I would say there isn't much air in that empty suit.

Maybe that guns should be kept out of the hands of "gang-bangers?"

Well, in politics-speak, "inner-city" is a euphemism for "black." (along with "at-risk") Obama seems to be saying that only white people should be allowed to own guns?

I was more concerned about the hole in the gunman's heart that the government can't fix.

The government might not be able to fix the hole, but we have prisons to protect us from such people.

I'm actually not sure there are a lot of different ways to interpret that...

Brian K: Well, tell us what you think Obama meant -- perhaps you might persuade us. Otherwise, I take it Daniel Chapman's view would prevail, and would counsel in favor of a literal interpretation, no?

I think we all know that the inner city is plagued with gang violence, most of it committed using firearms. To mention this undisputable fact does not imply that everyone in the inner city is a criminal; only that gang violence is a problem that disproportionately affects the inner city.

There are some gang-bangers in the suburbs too, but for the most part, we have bigger problems with them in inner cities.

[I]f Obama meant kept "out of the hands of gang-bangers," he said kept "out of the inner city"?

Here is the simplest explanation (consistent with my previous response). Obama was simply being imprecise. We are all imprecise, to different degrees.

That said, I would love to hear a more detailed explanation concerning his gun policy from that Obama camp.

Prof. Volokh, a quick follow-up: Why is enacting gun control laws a bad policy choice?

And if it's not possible to provide a full answer, perhaps you can direct me to some suggested readings.

Thanks!

Alex 2005, if you take a look at the many writing of David Kopel on this very website, you'll see links to a large number of schlarly and well-researched opinions on the subject with which you may choose to agree, disagree, or dispute.

Eugene,

Well, tell us what you think Obama meant -- perhaps you might persuade us. Otherwise, I take it Daniel Chapman's view would prevail, and would counsel in favor of a literal interpretation, no?

Like I said earlier I don't know what exactly he meant by this.

I don't see how a literal interpretation of "I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities" requires that he means a total gun ban. He may have meant it has a call for greater enforcement of existing laws. Or maybe he will advocate providing more resources for tracking down how these people get illegal guns. Afterall they have to get them from somewhere. Were they stolen? If so, from whom? What additional security precautions can be taken to prevent this type of theft? Were they bought legitimately by the criminal? Was he eligible to buy legitimate guns? If he was, what precautions can be taken to prevent people like him from buying guns? If he wasn't, why did the system fail? What can be done better? Another possible interpretation is that he has some plan for something similar to a "gun for toys" program that will actually work this time. Maybe he wants to increase the penalties for using a gun in a crime. There are legitimate ways to interpret that statement short of a call for a ban on guns. And I think you are jumping to conclusions especially given the lack of a formal position paper.

I think it’s a pretty similar stance to Giuliani. You have a constitutional right to bear arms if you live outside the city. Restricting that right is OK if it’s done by the city or state, not the federal government. At least, that's what they'll run on.

Shorter Clayton Cramer: My world is additive. Don't confuse me with interactions.

Sorry, the following snark is utterly irresistable.

...that will actually work this time.

Brian K just encapsulatd the left/liberal viewpoint.

Shorter Clayton Cramer: My world is additive. Don't confuse me with interactions.

So you are suggesting that there's something about the inner city that means that guns will be used for murder there, but not in Idaho. But what's really interesting is that even for non-guns--those inner cities have horrendous murder rates. Does this suggest to you that maybe gun availability is only a small part of the problem?

Obama is right about one part of the problem: there's a lot of people in inner cities who think that murder is the appropriate solution to whatever problem they have. There's a cultural problem that needs addressing. Gun control is a way for liberals to avoid confronting that cultural problem.

Apparently "gang-banger" doesn't mean what I thought it meant...

Nope, Don. The Swiss laws are about country of origin. As an American national with a grandparent from one of the countries whose citizens are prohibited from owning guns in Switzerland, if I were a legal resident of Switzerland, I would not be prohibited from owning guns because of my ethnic background. The laws are not intended to prevent "those people" from owning guns, but are instead intended to prevent/minimize gun-running to countries that are in conflict.

I'd give Obama the benefit of the doubt: what he meant was something like "I'd like to tell black people that I would like to keep their children from getting hold of guns and committing crimes." Which is pretty much why black people that vote tend to be in favor of gun control.

Which might be one of the myriad reasons we're not fans of McGulliani.

Bee:

Why are so many people like yourself always quick to trot out party affiliations rather than accept that maybe people hold certain deeply held beliefs, and maybe become unhappy when anyone, Republican or Democrat, disparages them.

