Does gun control make us safer?

Guns are more lethal, easier to use, and quicker in effect than any other interpersonal instrument. >> Gun control is the lobotomy of public policy. >> The most important purpose of government is to protect the lives, health, and safety of its people. >> If your law kills innocent people, you owe an explanation of what you plan to buy with their lives. >> Welcome to the solo forum. Tonight's tonight's resolution reads, "Until there is convincing evidence that government imposed gun control brings a net reduction in harm, all legal restrictions on adult possession of guns should be abolished. Here to defend the resolution, Aaron Brown. Aaron, please come to the stage. Opposing the resolution, Robert Spitzer. Robert, please come to the stage. Aaron, you have 15 minutes to take to defend the resolution and to take the podium. Take it away, Erin. Thank you, Jean. And uh thank you everyone for attending. I'm Aaron Brown and as Jean said, I will be taking the affirmative, which is actually a negative position. I'm arguing for the abolition of all current adult uh restrictions on adult possession of guns. Um we're fortunate tonight to have with us Dr. Robert Spitzer, the man who literally wrote the book on gun control. Uh >> a book I recommend. Oh, there we go. Okay. A book I highly recommend. Uh I expect to learn a lot tonight from him and I urge you to do the same. I'm just a statistician. I only dip my toe in the waters in which uh Dr. Spitzer swims. Uh I have no uh ability to match him on depth of knowledge of the gun issue. Uh but I hope to make up for that with the additional perspective that comes from standing on the shore. I have only three things I want to persuade you of tonight. First, no one has any idea whether existing restrictions on adult possession of guns have net positive uh effects. Number two, the reasons for this are deep and structural. The only way we're going to make progress on the issue is to throw out, tear down all existing regulations, all existing research and start over. We need to build on a solid foundation of science, of data, and we need to design in respect for the fundamental human right of self-defense from the beginning, not try to somehow shoehorn it in afterwards with court decisions. And finally, I'm going to argue that this isn't an impossible task. If we accept this challenge, I think there is every possibility that within the relatively foreseeable future, we can have a gun policy that respects human rights, that gets rid of at least 95% of the harassment of legitimate gun ownership and actually works, actually reduces crime and violence. So let me begin with the first part that nobody has any idea whether existing regulations do any good. My main uh reliance here is on the Rand Corporation. They did a study they actually have done a series of studies. The most recent one this year uh they studied all the gun research done in the last 30 years. Tens of thousands of papers. Zero randomized experiments. virtually none of the papers uh rose to the level had the quality of data the quality of methodology that can support any causal claims. That doesn't mean all the other papers were worthless. There are other things a paper can do other than support a causal claim. But for the purposes of the debate tonight uh to show that a particular regul regulation does that good uh they don't do anything. Only 50 of the papers and they were not among the best. In fact, they weren't they weren't very good at all even considered the net effect. Almost every uh research shows only that a particular regulation might reduce some harm without considering what might be uh on the other side. uh in among all these studies uh Rand uh studied 21 different uh gun control proposals or gun control laws and with 20 different outcome measures and that's 420 combinations only nine combinations had evidence that rose to the very mediocre level that Rand called uh supportive and Brand admitted they were grading on a curve for the field that uh none of the studies came close to the rigor which would be demanded to add a new coloring agent to a cosmetic or to get UL certification for a Christmas tree light. So why is this why why is gun control research so bad? U main problem is the noise. Typical state the murder rate changes by 17% in a year with no change in law. Now let's think about the plausible firstear effect of a new gun control regulation. takes time to implement laws to have them enforced. Uh most of the laws apply only to new purchases of handguns, not the much or guns, not the much larger stock of existing firearms. Um most of the people who are prevented uh from buying under the new law weren't going to kill anybody anyway. And most of the people who do who were going to kill people find some other way to do it. So, I think you're pretty optimistic to think a new law in the first year would reduce murders by a fraction of 1%. So, you've got a 17% signal, a fraction of 1%, I'm sorry, 17% noise, and a fraction of 1% signal. What we need is we need uh research on violence and crime so we can shrink that 17% noise so we can explain it so there's a small residual so that the effect of a gun control law will no longer be invisible. Now you might think okay well maybe we can't tell what the law did in the first year but we can take a longer period. We can look at it over over more years. The trouble is, if you look at a five-year window, states change laws on an average of three to four times. We don't get clean experiments. And there are changes in federal laws, there are court decisions, there are changes in local ordinances, there's changes in enforcement policies. We just simply have no way to figure out uh what the effect of these gun control laws is. Um, another issue is that we don't have the basic data. Gun researchers don't really seem interested in figuring out the basic information we need. We don't know the number of guns that are out there. Serious estimates range from 300 to 500 million. We have even less information about defensive gun uses or crimes discouraged or prevented by adult possession of guns. Survey estimates uh differ by a factor of 30. The only thing we do have some reasonable data on is gun deaths. And we get those from two main sources. Uh the CDC collects death certificates and the FBI collects crime reports. Both of these data sets have serious issues that that uh undercut some of their availability, but they're pretty good data at least by uh social science standards to work with. uh but they're pretty limited and uh and almost all of the non-terrible gun studies uh rely on them. So I want to take a break here and read you a story. Uh this is The Lovely Bones. It was a number one instant bestseller back in 2002. They made a major motion picture about it. It's considered one of the classic novels of the early 2000s. Pay attention. There's going to be a quiz afterwards. My name was Salmon, like the fish. First name Suzy. I was 14 when I was murdered in December 6th, 1973. Okay, now here's the quiz. Would a two-eek waiting period for handgun purchase, a red flag law, or a magazine capacity limit have led to an improved outcome in this story? Okay, I see we have no gun researchers in the audience because gun researchers claim to be able to answer those questions based on just this kind of data. The uh crime murder from the FBI numbers, the age from uh CDC and the date from both nothing from the other 327 pages in the book. Was Suz's Suz's killing was it premeditated? Was it impulsive? Was it accidental? Was Susie an innocent bystander in a drive-by shooting or was she engaged in a carjacking at the time? We need at the minimum means, motive, and opportunity. The uh twoe waiting period could affect opportunity. A red flag law could address motive. The uh magazine capacity limit applies to means. These this is the information we just don't have. But this is what we get from the FBI and from the CDC. Let me ask even a more basic question. Why do we even have a field of gun control? Gun control is a partisan answer. It's not a neutral question. We don't have professors of ethanol subsidies. We don't have a journal of rent control. Francis Bacon 400 years ago warned against this very error. He warned against building an entire field on a specific, in his words, with Gilbert on magnetism, with alchemists on gold. The whole field of gun control is Bacon's error. We're actually looking at gun control through the wrong lens. Through the public health lens. Public health is actually a very strange field. It was developed for infectious disease and sanitation. It counts deaths. If somebody dies of COVID, we don't ask if it's a good and bad person. We just add up the number of deaths. