tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/gun-control-4477/articlesGun control – The Conversation2024-03-26T16:36:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2259942024-03-26T16:36:32Z2024-03-26T16:36:32ZN.S. Mass Casualty Commission a year later: What recommendations have been implemented?<p>March 30 marks the first anniversary of the release of the <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/final-report/">Mass Casualty Commission’s final report</a> into the April 2020 <a href="https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/a-look-at-the-22-nova-scotians-killed-in-canada-s-worst-mass-shooting-1.6335839">mass shooting in Nova Scotia that left 22 people dead.</a> It was the most <a href="https://theconversation.com/nova-scotias-mass-casualty-commission-calls-for-stricter-gun-control-laws-202808">thorough study</a> of a mass shooting in Canadian history. </p>
<p>The non-partisan commission’s <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/files/documents/Turning-the-Tide-Together-List-of-Recommendations.pdf">130 recommendations</a> included several focused on gun laws. </p>
<p>Over the past year, the federal government has had a mixed record in implementing the commission’s firearms policy recommendations. Some provincial governments, however, have sought to limit implementation, and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has provided little indication that he will follow the commission’s recommendations if he becomes prime minister.</p>
<h2>Firearm recommendations</h2>
<p>Among the commission’s recommendations:</p>
<ol>
<li>The federal government should “amend the Criminal Code to prohibit all semi-automatic handguns and all semi-automatic rifles and shotguns that discharge centre-fire ammunition and that are designed to accept detachable magazines with capacities of more than five rounds.” </li>
<li>Ottawa must “take steps to rapidly reduce the number of prohibited semi-automatic firearms in circulation in Canada.”</li>
<li>The federal government must <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-three-years-ago-loopholes-in-canadas-gun-laws-paved-the-way-for-a/">close loopholes</a> that allow gun owners to use large-capacity ammunition magazines.</li>
<li>Purchasers of ammunition and magazines should possess a firearms license. </li>
<li>Stronger measures need to be put in place to prevent gun possession by people involved in domestic or gender-based violence.</li>
<li>Governments should adopt a public-health approach to firearms policy.</li>
<li>Governments should improve efforts to combat gun smuggling.</li>
</ol>
<h2>Ottawa’s efforts</h2>
<p>The federal government has implemented some of the Mass Casualty Commission’s recommendations with its most recent gun control legislation, <a href="https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-21/royal-assent">Bill C-21</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, the government <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2023/05/government-announces-strengthened-measures-to-prevent-gun-violence-and-ban-new-assault-style-firearms.html">described this law</a> as being designed to “align with recommendations put forward by the Mass Casualty Commission.” </p>
<p>To help address intimate partner and gender-based violence, the act enhances measures allowing for <a href="https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/cntrng-crm/frrms/c21-en.aspx">emergency prohibition orders</a> to remove firearms in situations in which gun owners pose dangers. </p>
<p>Bill C-21 also statutorily enacted a freeze on handgun purchases and transfers. In addition, the Liberals amended the definition of prohibited firearms to include models of <a href="https://digitalcommons.schulichlaw.dal.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2226&context=dlj">assault-style rifles</a> “designed and manufactured” after the legislation came into force.</p>
<p>Most gun control advocates supported the final version of C-21, <a href="https://polysesouvient.ca/Documents_2023/PRSS_23_05_01_NewAmendment_AssW.pdf">but some noted</a> that the legislation did <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9665478/liberal-gun-amendment-assault-style-firearm/">not fully implement</a> the commission’s recommendations. </p>
<p>For example, it doesn’t require current owners to dispose of handguns, and thus does not address the commission’s goal of rapidly reducing the number of semi-automatic firearms in circulation. </p>
<p>As well, the new definition of prohibited weapons left many models of semi-automatic rifles in the Canadian market. If models of such rifles were not previously prohibited, and have already been designed and manufactured, then they remain legal.</p>
<p>Other aspects of C-21 have yet to be implemented through regulation. This includes new limits on ammunition magazines. </p>
<p>The federal government has also <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/ottawa-extending-amnesty-for-assault-style-firearms-again-until-october-2025">delayed its buyback</a> of assault-style rifles like the AR-15 prohibited by <a href="https://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p2/2020/2020-05-01-x3/html/sor-dors96-eng.html">order-in-council</a> after the Nova Scotia mass shooting. This again means that Ottawa is not following the commission’s recommendation to rapidly reduce the number of semi-automatic firearms in Canada.</p>
<h2>Opposition to the recommendations</h2>
<p>While the federal government has taken significant but incomplete steps, some provincial governments oppose the commission’s recommendations. </p>
<p><a href="https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/alberta-granted-permission-to-intervene-in-gun-lawsuits-against-canada-1.6228294">Alberta</a> and <a href="https://regina.ctvnews.ca/saskatchewan-applies-to-intervene-in-legal-challenges-against-federal-firearms-legislation-1.6757210">Saskatchewan</a> are supporting a <a href="https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2023/2023fc1419/2023fc1419.html">Federal Court case</a> challenging the prohibition of some assault-style rifles. </p>
<p>Several provinces, <a href="https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/alberta-introduces-firearms-act-to-counter-federal-legislation-1.6303172">including Alberta</a> <a href="https://leaderpost.com/news/saskatchewan/new-sask-firearms-act-aims-to-balance-gun-rights-with-public-safety">and Saskatchewan</a>, want to make it more difficult for Ottawa to carry out its planned gun buyback strategy.</p>
<p>Poilievre is critical of the Mass Casualty Commission’s work. In <a href="https://www.cpac.ca/headline-politics/episode/conservative-leader-on-federal-bail-policies-carbon-pricing?id=978a1314-9e80-47d6-b108-0ef0ba842d85">April 2023</a>, he complained that the “commission is really an outrage.” In his view, the commission had “ignored the victims of crime” and “the facts on the ground.” Poilievre went on to criticize the federal government’s effort to prohibit some firearms.</p>
<p>Poilievre, however, is vague about his own firearm policies. His <a href="https://x.com/PierrePoilievre/status/1750947088181956795?s=20">social media</a> simply speaks of a desire to “stop Trudeau’s hunting rifle ban.” Some Conservative MPs, however, have promised to repeal the Liberal government’s gun control measures. </p>
<p>For example, Conservative shadow minister Rachael Thomas said on <a href="https://x.com/RachaelThomasMP/status/1735798525336633801?s=20">X (formerly Twitter)</a> that a “Conservative government will repeal Bill C-21 and take real action to tackle crime and put criminals behind bars!”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1735798525336633801"}"></div></p>
<h2>Previous Tory stances</h2>
<p>The Conservatives’ stance is at odds with some steps taken by previous <a href="https://vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/blake-brown-conservatives-should-take-lessons-from-progressive-conservatives-on-gun-control">Conservative governments and prime ministers</a>.</p>
<p>Brian Mulroney <a href="https://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/history-firearms-canada#s2">tightened access</a> to assault-style weapons, <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-short-history-of-the-ar-15-in-canada-123959">including the AR-15</a>, after the 1989 Montréal Massacre. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-short-history-of-the-ar-15-in-canada-123959">A short history of the AR-15 in Canada</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>In 2012, Stephen Harper rejected calls to make some high-powered weapons more available, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/no-plans-to-end-restrictions-on-prohibited-guns-harper-says-1.1151923">saying that “prohibited weapons exist as a category under the law for essential reasons of public security</a>.” He said his government had “absolutely no intention of weakening that category of protections.” </p>
<p>These wise words should be kept in mind by politicians of all stripes as they face the important task of implementing the Mass Casualty Commission’s final report.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225994/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>R. Blake Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Over the past year, Ottawa has had a mixed record in implementing the Mass Casualty Commission’s firearm recommendations. Some provinces, however, have sought to limit implementation.R. Blake Brown, Professor, History, Saint Mary’s UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2055532023-06-26T12:21:26Z2023-06-26T12:21:26ZTaking students to the range to learn about gun culture firsthand<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530147/original/file-20230605-22195-gqn7mv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3404%2C1798&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Sociology of Guns' students during a gun range field trip.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sandra Stroud Yamane</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em> </p>
<h2>Title of course:</h2>
<p>“Sociology of Guns”</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea for the course?</h2>
<p>I grew up in the liberal culture of the San Francisco Bay Area and never touched a firearm until I was 42 years old, living in North Carolina and <a href="https://sociology.wfu.edu/people/faculty/david-yamane">teaching sociology at Wake Forest University</a>.</p>
<p>For the past 10-plus years I have been deeply immersed in American gun culture both professionally and personally. I have both studied and am a member of the Liberal Gun Club, National Rifle Association and other gun-related groups.</p>
<p>Having one foot outside and one foot inside gun culture allows me to see the social life of guns from different perspectives. Wanting to convey this diversity to others prompted me to construct and teach this course for the first time in 2015. This fall, I will teach the course for the ninth consecutive academic year.</p>
<h2>What does the course explore?</h2>
<p>Rather than focusing exclusively on gun violence and politics, my course looks more broadly at guns in society.</p>
<p>The class begins by literally putting firearms in students’ hands.</p>
<p>The first class meeting is at a gun range, where students have the opportunity – but are not required – to shoot three semi-automatic firearms: a .22 pistol, a Glock 17 9 mm pistol and an AR-15 style .223 caliber rifle. The field trip is a source of insight that carries through the entire semester.</p>
<p>Substantively, the course builds on the students’ firsthand experience of guns by exploring the multifaceted role they play in society. It puts guns in historical, legal and global contexts. The intention is to provide students with a greater understanding of the lawful possession and use of guns, gun crime and injuries, and the future of gun politics.</p>
<p>Guest speakers vary from semester to semester but include leaders of various gun owner groups, professional gun educators and trainers, and representatives of gun violence prevention organizations.</p>
<h2>Why is this course relevant now?</h2>
<p>It often feels as though the United States is being torn apart by cultural and political divisions over guns. As Mark Joslyn argues in “<a href="https://www.choice360.org/choice-pick/the-gun-gap-rotw-4-5-21/">The Gun Gap</a>,” the different social worlds inhabited by gun owners and non-owners shape not just their fundamental orientations to guns, risk and policy, but their very understanding of what constitutes a good society.</p>
<p>I believe that we as a society cannot repair this divide until people begin to talk to each other about their differences with the goal of mutual understanding. These conversations should be built on a solid foundation of empirical knowledge about the role guns actually play in society - both positive and negative.</p>
<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the course?</h2>
<p>The trip to the gun range stands out because it offers direct exposure to gunfire. As expected, <a href="https://guncurious.wordpress.com/2023/06/23/collected-posts-on-sociology-of-guns-seminar/">student responses vary</a>. Most enjoy it. Some dislike it. No one is indifferent. All are better able to relate to the course material because of it.</p>
<p>In particular, those who were personally repulsed by guns prior to the field trip often come to see why guns can be attractive to others. Those who had lacked exposure often become gun curious. And the few gun enthusiasts I get in my course do not just have their enthusiasm reinforced; they also understand why others see guns differently. </p>
<p>Reflecting on the field trip experience over the course of the semester through the lens of scholarship on guns turns the heat of gunfire on the range into the light of comprehension in the classroom.</p>
<h2>What materials does the course feature?</h2>
<p>“<a href="https://lgolens.com/anthropillar/">The Liberal Gun Owners Lens, Pillar 1: The Human-Weapon Relationship</a>” – which explains the deep anthropological connection between <em>Homo sapiens</em> and projectile weaponry. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393345834">Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America_</a>,” – Adam Winkler’s magnificent book on the historical and legal context of guns.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162231156292">Gun Culture 2.0: The Evolution and Contours of Defensive Gun Ownership in America</a>” – my comprehensive summary of the history and development of gun culture in the United States.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsa1916744">Handgun Ownership and Suicide in California</a>” and “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392115617227">Race and Mass Murder in the United States</a>” – articles that address negative outcomes with guns in society.</p>
<h2>What will the course prepare students to do?</h2>
<p>“Sociology of Guns” teaches students to approach this fraught topic in a more objective and nuanced manner encompassing both the everyday uses and abuses of firearms. This knowledge then helps students better understand their own personal beliefs about and relationship to guns. </p>
<p>Taken together, these lessons prepare students to make informed choices for the rest of their lives about being involved with guns – or not – as well as the place of guns in the communities in which they will live.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205553/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Yamane has received funding from The Louisville Institute for the Study of American Religion to study church security. He is a member of the Liberal Gun Club, National African American Gun Association, and National Rifle Association and financially supports the Liberal Gun Owners 501c4 and Walk the Walk America 501c3 organizations.</span></em></p>In this course, a gun range becomes a classroom for students to explore their previously held beliefs about firearms.David Yamane, Professor of Sociology, Wake Forest UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1983872023-04-13T12:27:51Z2023-04-13T12:27:51ZWhy do mass shooters kill? It’s about more than having a grievance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520290/original/file-20230411-1936-1a1qsx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C6%2C1142%2C830&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A memorial for Joshua Barrick, killed by a shooter at the bank where he worked, April 10, 2023, at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Louisville, Ky. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/LouisvilleShooting/d3427bc6b22a4988a4b73b1672f1d6f3/photo?Query=shooting%20louisville&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=508&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Claire Galofaro</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>An acutely troubling aspect of life in contemporary America is the <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/mass-shootings-increasing-harvard-research/">growing proliferation of mass shootings</a> that <a href="http://www.fitgny.com/uploads/7/5/7/0/75709513/congressional_research_paper_mass_shootings.pdf">claim thousands of innocent lives</a> year after painful year and make everyone feel unsafe. </p>
<p>The year 2023 is still young, and already there have been at least <a href="https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/">184 mass shooting events</a> in the U.S. on record, including two on April 28 – <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-shooting-wilson-garcia-lost-son-daniel-wife-sonia-guzman/">five killed in their Cleveland, Texas, home</a>, and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/30/us/philadelphia-shooting-teens-killed/index.html">three killed and one injured</a> in Philadelphia – as well as <a href="https://wach.com/news/local/sheriff-lott-speaks-on-mass-shooting-at-meadowlake-park-11-injured-teenagers-adults-columbia-south-carolina#">at least 9 teens injured</a> in an April 29 shooting at a park in South Carolina.</p>
<p>There were 647 mass shootings in 2022 and 693 in 2021, resulting in 859 and 920 deaths, respectively, with no respite in sight from this ghastly epidemic. Since 2015, over 19,000 people have been <a href="https://everytownresearch.org/mass-shootings-in-america/">shot and wounded or killed</a> in mass shootings. </p>
<p>In the wake of most shootings, the news media and the public reflexively ask: What was the killer’s motive?</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.gr/citations?user=Trd2BdsAAAAJ&hl=en">a psychologist who studies</a> violence and extremism, I understand that the question immediately pops to mind because of the bizarre nature of the attacks, the “out-of-the-blue” shock that they produce, and people’s need to comprehend and reach closure on what initially appears to be completely senseless and irrational. </p>
<p>But what would constitute a satisfactory answer to the public’s question?</p>
<p>Media reports typically describe shooters’ motives based on specific individual details of the case, on their “manifestos” or social media postings. These generally list insults, humiliations or rejections – by co-workers, potential romantic partners or schoolmates – that a perpetrator may have suffered. Or they may cite alleged threats to the shooter’s group from some imagined enemy such as Jews, people of color, Muslims, Asians or members of the LGBTQ+ community. </p>
<p>Though perhaps informative about a given perpetrator’s way of thinking, I believe these motives are too specific. Each shooter’s life story is unique, yet the growing number of mass shootings suggests a general trend that transcends personal details. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520303/original/file-20230411-16-zfr949.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Posters, flowers and photos and heart shapes piled on a lawn." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520303/original/file-20230411-16-zfr949.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520303/original/file-20230411-16-zfr949.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520303/original/file-20230411-16-zfr949.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520303/original/file-20230411-16-zfr949.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520303/original/file-20230411-16-zfr949.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520303/original/file-20230411-16-zfr949.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520303/original/file-20230411-16-zfr949.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Posters, flowers and portraits fill the lawn in front of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at the school on May 24.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MassShootingsMarginalizedGroups/3303aa68c2364950971ad579e71e9a6f/photo?Query=%20memorial%20uvalde&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=382&currentItemNo=5">AP Photo/Lekan Oyekanmi</a></span>
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<h2>Quest for significance</h2>
<p>Perhaps surprisingly, the general motive that drives mass shootings is a fundamental human need. It is everyone’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211034825">quest for significance</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12368">a feeling that their life matters</a>.</p>
<p>That need gets activated when someone feels the loss of significance, the sense of being slighted, humiliated or excluded, but also when there is an opportunity for a gain in one’s sense of significance, being the object of admiration, a hero or a martyr in other people’s eyes. </p>
<p>I took part in a recent study carried out in the aftermath of the 2016 Orlando mass shooting. In that study, headed by <a href="https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=CdQeGbsAAAAJ&hl=en">social psychologist Pontus Leander</a> of Wayne State University, we subjected American gun owners to <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-12985-001">feeling a loss of significance</a> by giving them a failing score – or not – on an achievement task. We then asked this random sample of gun owners to respond to a number of questions including whether they would be ready to kill a home intruder even if they were about to leave the home they invaded, and also how empowered those gun owners felt by owning a gun. </p>
<p>We found that the experience of failure increased participants’ view of guns as a means of empowerment, and enhanced their readiness to shoot and kill a home intruder.</p>
