Americans are infatuated with guns. And when you’re infatuated, you sometimes can’t think straight. Maybe that’s why, three weeks after the Tucson shootings that shook the nation, we’re still no closer to banning oversize magazines like the 33-bullet model allegedly used there. Maybe it will help clarify issues if we imagine an alternate universe — one in which Americans exhibit their toughness not with assault weapons but with assault vehicles, a world in which our torrid libertarian passion is not for our guns but for our cars. That alternate universe might look like this:
The powerful National Automobile Association warned today that vehicle regulation, such as a ban on assault vehicles, would be “the first step toward totalitarianism.”
“Autos don’t kill people,” declared Hank Magic, a N.A.A. spokesman. “People kill people.” As part of a campaign against auto registration, the N.A.A. has started selling new bumper stickers: “They’ll register my car when they pry the steering wheel from my cold, dead fingers.”
The N.A.A. defends assault vehicles as essential for self-defense and also “loads of fun.”
Taken aback by the furor, the White House denied any interest in banning assault vehicles or registering all vehicles. The White House said that the president was considering more modest steps, such as banning repeat drunken drivers from the roads, prohibiting televisions mounted on the steering wheel and curbs on lethal car accessories that serve no transportation purpose — such as bayonets mounted on the front and back bumpers.
Mr. Magic warned: “Now the White House is trying to prevent Americans from enjoying themselves and defending themselves.” He cited a driver in Florida in 1997 who had been threatened by a carjacking but was able to impale the attacker on his bumper. “Bumper bayonets save lives,” he asserted.
The president also distanced himself from a proposed Transportation Department directive that would curb private tanks on the basis that they are damaging roads and, with road rage on the rise, sometimes rolling over other vehicles. The N.A.A. has denounced the proposal, warning: “Without tanks, how can we keep our children safe?”
“The solution is more tanks, not fewer tanks,” Mr. Magic told a rally yesterday. “If tanks are banned, then only criminals will have tanks!”
Auto safety advocates say that tens of thousands of lives could be saved annually if the president and Congress would register vehicles, require seat belts and require licenses to drive cars. “It’s tough because our country’s history is steeped in automobiles,” said one advocate. “But with political leadership, we can rise above that, as every other civilized country in the world has done.”
O.K., O.K. That’s the end of our alternate history. In reality, of course, we have taken a deadly product — motor vehicles — and systematically made them quite safe. Scientists have figured out how to build roads so as to reduce accidents and have engineered innovations such as air bags to reduce injuries. Public campaigns and improved law enforcement have reduced drunken driving, and graduated licenses for young people have reduced accident rates as well. The death rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled has fallen by almost three-quarters since the early 1970s, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The trade-off is that we have modestly curbed individual freedom, but we save tens of thousands of lives a year. That’s a model for how we should approach guns as a public health concern.
Granted, the Second Amendment complicates gun regulation (I accept that the framers intended for state militias, and possibly individuals, to have the right to bear flintlocks). But even among those favoring a broader interpretation, the Second Amendment hasn’t prevented bans on machine guns. There are still lines to be drawn, and a prohibition on 33-bullet magazines would be a useful place to start.
If we treat guns as we do cars and build a public health system to address them, here’s what we might do: finance more research so that we have a better sense of which gun safety policies are effective (for example, do gun safes or trigger locks save lives?); crack down on gun retailers who break laws the way we punish stores that sell cigarettes to kids; make serial numbers harder to erase; make gun trafficking a law enforcement priority; limit gun purchases to one per person per month; build a solid database of people who are mentally ill and cannot buy firearms; ban assault weapons; and invest in new technologies to see if we can design “smart guns” that require input of a code or fingerprint to reduce accidents and curb theft.
Particularly after a tragedy like Tucson, why can’t we show the same maturity toward firearms that we show toward vehicles — and save some of the 80 lives a day that we lose to guns?