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Here is that five minutes to go. Wow. Okay. I'm sorry. Here. I'm going to have to speed things up a bit. Um uh so so it counts death with gun deaths. Many deaths are good. Many deaths are defending uh innocent people or uh stopping guilty people. Uh public health ignores human rights. We quarantine healthy innocent people in conditions that uh may kill them as significant infringement on their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And we accept this because the uh uh the risk of a pandemic is so great. But in in with with with gun deaths uh rights are key. The whole field of gun control is about the right to self-defense. Public health looks for a target. Uh looks for a pathogen or a toxin. And that's why they study guns instead of crime and violence which are the real field. And they want to eradicate the target. But with guns, we don't with complex human behavior. What we want to do is direct behavior. We want to resolve disputes down non-violent paths. We don't want to eradicate anything. Okay, let me get to the harder part. Am I denier? Am I a dire? Am I a merchant of doubt? Am I am somebody who's going to hide behind statistical technicalities to prevent any positive action? My defense here is stop and frisk. A very similar issue where we have a constitutional right and balanced against common sense which means evidence-free uh common sense reasons to uh tactics to reduce crime. In 2011, the New York City police did 700,000 almost 700,000 stops and frisks without a warrant, without probable cause, without even reasonable suspicion. Then the federal court started asking for evidence. Within 10 years, we had a vibrant two-sided literature in real fields, real researchers doing real uh work, not starting with a conclusion. And we learned two things. We learned that frisking hundreds of thousands of people in badly controlled programs did no good. And we learned that frisking hundreds or maybe a few thousand people in sophisticated strategies of micro policing actually did reduce crime. We got rid of 95% 96% in fact of the stops and we actually did some good. We actually reduced crime. This is something I think is a possibility for gun control. All we have to do is throw out the bad and start working on the good. I would still oppose it. I still oppose stop and frisk. I would still oppose gun uh rules, but I realized the vast majority of my fellow citizens would happily take the trade uh if we could get rid of 95% of the harm and actually do some good. Next hard question, why abolition? Why not just keep the existing laws on the books until we can prove one way or the other uh that we can make improvements? My argument for this is when I was born in 1956, the laws explicitly discriminated on the basis of race and sex. Uh mainstream opinion was that this was natural. But then times were changing and by 1964 the Civil Rights Act flipped the default. discrimination on the basis of race went from presumed acceptable to presumed forbidden. I maintain this was the right approach. Didn't end racism, but it led to faster and better results than the alternative peace meal changes. Uh and it was principled and in the subsequent years it's frustrated people on the left as much as the right. The alternative, the equal rights amendment for sex was never in put in effect. And as a result, I believe progress on women's and homosexual rights was slower, less even, and there was no principle. So people on every side uh chose their own ideas. 40 years ago in Central Park, only four miles from this stage, Judge Learned Hand told Americans what liberty meant. The spirit of liberty, he said, is the spirit that is not too sure it's right. In a free country, if we're not too sure where that we're right, we should choose not to coersse. Thank you. Thank you, Aaron. Professor Spitzer, uh, 15 minutes of rebuttal. Take it away. Thank you. Thank you all for uh coming out tonight and my thanks to the organizers for inviting me to participate in this uh important discussion. So, uh fasten your seat belts, make sure your tray tables are in their upright and locked positions. That's okay. My wife doesn't think I'm funny either, and she would know because we're married and everything. So in a democratic nation with a republican form of government, public policy should be the product of evidence, judgment, and public will. In that light, I am pleased to report that there is abundant, prolific, varied, and persuasive evidence that government imposed gun control brings a net reduction in harm. This evidence spans disciplines including law, history, criminology, sociology, economics, policy analysis, philosophy, public health, medicine, and political science. It spans the four corners of the United States as well as the nations of the world. And it spans 400 years of American history. In fact, it does even more. Gun policy promotes the most important purpose of government which is to protect the lives, health and safety of its people which is referred to historically as protecting the public peace. No goal or purpose of government is more important. This evidence arises from a variety of of approaches including comparative analysis, behavioral analysis, historical analysis, case studies, other qualitative and quantitative analyses employing a diverse and eclectic array of methodologies. Now, this is all the more impress impressive given that most of this work falls within the realm of the social sciences. Note at the outset and I should say that gun harm covers three categories and it's important to maintain focus on all three which is homicide, suicide and accident. For example, keeping guns, excuse me, keeping guns from those who are demonstrabably homicidal or suicidal reduces homicides and suicides. Background checks weed out people who should not have guns for a variety of reasons. Safe gun storage laws reduce suicides, homicides, accidental deaths, gun sefts, and irresponsible use. And hold on a second while I unwrap this mint. Thank you. Numerous studies have demonstrated that pistol permitting reduces gun homicides, suicides, accidents, and mass shootings. Universal background checks and regulations prohibiting gun possession by those convicted of violent misdemeanors have resulted in significant decreases in homicide rates. As firearm laws increase, homicide rates decrease. On the other hand, abundant evidence demonstrates that stand your ground laws increase homicides that would not otherwise occur, including of police officers and do nothing to improve public or personal safety. Now, to take an example of an efficacious law, let me use the example of extreme risk protection orders, also known as red flag laws. 22 states have enacted these laws between 1999 and 2026. These are laws that allow for guns to be taken from an individual who exhibits specific credible homicidal or suicidal ideiation. A significant and growing body of nearly 50 studies conclude, for example, that at least one suicide was prevented for every 10 to 20 such orders issued. Research has also shown that red flag laws have been used successfully to intervene and pre prevent potential mass shooting incidents. that is to say, where mass violence was threatened or planned. In every such intervention, none of the threatened incidents actually occurred. This is especially significant because mass shootings are highly predictable, despite what people may think. For example, a very recent study of 171 mass public shootings in the United States between 1999 and 2024 involving 175 perpetrators, examined more than 150,000 pages of police records, court transcripts, and afteraction reports. It found prolific instances, specific instances of what is known as leakage, meaning that the prospective mass shooter communicates violent thoughts or actions before the attack. Information that can be used and has been used to stop such attacks. This study alone illustrates how and why red flag laws are efficacious. Take the example of comparative analysis, interstate comparative analysis. State firearm laws vary widely, providing a natural laboratory to examine the consequences of such laws based on American federalism. You remember federalism, right? Your American government. I assume you all took the introduction American government. Uh and if you didn't, you should should have. Dozens of studies have done so, examining federalism interactions, controlling for factors including income, education, population density, ideology, among many others, concluding, for example, that quote, "States with background check requirements, and waiting periods to purchase firearms, consistently experience fewer deaths." Now, one might think that states with big cities like New York State and New York City would have high gun violence rates, but that is not so. The states with the highest firearm mortality rates are Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Wyoming. All have very weak or few gun laws. Police officers are also more likely to be shot in states with the weakest gun laws. The states with the strictest laws, gun laws, including California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut, have the lowest firearm mortality rates. And indeed, state laws do matter. Here in New York State, between 75 and 90% of all gun crime, crime guns, guns captured in connection with crimes, come from outside of New York. If New York's strict laws didn't matter, there would be no reason to obtain guns that wind up being used in crimes from out of state. And indeed, state and local police have referred to uh the this phenomenon for decades as the iron pipeline, where guns are purchased in states with weak laws and are trafficked to New York State and other states. International comparative analysis. When crime, violent crime, and homicide rates in the US are compared with the rates of other similar developed nations, America has extraordinarily high rates of violent crime. Now, some have argued that this is simply because the US has more crime and that Americans are more violent people. But the evidence does not support that supposition. America's overall crime rates are roughly the same as other similar democratic nations. American violent crime rates and murder rates, however, are far higher. US homicide rates are far higher largely because guns are used to commit 75 to 80% of all murders every year. Here in the US, the US gun homicide rate is eight times to 36 times higher than that in France, Germany, Canada, and Australia. Now, those last two nations, Canada and Australia, are gun-owning nations, but they have fewer handguns and have much stricter gun laws. Other factors contribute to be sure including economic inequality, a weak social safety net, errant drug policy, but the single single biggest factor explaining this gap between the United States and other similar nations is handgun availability. stated differently, the United States has among the highest overall firearm mortality rates among the nations