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Gun Safety No Laughing Matter
The dust is only beginning to settle in the wake of oral arguments heard before the U.S. Supreme Court on March 18 in the historic case of Heller v. District of Columbia. The day featured several lively exchanges, as both the justices and the attorneys for the two sides in the case sought to divine the historical context and present-day implications of the Second Amendment.
At issue in the Heller case are the District's tough gun laws, which effectively ban handguns and require those who own long guns (i.e., shotguns and rifles) to keep them unloaded and either trigger-locked or disassembled in the home. The lead Plaintiff in the case, D.C. resident Dick Anthony Heller, has argued that these restrictions preclude his right to self-defense in the home and violate individual rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment. In the view of Heller and his attorneys, a firearm that must be kept unloaded and trigger locked is "non-functional" and of no use in a home invasion scenario.
Surprisingly, during Tuesday's oral arguments, several of the justices seemed to not only openly side with Heller's argument, but to stake out a stance on the storage of firearms in the home more laissez-faire than that advocated by the standard bearer for the gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA).
One fascinating exchange occurred between Walter E. Dellinger III, the attorney arguing the case for the District, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia. Dellinger clarified that long guns in District can be kept either disassembled or trigger locked when stored in the home, and noted that releasing a trigger lock is a simple procedure. Justice Roberts pressed -- exactly how long does it take to disable such a lock? Dellinger, who had tested a lock on a gun he owned, answered "three seconds."
That apparently didn't satisfy Justice Scalia, who had envisioned a hypothetical home invasion scenario of "somebody crawling in your bedroom window." Addressing Dellinger, Justice Scalia sarcastically stated, "You turn on the lamp next to your bed so you can -- you can turn the knob at 3-22-95." Chief Justice Roberts followed with his own quip, which elicited laughter from the crowd: "you turn on the lamp, you pick up your reading glasses..." The two justices seemed to be implying that trigger locks eliminate the possibility of a firearm being used for self-defense. More disturbingly, they seemed to suggest that keeping firearms loaded and unsecured in the home was the most prudent storage practice. Also embracing this view was Justice Samuel Alito, who stated that D.C.'s firearm storage provisions could not survive "under any standard of review."
A quick look at the NRA's Gun Safety Rules webpage reveals just how far out of the mainstream these justices are. One of the NRA's "fundamental" rules for safe gun handling is "ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use." The NRA also tells gun owners to always "store guns so they are not accessible to unauthorized persons," noting that "dozens of gun storage devices, as well as locking devices that attach directly to the gun, are available." In a "Parents Guide to Gun Safety," the NRA also points out the potential dangers to children, stating "a parent must, in every case, assess the exposure of the firearm and absolutely ensure that it is inaccessible to a child."
Dellinger is undoubtedly aware of these dangers. His two grandchildren likely spend more time in his home than armed criminals. It is mystifying that Chief Justice Roberts, who has two young children, is not equally aware of why kids and guns are a bad mix.
The fact is that guns in the home are a far greater threat to one's family and intimates than to any imagined criminals. Living in a home where there are guns increases the risk of homicide by 40 to 170% and the risk of suicide by 90 to 460%. With its handgun ban and proactive safety and storage laws, the District of Columbia, in comparison with the 50 states, enjoys the 17th lowest accidental gun death rate and the second lowest suicide rate. Meanwhile, according to the FBI, firearms were used by private citizens in only 147 justifiable homicides in the U.S. in 2005. The total number of gun homicides that year? 12,352.
D.C.'s gun laws could live or die depending on what the Supreme Court defines as a "reasonable restriction." Given the firearm safety recommendations of the gun lobby, and the level of evidence pointing to the risks of having unsecured firearms in the home, it is disingenuous to argue that the city's trigger lock provision is unreasonable.
