This article is republished from The Conversation.
Recent mass shootings at three spas in Atlanta, Georgia and a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado have renewed calls for new gun legislation.
The U.S. has been here before – after shootings in Tucson, Aurora, Newtown, Charleston, Roseburg, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, El Paso and other communities across the United States.
Congress has declined to pass significant new gun legislation after dozens of shootings, including shootings that occurred during periods like this one, with Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, Senate and presidency.
This response may seem puzzling given that national opinion polls reveal extensive support for several gun control policies, including expanding background checks and banning assault weapons.
But polls do not determine policy. Stricter gun laws are more popular among Democrats than Republicans, and major new legislation would likely need votes from at least 10 Republican senators. Many of these senators represent constituencies opposed to gun control. Despite national polls showing majority support for an assault weapons ban, not one of the 30 states with a Republican-controlled legislature has such a policy. The absence of strict control policies in Republican-controlled states shows that senators crossing party lines to support gun control would be out of step with the views of voters whose support they need to win elections.
But, a lack of action from Congress doesn’t mean gun laws are stagnant after mass shootings.
I am a professor of strategy at UCLA and have researched gun policy. With my co-authors at Harvard University, I’ve studied how gun laws change following mass shootings.
Our research on this topic finds there is legislative activity following these tragedies, but at the state level.
Restrictions loosened
To examine how policy changes, we assembled data on shootings and gun legislation in the 50 states between 1990 and 2014. Overall, we identified more than 20,000 firearm bills and nearly 3,200 enacted laws. Some of these loosened gun restrictions; others tightened them; and still others did neither or both – that is, tightened in some dimensions but loosened in others.
We then compared gun laws before and after mass shootings in states where mass shootings occurred, relative to all other states.
Contrary to the view that nothing changes, state legislatures consider 15% more firearm bills the year after a mass shooting. Deadlier shootings – which receive more media attention – have larger effects.
In fact, mass shootings have a greater influence on lawmakers than other homicides even though they account for less than 1% of gun deaths in the United States.
As impressive as this 15% increase in gun bills may sound, gun legislation can reduce gun violence only if it becomes law. And when it comes to enacting these bills into law, our research found that mass shootings do not regularly cause lawmakers to tighten gun restrictions.
In fact, we found the opposite; Republican state legislatures pass significantly more gun laws that loosen restrictions on firearms after mass shootings.
That’s not to say Democrats never tighten gun laws – there are prominent examples of Democratic-controlled states passing new legislation following mass shootings.
California, for example, enacted several new gun laws following a 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino. Our research shows, however, that Democrats don’t tighten gun laws more than usual following mass shootings.
Ideology governs response
The contrasting response from Democrats and Republicans is indicative of different philosophies regarding the causes of gun violence and the best ways to reduce deaths.
While Democrats tend to view environmental factors as contributing to violence, Republicans are more likely to blame the individual shooters. Politicians favoring looser restrictions on guns following mass shootings frequently argue that more people carrying guns would allow law-abiding citizens to stop perpetrators.
In fact, gun sales often surge after mass shootings, in part because people fear being victimized.
Democrats, in contrast, typically focus more on trying to solve policy and societal problems that contribute to gun violence.
For both sides, mass shootings are an opportunity to propose bills consistent with their ideology.
Since we wrote our study of gun legislation following mass shootings, which covered the period through 2014, several additional tragedies have energized the gun control movement that emerged following the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Student activism following the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, did not result in congressional action but led several states to pass new gun control laws.
With more funding and better organization, this new movement is better positioned than prior gun control movements to advocate for stricter gun policies following mass shootings. But with states historically more active than Congress on the issue of guns, both advocates and opponents of new restrictions should look beyond Washington, D.C., for action on gun policy.
Christopher Poliquin is an assistant professor of strategy at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“In fact, gun sales often surge after mass shootings, in part because people fear being victimized.”