of the world as well as among the highest as well as among the highest firearm mortality rates for children, adolescents, African-Americans and women both globally and among highincome countries. Now this can be explained by a very important uh principle called the weapons instrumentality effect or sometimes called the instrumentality effect which simply means that the instrument used to commit harm whether intentional or unintentional has a direct effect on the outcome. For example, in recent years guns in the US have been responsible for about 45,000 deaths annually. The largest number of those deaths are gun suicides, not homicides. Even today, something that's not, I think, particularly well known. Many implements and means are used by the suicidal, but none is more lethal than guns, and none is easier or quicker to use. The success rate, and that's an odd term to use, but it's the term in the literature, the success rate, that is the likelihood you'll succeed if you attempt suicide, of gun suicide is about 90%. Compared to 56% for drowning, 53% for hanging, and 14% for poisoning. Thank you. Contrary to what most people think, most suicides are impulsive and not the result of protracted planning. A study of suicidal ideiation found that the amount of time between the suicide idea and the attempt was this. It was in 24% of cases the time gap was 5 minutes or less. In 48% of suicide cases, it was less than 20 minutes. It was 70% for those for less than 1 hour and 86% for less than eight hours. Moreover, nine out of 10 who attempted suicide but survived did not die of suicide later. Successful intervention with respect to suicide can save most people, but that intervention is least likely when the suicidal person uses a gun. Numerous studies have concluded that assaults with guns are five times more likely to result in death than assault with knives, the second most common weapon used to commit homicides. With respect to homicides overall, about three-fifths of all homicides are committed against people known to the asalent and most often result from arguments that get out of hand. In other words, from anger and impulse. And that helps explain the consequential nature of guns. The conclusion, guns are more lethal, easier to use, and quicker in effect than any other interpersonal instrument. Let me jump to evidence from history. Gun ownership is as old as the country, but so are gun laws. In the first 300 years of our history, from 1619 on, the colonies and states enacted literally thousands of gun laws of every imaginable variety. To site just a few examples, adding up these laws, and I've been studying old weapons laws for over 10 years now. Every single state in the country during this time period, 1600s to the start of the 20th century, every single state in the country enacted weapons licensing laws. At least 40 states criminalized the open carrying of firearms. Nearly half of the states criminalized any civilian firearms carrying. And every state in the country enacted weapons laws criminalizing concealed carrying of pistols and other deadly weapons. And our ancestors were very clear about why they enacted this blizzard of laws. They said so in the laws sometimes. For example, Tennessee's law from 1821 and 1837 and anti-air law referred to quote each and every person so degrading himself by carrying pistols or other named weapons. George's 1837 anti-gun carry law was titled an act to guard and protect the citizens of this state against the unwarrantable and too prevalent use of deadly weapons. Alabama's 1839 anti-concealed carry law was titled an act to suppress the evil practice of carrying weapons secretly. Our ancestors agreed if you were carrying a con concealed weapon, you were up to no good. Period. Modern research, as a matter of fact, confirms this. A recent study concluded that when states eliminated permitting for concealed gun carrying, it resulted in a 7% increase in violent crime and a 12% increase in firearm assaults while having no impact on property crimes. For our ancestors, no less than for us, the proof of gun law efficacy was all around them. It was their lived experience. Finally, none of this means that research should come to an end. Far from it. There is always more to study and analyze. Bearing in mind that our proposition concerning compelling evidence is stated in the future tense, prolific and varied evidence has long existed that meets and exceeds the threshold for gun public policy enactments. I thank you for your kind attention and uh apppropo of gun law history. I there's a flyer floating around of my new book. It'll be out in a couple of months. Uh Christmas approaching, Hanukkah, Quanza. Yeah. Okay. And it's a good price, 30% off. Again, thank you for your kind attention. And Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Yeah. Uh those leaflets will be made available at the party for first professor Spitcher's forthcoming book. Aaron, five minutes for rebuttal. Do you want to take the podium? Take it away, Aaron. >> Thank you, Jean. Thank you, Dr. Spitzer. I'm sure everyone here noticed what was missing from Dr. Spitzer's 15 minutes or 14 and a half minutes, I guess. Um, where was the net harm? We heard a lot about how gun regulations reduce gross harm. We didn't hear anything about defensive gun uses. We didn't hear anything about crimes prevented or discouraged by guns. Let me give you a hypothetical. There is a woman who was abused by a former intimate partner who has sworn to kill her. The partner is suddenly released unexpectedly or escapes from custody and she attempts to buy a handgun to defend herself. She's frustrated by a two-eek waiting period during which she and her family are murdered. She is a foreseeable victim of the waiting period law. Now, Dr. Spitzer might argue that the same law prevents 10 suicides or some other number. I won't get into the tricky philosophical issue of how many suicides justify one in innocent life lost. Um I only say that gun control research will not be convincing until foreseeable victims and every restriction on adult uh possession of firearms has foreseeable victims. Every foreseeable victim is interviewed, is quantified, and the ratio is made explicit. If your law kills innocent people, you owe an explanation of what you plan to buy with their lives. I went through Dr. I did read Dr. Spitzer's book and I did recommend it and I ran into hundreds of people threatened or abused by firearms. I did not run into one foreseeable victim. And in all the gun control research I have read, uh other than a few not very good papers, I again saw no foreseeable victims. This is not convincing research. This is one-sided research. I do have a couple points I'm just going to make without arguing because they go beyond the scope. Uh Dr. Spitzer claimed that the primary purpose of government, the first purpose is to protect citizens. I would say to protect citizens rights that uh first you protect the rights and then if within that you can protect the lives that's okay, but it's better to let them protect their own lives. Dr. Spitzer used extreme rights uh extreme risk orders as his uh poster child for regulations. But something kind of interesting about those uh extreme uh uh risk abuser prohibition laws have exceptions. They have exceptions for people who need firearms for their work. Waiting periods have no exceptions for uh foreseeable victims. The law protects abusers paychecks. It does not protect the uh victim's lives. Another point is I think we went well beyond the uh resolution when we're talking about stand your ground, when we're talking about child safety protection law, uh safe storage laws. Uh the resolution specifically considers adult uh restrictions on adult possession of guns. I'm also going to challenge the history here a little bit. I'm not going to argue with him on the facts. He's the expert. He wrote the book, but an awful lot of those laws were not as benign as he might suggest. A lot of them were written explicitly to discriminate, to uh keep down minorities, uh poor people, uh were not enforced against uh wealthy white Protestants. Um not all of them. Another thing is most of those laws are weapons laws. I'm not up here arguing that guns should be exempt from all other regulations, that they shouldn't collect sales tax on guns, that we shouldn't have laws against weapons and dangerous things. We don't allow them on airplanes. We don't allow them in prisons. Um, many of those laws are general weapons laws. They're not specifically targeted against adult possession of firearms. So, I basically rest my case on two things. Number one, rights. I think rights are more important than protecting people. Number two, nothing in the uh argument I've heard so far tells me that there is a net benefit of these laws as opposed to a gross one. And finally, one other point on which I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. Dr. Spitzer, the expert on guns, uh, and gun research, thinks the research is very convincing. I tell you, as a statistician, I've read that research, not as much as Dr. Spitzer has, but I've read as much as I can and I find it very weak, very unconvincing. Thank you. Five minutes to reproduce, Professor Spitzer. Thank you. Well, a number of things to talk about. I I did not raise the question, although it's an important question, of the benefits of gun ownership, and I don't mean for recreational purposes. Specifically, though, for self-defense, because uh in recent years, more people have purchased guns for self-defense than for traditional hunting and sporting reasons. >> Sorry. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, thank you. Um but that was not within the purview of the resolution that we were discussing tonight. Uh the best estimates are that there are between 80 and 100,000 DGUs every year. Def DGU is the acronym for defensive gun use. Um and it's mushy. It it's a mushy number. An analyst has proposed a number upwards of three million which is kind of a nonsensical number. Um, and it is one of the considerations regarding gun policy. That's certainly the case. But I taught a gun policy course for many years at Sunni Courtland. I don't know if any Courtland people here tonight. Woohoo. If there are um uh if there is, let me know. Um, and we would talk about this uh this very question. But there's a prior question which is if you're concerned with safety, is a gun the only option? And the answer is no. There are lots of options whether you're at home or whether you're out in public. And if safety is actually the concern and not simply I want a gun, it's essential to have a discussion about that question. Um in addition, my learned opponent also mentioned the Rand report uh very important study or really several studies published in several editions running to some 520 pages. Um it is not as critical of the gun literature or violence literature or firearms literature as he suggested. Indeed, uh, the, uh, RAND report recommended the following gun policies that should be enacted by governance. safe gun storage laws, repealing stand your ground laws, states with shall issue carry laws should enact gun permitting, raising the minimum age of firearm purchases, adoption of gun purchase waiting periods, all recommended in the RAND report, adoption of extreme risk protection order or red flag laws, adoption of uh across the board gun dealer and gun purchaser background checks, including adoption of state licensing and monitoring laws that prohibit gun ownership for individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders. Robust mental health checks for firearm purchases or possession. Expansion of government funding for gun violence research. Loosening or eliminating federal restrictions on the use of gun trace data. Improving federal gun data infrastructure. moving toward full police agency participation in a national incident data reporting system because criminology data is still very spotty and incomplete not with respect solely to guns but in respect to all kinds of crimes and federal expansion of gun violence and related uh data accessibility so that it's easier for researchers to get access to and to use and these are all things that almost all of them that I spoke about tonight so the Rand report endorses these policy ideas as well. And I would finally say about the public health approach. It is only one approach, but it's a very important approach. The public health approach and I'm that is not my field, but I've certainly read some of that literature examines risk factors and risk analysis to make evidence-based recommendations. Harm prevention is their goal. And that's why they look not only uh why the public health fields looks not only at uh gun violence data but also looks at motor vehicle deaths, at smoking, at auto safety, alcohol use, and a whole range of other behaviors in order to minimize harm uh to people in society. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bob. Um we uh before we go to audience Q&A uh first each debater uh will have the option uh exercisable at any time to ask the uh other debater one question. Uh my question uh to you, Professor Spitzer, would you like to exercise that option to ask your opponent one question at this moment? Uh or do you want to defer that to until later? Would you like to ask him a question? >> I have I have a >> Go ahead. >> I have a Is that on? Yes. Okay. I have a question, please. >> To Mr. Brown. Um, would you agree would you agree with me that in the name of improving research that the government should fund should increase its funding for the study of gun violence? Well, you're you're asking a libertarian and so I'm uh I'm not really big on uh government. I will say this, I would like to see more effort done on gun research, but I'd get the public health people back to infectious disease and sanitation where they have plenty of work to do, and I would get them away from uh studying issues like uh guns. >> Uh Aarin, would you like to exercise your option to ask your opponent a question? You can defer to later. Uh what's your decision now, Erin? >> I I think I'll defer and hear what the audience wants to say. >> Okay. I uh uh before we get to that, I want to exercise moderator's prerogative just to follow up on one aspect of what Professor Spitzer said and then have you come in. you spoke about uh defense of gun use and then uh I gather that uh since you cited states that have more stringent gun laws and that have better success that you would probably want other states to have equally stringent laws. And then you also mentioned that there are other ways uh to defend yourself apart from the use of guns. And of course that clicked off in my mind that guns have been called the great leveler that uh the woman cited by um Aaron Brown uh obviously had to defend herself against a much more powerful person. uh do you uh fear that defensive gun use what two parts would might be reduced if if uh gun laws are more stringent and secondly what did you mean when you said that you don't need necessarily need guns to defend yourself >> okay um two parts to that well let me talk about the second part first yeah whether you're at home or out in the streets. There are many, many ways to protect yourself from potential harm. From home alarm systems to uh getting a dog to a baseball bat uh to uh uh properly pruning around your house so that there aren't places for pe people to hide, locks on doors. Uh there are many many other uh similar remedies, neighborhood watch groups uh in society in the public realm. there are sort of other ways to uh have uh to improve public safety and people in communities sort of know about these things because it's very much been ingrained I think in societal patterns in terms of the relationship between domestic gun uses and gun ownership. uh people as I was pointing out earlier uh the the most significant the biggest reason why people buy guns today is is self-defense is protection. Now, the overwhelming majority of them will never use a gun for self-defense. And when I cited the number earlier of 80 to 80 80 thou 80 80,000 to 100,000 DGUs per year, that's not shooting incidents. Those are incidents where a person self-reports that they used a gun to prevent what might be identified as a as a crime. Now, it's a pretty wide definition. It's very subjective and it relies heavily on a person reporting something that they experienced or think they experienced which is one of the fundamental problems with uh trying to measure DGUs. I'm sorry I'm going on too long about this. >> Um do you have any comment on the question professor Spitzer's answer Aaron? >> Uh no I think he answered it well. >> Baseball bats. Okay. Uh yeah. Um uh all right. Uh first uh question uh we don't want to know who you are. We don't know want to know what you think. We only want to know what your question is and if it's directed to one party or the other. >> Great. My question is for Professor Spitzer specifically. How do you reckon with the issue that the government that has a monopoly over coercion, guns, and violence would be the party taking and enforcing gun laws against its citizens and the potential threats that has for authoritarian regimes and etc. >> I'm sorry I didn't I didn't catch that completely. Uh did you catch that question, Professor >> part? Uh >> I can sorry >> seem to be what? >> Yeah. The question was essentially how do you deal with the fact that governments have a monopoly on violence and the potential risk for authoritarianism if a government is able to disarm itself? >> Oh, I see. Yeah. Go ahead, Professor Spitzer. >> Well, yeah. In the law, in the legal tradition, governments do have a monopoly on the use of force. However, there are limits to how that force is to be used. That's why we have laws. That's why we have a constitution and the bill of rights. Um um and pe within the legal structure, the law makes allowance for people to exercise self-defense. I mean, if you're sitting at home and you're cleaning your gun and somebody bursts in and starts to pummel you and you feel that your life is in danger and you manage to turn your gun on the person and shoot the person dead. Sounds like a a case of self-defense. You've exercised a kind of a power of the state, a lethal power, but the government makes an allowance in the law that says if it's a legitimate case of self-defense, we're not going to, you know, put you in jail. There may be an investigation. that probably needs to be an investigation. But under the law, the principle of self-defense, which is not dependent on the Second Amendment, by the way, it goes back in the common law hundreds of years, um, makes allowance for people to use force, including lethal force, in defense of themselves and their property. So, the legal system takes allowance of that. And we have a system of laws that is designed to impose limits on governmental authority because governance is a sliding scale. It is not either there is governance or there is none. >> Uh any comment from you Aaron on the question or the answer? >> No thanks. >> Okay Aaron u next question. >> Hi uh for Dr. Spitzer as well. >> Uh for Dr. Spitzer please. Um given your assertion about uh the instrumentality, the weapons instrumentality and the uh effectiveness of guns, unique effectiveness of guns, uh how can you make your argument about pruning bushes and having a baseball bat as a means of defense for someone who's both presumably going to be taken by surprise and potentially has a physical uh disadvantage? Um well I didn't Could you summarize the question as you understood it professor and then answer it what's the question as you understood it >> what about >> I hit me again with it >> uh you talked about the importance