Hey, how about we talk some more controversial politics? I know you all like that.
We have a gun problem in this country. Both sides can agree on that. What they don’t agree on is what that problem is.
We know that one side wants to restrict access to guns. The other wants them freely available. Never mind what their reasons are. Never mind the statistics, the motivations. Let’s just look at it as simply as possible.
We can all agree that the purpose of a gun is to do harm to another person, right? First, let’s accept that as a given, regardless of what intent of the user.
What if we treated guns like we treat killer robots?
I came across this in a Wikipedia article. We all know Asimov’s Rules of Robotics, right? Do no harm. Follow orders. Keep yourself alive. The problem is they were constructed with fiction in mind, not reality. And they’re old and vague. But someone else DID consider reality.
In 2011, the United Kingdom published a “softlaw” (whatever that is) that establishes rules for robotics in today’s world. They are:
- Robots are multi-use tools. Robots should not be designed solely or primarily to kill or harm humans, except in the interests of national security.
- Humans, not Robots, are responsible agents. Robots should be designed and operated as far as practicable to comply with existing laws, fundamental rights and freedoms, including privacy.
- Robots are products. They should be designed using processes which assure their safety and security.
- Robots are manufactured artifacts. They should not be designed in a deceptive way to exploit vulnerable users; instead their machine nature should be transparent.
- The person with legal responsibility for a robot should be attributed.
Robots and guns are not dissimilar. They are both created by humans. They can both be used as proxies for harming or killing human beings. Imagine a gun that can find a target and shoot itself. Now imagine it breaks. Scary. I’m sure gun owners certainly don’t want their guns to come after them in the night.
How about we adapt these for guns? Here are my propositions.
- A gun’s primary purpose is to harm or kill another living thing.
- Note: this means good or evil is irrelevant–varmint rifles for killing pests are good, using them to kill human beings is evil. Not everyone collects guns for defense purposes (e.g., historical collections, sport) but we should all agree on what a gun does.
- This means that a gun doesn’t have an alternate purpose. You can kill someone with a pencil, doesn’t mean it’s a weapon. But no one uses a gun to stir their soup.
- Humans are responsible agents.
- Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. But a gun increases killing potential and quantity.
- Humans specify the goal of a gun when they use it.
- Guns are products. Products must be designed with safety in mind.
- So that means there should be plenty of safeguards, both on the gun itself and information about the gun. Unfile-off-able serial numbers, safeties, handprint identification, etc. Also applies to products that modify a gun, like bump stocks.
- We need to do as much as we can to prevent gun usage by unauthorized people (e.g., theft, hacking).
- Guns should only be available from registered dealers. They should not be smuggled or imported illegally.
- Each gun should be attributable to an owner.
- I think this is handled by the concept of registration, but there are too many loopholes with trade shows and so on. In an ideal world, there should be no problem tracing a gun back to where it came from, like a blockchain. Accountability and transparency.
If I were president, one of my first firearms-related acts would be to get the NRA to agree to these terms. We all need to be on the same page about what a gun is, what it can do, and who should have access to one. And the answer is not “everybody”. From there, we could put forth some common sense legislation.
It’s going to involve compromise because guns are a hot button issue, and both sides are going to have to give up something to make progress. From there, we get used to the new normal, then we make a new compromise, and so on and on.
References:
Wikipedia
EPSRC Principles of Robotics
