No, Books Are Not Harder to Obtain than Guns

[Geee]

National Review:

In America’s most dangerous cities, how hard is it to find a book?

Speaking on Tuesday at a memorial service for the five police officers who were slain last week in Dallas, President Obama turned to one of his favorite topics: gun control. “As a society,” Obama said,

we choose to under-invest in decent schools. We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighborhoods offer no prospect for gainful employment. We refuse to fund drug-treatment and mental-health programs. We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book.

 

Thus far, the responses to this digression have focused in on its propriety, the question at hand being whether it was appropriate for the president to hijack a funeral to push his domestic political agenda. But few commentators have asked an equally important question: Is what Obama said actually true?

 

The simple answer is: No. Indeed, Obama’s remark demonstrates a profound ignorance about the relative ease of acquiring firearms and books in the contemporary United States. For a start, it is a federal crime for anybody to purchase a handgun below the age of 18 (Glock is a handgun manufacturer). And, even if it weren’t, the process by which one purchases a Glock is in no way comparable to the process by which one acquires a book. In one case, buyers are obliged to submit to a federal background check, and/or to pay hundreds upon hundreds of dollars; in the other, they are required only to walk into a building and give their name for the record. Whether one buys a Glock from a gun store or engages with a private seller, one will come up first against the profit motive, and second against a veritable cornucopia of federal restrictions. Public libraries, by contrast, offer books — for free — to any American who wants them, and without erecting obstacles to be placed in the borrower’s path. We are comparing apples and oranges.