In response to each mass shooting, Democrats usually propose gun control legislation while Republicans offer “thoughts and prayers” while blocking the Democrats as best they can.  Some years ago, Republican Senator John Kennedy said that “We do not need more gun control. We need more idiot control.” He then endeavored to make an argument by analogy to counter arguments for gun control. In this argument, Kennedy asserted that “…And I’m not trying to equate these two, but we have a lot of drunk drivers in America that kill a lot of people. We ought to try to combat that too. But I think what many folks on my side of the aisle are saying is that the answer is not to get rid of all sober drivers.”

Given what he said, he seemed to be comparing mass shooters with drunk drivers. While that seems clear, sorting out the rest of the argument requires a bit more work. Looking at it in the most charitable way, his inference seems to be that because getting rid of sober drivers would not solve the problem of drunk drivers, it follows (by analogy) that getting rid of non-mass shooter gun owners would not solve the problem of mass shootings. On this interpretation, he is right but right in a vacuous way: getting rid of people who do not do something would not solve the problem of people who do that thing.

But since his reply is to proposals for gun regulation, what he seemed to be inferring is that since getting rid of sober drivers would not stop drunk driving, gun control should be rejected. This reasoning requires that  proposed gun control methods be on par with eliminating sober drivers. I think he might have meant taking away everyone’s cars (including those of sober drivers) as a means of addressing drunk driving. As such, the analogy would only hold in the case of proposals to take away all guns. While there have been such proposals, they are generally not made by mainstream Democrats. So, while the analogy does apply to proposals to eliminate all guns, it does not apply to proposals to increase gun control, such as universal background checks or even assault weapon bans. An assault weapon ban would be analogous to addressing drunk driving by getting rid of vehicles favored by drunk drivers and are also unusually good at causing death and injury. As an aside, one problem with how some Republicans debate gun control is that they make straw person arguments: asserting that the plan is to take away all guns. This is a bad faith argument as there are many other approaches to gun control. The usual response to pointing this out is the Slippery Slope fallacy: asserting that even moderate proposals must lead to taking away all guns. This is also a bad faith argument.

As others noted, Kennedy made a strategic error with this analogy. While it was intended to refute gun control proposals, his comparison invited people to compare guns and cars. Just as some people support eliminating all privately owned guns, there those who propose eliminating privately owned cars for similar reasons: private ownership and the operation of dangerous machines results in many preventable deaths. As such, one could accept the analogy and turn it around: we should handle both problems by eliminating private ownership and the operation of deadly machines. But most people do not want to eliminate private ownership of cars or guns. However, Kennedy’s car analogy can still be used in favor of gun control.

As others have noted, cars are strictly regulated. To legally drive, one must be licensed and insured. Cars must be registered with the state and licensed. Their use is also regulated, and safety features are mandatory. When people are incapable of operating a vehicle safely or get convicted of certain crimes (like driving drunk), then they lose the right to drive. This is because cars are dangerous machines and can do a great deal of harm, even by accident.

Going with Kennedy’s automotive analogy, the same should apply to guns. A person should be licensed and insured to own one, their operation should be carefully regulated, and safety features should be mandated by law. When a person cannot possess a firearm safely or they commit certain crimes, they should lose their right to possess a gun.

The obvious reply is that on some interpretations of the Second Amendment, individual gun ownership is a constitutional right and hence such restrictions would be unconstitutional. One obvious counter is that existing restrictions on guns are constitutional (that is, they have not been struck down) and there are well-established precedents for limiting this right. And, of course, all rights are restricted and limited. For example, the First Amendment has many limitations many of which have been imposed by pro-gun Republicans who giveth to the Second with one hand and taketh from the First with the other. Another obvious reply is to point out that the Republicans who oppose gun control are the same ones who pass laws to restrict voting rights. The right to vote is the foundation of democracy and if they are willing to restrict this right on the grounds of their (usually false) claims about the harms of almost non-existent voter fraud, they have no principled way to object to strict gun control laws as the harms of not having adequate gun control are evident. Perhaps a bi—partisan solution is to have people vote by shooting ballots with guns: every citizen of voting ages gets a gun and the right to vote.