Who Owns our Problems?
April 23, 2007

The Virginia Tech massacre renewed gun control debate and brought it to a fever pitch all over the world. In addition to U.S. presidential candidates posturing on the issue, the European press has lambasted the U.S. Most of it is hogwash and not deserving of our time. Far more eloquent pundits have discussed the gun control hysteria and so we won’t try to compete. If you are interested in a rational perspective on gun control and Virginia Tech, we recommend the following L.A. Times editorial here.

Gun control (the act of limiting the free market in guns) has many similarities to people control (the act of limiting the free market in labor movement across borders). Both are hot politically, and find the rest of the world chastising the U.S. and its policies. However, the biggest similarity is that both issues involve debate on whether or not to outlaw millions upon millions of (fill in the blank). The assumption is that the prevalence of (fill in the blank) is harmful and should be eliminated.

You cannot simply eliminate 200 million guns and 15 million people from within our borders. Regardless of the moral and constitutional issues at play, it is a practical impossibility to do. So, where does this leave us?

We PurpleThinkers favor dealing with the problem and not the symptoms – crazy, we know. Basic problem recognition theory asks (assuming you’re sure a problem exists) that you identify the owner of the problem and work from there. The owner of the problem is defined as that person or entity that has the power to affect an outcome and is forced to confront the negative consequences of inaction.

Gun Control – an individual problem:

Gun violence is the result of an individual denying another individual of their life and/or liberty. It is an individual choice to engage in such behavior. To the extent that a foreign army violates the sovereignty of the U.S., the government owns the problem. However, this isn’t at issue. The issue is how ordinary citizens confront the realty that other ordinary citizens have the ability to steal life and liberty. The government creates and enforces laws that protect liberty in our various institutions (police, courts, etc.) but cannot prevent the behaviors themselves beyond providing a strong disincentive to do wrong. Thus, individuals must be free to engage in behaviors necessary to protect their life and liberty. This includes gun ownership.

To this point, I sound like a simple NRA spokesman. Not so fast. The world gets Purple very fast when you start saying all gun ownership should be respected. Law abiding citizens should be able to protect themselves – period. However, do we need large capacity clips, hollow-point bullets, and assault weapons to do this? No. This is where reasonable government intervention should be permitted. Even the most liberal interpretation of “well regulated militia” in the second amendment does not allow for uninhibited access to any kind of weapon not intended to protect life and liberty. If someone has a legitimate sportsman or hunting purpose for owning more sophisticated weapons – fine. However, it is not unreasonable to expect more regulation of these items not designed to protect the life and liberty of individuals.

People Control – a government problem:

Contrast gun control with people control. Using our problem ownership definition, the entire society equally shares in responsibility for confronting illegal immigration. How? We all must live with the negative consequences of inaction and we all have the power to deal with this issue through our representative republic. Our pooled tax dollars and legislature supports all people within our borders.

If someone is permitted to live “underground,” they can take advantage of schooling and social welfare systems without supporting it. It goes both ways. The underground population cannot vote (or shouldn’t), and is incented to stay away from civic involvement of all shapes and sizes lest they be discovered and deported. This creates a sub-culture in the U.S. – exactly what the constitution and our government was designed to prohibit.

This is clearly a government problem and must be dealt with as such. As far as how to do this – PurpleThink wrote extensively about current immigration policy here. The bottom line is that government has the responsibility to seal the border before even contemplating what to do with those already here. Again, we look at the problem recognition model to see government can control the border but cannot control individual behavior once inside the border. Bush’s talk of “comprehensive” immigration legislation is ridiculous and bound for failure.

The moral to the story is that it’s easy to say “we have guns and illegals – let’s get rid of them all.” It’s equally easy to say, “we have so many guns and illegals, there’s nothing we can do to stop them.” Both stances do nothing to identify problem ownership. And, until ownership is identified, the role of government can never be honestly explored.

And you know the great thing? If you honestly use this model, it's clear government should play a role in solving only very specific and limited things.

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