It certainly feels like a non-trivial segment of the population is so obsessed with their guns that they'll make any apology for the rampant issues we see as a result of them.
Too many gun deaths? People need more guns to protect themselves.
Let's just get rid of them? The "bad guys" will get guns and go on hunting sprees.
And so on it goes.
While the above can be true in some instances, over an entire population they will not bear out. There is clear proof of this from every other developed country where guns are heavily regulated. And, I think it's pretty likely that guns lead to several other problems.
There are some additional costs that no one really talks about (at least that I've heard of):
Police brutality:
Say what you will about bad cops, mean cops, power-hungry cops, I refuse to believe that shooting civilians is on their agenda. Sure, there will be a _few_ sociopaths in there, but I believe the seemingly steady stream of unarmed civilians killed by cops is a reaction tied to the cops' fear that the civilian might harm them. The very real possibility that a civilian has a gun on them can only increase this fear, and I think must increase it by a significant factor.
Financial cost:
This data is a little hard to parse, but using Washington as the example, it takes about $50-70k to try a murder case , and almost $500,000 to try a death-penalty murder case. Add to that the cost of street police, medical examiner, detective, and so on, and we have to be adding a few $10k to it. Most cases don't seek the death penalty, so let's actually ignore that case for the moment. If we use a range of $50k to $100k as the cost of investigating and trying a murder, multiply that by about 3/4 of the roughly 10k yearly murders that would be eliminated by removing guns, we get a range of $375-750M. Rounding to a number in the middle, let's call this $500M. These 7000 people (allowing for some multiple homicides in the 7500 deaths) will then spend 20+ years in prison** at a cost of about $30k per year, adding another roughly $4B to the yearly tab. Some states are less, some are more, but overall I think we're within a factor of 2. So, the real cost of these murders is between $3B and $10B per year. That's real money we can spend on so many other things.
** - it's fair to point out that someone who commits murder may end up in prison for other reasons as well, but we're just estimating here.
Opportunity cost:
In addition to the 7500 people who will no longer be killed each year, we can take the $3-10B savings and deploy it in any of the following ways (and many others):
Resources are finite, and we have to choose how we spend our money. Our guns are costing us some of these, and they don't need to.
Too many gun deaths? People need more guns to protect themselves.
Let's just get rid of them? The "bad guys" will get guns and go on hunting sprees.
And so on it goes.
While the above can be true in some instances, over an entire population they will not bear out. There is clear proof of this from every other developed country where guns are heavily regulated. And, I think it's pretty likely that guns lead to several other problems.
There are some additional costs that no one really talks about (at least that I've heard of):
Police brutality:
Say what you will about bad cops, mean cops, power-hungry cops, I refuse to believe that shooting civilians is on their agenda. Sure, there will be a _few_ sociopaths in there, but I believe the seemingly steady stream of unarmed civilians killed by cops is a reaction tied to the cops' fear that the civilian might harm them. The very real possibility that a civilian has a gun on them can only increase this fear, and I think must increase it by a significant factor.
Financial cost:
This data is a little hard to parse, but using Washington as the example, it takes about $50-70k to try a murder case , and almost $500,000 to try a death-penalty murder case. Add to that the cost of street police, medical examiner, detective, and so on, and we have to be adding a few $10k to it. Most cases don't seek the death penalty, so let's actually ignore that case for the moment. If we use a range of $50k to $100k as the cost of investigating and trying a murder, multiply that by about 3/4 of the roughly 10k yearly murders that would be eliminated by removing guns, we get a range of $375-750M. Rounding to a number in the middle, let's call this $500M. These 7000 people (allowing for some multiple homicides in the 7500 deaths) will then spend 20+ years in prison** at a cost of about $30k per year, adding another roughly $4B to the yearly tab. Some states are less, some are more, but overall I think we're within a factor of 2. So, the real cost of these murders is between $3B and $10B per year. That's real money we can spend on so many other things.
** - it's fair to point out that someone who commits murder may end up in prison for other reasons as well, but we're just estimating here.
Opportunity cost:
In addition to the 7500 people who will no longer be killed each year, we can take the $3-10B savings and deploy it in any of the following ways (and many others):
- Cover the treatment of breast cancer for ~50,000 women per year.
- Support ~200,000 homeless people in staying off the street.
- Weekly personal training and monthly nutritionist support for ~1,000,000 people (or even families, most providers will do group sessions at marginally higher cost)
- Which may take a significant chunk out of the yearly $200B we spend on obesity-related illness ...
- Give every teacher in America a $1000-$3000 raise.
- Build out fiber internet to every home over the next 2 decades.
- Lift ~500,000 people out of poverty.
- Go finish that wall between US and Mexico this decade, then pick other options afterwards
- Add a few hundred miles of electric rail to urban populations each year to displace gas-powered options.
- In a place like Seattle, 200 miles of well-placed rail could eliminate tremendous amounts of car use. My very rough guess is well in excess of a million driven miles per day.
- Make a condom available every time someone might want to use one.
Resources are finite, and we have to choose how we spend our money. Our guns are costing us some of these, and they don't need to.
2 comments:
*Slow clap* Really well laid out argument. I may be forced to share this. ;-)
Thanks! You're welcome to share :)
I was just eating breakfast this morning thinking about how the number of guns in society HAD to contribute to the police issues we've been hearing lots about. Then it occurred to me that there were other concrete costs too.
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