OSD 328: Give ‘em a mile and they’ll take an inch
On barrel length laws.
Suppressors are cool. We wrote a whole post about how cool they are:
But you can imagine why some people don’t like them. Yes, if you really think about it, there isn’t a good reason to regulate them. But the “if you really think about it” part is the hurdle. People are busy. They “really think” about a small handful of things, and everything else is vibes. For people going on vibes (which is most people in any given domain), you can see why suppressors might have a bad vibe.
So it’s encouraging that despite that, suppressors are on the cusp of deregulation. Even getting this close would have been unthinkable ten years ago. The next stop should be barrel length laws.
Every argument that applies to suppressor deregulation applies even better to the NFA’s barrel length provisions. Here is the current position of the US government:
Small guns: totally fine
Long guns: totally fine
Medium guns: 10 years in federal prison
Anybody can see those vibes are off. Here’s a deep dive into those vibes, from back when the ATF cracked down on pistol braces:
Consider the following two statements:
The NFA is an 87-year-old gun law, and pistol braces are dancing around the edges of it. The ATF should scrutinize pistol braces for compliance with the law.
The police should take you to prison for ten years if your gun’s barrel is 15” long instead of 16”.
Those are the same statement. One sounds reasonable and one sounds medieval. But people are being allowed to appear in public and say #1 without confronting the fact that they’re also saying #2.
The reason, as we explained in “OSD 110: What smart people are supposed to think”, is that this is a game of mood affiliation (the term is a Tyler Cowen-ism). To understand barrel length laws, you have to spend dozens of hours reading about the technical nuances. Most people don’t have time for that, so most people don’t understand these issues. But we have to think something about them, so we take a shortcut. The shortcut is that we just believe whatever seems like the polite thing to believe.
This seems insurmountable: how can you get through to people who don’t have time to learn the details? Well, mood affiliation is a two-way street.
…
Over the next few weeks, there’s going to be a lot of discussion about pistol braces. Don’t run away from it — embrace, expand, and amplify it. Every mention of a pistol brace ban should be embraced and expanded into what it is — a proud endorsement of a decade in prison for a 15.9” barrel — and then loudly amplified. If somebody wants to tie their name to the philosophy of mass incarceration, they’re free to do so. In 2021, we’ll see who still thinks that’s the polite thing to believe.
Vibes can work for you or against you. Barrel length laws are very easy to explain. No nuanced technical information required. However the suppressor bill shakes out, the fact that it has gotten this far is evidence that our next priority should be removing SBRs from the NFA. The vibes are with us.
This week’s links
It’s a nope
Kostas Moros on the Supreme Court denying cert in Snope, the AR-15 case.
Our thoughts after a previous major SCOTUS setback
OSD 69: SCOTUS out, time to build
At 9:30 a.m. ET today, the Supreme Court released the news that they’re denying cert (i.e. they’re not going to agree to hear the appeal) on all ten Second Amendment cases that had been vying for the Court’s review. The cases challenged may-issue regimes, assault weapons bans, the ban on buying a handgun at an out-of-state FFL, and the California handgu…
“Why Americans are dressing like Russian troops in Oklahoma”
On reenacting modern battles. Archive.org link.
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When I first read the title, I thought "This week's OSD post will describe when there's a real chance at deregulation, 2A advocates don't take advantage of it."
While the title is a play on words, the rest of the article brings up an important point, not entirely unlike my missed interpretation. When the conversation around firearm deregulation opens up in mainstream politics (i.e, "given a mile"), 2A advocates ought to persuade using Pathos and Ethos, not just Logos (i.e, take an inch).
No doubt it's difficult to convince a hoplophobic to roll back barrel length or suppressor restrictions based on Logos alone, as illustrated in the excerpt from OSD 112. More effective would be with Pathos, an appeal to emotion like: "Removing barrel length restrictions would increase accessibility to effective self defense tools for vulnerable populations." Or with Ethos, an appeal to authority: "Law enforcement professionals use suppressors, because they make guns safer by reducing hearing damage for the user and bystanders."
I think I've mentioned this previously: using a tape measure as a means of control is not an effective way to govern others. The NFA law was created, based on my understanding, to target the organized crime involved in bootlegging and various other illicit activities. It's akin to catching Al Capone for income tax evasion rather than for his gangster activities. Lawyers developed the NFA as a form of tax legislation, which is funded through a tax stamp. (Lawyers creating laws that violate the 2A, who considered that a wise decision?) The NFA falls under the 16th Amendment, which legalized the imposition of taxes: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived." The suppressor aspect of the Law aimed to address poaching. During the Great Depression, illegal food hunting prompted the inclusion of mufflers in the NFA.