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The current (June) issue of Harper's includes a good article by Dan Baum about the AR-15. (It's here, but you can only read it online if you're a subscriber. If you feel like going to the newsstand or library, it's a solid issue overall and I recommend picking it up.)
Baum points out that even if the political will existed to enact any kind of gun control legislation whatsoever (which so far, it hasn't), the AR-15 would be next to impossible to regulate simply as a practical matter, because it's not a gun so much as a lego system; it's assembled from 15 different parts, each of which is offered by dozens or hundreds of manufacturers, and you not only assemble your own but you can constantly upgrade it or switch it around. It doesn't even have to be the same caliber day to day. It's totally modular.
And since any individual piece is not a gun and wouldn't work as a gun, they're not regulated as guns; they can be shipped through the mail, sold by anyone, purchased without any kind of license, just like a frying pan. Only one piece has to have a serial number on it, and it's kind of random - it's not the part with the trigger, or the chamber for the bullet, or anything, and there are workarounds to get even that not-very-gunlike-piece without it counting as a gun. You could basically use an entirely different gun one day to the next and have it technically be the same gun.
So basically, even if there was the political will to regulate the AR-15 and even if we could get around the constitutional questions, we'd be doing a lot of chasing down random little bits of metal that may or may not eventually become guns. Eventually, they are intended to become parts of guns, but they don't have to, and can you prove it? External regulation of this part of the gun industry is probably impossible.
Baum suggests that any regulation is therefore going to have to be internal to the industry - the sort of mechanism that is voluntary from a legal sense, but with enough cultural force that you'd be viewed askance for not, say, keeping a record of sales, putting a serial number on the piece you made, etc.
I really don't see this happening any time soon.
However, what's interesting to me is that there is another industry in a similarly hard-to-regulate situation: constitutional protections in the bill of rights, thousands of independent and ideologically varied producers and distributors, flexible ideas about accounting and labor laws, geographically diverse small businesses that open and close in a matter of months in out-of-the-way areas out of sight of the cops. I am speaking of course about the film industry. And we have, by our own choice, the MPAA ratings authority.
I don't like the MPAA; I think their standards are goofy and deliberately opaque. But they're an intriguing example of an extra-governmental body that operates as though with the force of law, even though as filmmakers we are totally free to not be rated by them, and we have first amendment protections. However, if you aren't rated by them, or get too high a rating, it's not just that a lot of theaters won't play your film; neither will school districts, churches; kids will get pulled from slumber parties or visiting your house. You won't be able to advertise in many magazines, television stations, and on billboards. Distributors will not pick you up. It will be nearly impossible for you to make money.
That's power. The MPAA doesn't do any of the "punishment" stuff; they just give the rating. And all of the rest of us voluntarily abide by that rating, and encode it into our own organizations' rules. The government couldn't stop us from putting most things into our films, indecency laws being slippery and subject to challenge on grounds of free speech and of artistic merit. But for the most part, we stop it ourselves, using the ratings system.
We can surmise from this that the gun industry could create an internal regulatory body with real regulatory power.
Will they? Probably not any time soon. Not because it would be too complicated, and not because it would be unprecedented, but because of the difference in how filmmakers and "gun guys" tend to view themselves. Filmmakers, even the ones out for power and prestige, tend to believe they are part of the culture - are creating mass culture. A film is, in essence, about communication, although sometimes what you're communicating is "boobs and explosions are fun." Even a one-man outfit shooting a documentary is making a film to be seen, and dreaming that it will be influential.
Oddly enough, this could be equally true of mass shooters: they too are creating media events of one-way communication. However, it's not terribly true of most people who venerate guns; they instead tend to view themselves as outside of and separate from the mass culture, nobly keeping watch alone.
Don't get me wrong: there are plenty of gun guys who are social, and who enjoy guns socially - who go to shoot with their friends or their families. And there are plenty of gun owners who support increased regulation of guns. But a gun is an isolating object; that's its appeal and its drawback. Even the people I most trust to use guns responsibly (some of whom I trust pretty damn far) are not people terribly comfortable telling their friends what to do with their guns.
First amendment and second amendment rights come from the same place, but the film industry could be said to be federalist, while the gun industry is "don't tread on me." I don't see a bunch of them gathering together and, say, refusing to sell you a gun unless you present evidence you own a gun safe. I don't see retailers deciding to only carry guns with fingerprint-coded trigger locks and then getting more business because families feel safe with them.
