After yet another tragic mass shooting, the contours of the debate on gun rights/gun restrictions has taken on their usual familiar forms. Republicans first send "thoughts and prayers" and say we can't talk about any new laws right after a tragedy. They hope everyone will move on in a few days and they'll never have to answer any tough questions after the mourning "thoughts and prayers" period.
Then Democrats propose some sensible smaller bore stuff that 75+% of the country supports, but which of course has no chance of going anywhere because the Republican party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the NRA. Then Republicans point out that the handful of small bore Democratic proposals would not in fact prevent every shooting (duh of course not.- we still have laws though even though they don't prevent all crimes....we have red lights, stop signs, speed limits, and drivers' ed training courses, yet there are still automobile accidents, so should we just get rid of them?). Then a few days after this, Republican leaders in Congress quietly announce that they will do nothing. And a week later no one even remembers the shooting. And somewhere in there you'll have conspiracy theorists like Info Wars claiming it was a false flag operation funded by Geroge Soros and that the advocates are really just paid actors.
So far the Parkland school shooting has been different. After the initial sequence above, we haven't moved on yet. The kids are staying in the news, organizing rallies, speaking their minds in very public forums. And it just feels different. When adults speak after other shootings, supporters of our status quo always can find a way to make it seem partisan. But these kids aren't even old enough to vote yet, so the political media wasn't quite sure how to handle them and really still isn't prepared. The usual CNN/Fox talking points aren't really working. The youngest soon-to-be adult generation, with a more pure and clear-eyed perspective always sees through the bullshit talking points older generations use.
But now that we are at over two weeks since the shooting, it's starting to fade a little from the mind of the public like every other shooting. But these kids are doing a great job keeping it going as long as possible.
It took merely a few days for Republicans to start proposing things like arming teachers at schools as a realistic alternative to just passing workable regulations. Because of course we all want our old history professors packing heat! This proposal to arm 5+ teachers at every public school in the United States would put at least 700,000 more guns in society. I'm not really even going to address this ridiculous proposal any more in this post. Just know it's something the NRA has proposed for years because it will result in the sale of at least 700,000 more guns. That's all they care about. It has no chance of happening and wouldn't solve any problems.
The idea that we need more teachers carrying guns as a deterrent like car alarms deter thieves is patently absurd and also should not be their jobs. School shooters won't just go find another school to shoot up. They are targeting that school because of some personal connection. And some schools now actually have ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) training for school shootings like we are living in war zones in Fallujah or Kandahar. We can do better than this. This is the summary of the training:
At a recent PTA meeting, we brought in some of the police officers who work closely with our school district to talk about ALICE, which is their approach to handling active shooter situations. One part of it is that if the shooter does enter the room where kids are at, the kids are told to run around, yell loudly, throw things like books or wads of paper, etc. Just be a distraction. At first I was like, really? you think a shooter armed with a machine gun is going to confront Samantha armed with a book and just say oh, nevermind, I won't kill her? And then it punched me in the gut: If she's face to face with a shooter, she's going to die regardless. The goal will be for her and her classmates to make their deaths take 20 seconds rather than 10. That's 10 more seconds for other kids to run, 10 more seconds for first responders to get to the scene and take out the shooter. A lot of lives can be saved in 10 seconds...
Just to be clear, this is the current state of affairs: We live in a country where kindergartners learn how to maximize the number of lives they can save as they're being massacred.
Here are some stats on guns:
- There are over 300 million guns in the United States, nearly 1 per person.
- Over 3 million new guns are bought every year.
- Just 3% of the population (9 million or so people) own over 50% of the guns.
- Just 25% of people in the US and 40% of households overall own guns.
So this is another issue where the silent majority is held hostage by 25% of the country, just as on like Climate Change and Immigration Reform.
First, we should all be able to agree that banning certain types of weapons will reduce in crimes being committed by those weapons. The limited studies the CDC is permitted to do bears this out. It seems logical, right? Any time you prohibit the sale of something, consumption or use of it goes down. It becomes harder and more cumbersome and, well, illegal to purchase.