<p>And a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12472">2020 review of mass shooting incidents</a> between the years 2010 and 2019 found that 78% of mass shooters in that period were motivated by fame-seeking or attention-seeking – that is, by the quest for significance.</p>
<p>If the need for significance is so fundamental and universal, how is it that mass shooting is an isolated phenomenon perpetrated by a handful of desperate individuals – and not by everyone? </p>
<p>Two factors can push this common human striving into mayhem and destruction. </p>
<p>First, it takes <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000260">extreme heights of significance craving</a> to pay this high a price for potential notoriety. Shooting is an extreme act that demands self-sacrifice, not only giving up on acceptance in the mainstream society, but also producing a high likelihood of dying in shootouts with law enforcement. </p>
<p>Research shows that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7803479/">about 25%</a> to <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2021-43325-001">31%</a> of mass shooters exhibit signs of mental illness, which is likely to induce in them a deep sense of disempowerment and insignificance. But even the remaining 70%-75% with no known pathologies are likely to have suffered extreme significance issues, as attested by their ample statements about humiliation, rejection and exclusion they believe they or their group suffered at the hands of some real or imagined culprits. These feelings can create a <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/journals/rev/128/2/264/">one-track significance focus</a> that can ultimately precipitate a mass shooting. </p>
<p>Yet even someone who really really wants to feel significant is not necessarily going to carry out a mass shooting. </p>
<h2>Shortcut to stardom</h2>
<p>In fact, most highly motivated people satisfy their egos quite differently; they focus their extremism on various socially approved areas: business, sports, the arts, the sciences or politics. Why would some then choose the repugnant road to infamy paved by the massacre of innocents?</p>
<p>There is a method to this madness: The shocked public attention a shooting attracts delivers instantaneous “significance.” Climbing the steep hill of a respectable career, however, is fraught with obstacles and uncertainties. Success is elusive, takes ages to attain, and is inequitably afforded to those with unusual ability, grit or privilege, or some combination of those.</p>
<p>Committing a mass shooting represents a widely available shortcut to “stardom.”</p>
<p>There are over <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-25/how-many-guns-in-the-us-buying-spree-bolsters-lead-as-most-armed-country">390 million guns</a> in today’s America and a lack of background checks in many states. People have the freedom to purchase assault weapons at a local store. Thus, planning and executing a mass shooting is a road to notoriety open to anyone, and the narrative that links gun violence to significance – that is, the idea that by becoming a mass shooter you become famous – has been spreading ever wider with each successive shooting.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520304/original/file-20230411-14-wjq69l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Five U.S. flags at half-staff, seen through the blossoms of a flowering tree." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520304/original/file-20230411-14-wjq69l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520304/original/file-20230411-14-wjq69l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520304/original/file-20230411-14-wjq69l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520304/original/file-20230411-14-wjq69l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520304/original/file-20230411-14-wjq69l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520304/original/file-20230411-14-wjq69l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520304/original/file-20230411-14-wjq69l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flags at half-staff in Washington, D.C., on March 30, 2023, following the mass shooting in a Nashville, Tenn., school several days before.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-monument-with-flag-at-half-mast-in-because-the-massive-news-photo/1250070479?adppopup=true">Photo by Arturo Jimenez/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Killings celebrated</h2>
<p>A final puzzle is this: If significance and respect are what the shooters are after, how come they do things that most people despise? </p>
<p>In today’s fractured public sphere <a href="https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/extremism-digital-age">dominated by social media</a>, it is easy to find networks of supporters and admirers for nearly anything under the sun, including the most repugnant and unconscionable acts of cruelty and callousness. In fact, there is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/000276421876347">ample evidence</a> that mass shooters are celebrated by appreciative audiences and can serve as role models to other would-be heroes who seek to outscore them in casualty counts. </p>
<p>What my colleagues and I <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/04/conversation-kruglanski">call the “Three Ns</a>”: need, narrative and network, refer to the would-be shooter’s need to become significant or notorious, the narrative that says being a shooter means being important, and the network that exists to support such behavior. They together combine into a toxic mixture, driving a person to carry out a mass shooting. </p>
<p>But this framework also suggests how the tide of this horrific epidemic may be stemmed: Negating the narrative that depicts violence as an easy path to significance and dismantling the networks that support that narrative. </p>
<p>The two go together. Disproving the narrative that gun violence is an easy route to fame by making it hard to obtain guns, for instance, and reducing media attention to shooters would reduce the appeal of gun violence to people seeking to feel more significant. </p>
<p>It is equally important to identify and make available alternative paths to significance, conveyed in alternative narratives. This would likely require a concerted effort across society and its institutions. Understanding the psychology of it all may be a necessary precondition for taking effective steps in this direction.</p>
<p><em>This article, originally published April 13, 2023, was updated with descriptions of recent mass shootings.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198387/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arie Kruglanski receives funding from the Department of Defense.</span></em></p>Is there ever a satisfactory answer to questions about what motivated a mass shooter? There is, but it’s not what you think.Arie Kruglanski, Professor of Psychology, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2028082023-03-30T21:54:40Z2023-03-30T21:54:40ZNova Scotia’s Mass Casualty Commission calls for stricter gun control laws<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518587/original/file-20230330-1012-k6nvxx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6134%2C4021&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Friends, family and supporters of the victims of the mass killings in rural Nova Scotia in 2020 react at the release of the final report of the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry in Truro, N.S.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/nova-scotia-s-mass-casualty-commission-calls-for-stricter-gun-control-laws" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The final report of the Mass Casualty Commission investigating the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/18-confirmed-killed-canada-s-deadliest-mass-shooting-officials-expect-n1188471">April 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia that left 22 people dead</a> makes several recommendations to meaningfully change Canada’s gun laws.</p>
<p>The commission’s <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/final-report/">seven-volume report</a> addresses its <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/about/mandate/">broad mandate</a>, which includes:</p>
<ul>
<li> Considering the “causes, context and circumstances giving rise to the tragedy.” </li>
<li> The police response to the shootings.</li>
<li> The role of gender-based and intimate partner violence.</li>
<li> Access to firearms.</li>
</ul>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1641495249838039048"}"></div></p>
<p>The commission identifies many “<a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/files/documents/Turning-the-Tide-Together-Executive-Summary.pdf">lessons learned</a>” that inform its recommendations about firearms. It concludes that a priority “should be placed on reducing access to the most dangerous, high-capacity firearms and ammunition.” </p>
<p>It also concludes that current firearms laws don’t adequately protect against the unlawful transfer of guns upon the death of owners, and that effective border control requires a collaborative and co-ordinated approach among border agencies to potential weapons smuggling.</p>
<h2>Women at risk</h2>
<p>The commission also determined that the safety of women survivors of intimate partner violence is “put at risk by the presence of firearms and ammunition in the household.”</p>
<p>It also notes that firearm laws are inconsistently enforced, and that the current approach to gun control is hampered by inadequate community engagement with those involved in addressing gender-based violence and implementing firearms policy.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mass-casualty-commission-report-details-the-nova-scotia-shooters-abuse-of-sex-workers-202228">Mass Casualty Commission report details the Nova Scotia shooter's abuse of sex workers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Mass Casualty Commission further recognizes that the public often lacks accurate knowledge about gun laws. </p>
<p>It warns that Canadian beliefs are “influenced by the United States discourse centred on a right to bear arms,” which “does not exist in our constitutional and legal structure.” The commission also laments that discourse about firearms “has become increasingly polarized.”</p>
<p>Finally, the commission finds that there is a lack of community knowledge about the impact of firearms-related harms, and that some people do not have safe and accessible ways to report concerns over guns.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1641471323527413764"}"></div></p>
<h2>Limiting access to some firearms</h2>
<p>These lessons learned shape the commission’s many recommendations, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Better data collection to limit gun smuggling.</li>
<li>Setting limits on the stockpiling of ammunition by individual firearms owners.</li>
<li>Undertaking a nationwide public education program to increase public awareness of firearm laws.</li>
</ul>
<p>The lesson that a priority “should be placed on reducing access to the most dangerous, high-capacity firearms and ammunition” leads the commission to recommend that Ottawa:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Prohibit all semi-automatic handguns and all semi-automatic rifles and shotguns that discharge centre-fire ammunition and that are designed to accept detachable magazines with capacities of more than five rounds.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This recommendation is noteworthy given the recent heated debate over gun control. Since coming to power, the Liberals under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have reformed Canada’s gun laws. For example, Ottawa banned the <a href="https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2022/10/21/freezing-market-handguns">sale and transfer of handguns</a> in 2022.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A dark-haired man with a solemn expression on his face enters a room." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518588/original/file-20230330-2194-g5ctxr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518588/original/file-20230330-2194-g5ctxr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518588/original/file-20230330-2194-g5ctxr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518588/original/file-20230330-2194-g5ctxr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518588/original/file-20230330-2194-g5ctxr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518588/original/file-20230330-2194-g5ctxr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518588/original/file-20230330-2194-g5ctxr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives in Truro, N.S., prior to the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry’s final report into the mass murders in rural Nova Scotia in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Later that year, the Liberals also introduced amendments to their current gun control bill, <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/SECU/meeting-50/minutes">Bill C-21</a>, to prohibit some semi-automatic rifles and shotguns <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2020/the-liberal-governments-incomplete-assault-style-rifle-ban/">not captured</a> in earlier prohibitions. </p>
<p>The amendments also included a revised firearms <a href="https://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/firearms/classes-firearms">classification system</a> to prevent new models of firearms similar to those prohibited previously from entering the market.</p>
<h2>A non-partisan analysis</h2>
<p>The Bill C-21 amendments proved controversial partly because critics argued they were <a href="https://theline.substack.com/p/matt-gurney-memo-to-david-lametti">politically motivated</a>. The Liberals <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ottawa-withdraws-firearms-law-amendments-1.6735828">withdrew them</a> in February, but the Mass Casualty Commission now recommends a similar effort to limit access to the kinds of semi-automatic weapons often employed by <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28971349/">mass shooters</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A grey-haired man speaks into a microphone. A sign that reads Mass Casualty Commission is on the front of the podium." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Commissioner Michael MacDonald delivers remarks in September 2022 at the end of the public hearings of the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry into the mass murders in rural Nova Scotia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is significant, because the commission is a <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/about/the-commissioners/">non-partisan body</a>. The chair of the commission, Michael MacDonald, is a retired Nova Scotia chief justice. The other commissioners are Leanne J. Fitch, who served for seven years as Chief of Police for the Fredericton Police Force, and Kim Stanton, a lawyer and legal scholar.</p>
<p>The commission developed its recommendations after extensive study and analysis. It is the most ambitious, thorough and open study of a mass casualty in Canadian history. It collected and made publicly available an extensive set of primary source documents and it shared “<a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/documents/foundational-documents/">foundational documents</a>” containing key facts and events.</p>
<p>It also examined and <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/files/documents/COMM0063226.pdf">summarized national</a> <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/documents/commissioned-reports/#international-scan">and international</a> reports prepared in response to similar mass shootings. </p>
<p>It commissioned and published 23 <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/documents/commissioned-reports/">expert reports and technical reports</a> to help the commissioners better understand the issues related to its mandate. And it broadcast, recorded, transcribed and published <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/webcast/">its proceedings</a>.</p>
<p>Groups for and against gun control received status as participants in the commission. The <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/files/documents/Final-Written_CCGC.pdf">Coalition for Gun Control</a> was a participant, as were the <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/files/documents/Final-Written_CCFR-CNFA.pdf">National Firearms Association and Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights</a>. These groups provided written submissions, examined documents and spoke before the commission.</p>
<p>In the end, the commission found the evidence presented by those who support stronger gun laws more persuasive. Its final report asserts the importance of “affirming that gun ownership is a conditional privilege,” not a right.</p>
<p>The pressing question now is whether — and, if so, how quickly — the federal government will implement the Mass Casualty Commission’s gun policy recommendations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202808/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>R. Blake Brown was commissioned by the Mass Casualty Commission to write an Expert Report on the history of gun control.</span></em></p>The Mass Casualty Commission into the mass shooting in Nova Scotia in 2020 makes several recommendations to meaningfully change Canada’s gun laws.R. Blake Brown, Professor, History, Saint Mary’s UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2028862023-03-29T18:18:41Z2023-03-29T18:18:41ZNashville attack renews calls for assault weapons ban – data shows there were fewer mass shooting deaths during an earlier 10-year prohibition<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518201/original/file-20230329-14-pucltf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=86%2C358%2C8157%2C5129&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gun control activists rally in Nashville, Tenn.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/gun-control-activists-rally-in-nashville-tennessee-on-march-news-photo/1249704709?adppopup=true">Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The shooting deaths of three children and three adults inside a Nashville school has put further pressure on Congress to look at imposing a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-make-prime-time-address-calling-gun-reform-legislation-rcna31665">ban on so-called assault weapons</a>. Such a prohibition would be designed cover the types of guns that the suspect legally purchased and used during the March 27, 2023, attack.</p>
<p>Speaking after the incident, President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/03/28/remarks-by-president-biden-on-investing-in-america/">issued his latest plea</a> to lawmakers to act. “Why in God’s name do we allow these weapons of war on our streets and at our schools?” he asked.</p>
<p>A prohibition has been in place before. As Biden <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/06/02/remarks-by-president-biden-on-gun-violence-in-america/">has previously noted </a>, bipartisan support in Congress helped push through a federal assault weapons ban in 1994 as part of the <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/billfs.txt">Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act</a>. </p>
<p>That ban was limited – it covered only certain categories of semiautomatic weapons such as AR-15s and applied to a ban on sales only after the act was signed into law, allowing people to keep hold of weapons purchased before that date. And it also had in it a so-called “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/08/13/750656174/the-u-s-once-had-a-ban-on-assault-weapons-why-did-it-expire">sunset provision</a>” that allowed the ban to expire in 2004.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the 10-year life span of that ban – with a clear beginning and end date – gives researchers the opportunity to compare what happened with mass shooting deaths before, during and after the prohibition was in place. Our group of injury epidemiologists and trauma surgeons did just that. In 2019, we published a population-based study <a href="https://journals.lww.com/jtrauma/Fulltext/2019/01000/Changes_in_US_mass_shooting_deaths_associated_with.2.aspx">analyzing the data</a> in a bid to evaluate the effect that the federal ban on assault weapons had on mass shootings, <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R44126.pdf">defined by the FBI</a> as a shooting with four or more fatalities, not including the shooter. Here’s what the data shows:</p>
<p><iframe id="nnx1F" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/nnx1F/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Before the 1994 ban:</strong> </p>
<p>From 1981 – the earliest year in our analysis – to the rollout of the assault weapons ban in 1994, the proportion of deaths in mass shootings in which an assault rifle was used was lower than it is today. </p>
<p>Yet in this earlier period, mass shooting deaths were steadily rising. Indeed, high-profile mass shootings involving assault rifles – such as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/18/us/five-children-killed-as-gunman-attacks-a-california-school.html">killing of five children in Stockton, California, in 1989</a> and a <a href="https://www.ktvu.com/news/101-california-street-shooting-sparked-change-in-gun-laws">1993 San Francisco office attack</a> that left eight victims dead – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/04/biden-assault-weapons-ban/">provided the impetus</a> behind a push for a prohibition on some types of gun.</p>
<p><strong>During the 1994-2004 ban:</strong> </p>
<p>In the years after the assault weapons ban went into effect, the number of deaths from mass shootings fell, and the increase in the annual number of incidents slowed down. Even including 1999’s <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/1990s/columbine-high-school-shootings">Columbine High School massacre</a> – the deadliest mass shooting during the period of the ban – the 1994-2004 period saw lower average annual rates of both mass shootings and deaths resulting from such incidents than before the ban’s inception.</p>
<p><strong>From 2004 onward:</strong></p>
<p>The data shows an almost immediate – and steep – rise in mass shooting deaths in the years after the assault weapons ban expired in 2004.</p>
