Why Aren't These Things Working?

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Or something...

An interesting feature in the post Newtown debate over firearms regulation has been the almost laser-like focus on a few issues at the very fringes of the problem.  To put it in the most simple and stark terms, in the last fifty years one million Americans have been killed with firearms - and that doesn't include millions more non-fatal shootings.  Far less than 1% of those murders occurred in mass shootings, and even fewer were done with military-type rifles and high capacity magazines, with even fewer, an infinitesimal number, done by people with a documented history of mental illness.  And yet, 100% of the conversation and ALL of the proposed legislative remedies are focused on assault rifles, high capacity magazines and enhanced background checks.

If we stop for a moment and wonder why it is that we are focusing all our energy and all our rage on what represents a rounding error in our gun violence problem, the reasoning becomes fairly clear, particularly in the context of other ideological debates in American public policy.  It seems that, in order to try to overcome partisan and ideological intransigence, the political and policy solutions that can even be discussed must be carefully crafted to avoid inconveniencing any portion of the electorate.  In this case, we're trying to establish effective firearms policy that doesn't inconvenience the vaunted American "law abiding" gun owner.

But that's ridiculous.  Effective regulation, by its very definition, inconveniences those it seeks to regulate. It is designed to create bureaucratic and economic impediments in order to affect behavior and reduce the availability of undesirable items from cigarettes to alcohol to pseudoephedrine.  This is a feature, not a bug.  Regulations that do not add friction or cost to the acquisition, ownership, sale or use of a given product will not be effective, whatever the policy goals of that regulation might be.  And in the case of firearms, the reason America has so much more gun violence than, say, the UK is that firearms are so much easier to acquire - the problem is all about availability.

This same limitation is easily seen in climate policy.  The reason we have a greenhouse gas pollution problem is that the cost of fossil fuels is artificially low because the price does not include the costs to society caused by burning them.  Thus, we say that fossil fuels do not price in the negative externalities of burning fossil fuels.  The problem would be readily addressed by raising the cost of fossil fuels.  There are many options, from Cap and Trade to a carbon tax to indirect regulatory limitations on carbon pollution.  But people are resistant because they don't WANT to pay more for energy, no matter how carefully it is explained that they are currently paying too little.  So we square off in yet another debate over the shape of the earth, seeking a solution that does not increase consumer costs or reduce producer profits.  And that, of course, is impossible, because any "solution" that meets those requirements would be completely ineffective.

Regardless of the need for systemic reform, we can never even have a serious discussion about our biggest social problems, let alone implement effective solutions, until we grow up and both recognize the actual root cause of the problem and accept the costs any real solution will impose.  We can no more solve the gun violence problem by letting the gun absolutists define the terms of the solution than we can solve the greenhouse gas pollution problem by surrendering that privilege to the oil companies.
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