I would point to the words of Justice Stephen Breyer, who stated during the oral arguments that "we give...leeway to the city and States to work out what's reasonable in light of their problems." Or as he later summarized concerning the controversy over trigger locks: "Do you want thousands of judges all over the United States to be deciding that kind of question rather than the city councils and the legislatures that have decided it in the context of passing laws?"
That question can be answered faster than the few seconds it takes to remove a trigger lock.
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The "protection" offered by a gun is an illusion. "Sparkandy's" 100-pound daughter is more likely to be bashed in the head or shot with her own handgun if a bigger, stronger intruder wrestles the gun away from her.
The modern substitute for firearms for home protection is a security alarm system, which is a much safer and more reliable deterrent"and a security alarm can't be stolen.
Proponents of guns in the home have long maintained that guns should be kept "in a securely locked closet or safe" for children's safety, which has always made me wonder how, then, a gun can "protect" someone. If a gun is kept locked away, it's not available during a break-in. If it isn't locked away, it's available to everyone else.
I think that the central question here is "should we legislate." I firmly believe that state legislatures and city councils should have the power to enact health and safety regulations. I understand some believe that legislation around guns is different because of the Second Amendment but preventing trigger lock legislation, made by a deliberative legislative process, is just the top of a very slippery libertarian slope. Even if the court finds that the Second Amendment is an individual right, a collective right, a militia right or some type of hybrid, legislatures must retain their power to regulate for the health and safety of the community. Look, this is less about guns than it is about local government"s power to respond to community problems. Sometime people do stupid things and if the injury was just to them I could live with that. Unfortunately, guns that are not stored safely can injure the owner"s children, neighbors and can be stolen and used in crime. The DC gun law has been in effect for 32 years without any serious attempt to get the Council to overturn it. As the discussion in my post makes clear, the Supreme Court Justices are in a very poor position to evaluate evidentiary matters locked up with local concerns. Let the legislature make these decisions.
The "local government power to respond to community problems" is the same argument used in days gone by to justify racism and limiting the civil rights of blacks.
Why shouldn't this same local control standard be applied to other constitutional provisions? If a city has a drug problem, can the city council authorize random searches without probable cause? If journalists are interfering with traditional local political patronage, shouldn't they be licensed and regulated?
If a constitutional provision is subject to arbitrary local control, what does it protect?
Just because there have been examples of unjust and even racist local legislation, (the same can be said for national legislation) does not mean that local regulation is a bad thing. State and local governments have always been charged with public safety responsibilities. That does not make them inherently racist or evil. Speed limits, building codes, alcohol regulations, penal codes and gun laws are all examples of the state police power. The fact that they are local, and may differ by jurisdiction, does not make them suspect or for that matter arbitrary. Even in states with constitutional provisions that protect the individual right to bear arms, legislatures have plenty of leeway to regulate firearms as long as the regulations are reasonable. The trigger lock discussion that took place at the Court last Tuesday looked more like strict scrutiny analysis, second guessing a local legislature exercising its police power. If the Court were really to apply that type of heightened standard it would eviscerate the power of local government. The sad irony here is that the true purpose of the Second Amendment was to protect the states" ability to construct the militia as it saw fit, including regulating the arms that the militia used. Now the Court may turn the amendment on its head and prevent the states from regulating arms in any manner. Hello anarchy!
The NRA gun safety rules you cited are correct. However, the NRA allows for an exception on the storage issue. You don't see that exception generally mentioned unless you take the NRA course that
WASHINGTON POST POLL
Horwitz misses the point completely. First, assuming that there is an individual right to own firearms for self-protection (because, unless we agree to assume that, this whole article, and the debate about it, is meaningless), the question isn't whether guns should be stored in a safe manner, it's whether a specific manner of storage should be LEGISLATED. As Horwitz notes, even the NRA agrees that firearms should be stored in a safe manner. The disagreement is what that means, and how do we accomplish it? What is "safe" for a family of 5 with 3 children of various ages is not necessarily the same as what is safe for a single woman living alone in her own home, into which children never enter. Should it automatically be illegal for her to keep a loaded gun on her nightstand while she sleeps just because other people have small children? Common sense says "no". If she feels she has a legitimate need to have ready access to a loaded firearm in the middle of the night, the fact that other people in her community have different domestic situations than she does should not limit her options for self-protection.