<p>Breaking the data into absolute numbers, from 2004 to 2017 – the last year of our analysis – the average number of yearly deaths attributed to mass shootings was 25, compared with 5.3 during the 10-year tenure of the ban and 7.2 in the years leading up to the prohibition on assault weapons.</p>
<h2>Saving hundreds of lives</h2>
<p>We calculated that the risk of a person in the U.S. dying in a mass shooting was 70% lower during the period in which the assault weapons ban was active. The proportion of overall gun homicides resulting from mass shootings was also down, with nine fewer mass-shooting-related fatalities per 10,000 shooting deaths.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1044981284022484994"}"></div></p>
<p>Taking population trends into account, a model we created based on this data suggests that had the federal assault weapons ban been in place throughout the whole period of our study – that is, from 1981 through 2017 – it may have prevented 314 of the 448 mass shooting deaths that occurred during the years in which there was no ban.</p>
<p>And this almost certainly underestimates the total number of lives that could be saved. For our study, we chose only to include mass shooting incidents that were reported and agreed upon by all three of our selected data sources: the <a href="https://timelines.latimes.com/deadliest-shooting-rampages/">Los Angeles Times</a>, <a href="https://library.stanford.edu/projects/mass-shootings-america">Stanford University</a> and <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/">Mother Jones magazine</a>. </p>
<p>Furthermore, for uniformity, we also chose to use the strict federal definition of an assault weapon – which may not include the entire spectrum of what many people may now consider to be assault weapons. </p>
<h2>Cause or correlation?</h2>
<p>It is also important to note that our analysis cannot definitively say that the assault weapons ban of 1994 caused a decrease in mass shootings, nor that its expiration in 2004 resulted in the growth of deadly incidents in the years since.</p>
<p>Many additional factors may contribute to the shifting frequency of these shootings, such as changes in domestic violence rates, political extremism, psychiatric illness, firearm availability and a surge in sales, and the recent rise in hate groups. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, according to our study, President Biden’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/06/02/remarks-by-president-biden-on-gun-violence-in-america/">claim that the rate of mass shootings</a> during the period of the assault weapons ban “went down” only for it to rise again after the law was allowed to expire in 2004 holds true.</p>
<p>As the U.S. looks toward a solution to the country’s epidemic of mass shootings, it is difficult to say conclusively that reinstating the assault weapons ban would have a profound impact, especially given the growth in sales in the 18 years in which Americans have been allowed to purchase and stockpile such weapons. But given that many of the high-profile mass shooters in recent years purchased their weapons <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/25/uvalde-shooter-bought-gun-legally/">less than one year</a> <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/15/florida-shooting-suspect-bought-gun-legally-authorities-say/340606002/">before committing their acts</a>, the evidence suggests that it might.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-the-assault-weapons-ban-of-1994-bring-down-mass-shootings-heres-what-the-data-tells-us-184430">article originally published</a> on June 8, 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202886/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Klein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Analysis of the 10 years in which the US banned sales of assault weapons shows that it correlates with a drop in mass shooting deaths – a trend that reversed as soon as the ban expired.Michael J. Klein, Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2011442023-03-23T12:39:53Z2023-03-23T12:39:53ZNRA’s path to recovery from financial woes leaves the gun group vulnerable to new problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516421/original/file-20230320-1979-hex189.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C17%2C2818%2C1681&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The gun group might be less sturdy than it appears. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/headquarters-building-royalty-free-image/501683621">Kelly Nigro/Moment Open via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-nra-an-educational-organization-a-lobby-group-a-nonprofit-a-media-outlet-yes-92806">National Rifle Association’s</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nra-power-lobbying-statistics-gun-control-2017-10">financial firepower</a>, which arose in part due to its large and loyal <a href="https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/354317-the-nras-power-by-the-numbers/">membership base</a>, has long been one of the gun group’s main sources of strength.</p>
<p>But the NRA has in recent years faced a financial tsunami, one that came to light <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/29/671799992/nra-2017-tax-records-reveal-decline-in-income">after the 2016 election</a>. A swirl of disagreements with <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/30/politics/nra-sues-ad-firm-ackerman-mcqueen/index.html">longtime business partners</a>, accusations of <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/secrecy-self-dealing-and-greed-at-the-nra">waste and misspending</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/financial-woes-are-at-the-heart-of-the-nras-tumult-116146">ballooning debt</a> and lawsuits from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-new-york-is-suing-the-nra-4-questions-answered-144108">New York</a> and <a href="https://oag.dc.gov/release/ag-racine-sues-nra-foundation-diverting-charitable">Washington, D.C.</a> attorneys general have triggered one embarrassment after another. The NRA tried <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nra-declares-bankruptcy-5-questions-answered-153423">to declare bankruptcy</a> to cushion some of these blows, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/11/politics/national-rifle-association-bankruptcy/index.html">with no luck</a>.</p>
<p>At this point, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/nra-cannot-be-dissolved-by-new-york-attorney-general-judge-rules-2022-03-02/">threat of being forced by the authorities to shut down</a> due to alleged improprieties is minimal. But has the NRA managed to weather its financial storm?</p>
<p>As an accounting researcher who <a href="https://fisher.osu.edu/people/mittendorf.3">focuses on the financial performance of nonprofits</a>, I have been closely studying NRA finances <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nras-financial-weakness-explained-108582">throughout its crisis</a>. I can say the NRA financial picture is, as of early 2023, a mixed bag. The gun group has shored up its financial position over the last few years. However, the way in which that financial recovery came about risks hemorrhaging the NRA’s core supporters.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516433/original/file-20230320-2154-1vd4wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="White men look at a machine gun on display in a crowded room with high ceilings" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516433/original/file-20230320-2154-1vd4wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516433/original/file-20230320-2154-1vd4wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516433/original/file-20230320-2154-1vd4wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516433/original/file-20230320-2154-1vd4wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516433/original/file-20230320-2154-1vd4wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516433/original/file-20230320-2154-1vd4wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516433/original/file-20230320-2154-1vd4wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">NRA members get to see many kinds of firearms at the group’s annual conventions – even machine guns.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/attendees-view-a-canik-m2-qcb-50-cal-machine-gun-displayed-news-photo/1240972741?adppopup=true">Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Digging out of a financial hole</h2>
<p>The NRA’s financial troubles arose at the same time that <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/nra-chief-lapierre-illicit-gains-report-1096433/">scandalous aspects of the organization’s woes</a> – such as longtime NRA leader Wayne LaPierre’s <a href="https://apnews.com/article/shootings-dallas-parkland-florida-school-shooting-gun-politics-school-shootings-727d30a8cfa50c937012e9de29aa5127">free yacht getaways</a> and <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/nra-ceo-wayne-lapierre-suits">luxury suit purchases billed to an NRA contractor</a> – were drawing public attention.</p>
<p>Perhaps the <a href="https://www.grfcpa.com/2018/09/unrestricted-net-assets-and-key-financial-ratios-help-nonprofits-focus-on-their-financial-health/">best measure of a nonprofit’s financial health</a> is its unrestricted net assets – the money at the organization’s disposal after leaving out amounts it has to spend on activities promised to donors and what it owes to others. A multimillion-dollar unrestricted net asset reserve for an organization the size of the NRA can provide financial security. On the other hand, a negative reserve is typically a sign of serious trouble.</p>
<p>The NRA’s reserve was negative at the end of 2017, with a deficit of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nras-financial-weakness-explained-108582">more than US$30 million</a> – a sure sign of the troubles already underway. Such a negative balance indicates that after satisfying donor promises, the organization owes more money to others than the value of its assets.</p>
<p>Things only got worse in the following two years, with the NRA approaching an unrestricted net asset deficit of nearly $50 million in 2019. This degree of weakness even led the organization to suggest that it risked <a href="https://nypost.com/2018/08/03/nra-says-its-broke-and-on-the-verge-of-collapse/">imminent failure</a>. However, there was <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nras-financial-weakness-explained-108582">time for a turnaround</a>.</p>
<p>And that’s what happened. In 2020, the NRA <a href="https://thereload.com/nra-finished-2020-in-the-black-due-to-massive-spending-cuts-after-revenue-falls-legal-costs-skyrocket/">slashed its unrestricted net asset deficit</a> <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21096523-nra-2020-financial-statements">by over $38 million</a>. Ironically, it was shortly after pulling off this marked improvement that it <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/business/nra-bankruptcy-new-york-texas/index.html">filed – unsuccessfully – for bankruptcy</a>.</p>
<p>This financial resurgence continued in 2021, with <a href="https://www.sosnc.gov/online_services/search/by_title/_charities">the organization reporting</a> it had eliminated its <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/unrestricted-net-assets.asp">unrestricted net asset</a> deficit, building up a surplus of over $10 million. When also including the money set aside for specific uses stipulated by donors – the group’s <a href="https://www.springly.org/en-us/blog/how-to-record-net-assets-in-nonprofit-accounting/">net assets</a> – the NRA’s total available funds reached over $75 million.</p>
<p>These developments may seemingly bode well for the organization’s ability to withstand its <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-05/nra-spending-more-on-lawyers-as-revenue-falls-membership-lags">continuing financial troubles</a>. Below the surface, however, there’s an ominous trend. </p>
<p><iframe id="jdiY1" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/jdiY1/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Selective cost cutting</h2>
<p>How did the NRA get on a steadier financial footing?</p>
<p>It wasn’t through growth. <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2022/05/nra-member-dues-revenue-decline-houston/">NRA revenue declined</a> in 2020 by 4% from $296 million to $284 million, even without taking inflation into account. Revenue fell another 18% to under $234 million in 2021.</p>
<p>Instead, it cut <a href="https://www.sosnc.gov/online_services/search/by_title/_charities">many core programs</a>, including education and training, field services, law enforcement initiatives and recreational shooting.</p>
<p>Cost cutting can help stabilize faltering companies or nonprofits, depending on which costs they cut. The NRA’s <a href="https://thereload.com/nra-has-lost-over-a-million-members-since-corruption-allegations-surfaced/">over 4 million dues-paying members</a> may tolerate lean spending only on certain things and only for so long. What the <a href="https://thereload.com/nra-finished-2020-in-the-black-due-to-massive-spending-cuts-after-revenue-falls-legal-costs-skyrocket/">NRA spent on programs fell</a> by $45 million – more than a 35% decline – in 2020. The organization was quick to attribute the change to the nation’s response to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/29/nra-financial-crisis-layoffs-furloughs">COVID-19 pandemic</a>.</p>
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<p>However, program spending declined <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/nra-membership-dues-spending-continue-shrink-report-shows/story?id=85147897">even further in 2021</a>, when life had begun to return to normal, <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shooting-range-market-reach-2-130500474.html">especially for gun enthusiasts</a>. The NRA spent just $75 million on its programs in 2021, nearly $53 million less than it had two years earlier.</p>
<p>It didn’t cut all costs during these lean years.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-05/nra-spending-more-on-lawyers-as-revenue-falls-membership-lags">Administrative spending in the “legal, audit and taxes”</a> category skyrocketed, from just over $4 million in 2017 to almost $47 million in 2021. Much of this reflects the money NRA paid for its various legal entanglements, largely in fees to its <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2022/11/nra-annual-revenue-member-dues/">new legal team</a>.</p>
<p>What once was a member-focused organization has quickly become an organization whose primary growth area is legal fees.</p>
<p><iframe id="eRpRr" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/eRpRr/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Was 2022 a turning point?</h2>
<p>Though the NRA apparently shored up its bottom line, its financial neglect of programs like <a href="https://firearmtraining.nra.org/">firearms training</a>, <a href="https://competitions.nra.org/">competitions</a> and field services could ultimately disappoint its members and donors.</p>
<p>The organization has <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nra-national-rifle-association-membership-revenue-2022/">seen membership dues decline</a> in the past several years, with a loss of <a href="https://thereload.com/nra-has-lost-over-a-million-members-since-corruption-allegations-surfaced/">more than 1 million members</a> since the start of the crisis. I see a risk of a downward spiral: lower revenue, leading to less spending on programs, which leads to further declines in member dues, donations and so on.</p>
<p>The full NRA financial filing for 2022 is not yet available, but there are early signs that it may have been a turning point.</p>
<p>Journalist <a href="https://thereload.com/about/">Stephen Gutowski has reported at The Reload</a> that NRA membership declines meant that even with its more lean spending profile, the organization was poised to end 2022 at a loss.</p>
<p>I believe that with fewer members and fewer items left to cut, the NRA may take more drastic steps in the years ahead. And, with 2022 having been an election year – prime time for the NRA to take center stage – declining funds <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-05/nra-spending-more-on-lawyers-as-revenue-falls-membership-lags?leadSource=uverify%20wall">prevented an all-out political spending blitz</a>.</p>
<p>Though it may once have seemed like the NRA would <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/will-nra-dissolved-who-would-replace-them-1524413">suddenly implode due to its weak finances</a>, its decline today is more of a slow burn that’s diminishing its scale and threatens its future. The growth of other pro-gun groups, such as <a href="https://www.cassidy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cassidy-crapo-colleagues-reintroduce-hearing-protection-act">Gun Owners of America</a> and the <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/18/nra-gun-lobbyist-1466701">Second Amendment Foundation</a>, poses further risks for a shrinking NRA.</p>
<p>In my view, the NRA’s risky strategy of cutting program costs while spending more on legal battles could portend a further and continued weakening of the organization in the years ahead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201144/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Mittendorf does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The National Rifle Association is spending heavily on legal fees and slashing programs for its members.Brian Mittendorf, Fisher Designated Professor of Accounting, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1987702023-02-08T18:44:53Z2023-02-08T18:44:53ZBiden calls for assault weapon ban – but does focus on military-style guns and mass shootings undermine his message?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508949/original/file-20230208-17-hips9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Joe Biden urges lawmakers to ban assault weapons "once and for all."</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-talks-about-passing-an-assault-weapons-news-photo/1246878544">Jacquelyn Martin/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Among those attending the State of Union address on Feb. 7, 2022, was Brandon Tsay. Invited by President Joe Biden, the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-02-07/brandon-tsay-hero-treatment-washington-state-union">26-year-old has been hailed as a hero</a> for disarming a gunman who <a href="https://theconversation.com/monterey-park-a-pioneering-asian-american-suburb-shaken-by-the-tragedy-of-a-mass-shooting-198373">killed 11 people in a mass shooting in Monterey Park, California</a>.</p>
<p>Biden mentioned Tsay by name as he launched into a segment of the speech in which he <a href="https://news.abplive.com/news/world/ban-assault-weapons-us-president-joe-biden-state-of-the-union-address-us-gun-control-laws-1580805">implored lawmakers to ban assault weapons</a> “once and for all.”</p>
<p>We are <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=otGUUEoAAAAJ">political science</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RFfXF4YAAAAJ&hl=en">scholars</a> who study the framing of the gun policy debate in America. We believe the framing exemplified by Biden’s speech – which focuses on high-profile mass shootings and the role of assault weapons over other firearms – helps explain why so many Americans feel gun laws are doomed to fail.</p>
<h2>Do gun laws work?</h2>
<p>The Monterey Park rampage on Jan. 21 was just one of a number of mass shootings to occur in California in January. Two days after that event, seven people were killed at <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/29/1152389441/half-moon-bay-shooting-motive-repair-bill">Half Moon Bay</a>, while a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/us/oakland-shooting-california/index.html">mass shooting in Oakland</a> claimed another life.</p>
<p>With over <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/29/us/california-gun-laws-mass-shootings.html">100 gun control laws</a>, California has an <a href="https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/states/california/">“A” rating</a> from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and is ranked No. 1 in the country in gun law strength by gun control advocates <a href="https://www.everytown.org/state/california/">Everytown for Gun Safety</a>. How, then, could multiple mass shootings occur in California, leaving at least 19 dead and many others injured, in <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/experts-explain-california-rife-gun-violence-despite-stringent/story?id=96665000">the span of one week</a>?</p>
<p>The answer is nuanced and complex. First, stricter gun control laws do <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12242">reduce gun-related deaths</a>. This is true for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2008.03.023">homicides</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2017.08.027;%20https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(03)00212-5">suicides</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12242">accidental shootings</a>. In California, the annual death rate from gun violence is 8.5 per 100,000 residents, compared with the national average of <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm">13.7</a>.</p>