Sebastian:

It's part of human nature for people to be more quick to disparage those in their "out" groups and forgive/overlook similiar qualities in their "in" groups. And since Giuliani is the current GOP frontrunner in polls, it certainly seems odd for him to escape scrutiny on this blog, but not Obama. Odd at least, if one is completely disregarding party affiliations, as stated. I don't know if this Giuliani issue will eventually be brought out here or not, but so far we have a firm negative. What you say may be true, but it is not reflected in the chosen blog topics or the poll numbers.

I'm trying so hard to like any of the candidates, but it just doesn't feel like they are doing their part.

The Republican frontrunners records on gun control don't differ much from Obama's record.

McCain: http://www.gunowners.org/mccaintb.htm
Romney: http://gunowners.org/pres08/romney.htm
Guliani: http://gunowners.org/pres08/giuliani.htm

Any thoughts on what exactly "I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities" might mean?

That he will not be President.

Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp

It's interesting that all of Obama's supporters on this thread are explaining that he didn't mean what he said...

Suppose we had some sort of magical gun remover that could make all the guns disappear from the inner city, what would be the effect? The gangs would arm themselves with clubs and knives. Law-abiding people would be defenseless...

"There's a hole in that young man's heart" reminds me of a quote by a female punk rocker, who's name I can't recall: "Guns don't kill people. Holes kill people." A far more effective piece of rhetoric would have been something like "There's an empty place in that young man's soul." But any religious reference would, of course, alienate many of Obama's base.

If a Republican politician as lame as Obama were to appear on the scene who would either be ignored or crucified by the media. When I try and pin down liberal friends on why they swoon over Obama none can come up with a rational response. A dozen years of high profile, real political activities may establish Obama's reputation but right now he resembles nothing so much as the original "man on a white horse" and we all know what happened to him.

Obama is inexperienced. How much thought has he given to the wide range of topics he must address as a candidate? One thing about experience - one tends to develop appreciation of how often the implementation of an idea varies greatly from the original conceptualization.

When I hear "inner city" I think of gangs, thugs and concentrations of poor people.

Keeping guns out of the hands of bad people:
As a fan of what I call the "Christmas-tree" style of national ID card for U.S. citizens I would require proof of citizenship for purchase of a gun and a background check for conviction of violent crimes and/or certified mental illness. Gun owners and users should have a certain level of competency in the use of guns. Any owner should have some sort of lockable storage for their guns.

Bee:

And since Giuliani is the current GOP frontrunner in polls, it certainly seems odd for him to escape scrutiny on this blog, but not Obama.

Obama was just an example in this instance. I don't think Prof. Volokh was meaning to apply "scrutiny" to him as a candidate. Giuliani could just have easily been used, but wasn't. Over in the gun blogosphere, we've applied plenty of scrutiny to Obama, Giuliani, McCain and Romney. No one gets a free pass.

Well, since even one murder is horrendous, I have to agree. But, most murders in the inner city are committed with guns. Countermelian is right on about interactions and his criticism of you on that score is right on.

There is a cultural problem in the inner-city. One that is exacerbated by interaction with easy access to firearms.

Does that mean that gun control is the answer? Not necessarily.

It means that the cultural problem needs to be fixed—or you need to disarm the "inner city" (euphemism for black and Hispanic people). But the only way that you can do the latter involves disarming the majority of Americans for whom guns aren't a problem. And Obama complains about racism?

Gun availability is not a problem for most Americans--even for most black and Hispanic Americans. It is a problem for a small, easily identified fraction of our population, regardless of race, but liberals are unwilling to admit that their policies on violent crime and mental illness were a big mistake.

As for his statement...c'mon. Context. It's fairly well-known (and I'm sure I'll be corrected on this) that gun manufacturers 'allow' their guns to get redirected into the inner city, where they 'happen' to fall into the hands of gang members.

Manufacturers are required to have a license from the ATF to do business. They may only sell their product to other federal firearms license holders, which would typically be a distributor, who sell them to other federal firearms license holders, who would be dealers, who sell them to the general public after background checks, etc. The entire process from manufacturing/importing to sale is entirely regulated and monitored by the federal government. Can you explain how they 'allow' guns to get "redirected" to the inner city under this kind of scrutiny?

Sebastian,

The theory behind the gun suits (and perhaps what Obama, as a lawyer, was referring to) is that a gun is a dangerous instrumentality. If a manufacturer ships vast quatities of their product to a store in a market just across the border from, say, Chicago or NYC, that doesn't have a population base to support the sale of that product, they should reasonably know that the sales are going to evade the gun control laws of the municipality. This is the theory that won in DCt in NY, only to be reversed on appeal.

