Guns and roses

In late eighties and early nineties, one of my favorite bands was Guns 'N' Roses. But I'm writing not about them this time but about the terrible tragedy at Virginia Tech. It is a tragedy too hard for me to describe in words. What I want to focus on is guns. To be clear right off the bat, I'm completely sold on the idea that weapons such as guns should be extremely hard to get. Extremely tight gun control, if you will. And pre-empting my argument by saying it is a knee-jerk reaction is not going to alter the facts.

So let's look at the facts:

1. Guns are weapons meant to kill. And the fact is that guns do kill. What is the logical justification to possess a gun? Clearly it's not to dry hair! Then why must society be so accepting of a gun? And if gun is ok, why stop there? Why not small shoulder missiles and maybe other assorted military weapons. This is incredibly stupid. Yeah, I know there's the second amendment. But I believe it was a medieval extension to our constitution when systems and law enforcement were not in place like they are today. Today, who settles an argument using guns?!

2. All societies and indeed the states in the US that have the tightest gun control laws have the lowest level gun related crimes. This is a fact.

3. More than 90% of gun related deaths happen to be either homicides, suicides or accidents. Only about 2% of gun related deaths are for genuine self defense. Again, this is a fact. If one fine day we all wake up in a gun-free society, even this 2% figure would drop dramatically since there would be so few guns around!

The pro-guns lobby and NRA often cite an argument of deterrence. Today I even heard some nut argue on NPR about situations where some guns prevented other gun crimes. The argument is so ludicrous and so fundamentally flawed that I'm really dismayed at the argumentative incompetence of these otherwise smart people! Anybody familiar with basic Game Theory knows about Nash equilibria and the fact that there is always an inferior Nash equilibrium and a superior Nash equilibrium (NE). E.g. take the case of traffic rules, if everyone decided to disobey all traffic rules, it would be mayhem and all traffic would be in an inferior NE - accident rates will be high, speeds will be extremely slow and many, if not all, intersections would be gridlocked. Just see the inferior NE at work on Indian roads! Here in the US, we are in a superior NE at least as far as traffic is concerned. If everyone had a gun, we would, as a society, definitely end up in an inferior NE. Why, oh why would we, as a society, want to be a collection of gun-toting cowboys and condemn ourselves to a sub-optimal, anarchic existence of fear and distrust?