<p>However, the effectiveness of state gun laws is influenced by those of other states. Trafficking of guns across state lines for purposes both legal and illicit is well documented, and guns used in crimes are more <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-018-0251-9">likely to flow</a> from less regulated states into those with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.5.4.200">stronger gun laws</a>. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/there-are-more-guns-than-people-in-the-united-states-according-to-a-new-study-of-global-firearm-ownership/">a 2018 study</a>, there are at least 393 million guns in the United States, making it the most heavily armed civilian population in the world. Given the wave of pandemic-fueled <a href="https://www.norc.org/NewsEventsPublications/PressReleases/Pages/one-in-five-american-households-purchased-a-gun-during-the-pandemic.aspx">gun buying that started in 2020</a>, that number is likely much higher.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508985/original/file-20230208-13-3xeln6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Brandon Tsay stands up to be recognized during 2023 State of the Union address." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508985/original/file-20230208-13-3xeln6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508985/original/file-20230208-13-3xeln6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508985/original/file-20230208-13-3xeln6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508985/original/file-20230208-13-3xeln6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508985/original/file-20230208-13-3xeln6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508985/original/file-20230208-13-3xeln6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508985/original/file-20230208-13-3xeln6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Biden recognizes special guest Brandon Tsay, who disarmed the Monterey Park mass shooter, for his ‘courage to act.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/brandon-tsay-who-disarmed-a-shooter-monterey-park-calif-is-news-photo/1246891656">Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Image</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reframing the issue</h2>
<p>Beyond these facts, the question of why mass shootings continue to happen reveals how policymakers, media, interest groups and citizens understand the problem.</p>
<p>Using an approach called the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-022-00379-6">narrative policy framework</a>, we identify the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12207">stories that politicians and interest groups tell</a> about the problem of gun violence and how they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12255">use these stories</a> to build political support <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12187">for their policy goals</a>. A policy narrative typically contains characters – the victims and perpetrators of violence; a setting – the location and other contextual details; and a moral or solution.</p>
<p>Research shows that gun policy narratives often <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-022-09517-x">focus on mass shootings</a> while placing less emphasis on more common forms of gun injury and death, such as individual homicide and suicide. Studying the communications of gun policy organizations from 2000 to 2017, one of us found that gun control groups mentioned mass shootings in 30% of their blogs, emails and press releases, and in 11% of their Facebook posts. They devoted <a href="https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.10063035">significantly less attention</a> to all other types of gun violence.</p>
<p>This emphasis, however, does not accurately reflect statistics on gun injury and death. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2020, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm">more than 45,000</a> people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S. More than half of those deaths were suicides, while over <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/">40% were murders</a>.</p>
<p>Mass shootings – defined by the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive as shooting incidents involving <a href="https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/methodology">four or more victims</a> – accounted for just 0.1% of gun fatalities.</p>
<p>The overemphasis on mass shootings likely has many causes, not least of which is the media’s tendency to highlight <a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2017.1284689">dramatic and shocking events</a>. Given that public support for gun control temporarily <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2022/05/26/support-for-gun-control-after-uvalde-shooting/">increases in the wake of mass shootings</a>, these events create brief <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X00003068">windows of opportunity for policy change</a>. Thus, it should be no surprise that gun control groups highlight mass shootings in their policy narratives. </p>
<h2>Futility arguments</h2>
<p>In asking how mass shootings like the recent ones in California could happen, it’s important to acknowledge the implicit argument that precedes the question: the idea that gun laws simply don’t work.</p>
<p>This argument, which is pervasive in the gun policy debate, is labeled the <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674768680">futility thesis</a>. The futility thesis holds that attempts at political change will ultimately amount to nothing, because the policy fails to appreciate that it is attempting to alter fundamental aspects of society. </p>
<p>In the case of gun policy, this may include the observation that the United States contains a constitutional right to bear arms, or that the country has a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12497">long-standing gun culture</a>. Gun rights organizations, such as the National Rifle Association, also frequently claim that gun regulations do not work <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12323">because criminals do not respect the law</a>. According to this logic, any attempt to address the prevalence of firearms or to reduce criminal gun violence is destined to fail. </p>
<h2>Consequences for politics and policy</h2>
<p>As social scientists, we seek both to identify the major gun policy narratives and to explore their consequences. One potential consequence of focusing on mass shootings is it can lead policymakers to focus on solutions that address just one facet of the gun violence problem. </p>
<p>For instance, <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2023-01-27/analysis-why-biden-pushes-an-assault-weapons-ban-despite-the-political-odds">Democratic politicians</a> and gun control advocates often call for a ban on “assault weapons,” with a focus on military-style rifles like the AR-15, while <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/type-gun-us-homicides-ar-15/story?id=78689504">most shooting deaths in the U.S. involve handguns</a>.</p>
<p>With each mass shooting, these arguments are reproduced, and over time the policy debate has become <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12421">increasingly polarized</a>. It is no wonder that while many Americans approve of federal efforts to regulate firearms, most don’t expect legislation to do much <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/11/broad-public-approval-of-new-gun-law-but-few-say-it-will-do-a-lot-to-stem-gun-violence/">to reduce gun violence</a>. </p>
<p>Is there a way to break the policy stalemate and make real progress on the problem of gun violence? We suggest that one path forward is to reformulate the policy narratives to better capture the full scope and severity of the problem. Mass shootings are horrific tragedies, but so is every gun death.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198770/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Gun policy scholars explain why even supporters of gun control often believe new restrictions are doomed to fail.Melissa K. Merry, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of LouisvilleAaron Smith-Walter, Assistant Professor of Political Science, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1848232022-08-12T12:17:02Z2022-08-12T12:17:02ZReducing gun violence: A complicated problem can’t be solved with just one approach, so Indianapolis is trying programs ranging from job skills to therapy to violence interrupters to find out what works<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474979/original/file-20220719-18-26nxd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5400%2C3605&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Participants in 'violence prevention' programs seek to deescalate conflicts before they turn deadly.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/safe-streets-violence-interrupter-lamont-medley-left-greets-news-photo/547477796?adppopup=true">Andre Chung for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Indianapolis is no stranger to gun violence. The city is also trying many <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/community-based-violence-interruption-programs-can-reduce-gun-violence/">promising approaches to reducing violence</a> that – if proven successful – could benefit other urban areas across the U.S.</p>
<p>The city’s homicide rate in 2020, at 24.4 per 100,000 residents, was <a href="https://www.wishtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Indianapolis-Gun-Violence-Problem-Analysis-Summary-Narrative.pdf">approximately triple the national average</a>, and the city’s highest on record. Approximately 80% of those homicides were perpetrated using firearms.</p>
<p>Gun homicides ended about <a href="https://www.wishtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Indianapolis-Gun-Violence-Problem-Analysis-Summary-Narrative.pdf">240 lives there in a recent two-year period</a>, according to a study regarding this <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/indianapolis-in-population">city of 900,000 people</a>. The number of people who were shot but survived was far higher, and firearms account for a significant number of suicide deaths. </p>
<p>I’m a former police officer who has studied <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ShZl8kwAAAAJ&hl=en">policies and programs that seek to prevent gun violence</a> since the late 1990s. I have periodically partnered with Indianapolis officials and community agencies on anti-violence initiatives coordinated by the <a href="https://www.indy.gov/activity/violence-reduction">local government</a> with many <a href="https://www.cicf.org/not-for-profits/elevation-grant/">private- and nonprofit-sector partners</a> since 2004.</p>
<p>Though some <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/as-homicide-rates-surge-momentum-grows-for-community-violence-prevention-solutions">approaches developed in other places</a> have worked here, and Indianapolis has implemented many programs that have been shown to make a difference elsewhere, there’s still not enough data to pinpoint which specific programs are the most effective.</p>
<p>But given the urgency of the problem, I believe it’s important to keep test-driving promising methods based on the information available so far. And because Indianapolis experiences many of the same gun violence issues that other medium and large cities face, what’s learned here can apply in many other places.</p>
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<h2>Stepping up efforts to reduce gun violence</h2>
<p>Indianapolis intensified its efforts to reduce gun violence in 2006, when <a href="https://wonder.cdc.gov/">144 people died by homicide</a> – up 27% from a year earlier. </p>
<p>That year Bart Peterson, then serving as the city’s mayor, created the <a href="https://www.wthr.com/article/news/crime-prevention-task-force-tackles-thorny-problem/531-4fc46635-5009-404a-af73-72e5bf32993e">Community Crime Prevention Task Force</a>, in which I played a role. Its mission was to seek evidence-based recommendations to reduce violence. </p>
<p>After reviewing the relevant academic research, I identified best practices and the most promising violence-prevention strategies. The task force, in turn, made recommendations to the Indianapolis City-County Council.</p>
<p>The city subsequently began to increase funding for efforts to reduce gun violence in coordination with the <a href="https://cicf.welldonesite.com/not-for-profits/crime-prevention/">Indianapolis Foundation</a>, a local charity.</p>
<p>This private-public partnership has been supporting nonprofits engaged in several approaches to <a href="https://publichealth.jhu.edu/departments/health-policy-and-management/research-and-practice/center-for-gun-violence-solutions/solutions/strategies-to-reduce-community-gun-violence">reducing gun violence</a> ever since. </p>
<p>The overarching purpose of all these programs is to help the people who are the most likely to be wounded or killed by a gun to obtain services, such as job training and health care, in their communities and change norms away from gun violence to reduce that risk.</p>
<p>Because people killed by guns in Indianapolis are most likely to be <a href="https://www.wishtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Indianapolis-Gun-Violence-Problem-Analysis-Summary-Narrative.pdf">male, young and Black</a>, young Black men are a major focus for all the programs. Researchers have also determined that 3 in 4 gun homicide victims and suspects in the city were known to law enforcement through prior investigation, arrests or convictions. So that is another factor in terms of determining who gets these services.</p>
<h2>Employing formerly incarcerated people</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.cicf.org/2022/07/05/mayor-joe-hogsett-the-indianapolis-foundation-announce-recipients-of-elevation-grants/">Other grants</a> from the private-public partnership in Indianapolis have funded <a href="https://theconversation.com/cbt-dbt-psychodynamic-what-type-of-therapy-is-right-for-me-171101">cognitive behavioral therapy</a> for people at risk of engaging in or being victims of gun violence. This is a method in which people get help identifying and pushing back on their negative thoughts and behaviors, making it easier to resolve disputes without resorting to violence.</p>
<p>The city has also partnered with <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdin/pr/us-department-justice-recognizes-community-violence-intervention-program-indianapolis">several community organizations</a> to prevent gun violence.</p>
<p>One such group is Recycleforce, which <a href="https://cbs4indy.com/this-morning/recycleforce-provides-resources-for-formerly-incarcerated-to-find-housing/">hires formerly incarcerated people</a> to recycle old electronic goods. It’s among several enhanced transitional job programs that provide services and <a href="https://www.indy.gov/activity/violence-reduction">training to the recently incarcerated</a>.</p>
<p>One study showed that Recycleforce participants were <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/etjd_sted_7_site_report_508_2.pdf">5.8% less likely to be arrested</a> and 4.8% less likely to be convicted of a crime in the first six months of the period reviewed. However, in the second six months, the benefits were no longer statistically significant. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10509674.2019.1596190">second study</a> used in-depth interviews to assess the program. It suggested that the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/10509674.2019.1596190">peer-mentor model</a> Recycleforce follows works well.</p>
<h2>Preventing future gunshots</h2>
<p>A large Indianapolis hospital, Eskenazi, also runs several important anti-violence programs. One, called <a href="https://www.eskenazihealth.edu/programs/violence-prevention">Prescription for Hope</a>, assists people treated there for gunshot wounds.</p>
<p>Like similar <a href="https://www.thehavi.org/what-is-an-hvip">hospital-based programs</a> around the country, the one based at Eskenazi helps participants develop effective life skills and connects them with community resources to reduce criminal and risky behaviors.</p>
<p>An <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/000313481207800942">initial study of the program</a> showed that only about 3% of participants returned to the emergency department with a repeat violent injury within the first year, compared with an 8.7% rate when the program wasn’t underway. This translates to a two-thirds reduction in the likelihood that someone with a violent injury will need similar emergency medical assistance in the future. </p>
<h2>‘Violence interruption’</h2>
<p>In 2021, <a href="https://cbs4indy.com/news/violence-interrupters-hit-streets-to-curb-indys-record-homicide-rate/">Indianapolis began to hire “violence interrupters</a>” to calm contentious situations and reduce the risk of violent retaliation.</p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/em/summer16/highlight2.html">violence interruption</a>” method connects people with personal ties to those most at risk of becoming involved in gun violence as victims or perpetrators.</p>
<p>Violence interrupters try to mediate disputes and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/many-cities-are-putting-hopes-violence-interrupters-understand-challen-rcna28118">calm things down</a> on the streets, at parties and during funerals before any shooting starts. They have credibility with violence-prone people because of their past experiences. </p>
<p>The interrupters also help at-risk people to obtain services and to <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/227181.pdf">change gun violence norms</a> in their communities. </p>
<p>Violence interruption, part of a growing <a href="https://cvg.org/what-we-do/">public health approach to reining in violence</a>, <a href="https://cvg.org/about/#history">originated in Chicago</a> in 2000. Now called the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122509">cure violence model</a>,” it has spread quickly amid <a href="https://johnjayrec.nyc/2020/11/09/av2020/">generally positive</a> <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/program/community-violence-intervention/overview">research results</a>.</p>
<p>Indianapolis was employing about <a href="https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/violence-interrupters-to-hit-the-streets-of-indianapolis-crime-homicide-record/531-a628deb7-37eb-437c-8b34-dadc7597a890">50 violence interrupters as of mid-2022</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1353139788761735168"}"></div></p>
<h2>More federal funding</h2>
<p>Most of the city’s violence-prevention grants funding these efforts have been relatively small until now, ranging from US$5,000 to $325,000.</p>
<p>But U.S. cities, including Indianapolis, now have have until 2024 to <a href="https://gfrc.uic.edu/our-work/featured-projects/how-are-cities-using-arpa-fiscal-recovery-funds/what-the-first-batch-of-treasury-department-reports-tells-us-about-how-governments-are-using-their-arpa-money/">tap into a comparatively large stream of federal funding</a> for community-based violence intervention. That money was included in the $1.9 trillion stimulus package enacted in 2021.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wishtv.com/news/crime-watch-8/indianapolis-spends-45m-on-organizations-combating-violence/">Using these federal funds</a>, the city is partnering with the Indianapolis Foundation to <a href="https://www.cicf.org/not-for-profits/elevation-grant/">award grants totaling $45 million</a> from 2022 through 2024 for local efforts to reduce gun violence. </p>
<p>Fortunately, Indianapolis’ <a href="https://www.wishtv.com/news/i-team-8/impd-new-numbers-show-gun-violence-going-down-in-indianapolis/">homicides appear to be declining</a> in 2022 compared with a year earlier.</p>
<p>As a local resident, I certainly welcome this news. But as researcher, I consider it to be too soon to tell whether this trend will continue or what the many public and private efforts to reduce gun violence underway will accomplish.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184823/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Stucky received funding to serve as a research partner on Indianapolis anti-violence initiatives prior to 2013. </span></em></p>A burst of federal funding is letting Indianapolis expand existing efforts and try promising new approaches that other cities have developed.Thomas D. Stucky, Professor of Criminal Justice, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1859422022-07-07T12:22:27Z2022-07-07T12:22:27ZGun reform finally passed Congress after almost three decades of failure – what changed?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472602/original/file-20220705-26-ymhhu3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C0%2C4874%2C3261&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Joe Biden with first lady Jill Biden, speaking before signing into law the gun safety bill on June 25, 2022.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BidenGuns/bdd8775140724cd2856129887c98a117/photo?Query=biden%20gun%20signs&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=52&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Gun control legislation <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/04/politics/congress-reaction-mass-shootings/index.html">almost never passes Congress</a>, even when there is widespread public support for action in the wake of mass shootings such as those in Buffalo and Uvalde. </p>
<p>That’s why <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-gun-control-laws-dont-pass-congress-despite-majority-public-support-and-repeated-outrage-over-mass-shootings-183896">we did not expect</a> that on June 25, 2022, President Joe Biden would sign into law a bill containing a set of gun reform provisions known as the “<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/25/president-biden-signs-first-major-federal-gun-reform-in-decades">Bipartisan Safer Communities Act</a>.” </p>
<p>Based on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Americans-Congress-Democratic-Responsiveness-Consequences-ebook-dp-B071ZL8PR7/dp/B071ZL8PR7/">our expertise</a> studying public opinion and the U.S. Congress, here are four reasons we believe some gun control measures got enacted this time around.</p>
<h2>1. Public attention</h2>
<p>Public opinion is fickle. What concerns people on a given day may not concern them soon after, especially if the news cycle loses sight of it. </p>
