councilor.org
| Source | Jim Devine |
| Date | 07/04/19/06:17 |
| THE RECENT killings in Blacksburg, VA suggest that a theoretical
examination the role of gun control is needed. background: I was looking at Carlin & Soskice's (very good but hard) macroeconomics textbook which shows a graph indicating the theoretical relationship between the degree of centralization of wage setting and the unemployment rate (in the long run). (p. 117) High decentralization (fragmented or no unionization) means that less unemployment is needed to restrain labor demands than with intermediate decentralization. But highly centralized wage setting also implies low unemployment, because Labor and Capital can strike a deal to restrain wage demands (e.g., Sweden -- still true?) Returning to the original topic, in analogy to the labor/unemployment relationship, it seems that maybe both a high and a low amount of distribution of guns among the public could deter gun violence. The idea that having a small number of guns distributed among the public would prevent gun violence is the dominant US liberal position. This of course, would require strict state gun control -- or perhaps a culture that involves a popular opposition to gun ownership. More likely, it would involve having both of these: without an popular anti-gun culture and general support for the state's restrictions, the state anti-gun strictures are very hard to enforce. On the other hand, some US right-wingers believe that if (almost) _everyone_ had a gun, they could defend themselves against gun violence. In that case, it's as if the armed public would be replacing the state in maintaining order. Or the public is complementing the state's role. To be successful at minimizing gun violence, this right-wing solution would have to (1) have a highly-unified culture dominating civil society (i.e., society outside of the state) so that the different groups don't get into wars with each other; and (2) the "people armed" would have to accept the current _status quo_ of the distribution of property and power. (The liberal consensus sketched above would also need these two.) The unity of the culture thus could not reflect proletarian class consciousness but would have to be unified in some other way. This kind of cultural consensus seems much more fragile than the one that the liberal position requires. It might be unified using national chauvinism and the like. I wonder how many of these right-wingers would like the idea of the Black communities being armed. Or the Latinos? or the gays? The advocates of this perspective seem to be envisioning small towns in Texas that are totally dominated by their (straight male) Anglo populations. How many of these are there nowadays? Then there's the problem of the lone nuts who are prone to gun violence (which seems to be what happened in Blacksburg). In the liberal scenario, we might see only 10% of the US population holding guns. If 10% of the population consists of lone nuts (only some of them on pen-l), then then we might see a 1% chance of one of the lone nuts getting a gun. (I know that the math is shaky, but bear with me.) In the right-wing case, say 90% of the adults would have guns. That means that there would be (say) a 9% chance that a lone nut would get a gun, following the same mathematical trick. This suggests that the possibility of gun violence would be significantly higher under the right-wing regime. So the need for a ideologically well-knit gun-toting civil society is more important. Further, the different types of culture would deal with the lone nuts differently. The liberal culture would likely be more "communitarian," sort of like in Austria. It would try to enfold the lone nuts in the community's loving arms, to prevent violence. This might succeed in lowering the number of lone nuts, by making them less lonely. Alternatively, technocratic solutions such as forced psychotherapy (including forced meds, electro-convulsive therapy, etc.) may prevail. This latter "solution" seems more likely in a more atomized and state-dominated society. The right-wing culture these days seems to involve either "libertarian" competition or religious communitarianism. The former seems more likely to encourage the lone nuts, by treating them as "losers" or worse. Alternatively, the lone nuts might be made less lonely by incorporating them into right-wing militias, perhaps to keep unwanted ethnic groups out of town or in line. Religious communitarianism promises to provide a version of the liberal solution sketched above. But of course, it's less inclusive. You have to believe in the Faith. which solution is better. To quote the judge at the end of that classic film "Chained for Life," "You be the judge." |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho