Fred Vars, a coauthor of mine (for example, here and here) has a launched a website, StopGunSuicide.com, to promote an idea that could save lives and enhance our second amendment rights.
It’s also elegantly simple:
People should have the right to add their names to national “do not sell” list.
As the site explains:
Currently, before you can buy a gun from a dealer, the dealer must check to see if your name is on a national list of people prohibited from buying a gun (for example, convicted felons). This process usually takes just minutes and in most states, if you pass, you can immediately walk out with a gun.
Vars wants to give citizens the option to add their names to this list:
The voluntary and confidential sign-up process would include identity verification to avoid fraud and forgery. There would also be an option to change your mind and have your name removed from the list, with a one-week delay or after a judicial hearing for those who want greater protection.
The National “Do Not Call” Registry has been a huge expansion of liberty, enhancing our right to be left alone. But Vars’s idea is closer to the notion of state gambling self-exclusion registries that allow individuals to pre-commit not to gamble at casinos in the future. Problem gamblers who have moments of clarity have found it worthwhile to take action to prevent their future selves from acting badly.
It’s not surprising that the StopGunSuicide.com website has an image of Ulysses, with hands tied to the mast, resisting the temptation of the sirens:
The “do not sell (me guns)” idea is an analogous hands-tying commitment. About 20,000 people kill themselves with handguns every year. Some of these people might, during moments of clarity, opt out of the ability to buy guns. There is every chance that Vars’s registry could save hundreds of lives each year – without causing a huge new bureaucracy, but merely by supplementing the national list that already exists.
As a co-founder of stickk.com (and an author of Carrots and Sticks), I’m of course predisposed to like Vars’s idea.
But giving people the option of committing not to buy a gun is an idea that all freedom-loving Americans should embrace. The Bill of Rights is really a bill of options. We have the option to speak or be silent. We have the option to pray or not. We have the option to be left alone or associate with others. Rights - like options - are more valuable when you have the choice not to exercise them.
The same goes with the Second Amendment. The right to bear arms must certainly embrace the option not to bear them. And extending this right by giving citizens the right to pre-commit not to purchase firearms should be seen as enhancing our liberty. Vars’s proposal is one that every card-carrying libertarian should endorse. It’s the kind of voluntary gun control that even the NRA can support – especially as it comes with self-chosen methods for subsequently removing yourself from the list.
If this “do not sell” option sounds like a good idea, I urge you to join me in signing this petition urging Congress to adopt the proposal. You can learn more about the idea in Vars’s forthcoming law review article.