<p>In this case, the issue of gun control did not fade from the public agenda after the Buffalo and Uvalde shootings in May. It rose in importance. While just after the shootings gun control was not at the top of the public’s congressional to-do list, by mid-June it was, rivaling the economy – 48% to 51%, respectively – as a <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2022/06/15/new-high-in-voter-support-for-stricter-gun-control-survey/">top priority</a>. In addition, public support for stricter gun control laws <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/394022/public-pressure-gun-legislation-shootings.aspx">continued to climb</a> in the intervening period. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472604/original/file-20220705-23-5yy2mb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Crosses, balloons, flowers, flags and other items in a memorial in front of a building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472604/original/file-20220705-23-5yy2mb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472604/original/file-20220705-23-5yy2mb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472604/original/file-20220705-23-5yy2mb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472604/original/file-20220705-23-5yy2mb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472604/original/file-20220705-23-5yy2mb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472604/original/file-20220705-23-5yy2mb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472604/original/file-20220705-23-5yy2mb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A makeshift memorial to the 21 victims of a shooting at Robb Elementary School outside the Uvalde County Courthouse in Uvalde, Texas, on June 30, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-visit-a-makeshift-memorial-to-the-victims-of-a-news-photo/1241634895?adppopup=true">Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What happened to increase the public’s support and demand for gun control? One of many factors is that Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican and staunch Second Amendment supporter, came out publicly and declared, “I’m interested in what we can do to make the tragic events that occurred <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/27/us/cruz-cornyn-uvalde-texas-school-shooting.html">less likely in the future</a>.” Within a week of the Uvalde shooting, he and Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, announced they would <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gun-control-reform-legislation-cornyn-murphy-senate/">start meeting</a> to discuss potential gun legislation. The actual possibility of reform kept the issue on the media’s, and thereby the public’s, agenda. </p>
<p>Media and public attention were also stoked by an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/07/matthew-mcconaughey-white-house-guns/">impassioned public plea</a> from Uvalde native and Hollywood star Matthew McConaughey at the White House, which went viral on social media. Additionally, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/08/us-house-hearing-gun-violence-survivors-testify-miah-cerrillo">emotional testimonies</a> in a U.S. House committee hearing provided graphic details of the horrific experiences of students, teachers and parents. </p>
<h2>2. Noncontroversial provisions</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/us/politics/senate-gun-bill.html">new law</a> enhances background checks for gun buyers between ages 18 and 21, provides money for states that enact “red flag” laws that allow a judge to take away the someone’s gun if they’re deemed dangerous to themselves or others, provides funding for mental health and school safety, and closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole,” which allows abusive boyfriends and even stalkers to have access to guns. How did these provisions get past Republican filibusters, which have stymied other gun reform bills? </p>
<p>One key factor is that provisions <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2022/06/15/new-high-in-voter-support-for-stricter-gun-control-survey/">like these</a> receive widespread support from both Democrats and Republicans. </p>
<p>Reports indicate that Cornyn, the lead Republican negotiator in the Senate, presented <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3536754-how-the-senate-broke-through-30-years-of-gridlock-to-reform-gun-laws/">internal poll numbers</a> showing broad support for these specific provisions among gun owners to his fellow Senate Republicans during deliberations. This reassurance of support from their base likely helped sway the 15 Republican senators who ended up voting for the bill. In the end, these 15 Republican votes were crucial to creating a filibuster-proof majority – at least 60 senators – in support of the bill. </p>
<p>While the legislation certainly is an accomplishment, it is a far cry from what large majorities of the public actually want, including most Republican voters. In the most recent <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2022/06/15/new-high-in-voter-support-for-stricter-gun-control-survey/">Morning Consult/Politico poll</a>, the public expressed strong majority support for aspects of legislation that were rejected in these negotiations. The mid-June poll shows 89% support universal background checks; 81% support a mandatory three-day waiting period; 80% support selling assault weapons only to those age 21 or older and 79% support raising the minimum age for any gun purchase to 21. </p>
<p>So while the law makes some progress, it’s not clear whether the public’s attention will move on, or whether the public will continue to press for further action.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472606/original/file-20220705-22-1kkgua.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white-haired man in a suit trying to make his way out of a room with high ceilings into a hallway filled with people crowding around him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472606/original/file-20220705-22-1kkgua.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472606/original/file-20220705-22-1kkgua.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472606/original/file-20220705-22-1kkgua.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472606/original/file-20220705-22-1kkgua.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472606/original/file-20220705-22-1kkgua.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472606/original/file-20220705-22-1kkgua.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472606/original/file-20220705-22-1kkgua.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The participation and support of Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn, center, was key to getting the gun control bill passed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sen-john-cornyn-speaks-to-reporters-as-he-goes-in-the-news-photo/1402942542?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Who’s got an election?</h2>
<p>Contrary to expectations, the Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, gave a green light to the bipartisan efforts for gun control. This was evident when he appointed Cornyn to serve as the GOP’s lead negotiator.</p>
<p>McConnell’s support for passing a bill favored by Democrats represents an about-face. During Obama’s presidency, <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-New-New-Deal/Michael-Grunwald/9781451642339">McConnell discouraged GOP senators</a> from supporting Democratic proposals because it would make the ruling Democrats look reasonable and effective. </p>
<p>Why the flip? This time around McConnell seems to be betting that it is his party that needs to look reasonable heading into the 2022 midterm elections. Republicans only need to gain a total of one more seat to make McConnell the Senate majority leader once again. Close races are taking place in “purple” states such as Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania. The path to victory in these states goes through moderate suburban voters, who are <a href="https://giffords.org/press-release/2022/05/survey-battleground-voters-demand-stronger-gun-laws/">supporters of gun reform</a>.</p>
<p>A bipartisan gun reform bill may help inoculate the Republican Party and its candidates from Democratic charges of extremism and lack of concern for the safety of American schoolchildren. This thought appeared to be on McConnell’s mind <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mcconnell-hopes-bipartisan-gun-bill-will-help-the-gop-in-the-suburbs-2022-6">when he said</a> shortly before the bill’s passage: “I hope it will be viewed favorably by voters in the suburbs we need to regain in order to hopefully be in the majority next year.” </p>
<p>Not only does the new law provide cover for prospective Republican candidates in purple states, but it also required few red state Republicans to cast a vote that would put them in electoral danger. </p>
<p>Of the 15 Republican senators who voted for the bill, only two are up for reelection this year: Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, who <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/new-alaska-voting-rules-provide-lifeline-to-lisa-murkowski-amid-opposition-from-trump">does not have to run</a> in a closed Republican primary, and Tod Young of Indiana, who had already won his Republican primary by the time of the vote. Another four of the 15 GOP Senate supporters are retiring and won’t have to face voters: Roy Blunt, Richard Burr, Rob Portman and Pat Toomey. </p>
<h2>4. Democratic leaders’ need for a legislative win</h2>
<p>Democrats, specifically Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, appear to have also been rethinking their electoral strategy when it comes to gun control. </p>
<p>In the past, Democrats have often reflexively rejected gun reform proposals put forward by Republicans as insufficient half-measures – even going so far as to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting-guns/senate-rejects-gun-control-measures-after-orlando-shooting-idUSKCN0Z61BS">vote against them</a>. In turn, Democrats offer up gun control measures they know in advance have no chance of passing, because Republicans staunchly oppose them and will have to go on record as doing so. </p>
<p>Republicans charge that Democrats would prefer to have gun control remain as a political issue to embarrass them rather than to engage in sincere compromise to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/06/20/senate-heads-for-gun-control-showdown-likely-to-go-nowhere/">get something done</a>.</p>
<p>After Buffalo and Uvalde, Schumer faced the familiar pressure from progressives not to settle for what they saw as watered-down solutions to gun violence. Schumer could have once again forced Republicans to vote against universal background checks or an assault weapons ban. </p>
<p>But the context was somewhat different than in 2016. </p>
<p>For over a year, Senate Democrats have been unable to pass any version of President Biden’s signature Build Back Better plan, or much of any notable legislation at all. The <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3504790-schumer-walks-tightrope-in-gun-control-debate/">party’s need</a> for some sort of policy win could well have weighed more than taking a principled stance and fighting for a more comprehensive, but legislatively doomed, bill. </p>
<p>Schumer’s decision to allow his lead negotiator, Sen. Chris Murphy, to abandon some long-held Democratic priorities in order to compromise with Republicans may have been crucial to the U.S. Congress finally getting a gun reform bill enacted after decades of frustration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185942/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monika L. McDermott is affiliated with brilliant corners Research and Strategy. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David R. Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Two scholars of Congress and public opinion dissect the reasons gun control finally passed and was signed into law, after decades of inability to enact such legislation.Monika L. McDermott, Professor of Political Science, Fordham UniversityDavid R. Jones, Professor of Political Science, Baruch College, CUNYLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1834862022-06-23T21:28:28Z2022-06-23T21:28:28ZSupreme Court sweeps aside New York’s limits on carrying a gun, raising Second Amendment rights to new heights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470640/original/file-20220623-51375-fvsiiw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=312%2C123%2C3615%2C1937&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A U.S. Supreme Court decision released on Jun 23, 2022, loosens state restrictions on carrying concealed firearms.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/confiscated-guns-are-on-display-during-a-press-conference-news-photo/1235713352?adppopup=true">Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With its decision in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/20-843">New York State Rifle & Pistol v. Bruen</a> on June 23, 2022, the Supreme Court has announced that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right.</p>
<p>The core argument of the decision is that gun rights are to be treated the same as other hallowed rights like the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/">freedom of speech or freedom of religion recognized in the First Amendment</a>. </p>
<p>For most of the history of the court, Second Amendment rights have been seen as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2021/11/03/supreme-court-gun-rights-live-updates/">distinct, more dangerous and thus more open to regulation</a>. Now, the majority of justices has invoked a major change, with implications for many rights and regulations in American society.</p>
<h2>The case</h2>
<p>To get a license to carry a <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-appears-to-suggest-right-to-guns-at-home-extends-to-carrying-them-in-public-too-171263">concealed firearm in New York state,</a> a citizen had to show a “proper cause.” </p>
<p>In practice, this meant that a local licensing official had to <a href="https://www.ny.gov/services/how-obtain-firearms-license">agree that the person had a “special need</a>,” such as facing a current threat or recurring danger.</p>
<p>California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey also employ similar standards, known as “may issue” laws. Many other states instead have a <a href="https://concealedguns.procon.org/state-by-state-concealed-carry-permit-laws/">“shall issue”</a> regime where local officials must issue a license to carry a concealed firearm as long as the person does not have a disqualifying characteristic, including a felony conviction, mental illness or a restraining order against them.</p>
<p>In the case just decided by the Supreme Court, two applicants living in upstate New York, Robert Nash and Brandon Koch, were denied unrestricted concealed carry licenses because <a href="https://everytownlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2021/04/NYSRPA-v.-Beach-MTD-Decision-12.17.18.pdf">they had no special need other than personal protection</a>. They insist that law denies their constitutional rights.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470659/original/file-20220623-51568-rmnd4k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man with a sign advocating gun rights, near two yellow 'Don't tread on me' flags and in front of a large building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470659/original/file-20220623-51568-rmnd4k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470659/original/file-20220623-51568-rmnd4k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470659/original/file-20220623-51568-rmnd4k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470659/original/file-20220623-51568-rmnd4k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470659/original/file-20220623-51568-rmnd4k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470659/original/file-20220623-51568-rmnd4k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470659/original/file-20220623-51568-rmnd4k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gun rights activists outside the New York State Capitol in 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/GunRightsRallies-NewYork/668fdf2ccbee442088195d256de6c208/photo?Query=gun%20rights%20rally%20new%20york&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=160&currentItemNo=46">AP Photo/Hans Pennink</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The history of Second Amendment rulings</h2>
<p>For most of American history, the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/amendment-ii/interps/99">court ignored the Second Amendment</a>. The <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/307us174">first major ruling</a> on its meaning did not come until the 1930s, and the court did not address whether the amendment recognized a fundamental individual right until 2008 in the landmark <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2007/07-290">D.C. v. Heller</a>.</p>
<p>That ruling, written by the famously conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, recognized a right to keep a firearm in the home. How far the right extended into public spaces was not clear. </p>
<p>Scalia wrote that “like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf#page=57">not unlimited</a>.” That meant “longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill” or “prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons” were “presumptively lawful.”</p>
<h2>‘A fundamental right’</h2>
<p>The new ruling establishes that the gun right recognized by the Second Amendment is a fundamental right like any other and must be accorded the highest level of protection. Its inherently dangerous nature does not mean that the right is interpreted or limited differently.</p>
<p>Justice Clarence Thomas – perhaps the most conservative justice on the court – wrote the majority opinion. In Thomas’ view, we do not need to ask prior permission of a government official to exercise a constitutional right: “We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officials some special need.” Thomas concludes that the Bill of Rights – including the Second Amendment – “demands our unqualified deference.”</p>
<p>This means that a local government may regulate but not eradicate the core right, including the ability to carry a concealed firearm. Any allowable regulation demands a compelling state interest, with convincing evidence of the need and effectiveness of the regulation.</p>
<h2>The constitutional case for stronger regulation</h2>
<p>The dissenters were led by Justice Stephen Breyer, who <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf#page=84">opened his dissent</a> with the number of Americans killed with firearms in 2020 – 45,222. His longstanding view is that the Second Amendment deals with a more dangerous right, and thus it is more open to being regulated.</p>
<p>In Breyer’s view, the majority’s ruling “refuses to consider the government interests that justify a challenged gun regulation.” Breyer concludes that “The primary difference between the Court’s view and mine is that I believe the Amendment allows States to take account of the serious problems posed by gun violence … I fear that the Court’s interpretation ignores these significant dangers and leaves States without the ability to address them.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An elderly Black and an elderly white man stand next to each other as onlookers applaud." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470630/original/file-20220623-52339-bsu0ih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470630/original/file-20220623-52339-bsu0ih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470630/original/file-20220623-52339-bsu0ih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470630/original/file-20220623-52339-bsu0ih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470630/original/file-20220623-52339-bsu0ih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470630/original/file-20220623-52339-bsu0ih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470630/original/file-20220623-52339-bsu0ih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seen here with GOP leader Mitch McConnell at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion to expand gun rights.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/associate-supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-looks-on-as-news-photo/1236038692?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New reading of the Constitution</h2>
<p>The majority’s view of the Second Amendment is part of a dramatic shift in the court’s understanding of the Constitution. That shift reflects the recent arrival of a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx">conservative justice, Amy Coney Barrett</a>, increasing the previous majority of five to a supermajority of six justices.</p>
<p>The new supermajority, all nominated by Republican presidents, insists that the Constitution is not <a href="https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/living-constitution">a living document that evolves as the beliefs and values of society shift</a>. That was the longtime perspective more influential on the court since <a href="https://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre1978062300">the rights revolution of the 1960s and 1970s</a>, but now held by only a minority of justices. </p>
<p>The conservative majority believes the Constitution should be read in the original fashion of how the text itself would have been understood by those who wrote and ratified it. <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/white-papers/on-originalism-in-constitutional-interpretation">This is often called “originalism.”</a> </p>
<p>The ramifications of this shift are just becoming clear. Beyond this gun ruling, the effects will continue to be seen in decisions on abortion, religion, criminal justice, environmental regulation and many other issues.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88641-7">close observer of the Supreme Court</a>, I believe the briefest way to describe the change in the court’s understanding of rights is that the explicit protections in the Bill of Rights – such as free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press – will be given greater weight and deference, while the additional protections outside of the Bill of Rights, which have been recognized by the court over time – abortion, <a href="https://theconversation.com/privacy-isnt-in-the-constitution-but-its-everywhere-in-constitutional-law-183204">privacy</a>, same-sex marriage – will not be accorded the same protection and respect.</p>
<p>The originalist reading means that the enumerated rights of the Amendments, including the Second Amendment, are not up for majority rule. They are core, established rights. </p>
<p>But other public debates on issues outside of the scope of the Bill of Rights – including abortion – are matters left to the decisions of state legislatures. This is a dramatic shift in the meaning and application of the U.S. Constitution.</p>
<h2>The state of gun regulation</h2>
<p>The ruling by the new majority does not insist that states adopt the most unrestricted standards for concealed-carry that states like Maine or <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/01/us/texas-open-carry-laws/index.html">Texas</a> have. Only the states with the most restrictive gun laws, including California and New York, will be forced to change policies.</p>