Most guns (I believe 65%+) used in ineer city crimes were obtained legally, often through this mechanism. It is postulated that some manufacturers target their advertising to this demographic (aka the Joe Camel of guns).

The theory behind the gun suits (and perhaps what Obama, as a lawyer, was referring to) is that a gun is a dangerous instrumentality. If a manufacturer ships vast quatities of their product to a store in a market just across the border from, say, Chicago or NYC, that doesn't have a population base to support the sale of that product, they should reasonably know that the sales are going to evade the gun control laws of the municipality. This is the theory that won in DCt in NY, only to be reversed on appeal.

Do you think the manufacturers ship guns to gun stores that don't order them up? You know, in the hopes that maybe the gun store will eventually find a buyer for them? It doesn't work that way. Gun manufacturers sell to wholesalers, who then sell to retailers, who order up guns based on either demand or expectations of demand. Or do you think guns are different from every other consumer good out there now? Once again, the liberals want to see criminal gang members as "victims" of the gun makers, not as criminals who go out of their way to obtain guns with which to commit robbery and murder.

Most guns (I believe 65%+) used in ineer city crimes were obtained legally, often through this mechanism.

Source? Remember that you can't legally buy a handgun from a dealer except in your state of residence. There are people who buy handguns in one state and sell them in another, and there is a federal law that bans this. To suggest that gun dealers intentionally oversupply gun stores in some places requires some pretty powerful evidence. Gun stores order guns; they aren't force fed them.

It is postulated that some manufacturers target their advertising to this demographic (aka the Joe Camel of guns).

Examples? I've seen two ads that have been cited for this claim:

1. The Auto-Ordnance ad with everyone in 1920s gangster suits. Not in hip-hop uniform. The Auto-Ordnance product, the Thompson semiauto, is rarely used criminally because it is big and bulky. (And in my experience, close to a safety gun--I had one that just didn't feed reliably.)

2. An ad from one of the assault pistol makers that mentioned that the finish resisted fingerprints. The gun control crazies wanted to believe that this was to make it better suited to criminal activity. Actually, gun owners tend to be concerned about fingerprints damaging the finish. If you ever go into a gun store, and ask to handle a gun, you will notice that the clerk usually wipes it down afterwards. Especially on the polished blued finishes, fingerprints can damage the finish.

I see dozens of gun ads a month. I have never seen an ad that was targeting "inner city" residents. Have you?

"There's a hole in that young man's heart -- a hole that the government alone cannot fix."

Ahh....but it is the wrong kind of hole....it needs to be a .45cal JHP type hole. And that would stop him from shooting "indiscriminately into a crowd"

i agree. the "inner city" thing is a euphemism for blacks, and minorities in general. he is, in effect saying, keep them out of the hands of minorities.

it's the same kind of classism and bigotry we see in potential 'saturday night special' regulations. a SNS is simply an inexpensive gun. who is more likely to need a gun - a poor person or a rich one? the answer is the former. also, blacks are FAR more likely to be the victims of homicides than whites, and more likely to be lower income.

basically, he's saying he doesn't trust poor people with guns. gotta keep them out of the inner cities after all.

incredible

Manufacturers are required to have a license from the ATF to do business. They may only sell their product to other federal firearms license holders, which would typically be a distributor, who sell them to other federal firearms license holders, who would be dealers, who sell them to the general public after background checks, etc. The entire process from manufacturing/importing to sale is entirely regulated and monitored by the federal government. Can you explain how they 'allow' guns to get "redirected" to the inner city under this kind of scrutiny?

How do you explain the fact that 40% of all guns are stolen before they ever make it to the first seller? (statistics provided by clayton in another post)

loki13 asks how the negligent marketing lawsuit was won in NYC a few years ago. Read Walter Olson's description here.

I can only tell you that a jury in a District Court in NY believed the claims, and it was reversed on appeal, but the reasoning for the reversal was that the pool of plaintiffs was too large, and the connection between the criminals who commited the violence, the plaintiffs, and the defendants (gun manufacturers) too remote (proxmiate causation issue).

You should read the decision, here. What the Court of Appeals decided is quite a bit more complex than your oversimplified description:

As we noted earlier, a duty and the corresponding liability it imposes do not rise from mere foreseeability of the harm (see, Pulka, supra, 40 NY2d, at 786). Moreover, none of plaintiffs' proof demonstrated that a change in marketing techniques would likely have prevented their injuries. Indeed, plaintiffs did not present any evidence tending to show to what degree their risk of injury was enhanced by the presence of negligently marketed and distributed guns, as opposed to the risk presented by all guns in society (see generally, Twerski &Sebok, Liability Without Cause? Further Ruminations on Cause-in-Fact as Applied to Handgun Liability, 32 Conn L Rev 1379).

