A Gun Proposal

Since we had a spirited discussion about Americans and guns, I thought I would throw out a proposal for your consideration.  This proposal will mollify some of our gun apprehension, while retaining Americans’ right to bear arms.  I will not use any data to back up my proposal, since well, it’s just a proposal.  The proposal involves two things: restrictions and liability.  The basis of the restrictions is derived from the fact that the right to bear arms is encumbered.  There seems to be a consensus among the framers as well as among contemporary Americans that there should be restrictions on the right to bear arms.  There is not a consensus on the limit or form that these restrictions should take.  The liability of gun manufacturing, gun distributing, gun selling and gun owning is not often discussed, but my proposal includes their consideration, since they present us with an instrument which helps to align the incentives of these actors with those of society.  The granting of rights and restriction of rights must achieve a balance which is amenable to society as a whole.  This proposal attempts to achieve a concerned balance.

I will start with restrictions.  I would propose that certain types of guns be banned.  I call these the Rambo Restrictions.  The vast majority of lawful uses of guns, namely hunting and self-defense does not require any guns seen in a Rambo movie.  These Rambo guns, I would argue, do not fall under the protection of the Second Amendment and should be banned.  Secondly, there should be restrictions on who can manufacture, distribute, sell and own a gun.  Gun manufacturers and distributors should be required to document that they do not sell or distribute guns to those countries which are designated by the government as “unfriendly.”  I would not imagine that we would want Remington selling guns to Venezuela.  I would put more restrictions on these actors, but they will be discussed below.  Citizens who have been convicted of a felony or violent crime or who are mentally ill should not be permitted to own a gun.  Gun sellers should be held responsible if they sell a gun to one of these classes of people, or if they sell Rambo guns.  I also think that a requirement of owning any gun should be receiving a license.  This license, similar to a driver’s license, would require the payment of fees and satisfactory completion of a training and safety course.  This would ensure that any lawful owner of a gun would have a minimum level of proficiency with a gun.  This license would need to be updated regularly to verify that the owner is able to meet this level of proficiency.  Any violation of the license would result in penalties and possibly a permanent revocation of the license.

Now come the liability issues.  Currently, as far as I know, there are no liabilities attached to any of the actors mentioned previously.  I would propose a system of liabilities for these actors.  Liabilities for gun actors would help to internalize the externalities of guns.  For example, if a gun manufacturer was fined for every one of its guns used in a crime, then they would likely change their behavior.  These fines might induce the manufacturer to put fingerprint technology on their guns or build in locking mechanisms or stop producing the particular models of guns used most frequently used in crimes.  The only way to induce this behavior is to align the incentives of the gun manufacturer with those of society.  If society wants to have guns, but does not want to be killed by them, this is one way to achieve this alignment.  The alignment would be achieved with a minimum of government intervention and thus taking of rights.  This assignment of liability would be imposed on all gun actors.  When a gun is used in a crime, every actor involved in this gun’s life cycle from manufacture to the final use would be liable for this use of the gun.  If your gun is stolen, then used to kill someone, you would be liable to some extent for this outcome.  Again, this would induce people to change their behavior.  Gun safes would likely become more prevalent.

To track these liabilities would require the construction of some sort of gun database.  Now, before we dismiss this out of hand as big brother, we can put reasonable restrictions on this database.  We can construct the database so that the information is dispersed, so that big brother would need to expend a lot of effort to compile it in one place.  Each gun, when manufactured could be inscribed with a serial number (they might be already).  Every certified gun actor would receive an ID number.  The arc of this gun would then be tracked via the serial and ID numbers.  When the gun goes to a distributor, the distributor would be responsible for keeping a list of all these serial numbers as well as the ID number of the manufacturer.  The manufacturer would be required to keep a list of where its guns go via ID numbers.  This record of transactions would be required for all gun transactions.  The transactions would be kept in the hands of the transacting parties.  This would keep the information dispersed, so that big brother would not keep a gun database.  When a gun is used unlawfully, these transactions would be used to assign liability to all parties involved. The distribution of liability would need to be determined.  There are many discussions to be had on this.  Should the manufacturers receive the highest assignment?  What about gun owners?  I will leave this for another post.  The goal of assigning liability is to align the incentives of society and gun actors.  If gun actors face consequences for the use of guns, they will take action to minimize these negative effects without heavy-handed government intervention.

This system of restrictions and liabilities allows for the greatest amount of lawful use of guns, while incorporating the need to check the potential ill effects of guns.  It also requires a small amount of government intervention.