<p>Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a separate opinion to highlight that “the Court’s decision does not prohibit States from imposing licensing requirements for carrying a handgun for self-defense.” He emphasized that, “properly interpreted, the Second Amendment allows a ‘variety’ of gun regulations.”</p>
<p>The majority opinion specifically states that concealed carry of firearms in sensitive places can be regulated: “We can assume it settled” that prohibitions on concealed carry in sensitive locations, including historically allowed ones such as “legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses,” as well as other “new and analogous sensitive places are constitutionally permissible.” This likely includes government buildings, stadiums, churches and schools.</p>
<h2>‘Alter American law’</h2>
<p>This landmark ruling on the meaning and application of the Second Amendment changes the law in several states that would prefer to impose greater restrictions on the concealed carry of firearms. </p>
<p>More broadly, it announces a major shift in how the court will understand the nature of rights under the Constitution. </p>
<p>The liberal justices in the waning minority believe that the new approach is changing American constitutional law “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf#page=135">without considering the potentially deadly consequences</a>.” The new majority sees the Constitution and Bill of Rights in a more uncompromising light that will alter American law in the coming years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morgan Marietta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The gun rights decision from the conservative majority on the Supreme Court signals a fundamental change in how the court reads the Constitution.Morgan Marietta, Associate Professor of Political Science, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1854812022-06-23T14:13:54Z2022-06-23T14:13:54ZWill closing the ‘boyfriend loophole’ in gun legislation save lives? Here’s what the research says<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470578/original/file-20220623-51459-duwhsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C67%2C4970%2C3263&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Preventing people with domestic violence records obtaining guns would be a life-saver.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-holds-a-placard-that-says-no-more-silence-end-gun-news-photo/1241273019?adppopup=true">Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The U.S. Congress <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/politics/gun-control-bill-congress.html">has passed</a> a bipartisan gun safety bill, representing the first federal gun safety legislation to be passed in a generation.</em></p>
<p><em>The legislation, which will now be signed into law by President Joe Biden, is limited in scope. But among its provisions is the closing of the so-called “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/14/boyfriend-loophole-bipartisan-gun-deal/">boyfriend loophole</a>” which allows some people with a record of domestic violence to still buy firearms.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://cj.msu.edu/directory/zeoli-april.html">April Zeoli, at Michigan State University</a>, researches the link between intimate partner violence, homicide and gun laws. She explains what the change means – and why it would save lives.</em></p>
<h2>What is the boyfriend loophole?</h2>
<p>Under current federal legislation, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/921#a_32">intimate partner relationships</a> are defined only as those in which two people are or were married, live or lived together as a couple, or have a child together. People who were in a dating relationship are largely excluded from this definition.</p>
<p>As a result, dating partners are exempt from federal laws that prohibit those convicted of domestic violence misdemeanor crimes, or those who are under domestic violence restraining orders, from buying or possessing a firearm. This is what is referred to as the “boyfriend loophole”.</p>
<p>To put it another way, if you have two domestic abusers who have both committed the same severe physical violence against their partners, but one of them is married to their intimate partner while the other isn’t, then only the domestic abuser who is married could be prohibited from having a gun.</p>
<h2>What does the data tell us about domestic violence and guns?</h2>
<p>Intimate partner homicides have been rising since about 2015, and this increase is almost entirely due to <a href="https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/series/57">intimate partner homicides committed with guns</a>. Indeed, guns are the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/vio.2019.0005">most common weapon used in intimate partner homicide</a>. In contrast, non-gun intimate partner homicide levels have stayed roughly the same over that period.</p>
<p>Research suggests that when a violent male partner has access to a gun, the risk of murder to the female partner increases by <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.93.7.1089">fivefold</a>. We also know that guns are used to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838016668589">coerce, intimidate, and threaten</a> intimate partners, and that gun-involved intimate partner violence can result in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/vio.2016.0024">more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder</a> than intimate partner violence that doesn’t involve guns. With a nationally representative survey suggesting that <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ndv0312.pdf">3.4%</a> of victims of domestic violence have experienced non-fatal gun use by their abusers – combined with the high numbers of intimate partner murders committed with guns – this constitutes a large public health threat.</p>
<h2>Why are people talking about the ‘boyfriend loophole’ now?</h2>
<p>The conversation over extending domestic violence firearm restrictions to dating partners arises every few years.</p>
<p>This time, Congress has actually passed new gun safety legislation that will close, or at least narrow the loophole. The <a href="https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/bipartisan-group-of-senators-announce-agreement">wording of the proposed legislation</a> extends the ban to those who “have or have had a continuing relationship of a romantic or intimate nature.” </p>
<p>There are a few issues to note here. First, the motivation to pass new gun safety legislation came from recent mass shooting events and the hope of preventing future mass shootings. We know that many mass shootings often involve <a href="https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40621-021-00330-0">killing intimate partners or family members</a>, and that some of the shooters have <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1745-9133.12475">criminal histories involving domestic violence</a> before they commit the mass shootings.</p>
<p>But mass shootings make up only a small percentage of shootings in the United States. Intimate partner homicide is a more frequent occurrence.</p>
<p>My research shows that when states extend firearm restrictions placed on individuals under domestic violence restraining orders to cover dating partners, there is an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwy174">associated reduction in intimate partner homicide</a>.</p>
<p>However, the legislation which has made its way through Congress does not do this exactly. The law would only close the loophole for those convicted of domestic violence misdemeanor crimes. It does not cover restraining order laws.</p>
<h2>What is the current situation at the state level?</h2>
<p>Some states, such as Minnesota and West Virginia, have <a href="https://www.statefirearmlaws.org/">extended misdemeanor domestic violence firearm restrictions to dating partners</a> already. Others, including Tennessee, have not. Fewer than half of states have extended the misdemeanor domestic violence firearm restriction to cover dating partners.</p>
<p>This has created a situation in which safety from gun violence by a violent dating partner depends on the state in which you live. Federal legislation would help to create a more consistent picture across the country when it comes to dating partners who commit violence.</p>
<h2>What effect will closing the ‘boyfriend loophole’ have at a national level?</h2>
<p>My research suggests that the federal firearm restriction for individuals convicted of domestic violence misdemeanor crimes is associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwy174">reductions in intimate partner homicide committed with firearms</a>.</p>
<p>As such, one could hypothesize that restricting access to guns for a greater number of dangerous intimate partners would further reduce firearm homicides within violent relationships. By the same thinking, closing the boyfriend loophole when it comes to banning gun possession for individuals under domestic violence restraining orders would also probably save lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185481/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>April M. Zeoli receives funding to support her research from the National Collaborative for Gun Violence Research, the Joyce Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health. She is affiliated with the Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy.</span></em></p>Congress has pushed through its first gun control legislation in 30 years. Included in the legislation is a provision to expand a firearm ban to dating partners accused of domestic violence.April M. Zeoli, Professor of Criminal Justice, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1845972022-06-23T11:47:17Z2022-06-23T11:47:17ZLook at 3 enduring stories Americans tell about guns to understand the debate over them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470346/original/file-20220622-29730-oq3jle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C3%2C1016%2C702&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A family poses in front of their sod house in Custer County, Neb., in 1887.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/laforge-sod-house-home-south-of-west-union-custer-county-news-photo/514882604?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United States has struggled with <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-the-assault-weapons-ban-of-1994-bring-down-mass-shootings-heres-what-the-data-tells-us-184430">a spate of horrific mass shootings</a> – and will now need to grapple with the implications of the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf">striking down</a> New York’s restrictions on carrying concealed firearms, with consequences beyond the state. </p>
<p>After each tragedy with guns, people try to make sense of the violence <a href="https://theconversation.com/blaming-evil-for-mass-violence-isnt-as-simple-as-it-seems-a-philosopher-unpacks-the-paradox-in-using-the-word-184289">by talking</a> about what happened. The discussion usually gravitates toward two familiar poles: gun control on one end, and personal liberty on the other. But despite all the talk, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-gun-control-laws-dont-pass-congress-despite-majority-public-support-and-repeated-outrage-over-mass-shootings-183896">not much changes</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.libarts.colostate.edu/people/gdickins/">We are scholars of communication</a> <a href="https://communication.missouristate.edu/bo443e.aspx">who study how rhetoric shapes politics and culture</a> – particularly how the stories Americans tell about the country and its past continue to shape the present. The nation’s failure to prevent such frequent mass shootings is, we suggest, partially a product of how American society commemorates and talks about guns.</p>
<h2>Imagining the ‘Wild West’</h2>
<p>An excellent example of how American culture tells the story of guns is <a href="https://centerofthewest.org/explore/firearms/">the Cody Firearms Museum</a> in Wyoming: home to “the most comprehensive collection of American firearms in the world” and subject of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2011.594068">an academic article</a> we coauthored with colleague <a href="https://www.libarts.colostate.edu/people/eaoki/">Eric Aoki</a> in 2011. We have continued this research as part of a book project.</p>
<p>Featuring more than 7,000 weapons, the museum is part of <a href="https://centerofthewest.org/">the Buffalo Bill Center of the West</a>. The center’s namesake, 19th-century rifleman <a href="https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/burbick.pdf">and showman</a> Buffalo Bill, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10570310500076684">popularized the story of the “Wild West</a>” that is still familiar to Americans today – one where guns were central.</p>
<p>Stories, of course, <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520001923/language-as-symbolic-action">are never neutral</a>. They include and exclude certain details; they highlight some aspects of a thing and downplay others. They distill the great complexity of our world into manageable and memorable bits that guide how we understand it.</p>
<p>An especially important kind of storytelling happens at museums. As historians <a href="https://rrchnm.org/">Roy Rosenzweig</a> and <a href="https://alliance.iu.edu/members/member/1142.html">David Thelen</a> explain, surveys show that <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-presence-of-the-past/9780231111485">people trust museums</a> more than family members, eyewitnesses, teachers and history textbooks.</p>
<p>So it matters what U.S. museums have to say about guns. Based on multiple research visits to the Cody Firearms Museum over the past decade, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2011.594068">we have identified three foundational narratives about guns</a> – stories that we argue get replayed in the present-day rhetoric about firearms.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A display case at the Cody Firearms Museum." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470344/original/file-20220622-39985-k6jyri.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470344/original/file-20220622-39985-k6jyri.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470344/original/file-20220622-39985-k6jyri.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470344/original/file-20220622-39985-k6jyri.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470344/original/file-20220622-39985-k6jyri.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470344/original/file-20220622-39985-k6jyri.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470344/original/file-20220622-39985-k6jyri.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guns are central to how Americans talk about the ‘Wild West.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Greg Dickinson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Story 1: Guns are tools</h2>
<p>One of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2011.594068">the key themes</a> at the Cody Firearms Museum was that guns were central to life on the frontier. Settlers had few possessions, and guns, which were necessary for hunting and fending off dangerous animals, were among the most common household items.</p>
<p>The view of guns as a daily tool remains prevalent today, usually through references to hunting. Emphasizing firearms’ role as a normal necessity to survive – even though so few people in the U.S. live that way today – “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24589296">domesticates” guns</a>, and many Americans continue to treat even assault rifles as ordinary objects of everyday life.</p>
<p>Consider <a href="https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1532397025156898816">recent comments</a> Colorado Rep. Ken Buck made to the House Judiciary Committee: “In rural Colorado, an AR-15 is a gun of choice for killing raccoons before they get to our chickens. It is a gun of choice for killing a fox. It is a gun that you control predators on your ranch, your farm, your property.”</p>
<p>Such talk domesticates assault rifles, depicting them as ordinary objects. But they are far from ordinary. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-017-0205-7">One 2017 study</a> found that assault rifles and other high-capacity semiautomatics “account for 22% to 36% of crime guns, with some estimates upwards of 40% for cases involving serious violence including murders of police.” They are also used in up to 57% of mass murders involving firearms.</p>
<h2>Story 2: Guns are wonders</h2>
<p>A second key theme on display at the museum was that guns are technological marvels. Visitors could learn, often in painstaking detail, about each advancement in loading systems, ammunition cartridges and firing mechanisms. </p>
<p>Displays like these frame guns as inert objects of study and fascination, shifting attention from their function and purpose to their design and development. Moreover, the display of thousands of guns in glass cases, physically separated from human beings, turns them into objects that seem almost worthy of veneration.</p>
<p>The world of gun collecting strongly connects these admired objects to their owner’s identity. Like enthusiasts of any stripe, gun hobbyists view <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/si.1988.11.2.277">guns as collectibles</a>. According to a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns/">Pew Research Center</a> study, 66% of gun owners own multiple firearms, and 73% say they “could never see themselves not owning a gun.” </p>
<p>In short, guns are central to gun owners’ sense of self, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns/">with half acknowledging that</a> “owning a gun is important to their overall identity.” Because gun hobbyists regard guns as collectibles, they often use rhetoric that treats guns as <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-00673-x">inert objects</a> rather than machines engineered for violence.</p>
<p>For many gun owners, gun violence is a problem associated with “bad” actors, not guns. Following <a href="https://theconversation.com/accused-buffalo-mass-shooter-had-threatened-a-shooting-while-in-high-school-could-more-have-been-done-to-avert-the-tragedy-183455">the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York,</a>, podcaster Graham Allen <a href="https://www.tpusa.com/live/guns-dont-kill-people-bad-people-kill-people">wrote</a>: “Firearms are LIFELESS objects, they do not think, they do not feel, and they do not take a life on their own. Therefore you CANNOT hold an inanimate object accountable for the actions of the shooter.”</p>
<h2>Story 3: Guns are quintessentially American</h2>
<p>The third story American culture tells about guns is that they are <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/armed-america-the-remarkable-story-of-how-and-why-guns-became-as-american-as-apple-pie/oclc/71126665">central to what it means to be “American”</a>. They symbolize the myth of rugged individualism on which the country is founded. Guns are also associated with <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/the-myth-of-manifest-destiny/">Manifest Destiny</a>, the belief that white Americans were destined by God to violently “settle” the plains and “civilize” the West, expanding U.S. territory from coast to coast.</p>
<p>Guns served as the primary instrument for Westward expansion and the forced removal of Native Americans. As American studies scholar <a href="https://www.wesleyan.edu/academics/faculty/rslotkin/profile.html">Richard Slotkin</a>’s work explains, many <a href="https://www.oupress.com/9780806130316/">iconic portrayals of the frontier</a> depict white colonizers doing what they believed to be “God’s work” with the help of their guns.</p>
<p>Today, national discourse still frames guns as part of a God-given right to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-backed-senate-candidate-blake-masters-blames-gun-violence-black-rcna32290">eliminate “threats”</a> in <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Ted-Cruz-confronted-at-Houston-restaurant-17205943.php">a world full of dangerous people</a>. The National Rifle Association has <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0276-z">used religiously infused language</a> to argue for gun rights, such as its president, Wayne LaPierre, <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/nra-president-second-amendment-granted-by-god-americans-birthright.html">saying in 2018 that</a> the right to bear arms is “granted by God to all Americans as our American birthright.” </p>
<p>In these arguments, gun ownership is a way of expressing a deep and <a href="https://www.oupress.com/9780806130316/">long-held American desire</a> to protect oneself, one’s family and one’s property. Crime <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.03.029">data</a>, however, suggests that self-defense with guns is rare, used by victims in 1% or fewer of “crimes in which there is personal contact between the perpetrator and victim” or robbery and nonsexual assault. Meanwhile, owning guns increases other dangers like accidental shooting and <a href="https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-higher-suicide-risk.html">gun-related suicide</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://people.healthsciences.ucla.edu/institution/personnel?personnel_id=75145">Joseph Pierre</a>, a psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0373-z">has written</a> that while fear may be the main cited reason for owning a gun, ownership is also strongly associated with fear of the loss of control. Seventy-four percent of gun owners say the right to own guns is essential to their sense of freedom, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns/">according to a Pew survey</a>.</p>
<h2>From talk to action – or inaction</h2>
<p>How people talk about an object influences how they understand and see it. And once that view hardens into an attitude, it significantly impacts future action.</p>
<p>In the firearms museum, and American culture more broadly, guns are portrayed as utilitarian tools of daily life, venerated objects of technological progress and symbols of what it means to be American.</p>