The problem with that is that it's quite easy to remove a trigger lock from a gun and ready it for use. Now I can understand if you have someone who leaves their bedroom window open with a sign saying "COME ON IN" having zero time to react, but clearly that person shouldn't be in possession of firearms in the first place. There are many options nowadays outside of guns to secure a home, without the risk of unintended accidents, thefts or intimate partner violence.
You're very misunderstanding of the mechanics of trigger locks. First, as most home invasions begin at night, you have to wake up. Then you have to perceive a threat. Then you have to think of your gun. Then you have to remember, through all this, how to activate the lock. It is not easy in an emergency!
Semper fi
The definition of "in use" as understood by most NRA members includes having a firearm ready for defensive purposes. Different households have different requirements--The way I store my "ready for use" defensive guns would be irresponsible if I had small children in the house. I have a license to carry a concealed weapon--Does the NRA say I should carry it with a trigger lock, because it is not "in use" at the moment?
The statistics that say a gun in the home is a drastically increased risk include illegal guns owned by practicing criminals. If you separate the populations statistically, you wind up with very low risk for legal owners, and even higher risk for criminal households.
The "few justified homicides" is because most of the time it is not necessary to even fire a gun to use it in defense, and the law-abiding view taking a life as a last resort. If I have to point a gun at an attacker and he runs away I will not shoot. I consider that the best possible outcome to a bad situation, although it will not be counted as a "justified kill". Every time a citizen defends successfully, it prevents not only that crime but serves to reduce future crime.
"We give leeway to states" to decide what is reasonable. Why not give leeway to the individuals?
I don't know, Joe Horn sure as heck shot down in Texas. He shot two fleeing burglars in the back and killed them. Furthermore, he cited the NRA's "Shoot First" law in the state as justification for his acts on the 911 call that was captured on tape. Then a group of Texas gun owners held a parade for the guy in front of his house to celebrate his actions. The NRA is certainly encouraging people to blast away - the miniscule number of justified homicides puts the lie to the NRA's claim of millions of self defense uses of guns per year.
Wow... I never thought having a gun would increase my suicide risk. I suppose any day I'll go home and hear my Glock calling to me "You know you your life sucks, you want to end it. I can make it all go away." I mean, I suppose I could bargain back with "Really, I'm quite happy. Why would I want to end it?" But I guess eventually the evil gun will win eh?
Obviously guns don't have free will of their own. They don't convince people to commit suicide. They don't jump out of closets and kill people in their homes. In most cases of defensive gun use, shots don't have to be fired. You can't just count up justifiable homicides and declare those are the only defensive uses of guns. How many cases did a person confront someone at gunpoint and the attacker ran?
No one argues that guns kept for self-defense need to be kept away from young children. There are many ways to achieve this, and trigger locks are only one solution. I live in a home with no children. What purpose does a trigger lock serve me other than to make it harder to use a firearm in a self-defense situation? If I did have children, why a trigger lock vs. a quick open safe? Each person's unique situation will call for a different solution. It's something that ought to be left up to the individual, not dictated to them by the state.
Having a gun in the house makes it easier for someone to make a rash decision. Death is much closer when it is only a trigger pull away.
So ordinary people are just a gun away from being murderers? I don't buy it. If that were the case, our society would be coming apart at the seams. If people were that quick to anger and murder, death is just a kitchen knife, or a heavy lamp away.
We have 80 million gun owners in the US. It seems that most of us seem able to resist "Rash Decisions."
Suicide by firearm is fast becoming MURDER-suicide, and the VaTech massacre is just one of many recent examples in the news.
