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The rate of gun violence in our country is unacceptably high.  We are asked on that account to accept a ban on the sale, transfer, or even possession of “assault weapons”.  Until quite recently we have been denied a definition of that term, but we are now told it applies to semi-automatic rifles and pistols accepting removable large-capacity magazines and having one or more other features affecting the gun’s appearance, but not its function.
     In fact, the term “assault weapon” has been used for its shock and scare value.  Those who know nothing of guns and can be scared, after all, form a large and necessary part of any coalition for gun control.  That is why the call for “sensible laws” rises in the emotional wake of events like Sandy Hook.  In calmer rational discourse they seem less sensible.
     “Assault weapon” no doubt derives from a well-defined military term, “assault rifle”.  An assault rifle is a select-fire (semi- or fully automatic) rifle of sub-battle-rifle caliber accepting large-capacity removable magazines.  The acknowledged ancestor of modern assault rifles is the German Sturmgewehr (quite literally, “assault rifle”) of 1944, so named because of its ability to lay down a large volume of suppressive fire during tactical advance on an enemy objective (an “assault”).  The concept proved so successful that virtually every army in the world has adopted an assault rifle as its standard shoulder arm.  Ours is the M-16, in its several variants.
     At least since the advent of the brass cartridge, every standard military rifle has soon become a favorite of civilian rifle shooters.  No doubt this is due in part to a preference by veterans for the rifle with which they trained.  Other factors include ongoing military development of the weapon, assuring a high level of accuracy and reliability.  Another factor, foreign to some, is a sense of duty to maintain a competence at arms in case of call by one’s country or in civil emergency.  This sentiment is quite common among veterans.
     The M-16, an assault rifle capable of automatic fire, is of course not practically available to civilians.  It has nonetheless been our standard military rifle for over forty years now, so it is not surprising that a semi-automatic-only version, the AR-15, has become the favorite civilian rifle for mid-range (out to 500 yards or so) rifle shooting.  It is disheartening that a rifle of such long standing in our military arsenal is a mysterious object of fear to so many.  I suppose that is a consequence of our delegating military service to a small number of volunteers (too small, we are learning), mostly poor, rural, or from areas where military service is still viewed as a rite of passage.
     In any case, there are now over three million privately owned AR-15s in this country.  Semi-automatic versions of other assault rifles, which function the same, must certainly number as many more.  Semi-automatic AK-47s, for example, cheaper to produce than AR-15s, have been imported from many countries.  Consider also that the proposed ban includes a whole generation of battle rifles with 20-round box magazines, available to the public in semi-automatic versions for several decades.  They include our own M-14, and other models from Belgium, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, and Israel, to name just a few.
     The short but clear message in all this is that semi-automatic rifles with large-capacity magazines are here in very large numbers and are here to stay.  Any ban short of confiscation will not meaningfully reduce their numbers for at least a couple of lifetimes.  A bit of very good news lies in the tiny proportion of these rifles involved in mass shootings.  You can do that arithmetic for yourself.  Let’s refrain from demonizing these rifles and the millions of your friends and neighbors who keep and use them responsibly.
     If you have properly absorbed this information, I hardly need point out that each of these rifles is accompanied by at least several large-capacity magazines (20, and in some cases 30, rounds being the standard size).  A ban on these is just as hopeless and just as pointless.
     Now let’s turn to the matter of background checks for purchase or transfer.  The national instant check system (NICS) has complicated sales, but without being overly burdensome (unless you have a very common name).  Gun control proponents claim that many hundreds of thousands of sales to prohibited persons have been thwarted, but very few such persons have been prosecuted, so there is reason to question the system’s effectiveness.  A common complaint is that it fails to prevent sales to mentally unstable persons.  How might it be improved?  There are several proposals afoot, the extremes of which are exemplified in the following paragraphs.
     Some propose building a register of people afflicted with mental illness which would be consulted during instant checks.  The greatest problem in this is determining which mentally ill persons present a threat of violence.  Very few do, after all.  Is it possible to write guidelines that will, on the one hand, prevent the criminally unstable from obtaining guns while, on the other, not infringing on the liberties of those who present no credible threat?  Perhaps, but I have not yet seen such a thing, and I remain skeptical.
     At the other end of the spectrum is requiring instant checks for all sales or transfers, including private sales previously exempt from the requirement.  The only practical way to accomplish this would be to require all transfers to be made through a licensed dealer, for a fee (limited to $25.00 in at least one proposal).  A man would have to pay a dealer to give his gun to his son or granddaughter, unless family transfers were exempted.  Members of my gun club would have to trade guns through a dealer, even though criminal background checks are required for club membership (a common requirement, for insurance purposes).  This seems to me an intrusive and unnecessary process, with dubious benefits.  It places more of a burden on responsible gun owners while failing to limit criminal access.
     The glaring problem is, of course, the already thriving black market for criminals (and anyone else who wants, for whatever reason, an untraceable gun).  The more restrictions on legal transfer, the less incentive there is for a prohibited person to attempt a “legal” purchase.  The number of disallowed sales declines (hurray, hurray!), but the black market grows proportionately.  What is achieved?
     The standard argument for universal background checks is that 40% of gun sales are private, and conducted without checks.  I don’t know where that number came from, or whether it’s accurate.  Considering all the guns transferred among family members, friends, and hunting partners, I suppose it’s credible, but these are not transfers that alarm me.  I have also heard it said that 40% of sales at gun shows are made without checks, and if that’s the source of the previous number, I’m very skeptical.  I can’t speak for other regions,  but at gun shows I’ve attended, private sellers (with just a few guns) are greatly outnumbered by licensed dealers (often with very large stocks), who are required to conduct checks on all gun sales.  If 40% of sales occur without checks, they must include sales of accessories, books, collector knives, militaria, food, and other common gun show items for which checks are not required.  So much for honesty.