<p>These stories continue to shape and constrain how America talks and thinks about guns, and help explain why gun policy in the U.S. looks the way it does.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ways Americans talk about firearms is full of contradictions, two communication scholars explain – and that powerfully shapes the country’s approach to gun policy.Greg Dickinson, Professor of Rhetoric and Memory, Colorado State UniversityBrian L. Ott, Professor of Communication, Missouri State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1842102022-06-15T14:59:28Z2022-06-15T14:59:28ZCanada shouldn’t be smug about gun violence — it’s a growing problem here, too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468356/original/file-20220612-31880-sjcbp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3205%2C2125&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces new gun control legislation in Ottawa on May 30, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Canadian government has tabled <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/handguns-liberal-bill-1.6470554">new legislation to strengthen the screening process of individual firearm owners</a>, institute a mandatory buyback of banned semi-automatic military style firearms and to ban the sale, import and transfer of handguns. </p>
<p>This new legislation, Bill C-21, is a potential game-changer, but it’s been a long time coming. Calls for a ban on semi-automatic, military-style weapons date back to the <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/polytechnique-tragedy">Montréal massacre</a> more than 30 years ago. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/montreal-massacre-anniversary-the-media-must-play-a-key-role-in-fighting-femicide-172123">Montréal Massacre anniversary: The media must play a key role in fighting femicide</a>
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<p>Anne McLellan, then the Liberal justice minister, promised a ban on the gun used in that tragedy — the Ruger Mini 14 — as well as the notorious AR-15, but <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/fr/magazines/may-2020/the-liberal-governments-incomplete-assault-style-rifle-ban/">it never came to pass</a>. </p>
<p>In 2005, when Liberal Leader Paul Martin <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/liberals-vow-to-ban-handguns-1.549800">promised a ban on handguns as he ran for re-election</a>, there were about 350,000 restricted weapons in Canada. Now there are <a href="https://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/firearms/2016-commissioner-firearms-report">more than a million</a>. The proliferation of handguns is partly the result of the relaxation of laws, but even more the lack of implementation of the laws that exist. </p>
<p>While some people are rejoicing about the new legislation, others are asking why it took so long. </p>
<p>The simple answer? The gun lobby. But perhaps there’s more to it than that.</p>
<h2>More guns, more gun deaths</h2>
<p>The evidence is clear — in industrialized countries where there are more guns, there are higher rates of firearms crime and gun-related deaths. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-gun-policy-global-comparisons">A comparison of Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States</a> is instructive: While rates of <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/global-study-on-homicide.html">homicide without guns are comparable</a> (although the U.S. is slightly higher), rates of homicide with guns are dramatically different.</p>
<p>The U.K. has a rate per capita of gun homicides that is one-tenth of Canada’s. There were just <a href="https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/how-countries-like-the-uk-have-quelled-gun-violence">33 gun murders in the U.K. in 2019</a>. In Canada in 2020, police reported <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2022001/article/00009-eng.htm">277 firearm homicides</a>. </p>
<p>An important difference about the U.K.? It <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-1996-dunblane-massacre-pushed-uk-enact-stricter-gun-laws-180977221/">banned handguns after the Dunblane massacre</a> in 1996 that left 16 young schoolchildren dead. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A police officer walks on the grass outside a school. Ambulances sit in the parking lot behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468359/original/file-20220612-87515-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468359/original/file-20220612-87515-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468359/original/file-20220612-87515-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468359/original/file-20220612-87515-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468359/original/file-20220612-87515-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468359/original/file-20220612-87515-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468359/original/file-20220612-87515-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A police officer walks on the grounds of the Dunblane Primary School in Dunblane, Scotland, after a lone gunman killed 16 children, a teacher and himself in 1996. It resulted in a ban on owning handguns in the U.K.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While mass shootings can occur in countries with strict laws, they occur far less frequently. The U.K. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/13/1027348123/plymouth-britain-mass-shooting-dead-worst-since-2010">rarely sees them</a>. Canada has about one a year. The United States had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/mass-shootings-2021.html">more than 600 in 2021</a> and has seen <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/02/mass-shootings-in-2022/">more than 250 this year</a>, leaving hundreds dead and injured. In 2020, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm">almost 20,000 Americans</a> were murdered with guns.</p>
<h2>Rural rates of gun violence</h2>
<p>Despite the rhetoric about gun control being an urban or gang-related issue, Statistics Canada data shows <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2022001/article/00009/tbl/tbl01-eng.htm">rural rates of gun crime are higher in most provinces</a>. Rates of domestic homicides, murders of police officers and suicide are also generally significantly higher in rural areas and the west. </p>
<p>Gun advocates complain that <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8881236/canada-handgun-freeze-gun-control-reaction/">stricter gun laws punish law-abiding gun-owners</a>. But handguns and semi-automatic military-style assault weapons are not used for hunting or by farmers for legitimate purposes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man wearing a mask holds a sign that reading Legal Gun Owners Are Not The Problem." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468357/original/file-20220612-47433-3b1r0l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468357/original/file-20220612-47433-3b1r0l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468357/original/file-20220612-47433-3b1r0l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468357/original/file-20220612-47433-3b1r0l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468357/original/file-20220612-47433-3b1r0l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468357/original/file-20220612-47433-3b1r0l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468357/original/file-20220612-47433-3b1r0l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A gun owner holds a sign at a rally organized by the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights against new government gun regulations on Parliament Hill in September 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While smuggled handguns play a role in the illegal network of drugs and human trafficking, they are not the entire problem. Legal handguns are often <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/guns-domestic-danforth-shooting-toronto-1.4759159">stolen, illegally sold and diverted</a>. Many firearms recovered in crime in Canada that have been traced back by authorities <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2022/06/07/its-amazing-in-a-sad-way-handgun-sales-are-insane-after-ottawa-unveiled-plan-to-ban-them-store-owners-say.html">reportedly came from Canadian sources</a>.</p>
<p>The firearms used in <a href="https://rsc-src.ca/fr/voix-de-la-src/why-some-gun-control-opponents-want-to-%E2%80%98other%E2%80%99-one-canada%E2%80%99s-worst-mass-killers">the Montréal massacre</a>, at the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/alexandre-bissonnette-mass-shooters-1.5326201">Québec Islamic Centre</a> and at <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/college-shooter-gill-obsessed-with-guns-1.589809">Dawson College</a>, for example, were all legally acquired.</p>
<p>Others, such as the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4355300/danforth-shooting-handgun-stolen-saskatchewan/">2018 Toronto Danforth mass shooting</a>, involved guns that were stolen from legal owners. </p>
<p>American-style arming for self-defence <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6706985/coronavirus-firearms-and-ammo-sales-spike-across-canada-amid-covid-19-gun-law-fears/">is also rising</a> in Canada. Colten Boushie’s killer, who was acquitted of murder and manslaughter, used a semi-automatic pistol. He also had two handguns he claimed were for “<a href="https://www.macleans.ca/news/no-rural-prairie-dwellers-you-cant-shoot-to-protect-your-property/">shooting coyotes</a>,” not a legal purpose.</p>
<p>And the links <a href="https://www.straight.com/news/crown-says-pat-king-once-bought-a-restricted-firearm-two-days-after-court-had-ordered-him-to">between right-wing and white supremacists groups and the gun lobby</a> are troubling.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-myth-of-the-wheat-king-and-the-killing-of-colten-boushie-92398">The myth of the Wheat King and the killing of Colten Boushie</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Guarding against smugness</h2>
<p>The gun control debate has been waged for decades, but we have reached a tipping point. Canadians shouldn’t feel smug watching the carnage unfold in the U.S., <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/guns-per-capita">where there are almost as many guns as people</a> and more than a third of the firearms are handguns.</p>
<p>Countries in <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/firearms-directive_en">the European Union</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback">Australia</a>, <a href="https://www.police.govt.nz/advice-services/firearms-and-safety/news-regulations/new-firearms-laws-and-what-they-mean">New Zealand</a> and even <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190519-switzerland-guns-eu-aligned-firearms-control-vote">Switzerland</a> have strengthened their laws in recent years. Canada, meantime, is <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201014201659/https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/canada">ranked fourth among countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development</a> in the rate of gun death. </p>
<p>The Supreme Court of Canada has said unequivocally that there is <a href="https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1007/index.do?site_preference=normal">no American-style right to own guns in Canada</a>, but many politicians <a href="https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/a-political-act-of-opportunism-conservatives-go-hard-right-on-gun-laws/">echo gun lobby rhetoric</a> about gun owner rights. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A red-haired woman holds up a placard with assault-style weapons on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468358/original/file-20220612-43412-b4361z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468358/original/file-20220612-43412-b4361z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468358/original/file-20220612-43412-b4361z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468358/original/file-20220612-43412-b4361z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468358/original/file-20220612-43412-b4361z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468358/original/file-20220612-43412-b4361z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468358/original/file-20220612-43412-b4361z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Meaghan Hennegan, who was shot twice during the Dawson College shooting, holds up a board showing assault-style weapons as she joins other gun control advocates at a news conference on proposed federal gun control legislation on Parliament Hill in 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Having researched gun violence and advocated for stricter laws for more than 30 years, I argue that the problem has not actually been resistance by the gun lobby and its political allies. There are <a href="https://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/2020-commissioner-firearms-report">fewer than 300,000 legal handgun owners</a> in Canada and even fewer collectors of semi–automatic, military-style weapons. </p>
<p>The gun lobby in Canada is remarkably well-resourced and has in the past hijacked the public agenda. But for decades, <a href="http://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2017/12/heres-a-simple-idea-most-canadians-want-a-strict-ban-on-guns-in-our-cities/">most Canadians</a> have supported <a href="http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/march-2018/gun-control-still-a-key-issue-for-centre-left-voters/">a ban on semi-automatic military-style assault weapons and handguns</a>. </p>
<h2>Canadians need to take action</h2>
<p>The uncomfortable truth is, however, that unless they are directly affected by gun violence or on the front lines, most Canadians do not actively lobby for gun control. <a href="https://firearmrights.ca/">The gun lobby</a>, meantime, will put up billboards, donate to the cause, organize protests and even stalk politicians on the campaign trail. </p>
<p>Politicians are far more likely to hear from gun control opponents than supporters. Public meetings on gun control tend to be swarmed by the gun lobby and <a href="https://rover.substack.com/p/canadas-gun-lobby-takes-on-enemy?s=r">many politicians were targeted</a> <a href="https://capitalcurrent.ca/gun-lobbyists-election-truth-tour-brought-anti-trudeau-campaign-to-nepean/">during the election</a>. </p>
<p>While <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/441/SECU/Reports/RP11706338/securp03/securp03-e.pdf">only one per cent of Canadians own handguns</a>, handgun owners <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5158964/gun-bans-canada-consulations/">dominated consultations on gun control proposals</a> despite polls showing clearly that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tasker-report-handgun-ban-government-report-1.5094690">the majority of Canadians support gun control</a>.</p>
<p>Canadians will need to take action to ensure the new proposed laws become a reality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184210/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy Cukier is President of the Coalition for Gun Control.
She has not received funding for her research on gun control in the last 20 years.</span></em></p>Bill C-21 is a potential game-changer for gun control in Canada, but it’s been a long time coming. What took so long?Wendy Cukier, Professor, Ted Rogers School of Management, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1842892022-06-09T18:31:09Z2022-06-09T18:31:09ZBlaming ‘evil’ for mass violence isn’t as simple as it seems – a philosopher unpacks the paradox in using the word<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467836/original/file-20220608-23-ce0o76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=28%2C0%2C3826%2C2560&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A visitor pays respects at a memorial created outside Robb Elementary School to honor the victims killed in the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TexasSchoolShooting/8cd761ddf20a4f8e9bfb95c202c9ff96/photo?Query=uvalde&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1049&currentItemNo=244">AP Photo/Eric Gay</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The word “evil” circulates widely in the wake of terrible public violence. The May 24, 2022, massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, is a case in point.</p>
<p>Texas state safety official Christopher Olivarez spoke of “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-44a7cfb990feaa6ffe482483df6e4683">the complete evil of the shooter</a>.” Others expressed their resolve with the same word. “Evil will not win,” the Rev. Tony Grubin <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/26/evil-will-not-win-sorrow-and-disbelief-as-uvalde-mourns-its-children">told the crowd</a> at a vigil.</p>
<p>Days later, at the National Rifle Association’s convention in Texas, CEO Wayne LaPierre acknowledged the Uvalde victims before <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nra-convention-kicks-off-texas-days-elementary-school/story?id=84996347">arguing against gun control legislation</a>. His reasoning pivoted on the concept of evil: “If we as a nation were capable of legislating evil out of the hearts and minds of criminals who commit these heinous acts, we would have done it long ago.” </p>
<p>Evil is one of the most complex and paradoxical words in the English language. It can galvanize collective action but also lead to collective paralysis, as if the presence of evil can’t be helped. As <a href="https://espringer.wescreates.wesleyan.edu/">a philosopher studying moral concepts</a> and their role in communication, I find it essential to scrutinize this word. </p>
<h2>The evolution of ‘evil’</h2>
<p>Evil wasn’t always paradoxical. In <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/evil">Old English</a> it was simply the common word for bad – for any kind of misfortune, illness, incompetence or unhappy result. This meaning lingers in phrases such as “choosing the lesser of two evils.” </p>
<p>Starting around 1300, <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/bad">the word bad</a> gradually emerged as the familiar opposite of good. Yet even while bad was becoming common, people continued to encounter the word evil in older written works, and speech influenced by these works. Translations of the Bible and <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16328/16328-h/16328-h.htm">Anglo-Saxon classic literature</a> surely shaped how the concept of evil came to seem larger than life, and spiritually loaded. Some things seem too bad for the word bad. But what, exactly, does evil mean?</p>
<p>Many people would answer that they <a href="http://cbldf.org/about-us/case-files/obscenity-case-files/obscenity-case-files-jacobellis-v-ohio-i-know-it-when-i-see-it/">know evil when they see it</a> – or when they feel it. If there’s any good occasion for using the word, surely a planned massacre of vulnerable children seems an uncontroversial case. Still, this commonsense approach doesn’t shed much light on how the idea of evil influences public attitudes.</p>
<p>One philosophical approach – <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/pragmati/#:%7E:text=Pragmatism%20is%20a%20philosophical%20movement,ideas%20are%20to%20be%20rejected.">pragmatism</a> – may be helpful here, since it focuses on how words do things, rather than on how they should be defined. People who use the word evil are doing something: sending a clear signal about their own attitude. They are not interested in excuses, justifications or coming to some kind of shared understanding. In this pragmatic sense, the word evil has something in common with guns: It’s an extreme tool, and users require utter confidence in their own judgment. When the word evil is summoned to the scene, curiosity and complexity go quiet. It’s the high noon of a moral standoff.</p>
<p>As with reaching for guns, however, resorting to the word evil can backfire. This is because there are two deep tensions embedded in the concept. </p>
<h2>Inner or outer?</h2>
<p>First, there’s still some confusion about whether to locate evil out in the world, or within the human heart. In its archaic sense, evil could include entirely natural causes of great suffering. The Lisbon earthquake and tsunami of 1755 is an infamous example. Tens of thousands of people died agonizing deaths, and thinkers throughout Europe <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-god-good-in-the-shadow-of-mass-disaster-great-minds-have-argued-the-toss-137078">debated how a good God could allow such terrible things</a>. The French philosopher Voltaire concluded, “<a href="http://courses.washington.edu/hsteu302/Voltaire%20Lisbon%20Earthquake.html">evil stalks the land</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white illustration shows a tsunami wave crashing over an oceanside city." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467837/original/file-20220608-10364-9yz87j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467837/original/file-20220608-10364-9yz87j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467837/original/file-20220608-10364-9yz87j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467837/original/file-20220608-10364-9yz87j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467837/original/file-20220608-10364-9yz87j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467837/original/file-20220608-10364-9yz87j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467837/original/file-20220608-10364-9yz87j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 18th-century engraving depicts the destruction of Lisbon, Portugal, by an earthquake and tidal wave in 1755.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/engraving-depicting-the-destruction-of-lisbon-by-an-news-photo/915219764?adppopup=true">Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the opposite extreme, many Christian thinkers – and some classical Greek and Roman ones – treat evil as entirely distinct from worldly events. The 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, for example, defines evil as an inner moral failure, which might lurk behind even the most acceptable-looking acts. Given his faith that innocent victims would go to heaven, Kant did not focus moral concern on the fact that their lives were made shorter. Rather, <a href="https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300128154">he argued</a> murder was terrible because it was the expression of a morally forbidden choice.</p>