If your gun DID talk to you, you probably wouldn't be the first in this country, sadly enough. But the point here is that guns increase the chances of a suicide being carried through successfully. You put a gun to your head and mouth and pull the trigger, and if you miraculously survive, there won't be much of you left. There were more than 17,000 gun suicides in America in 2005. It is clearly a public health problem, and clearly is a reasonable issue for legislatures to address. That is an enormous amount of life, and some of us actually believe in public safety.
It's nice to see even an anti gunner can recognize the NRA for it's safety standards. A mention of the free child safety program, Eddie Eagle, and the 20 million citizens trained in firearms safety deserves noting too.
However,
In the end you have to judge the greater risk. Are you and your family more in danger from those in your neighborhood or from your child getting your gun. For myself I have realized I have a child in the house 365 days per year (minus sleepovers) and the odds are against a break in where I live. My guns are locked up in the most easily accessable gun safe I could find. If I lived in an inner city Baltimore, DC or Philly neighborhood I would have a gun more accessable than I do now. If I lived in the Florida projects where a young immigrant woman was gang raped and forced to perform sex acts on her son last year I would probaly carry 24/7. Of course some believe her and her son are safer disarmed and living in fear.
I would like for those leaders in the anti gun community to live in the worst DC neighborhoods for 6 months unarmed and unprotected before commenting on the necessity of handguns for self defense. I would contribute money for such a cause. How about it? Any pro gun groups want to start a fund to see if the hypocrites can "Walk the walk?"
Sounds like a good argument, the problem is that DC residents were polled and 76% support the handgun ban, 60% of them "strongly" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2008/03/16/GR2008031600072.html?sid=ST2008031502430). I've worked as a volunteer with victims and survivors of gun violence for seven years in the city, and in that time, I've only met one who wanted our gun laws overturned. Those who have lost their flesh and blood to guns realize that more guns is not a solution to ending violence in their neighborhoods and they also realize that the illegal guns that are killing their children are coming into our city because of weak guns laws in outside states that the NRA is aggressively supporting.
I am in DC and I live in a "fringe" neighborhood that used to be a drug infested gangland with shootings and deaths all the time. Even though drug dealers still sell near my home, sirens are a constant, search helicopters are nightly and raids on homes still happen, my neighborhood is changing and it's not because everyone has a gun. It's because people care about the way we live and have started participating. I walk the streets with my child. I go to the grocery store and visit the playgrounds. I am in my thirties and I am a single mom. I worry about guns all the time. I worry that you will have one and shoot the guy that you assume is causing trouble and I worry about him shooting back. I worry about being caught in between the two of you. But none of those things would EVER make me carry a gun because I refuse to be part of the problem. I instead choose to be part of the solution. I work to make my child a better person, participate in my community and and show that guns and violence don't have to be part of that solution.
So I am "Walking the Walk". You should join me.
I live here. The DC gun laws are a violation of the 2nd Amendment. Period. No other argumentation should be necessary. There is a BAN on handguns in DC. If you don't believe that there are armed criminals in this area, you must be extremely naive.
It's absolutely the most fantastical sort of thinking to believe that people don't sleep with guns under their pillows, in the bedside drawer, etc. LOADED guns. My daughter, all 100 pounds of her, lives in NJ, which has absurd gun laws. She's law abiding in every other way, but she says she'll be damned if she is unable to defend herself in the case of a home invasion. Therefore, she's a lawbreaker. But her theory is better to be that than to be dead. And I'm proud of her for it. I can't believe anyone with half a brain hasn't figured out that law abiding gun owners aren't the ones who usually commit gun crimes. It's the criminals with ILLEGAL guns who do most of it. And if we restrict the ability of law abiding citizens to have and use guns, the ILLEGAL guns will still be out there in the hands of the criminals.
