks, bombs and rockets. The opposite camp firmly believes it only refers to weapons in use at the time of the Constitution's ratification-- c.1790.

The word "People" certainly cannot refer, for pragmatic reasons, to everybody. If all "people" could "keep and bear arms," then we'd have to allow prison inmates to carry concealed and permit grade schoolers to swagger across the playground packing a .25 Baby Browning. That's not realistic or practical--any more than restricting "arms" exclusively to that class of "people" who have the power of arrest.

However, I don't think gun ownership should be as simple as walking into a gun shop, picking out a pretty piece of steel and plunking down your dough. California, I think, is on the right track with its new proposed licensing guidelines currently in bill before the state assembly:

Handgun Buyer Licensing and Proficiency Testing Bill

The bill most hotly opposed by gun owner's rights groups, AB35, would require Californians wanting to buy a handgun to:

* "perform a safe handling demonstration encompassing various types of handguns,"
* "perform a shooting proficiency demonstration,"
* "complete and pass a written test,"

The written test will cover:

* "Current law related to the private sale and transfer of firearms."
* "Current law as it relates to permissible use of lethal force."
* "What constitutes safe firearms storage."
* "Risks associated with bringing a handgun into the home."
* "Prevention strategies to risks associated with bringing a handgun into the home."

Buyers who pass both the gun handling and written test will then be required to purchase a "handgun owner's license," good for four years, at a cost of up to $32. The buyer's thumbprint will be applied to the license.

A highly controversial additional regulation that would have required licensing of all currently owned handguns was removed from the bill.

The California Attorney General's Office has a page of gun regulations available here. There are some who think California's proposed regulations are an unfair restriction of basic constitutional rights. John R. Lott, Jr., the author of More Guns, Less Crime writes:

The California legislation is...filled with pages detailing everything from when grandparents are allowed to temporarily loan a gun to their grandchildren, to the politically correct gun myths that licensees must regurgitate on the licensing exam, to requiring that mandatory testing be done in only English or Spanish. For a state with election ballots printed in over 80 languages, this last requirement appears racist. But with the new fees and hundreds of dollars required for training classes, in addition to recent California laws outlawing inexpensive guns, the Democratic legislators who support this bill appear anti-poor. After all, it is the poor who are most likely to be victims of crime and to benefit the most from being able to protect themselves.

Those who so automatically see licensing as the solution to crime face an obvious question. As police spend thousands of man-hours enforcing the licensing, what else might they do with their time? Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks stated his concerns simply: "It is my belief that this legislation significantly misses the mark because it diverts our attention from what really should be our common goal: holding the true criminals accountable for the crimes they commit and getting them off the street."

No, gun licensing is not the "answer to crime" - but neither is deregulation of weapon ownership.

Here's the sticky question. Do the poor need guns more than middle- or upper-income Californians, as Lott seems to suggest in the last sentence of this excerpt? The irony is, proportionately many more poor people are killed or injured by gun violence or accidents, and ironically I can see how someone else could argue that allowing the poor to own guns without any form of regulation, safety training or licensing is a form of "genocide" by facilitating more gun deaths below the poverty line. It all depends on how you slice the issue.

Most importantly, I disagree that there would be less crime if there were more (presumably unregulated) guns, using the logic that criminals might be less likely to attempt a crime if there were public knowledge that gun ownership was universal. Even today how can the criminal be certain that his "mark" isn't hiding a gun in their briefcase, bedside table or under the convenience store counter? After all, he or she has one, and they can't be 100% certain the other guy isn't.

What we can be sure of is that if there are more guns in untrained hands, there will be more accidental and ineffective firearm discharges. Pit a criminal who knows how to use a gun against a frightened, panicked civilian who's desperately trying to figure one out, and the criminal will win virtually every time.

Wouldn't criminals be more deterred by knowing that gun owners actually knew how to use their guns well? That their victims weren't merely "weekend Rambos" - who buy cheap pistols to be "safe" but don't know how their gun's safety works - and could actually put a robber six feet under? Untrained gun owners who misuse their weapons, or fail to store them properly or understand their correct operation are far more likely to accidentally kill an innocent person - thereby increasing the public outcry to ban guns.

I also disagree with Lott's contention that the laws are unfair because they discriminate against the poor and non-English or Spanish speakers. Take the example of California motor vehicle laws. California has some of the country's most stringent regulations on vehicle ownership and operation, and it's notoriously hard to get around without a car there. Yet, no one there seems to proposing we waive state auto insurance, safety inspection or emissions regulations for the poor because they need their cars.

California election ballots may come in over 80 languages, but voters still must jump the prior hurdles of citizenship and state residence to participate. On the other hand drivers need to pass written tests in one of a few select languages, because they must interact with other motorists who understand the same rules, and driving is a common undertaking, shared with hundreds or thousands of other individuals simultaneously. It's in all vehicle occupants best interest to want drivers to be on the same page, and I'd argue the same applies for the general public - and gun owners. After all, you can kill a lot more people with a gun you can with a Chevy...in a lot less time.

I'd like to draw a parallel between the requirements for owning and operating a motor vehicle and those for guns. Consider this. What if the only requirement for a driver's license was the fact you could get your hands on a car? Would you feel safe driving your car knowing that you shared the road with people who haven't verifiably demonstrated even basic understanding and competency of the "rules of the road" and motor vehicle laws? Okay, maybe these drivers had a parent teach them the basics. Would you want to gamble your life on someone's drunken Uncle Bob's drivers-ed teaching skills?

Even worse, what if there were no "Rules of the road"? Granted, there are countries where driving and car ownership are this unregulated, but these are ususally nations where life in considered pretty cheap, overall. Driving a motor vehicle is considered a privilege in all U.S. states, not an entirely unbounded right - and gun ownership is perhaps the most contentious example of "your right to swing your fist ends at my nose" in American law: when a gun onwer "swings their fist," they are very likely to do more damage than a broken nose.

California's New Gun regulations on About.com
California Department of Justice on Gun Laws
Canadian Gun Laws.com

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