INTRODUCTION: WHY YOU SHOULD GIVE UP YOUR GUNS

When people ask me, “Are you really trying to take people’s guns away?” I respond, “Yes, I am.”

I want to decrease the number of guns in circulation and make guns harder to get. This is the only way we will reduce firearm suicides and gun violence in America and save the lives of more than 38,000 men, women, and children who fall victim to bullets every single year.

It is that simple.

While I want to be honest about my intentions up front, I also want you to hear me out, no matter your thoughts on the gun debate.

Guns Down makes an evidence-based argument about the importance of reducing the number of guns in the United States. The argument is bold. It is radical. It is a departure from the usual rhetoric of gun-control advocates. It is a plan that would have been embraced by our founding fathers. It is a plan that will actually work.

For far too long, gun control advocates have focused too much on telling people what we think they want to hear or what we believe is politically feasible in the moment. We worry that being up-front or honest with our intentions will alienate the public or play into the claims of gun control opponents who regularly accuse us of acting like gun grabbers. And so we let ourselves be snookered by the fake patriotism of the gun lobby. We allow that lobby to wrap its rhetoric in the American flag and obscure the horrific consequences of its deadly agenda. We give its arguments the same weight as the opinions—and lives—of the overwhelming majority of Americans. We accept the myth of the superpatriotic gun owner and even perpetuate it.

I cringe any time gun control proponents preface conversations or debates about gun safety with how much they respect gun owners and the Second Amendment.

The traditional gun control argument goes something like this: “I don’t want to take away anybody’s guns; I believe in the Second Amendment. I think we should pass commonsense reforms like universal background checks that keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.”

We have heard this argument since the shooting at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Two decades since that tragedy devastated the nation and opened our collective eyes to the dangers of weak gun laws, we have gone out of our way to talk about the Second Amendment. During that period, we have failed to pass even modest reforms that would make it harder for people to obtain firearms or reduce the deadly consequences of gun violence—and the gun industry and its allies still use fears of mass gun confiscation to oppose any and all changes.

Meanwhile, we now have more guns in the United States than people. Americans make up 5 percent of the world population, but own nearly half of the civilian-owned guns in the world. Is it any wonder, then, that more Americans have died from guns in the last fifty years than in all of the wars in American history? Or that more Americans have died or been injured in school shootings than in the entire previous century?¹ We are 10 times more likely to be killed by guns than citizens of other high-income nations; 56 percent more likely to die from a gunshot than in a traffic accident; 11 times more likely to be assaulted with a gun than to be harmed by a hurricane, lightning strike, flood, or another force of nature; and 128 times more likely to die in a domestic gun assault than in an international terrorist incident!

Those statistics are just the beginning. Gun violence plagues many of our cities and is reflected in the police violence perpetrated against our young African American men. It could claim any of us at any time, but it claims the marginalized most often.

The truth is, the gun lobby has no interest in protecting our constitutional rights. No, the National Rifle Association (NRA)—the popular face of the gun industry—is focused on helping gun manufacturers sell more guns; more gun sales mean more money for the lobby and more foot soldiers for its political battles. The lobby stakes out bold, extreme positions to advance its guns-everywhere-and-for-everyone agenda and it doesn’t give an inch.

The tepid strategy gun control advocates have pursued over the last several decades, on the other hand, appeals to risk-averse politicians and political consultants worried about alienating certain voters. It forces gun control advocates to start the debate by accepting falsehoods propagated by the gun industry—namely that we can reduce gun violence by simply concentrating all of the firearms in the hands of so-called responsible gun owners—and pushes them to argue against themselves. This weak strategy also dismisses the fact that an overwhelming majority of Americans are on our side. They want to build a future with fewer guns; they’re just waiting for political leaders to channel this widespread public support for gun safety policies into a popular movement that could bring about real change. This much is clear: our fear of asking for what we really want has allowed the gun lobby to contort a debate about a basic human need—safety—into a conversation about the meaning of patriotism and the Second Amendment.

It is time to assert our right to safety and to actively fight for that right without apology.

Safety from gun violence is a basic human need, and we must design and implement a plan to achieve it. Parents should not have to worry about whether their children will come home from school, cities should not be besieged by gun violence, we should not have to mentally design an exit plan from crowded sports stadiums or concerts just in case, nor should we fear opening our social media feeds and being confronted by another mass shooting, or by a domestic dispute or robbery attempt turned deadly. Such fear is not a normal characteristic of a representative democracy that prides itself on building a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” It is characteristic of a democracy hijacked by special interests that have spent millions of dollars polluting our public discourse, buying off our politicians, and re-orienting our government toward increasing their profits rather than promoting the general welfare of the people.

It’s time to admit that a policy of trying to make sure that only “responsible people” have guns is just not working. It’s not protecting our citizens. It’s not resonating with the public. And it’s not pushing Americans to prioritize gun control in the voting booth.

This book takes an entirely different approach to the issue of guns in the United States. Rather than tinkering with changes on the edges, like expanding background checks and closing loopholes in existing laws, Guns Down envisions a bold long-term goal: a country where guns are scarce and can be purchased only by individuals who have proven themselves to be responsible. I do not advocate for banning all firearms, however. I believe that Americans should have the liberty to use firearms for hunting, sport, and self-protection. However, as the playwright George Bernard Shaw put it, “liberty means responsibility.” And over the last several decades, the country has adopted laws that allow almost anyone to easily obtain a firearm and carry it outside the home—regardless of whether they know how to use their guns. We now must correct that imbalance by dramatically increasing the standards for firearm ownership and reducing the number of firearms floating throughout our communities.

This book will also show how reduction of gun ownership has lowered gun violence throughout the world wherever it has been tried, and how it will lower the number of gun deaths in the United States. I’ll unveil a bold set of policies called the New Second Amendment Compact that will achieve this vision and argue that most Americans support such reforms. I’ll show how making guns significantly harder to get is fully consistent with the intentions of our founding fathers. I will lay out how we can build a popular movement that can drive support for these ideas and make them a reality.

But before we get started, I want to add a note of caution. A movement calling for gun reduction must be as diverse as America itself and prioritize solutions that do not repeat the mistakes of the past, such as criminalizing gun owners and sending them into a justice system where people of color are treated one way and white people are treated another. This movement must focus its solutions at the top of the gun distribution chain: gun manufacturers, dealers, and the lobby that gives them the political cover to operate with minimal regulation. It must advocate reforms that will invest in the communities most impacted by gun violence while also significantly increasing the standards for gun ownership by tightly regulating the sale and transfer of guns and ensuring that only individuals with proper training and knowledge can possess and purchase firearms.

We will not succeed in this goal next week, next month, or even next year. The great social movements of the past have taught us that big changes take time. Societal transformation requires effort, dedication, and the perseverance of Americans engaging in the democratic process: marching, shaming those in power, making them uncomfortable by holding them accountable, and voting—yes, voting!—for real change.

A colleague once told me that in politics, you do not get half a loaf of bread by asking for half a loaf. To build your movement and truly succeed, you must demand the full loaf. You have to shape and organize public opinion, not simply follow it.