5 ms·

Support for gun control in America at a 50 year low. Are video games the cause?

4 points by learc83 15y ago

I just read this article http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/66874.html In 1959 60% of people supported a handgun ban. Now only 26% are in favor. Who else thinks this is because those of us who grew up playing video games are more comfortable with guns? A bit of anecdotal evidence--Many of my otherwise very liberal friends own guns or are comfortable with them because they were exposed to them in call of duty, not by their parents.

chrisbennet 15y ago
Perhaps the erosion of our other freedoms has made us vlue the ones we have left?
- learc83 15y ago
  Excellent point.
- hga 15y ago
  Indeed; here are some related items about that: 9/11, both the attack and the perceived overreaction (or at least the security theater part of it) did result in many people changing their minds about self-defense and so on. The Katrina gun confiscations, some caught on video, also had an impact. For that matter, as more and more excesses of the police get caught on video ... you'll note that in the US Google got a lot of takedown requires for those and refused ... well, those don't make people feel more secure. Take your pick of the Great Recession and/or the election of Obama, who's history prior to 2008 was relentlessly anti-gun except for HR 5441 in 2007, that both outlawed Katrina style confiscations and critically provided a private right of action against those violating it. Non-hunting gun and ammo sales went way up and are still higher than before then, even after we've seen that Obama in action is no more anti-gun than George W. Bush. (Note that "W", like Obama, was in favor of a renewal of the "assault weapons" ban, which lapsed while he was in office, and again, no blood in the streets.) The fact that despite these hard times people are still, 3 years later, buying more guns and ammo is pretty amazing. I'll close with two factoids: The last time I checked we buy 9 billion rounds of ammo per year. Economically, the shooting sports are bigger than golf.
hga 15y ago
Without reading the article, if you pick those two data points (1959 and "today") two very big things happened: A big violent crime increase (if for no other reason than the baby boom) plus the perception of it and a breakdown of the criminal justice system in the '60s and '70s. Back in the '50s "juvenile delinquency" was the big issue and we did have some tools that tried to deal with it, but those were largely discarded, plus they don't apply beyond age 18 or so. ADDED: Also note the deinstitutionalization of the dangerously insane which started in the '60s and '70s, they're now dumped on the streets or into jails and prisons. A national sweep of "shall issue" concealed carry licensing regimes started by Florida in 1987 such that we went from 10% of the population being able to carry concealed to 65% today (not sure if that includes Wisconsin, which flips from no issue to shall issue November 1st). And of course every prediction of the gun grabbers that this would result in a bloodbath not coming to pass. Plus the baby boomers graying; my SW Missouri concealed carry class was overwhelmingly early middle aged on up. As you get older, the reality and perception of your ability to defend yourself and your loved ones without a gun (America's martial art, after all) goes down. Heck, if you're like me you, growing up with guns and hunting, you didn't buy them once you were on your own until you had someone else to protect. Many have commented on video games having an effect and I believe it, but I think the numbers of people influenced by them are too small as of yet to have had this great a change in revealed public opinion (I don't entirely trust any survey that asks questions about guns and I'll note that outside of the recent meaningless SF handgun ban vote (because California has preemption) no referendum on banning handguns has ever passed in the US, not even in Massachusetts in the '70s). We (in the gun community) believe video game fans are an ever increasing important part of "Gun Culture 2.0" and they fit right in with its emphasis on self-defense and the many newer shooting sports that are both oriented towards that and that are for most people more fun than punching holes in paper. For example, "three gun" competitions, rifle/carbine, shotgun and handgun. (In the hunting area, metallic silhouette shooting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_silhouette_shooting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_silhouette_shooting is another example (although I suspect that's fun for just about any non-vegetarian :-), and of course wing shooters have had clay pigeons to shoot at for a very long time.)
- mkr-hn 15y ago
  Violent crime has been on the way down since the '90s [1] (also when Doom came out), so public opinion will probably start to reverse. [1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent%20crime%20since%201950 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=violent%20crime%20since...
blakdawg 15y ago
Some other plausible explanations: Gun control is often motivated by racism; as our society has become more tolerant, racism has lessened, and so has gun control. It's become obvious that gun control doesn't work. The cities and states with the toughest gun control laws have the worst crime. One might expect that, short-term (e.g., cities with bad crime would enact gun control laws) but over decades, if cities like Chicago, New York City, and Washington DC where handgun ownership is effectively impossible haven't see giant decreases in crime as a result of their gun bans .. the only reasonable conclusion is that the ban isn't working, and is either totally ineffective or is causing only bad side effects. Over the past 20 years, concealed carry of handguns has become politically and socially uncontroversial - "shall-issue" concealed carry permits (which work like drivers' licenses - if you are of age, pass a test and undergo instruction, and don't have a criminal history, you're good) are now the law in approximately 40 of 50 states, and we haven't seen the streets run red with blood. Ordinary people are legally carrying guns when they want to and we haven't fallen into some Mad Max world of road warfare. Because people now, themselves, own and carry a handgun - or know someone normal and sane who does - the overinflated scare stories of the gun ban lobby have been revealed as the products of fevered (or racist) imagination and hence rejected.
- hga 15y ago
  Agreed; the first point is sometimes called the "Don't Scare White People" principle and as far as I can tell the bulk of US gun control has been racist. See elsewhere in this discussion for a good starting essay on the subject. Although I'd say that concealed carry is still pretty controversial, e.g. watch the progress of the national reciprocity bill (I believe based on the "full faith and credit" section of Article IV of the Constitution) that just exited the House Judiciary Committee on a party line vote.