I don't think I'm being cynical. I do think it's a shame, because I think gun people could self-regulate better than outsiders, and they're one of the only industries where I feel that way. And I would continue to feel that even if we repealed the second amendment, which we won't.
Baum points out that even if the political will existed to enact any kind of gun control legislation whatsoever (which so far, it hasn't), the AR-15 would be next to impossible to regulate simply as a practical matter, because it's not a gun so much as a lego system; it's assembled from 15 different parts, each of which is offered by dozens or hundreds of manufacturers, and you not only assemble your own but you can constantly upgrade it or switch it around. It doesn't even have to be the same caliber day to day. It's totally modular.
And since any individual piece is not a gun and wouldn't work as a gun, they're not regulated as guns; they can be shipped through the mail, sold by anyone, purchased without any kind of license, just like a frying pan. Only one piece has to have a serial number on it, and it's kind of random - it's not the part with the trigger, or the chamber for the bullet, or anything, and there are workarounds to get even that not-very-gunlike-piece without it counting as a gun. You could basically use an entirely different gun one day to the next and have it technically be the same gun.
So basically, even if there was the political will to regulate the AR-15 and even if we could get around the constitutional questions, we'd be doing a lot of chasing down random little bits of metal that may or may not eventually become guns. Eventually, they are intended to become parts of guns, but they don't have to, and can you prove it? External regulation of this part of the gun industry is probably impossible.
Baum suggests that any regulation is therefore going to have to be internal to the industry - the sort of mechanism that is voluntary from a legal sense, but with enough cultural force that you'd be viewed askance for not, say, keeping a record of sales, putting a serial number on the piece you made, etc.
I really don't see this happening any time soon.
However, what's interesting to me is that there is another industry in a similarly hard-to-regulate situation: constitutional protections in the bill of rights, thousands of independent and ideologically varied producers and distributors, flexible ideas about accounting and labor laws, geographically diverse small businesses that open and close in a matter of months in out-of-the-way areas out of sight of the cops. I am speaking of course about the film industry. And we have, by our own choice, the MPAA ratings authority.
I don't like the MPAA; I think their standards are goofy and deliberately opaque. But they're an intriguing example of an extra-governmental body that operates as though with the force of law, even though as filmmakers we are totally free to not be rated by them, and we have first amendment protections. However, if you aren't rated by them, or get too high a rating, it's not just that a lot of theaters won't play your film; neither will school districts, churches; kids will get pulled from slumber parties or visiting your house. You won't be able to advertise in many magazines, television stations, and on billboards. Distributors will not pick you up. It will be nearly impossible for you to make money.
That's power. The MPAA doesn't do any of the "punishment" stuff; they just give the rating. And all of the rest of us voluntarily abide by that rating, and encode it into our own organizations' rules. The government couldn't stop us from putting most things into our films, indecency laws being slippery and subject to challenge on grounds of free speech and of artistic merit. But for the most part, we stop it ourselves, using the ratings system.
We can surmise from this that the gun industry could create an internal regulatory body with real regulatory power.
Will they? Probably not any time soon. Not because it would be too complicated, and not because it would be unprecedented, but because of the difference in how filmmakers and "gun guys" tend to view themselves. Filmmakers, even the ones out for power and prestige, tend to believe they are part of the culture - are creating mass culture. A film is, in essence, about communication, although sometimes what you're communicating is "boobs and explosions are fun." Even a one-man outfit shooting a documentary is making a film to be seen, and dreaming that it will be influential.
Oddly enough, this could be equally true of mass shooters: they too are creating media events of one-way communication. However, it's not terribly true of most people who venerate guns; they instead tend to view themselves as outside of and separate from the mass culture, nobly keeping watch alone.
Don't get me wrong: there are plenty of gun guys who are social, and who enjoy guns socially - who go to shoot with their friends or their families. And there are plenty of gun owners who support increased regulation of guns. But a gun is an isolating object; that's its appeal and its drawback. Even the people I most trust to use guns responsibly (some of whom I trust pretty damn far) are not people terribly comfortable telling their friends what to do with their guns.
First amendment and second amendment rights come from the same place, but the film industry could be said to be federalist, while the gun industry is "don't tread on me." I don't see a bunch of them gathering together and, say, refusing to sell you a gun unless you present evidence you own a gun safe. I don't see retailers deciding to only carry guns with fingerprint-coded trigger locks and then getting more business because families feel safe with them.
I don't think I'm being cynical. I do think it's a shame, because I think gun people could self-regulate better than outsiders, and they're one of the only industries where I feel that way. And I would continue to feel that even if we repealed the second amendment, which we won't.
