Quote of the Day

The question of firearm policy deserves better than slogans from either side. There are genuine costs associated with firearms. There are genuine benefits. Some can be measured reasonably well. Others are much less visible in government administrative records. Some empirical questions will probably remain disputed for a long time.

But one methodological principle should not be controversial: If you are going to conduct a social cost-benefit analysis, you have to count both costs and benefits.

Do not count the criminal shooting and ignore the defensive display. Do not count the completed homicide and ignore the crime that never occurred. Do not count every misuse of a firearm while assuming every lawful possession has zero social value. And do not confuse disagreement over the precise magnitude of a benefit with evidence that the benefit does not exist.

Twelve years after I first wrote about the social utility of firearms, I would frame the issue somewhat differently. The evidence has become richer. Some of the arguments have become more complicated. And some claims deserve more caution than I gave them then.

But the fundamental point has held up remarkably well:

A society cannot intelligently decide what firearms cost while refusing to ask what they are worth.

Chuck Michel
November 3, 2026
The Social Utility of Firearms, Revisited – California Globe

Emphasis in the original.

But, of course, the gun control nuts will not discuss the topic in a fair manner. Lies and deception are a critical portion of their agenda. But pointing this out will encourage some people to think about it more carefully.

Michel also brings up this critical point. Shall not be infringed has no statistical threshold:

And Then There Is the Constitution

There is a final problem with treating gun policy as a conventional public-health cost-benefit exercise. The Constitution does not make the Second Amendment contingent on winning that exercise.

In District of Columbia v. Heller, Justice Scalia acknowledged the serious problem of handgun violence and the arguments supporting handgun prohibition. But the Court then said something that often disappears from today’s gun-policy debate:

“The enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.”

The Court did not say that social consequences are irrelevant to policymakers. It said that an enumerated right limits what government may do in response to them.

Bruen made the point even more explicit. Courts are not supposed to decide Second Amendment cases by making contemporary judgments about the “costs and benefits of firearms restrictions.” The Second Amendment itself reflects a judgment made by the people who adopted it.

That distinction matters enormously. I believe the social benefits of lawful firearm ownership are substantial and routinely underestimated. But the constitutional right does not disappear if a future academic study claims otherwise.

Free speech is not protected because economists have proved that offensive speech produces a positive net social return. The Fourth Amendment does not depend on demonstrating that warrants maximize public welfare. And the Second Amendment does not survive only so long as gun owners can win an actuarial debate.

Emphasis in the original.