Denmark’s Sensible Gun Plan for the US - Part 2 / 2

This is the second part of a blog post on what the US could learn from Denmark.

Read the first part here.

Denmark’s Plan Could Work for the US – and it Works Regardless of Population Size.

Major Howard, 3 years old, killed in Cleveland in Sept.

Denmark’s gun regulations allow for individual with an interest or need to start a path to gun ownership. No, it’s not the instantaneous “I want a gun, so let me drive to the nearest store or gun show” ownership that Americans currently enjoy.

But that gun ownership standard just left 10 people dead in Oregon, so perhaps it’s time we constructed something better.

The Danish plan would allow for lawful gun ownership in the US.  This isn’t a plan of confiscation but of regulation, so those with actual interests in or needs for guns have access to those guns.

But it wouldn’t just trust anyone without a criminal conviction with a weapon.  People would need to show they are responsible with a deadly weapon – something akin to an extended driver’s ed class and exam.

This plan is sensible and can work despite the discrepancy in population sizes.

People like to say that programs in other countries won’t work because they’re “much smaller” and therefore “can’t be compared to the US.” When pressed as to whether they mean population or land mass, everyone just goes “well, both!” 

Clearly, the “comparability” of these places wasn’t really a well thought out exercise, but that’s okay because the Danish plan works regardless of population or land size.

Daniel Barden, 7 years old, killed at Sandy Hook

You can have a large number of gun ranges or a small number.  Of course, the ranges themselves would be subjected to regulations, but you could allow for a free market competition between gun ranges (Americans love their free markets), allowing for widely available access and training for those intent on getting a weapon. 

By using privately owned gun ranges and clubs, the government itself would be working with those are committed to responsible gun ownership and use.  The power to determine who gets a gun isn’t in the hands of the state bureaucrats , but in those who believe in the “right to bear arms,” but understand that for the Second Amendment to be an effective protection and not a dangerous threat to our country, gun ownership requires training, oversight, and capacity.

This is a Human Rights Issue.

Make no mistake that the regulation of gun ownership is a serious human rights issue. 

Under international human rights law, there is no right to bear arms, but there is a right to life.  The state – meaning the US federal government – has an obligation to protect the right to life. This creates an obligation on the state to adopt effective regulations aimed at stopping third parties from taking away our right to life.

Sensible gun regulation is one of the ways in which the state can and should do this.

Amari Brown, aged 7, killed in Chicago in July

Even if you accept the right to bear arms as a real human right, it has to be balanced against this right to life.  You cannot justify an absolute right to gun ownership when faced with the staggering statistics of intentional homicides in the US. There has to be a clearer balance, and the Danish plan allows for that balance.

Gun-related Violence is Not an Issue of Mental Illness.

To believe that mental illness is the cause of the gun-death epidemic in the US you have to believe that the US has a disproportionate amount of mental illness and that mental illness is the cause of most homicides.

It is not.

Studies show that “most violence behavior is due to factors other than mental illness.”

Mental illness does have a link to gun-related deaths, but not homicides.  Only suicides.  More than half of all gun-related deaths (not homicides; gun-related deaths) are from suicide.  In 2010, there were 31,513 gun-related deaths and 19,308 of those were from suicide.

Cole Short, 17, killed in September

The gun death that stays with me was a suicide that happened when I was 16.  A boy in our high school marching band, someone I spoke to almost every day, was suddenly gone. His death is not less tragic because it was self-inflicted.

Mental illness is not causing the rampant number of gun-related homicides or mass shootings in the US. We cannot continue to blame mental illness for this when it is clear that our access to guns is a leading cause in the rate of violence in the US.

We Need Sensible Gun Regulations.

The Danish plan may not be a complete panacea for the US, but it is something we should at least try.  The current system is clearly broken and we are in need of serious reform.

Whatever regulations we adopt need to account for the diversity within our states and our communities. In Ohio alone, there’s an epidemic of gun violence in Cleveland – where another child was killed last night. Yet, in my father’s hometown of Payne, you are more likely to have farmers who need to protect their crops and hunters with a legitimate interest in owning a weapon.

Sensible gun regulation, like the Danish plan, would help limit the violence in Cleveland while allowing for Payne’s farmers and hunters access to the tools of their trade.

By allowing a regulated avenue towards gun ownership, we could meet the diverse needs of our population while limiting the epidemic of violence that is, quite literally, killing our children on an almost-daily basis.

Victims of the Marysville Pilchuck High School shooting - Oct. 2014. Nate Hatch (14), Shaylee Chuckulnaskit (14), Andrew Fryberg (15), Zoe Galasso (14), Gia Soriano (14). Only Nate survived.