of weapons instrumentality and uh why guns are so much more effective than everything else right in terms of suicide especially Uh given that when you talk about uh defensive use, nevertheless, you say that people should prune their bushes and get a baseball bat and I'm I'm struggling to think of how my elderly mother is going to defend herself with secretars. >> Well, because most crime does not involve guns. Only 20% of people who are in jail are there in connection with having used a gun in a crime. So the idea that to mention crime I suppose people think immediately some violent deranged armed predator and that is not a typical crime. I mean it's a serious crime and I don't mean I'm not minimizing or taking it light uh lightly. Um but there's an added problem which is that um studies have shown that when people are armed they're more likely If the uh okay in a public in in a public setting, not in a home, not in a private setting, but in a public setting like a demonstration, the instances in which violence escalates are greater when weapons are present than when weapons are not present. which is an additional sort of counter counterintuitive consequence of weapons, which is that you might think that if you have a gun, it kind of is an ultimate deterrent, but it often often has a reverse effect of escalating violence. Um, okay. Uh, any comment from you, Erin, on the question or the answer? Nope. >> Next question. I apologize. This is Dog Pile and Professor Spitzer. Um 45,000 gun deaths per year. There only about 17,000 homicides in the United States every year. A majority of those are um they use guns, but that's not the entirety of the 17,000. So, a lot of these gun deaths are suicides. Why should the way that somebody chooses to end their life have any uh effect on my rights? >> Question about suicide. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, be for several reasons. One is because as a society we abhore sub suicide. We do not condone it. It is in our law. It's in our moral traditions and our religious values that suicide is to be avoided, to be uh minimized. Uh that people who are suicidal uh be encouraged not to be suicidal. And indeed there's all sorts of evidence that shows that you can save people who are suicidal. And there is no inevit it it is relatively rare that it is inevitable that a person who contemplates suicide will proceed with the act. Um so and indeed there are the largest number of gun deaths annually is gun suicides not homicides. So m make that point. Um but uh there's no inevitability to it. It is something that we abhore as a society. I mean that's I think that's ingrained in our values. I think that's the right uh value to have. It's reflected in our law and our moral beliefs. Um and yes uh society can act and can act effectively to reduce that number. >> Any comment from you Aaron uh on the question or the answer? >> Yes. Yes. Um >> yes. Good. >> I just want to make a general point about the first three questions. They're all libertarian questions. all of which I agree with the questioners. But I'm not just a libertarian. I also believe in democracy and I know the vast majority or at least a solid majority of my fellow citizens are not libertarian. Um and I want to rest my case on even people who are not libertarian I believe should oppose uh restrictions on adult possession of guns. that yes, in a libertarian world we wouldn't have them, but even if you're just adding up lives, greatest good of the greatest number, I don't think they make sense. >> Okay. Uh, next question. Um, so Clark and Mayhew did a criminology research study and they published a paper that showed coupling theory, which is that human behavior is tied to specific tangible environments rather than just their internal urges and drives. And when they removed carbon monoxide from the gas systems in Britain, they saw like 40% I think drop in suicide rates. How is guns any different? By logic of coupling theory, if you remove that tool, then you are removing the source and the results would be dropped in suicide rate and gun violence. By every logic, it should be like applicable. It's human behavior. >> You're you're asking about suicide. >> I'm asking about coupling theory to Aaron if he thinks that it would be applicable and if not, why not? Why is this different? >> Um, did you understand the question? >> I I did and I'm really >> Would you summarize it and then answer it? >> She's asking if coupling theory uh which is as I understand it and I'm I'm just repeating the question. I'm not familiar with it that it uh that that it holds that human behavior is influenced by uh the conditions by the externalities and so having a gun might cause you or or make you more likely to commit suicide. having carbon monoxide as a means of killing yourself might make it more likely. Um, I don't see how that's relevant to adult prohibitions. I understand that yes, if you take away the tools that people might behave differently, but I I think Dr. Spitzer's argument is even even if they don't, even if people try to do the same things, uh, without the tools, they'll be less effective at it. Uh, >> comment from you, Dr. Spitzer. Okay, next question. My question is for Dr. Spitzer. You talked about the predictability of mass shooters. In retrospectively, it's true. I think the number is about 80% showed signs that they would do such a thing. But what percentage of people that showed signs they would commit mass shootings didn't go on to do such mass shootings? >> With respect to ma question about mass shootings. >> Yeah. In other words, if the the the subset of instances where somebody expressed some kind of uh uh desire to perhaps commit a mass shooting but then didn't proceed. In other words, yeah, I mean there are cases like that and there are cases of people who are that are adjudicated uh and where persons are found. There was a case in Courtland, New York about six years ago. Was a high school kid. He was around, I think he was 18. And he posted things on the internet that caused somebody to call the police. The police came and got him and they charged him with contemplating a mass crime. Um, but ultimately they found that the evidence wasn't strong enough that what his writing fell into an area of free speech and did not cross a line as to pose direct action. I mean, there's a difference between, you know, uh, sort of ruminating as people do on the internet, boy, you know, I wish those people would go away. I wish, uh, something bad would happen to those people versus saying, I'm going to get my gun and go to the post office on Thursday and kill a bunch of people. Um, there's a difference between those two kinds of threats. And the reason we have a judicial system and police officers with discretion is to try and discern, you know, legitimate instance legitimate threats from those that are impulsive, that are, you know, there's no follow through. It's not always an easy call, but you would, it's good to have the investigation, I think. >> Uh, any comment from you, uh, Erin? >> Yeah, I' I'd like to draw an important distinction here. Uh, extreme risk protection orders, mass shooting predictions, things like that. I don't object to full legal proceedings with full due process uh in which people are adjudicated dangerous and and kept from any dangerous things. We don't allow them we might you know institutionalize them where they can't have knives, they can't have explosives, anything like that. The problem is I feel that an awful lot of these laws in practice are not uh the rights of the accused are not fully respected. they don't get full due process and they're designed and run more to harass legitimate gun owners than they are to actually prevent the things they need to prevent. But if we could if we could reliably predict that somebody had an 80% chance of being a mass shooter or even a 10% chance in a full proceeding full due process uh uh full court proceeding full rights uh I would not personally object to that. >> Next question. Thank you both so far for an excellent conversation. Uh for Mr. Brown, understanding from your opening statement about the low quality of evidence that's available and thinking to the resolution about Al says until there is convincing evidence so on and so forth. Um, how would you elegantly say that we could get to a point to determine whether there is convincing evidence on either side of the of the question uh such that we can make a determination versus just saying that there are potential confounders or just that the evidence is crap. >> Okay. Uh oh, sorry. The question is uh how we'll know when we have convincing evidence. Uh first place, I don't expect it to be all one-sided. I would expect like with stop and frisk, we would find that there are some effective policies that can be done. Uh hopefully they could be designed in a way that don't interfere with constitutional rights. But if they do interfere, I know that the majority of my fellow citizens would happily erode rights away for some reduction in violence and and I accept democracy. I would go along with that. I would redirect my efforts. If we could get rid of 95% of the harm from these laws and actually have effective laws, I would put my attention on foreign military adventures or the war on drugs or mass surveillance or other things that are more uh pertinent. Um I think the answer is look at stop and frisk. Look what happened. Uh the big thing was uh people demanded it. Right now there's no demand for good gun research, right? The people who want gun control, they can get it without research. They don't need evidence. uh the people who are against it like me, we base our argument on rights. We don't base it on effectiveness. Once you discover that you need evidence, a federal judge is going to decide. Uh you have to convince a federal judge. Then we saw the research blossomed