An argument I’m seeing for gun control revolves around the need for things such as pilots licensing and vehicle licensing. The point is, generally, that licensing requires training and that training provides a higher level of safe use.
Rebuttal:
For starters, let’s get something easy out of the way: driving a vehicle and flying an aircraft are not fundamental rights granted by our Constitution. There is no “… shall not be infringed” language pertaining to either of those. Doing those things is a privilege and not a right. That immediately provides a reasoning behind licensing being something necessary. (decision: Monarch Travel Servs., Inc. v. Associated Cultural Clibs, Inc., 466 F.2nd 552, 554 (9th Cir.1972))
Delving further, though, it’s shown how this isn’t a resolution of any kind anyways. Vehicle licensing does not prevent motorists from being just awful at driving. Evidence? There were around 2.1 million injuries related to vehicle accidents in 2014. Vehicles account for more fatalities than firearms; over 33,000 in 2014 to provide a number. (source: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812318) Firearm deaths accounted for just over 33,000 deaths, as well; but only produced an additional 67,000 (source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr65/nvsr65_04.pdf). Let’s contrast this data besides the obvious discrepancy in injury numbers even though motorists are “trained” and licensed. There are over 350 million firearms in the US. The approximation is 1.13 firearms per person. In 2014, the US only had 0.8 vehicles per person (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita). There are fewer vehicles per person, yet they account for just as many deaths and significantly more injuries (the margin is insane). This is statistical evidence that licensing firearms would not resolve anything. In fact, if we base this on the evidence alone, it could be argued that licensing may end up causing more injuries if the numbers end up working out the way vehicles do.
It is likely some will think “vehicles are used far more than firearms”. This produces a disagreement that would be difficult to quantify due to a relatively unknown number of individuals who carry firearms on their persons regularly. It cannot be argued that firearms are indeed used very frequently. The military keeps them in hand. Law enforcement officers openly carry them. Private citizens carry them regularly; both open and concealed. Even a reasonable argument that if everyone carried everyday there would be more injuries could not possibly account for a more than 3,100% (yes, three-thousand one-hundred percent) increase in injuries.
The problem we face doesn’t have to do with lawful citizens using guns the wrong way. There are far more legal gun owners that don’t use their firearms to intentionally hurt others than there are legal gun owners who do. We’re talking fractions of fractions of a percentage. No, the problem is the criminal element. No one is able to address how we can take guns away from criminals. That is the conversation we need – not one about taking responsible individuals guns.
A fact in this matter is that five of the states that require firearm licensing/registration and/or some kind of proof of training still make the top 10 list for firearm murders per 100,000 people. Two of the top 10 for robberies using firearms. This two in the top 10 holds true for assaults using firearms. In all cases, the remaining states are evenly dispersed throughout. (source: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state#data) The proof is in the pudding… This system has no reasonable or clear effect on the outcome of firearm murders. If it did provide a reasonable and clear effect, all of the 13 states that carry these types of laws would easily be within the bottom 20.
The point is… Change the argument. Stop trying to penalize a large number of law abiding citizens. Work on fixing the crime problem. Adding further regulation to people who already obey the law doesn’t fix criminals continuing to break the law. Alternatively, it creates the counterintuitive effect of possibly creating criminals out of what would have been people living lawfully.