     You may have sensed by now my lack of enthusiasm for these measures.  You may agree with me or not.  The more important point is that we neglect, thereby, more important and truly effective measures.  I will relate here two such measures, the first of which is actually quite simple and can be accomplished with just a little focus and cooperation.  The second is vastly complicated and will require persistence over a long period, but it is an effort we must undertake at some point for reasons reaching far beyond gun violence.
     A common thread among all the mass shooters in recent years is use of or withdrawal from psychotropic drugs, most often anti-depressants (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, in most cases) and/or stimulants prescribed for ADHD.  Use of these drugs is sometimes accompanied by side effects including suicidal and/or homicidal ideation.  Understand, please, that many patients enjoy benefits from these drugs.  That does not mitigate the dangers to those few others, especially young patients.  One hazard lies in dosage.  Published standard doses are known to be too high for many patients, but have not been changed.  More dangerous yet is a common pattern of treatment, conducted by an over-taxed (or simply over-scheduled) therapist.  A patient may see his therapist for only a few minutes weekly or even monthly, and therapy may consist entirely of asking the patient how the current drug is working.  If the patient is suffering side effects, he/she may discontinue or alter dosage between visits.  Often therapists are less than prudent in combining or switching between drugs.  Too often, the first real indication of therapeutic effect comes from a relative or friend after a shooting or other incident:  “I don’t know what happened.  He’s been a different person”.
     What can be done?  I hope you understand that I am not advocating throwing money at the mental health establishment to assure that treatment is available to all.  I’m asking for a focused reform of psychotropic drug use, wherein recommended dosages are reviewed and revised, strict protocols for dosage changes and permissible combinations are established, and, most important, closer supervision is required absolutely, with severe professional sanctions prescribed for violations.  I believe this will not only slash the number of mass shootings, but will add infinitely to the quality of life of millions of non-violent mental-health patients.  Is this not worthy of our attention?
     And then there’s that other thing we must do sooner or later, and perhaps gun violence will be the key to winning the sort of public support it requires.  The most rudimentary analysis of the causes of gun violence in our country shows that we can enjoy a low rate of gun violence or we can pursue our already forty-year-old “war on drugs”.  We cannot do both.
     Consider the numbers.  About 60% of gun deaths are suicides.  Since there is no credible link between gun ownership rates and suicide rates, banning any or all guns will not prevent suicides (reforming psychotropic drug use, on the other hand, may reduce the rate).  Of the remaining gun deaths, a large majority are tied to the illicit drug trade, resulting from competition, sales disputes, robberies of drugs or drug money, and the like.  Add shootings during crimes by users seeking money, and casualties of enforcement encounters.  Who can guess how many other incidents are related tangentially to drug use or dealing?
     The core reality about prohibition, which we learned in the 1920s and evidently forgot, is that banning a commodity for which there is persistent demand will foster a black market.  Lacking access to normal legal means of competition (advertising, price cutting), black marketers compete most effectively by securing monopoly in as large a market as they can supply.  In the case of drugs, produced cheaply in poor countries to supply a very rich country, profits are enormous, and elicit fierce and vicious competition among people who can afford to hire gangs and equip them with expensive and plentiful weaponry.
     Ordinarily such competition ends with one or a few victors controlling the market, and the violence subsides.  Only when a new product appears or a new source opens does competition once again flare.  We, the rich country, however, spend billions on agencies attempting to enforce the prohibition, and they continually upset the market in various ways (removing players, interrupting sources, upsetting distribution patterns), thereby opening opportunities for new competition and more bloodshed.  Meanwhile the flow of illicit drugs continues unabated, its profits supported by the prohibition itself.
     I believe that by ending this continuing debacle, we can reduce gun violence in our country to an exemplary level.  You may think otherwise, but I’ll wager that after considering other fruits of the war on drugs, you’ll want to end it, too.  Consider the impact  in agrarian societies of higher prices paid for coca, marijuana, or poppies than for food crops.  Consider the results of trying to choke off supply in poor countries.  We nearly destroyed civil society in Colombia a couple of decades ago.  Mexico today suffers as powerful cartels butcher each other for control of distribution disrupted by the government, whose military forces cannot prevail against them.  Meanwhile our enemies abroad tap into the trade at will, to our detriment.  Al Qaeda deals in drugs destined for our market.  The Afghan Taliban, which prohibited drugs when they were in power, now deals in them to fund their activities.  Even North Korea has become poppy farmer and supplier of heroin in pursuit of foreign funds.  And I haven’t even yet mentioned the effect on our economy of this vast untaxed commerce, or the effects of enforcement on our justice and penal systems, or the erosion of civil liberties in the interest of easier drug enforcement.
     The war on drugs must end before it eats us alive.  Ending it will take strong wills and persistent effort for a long time.  Right now, too many people rely on the prohibition effort for their livelihoods, and the agencies of prohibition control the public discourse.  The only way to end the madness is a truly grassroots movement, in which growing numbers make clear to our legislators that we want no more.  Whether to reduce violence or for some other of the plethora of good reasons, please give this your careful thought and enduring support.  And resist the other nonsense.

(Jon Eggleston is a retired St. Louis County Corrections Deputy, and is a member of NRA and ACLU)