America very obviously needs to make a change. Owning a gun should be significantly more difficult than owning a car: Our laws should require extensive training, the passing of a strict test, reasonable limits on what type of weapon one can own, insurance mandates, safety rules and regular checks of one’s mental health and physical abilities. If you can’t see well enough to drive a car, you can’t see well enough to responsibly own a firearm. …
In 1984, the Bernie Goetz case in New York City made headlines when Goetz shot four unarmed teenagers on the New York City subway after one approached him and either asked for or demanded $5. While all four teens survived, one was left paralyzed and with brain damage. Goetz claimed that he had been the victim of a previous violent robbery in a city beset by violent crime, and so his reaction to pull out a gun and fire was a reasonable one given his state of mind. It was an absurd argument, especially given the allegations of racist comments from Goetz. But a jury bought it. Goetz got off on the attempted murder and assault charges and was convicted only of gun charges. After the appeals process, Goetz ended up serving just eight months in prison.
But the case briefly captivated the public’s attention, in part because it raised crucial questions: When judging an individual’s actions as criminal or not, do we default to what that individual believed was reasonable? Or do we insist that there is some baseline standard of a reasonable person that, no matter the individual’s particular background or perspective, one should have to abide by? And how much force is too much to defend one’s property?
These are questions we continue to face. Do we want to live in a country where deadly force is wielded according to the judgment of people like Goetz or the three men who shot first in Missouri, New York and Texas? Or do we want to live in a county with laws and rules, where people can make honest mistakes and not pay for it with their lives?
Pro-gun conservatives continue to stress that most gun owners are responsible, reasonable and law-abiding. So it should be easy for them to prove it through a tough but fair licensing process. And when they behave irresponsibly with a weapon that they know full well was designed to kill, then we must hold them fully accountable – including with criminal charges and serious jail time. Truly reasonable, responsible and law-abiding people would accept no less.
— Jill Filipovic in The Reason Americans Are Getting Killed in Driveways
