The world is full of problems, and most people want government to solve these problems. When government solves problems, however, they usually create some new ones. If you’re lucky, the victims of the new problems are the very bad guys who created the original problems. Serves them right! Yet more often, the victims of the new problems are innocent bystanders. They’ve done nothing wrong; they’re just caught in the crossfire.
Like who? Let’s start with babies in Nazi Germany. The babies didn’t start the war. They’ve never hurt a fly. But it’s hard to kill the Nazis without putting the babies’ lives in grave danger.
You don’t have to be a pacifist to realize that this is a tragic situation. Imagine trying to justify it to the babies: “You’re totally innocent. I get that. But Nazism is so horrible that I’m going to put your lives in grave danger anyway. I’m so sorry. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.” This is an intellectually honest position, but oh so bitter. It’s far sweeter to invoke collective guilt, say “They had it coming,” and kill indiscriminately.
You might reply, “Well, the intellectually honest position is demotivating.” But that’s not quite true. Yes, acknowledging innocent bystanders demotivates indiscriminate killing. But it strongly motivates the search for an approach with lower collateral damage. Given humans’ ubiquitous in-group bias, this is a feature, not a bug.
Wartime naturally highlights the most gruesome abuse of innocent bystanders. But many peacetime policies have the same structure.
Take gun control. Suppose strict gun control would eliminate all mass shootings. Who could oppose such a policy? Most obviously, the vast majority of gun owners who never have and never will murder anyone. Gun control supporters will naturally be tempted to demonize them. The intellectually honest thing to say, however, is: “99.99% of you gun owners are perfectly innocent. I get that. But mass shootings are so horrible than I’m still going to take your guns away. I’m so sorry. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.” Demotivating? Well, it demotivates the promotion of strict gun control, but motivates the search for ways to reduce violence with lower collateral damage.
Or take refugee policy. Suppose banning all refugees would eliminate all terrorism. Who could oppose such a policy? Most obviously, the vast majority of refugees who are not and never have been terrorists. Opponents of asylum will naturally be tempted to demonize them (remember “rapefugees”?). The intellectually honest thing to say, however, is: “99.9999% of you refugees are totally innocent. I get that. But terrorism is so horrible that I’m going to refuse asylum anyway. I’m so sorry. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.” Intellectually honest? Check. Demotivating? Well, it demotivates indiscriminate rejection of refugees, but motivates the search for anti-terrorism tactics with lower collateral damage.
War, gun control, and refugees. I deliberately chose three radically different illustrations. I suspect that readers will angrily object to at least one of them. But I really don’t see how. Denying the existence of innocent bystanders is convenient; if they don’t exist, we don’t have to fret about them. Denying the existence of innocent bystanders is also pleasurable; what fun it is to unequivocally unleash your full arsenal against the forces of evil. Yet denying the existence of innocent bystanders is, above all, blind. Innocent bystanders exist. They have rights. You should think long and hard before violating them. And if you find no alternative, at least have the decency to tell them, “I’m so sorry.”
READER COMMENTS
Stewart Dompe
Jan 31 2019 at 11:45am
Now do it with abortion.
Chris Wegener
Jan 31 2019 at 4:23pm
Well said.
Thaomas
Jan 31 2019 at 6:21pm
Aimed in the right direction, but too simple. Let’s take:
“99.99% of you gun owners are perfectly innocent. I get that. But mass shootings are so horrible than I’m still going to take your guns away. I’m so sorry. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”
To begin with, the big problem with firearms are accidents and suicides, not mass shootings.
Second, almost no one proposes confiscating or even banning the sale of all firearms. Proposals are along the line of banning all sales of certain kinds of very lethal weapons (large magazine and or easily and quickly reloaded and rapid fire) plus various measures (like universal background checks) that might keep a few guns out to the hands of a few people (including with histories of domestic abuse?) who are most a risk for misusing them. Although not often proposed, a demonstrated knowledge and skill in using and safely storing the class of weapon being purchased — sort of like a driving license — makes sense to me.
Behind the decision of which kinds of weapons might be banned or purchase restricted (and how), lies a kind of implicit cost/benefit analysis the benefits or owning each type of weapon and the costs that THAT owner can do with the weapon * probability of doing it. Presumably different jurisdiction would make different judgement of the costs and benefits which would be very different in downtown Chicago and rural New Mexico.
