Beyond the Second Amendment: Why Complete Gun Ownership Ban Would Be Unfeasible

It is often argued that the Second Amendment is the sole reason for the United States' inability to completely ban gun ownership. However, this viewpoint overlooks other compelling arguments that question the feasibility of such a ban. This article explores the social utility of gun ownership and the logistical infeasibility of an outright ban.

Social Utility Argument

When discussing the need to ban gun ownership after a tragic incident, the focus often narrows to the deaths caused by gun violence. However, this perspective is incomplete. The social utility of firearm ownership is widely underestimated. While the media and politicians frequently highlight the negative aspects of gun ownership, they rarely address the positive benefits, particularly in terms of legal self-defense.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are approximately 500,000 to 3,000,000 incidents of legal self-defense in the U.S. each year. These incidents involve the use of firearms to prevent or apprehend crimes such as homicide, rape, or grave bodily harm. This equates to about 1,300 to 8,200 lives saved daily. Comparing this to the number of fatalities in mass shootings, the benefit of legal self-defense is not just close—it overwhelmingly outweighs the costs.

Estimating the Social Utility Impact

Another way to estimate the social utility of firearms is by considering the victimization rate of a particular firearm. For example, there are an estimated 15 million AR-15 pattern rifles in circulation. Out of these, only one made the news and was used to cause harm, while the rest were not used in any criminal activities. This gives us a ratio of 1 in 15 million. The idea that such a significant number of firearms are not used for harm is a testament to the social utility and safety provided by legal gun ownership.

Feasibility of Banning Guns

Even if we overlook the Second Amendment and focus solely on the logistical challenges, the issue of banning private gun ownership becomes overwhelming. Assuming we could overcome all legal and constitutional hurdles, we still face substantial practical obstacles.

Logistical Challenges

One of the primary challenges is the lack of a national gun registry. Federal law prohibits the creation of such a registry. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) could try to gather information from firearm dealers, but this approach would be fraught with issues. Moreover, even if a new registry were created, it would face the same challenges as the New York SAFE Act, which attempted to create an “assault rifle” registry but only managed to register 4 out of the estimated number of rifles.

Assuming we could identify all guns with a perfect registry, the next step would be to confiscate and destroy them. If we define a standard buyback rate of $1000 (which is much lower than the market value of many firearms), we would need between $300 to $600 billion for the buyback alone. This is an astronomical amount of money, and we have no clear path to obtain it without the burden falling on taxpayers, which would be politically unfeasible.

Law Enforcement Capacity

Even if we could find a way to spend the equivalent of the annual Medicaid budget on collecting private guns, the question remains: Who would do it? According to the SAFE Act data, only a minority of gun owners would voluntarily surrender their firearms. This means that the majority would need to be retrieved by law enforcement. However, there are only about one million law enforcement officers in the U.S., many of whom are support staff. With around 110 million gun owners, it would be impossible for law enforcement to retrieve a significant number of firearms without diverting them from their primary duties of protecting and serving the community.

Conclusion

The social utility argument and the logistical challenges outlined above demonstrate that a complete ban on gun ownership is neither practical nor feasible. While the Second Amendment undoubtedly plays a role, the social benefits of legal gun ownership and the practical difficulties of enforcing a ban make it a complex issue that cannot be solved with simple policies.