GunsLicense and registration, please: how regulating guns like cars could improve safety

By Keith Guzik and Gary T. Marx

Published 27 June 2016

In the midst of the Senate’s failure to agree on measures designed to tighten controls around the sales of firearms, a new idea is emerging: Regulating guns like cars. In some regards, we are already there. Operating a firearm, like operating a motor vehicle, requires a license in many jurisdictions. Certain types of criminal offenses – domestic violence in the case of firearms, drinking and driving in the case of automobiles – can result in a suspension or revocation of that license. These rules focus on the competency of users. Regulating guns like cars is a more tried and true approach to managing dangerous technologies than the simplistic prohibitionist logic of simply keeping guns away from those we categorize as “the bad and the mad.”

In the midst of the Senate’s failure to agree on measures designed to tighten controls around the sales of firearms, a new idea is emerging.

Last week, U.S. Representative Jim Hines, a Democrat from Connecticut, appeared on “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah” and said, “we ought to probably test people and make sure there is as much licensing and regulation around a gun as there is around an automobile.”

He is not the first political figure to suggest this idea. Before the shooting in Orlando, President Obama proposed the same approach at a town hall meeting earlier this year: “…traffic fatalities have gone down drastically in my lifetime. And part of it is technology. And part of it is that the National Highway Safety Administration does research and they figure out seatbelts really work. And then we pass laws to make sure seatbelts are fastened.”

Regulating guns like cars is an interesting idea. And, it wouldn’t require congressional approval.

Compared to the measures proposed in Congress, which amount to prohibitions against socially undesirable persons like terrorists and people who suffer from mental illness, a regulatory approach goes further by focusing on the technology itself. It would create a regulatory framework promoting responsible use of guns.

As sociologists who have studied the relationship between technologies and social control in a variety of settings, we believe the history of the automobile shows how such a strategy can make dangerous objects safer, while also preserving private property, individual liberty and personal responsibility.

How cars were made safe
The motor vehicle, like the firearm, is a quintessential American object. It expresses values of freedom, individuality and power. And like guns, automobiles were once a major threat to public health and safety.

Early vehicles regularly struck horses and pedestrians in the streets, gave birth to roving criminals like Bonnie and Clyde, and became common settings for sexual assaults. But through a combination of traffic codes, civil liability laws, insurance policies and administrative requirements, the automobile was eventually made manageable.

Subsequent eras of reform have addressed traffic safety in additional ways by targeting vehicle design (seatbelts and airbags), drunk drivers, and distracted driving. As a result, the rate of traffic fatalities has decreased from more than 15 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in the 1930s to just above 1 per 100 million today.