The magazine trots out nearly every bad argument opponents of the policy have ever used.
The magazine trots out nearly every bad argument opponents of the policy have ever used.
T he Economist has weighed into the debate over permitless concealed carry, and, in so doing, has repeated almost every bad argument that has ever been marshaled in opposition to the trend.
Its piece starts by asking a question, of sorts:
Anyone who considers the 181 mass shootings that have taken place in America since January, or the recent spike in violent crime, would be forgiven for wondering why some states want fewer restrictions on guns, rather than more.
The implication here is ridiculous. Even if one were genuinely to wonder why “some states want fewer restrictions on guns” when we have so many mass shootings in the United States — though we haven’t actually had 181 “since January” — one wouldn’t need to wonder why some states want to adopt permitless carry, because legal concealed carry has absolutely no causal relationship with mass shootings. I follow this stuff closely, and yet I cannot think of a single mass shooting that has ever even intersected with legal concealed carry. How would it? Concealed carry allows people to carry weapons on their person while out and about; it does not allow people to shoot up a school. There is no connection between these two questions, except, occasionally, in the other direction, when concealed carriers stop mass shootings.
The piece continues with an appeal to moderation:
Permitless carry is a radical departure from tradition and should be opposed. One reason is that the gains to gun owners are trivial. In most of the states considering permitless carry, it is already possible to be armed with a handgun concealed in public if you have a licence.
It is certainly true that the states are allowed to require permits — provided, that is, that they are issued relatively liberally. But this does not mean that states are required to, and it does not mean, either, that at most points in American history they have. As for the idea that abolishing permits is a bad idea because “the gains to gun owners are trivial,” well . . . that cuts both ways. Yes, it is not especially “burdensome” to obtain a carry permit. But, given that the statistics show that nothing bad happens when states abandon their permitting systems, the limited burdens that are imposed are meritless. If the gains to gun owners are “trivial” and the cost to the state is non-existent, then the right answer is surely to give the gains to gun owners?
The Economist suggests that it is not:
Doing away with these conditions is not in the public interest. Just as communities are made safer by drivers being required to pass tests before they can legally operate a car, so it makes sense for people to learn how to use a lethal weapon and impose restrictions on when, where and how they can carry guns around.
But it provides no evidence for this suggestion. Instead, it proposes that:
The latest wave of deregulation was “shall issue” requirements for gun licences, giving officials less discretion about when to withhold them. A study of these laws by researchers at Stanford found that they resulted in a 13-15% increase in violent crime in the decade after they came into force. By the same logic, permitless carry would also probably cost lives.
First off, “would also probably” isn’t an argument. The statistics we have show that, despite now being the law in 20 states, permitless concealed carry makes no difference to crime in either direction, so even if it were true that concealed carry per se “resulted in a 13-15% increase in violent crime in the decade after they came into force,” that fact would not affect the case for permitless concealed carry in either direction. And that’s just if it were true, which it’s not — at least, not in any meaningful causal way. In a review of all of the relevant data, including the Stanford study, the RAND Corporation found that the link between “shall-issue laws” and “total homicides, firearm homicides, robberies, assaults, and rapes is inconclusive.” Which, of course, it would be, given that, as data from Texas and Florida show, concealed carriers are so law-abiding that they commit crime at one-sixth the rate of the police.
The Economist ends its case with a straw man, followed by an excruciatingly awkward appeal to Jim Crow, followed by a distressingly common misconception:
Permitless carry is also a misreading of history. Romanticising America as a country that intended no restrictions on guns is incorrect. In the 19th century, most Southern states had stricter gun laws than they do today. Even in Wild West settlements like Tombstone, Arizona, newcomers had to leave their guns on the outskirts of town or register them with the sheriff.
Let’s take these one by one.
First, there are very few Second Amendment advocates who argue that there have never been — and cannot legally be — any restrictions on guns. Nor, for that matter, is this what the Supreme Court found in Heller. But that there can be some restrictions on guns does not mean that all restrictions on guns are a good idea. And the question here is not whether permitless concealed carry is mandated; it is whether permitless concealed carry is worthwhile.
Second, as anyone familiar with the history of gun control will know, the fact that “in the 19th century, most Southern states had stricter gun laws than they do today” is an indictment of those states, rather than a recommendation. Why? Because the history of gun control in the United States is inextricable from the history of racism in the United States. Between the establishment of the first colonies and the late 1970s, it is nigh on impossible to find a major restriction on firearms that what was not in some way motivated by race — especially in the postbellum South. I do not doubt that The Economist is genuine in its enthusiasm for gun control. But, pure as its motives may be, it should understand that it is as ugly to say “well, look at how things used to be in the South” as an argument in favor of the regulation of guns as it would be to say “well, look at how things used to be in the South” as an argument in favor of the regulation of voting. There is a good reason that the South has a checkered history with such laws, and it is not one that The Economist should wish to recruit to its side.
Third, while it is sometimes true that “in Wild West settlements like Tombstone, Arizona, newcomers had to leave their guns on the outskirts of town or register them with the sheriff,” these rules tended to apply only in the “red light” districts of each municipality. Moreover, as Stephen Halbrook has carefully noted, such regulations obtained only while the settlements in question remained a part of territories. Once those territories became states, their new governments added broad protections of the right to keep and bear arms into their new constitutions, and dropped any one-horse-town measures that had previously been employed. (It is also worth our noting that “Wild West towns did it” is not, in fact, a good argument for the constitutionality of a given policy, given that those towns were often left alone by the federal government, and, knowing this, often operated upon whatever rules they could get away with — up to and including hanging men without trials.)
One suspects that, as is so often the case in the debate over gun control, The Economist’s objection to permitless carry is meant to stand in for an objection to the widespread ownership of firearms more generally. I do not suggest this in order to change the subject, or in order to transmute the magazine’s objection into something more extreme; I suggest it because there is simply no way to look at the question of firearms in the United States and conclude that the core problem is that eligible citizens are permitted to carry their weapons around with them. It is reasonable — albeit futile — to wish that guns had never proliferated in the United States, and it is reasonable — albeit misguided — to wish that the country’s Constitution did not protect an individual right to bear them. But, having acknowledged that guns did proliferate, and that Americans do have a right to bear them, it is not reasonable to worry about the one part of the equation that does no net harm whatsoever.