Thomas Sewell
Jan 31 2019 at 10:38pm
You seem to be missing that the types of weapons which are used the most in mass shootings, virtually all regular old murders, accidents and suicides are pistols, yet somehow the “very lethal weapon” banning proposals you reference instead target weapons which look scary and are possessed by the political opponents of those proposing the bans.
This should make you much more skeptical of those proposed bans than you seem to be.
The cost/benefit analysis you discuss would also need to take into account the costs to the owner of no longer being allowed to protect themselves with that firearm.
Back in empirical reality, if you want to stop people being murdered, for example, then you’d need to target the gang members who do most of the murdering, rather than innocent people who just want to be able to protect themselves.
Butler T. Reynolds
Feb 1 2019 at 7:18am
“This should make you much more skeptical of those proposed bans than you seem to be.”
I think you missed the point. He’s also pro-immigration, BTW.
Fred_in_PA
Feb 1 2019 at 12:48pm
Please allow me to foolishly kick a hornets’ nest:
It seems widely accepted that, almost by definition, a sovereign holds a monopoly on the use of force. In a democracy, the people are to be sovereign. Thus the people — please note, the people themselves, not some (perhaps self-) appointed representative — must hold that monopoly.
Mao Zedong got it right when he said, “…: political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” (His mistake was in thinking that this power should be deployed in a civil war of one class against the others.)
The tragedy across so much of Central America (and Venezuela) is only possible because of tight gun-control laws. In this situation, only the rulers — through their armies (hence “legal”) — and the criminal gangs — through ignoring the law (hence “illegal”) — only the rulers and the gangs hold the guns and, hence, the power.
Even the existence of a registry of those who’ve passed a background check would permit a tyranny to round them up, should that time come. (Think of the Nazis and the Jews.)
The collateral damage / the innocent bystander to strict gun control may be democracy.
Of course, the collateral damage / the innocent bystander to an armed people will be those who fall victim to a mad neighbor (both senses of the word).
I understand that, until fairly recently, the Swiss required every able-bodied adult male to serve in the military, to have and to be trained in the use of military-grade weaponry, and to keep that weaponry quickly accessible in his home. Yet somehow, that armed-to-the-teeth society did not have the firearms violence we seem to suffer. How’d they do that ?!?!?
Chris
Feb 1 2019 at 2:57pm
I see a pretty big difference between the level of burden placed upon each of the bystander populations. I’m 100% with you on the war example. It sucks to be one of the many innocents in war. Really, most people are relatively innocent in most wars. Even soldiers are typically fighting for reasons beyond the dispute.
Gun control however is not nearly the same level of burden. At worst (repealed 2nd amend.), people lose their guns and the infinitesimally small level of safety they bring to defending their home (break ins into occupied homes are extremely rare). More likely based on any practical, constitutionally excepted laws, there will be more paperwork and possibly the expense of a lockbox and or license. Reductions in deaths versus paperwork seems like a pretty acceptable burden.
Immigration is approximately the opposite. We are currently preventing refugee and asylum seekers in the name of preventing the statistically small terrorist risk. In this case the burden on the innocents is disrupting and endangering their lives significantly beyond what was 2 years ago considered normal treatment. The only way to justify the irreparably harmful burden on innocents is to place a significantly lower value on the lives of non-citizens than citizens.
I generally agree with using burden as a criteria for judging policy, but you really have to look at it thoroughly and objectively.
Curious
Feb 1 2019 at 8:31pm
An armed citizenry offers no or little benefit . . . interesting.
Of course, the benefit-cost analysis could be run so that an armed citizenry is a net benefit despite its clear costs.
More significantly, though, economists’ benefit-cost analyses are not always–or are rarely–congruent with desirable curbs on the exercise of government power. For example, the U.S. constitutional prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures is wasteful. It increases the costs and time to find and round up the bad guys.
Economists’ benefit-costs analyses are indisputably valuable for private businesses when the businesses are evaluating financial options. But for evaluating government power, not so much.
Felix
Feb 2 2019 at 8:37pm
A much simpler example is ordinary court cases. Punish a criminal with a year in jail, or even just arrest which results in job loss, and the family suffers too.
“So sorry, kid, we had to upend your family because your father did something wrong. Please forgive us!”
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