Title:  An open letter in response to Dylan Matthew’s article, “What no politician 
        wants to admit about gun control”
Author: Logan T. Martin
Date:   08/04/2019

Notes:  This is a open reply to an article released by Vox Media that covered 
policy recommendations following the El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio shootings.

Hello Mr. Matthews,

Thank you for taking the time to write your thoughts down about the two mass 
shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio and how you believe we should respond 
to the problems of mass shootings and gun violence, more generally. I would like to 
offer my response here, as a letter open to the public.

After several readings of your article, I see your main point as being: None of the 
policy options being considered would be effective enough to reduce the incidence of 
gun violence in the United States to European levels; Only a large scale reduction 
in guns in circulation could achieve that goal. One notable omission from your 
article, is any argument in support of bringing the incidence of gun violence in the 
United States to European levels. Now, you may be aghast at such a callous 
statement. But, please, let me continue. 

As an empiricist in training, I generally appreciate the use of statistical 
arguments, and you give many. I also find your healthy skepticism of the results of 
single studies to be refreshing and I can assure you that it is regarded as best 
practice in my field. Perhaps most surprisingly to you, I also find no problems with 
the findings of the preponderance of evidence that you lay forward: More guns mean 
more gun deaths.  

Even further, I would argue that the question of if more guns in circulation causes 
more gun violence is such a trivial question that it does not even require empirical 
evidence. If introducing any gun into circulation has a nonzero impact on the 
probability of gun violence, and it does just by the nature of more guns being 
available to for those who would commit suicide or homicide, then that premise is 
true. However, and perhaps this is where I begin to diverge from your thinking, I do 
not believe that, that near tautology is a compelling argument to reduce the number 
of guns in circulation. 

To return to bringing down the United States gun violence levels down to European 
levels, the question of how to accomplish that goal easily, is easy to arrive at. 
Just how you offer, “more guns mean more gun deaths”, in turn, a large reduction of 
guns equals a large reduction of gun deaths. However, a problem with these lines of 
thought of maximizing or minimizing one value, even if they are undeniably 
important, like minimizing gun deaths, is that variables interact and that other 
values may also be undeniably important.

I would argue that when deciding upon issues that will affect an entire nation’s 
future, and our nation is one of the largest in the world by population, land mass, 
and political influence, one should come to the best reasoned decisions one can, 
knowing the trade-offs involved. Another notable omission from your discussion is 
the trade-offs that would be involved with restricting firearms further than they 
already are. Possessing a firearm allows a citizen, no matter their vigor, to have a 
fighting chance against a hostile agent that would seek to cause them serious harm. 
Notably, it allows for a threat of a firearm being used against the hostile agent to 
possibly negate the need to be involved in a dangerous fist or knife fight for the 
citizen’s well-being. It also allows a possible deterrent to hostile agents seeking 
to do other harm to innocent citizens, such as invading that citizen’s home or 
robberies of their person. Of course, it has also been thought to prevent a bulwark 
against the government’s oppression of the citizenry, although I will admit that, 
that cause is less likely than needing to defend oneself. 

A reasonable policy that would maximize these benefits, and I would argue a right to 
self-defense is well worth fighting for, would be something similar to what is in 
place now: Most people who are not viewed as a serious, documented threat against 
themselves or others, are allowed to purchase firearms that could reasonably be used 
for self defense and possess a minimal possibility of collateral damage -- no 
belt-fed machine guns or high explosives, for example. 

Most importantly, one would come to this conclusion knowing that some guns, despite 
one’s best efforts, would be used inappropriately. Some would be fired by mistake, 
some would hit innocent civilians when used in self defense, some would be used for 
homicides, some for suicides. Perhaps, as a prudent and flexible thinker one would 
also realize that it is possible that even if you believe, as I do, that the 
benefits of allowing citizens to own guns are very important, there may be a point 
where you should reluctantly reduce these freedoms, if their cost proved too high. 
Ideally, one would come to a objective standard to when those costs outweighed the 
benefits, prior to the incidence of any transgressions.

However, if instead one decided upon a policy that attempted to balance the benefits 
and costs of having many guns in circulation, as we have now, and then upon any 
incidence of a cost, one lamented one’s decision and immediately called for a repeal 
of the policy, this would be folly. To act in this way, is myopic and is unbecoming 
of one strong enough to make hard decisions for their country. 

Now, you may be thinking that these incidences of violence are not isolated and that 
their continued frequency is just the sort of justification that could be used to 
change policy, even if it was well-meaning to begin with. I admit that mass 
shootings do seem to be increasing with frequency. However, these shootings, while 
tragic, affect a very, very small proportion of the population. If we speak of gun 
violence generally, you offer that the United States rate of gun deaths was about 
107 per 1,000,000 people. All of those deaths are regrettable, but with the United 
States citizenry owning nearly half of the citizen-owned guns in the world, I do not 
see how one could construe the frequency of those deaths as high. Perhaps, as you 
mentioned, it is much higher than many countries, most of which have nearly disarmed 
their citizenry, but this is not a fair comparison. Following the example earlier, I 
would not set my standard of changing a policy that provides the benefits that I 
listed above, to the incidence of 0.01% that you have quoted. Even though 0.01% is 
already very low, I would argue that this figure is misleadingly high and the true 
figure one should be comparing to would be even lower. 

As you offer, nearly two-thirds of gun violence deaths are because of suicide. 
Therefore, 2/3 of the 0.01%, are citizens who have consciously made a decision that 
they would rather not live. I am not sure that it is fair to include citizens taking 
their own lives with a firearm as being part of the incidence of violence 
preventable by firearm control. In terms of trade-offs, it seems bizarre and wrong 
to me that one would prioritize possibly saving someone’s life who is actively 
trying to end it over permitting someone to possess a tool to actively save their 
life. Removing suicide cases from the incidence figure, we are left with 0.004% of 
the United States population or 1 in 28,571. To me, this is well-within the limits 
of what I believe we should be willing to accept for the commensurate benefits. 

To summarize and conclude: I believe that our current policies are working well to 
balance promoting the benefits of gun ownership and possession and minimizing the 
downsides thereof. While any incidence is regrettable, I do not think that the 
current incidence of gun violence in our country is a crisis and it is certainly not 
high enough to warrant any large restrictions of gun possession. And certainly, any 
attempt to reduce the incidence of gun violence here to that in Europe, would 
require a significant reduction, if not elimination of the benefits that we receive 
from widespread gun possession.

As an aside, I admire that you would fight for issues that you have admitted are 
almost certainly not going to happen. Even if one may disagree with large-scale 
confiscation of firearms, repealing immigration laws, and giving monthly checks to 
citizens, and I do, it is a rare quality to fight for the things you believe in, 
knowing that you will not win the fight today or even tomorrow. Looking at most 
citizens reluctance to vote for third party political figures, even if they 
represent a better choice to those citizens, because they are unlikely to beat 
either two party candidate is evidence of this widespread problem. You do the public 
a service as an example of someone who does not ascribe to that line of thinking. 

I have put the law aside here. In the spirit of your article, I have argued for how 
I believe things ought to be, not how they could be within our current legal 
framework. As much as I would like for it not to be the case, from an objective 
reading of the second amendment, not a charitable reading like the one used in 
Heller, there is no right enshrined in the constitution to own or operate a firearm 
outside of involvement in a well-regulated militia. If, as I believe we should, we 
as a country decide that there is a right to privately own a firearm for the 
purposes of self-defense, the constitution should be amended to include a clear, 
explicit assertion of that right.

Thank you,
Logan