Philip Cook: Treat Illegal Guns Like Drunk Driving
Cook said the country is ripe to address carrying guns illegally the way it has drunk driving
In an "Office Hours" interview Friday, Philip Cook, a professor of public policy at Duke's Sanford School, said that stiffer punishment for illegal gun possession could bring down overall gun violence.
"I think we are at a point now that is much like we were in the 1980s with drunk driving," Cook told James Todd of Duke's News Office. "MADD and other organizations worked hard to get judges to treat that as a serious crime and I think now we have to make sure that the judges take illegal carrying of guns as a serious crime."
In the 30-minute conversation, he also addressed electronic gun-locking technology, the use of guns in suicides, closing the "gun show loophole," the "good guy with a gun" strategy and the effectiveness of the previous assault weapons ban.
Also part of the conversation was Sanford School Professor Kristin Goss, who is co-directing the new Duke in D.C. Program at Duke's Washington office. In a previously recorded interview, Goss explained which gun policies have support among gun owners as well as those who don't own guns.