Should gene editing technology be used to remove the violent predis...

By Broward County Sheriff's Office, Florida / Oficina del Alguacil del Condado de Broward, Florida [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In my previous post on the topic titled "Why I do not currently favor gun control as an effective policy to prevent mass shootings" of mass shootings I presented a unique solution to the problem which I have not seen duplicated anywhere else or mentioned by anyone else. So this post is to continue that line of thought. It has been my experience through debate that most gun control advocates are ideological. This ideological thinking narrows the solution space artificially so that there cannot be a real debate or exploration of possible long term solutions. The effectiveness (or lack of effectiveness) of policies is pretty much ignored in these cultural disputes (I do not call them political debates), and the result is typically I see two sides.

Gun hoarders vs gun confiscators

The two sides in this cultural dispute are the gun hoarders which include supporters of the NRA which seeks to protect the rights of US Citizens to hoard guns, and actual gun hoarders who only make up 3% of the population but who own almost half the guns in the country. I will make the statement that gun control which does not include confiscation remains and has always been ineffective in the United States. There are probably more guns than there are people in the United States so any ban without mass confiscation and harsh punishment for underground manufacturing will in my opinion be ineffective (based on current data which shows no effectiveness).

The human being is the weapon and we can deactivate the genes responsible

The stance I take which in my opinion has benefits beyond any solutions being offered by the supporters of gun confiscation is to take the opportunity to look at the actual source of the problem. Gun violence including mass shootings happen because some human being desires to hurt or kill as many people as they can. This requires a person whom most reasonable people would consider to be mentally ill. This can also be a person who is impetuous, who did not think about their actions fully, as is often the case of people under age 25, but there is no guarantee that even people over 50 will have the brain wiring to not be vulnerable to this behavior.

Nikolas Cruz and Stephen Paddock had vastly different ages. This is why I think the policies of raising the age limit are window dressing to make it seem as if politicians are trying to do something even though there is no evidence or data I've seen which shows clearly that 19 year olds are more likely to be mass shooters than 60 year olds. It seems being a white male is more heavily correlated than being under 21, so for this I see it is going to more than likely be completely ineffective. I'm not completely against the policy because why not let every solution be tried and analyze the results but then I don't have my hopes up.

The one way to reduce violence in society in an effective manner (if genetics really do play a role) is to allow by law everyone to actually know their genetics. If people know they have MAOA and CDH13 which in scientific studies has been linked to violent criminal activity then maybe the people who know themselves well enough to know they are vulnerable to violence can edit their genes so as to deactivate or block these two specific genes. Maybe screening for these two genes makes more rational sense than to ban the instruments of violence.

MAOA and CDH13 (the killer genes)

I do not make the claim that genes make people a killer. I do not claim that if people do not have these genes that they cannot kill or be violent. The point here is that these genes create a known predisposition to extreme levels of violence that people without these genes perhaps for reasons we do not yet understand are not as prone toward. In the scientific paper titled: "Genetic background of extreme violent behavior" they reveal which genes are most closely linked to extreme violence. These genes can be shut off and in fact, biohackers who have access to know what their genes are can shut these genes off.

The biohacking solution to violent crime (including mass shootings)

The biohacking solution may or may not work. In my opinion all who support gun confiscation who are also transhumanists should contemplate what they would do if they had their genome sequenced to discover they had these genes associated with violence. If you discovered you had these genes would you edit them out? If you decide to edit them out would you do it in the permanent way which passes down through generations (such as with germ line therapy) or would you do it in the temporary way which does not pass down?

The biohacking solution does not require any government permission. It merely requires access to the information necessary to make a decision. Do you want to maintain the risk that someday you could do something extremely violent or do you want to remove that risk? If you see MAOA and CDH13 as genetic vulnerabilities then why not shut them off and reduce your own risk and the risk to people around you? If you have a child, and that child is told they have these genes, would you allow that child to make the decision to keep or remove these genes?

Conclusion

American society is based on a punishment culture. We have mass incarceration because the first solution we take to most problems is to find someone to blame and then lock them up. The result is we have a lot of people locked up, but the problems remain. The war on drugs in particular resulted in many Americans locked up, creating multi-generation cycles of poverty, and it did not reduce violence, or access to drugs. The Silk Road was shut down, the creator locked up for a life sentence, and this did not and will never reduce access to drugs. In fact, from a harm reduction approach it may have been the case (I do not have the data yet to prove it) that Silk Road reduced the violence necessary to maintain a drug trade. This lowering of violence in my opinion is a good thing, but then is it the case that any amount of arrests or confiscation will prevent people determined to abuse drugs from being able to do so? I have this same skepticism about the gun laws, where mass confiscation will require a government agency to receive massive funding, to kick in doors, to conduct complex sting operations, and to basically target the 3% of the population who are the gun hoarders.

I do not see gun hoarders willingly giving up their guns for confiscation but I could be wrong. On the other hand the biohacking approach is extremely low risk, low violence, does not encourage mass incarceration, does not require mass confiscation, and may also as a side effect reduce violence in the long term including mass shootings. This is not likely to satisfy those who are determined to have mass confiscation but I present this as part two of my initial solution. The gun confiscation solution I see as the solution which will lead to the most bloodshed (statistically likely to be more than the bloodshed from the mass shootings so far). For that reason it is difficult for me to get behind a policy which I know will require violence to enforce it, require years of arrests possibly on the same level of the war on drugs, and create a large black market for guns. Finally, biohacking as an approach to diminishing violence could potentially reduce it at the source (the genes responsible for making people predisposed to it in the first place) and while this may not prevent it all the time, we can combine this with a less warrior oriented culture to perhaps over time reduce the desire of people to collect guns, and or hurt other people.

References

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Nouveau wealth vs old wealth

Should gene editing technology be used to remove the violent predisposition?