You don't even have to "believe" it as if it's a leap of faith like virgin birth or something. You just have to support the evidence. Critics of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, like Marco Rubio, point out that it had little effect on gun crime overall. And that's true, but that wasn't the goal of the law.
The purpose of the law was to reduce mass shooting massacres and the statistics show it was a success.
Another point pushed by the NRA is that if we were all right-to-carry states, that too would be a deterrent. And well not only aren't states with right-to-carry laws a deterrent, as the NRA proclaims, this Stanford study shows that it actually increases incidents of violent crime. As the Vice column on the study concludes, "the good guy with a gun" theory as a deterrent to crime is a myth. Again, it's a pretty simple concept: more guns owned = more guns used in violent crimes, more guns owned and carried publicly = more guns used in violent crimes. [Not to mention the elephant in the room with several high-profile police shootings in the last few years of non-white citizens lawfully exercising this freedom in right-to-carry states, contrasted with the stand-off with Cliven Bundy threatening law enforcement while armed. Right-to-carry in many minds means a right-to-carry for white guys. Everyone else is a threat who should be taken out!]
We should act immediately on the small bore proposals being discussed, supported by anywhere from 60% to 90% of the country:
- Ban AR-15's and similar assault rifles (I know Marco Rubio said it would ban 200 guns while there are maybe 2000 similar ones that would be still be for sale, due to loopholes. Ah, the old loopholes that Marco Rubio and Congress are apparently powerless to close.) Anyway fine - start with banning the 200 and we'll deal with the 2000 later.
- Ban the bump stocks that allowed the Vegas shooter to turn his assault rifles into machine guns.
- Ban high-capacity magazines. This is like the last line of defense to reduce the number of fatalities during mass shootings. Every second matters at that point. During the most recent incident the Parkland shooter only stopped shooting because when he loaded a new magazine, his gun jammed with 150 ammo rounds left.
- Mandatory criminal background checks. This sounds like a no-brainer and is done in some states already. As part of this, anyone with histories of domestic violence or restraining orders (huge indicators of gun violence) would be banned from buying guns. Related - the NRA opposes a national computerized searchable gun registry, so therefore so does the Republican congress. This is the ridiculous way that law enforcement is tracking guns in 2018 - stacks and stacks of paper in boxes. This law that the NRA supports is literally making it more difficult for law enforcement to solve and prevent crimes. Also there would need to be a way to hold gun sellers and second-hand dealers accountable for this as well. If they are found to have sold to someone who was in the "do not sell to" database, who then commits a violent crime with that gun, the dealer should be fined or in some instances jailed too. And allow victims of these crimes then also be allowed to sue the dealers.
- Allow the CDC to study gun violence in a more robust way (see below).
I'm hesitant about the mental health background check database, but would be willing to sign on to that too, as it could be another issue where it hurts a few to help the many. It just seems like it could be used for nefarious reasons. And in some cases those who may need mental health would forgo it so they could purchase a gun. But at state level you could expand "Red Flag Laws", that now only five states have on the books. This allows for a temporary seizure of someone's guns before they can commit a violent crime if they have any incidents involving threatening behavior, substance abuse, signs of mental illness, accusations of domestic violence, etc. Parents, friends, teachers, et al, could call it in to the proper authorities and perhaps save lives.
You don't even have to "believe" it as if it's a leap of faith like virgin birth or something. You just have to support the evidence. Critics of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, like Marco Rubio, point out that it had little effect on gun crime overall. And that's true, but that wasn't the goal of the law.
Louis Klarevas, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts at Boston who wrote a book on mass shooting violence published in 2016, says that the impetus for a federal assault weapons ban came in 1989. That year Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, an Ohio Democrat, introduced the original assault weapons ban bill after a gunman armed with an assault rifle killed five children and injured 29 more in a schoolyard in Stockton, Calif.
