Gun Control and Regulations

Yes, guns have externalities in society. The same is true of a massive range of other behaviors, and the question is how we balance safety with personal freedom. Federal permitting for better enforcement of existing laws, like the ones that prevent people with DV convictions from owning firearms, is a good start.

Here’s where the balancing act for guns is found: in order to pass gun control in the US, we need gun owners to vote for it. The hardline rhetoric and absolutist legislative positions typical of gun control advocates ensures they will not do that. See the study linked above, where only a tiny fraction of gun owners have ever acted to support gun control, despite a majority of them being ideologically in favor of it. There’s going to have to be a compromise here.

I ride my bike almost everywhere. Roads aren’t busy in my area, and I rarely have to travel far anyways. Drivers are generally awful to bicyclists, and cars kill a boatload of people every year on top of being bad for the environment. I’d be happy to live in a society where cars were intensely regulated and kept off of roads, just like I’d be happy to live in a society where guns were fully regulated and kept out of people’s hands. Those are both pie in the sky fantasies, though. If you believe that guns are a serious problem that need regulation urgently, then you’re going to have to accept some concessions to the 30% of US adults who see their gun as intrinsically tied to their safety and personal freedom.

"Just to be clear, is this meant to be a general gun control thread, or just for the US?"

No, it's not just for the US, although the US situation is more extreme than that found in most of the other countries represented within the thread, so it tends to dominate the conversation. It can also be difficult to tie an international perspective into the US conversation, because the US is so different from anyone else.

The underlying political issue is similar, however, in that guns in the US are tied to the extreme conservative movement that we also see rising in other countries. The necessity of compromising with gun owners in the US reflects the need to compromise on other issues as well.

And in some ways that should be easier. After all, unlike, say, expressions of racism, there is nothing inherently unjust about owning a gun.

Found this article on how Omaha, Nebraska managed to greatly reduce gun violence in the city.

The approach that they took placed a lot of emphasis on building community relationships. IDK that it's sufficient, but the approach is being looked at by other US cities.

President Biden announced an Executive Order to combat gun violence.

That's good, though unfortunately EO's are only a temporary solution.

I wonder if this is going to be like The Untouchables, but with guns instead of booze.

Uh, no. This is hardly the same thing. Biden isn't exactly banning guns altogether here.

Association of American Medical Colleges: The cost of surviving gun violence: Who pays? An overview of the existing research on the medical expenses that gun violence survivors in the US have to deal with (with the necessary caveat that the process is hindered by a lack of comprehensive government database, unlike with, say, plane or motor vehicle accidents). Some key findings:

• While self-harm is the leading cause of gun deaths in the US, assaults and accidents make up the majority of gun injuries.

• According to a 2021 report by the Government Accountability Office, around 50,000 people are admitted for emergency care for gun injuries each year, at an average cost of $1,500 per patient. Another 30,000 are admitted for inpatient treatment, averaging $31,000. The report notes that these are likely significant underestimates, as it doesn't account for some expenses not listed in patient discharge data.

• Another study by Johns Hopkins Medicine looked at 704,000 patients from 2006 through 2014 and put the numbers much higher: around $5,254 for emergency care and $95,887 for inpatient, adding up to $2.8 billion annually.

• Yet another study by Harvard Medical School tracked further medical expenses by gunshot survivors and found that they increased by an average of $30,000 throughout the first year after the injury. The GAO report above also notes that around 16% of survivors who went through inpatient care were later readmitted, at average costs of $8,000-$11,000.

• Firearm type and shooter intent matter. Unintentional injuries average $16,975 per admission; "legal interventions" (aka police shootings) average $33,462; mass shootings with assault weapons average $64,976.

• The government takes on almost half of the costs. A Stanford study looked at patient data from 2010 through 2015 and estimated that Medicare and Medicaid paid $2.5 billion out of the $5.47 billion in costs. Around half of the 704,000 patients in the above JHM study were uninsured or self-paying.