Problem is the NRA is preventing Americans from taking any action to get those illegal guns out of the hands of criminals. You seem to want an arms race with criminals. Other industrialized democracies demonstrate we can reduce gun violence through tougher gun laws that prevent criminals from gaining access to guns in the first place.
Could you delineate all the ways in which the NRA is preventing Americans from taking any action to get illegal guns out of the hands of criminals? Can you enumerate even one? Your statement is nonsense. The NRA is a membership organization made up of the same people as those around you.
Semper fi
As a person who as actually been shot, as a young teenager, with an "unloaded" gun, I feel I can bring some perspective to the argument of firearms safety. Firearms are always loaded, always, and to assume otherwise is what gets children shot. Dictating that guns be unloaded is an invitation to handle them and I have experienced the result, shot thorugh the larynx.
The only sense it makes to have a firearm for home defense is if it can be used for home defense. A lock is a compromise, keeping it unloaded is absurd and disassembly is ridiculous. DC advocates here, in peripheral terms, ban firearms for defense. That is what they intend and the law should recognize it. They intend to make firearms useless in home defense and therefore establish a defacto ban.
As a man in his majority, with no minor children, who's health is compromised, I would resent being denied the right to make personal decisions about my peace of mind in accordance to a norm that can in no way apply to me. If a person with minor children is concerned about their children's safety, and they should be, then I suggest the statistical calculation of risk versus benefit is theirs to make as well. But more important, why are we treating the consequences of crime instead of the cause of it? It has literally become a calculation of risking your children to feel safer. This is not the argument we should be having.
Nice cherry-picking rant.
Oh well. On the subject of suicide, I remember a researcher from the 60s, James MacGregor, maybe (blame old synapses, if wrong) who reckoned after several years of study of automobile accidents, that half were either murder or suicide. Those were the days of 50K fatalaties in automobiles. Tsk.
In 2005 the US population was around 296.5 million and there were a total of 12352 gun related homicides. Which comes to a percentage of 4.16593592 × 10-5, and if I remember math class that -5 means you move that decimal to the left 5 space meaning .0000416% that seems like a REALLY low rate to have any complaints about. Also the question is how many of those homicides were by legal gun owners? I bet that percentage is even smaller.
On top of that you fail to mention according to 2006 FBI statistics Washington D.C. has the 5th highest crime rate of any city in the United States with a murder rate 35.4% as compared to Houston, TX which has a murder rate of 163% (and Texas has a concealed handgun RTC program).
You kind of skim over the fact that there is a handgun BAN in effect (it gets a single mention) and that the law states long guns have to be "unloaded and either trigger-locked or disassembled in the home" which means that not only do they have a lock on them but they are unloaded in D.C. This is something that requires more attention when you make the statement towards the end, "Given the firearm safety recommendations of the gun lobby, and the level of evidence pointing to the risks of having unsecured firearms in the home, it is disingenuous to argue that the city's trigger lock provision is unreasonable." You only focus on the "trigger lock" part of the law and completely blow over the "unloaded" part. The gun has to be "unloaded AND trigger locked or disassembled." So that means if someone broke into a D.C. citizen's house that person would have to remove the trigger lock or assemble a long gun AND load it in order to do anything with said gun. I'm okay with it being locked if I can have it loaded but having to do both by law does in fact make the gun useless in the home defense capacity.
Did you mean to say that Houston has a 163% murder rate? Because if so, I'm never going there, cause then I'll be killed 1.63 times!
Oops typo...
That should say 16.3% (that point sure does make a difference)
Thanks, that makes a LOT more sense!
Right and before the DC hand gun ban, DC had THE highest crime rate in the country. Just because the ban hasn't reduced crime to 0 doesn't mean that its effect hasn't been felt. Also, any gun should properly be stored (per NRA guidelines) unloaded. The trigger lock adds only a few seconds to the process of making a gun "functional." It's fairly likely that in the event of a home invasion, either you will have some time (ie you hear a criminal breaking in to another part of the house) or the criminal will already be in your room, likely preventing you from accessing your firearm and making the loaded/unload paradigm a moot point. Of the hundreds of thousands of defensive uses of firearms each year, only about 150 result in a justifiable homicide. Therefore guns, even unloaded, can provide for self-defense through a deterrent effect.