learc83 15y ago

According to the article. "The trend did not appear to be related to...any major shifts in American attitudes towards crime, fear of time, or reports of being victimized, reports Gallup." I thought that at first as well, however.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
hga 15y ago
Well, a good part of it could be a reversal to the American norm; American gun control has gone through these phases, only the first of which could be considered legitimate: Pre-Civil War suppression of dueling. Post-Civil War suppression of freedmen, despite the 14th Amendment. Starting around the turn of the last century, measures against recent immigrants (in the case of NYC, one set of older immigrants (the Irish) against others (principally the Italians), hence the patrimony of the Sullivan Law). Following that, crime was the excuse (the Roaring '20s and Prohibition) and all but the elite were the target, and this just continued to increase. With the exception of a counter-reaction to the Black Power movement and the related big riots of the '60s. Keeping inexpensive guns out of the hands of blacks was an explicit goal in this period. Followed by more of the middle of the century stuff peaking with the Clinton "assault weapons" "ban" that finally started causing tremendous political damage, culminating in Gore's loss in 2000 (not the only reason of course, but one of several that if not for any of them he would have won). Since them, at the national level outside of safe seats (Schumer, DiFi (well, maybe not in 2012)) gun control has become another 3rd rail of American politics. And the gun culture's counter-revolution has been quite successful, among other things re-norming the ownership of guns. And these video games haven't hurt one bit. One thing I didn't mention but that might be relevant is the sharp decline in trust of our ruling class, who's fruits were are enjoying at large scale in the Great Recession and that otherwise rather resemble this bit from the Deceleration of Independence: "He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance." But it's not so much that as the shear ineptness of our ruling class. No one with a clue (often requiring some time in the real world) and the courage to face the facts is confident that this ruling class is a good steward of the nation's future, that we can trust them to take care of us. We're pretty much on our own until (ideally) we have a Pareto circulation of elites, and much can go wrong until then and after then. I could go on but I think you get the idea. What I'm expressing should get a hearing from people who are attracted to a site that's dedicated to people not working for the man....
- learc83 15y ago
  That was a Very interesting brief history of gun control. I've always been hostile to gun control, because I believe in the gun's ability to act as an equalizer--I believe it was a prerequisite for a modern, large scale, egalitarian society (well more egalitarian society anyway). Any recommended reading on the history of gun control? I'd also like to see a study on gun control support in other countries from the same time period.
  - hga 15y ago
    For the former, I need to look around, I've been fighting it since the early-mid '70s, not long after sugar price supports destroyed the moonshine industry and the BATF was in danger of being downsized because their Revenuers were out of a job. But they had this shiny new Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968 which completely changed the legal regime for gun sales and they preceded to use and abuse it heavily. For the latter, this book is supposed to be good, probably the best in breadth, I've read quite a bit of the author's words and he's honest and very good, and the used price is right: http://www.amazon.com/Samurai-Mountie-Cowboy-David-Kopel/dp/0879757566/ http://www.amazon.com/Samurai-Mountie-Cowboy-David-Kopel/dp/... I have to run right now, I'll see what I can come up with later (you might want to add your email address to your "about" entry to make it easier to contact you). And your point about "a modern, large scale, egalitarian society" is spot on: "God created men, and Samuel Colt made the equal" is the old saw. Adjust as desired, e.g. the feminist version is "created men and women"....
    - learc83 15y ago
      Thank you very much for the recommendations. I'll have some time to read in a month or so. I'm taking the Stanford A.I., machine learning, and database classes at the moment so they are monopolizing all my free time. I've also taken your advice and added my email to the about section.
  - hga 15y ago
    My goodness, how could I forget that the first bit of gun control in America is what directly sparked the American Revolution, what Lexington and Concord were all about. The British also played nasty games with the colonists trapped in Boston proper (I was quite surprised when I first came to Boston and found out that they'd filled in Back Bay over the last few centuries :-). Needless to say that put gun control is a bad light for the Founders, resulting in all the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) provisions in the Constitution and many state constitutions. For the first phase, the only source I know of is this pricey book by one of the best scholars in the field (and also one of us, i.e. a hard core programmer), Concealed Weapon Laws of the Early Republic: Dueling, Southern Violence, and Moral Reform, see more including the TOC and first chapter at: http://www.claytoncramer.com/books/books.htm http://www.claytoncramer.com/books/books.htm But this is mostly a historical curiosity, only important in providing context for these laws which tended to regulate concealed carry when the open carry was the norm (or so I remember). There's a tremendous amount of literature on "The Racist Roots of Gun Control" as the above author puts it in one essay: http://www.claytoncramer.com/scholarly/racistroots.htm http://www.claytoncramer.com/scholarly/racistroots.htm Not the least of which is the infamous Dred Scott decision; from Wikipedia: More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went [emphasis added]. And that just wouldn't do. Look into the 14th Amendment, which among other things was intended to stop the disarming for freedmen, and how it was judicially nullified by the Supreme Court in the 19th century, resulting in really messy jurisprudence in the 20th as the Supremes have selectively applied it (for the 2nd, in McDonald very recently). An old (1984) but excellent book that includes coverage of this is That Every Man Be Armed: http://www.amazon.com/That-Every-Man-Armed-Constitutional/dp/0945999380/ http://www.amazon.com/That-Every-Man-Armed-Constitutional/dp... The beginning and as I recall bulk of the book is on the 2nd Amendment period, and that's useful for learning why our current police forces would be called "select militias" by the Founders, a phrase with the emotional loading of, say, "Communist" in the '50s. But aside from the genesis and nullification of the 14th Amendment it's not particularly a history of gun control; recommended reading, though. I've read enough of Neal Knox's columns to know that this book is almost certainly very good for the "modern" history period (perhaps to the '60s): http://www.amazon.com/Neal-Knox-Gun-Rights-War/dp/0976863308/ http://www.amazon.com/Neal-Knox-Gun-Rights-War/dp/0976863308... and it will likely include some stuff on earlier parts. But note that he was an activist, someone who made history, not a historian or someone engaged in that role when he wrote the columns compiled in this book. David Kopel, author of the book recommended in my other post, has lots of short stuff at this page: http://www.davekopel.com/2dAmendment.htm http://www.davekopel.com/2dAmendment.htm I'm not aware of anything on the immigrant through New Deal era, but there's stuff out there. The above should give you plenty to get going with, and anything by Cramer or Kopel is rock solid. Also historian (not activist, as the other two also are) Joyce Lee Malcolm, I've read at least one of her shorter essays and her Guns and Violence: The English Experience http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Violence-Joyce-Lee-Malcolm/dp/0674016084/ http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Violence-Joyce-Lee-Malcolm/dp/067... is supposed to be definitive. And very significant, in that starting around 1300 violent crime in England steadily decreased ... and then all that progress and more was thrown away in less than a century. And feel free to ask me questions ( hga@ancell-ent.com ).
hga 15y ago
Here are some good comments on polling on gun questions in the US: http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2011/10/don_kates_on_po.php http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2011/10/don_kates_on_po.ph... Bottom line: be extremely skeptical about any single poll; the willingness of people to answer questions like "Do you own a gun" appears to be a much greater factor than anything else in these polls. Which is one of the reasons I stressed "revealed public opinion" like what happens in the privacy of the voting booth. It could be the overwhelming factor in the changes plotted by Gallup starting in 1959 are only in the nation's Zeitgeist, the level of controversy of the issue, and people's reaction to a modern witch hunt. The gun-grabbers and their cause is in such poor shape ( review the recent archives of this politically oriented gun blog: http://www.pagunblog.com/ http://www.pagunblog.com/ ) that it's likely that recently many more people are willing to tell the truth in an opinion pool, something that wasn't so truth in the period after 1959. I again bring up the example of Massachusetts citizens voting down a handgun ban at the first height of their state government's anti-gun hysteria in the '70s.
hga 15y ago
Here's the Instapundit in 2004 on how "Terrorists Attacked Gun Control Movement": http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,41735,00.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,41735,00.html The Instapundit posted this as a note to a link "Gallup: Self-reported gun ownership rises, especially among women, Dems": http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/27/gallup-self-reported-gun-ownership-rises-especially-among-women-dems/ http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/27/gallup-self-reported-gun-o... It's got some good theories, and I'd expand on the point that "though it is little publicized, much of the gun-control movement’s financial and institutional support comes from non-evangelical Protestant denominations". The United Methodist Church (one of several different Methodist denominations in the US) established the National Coalition to Ban Handguns (now the Coalition Against Gun Violence), which at last count had an office in their D.C. HQ, etc. etc. That denomination's option on when self-defense is warranted is quite vile. From footnote number 11 of a paper by Don Kates (another good pro-gun author): Though implicit in the sources already cited, the immorality of owning a firearm for self-defense is most explicitly avowed by the Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church which founded, and still sponsors, NCBH. The Methodist Board of Church and Society deems it a victim's moral duty to submit to whatever a criminal demands rather than do anything that might imperil a rapist's life. The editor of its official publication rhetorically poses the question "Is the Robber My Brother" and answers "yes," arguing that although the burglary victim or the "woman accosted in the park by a rapist is [not] likely to consider the violator to be a neighbor whose safety is of immediate concern, [c]riminals are members of the larger community no less than are others. As such they are our neighbors or, as Jesus put it, our brothers." Allen Brockway, But the Bible Doesn't Mention Pistols, Engage-Social Action Forum, at 39-40 (May, 1977) (This article also appears in a separate pamphlet put out by the Methodist Board of Church and Society under the title Handguns in the United States.)...." That's in: http://www.guncite.com/journals/krealsym.html http://www.guncite.com/journals/krealsym.html