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

Regulating guns like cars
What would regulating guns like cars look like?

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.

But, the regulation of cars goes beyond this by establishing a larger web of regulatory relationships around the technology itself.

As anyone who owns and operates a car knows, it must also be titled to establish ownership, registered to allow use of public roads, and insured to protect owners and victims in the case of vehicle accidents. These requirements create an incentive for responsible conduct by drivers looking to avoid traffic tickets and insurance premium increases. It also helps finance a network of public and private entities, including police officers and insurance companies, to help keep track of cars.

Trips to the DMV notwithstanding, the regulatory burden of owning and operating a car has done little to diminish Americans’ love affair with the automobile.

Regulating guns like cars would thus require a new set of regulations that would reward the responsible purchase, possession, and operation of guns, and build the regulatory framework to enforce it.

This 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.”

But, guns aren’t cars
Some challenges to such an approach can easily be anticipated.

Legally speaking, gun rights supporters would point to the Second Amendment and argue that no mention of motorized vehicles is made in the country’s founding document. But the Fourth Amendment does pronounce “the right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizure,” a protection arguably violated by ordinary traffic stops. We as a society have still been able to craft a legal framework that balances this individual liberty with the public interest in vehicle safety.

There are practical differences, too. Cars are highly visible, which facilitates their control. Handguns are largely invisible, with their invisibility increasingly protected by law. This makes their regulation more difficult.

Cars on private property are not subject to state regulations. Yet, most gun deaths take place at home in the form of suicides. That means regulating guns like cars would likely not impact the greatest harm caused by firearms.

A way around gridlock?
Regulating guns like cars would provide additional safety against guns in the public spaces where the worst mass shootings have occurred — schools, the workplace, churches, dance halls, and movie theaters.

Perhaps the best endorsement for regulating guns like cars is that it wouldn’t require congressional approval. States have the latitude to craft the requirements for owning and operating vehicles that suit them best. They could do the same with guns. Following the Supreme Court’s recent decision to not hear a challenge to Connecticut’s ban on assault weapons, states should be emboldened to try more innovative approaches on gun control.

Representative Hines and President Obama are thinking outside of the political box in addressing gun violence. Regulating guns like cars would be neither perfect nor easy. But as Congress continues to debate measures that largely look past the weapons themselves, it would be a welcome move in the national effort to prevent the next Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Newtown, Charleston, San Bernardino or Orlando.

Keith Guzik is Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Colorado Denver. Gary T. Marx is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivative).