Opinion
Fayetteville, AR – -(AmmoLand.com)- One of the favorite rhetorical tropes of gun control advocates is to draw a comparison between how we treat the ownership and operation of cars and guns. The essence of the argument is that we allow people to own and use cars while regulating their use and designs, so gun control regulation will work and doesn’t have to be a disaster for gun rights.
There are a number of flaws with this line of reasoning. While I would say that freedom of movement is a fundamental right, the Constitution doesn’t enumerate it for protection, unlike gun rights. Driving is an activity done on public roads for the most part, whereas gun possession is mostly something carried on in one’s home or on one’s person. And categorically, guns and cars are not the same things. A gun is a tool for one set of tasks, which includes fighting. A car is also a tool, but its function is for another set of purposes, and the two sets have little overlap.
That being said, it is worth taking the argument as it is and seeing if it can stand on its own terms. One of the implied claims is that we gun owners should have to obtain a license not only to carry but also to own firearms, the notion being that a license to drive makes the act of using an automobile safer and by comparison, the same would be true with guns.
Does a requirement to have a driver’s license to operate a vehicle on the roads increase safety?
That is the claim that has been made throughout the history of such licenses, and the same offenders in violating gun rights—New York, New Jersey, and Illinois—led the way in driving control. There is a good reason to believe that being careful about letting teenagers drive improves road conditions, but that’s more a case of children not being adults, rather than a comment about the population generally.
The fatality rate in vehicle crashes has declined over the last forty years, but there’s a key change that undermines the requirement of a driver’s license as the cause: changes in vehicle safety design. While seat belts, air bags, safety glass, and crumple zones have become more common; deaths have gone down—even though we’ve brought the speed limit on the Interstate Highway System up from the soul-crushing fifty-five miles an hour.
The parallel here is in safety features in firearms—and no, I don’t mean the demands for “smart” guns. I have a lot of aesthetic appreciation for older designs, but let’s face facts: A firing pin block is a good idea. The gun shouldn’t fire when bumped or when you close the bolt. (Readers will recall several examples here.) The metallurgy should be suitable for the designated cartridge.
Am I really arguing that licenses to drive are pointless? I’ll refrain from temptation and say that this isn’t the point of today’s article.
I am saying is that attempts to compare guns and cars with the goal of requiring a license to be a legal gun owner don’t work. The test to get a driver’s license is pro forma and rarely repeated. The lack of a repeated test to keep the “safety” standard up makes me suspect that the purpose of the DRLC document is much more about raising money for the county/state than about safety. What this proposed analogy does is ask us to contemplate the purpose of controls on the behavior of ordinary people.
Somehow, I don’t think that people control is what gun control advocates intended to be as the focus of the discussion.
About Greg Camp
Greg Camp has taught English composition and literature since 1998 and is the author of six books, including a western, The Willing Spirit, and Each One, Teach One, with Ranjit Singh on gun politics in America. His books can be found on Amazon. He tweets @gregcampnc.
Then we should think hard about licensing reporters since their writings are killing people when they continue to cover the shooter more than those saving lives, which in turn has been proven to insite others to, out do the last mass murder. Maybe with life sentences in prison. Maybe there should be heavy fees for reporters and fines for lies and fabricated stores to in site riots. Maybe we should regulate ANTIFA for their lies and obstruction. Maybe those that obstruct peaceful rallies & speeches, like a Berkeley, should be jail for yelling out lies and unsubstantiated comments. CNN, ABC,… Read more »
A better comparison would be between gun laws and voting. A background check and government permission needed before being allowed to register. A photo id required before being allowed to vote. And of course the various fees and excise taxes just like on ammo and guns. If it is good enough for guns, then it is good enough for voting. After all if it prevents just ONE illegal vote it is worth it.
A car can be used to harm , kill people. That is a fact. Drunk drivers kill , maim people all the time. Also there are psychopaths that have used motor vehicles to plow thru groups of innocent people , causing death & devastation. Where there is a will to harm people , there is a way. As for firearms , they are not going to pick themselves up and go harm anyone. Driving is a privilege. The Right to keep and bear arms is just that , a Right under the second Amendment of our constitution. These leftist anti… Read more »
When they come for your guns, that’s the time to load them, not to hide them.
1. Lots of people drive without a license and after a license has been suspended or revoked.
2. Lots of people drive without insurance.
3. People can buy cars and get licenses, in most cases, after being convicted of felonies or misdemeanor domestic violence. If they can’t, see 1 & 2.
4. A driver’s license is good in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Do the leftists/antigun nuts REALLY want guns treated like cars?
Enough on cars already! Let’s just tell those that tell us guns kill, that cars kill and best they walk unarmed.
First, driving is a privilege and gun ownership is a God given right!
Second, there are many more guns than cars in the USA, and yet there are four times more deaths from car crashes. Go figure?
Third, free men and and women don’t have to pay or qualify for exercising their God given Constitutional rights! The Government can go pound sand!!
The Second amendment was written as a commanding prohibition against the entry and encroachment to the right to keep and bear arms. “Shall” is a Command. “Not” is a Prohibition. “Be” a state to existence “Infringed” Means Trespass which is Entry and Transgress, which is Encroachment. Thus we have a Commanding prohibition against the Entry and Encroachment upon the “Right” to Keep and Bear Arms. The right travel is also apart of the constitution. The Dred Scot decision was actually a “Right to Travel Ruling”. We have allowed our government an authority and jurisdiction that it has “NO” right to… Read more »
DONT POST CRAP LIKE THIS.IM SURE LIBERAL GUN GRABBERS READ THIS. Your adding ideas to a pregnant group of haters
Regarding “freedom of movement ” as a “Right ” … the 9th Amendment states ” The enumeration in the Constitution of certain Rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the People .” Rational limitations do make sense …but those who would deny “Rights ” will continue to claim that their extreme and deceitful limitations are rational in order to actually deny and disparage the existence of the “Right ” .