The recent mass shooting in the Boulder, Colorado grocery store where 10 people were shot and killed lasted over an hour. It took that long for the SWAT team to be called out, assemble outside the store and plan their assault. Customers huddled inside, praying that the gunman wouldn’t come around the corner and discover their hiding place. Some prayers weren’t answered.
I carry a handgun wherever I go, including grocery stores. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
Had the NRA not brought a lawsuit, a Boulder ordinance would have banned the sale of the weapon used to commit the mass murder. That is called deterred deterrence.
As for carrying a gun, you pull out your personal weapon at the site of a mass shooting and who knows you are a good guy? Nobody. Do we regularly see citizens stopping this violence before it gets started?
Frankly, every other developed country has a fraction of the overall gun death and mass murder rate as the US, not to mention almost no young children killing themselves or others by playing with loaded weapons left with their reach by “responsible gun owners.”
Our status quo is appalling. Those unwilling to do anything to stem the violence of gun deaths are only “responsible” in the sense of contributing to our escalating annual total of gun murders.
“I used to say that the risk-averse don’t deserve to live in a free society. Turns out they don’t want to.”
Well played, sir.
“I carry a handgun wherever I go, including grocery stores.”
And with zero training, not a second, in how to deal with high stress situations, but you’ll be the cowboy and save the day. Since there have been no instances of the supposed “good guy with a gun” stopping any mass shootings, you’ll be the exception. Good to know.
There have been a number of good guys without guns stopping mass shootings in past years, giving their lives in doing so, but all those armed “patriots”, nope, not so much – probably cowering in the perpetual fear they live in, rather than step up.
It is regrettable that this discussion pits presumably caring people, the letter writers above, against one another. One group thinks we should have restrictions and waiting periods and all that. Good start, and certainly not an effort to strike down the second amendment like the NRA claims. This is not a complete solution but it sure is an attempt to try to offer one.
Another camp wants to arm themselves because crazy wackos with guns do horrific things in society and they would rather be armed when they encounter, God forbid, such a situation. This is perfectly reasonable, and the second amendment gives them the right to do just that.
These two camps are not opposed to one another, but are caring and concerned members of the same group – frustrated citizens who see the news and feel revulsion, and want desperately to do something meaningful to stop the carnage. But we are on the same team. We are FOR a civil and safe society and AGAINST a gun-crazed part of the population who is fascinated by the imagined power that guns provide.
Our societal fascination with guns is regrettably (and partly) a holdover from our early years where lawlessness itself won the day. The land was taken by gun violence, a country was established and maintained through violence, and its expansion to a world power continued through violence. As a culture we continue to equate access to guns as having power.
Violence between nations (war) is still regarded as a viable option primarily because we have not created a better alternative. Remove societal injustice and face our deep racism openly and you take a massive step toward reducing the need for guns.
As a combat veteran I can assure you I have plenty of experience with “high stress situations.” Good grief, sir. Not all of your neighbors avoided military service.
SO the mere act of being in the military is all you need to be an expert in stressful situations – who knew. And speaking of your “training”, that was what, 50 years ago, but you maintain the acuity of a 20 year old, steady hands, steely eyes, all set and ready to take down the bad guy. There’s an old saying “the older I get, the greater I was”.
Maybe you and your mother will be fortunate enough to shop at the same places I do.
All of this research begs the obvious question: how would any of these proposed pieces of legislation actually function in preventing gun violence of any kind? As the author himself admits, mass shootings account for fewer than 1% of firearm related homicides, most of the crimes we do see would doubtfully be prevented by things like universal background checks, assault weapon bans, magazine capacity limits or many of the other so-called common sense laws.
Even when it comes to mass shootings many wouldn’t be prevented by such laws, we know this because we can see how such shooters typically are capable of flying under the radar of law enforcement.
Ultimately, such laws fill no objective purpose other than making people feel good, feel as tbough they’re “doing something”. However, they are wholly incapable of actually reducing gun crime.
Benjamin Franklin once asked “what good is a new-born baby?” What good is a law making murder a crime? What good is any law if some people only break it and other people die? You might as well say: we’ll we’re all going to die someday from something. So why bother?