Actually it was AFTER the ban that DC had the highest crime rate in the country.
That 150 justifiable homocide statistic is very misleading. Quoting that statistic basicaly says a gun cannot be used defensively unless that use results in a death. Wounding an intruder, rapist, etc doesn't count? Scaring off a home invader by loudly chambering a round doesn't count?
You conveniently skimmed over the fact that 97% of DC's crime guns are trafficked in illegally from outside states with weak gun laws. It's not DC's laws that criminals and traffickers are exploiting to wreak havoc in the District.
The fact that you are trying to justify anyones death shows how much people seem to lack the basic compassion for mankind. ANY death by a firearm, or any violence, is a death that should NOT have happened and by restricting criminal access to firearms the number could, would and should be dramatically reduced. This is supported by looking at other countries such as Australia, the UK and Canada who have very strict gun laws and have minimal violent crimes that involve guns.
Your argument that guns should be controlled because suicide becomes is more likely is specious. There are no laws against suicide in any of the 50 states or in DC, and the law against murder species the killing of *another* person.
Suicide is a right we must cherish. It is the ultimate analgesic. A majority of cases of clinical depression are not responsive to treatment; the SSRIs, for instance, are only about 2% better than placebo in treating depression, and they are considered far more effective than the tri-cyclics or MAO inhibitors.
Guns are not the only way to commit suicide, but unlike bombs or head-on collisions, the damage is usually confined to the suicidal person, and unlike a noose or electrocution, it's usually effective, thus avoiding years of infirmity, making the suicidal person's life worse as well as imposing a significant cost on society.
Many politicians defend the 2nd amendment by showing that they engage in hunting, but the 2nd amendment doesn't protect weapons useful only in shooting rabbit, squirrel, ringneck pheasant, etc. It's specifically about weapons useful in killing other humans. A militia would be seriously compromised if weapons were kept at a central armory; capture the armory and the militia is virtually powerless. At the time the constitution was written, it was understood that weapons were to be kept close at hand, so that the militia could respond immediately and with great flexibility.
I used to own rifles, shotguns and pistols, and I used them for a variety of purposes, from recreational plinking to feeding my family. I no longer live on a farm, though, so plinking is not convenient, and I'm gimpy, which makes hunting problematic. I no longer own any firearms. However, that doesn't mean that gun ownership is inappropriate for someone who might live across the street from me.
If you attempt a home invasion at my residence, you will quickly find that guns are not necessary for my protection. There are common ordinary items positioned near every entrance which could easily be used against an armed intruder. The biggest problem with the gun as a defensive - or offensive - weapon is that a person so armed believes he automatically has the upper hand, when in fact, the upper hand belongs to the person who is mentally prepared to defend himself. A wine bottle or a paring knife is a much more useful weapon.
I would submit that, safety aside, there is another and more important (to them) reason that organizations like the Natinal Rifle Association do advocate having guns loaded and redily accessable for home defense. That is the concept of vicarious liability. If the NRA advocates a policy and harm results, under vicarious liability they could be held liable and I bet anti gun lawyers would come from far and wide to take the case. What the NRA, in their Basic Handgun Course, says is that you should weigh the convienence of having a loaded gun outweigh the danger, and each person should evaluate their individual requirements when deciding whether to have a loaded gun in the home.
Hmmmm...why would there be actual risk to the NRA of telling people to keep guns loaded and unsecured guns in their home? ARE YOU FOR REAL???
I think you could ask family members who have lost loved ones across this country and they would not describe suicide as "a right we must cherish."
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Posted March 23, 2008 | 11:22 PM (EST)