in all kinds of fields where where it was being done. It wasn't, you know, when you actually look at what happened here, it wasn't that people did new studies. It's suddenly people started hearing. There's a lot of good research. We know a lot about violence. We know a lot about crime. Uh but it's locked away in fields that never make it to courtrooms that never make it to legislatures. I looked at the uh Raheem decision uh the most recent major Supreme Court uh decision. I looked at the citations. Uh yes, yes, there were briefs that had criminologists and economists who signed. But when you actually looked at the evidence for gun control has positive goods, it was all from the same few public health journals. It was all with overlapping authors using the same two data sets. Uh the AMA brief had no evidence at all. It had physician stories and it had some citations from advocacy groups. >> So we need to get the information that we know. We need to get it out there. We need to get it into legislatores and courtrooms. >> Oh. Um let me press the question if I may. Um, could you could you uh sketch out uh what you would regard as a study uh that you would find convincing that gun uh laws produce net harm? How would how would that study briefly be done if you were to find it convincing? What procedures would be followed? >> Okay. Well, no one study is going to do it. What I would like to see, well, what I would like to see is within a number of different fields, within economics, within criminology, uh, within political science, law, philosophy, I would like to see a consensus developed, a series of studies looking at things, not people who go out to prove gun control is good, but people who go out to understand crime, to understand psychology and human behavior. And I would like to see those. I would like to see the foreseeable victims explicitly considered, interviewed, quantified. I'd like to know about them. Uh, this is what would build it up and it would take years. It would take 10 years. It took for stop and frisk. I think it would take 10 years for gun control. >> You say for a foreseeable victim is is who of >> is the woman who's uh has a homicidal ex partner. Oh. Who might be a victim of a of a of a gun crime. Yes. Uh uh, Professor Spitzer, would you like to address that question? >> Yeah. uh he was mentioning the Raheem decision from the Supreme Court from 2024 I think. Um this was a case of a challenge to the federal law that says if you're under a domestic violence restraining order you can have guns taken away. And it was a guy named Raheem I think in Texas who you know discharged a weapon in a fast food restaurant who threatened to kill his girlfriend who dragged her around by the hair. I mean the a series of pretty reprehensible things. And who is arguing that there's a problem with people who threaten their domestic partners with violence and indeed exhibit violence um should not have their guns taken away? I mean, I you I don't know how much research uh uh uh Mr. Brown would like to see on that, but I'm persuaded. I mean, ask any woman. Um that's persuasive enough for me. >> Uh next question. >> Uh my question is for Dr. Spitzer, you shared a statistic in one of your arguments that said that because of the like more gun control laws in Connecticut, let's say, there was a net reduction of harm um or like gun- rellated harm. But can't this be attributed to the fact that Connecticut is a wealthier state than Alabama? So then because of that, wealthier states do have less crime, which is the cause of the um lesser gun harm. >> Yeah. Yeah. you you make a very good raise a very good question. Here's the thing. Uh uh crime and gun violence is multi-causal. There are many causes to violence. Um and there are many factors just as you're suggesting, some of which I mentioned in my original presentation. It's not solely the presence of guns. However, it's possible in studies to hold other factors constant. It's a it's a question that's been studied extensively. And if guns disappeared tomorrow, it's not as though there would be no violence or if everybody had guns, uh well, that would change the picture, I think, appreciably. But uh in terms of the explanation for these overall rates, guns play an inordinately great uh uh they are an an inordinately great explanatory factor. I mean, you're right. It's multi- there are many causes. That is absolutely correct. But that's and that's part of the complexity of studying human behavior uh social science and then presenting lawmakers with the question of okay what are we going to do given imperfect knowledge uh we summon the best we can do and in terms of studies yeah I think the studies there are many studies and I think they're ultimately persuasive that uh that gun ownership is a key factor explaining the differential levels of violence between the among the 50 states. >> Uh coming from you Aaron. >> Yeah, I want to go back to something I said the the 17% change in murder rates when there's no change in laws. The fraction of 1% possible effect of a gun control law. Uh we don't control we can't explain until we can explain the 17% until somebody can predict next year's murder rate in a state within 1% or so. Uh the evidence isn't there. And another point I didn't mention is the correlation between states and the national rate is quite low. So when you're comparing Connecticut to Alabama or comparing two states, uh there's almost no correlation between them. So you you you can't explain things that way. Uh you may have a paper that uh claims that it's controlled for all those things and as a result uh I don't believe it. >> Next question. So, I have a question that's a little bit out of the box. Comes from my daughter asking me to ask this question. In recent US history, are the rates of the use of guns for the purposes of murder, defense, or suicide significantly different between men and women? I've heard that men account for the vast majority, more than 85% of all gun related deaths in the United States, driving a massive statistical disparity across all three categories. And if there is a dramatic difference, would this meet the legal hurdle known as intermediate scrutiny and justify more severely limiting gun ownership by men? >> Um, let me uh >> since Dr. Professor Spitzer, since so many questions were addressed to you, but let me let Aaron go first on that. >> Well, I I I I don't know the statistics here. Dr. Spitzer might, and I certainly don't know the law about intermediate scrutiny. I will say this, though. Uh men commit most of the crimes. Men commit uh uh you know, men get killed uh more more than women. But if we're going to make this an issue, a battle of the sexes, I have to say that I think gun possession is much more important for women than men. The average man can kill the average woman without a gun. The average woman needs a gun to defend herself against the average man. >> Um, Professor Chris, your comment. >> You said it was your daughter, right? She asks a trenchant question. Yeah. um overwhelming majority of crime, especially a violent crime committed by men, committed by young men in particular. And in fact, if young more if the most violent prone young men can survive, they outgrow for the most part that you know that violence ethos of the younger years. Um, and in terms of meeting intermediate scrutiny, uh, uh, boy, I like the idea, but there's no way in hell that'll ever go. >> Thank you. >> Uh, next question. >> Hi, my question is a little bit similar. It's for Mr. Brown. So, it's in regards to regional or more so racial gun protections. We know that 53% of all inschool firearm events are by young black adolescents. 60% of all even non-lethal firearm events are by black people. So my question is uh in these communities should we argue for stricter regulation? Would you be in support of that? And you know how would we convince these communities if beneficial to be in support of that themselves? >> Um I didn't quite did you understand that question? >> Yes. Yes. Could we could you summarize it as you understand sort of >> that that given the uh statistical prepoundonderance of uh of of problems in schools and in with with guns and and outside schools in black neighborhoods, black schools? Uh could we have tighter regulation? Uh I'm not going to answer the specific question is posed because it really is beyond what I know. I certainly would have a, you know, gut reaction against laws that explicitly uh put race in. But I will say that micro policing does work. The general philosophy that you tailor the policing strategies to specific uh neighborhoods and groups does seem to work. Uh I don't know if anybody has specifically studied tighter gun regulation in uh high crime neighborhoods. that would be much more comfortable to me than uh doing it by race, but it it probably would work. I would tend to not ex, you know, not support it on pure libertarian grounds, but I would expect the vast majority of people would support it if it could be shown to work and and and similar kinds of strategies have been shown to work. >> Uh, Professor Spitzer, you want to comment? >> Yeah, there's kind of two parts here. One is the gun trafficking problem and th this is squarely something that police have have spent an enormous amount of effort at trying to stem. uh it began actually in an organized way with Mayor Bloomberg uh 20 plus years ago and uh met with some success despite the fact that the federal government wasn't very helpful because it's an interstate you know interstate commerce problem and there are no really strict federal laws about gun trafficking that are of very much help. Um but the other part of this that is effective is uh community violence uh intervention programs and indeed uh the previous presidential administration provided important funding for that and those programs are demonstrably