“The guy used an AK-47 variant, with large capacity magazines” capable of holding 10 or more rounds, Klarevas said. The shooting “got a lot of attention” and galvanized public opinion. National polls conducted in the months following, for instance, showed that over 70 percent of Americans supported bans on assault weapons like the one used in Stockton.
But Metzenbaum's bill didn't pass, and Congress spent several years debating other assault weapons measures that were less stringent in nature. None of those were ever signed into law.
Momentum returned with two back-to-back mass shootings in 1993: one at a San Francisco law firm that killed eight people and injured six more, and another on a Long Island Railroad train that left five dead and 19 wounded. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, architect of the 1994 assault weapons ban, said that “it was the 1993 mass shooting at 101 California Street in San Francisco that was the tipping point for me. That’s what really motivated me to push for a ban on assault weapons.”
The San Francisco shooting “made clear that the increasing sophistication of weapons had made it possible for a mass shooter to murder large numbers of people in a matter of minutes,” Feinstein said. “The goal of the ban was to reduce the frequency and deadliness of mass shootings.”
The purpose of the law was to reduce mass shooting massacres and the statistics show it was a success.
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| Source: Washington Post |
Another point pushed by the NRA is that if we were all right-to-carry states, that too would be a deterrent. And well not only aren't states with right-to-carry laws a deterrent, as the NRA proclaims, this Stanford study shows that it actually increases incidents of violent crime. As the Vice column on the study concludes, "the good guy with a gun" theory as a deterrent to crime is a myth. Again, it's a pretty simple concept: more guns owned = more guns used in violent crimes, more guns owned and carried publicly = more guns used in violent crimes. [Not to mention the elephant in the room with several high-profile police shootings in the last few years of non-white citizens lawfully exercising this freedom in right-to-carry states, contrasted with the stand-off with Cliven Bundy threatening law enforcement while armed. Right-to-carry in many minds means a right-to-carry for white guys. Everyone else is a threat who should be taken out!]
We should act immediately on the small bore proposals being discussed, supported by anywhere from 60% to 90% of the country:
- Ban AR-15's and similar assault rifles (I know Marco Rubio said it would ban 200 guns while there are maybe 2000 similar ones that would be still be for sale, due to loopholes. Ah, the old loopholes that Marco Rubio and Congress are apparently powerless to close.) Anyway fine - start with banning the 200 and we'll deal with the 2000 later.
- Ban the bump stocks that allowed the Vegas shooter to turn his assault rifles into machine guns.
- Ban high-capacity magazines. This is like the last line of defense to reduce the number of fatalities during mass shootings. Every second matters at that point. During the most recent incident the Parkland shooter only stopped shooting because when he loaded a new magazine, his gun jammed with 150 ammo rounds left.
- Mandatory criminal background checks. This sounds like a no-brainer and is done in some states already. As part of this, anyone with histories of domestic violence or restraining orders (huge indicators of gun violence) would be banned from buying guns. Related - the NRA opposes a national computerized searchable gun registry, so therefore so does the Republican congress. This is the ridiculous way that law enforcement is tracking guns in 2018 - stacks and stacks of paper in boxes. This law that the NRA supports is literally making it more difficult for law enforcement to solve and prevent crimes. Also there would need to be a way to hold gun sellers and second-hand dealers accountable for this as well. If they are found to have sold to someone who was in the "do not sell to" database, who then commits a violent crime with that gun, the dealer should be fined or in some instances jailed too. And allow victims of these crimes then also be allowed to sue the dealers.
- Allow the CDC to study gun violence in a more robust way (see below).
I'm hesitant about the mental health background check database, but would be willing to sign on to that too, as it could be another issue where it hurts a few to help the many. It just seems like it could be used for nefarious reasons. And in some cases those who may need mental health would forgo it so they could purchase a gun. But at state level you could expand "Red Flag Laws", that now only five states have on the books. This allows for a temporary seizure of someone's guns before they can commit a violent crime if they have any incidents involving threatening behavior, substance abuse, signs of mental illness, accusations of domestic violence, etc. Parents, friends, teachers, et al, could call it in to the proper authorities and perhaps save lives.
