Debunking the Myth of Gun Availability

Another shooting, another round of the blame game. GOP members place blame on everything except guns themselves, like always. Those who come to the defense of shooters use a handful of arguments, and each has its own problems, but there is one argument that really bothers me as someone who has studied economics, and has a particular interest in black market economics: “Criminals will just buy guns anyways on the black market.”

There is so much wrong with this that it’s difficult to pinpoint where to begin, but supply is a good place to start. Anyone who has had an introductory course into economics will understand the gist of the effects of supply and demand shifts on the equilibrium price of goods and services. Black market economies are no exception to these rules. However, there are differences between buying goods in a free market and a black market. The most important differences are risk and availability.

At the moment, due to the wide availability of guns and ammunition as well as a lack of regulations for them, weapons on the black market are the same price, or even cheaper in some cases. There are also few risks to making a black market sale of a weapon. So long as the weapon isn’t used in a shooting, for example, there is little risk of the individual who purchases a black market weapon to being investigated, since nearly any weapon can be owned with a permit of some type in the United States, the presence of a weapon doesn’t even imply that the weapon was obtained illegally. Additionally, since there are so few regulations around the purchases of guns and ammunition, and with them being so cheap and available, there is little incentive to even purchase a weapon on the black market in any case.

The obvious counter-examples to this are illicit drugs. Since many of them are outlawed in the United States, possession of one, whether it be cocaine, LSD, ecstasy (XTC or Molly). or even in many states, marijuana, is synonymous with the commission of a crime. The drugs aren’t allowed to be possessed, or created, meaning that any production of the drugs domestically is of a criminal nature, and that any drugs shipped in from overseas carry risk of detection, and consequence for both purchaser, and seller. As a result, illicit drugs are worth far more in the United States than they would be otherwise. A hundred tablets of Molly can be purchased and shipped from the Netherlands for around a hundred dollars. Anyone who’s reading this in the U.S. and knows local prices for the drug would find that price to be ludicrous, as those same tablets sell in some areas of the country for $20 or more per tablet, due to the lack of domestic production (these domestic tablets are rare, and generally considered inferior, and even on the black market significantly more expensive than their European counterparts), and the risk posed by anyone who wishes to produce or distribute the drugs.

So let’s say that we ban the production and sale of all guns in the country. Anyone who has a gun, or ammunition can keep it, but that we were effectively cutting off the supply of new guns. It is true that the argue that guns would still be readily available, as the existing supply of guns (as low as 240 million by some conservative estimates, and over 350 million for the more generous ones) would still have a now black market, teeming with weapons. The increase in risk factors however, would drive up the cost of the weapons. All sales of weapons would now be considered to be illegal, and thus would drive down the availability of people who wanted to get weapons to do so. To purchase a weapon, one could only do so through black markets. These supply and demand shifts would cause large spikes in the value of weapons, with the only way to cash-in on that spike in prices would be against the law. This would be enough to keep guns out of the hands of many who as of yet, have no guns, and are not savvy enough to either make connections with those they could purchase from under the table, or learn the process to purchase such things from markets on the dark web.

The gun issue that we have of course would not be solved by this alone, as while prices would increase for guns, possibly even doubling, the enormous existing supply, would still be more than enough to flood any black market with weapons for any bad actor wishing to profit from the new restrictions. In fact, we could even expect that some gun owners would be too tempted to profit that they would turn to criminality to take advantage of this new change in market conditions.

The simple solution, which improves further on the results of this situation, is creating a government buy-back program. Now, of course, I am not the first to suggest this, and as sure as I am writing this, will not be the last, but I bring it up, because of the effects that it has on the market, which were problematic in the above situation. By allowing for gun owners to liquidate some of their stock of weapons legally, this would tempt some gun owners away from selling them on the black market, though not all. This could also go a ways in decreasing the gun supply in the country, making them less available, and further driving up our black market prices.

Does this solve the gun problem entirely? Of course not. Is this solution politically viable? Also no, but these economic principles scale down with ANY type of regulation or categorical ban, just handguns, or just certain types of rifles, weapon accessories, or munitions. People suggest that just because a regulation doesn’t completely solve the problem, that it’s not worth implementing, even for the marginal benefit of saving lives. Of course, on top of the worth of simply saving lives, there also comes with it an economic benefit. Each life not lost to a weapon is on average, a lifelong contributor to the economy, and a person to absorb tax burdens. A life lost in adolescence has the additional loss of the potential that person had to innovate, invent, invest, or produce, if you want to atomize people down to their productive economic benefit to society, even a marginal decrease in the number of lives lost to guns would constitute an enormous gain in long-term benefit. Even those whose lives are not lost to guns, but are merely injured would also see a decrease, reducing the cost and labor burdens of the healthcare system, and untold millions in medical debt which would be accrued as further gains in that same period.

This is to say nothing for the other reasons, which should be far greater concern in our minds. The devastation spared by those who suffer from the deaths of their loved ones. Those who survive, but are traumatized. Those whose lives are so senselessly lost. If we fail to even mitigate these losses, we are only shooting ourselves in the foot.

 

Democrats who fail to learn the lessons of the January shutdown are doomed to repeat them.

As of writing, Democrats and Republicans are once again in heated debate over funding the government. Only two days out from a shutdown, there has yet to be a deal announced to keep the government open. However, there has been recent reporting suggesting a number of solutions that are being discussed. What is apparent though on the Republican front: they expect Democrats to capitulate.

In the House, Rep. Paul Ryan is planning to introduce a funding bill that would keep the government open until March 23rd. This is notably after Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, agreed to have an immigration deal voted on, which has not made progress yet towards a solution. The bill in the House includes funding for the military until the end of the year, with an increase in funding from the previous year’s levels. This is in spite of the red-line drawn by Democratic leadership refusing to vote on another continuing resolution unless it included a provision that took care of DREAMers, or that increases in military spending would require commesurate increases in domestic spending to get Democratic votes.

So once again, the government is on the brink, but this time, GOP leadership believes Democrats will cave under pressure as they did under the previous shutdown, where they accepted a funding deal in exchange for 6 years of funding the children’s health insurance program. There are important differences this time that will likely affect the outcome differently than previously.

In the previous shutdown, Democratic representatives were unsure how the liberal base would react to a government shutdown, and who would receive the blame if a shutdown occurred. We saw that Democrats panicked and struck a deal before the effects of the shutdown were really even felt. We also saw that as that weekend came to a close, that data showing blame on the Republican Congress had just started to be represented in polling data. However, Democrats took the deal on CHIP, and delayed the fight on DACA. As a result, much of the base was furious, saying that they had the leverage to hold out for more.

This time however, there is no distraction to sidetrack negotiations. Nothing is higher on the docket for the left as a priority than immigration. This is it, this is the fight for the future of DACA recipients, and so far Schumer and Pelosi seem to realize this. If House Democrats want to keep their base energized, and engaged, and want to keep their seats, they’ll need to do more than sign a CR, they’ll need to hold out for what the people want, or come November, they could lose their seats to challengers from further left.

As of now, a shutdown seems the best way to preserve momentum for the left, hopefully they won’t let this opportunity to use the little leverage they have, go to waste.