successful. I mean, where people are in the communities and it's not money spent to legislate. It's it's money to get people to organize to, you know, go into neighborhoods, talk to people to deescalate violence and uh uh potentially violent interactions. Those programs sadly have been cut in terms of federal funding. I'm I'm sure states I'm sure here in New York there's state funding, but that though are those are demonstrabably effective at at getting at that very problem. >> Thank you. >> Uh thank you. Next question. >> So I've noticed that most of the discussion so far is about uh data and quantifying the crime, the number of homicides. Uh my question is if you believe that self-defense is a fundamental human right, not to sound callous, but isn't that data irrelevant? like is there a number of accidental deaths or homicides that would negate the right of a smaller weaker person to defend against a physically larger person? And really quick, a related point is many would argue that the second amendment is not about self-defense. It's about a bull work against government tyranny. Uh I think both those have in common is that the number of homicides, however tragic and however much we should try to reduce them, is irrelevant. I mean interesting in terms of policy but in terms of actually infringing on rights there should not really be any number or I would argue that they should not affect that. I'm curious what both of you think about that. You you you repeat your so what is your question briefly >> if yeah >> do you think that the >> data is irrelevant if on both a human rights ground with self-defense being a fundamental to immigrant rights if you both believe that I think you do I'm not sure if if you share that and also uh with regards to as a bull work against government tyranny if you subscribe to >> self-defense is a human right uh could you address that questionnaire and summarize it as you understand it Sure. So, uh, first of all, is there a fundamental human right to self-defense? I can't see any argument. If you don't have the right to defend yourself, none of your other rights mean anything because somebody can just kill you. Um, however, uh, and I think this is I don't think that makes the data irrelevant if you believe in democracy as well, and I do. I think I I don't feel I have the right to oppose my libertarian beliefs on everyone else. And I know the vast majority of people would happily you know have that right eroded you know uh uh away if it could make them safer and uh as you know so I do think the data irrelevant because uh I think that with data we can reduce you know as with stop and frisk we can get rid of 96% of the harm and we can actually get things that are effective and then there's lots and lots of other things for libertarians to spend their energy on uh I don't worry about I you know I I I try to look for the things where there's some chance of success and and great harm. I no longer spend any energy worrying about stop and frisk. >> Uh uh answer from you, Professor Spitzer. I >> I would just say that self-defense is certainly a basic right, but there are many basic rights. Uh and the complexity uh the complexity of governance is uh producing policies that take account of uh the manifold basic rights that people have and that they want to exercise and to try and reconcile them when they if they come into conflict or where they seem to to um uh well contradict each other in some way. But uh there are many fundamental rights, basic rights and I think self personal direct self-defense is not that high on the hierarchy compared in terms of how people live their daily lives. >> Next question. >> All right, this should be a fun one. I might be last, too. Um question for you from the anthropological angle. And this is for you, uh Professor Spitzer. At some point during the talk you kind of handwaved like oh well unless your argument is oh I just want a gun and you kind of wave that aside. But if you stop for a second and take that proposition seriously that most people who maybe argue for more gun rights start from the place of just wanting a gun and then they come up with arguments to justify that in a room of academics and rational people. But if you take for a second the the argument that the reason why people want something maybe beyond these arguments about statistics, about harm reduction, about utilitarianism, what do you how do you speak to that or do you have any research that actually speaks to this sort of like deeper reality that we're all maybe glossing over? >> Well, you're right that a lot of people Well, I mean, I couldn't put a number on it, but certainly many people buy guns because they just want to have a gun. Um, but you know, I want a bazooka. I want a shoulder fired stinger missile. Um, you know, I want and fill in the blank. Um, it's it kind of leads you rapidly to the question of what actually it is you're talking about. And the thing about guns that we have lots of things in our lives that are dangerous. An automobile, you know, is dangerous. uh although gun deaths now exceed auto deaths every year on the highways in part thanks to the public health community helping to bring down uh automobile deaths. Um but automobiles are fundamental to our to the uh the commerce the intercourse of the nation economic uh social etc. Um and owning a gun is consequential. It's important it's not a trivial decision. If you talk to gun owners, I'm sure there are, you know, gun owners here in the audience. Uh, any serious gun owner knows that to own his own a gun is a serious sober matter. Uh, a gun is to be treated with respect. You have to you should know how to use it, how to uh uh how to take care of it, uh how to maintain it. You should know the basic rules about storage. uh if you're going to carry it, you should have systematic training and maintain that training. Um and it's people who pay little attention to those things who can too easily find their guns to be stolen, lost, scooped up by a kid, um uh grabbed by a suicidal relative. that can result in in uh harm that has no compensation to simply on the other side kind of saying well it's I kind of want it. Um it's an awesome responsibility and anybody who owns a gun who doesn't treat it as an awesome responsibility I think should rethink whether they should own a gun ju just in terms of their personal belief system. >> Uh coming from you Aaron. Yeah, I' I'd kind of answer that with a personal story. I own guns. I uh hunt. I uh you know, take them to the gun range. Uh and uh this is mostly in rural Pennsylvania I'm talking about. There are public gun ranges that are in the state parks and uh there's no staff. Um one person is designated or self-desates as the range master and sets the rules. The people are very knowledgeable about the guns. uh many come teach their children there and it's a really inspiring if you you know if you went there and you hung around there you would think boy every gun owner is responsible and knowledgeable and uh and and careful and they help each other and it's really great you feel great about all these gun owners and then sometimes I have to go to a a commercial range where I pay and most of the customers there seem to be uh people who just want to you know blast away with some uh uh you know, overpowered gun that they don't know how to use it. You know, it's it's scary. You go to YouTube on something like gun range fails or something and you can you you think nobody should have a gun. They're incredibly dangerous. Everybody who has one is an idiot. And they're only there because they like the sound. They like to, you know, see what duplicate what they see on TV and the movies. And by the way, the worst thing about guns, if you know, if you get your idea about guns from TV, in the movies, you know, absolutely all the wrong stuff. Um, if I were an authoritarian and I could take guns away from those people, you know, I would I would I would do it in a minute. It is it my libertarian principles prevent it. But, uh, yeah, those people in any rational common sense things should not have guns. Um, and I think you find the same thing everywhere. You find, yeah, you find drunk hunters and you find most most hunters I know are, you know, very responsible both in terms of their guns and in terms of their environmental feelings. But yeah, there are some drunk people in the woods. There are some idiots in the uh uh woods out there. Uh and it just comes down to how you feel about it. I feel you have to take rights and and even idiots have rights. Uh other people feel no, we should all be safe. And if that means taking away guns from the responsible people to keep them out of the hands of the idiots, uh that's okay. That just a basic philosophical choice. >> Um okay, we have a final question. >> Final question. Go ahead. >> Last one. >> Um, this is I guess kind of going off what you all just said about the sort of serious and non-serious gun owners. Um, I wonder if you think there's room for policy because I I'm curious about like the particular policy kinds of things. Um, to distinguish between the serious and the sort of, oh, I want to go get a gun for the weekend and go shoot it and so I'm going to go buy one. Um because in in the sort of gun circles that I kind of uh frequent, I guess, um it's always this thing, oh, I went through the whole process. I got fingerprinted. I did the whole thing, you know, 6 months later, 7 months later, sometimes eight months later, I'm finally certified. I go to buy my gun. I do I did all the right things. I did all the training. I spent years shooting it and now I got to do it again for another gun. And it's a whole another process again. Um, and it seems like there should be a way to distinguish between those people who really care and like this is maybe part of their culture or they're serious about these kinds of things. They