The U.S. outlawed flamethrowers a long time ago and you know what - there were no public attacks by flamethrowers last year. Machine guns were staples of organized crime in the 20th century. And in 1986 Congress passed the Firearm Owners Protection Act, which updated and strengthened the Gun Control Act of 1968, which, by the way, was originally spurred on because of the fear of the Black Panthers exercising their right-to-carry freedom, and also with the assassinations of MLK and RFK fresh in everyone's minds. Of course we've had two members of Congress shot and nearly killed in public in the last 8 years, and even that didn't spur Congress to act on gun control.
The 1986 law contained the Hughes Amendment banning the sale of machine guns to civilians from that point forward, signed into law by that noted liberal pacifist Ronald Reagan. And somehow freedom prevailed and there are no more mass shootings by machine guns because you can't buy them anywhere! There are NRA offshoots like the NFA (National Firearms Association), which still pushes for a repeal of this ban nearly every year.
In re of the Hughes Amendment, this was only a little over 30 years ago that an entire party had not yet been taken over by the gun lobby. What happened? Funny I should ask myself that question.
I've been getting a history lesson lately on all of this. I did not realize the NRA was basically a non-entity until the late 1970s. It was just a club for hunting enthusiasts and marksmen and really for 200 years there was very little thought given to 2nd Amendment rights. Then in the late 70s/early 80s political activists realized they could get these conservative-minded voters to the polls to vote for conservative politicians on this single issue, as long as they always felt gun ownership rights were under siege by liberals. The first time the NRA ever endorsed a politician was Ronald Reagan in 1980. Slowly over time, the NRA then became the mouthpiece for the gun manufacturers with the main goal of selling as many guns as possible with as few restrictions as possible...and here we are.
The NRA lobbied to have a law passed absolving gun manufacturers and gun dealers of any liability whatsoever for the harm their products cause, unlike every other regulated industry in the country. This innocuous-sounding law, The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, was signed into law in 2005. You can't file a class-action suit against gun manufacturers and dealers to hold them liable for producing and selling weapons of war, unless they are defective and injure the shooter. Dealers are the key here. The stores who sell guns to people who have no business owning guns must be held accountable if the background check bill is to be effective.
The NRA also lobbied for legislation that forbids the CDC from studying gun violence and making recommendations. In 1996 the Dickey Amendment passed doing just this:
On Tuesday, as teenagers swarmed the Florida legislature to advocate for gun control, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico) renewed a familiar call for Congress to repeal an amendment that blocks the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from funding research into the public health effects of gun violence.
........
It isn’t the first time that Democrats and thousands of medical professionals have called for eliminating the provision, written by former Congressman Jay Dickey (R-Ark.) and enacted in 1996 as part of an appropriations bill in the aftermath of a mass shooting. After the mass shooting in San Bernardino in 2015, nine medical associations urged Congress to overturn the amendment. Weeks after a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., left 49 people dead, Republican lawmakers impeded efforts to eliminate the Dickey Amendment once again during a mark-up in the House.
Dickey eventually changed his position on the matter and called for Congress to overturn the amendment. “Doing nothing is no longer an acceptable solution,” he wrote in a 2015 letter to Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.)
We could reverse both of these legislatively at some point, hopefully in the near future and possibly enact all or some of the proposals outlined above.
But the key is changing the culture.
We need to fight the "freedom" argument with the public health argument. It was the same argument MADD used to help enact stricter tests, preemptive enforcement, and more stringent penalties for drunk driving, which was a big culture change in our society in the 1980s. After years and years of senseless deaths and injuries caused by drunk drivers, communities finally acted. It was strengthened by public ad campaigns of sympathetic survivors and the PSAs that we still see versions of today about designated drivers and not letting friends drive drunk. Of course the bar and restaurant owners lobby is not quite the NRA and there is no constitutional right to drink alcohol and/or drive automobiles.