The cases involving the distribution or handling of hazardous materials, relied upon by plaintiffs, do not support the imposition of a duty of care in marketing handguns. The manufacturer's duty in each case was based either on a products liability theory -- that is, the product was defective because of the failure to include a safety feature _- or on a failure to warn (see, e.g., Hunnings v Texaco, Inc., 29 F3d 1480 [11th Cir 1994] [defectively packaged hazardous substance accompanied by lack of adequate warnings]; Blueflame Gas, Inc. v Van Hoose, 679 P2d 579 [Colo 1984] [insufficiently odorized propane gas]; Flint Explosive Co. v Edwards, 66 SE2d 368 [Ga App 1951] [defective dynamite]). Certainly too, a manufacturer may be held liable for complicity in dangerous or illegal activity (see, e.g., Suchomajcz v Hummel Chem. Co., 524 F2d 19 [3d Cir 1975] [manufacturer sold chemicals to retailer with knowledge that retailer intended to use them in making and selling illegal firecracker assembly kits]). Here, defendants' products are concededly not defective _- if anything, the problem is that they work too well. Nor have plaintiffs asserted a defective warnings claim or presented sufficient evidence to demonstrate that defendants could have taken reasonable steps that would have prevented their injuries.

Or are you too embarrassed by such a naked display of ignorance and bigotry?

At this point, I don't think you can say that with much certainty. Loki13 sounds like someone who thinks Time and Newsweek are news magazines, and PBS and NPR are high quality broadcast sources of facts. It's an easy mistake to make, especially if your peers are all professors.

Cynicism alert: Perhaps the correct interpretation is that the statement was a bunch of fluff developed by staffer who used focus groups to vet it; that Obama really doesnt have a position until he gets pressed and checks the polls.

Clayton-
Agreed that I simplified the holding of the court, still I believe my quick summary (large class of plaintiffs, proximate cause issues) is a correct view of the central holding of the court. The lack of redressability (as you point out) was also brought up in the opinon.

Juris-
Selective quoting... from a hypotheticals used to illustrate a legal theory... I trust you'll find better straws to clutch at next time.

Jurist,

In two days, you've confused the supremacy clause with incorporation and legal theories (you know, the underpinning of an adversarial brief) with normative beliefs. The plaintiffs in the gun case were either arguing for an application of the law (that the appelate court found was not supported) or a non-frivolous extension of the law. While you might find it ridiculous, it is certianly much less so than, say, a California producer of DES that was held liable in New York under a national market share theory despite never having sold their product in that state.

I take it you were never a big fan of Traynor in Torts, and perhaps hope that Hawaii's embrace of the valuation of pets for NIED never catches on, but I'm glad I won't be getting legal advice from you. :)

I read Obama's statement (which has bothered me since I first saw it in his book) as saying that he is going to ban all guns in the inner cities, which, whether it is his intention or not, means that he is going to disasrm the very people who most need a gun to defend themselves - the honest people living in our inner cities who are the victims of the criminals (who seem to get guns no matter what the laws say).

That's a typical liberal approach - patronizing and unrealistic (and disastrous).

Any thoughts on what exactly "I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities" might mean?

That he favors a total ban on guns, but he isn't dumb enough to think it has a chance of happening at the national or level. Any more charitable reading would be inconsistent with his voting record in the IL Senate, where he voted against the law that bars criminal prosecution of homeowners who use {legal at the state level, but locally prohibited} handguns in otherwise lawful self-defense.

Any thoughts on what exactly "I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities" might mean?

It means that Con Law at Harvard isn't intellectually rigorous.

Or he wasn't paying attention.

Or he believes that "living Constitution" means whatever policy preferences/whims appear in his mind at any given moment are A-OK.

Or he thinks that "rights" for "individuals" are really just "privilieges" granted to the masses by the vanguard of the proletariat.

Anyway you slice it, it's not pretty.

The plaintiffs in the gun case were either arguing for an application of the law (that the appelate court found was not supported) or a non-frivolous extension of the law.

It was not an application of the existing law. It was an attempt at a frivolous extension of the law. IIRC the judge himself (who was quite sympathetic to plaintiffs) called it a "novel theory". As I understand the law (layman that I am), that usually isn't a good thing.