http://lawreview.law.wfu.edu/documents/issue.43.837.pdfINTRODUCTION
Gun control in the United States generally has meant some type
of supply regulation. Some rules are uncontroversial like usertargeted
restrictions that define the untrustworthy and prohibit
them from accessing the legitimate supply.1 Some have been very
controversial like the District of Columbia’s recently overturned law
prohibiting essentially the entire population from possessing
firearms.2 Other contentious restrictions have focused on particular
types of guns—e.g., the now expired Federal Assault Weapons Ban.3
Some laws, like one-gun-a-month,4 target straw purchases but also
constrict overall supply. Various other supply restrictions operate
at the state and local level. Proposals for stricter gun control
typically involve expansion of supply controls toward the goal of
bringing the U.S. rate of gun crime down to the levels of other first tier
industrialized nations—places where background conditions
along with supply-side restrictions have resulted in dramatically
lower inventories of guns than in the United States.
None of these measures have been particularly successful and,
upon reflection, have been somewhat peculiar. We have pressed
supply-side rules at the margin—e.g., with prospective limits on
supply and restrictions on obscure categories of guns—all while
denying that disarmament is the ultimate goal.5 This recipe for gun
control has yielded disappointing results.
Stringent de jure supply restrictions actually have correlated
with higher levels of gun crime.6 This is not surprising. De jure
supply restrictions are not the same as de facto supply reduction.
Effective supply-side regulation requires earnest pursuit and
eventual achievement of an environment where the civilian gun
inventory, both legitimate and contraband, is very small (“the
supply-side ideal”). In the handful of municipalities that have
attempted true gun bans, supply has continued to meet demand
primarily because the existing inventory of guns is vast, and people
have real world incentives to defy gun bans.7 These two phenomena,
elaborated here as the “remainder problem” and the “defiance
impulse,” have confounded supply restrictions for decades.
....
II. CHALLENGES TO THE SUPPLY-SIDE IDEAL
Erring on the high side, there are around 13,000 gun homicides
in the United States each year.19 Suicides with a firearm add
another 17,000 deaths.20 If there were only 30,000 private guns in
America, and we knew where they were, it would be easy to imagine
mustering the political will to confiscate those guns and ban new
ones. If our borders were reasonably secure against illegal imports
and contraband guns could not be manufactured domestically, we
would expect dramatic reductions in gun crimes, accidents, and
suicides.
But our problem is different. The guns used in our roughly
30,000 annual gun deaths are drawn from an inventory approaching
300 million.21 This is far more guns than the countries in any of the
cross-cultural comparisons—22 far more private guns than any other
country ever.23 Americans own close to half the private firearms on
the planet.24 Plus, our borders are permeable, and guns and
ammunition are relatively easy to manufacture. So achieving the
supply-side ideal is not just a matter of channeling enough outrage
to finally get the right words enacted into law.
....
CONCLUSION
Without a commitment to or capacity for eliminating the
existing inventory of private guns, the supply-side ideal and
regulations based on it cannot be taken seriously. It is best to
acknowledge the blocking power of the remainder and adjust our
gun control regulations and goals to that reality. Policymakers who
continue to press legislation grounded on the supply-side ideal while
disclaiming the goal of prohibition are deluded or pandering
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