take it very seriously and sort of the other kinds of people. And I wonder if there if if either of you think there's room in policy for that or if that's kind of the baggage you have to take on for kind of restrictive uh gun regulations. >> I think that's a challenge for you Erin. So would you take the question? Okay. Well, uh, I I I I said this about, uh, red flag laws. I'm going to say it again about gun training laws. Uh, those are some of the least objectionable in principle laws that, uh, people should take a course in gun safety. And in fact, uh, you know, I would recommend anybody who owns a gun take the NRA uh, gun safety course. Uh, the trouble is when they pass the laws, they really seem to be designed more to discourage and harass gun owners. uh they often have courses that are, you know, offered infrequently at inconvenient times. Uh there's lots and lots of classroom lecture about uh philosophy and uh not a lot of the sort of hands-on training in NRA gun course or even if you just go to a gun range and and you know uh get the instructor's uh 10-minute version, you know, that that that does a lot. So, uh, yeah, I do think we could have policies that helped people be more responsible gun owners, uh, without the coercion. >> Uh, answer comment from you, Dr. Spencer. >> Yeah, I I have a concealed carry permit. I went through the process here in New York State, uh, oh, 10 years ago or so. Um, and the NRA runs those courses. I mean I I don't know that every course is run by a certifi NRA certified person but I'd be surprised if there are many that are not. Um the thing is in order to obtain uh competence and re and assure that that people who have guns have some degree of competence you you know it leaves you with enacting a rule to that effect. And if a person already has con extensive experience, a police officer for example, who carries a gun as part of the job, um it would be less burdensome. But um the whole point is that yeah, you want to establish some kind of standard for something that has such a awesome uh power and consequence where a very small mistake uh with a firearm can lead to a very catastrophic result. Both our debaters are apparently gun owners. Um uh we are now uh going to go to the summary portion of the evening. Uh the affirmative goes first. Three minutes of summary for you. Aaron, you can take the podium if you'd like. Uh take it away, Aaron. Most people go through some tough times in their lives. tragedy, disappointment, persistent sadness, life doesn't seem worth living. Have you ever wondered why these people seek out psychotherapists and not surgeons? Earlier, I talked about the four characteristics of public policy. And there's one other field that shares them, and that's surgery. Surgery, like public policy, just counts deaths. Uh surgeon wants to see your MRI, your X-ray. She doesn't need to know about your what kind of person you are. Both of them are exempt from the normal rules. Public health can ignore human rights. Surgeons can cut people open with knives, which is a serious criminal offense for anyone who isn't a surgeon. Both of them look for targets. Uh public health for a toxin or a pathogen, a surgeon for a tumor or a or an infected organ. And the solution in both cases is to remove it uh to get rid of whatever the thing is. So why don't uh surgeons handle emotional issues? Well, we know what happens when the cutting tools are applied to mental issues. It's called a lobotomy. The lobotomy had many distinguished supporters. We had tens of thousands of procedures. It even got a Nobel Prize. In fact, it had everything except evidence it was effective and consideration of foreseeable victims. Gun control is the lobotomy of public policy. Three minutes of of summary from you. Uh, Professor Spitzer, take it away. The most important purpose of government is to protect the lives, health, and safety of its people. That is why the thousands of gun laws enacted in our country's first 300 years were viewed as perfectly compatible with gun rights. America is and always has been a gun-owning nation. It is only in the last 30 years or so that the two have been pitted against each other. It's a symptom of our politics. Interestingly, when you speak to gun owners, they mostly agree with the public at large about gun laws. The very point we were getting to a little while ago, for example, 90% of Americans favor universal background checks for all gun purchases. So do 80% of gun owners. 72% of the public support requiring gun purchasers to get a license from the police first. So do 61% of gun owners. And there are lots of others questions like that. Evidence does and should matter in making public policy. There's all kinds of contemporary evidence that weapons laws are beneficial, logical, and contribute to a safer, and more just society, including 400 years of our very own experience. But there's no need for close empirical analysis to conclude that felons ought not to have access to firearms. Or that if you use a firearm in the commission of a crime, you should serve a tougher sentence. Or that people who are demonstrably homicidal or suicidal should not have access to guns. Or that a person who wants a gun should first learn something about its operation, maintenance, and use. Or that auto seers should be restricted, if you know what auto seers are. or that all firearms should have serial numbers. The very idea that these propositions are disputatious is a product of our contemporary political environment, not the Second Amendment's right to bear arms or actual evidence or rational policy consideration. Research on weapons and public policy should by all means continue. That does not mean that there is no evidence that gun laws reduce harm. Far from it. And remember that in governance the perfect is the enemy of the good. If you sit around waiting for the perfect data or the perfect solution, nothing will happen. Policymakers must make policy based on information available to address the problems of their of the day. That's their job. Regarding tonight's debate proposition, there is overwhelming evidence that gun laws have been and are useful and effective, contradicting tonight's proposition's future tense. That is, we don't have to look for evidence in the future that uh it proposes does not exist because the evidence is all around us. But some of the gun laws ideas, gun law ideas I've discussed tonight do not require evidence beyond the lived experiences and judgment of American society and its leaders. The essence of governance is striking a reasonable balance between freedom and order. Gun laws help society strike that balance. Thank you very much. >> Thank you both. Okay, good. Please sit down. We're not through, guys. All right. I have uh Lucas, please open the voting. Uh I have in my hand the sole form to roll that goes to the winner uh of the Oxford style voting. You are voting now yes, no or undecided on the resolution. Until there is convincing evidence that government imposed that government imposed gun control brings a net reduction in harm, all legal restrictions on adult possession of guns should be abolished. Yes, no, or undecided on that resolution. While you are deliberating, let me again invite you all uh even if you didn't buy a ticket to the afterparty. Both of our debaters will not be lingering on stage to chat with you. They will be escorted uptown a couple of blocks uptown to the loft apartment where delicious food is awaiting you plus enlightening conversation both about guns and anything else. Uh we want to discuss at our afterparty. That's at >> armed escort. >> Excuse me. >> Armed escort. >> Uh there will be no armed escort unless uh these unless unless these two guys are packing. We don't know. But but um uh that is at 55 Great Jones Street. and a number of people probably just follow the debaters because friend of mine is going to escort them up to where the uh party will be. Uh meanwhile again I know Lucas is going to signal to me once the voting is in. Uh I will take the opportunity to tell you that of course we do a debate every month. Uh the next debate will be Wednesday, September 9th in this venue and the resolution will read as a means of gaining leverage in economic and political relations with foreign governments. Trump's tariff policies have brought net benefits. Defending that resolution will be Steven Moore. Opposing will be Scott Lindum. On Thursday, October 8th, again in this venue, uh the resolution will read, "Mayor Zoran Mandami's housing policies will make housing more affordable for most New York City residents." That resolution will be defended by Emily Eisner. Opposed will be Kenny Burgos. Oh, we also have a special event planned uh on November 19th. By pure coincidence, that happens to be my 82nd birthday. But we won't be we won't be there to celebrate my birthday. However, we will be announcing a very exciting uh debate that will be held coincidentally on the day of my birthday. Uh, so I hope that the the two events that I just listed are on sale right now. It turns out that the event about Mam Donnie is selling out pretty quickly. So I urge you to rush uh to your to the website thesoulform.org, hit the donate button, of course, and then buy uh tickets uh to both of those debates. The November debate will be announced pretty shortly and be advertised on our website. Uh Lucas, how are we doing on the vote? Oh, are you ready? Okay, now I'm supposed to look at my text messages and um give me a moment. Um my text messages. Uh yeah, there they are. Okay. All right. Um Okay. Uh all right. Um wow. Okay. Um uh the the resolution the yes vote went from 25% to 32.5% and it picked up 7.5 points. The no vote went from 51.25% to 5750% and it picked up 6.25 points. So while it was an extremely close race, the uh solo form Tootsie Roll is now tossed at Aaron Brown. Congratulations. Very close.