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Arizona Gun Laws And The Tucson Tragedy

By Big Tent Democrat

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said on Fox News Sunday today that the mass shootings in Arizona yesterday are "unrelated" to Arizona's gun laws: "The weapons don't kill people, it's the individual that kills people." - TPM

This issue of gun control laws has basically been swept aside since the Brady Law debate days of 1994. Indeed, the gun rights advocates have so swept the field that it is hard to find any gun control advocates at all. I am one of the few. As opposed to Rand Paul, my view is that making obtaining a gun more difficult may have had an effect on yesterday's tragedy, and prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons without a permit would also have had an effect. Arizona does not require a permit to purchase a handgun nor does it require a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Fox News reported:

[T]he gun used in Saturday’s shooting at a “Congress on Your Corner” event in Tucson, AZ was a Glock 19 – a semi-automatic 9mm gun with an extended magazine. Officials say they know the gun to have been purchased in Tuscon [. . . I]t’s believed that the gun was purchased legally.

The main argument against gun control laws is that it does not completely prevent tragedies such as yesterday's because if someone wants a gun they can get one.

Of course this argument can be applied to every thing for which laws are enacted. The reshaping of this argument into something to address would be that gun control laws are ineffectual in preventing shooting deaths as compared to the difficulty placed on law abiding citizens exercising their Second Amendment rights.

Assuming that such a right exists (I think Heller was wrongly decided), what precisely is the unbearable burden placed on these law abiding citizens? Applying for a permit? Waiting on a background check? Are these burdens really so onerous?

I have not done a check on the studies of the effects of gun control laws on gun violence, but it seems logical that such laws have at least SOME reducing effect on gun violence.

Perhaps this political and policy debate, closed for some time now, can be reopened. And before anyone chooses to remind me, yes, I know Gabrielle Giffords was on the anti-gun control side of the debate in the past. In my view she was wrong.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 09, 2011 (boomark / email).