This weekend, I attended the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative University in Chicago, where Chelsea Clinton moderated a panel on gun control. The panel included Sarah Chadwick, Founder of March for Our Lives, and Nza-Ari Khepra, Founder and Co-Creator of Project Orange Tree and Wear Orange, among others. Over the course of the panel, the conversation took an interesting turn. Lieutenant Colonel Joe Plenzler, activist with #VetsforGunReform, spoke of fear, and the fact that in many inner-city communities, residents feel the need to carry guns for self defense.
He mentioned Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a known psychological phenomenon stating that people need simple things like shelter, food, and safety before they can realize their full potential. He spoke of the irony of this situation in which people are crippled by lack of safety, prompting them to carry guns, which then of course leads to the perpetuation of an unsafe environment where guns abound. I couldn’t help but infer that, at least from this perspective, the complex issue of gun control is reduced to a classic prisoner’s dilemma.
He mentioned Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a known psychological phenomenon stating that people need simple things like shelter, food, and safety before they can realize their full potential. He spoke of the irony of this situation in which people are crippled by lack of safety, prompting them to carry guns, which then of course leads to the perpetuation of an unsafe environment where guns abound. I couldn’t help but infer that, at least from this perspective, the complex issue of gun control is reduced to a classic prisoner’s dilemma.
Consider a highly simplified situation focusing on just two residents of a certain neighborhood, Resident A and Resident B. Just as in a typical prisoner’s dilemma set-up, there are four potential scenarios: both carry guns, neither carries a gun, Resident A carries a gun and B does not, or Resident B carries a gun and A does not. The optimal choice of two residents in such a situation would be for neither to carry a gun. If Resident A doesn’t have a gun, Resident B doesn’t need one for self-defense because there is no threat to his/her safety by Resident A, and vice versa. This way the residents would be able to spend their time focusing on the higher strata of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, such as relationships, creativity, and self-actualization.
However, safety in the world as we know it is based not on the simple trusting relationship between two residents, but rather the complex dynamic of large groups of people and therefore the potential for danger from many fronts, and so the current Nash equilibrium is for all parties to carry guns, perpetuating fear and a vicious cycle. Until we find a way to increase trust in these communities and therefore reduce the very need for guns themselves, gun purchases will continue to stagnate. What’s more, without a decrease in the magnitude of overall gun sales, it will be continually difficult to regulate illegal gun sales, an unfortunate negative externality perpetuating gun violence on other fronts. Chelsea, maybe you and Maslow can solve this one…
However, safety in the world as we know it is based not on the simple trusting relationship between two residents, but rather the complex dynamic of large groups of people and therefore the potential for danger from many fronts, and so the current Nash equilibrium is for all parties to carry guns, perpetuating fear and a vicious cycle. Until we find a way to increase trust in these communities and therefore reduce the very need for guns themselves, gun purchases will continue to stagnate. What’s more, without a decrease in the magnitude of overall gun sales, it will be continually difficult to regulate illegal gun sales, an unfortunate negative externality perpetuating gun violence on other fronts. Chelsea, maybe you and Maslow can solve this one…
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