{"id":1790,"date":"2008-06-30T06:51:48","date_gmt":"2008-06-30T06:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2008-06-30T15:15:41","modified_gmt":"2008-06-30T15:15:41","slug":"letting_the_gun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1790","title":{"rendered":"Letting The Gun Manufacturers Solve The Gun Violence Problem – Why Not?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So as I start putting down some thoughts on the Supreme Court when I read an oped in LA Times<\/a> that reminds me of how stupendously different a world their Editorial Board lives in from the one I occupy.<\/p>\n

Dean Esmay<\/strike> Kevin D<\/a> links to the column – which proposes a kind of ‘cap and trade’ be applied to gun deaths, with the gun manufacturers held responsible for the deaths.<\/p>\n

In other words, rather than telling gun makers what to do, performance-based regulation would tell them what outcome they must achieve: Reduce deaths by guns. Companies that achieve the target outcomes might receive large financial bonuses; companies that don’t would face severe financial penalties. Put simply, gun makers — whose products kill even when used as directed — would have to take responsibility for curbing the consequent public health toll.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ll ignore for a moment the interesting notion that artifacts – rather than those who wield them – are responsible for what is done with them, I’ll suggest that my response as a gun manufacturer would be simple: if you want to solve the problem of crime with guns, arm those who aren’t criminals.<\/b><\/p>\n

So, let’s embrace their proposal. Let’s hand over gun regulation to the folks from Colt, Springfield Arms – but why limit it to the manufacturers – let’s take all the industry and turn the problem over to them. The management of Gunsite<\/a> and folks like Massad Ayoob<\/a> can sit down with the gun manufacturers can devise the new policies and programs around firearms regulation.<\/b> Mandatory firearms training. Must-carry laws. Castle doctrines widely applied. Re-activation of the Civilian Marksmanship Program<\/a> in schools.<\/p>\n

Let’s give them a decade or two to see how the policies work – after all we’ve let folks like Jeffrey Fagan and Stephen Sugarman set the policies for the last 40 years. Fagan testified against the death penalty<\/a> to the New York Legislature, and also opposed life without parole for juvenile murderers<\/a>. Sugarman is a Boalt law professor<\/a> who believes in applying performance-based regulation to, among other things, salt in prepared food and to fast food with the intent of managing childhood obesity.<\/p>\n

No, I don’t seriously envision turning over firearms regulation to the NRA. But it’s honestly just as sensible as the proposal in the Times. More so, possibly.<\/p>\n

I’m chuckling just thinking of the look on the Times Editorial staff as the new regulations are announced. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What to do about gun violence? Hand the problem to the gun manufacturers – why not, asks Armed Liberal?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}