The studies on the effects of gun control laws are statistical. No one really knows what the lasting impact of meaningful gun control legislation would be in this country because it’s never been tried. We do know that the US has by far the worst record of gun violence and deaths and injury from same compared to anywhere else in the world. I believe that includes areas technically described as “war zones.” Meaningful common sense gun control legislation would make guns and gun ownership under the law and lessen the sense of gun owners that they are outside of society and the community and above the law. Over time, it would be my hope that more people-most people- in this country would come to see gun ownership as a dangerous and anti-social, if not pathological, fetish.
Payton….The term ‘Mass Shootings’ is a misnomer to begin with. Someone assigned a meaningless number to this phrase when in essence, any single shooting is a ‘mass shooting’ if you think about it. The ‘mass’ are
those children, wives, husbands, relatives, et. al….all who will suffer because of the shooting.
Also, background checks, assault weapons bans, magazine-capacity limits, and ‘so-called common sense’ laws WOULD make a difference if enacted…just as they would have made a difference had they been enacted 15 years ago. Look to the future Payton. Had the above restrictions been enacted back then, there would not be 400 million weapons available on the streets to almost anyone within this country, as is now the case.
So Payton….if we enact those restrictions now, that will negate, in the say next 15 years an increase from the now 400 million weapons to say, 800 million available weapons and appropriate more ‘mass shootings’.
It is not surprising that some places actually loosen gun laws after shootings. There is always a call for more restrictions by one side so those on the other side act preemptively. Actions beget reactions.
People purchase guns out of a fear being victimized. Some of those fear being victimized by legislators trying to restrict their right to own a weapon. So they buy now before the guns are banned.
There is a logic to it all.
Last week in Moorhead, a six year old child was killed when he and sibs played with a handgun left unattended by the parents(?)…not a mass shooting, but rather a reminder that lethal weapons require thoughtful and mature caretakers. You have to pass a test and carry a license to drive a car, but to own a gun…ah heck, just leave it loaded and accessible to the kids…what could go wrong?
Do Second Amendment gun rights apply to children or the mentally ill? When the Second Amendment was adopted were there semi-automatic rifles with 30 or 100 round magazines?
Hunters have used semi-automatic rifles to hunt here in Minnesota and nationally for many, many years. What you now call an “assault rifle” looks kind of scary but it probably does not shoot any faster than other semi-automatic hunting rifles that have been around for years.
Wisconsin has recently changed hunting regulations to allow anyone to hunt regardless of age. I personally would not feel safe in the woods with young children carrying and firing any type of weapon. For me to feel safe I would like to know that hunting regulations address training (firearm safety courses) and probably maturity too as I’d get nervous hunting in the same woods with a five or seven year-old.
Most responsible hunters shouldn’t need more than one or two shots to kill a big game animal or even a coyote or fox. As a hunter, and not an NRA member, I would support regulations limiting the size of magazines to four or five rounds as there really is no need for 10 to 30 round magazines for either hunters or target shooters. Actually you can hunt waterfowl in Minnesota with a semi-automatic shotgun but you are limited to three rounds in the gun at any one time.
I would also support legislation banning bump stocks or any other method or device which could convert a semi-automatic rifle into a fully automatic weapon, or machine gun.
Most importantly I would hope our lawmakers would expand regulations relating to background checks and waiting periods.
I would not support legislation which would increase the age from 18 to 21 to allow a person to buy a rifle. We have many young people hunting in the fields and woods of Minnesota who are much younger than 18. For many of the youth it is a source of pride to be able to save enough money and buy their own rifle or shotgun. I was able to buy my first shotgun at the age of 12 from money I saved from my paper route. I also served in Vietnam with young men that were 18, 19, and 21 years old and if we can expect them to use these weapons in combat then we should allow them to own other types of rifles when they return home, even if they are under the age of 21.
I have been upset with the NRA for many years as it has absolutely no plans to address gun safety here in the Country that I love. I think twice, many more, when considering a vote for someone that is accepting contributions from the NRA or those that can’t accept some common sense gun regulations.