But the same arguments were used to restrict smoking in public places beginning in the 1990s. And prior to then Big Tobacco was seen as about as powerful a lobby you had in Washington. They owned nearly every Southern politician's votes. But people started suing and winning. Public opinion changed. With the percentages of adults smoking decreasing every year, younger generations grew up knowing cigarettes were addictive and bad for you and didn't want to be surrounded by cigarette smoke everywhere. And ultimately businesses went along with it because they didn't want to be held liable for creating an environment where their employees, clients, tenants, et al, could be getting harmed by second-hand smoke and suing them some day. A common theme to changing culture and behavior is the ability to sue.
Thirty years ago you could smoke in nearly building in the country. Now if you smoke within 20 yards of an entrance to a building people look at you like you're a criminal. In 30 years will the gun owners of 2048 be treated like the smokers of today?
We need to fight the "freedom" argument with the public health argument. It was the same argument MADD used to help enact stricter tests, preemptive enforcement, and more stringent penalties for drunk driving, which was a big culture change in our society in the 1980s. After years and years of senseless deaths and injuries caused by drunk drivers, communities finally acted. It was strengthened by public ad campaigns of sympathetic survivors and the PSAs that we still see versions of today about designated drivers and not letting friends drive drunk. Of course the bar and restaurant owners lobby is not quite the NRA and there is no constitutional right to drink alcohol and/or drive automobiles.
But the same arguments were used to restrict smoking in public places beginning in the 1990s. And prior to then Big Tobacco was seen as about as powerful a lobby you had in Washington. They owned nearly every Southern politician's votes. But people started suing and winning. Public opinion changed. With the percentages of adults smoking decreasing every year, younger generations grew up knowing cigarettes were addictive and bad for you and didn't want to be surrounded by cigarette smoke everywhere. And ultimately businesses went along with it because they didn't want to be held liable for creating an environment where their employees, clients, tenants, et al, could be getting harmed by second-hand smoke and suing them some day. A common theme to changing culture and behavior is the ability to sue.
I would also propose requiring gun owners to pay some type of personal liability insurance. I heard about this proposal a few years back and it's a total free market, constitutionally-sound way to force responsible gun owners to help pay the liability costs to society of irresponsible gun owners, the same way auto insurance works. There is not a constitutional right against paying insurance if product ownership requires it.
Some actuaries can figure out the public health costs of gun ownership and rate them accordingly. Your insurance rates would rise with every gun purchase. Also allow health insurance companies to access gun databases and charge gun owners more for health coverage just as they would smokers or drug users. Gun ownership fetish-ization and desire to assemble arsenals is an illness and a health risk of sorts, same as drinking a fifth of whiskey or smoking two packs of cigarettes daily also is.
Public figures and groups increasingly are lacking shame in the Trump Era, but ultimately the 75% needs to make the 25% understand that this can't continue. This is not an overnight project, but over time as we change the culture we can make it so very few people, even some enthusiastic gun owners, will want to be associated with the NRA. The mayor pro tem of Dallas is already telling the NRA to move their convention out of Dallas. Now imagine that nationwide. And in the last few weeks dozens of companies are disassociating themselves from the NRA's toxic brand - rental car companies, airlines, chain restaurants, and Dick's Sporting Goods.
And ultimately you just need simple messaging. Keep repeating something like "The NRA represents the needs of gun manufacturers and dealers not gun owners." We can do better and we have to do better. And every day another kid growing up in our insane do-nothing gun politics will say, "Enough!", like the Parkland kids have done the last few weeks. And they'll register to vote. And every election we will have more and more kids voting who believe in this kind of world and more old white men dying off who believe in the fantasy world that the NRA and Fox News is selling them. This is our future. It's not inevitable, but we're getting there.
P.S. Also check out this post by Dan Pfeiffer from October after the Vegas shooting. He makes some great points more eloquently.