<p>Most people today would reject both of these simple views and focus instead on the connection of inner and outer, where human choices result in real-world atrocities.</p>
<p>Yet the purely inner view casts new light on LaPierre’s argument, that legislation is powerless to prevent evil. If evil were strictly an interior, spiritual problem, then it could be effectively tackled only at its source. Preventing that evil from erupting into public view would be like masking the symptoms of a disease rather than treating its cause.</p>
<h2>The paradox of blame</h2>
<p>There is a second major tension embedded in how the word evil works: evil both does and does not call for blame.</p>
<p>On one hand, evil seems inherently and profoundly blameworthy; evildoers are assumed to be responsible for their evil. It’s constructive to blame people, however, when <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/communicating-moral-concern">blame helps to hold them responsible</a>. Unfortunately, that important role is undermined when the target of blame is “evil.”</p>
<p>Philosopher <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/phil/faculty_display.cfm?Person_ID=1023035">Gary Watson</a> helps illuminate this paradox in his essay “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199272273.001.0001">Responsibility and the Limits of Evil</a>.” Blame involves attempting to hold people responsible as members of a shared “moral community” – a network of social relations in which people share basic norms and push one another to repair moral expectations after they are violated. Taking responsibility, in Watson’s view, involves a kind of competence, an ability to work with others in community.</p>
<p>Evil, however, implies being beyond redemption, “beyond the pale” of this community. Calling someone evil signals a total lack of hope that they could take up the responsibility being assigned to them. And some people do seem to lack the social bonds, skills and attitudes required for responsibility. Examining the life story of a notorious school shooter, Watson reveals how his potential for belonging to a moral community had been brutally dismantled by chaotic abuse throughout his formative years. </p>
<p>If evil implies such a complete absence of the skills and attitudes required for moral responsibility, then calling people evil – while still holding them morally responsible – is paradoxical. </p>
<p>Compare this with <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/332273/zero-by-charles-seife/">the paradoxical power of the number zero</a> – a quantity that is the absence of quantity. Zero is a powerful concept, but it requires a warning label: “Steer clear of dividing by this number; if you do, your equations are ruined!”</p>
<p>The English word evil is powerful, no doubt. Yet the power of the concept turns out to be driven by turbulence below the surface. Laying blame on evil can bring this turbulence to the surface in surprising ways.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184289/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elise Springer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The word ‘evil’ sends a clear message – or does it? There are deep tensions in what the word means, and what it can accomplish.Elise Springer, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Wesleyan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1841022022-06-02T20:43:44Z2022-06-02T20:43:44ZTexas school shooting: How assault-style rifles and ammunition kill and maim<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466804/original/file-20220602-15-4fyflh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=471%2C0%2C2314%2C2268&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Family and friends follow the casket of 10-year-old Jose Flores after a funeral service in Uvalde, Texas. Flores, an honour student, was killed in the latest elementary school shooting in the United States.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Eric Gay)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/texas-school-shooting--how-assault-style-rifles-and-ammunition-kill-and-maim" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The recent mass shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8866344/texas-school-shooting-gun-control/">has sparked another round of the gun control debate.</a></p>
<p>The shooter reportedly used an AR-15-type rifle, bought <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2022/05/25/guns-used-uvalde-shooting-prompt-outcry-could-lead-lawsuits/9929998002/">just after he turned 18</a>. The <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/26/1101274322/uvalde-ar-15-style-rifle-history-shooter-mass-shooting">AR-15 has been controversial in the United States</a> and Canada for decades, and, in 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government <a href="https://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/firearms/need-know-the-government-canadas-prohibition-certain-firearms-and-devices">prohibited the weapon</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-short-history-of-the-ar-15-in-canada-123959">A short history of the AR-15 in Canada</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Assault-style rifle characteristics</h2>
<p>Several <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ar-15-mass-shootings-60-minutes-2022-05-29/">characteristics of the AR-15</a> make it dangerous in the wrong hands. It is a semi-automatic firearm, meaning it can be fired repeatedly — once for each pull of the trigger. And it can be reloaded in seconds by removing its cartridge magazine and replacing it with a loaded one. </p>
<p>A less frequently commented upon feature of the AR-15 is that it usually fires a version of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-did-us-military-switch-from-762mm-round-to-556mm-2019-9">the ammunition used by many NATO soldiers to kill enemy troops</a>. As shown in Texas, and many other mass shootings, that ammunition is also extremely effective at harming civilians. <a href="https://www.kxan.com/investigations/uvalde-shooter-had-1600-rounds-few-laws-in-texas-limit-bullet-purchases/">The Texas killer purchased 1,600 rounds of the ammunition.</a></p>
<p>Journalists <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/29/media/graphic-images-reliable-sources/index.html">have debated</a> whether to detail the bodily harms experienced by mass shooting victims. Some believe that failing to describe the physical effects of rifle bullets <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/news-media-considers-breaking-grimly-routine-coverage-of-mass-shootings">sanitizes mass shooting events</a>, and suggest that greater public knowledge about victims’ injuries might affect the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/31/do-we-need-see-what-guns-do-children/">gun control debate</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466806/original/file-20220602-20-hhuy8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People hold a banner that says Ban Assault Weapons Now" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466806/original/file-20220602-20-hhuy8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466806/original/file-20220602-20-hhuy8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466806/original/file-20220602-20-hhuy8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466806/original/file-20220602-20-hhuy8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466806/original/file-20220602-20-hhuy8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466806/original/file-20220602-20-hhuy8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466806/original/file-20220602-20-hhuy8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators hold a banner to protest the visit of former president Donald Trump to the border city after a 2019 mass school shooting in El Paso, Texas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andres Leighton)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dangerous high-velocity ammunition</h2>
<p>Ammunition is often defined by its calibre — that is, by the diameter of the projectile fired. Firearm calibres are designated in millimetres or inches. The .223-inch calibre ammunition (or 5.56mm) used in most AR-15s is smaller than the rounds employed in many rifles traditionally used for hunting game, <a href="https://www.ofah.org/insider/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Firearms_Affidavidt_Report_Public_FINAL-1.pdf">like the .308</a>.</p>
<p>However, the small size of the .223 ammunition doesn’t mean it’s safe. It was developed in response to the American military’s desire in the post-Second World War period to create a small-calibre, high-velocity weapon. The .223 round was light, meaning that soldiers could easily carry many rounds for their rifles. </p>
<p>The firearms industry mass-marketed semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15, and such weapons <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/14/health/ar15-rifle-history-trnd/index.html">became increasingly popular</a> by the late 20th century. Unfortunately, rifles firing .223 ammunition also frequently became a favourite weapon of <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/all-american-killer-how-the-ar-15-became-mass-shooters-weapon-of-choice-107819/">mass shooters</a>. </p>
<p>Defenders of the AR-15 sometimes downplay the dangers of such guns. For example, in 2020, the vice-president of a Canadian gun lobby group, the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, tweeted a picture of her AR-15 and called it a “a low-powered sport rifle.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1256927299628339200"}"></div></p>
<p>However, doctors who have treated the victims of mass casualty events have <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-saw-treating-the-victims-from-parkland-should-change-the-debate-on-guns/553937/">described the serious injuries</a> inflicted <a href="http://www.gwicu.com/Assets/Articles/Ballistics.pdf">by ammunition</a> fired from assault-style rifles. </p>
<h2>Graphic detail of injuries and damage</h2>
<p>While gun advocates generally avoid discussing the harm that assault-style rifles can cause, there are exceptions. </p>
<p>Before he became <a href="https://firearmrights.ca/who-we-are/">CEO of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights</a>, Rod Giltaca explained in graphic detail the dangers of the .223 round on his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bvuAqU1wm4">YouTube channel</a>.</p>
<p>Giltaca introduced his 2013 video, focused on wound characteristics, by stating that there was “some misconception about the .223 cartridge” and that he wanted to show “how dangerous that cartridge still is, even though, yes, it’s a small bullet.” He pointed out that unlike rounds fired from handguns, the “.223 travels really, really fast, and that creates some problems should you get hit with it.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9bvuAqU1wm4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The head of a Canadian firearms group details the dangers of .223 ammunition on his YouTube channel.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Giltaca detailed the various “problems” a human body experienced if shot with a .223 rifle bullet. </p>
<p>For example, he said the bullet produces a “little shockwave,” which leads to a “temporary stretch cavity.” If the bullet strikes a thigh, for example, “it’s going to suck a bunch of air in there.” This leads to “massive tissue disruption and tissue death” because “your skin has been pulled apart and it tears, and it collapses back together again.”</p>
<p>Giltaca concluded by offering his “bottom line.” Rifles firing ammunition like .223 rounds “are really, really dangerous,” for if “you get hit with a rifle round, you’re not coming back.” </p>
<p>Americans have been reminded of this over and over again in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5993698/">mass shootings</a> committed with assault-style rifles. And, unfortunately, Canadians have also learned about the dangers of such guns. </p>
<p>The rifle used in the Montréal massacre in 1989, the now prohibited <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ecole-polytechnique-montreal-massacre-anniversary-gun-law-canada/">Mini-14</a>, fired .223 ammunition. Fourteen young women died as a result.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184102/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>R. Blake Brown receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.. </span></em></p>The latest mass school shooting in Texas has renewed the debate about gun control. Here’s why gun advocates generally avoid discussing the harm that assault-style rifles can cause.R. Blake Brown, Professor, History, Saint Mary’s UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1840452022-05-30T20:32:39Z2022-05-30T20:32:39ZAmerican exceptionalism: the poison that cannot protect its children from violent death<p>I had always been afraid of America. Once, in Alaska, we had dinner with a man my father was working with, and he had actually uttered the line – that iconic American saying, so ridiculous as to be almost unbelievable. <em>Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.</em> I thought he was joking, attempting some kind of irony. He wasn’t.</p>
<p>When I got a fellowship at Yale a decade later, a big part of me did not want to go, and especially did not want to take my husband and our almost-two-year-old daughter with me.</p>
<p>Going on to a school or college campus in the United States is demonstrably risky.</p>
<p>The Wikipedia category page <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States">listing school shootings in the United States</a> already has 22 entries for 2022 alone.</p>
<p>Still, I wasn’t afraid enough not to go. Or perhaps I was just more afraid of what people would say if I said I wasn’t going to Yale because of guns. The pull of America is strong, even to those who know.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-the-latest-shooting-of-us-children-finally-lead-to-gun-reform-sadly-thats-unlikely-183829">Will the latest shooting of US children finally lead to gun reform? Sadly, that's unlikely</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>On Tuesday last week, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/29/us/uvalde-texas-elementary-school-shooting-sunday/index.html">it happened again</a>. </p>
<p>An 18-year-old gunman entered an elementary school in Ulvade, Texas, and shot and killed 19 children and two teachers. The children were all nine and ten years old. The police didn’t help them. </p>
<p>Over the weekend, an 11-year-old girl <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/27/us/robb-shooting-survivor-miah-cerrillo/index.html">explained</a> to the media that she had survived by smearing the blood of her dead friend over herself and pretending that she was dead, too. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465895/original/file-20220530-22-6364m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465895/original/file-20220530-22-6364m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465895/original/file-20220530-22-6364m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465895/original/file-20220530-22-6364m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465895/original/file-20220530-22-6364m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465895/original/file-20220530-22-6364m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465895/original/file-20220530-22-6364m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465895/original/file-20220530-22-6364m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A US flag decorates the perimeter of a memorial site in the town square of Uvalde, Texas, set up for those killed in the fatal mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wong Mayee/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The conversation is the same. The National Rifle Association held its convention a few days after the shooting, in Houston. Texas Senator Ted Cruz <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-school-shooting-nra-convention-212dfd1b57474f1ab208d4a72521a010">said,</a> “We must not react to evil and tragedy by abandoning the Constitution or infringing on the rights of our law-abiding citizens.”</p>
<p>The beacon of democracy and freedom, the shining light on the hill, the force for good in the world, can not, will not, protect its own children.</p>
<h2>Child’s play in gun country</h2>
<p>On one of our last days in New Haven, in the northern summer of 2018, I took my daughter to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Like everything at Yale, the museum is extraordinarily well funded. It’s free for Yale students, and is always hosting community events, mostly for local school children. </p>
<p>On that particular day, one of the first real days of New England summer, when the green had exploded and the air was thick with humidity, the museum was quiet.
We spent what felt like hours in the children’s discovery room, listening to the elderly volunteers worry about the black mould in the leafeater ant colony and marvelling at the poison dart frogs. </p>
<p>I held my daughter’s hand as we walked down the grand stone staircase, under the watchful glass eyes of the pink giant squid, to see the fossils. I chuckled, again, at the glorious 1940s mural that spanned the length of the Great Hall and its red-eyed, cartoonishly angry Tyrannosaurus Rex. Clara ran around and around the main display, insisting on touching the fake rocks even though she knew she shouldn’t, yelling at the top of her lungs. “Rrrrraaaa Mummy, I’m a dinosaur, rrrraaaa!”</p>
<p>For some reason, as Clara did her little dino routine, I looked up, and noticed two boys watching from the discovery room above. They were both white: nine, maybe ten. As I watched, one of the boys, standing right in the middle of the window, pretended to cock a shot gun. He lowered it slowly, while his little friend laughed, and proceeded to shoot everyone in the hall below. Shoot, reload, shoot, reload. He shot my daughter as she ran laps around the brontosaurus. </p>
<p>It was pretend. I knew it was pretend. But I could barely stand. I was frightened, of course. But it was the vicious rage that nearly knocked me down. Rage at the kid standing in the window, at his friend, at their parents, their grandparents. All of them.</p>
<p>This fucking country.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/6-charts-show-key-role-firearms-makers-play-in-americas-gun-culture-183900">6 charts show key role firearms makers play in America’s gun culture</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>Parkland and a student revolution</h2>
<p>On campus, there were regular reminders of the danger: bag searches before lectures, or complete bag bans in the case of particularly important speakers like Henry Kissinger or Al Gore. Yale was relatively safe, of course, insulated by privilege. But everyone operated under the assumption that it was only a matter of time until the next one, even if it was more likely to be somewhere else. </p>
<p>We arrived in New Haven in August of 2017. The <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/teacher-coach14-year-freshman-florida-high-school-massacre/story?id=53092879">next mass school shooting</a> happened on February 14, 2018. If anything, we waited longer than we had anticipated. </p>
<p>On that winter day, a 19-year-old man walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and shot and killed 17 people with a semi-automatic weapon. 14 of those victims were aged between 14 and 17 years old. 17 others were seriously injured. The gunman had purchased the AR-15 he used legally. It was the worst school shooting in American history.</p>
<p>In the US, Parkland, and the extraordinary young survivors who became the face of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-parklands-experience-tells-us-about-the-limits-of-a-security-response-to-christchurch-113912">a movement</a>, dominated the news for weeks. Through their activism, those students, along with organisations like <a href="https://momsdemandaction.org/">Moms Demand Action</a>, have seized the narrative, and are doing everything they can to create change.</p>
<p>In the month after the Parkland murders there were huge protests all over the country. In the <a href="https://theconversation.com/march-for-our-lives-awakens-the-spirit-of-student-and-media-activism-of-the-1960s-93713">“March for Our Lives”</a>, half a million kids descended on Washington, DC, with Parkland survivors at the forefront. Children all over the US walked out of school, supported by organised events in basically every city in the country. </p>
<p>Parkland has largely fallen off the mainstream radar, now. It reappears periodically, more often than not because one of the young survivors, traumatised by this hideous act of cruelty, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/parkland-suicides-sandy-hook-gun-violence-812885/">has decided</a> they cannot take it anymore. Other survivors are forced to publicly relive their trauma, again, whenever there is another one. Because despite the appalling public suffering of those children and their extraordinary organising, the shootings have not stopped.</p>
<p>Since Parkland, there have been many more mass shootings in the US, in schools and elsewhere. By one count, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mass-shootings-2019-more-than-days-365/">there were</a> 417 mass shootings (defined as an incident in which four or more people are killed) in 2019 alone. In the following year – in fact, before 2020 was even over – Americans had purchased <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-10-30/gun-sales-are-soaring-and-its-not-just-conservatives-stocking-up">more guns</a> than in any of the years before: 17 million. 17 dead teenagers. 17 injured. 17 million more guns.</p>
<iframe width="100%" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/77xzCz1uK2c" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>Toxic American gun culture is a hideous outgrowth of American exceptionalism, and just like that exceptionalism, there is nothing else like it in the world. In any other Western country, when white kids die, something happens. </p>
<p>But at Parkland, at Sandy Hook, at Virginia Tech, at Columbine, the kids who died were mostly white. They were seemingly middle class. The fact that white, privileged children are being killed and nothing is being done about it is extraordinary, in the truest sense of the word. The American political system – built on, and sustained by, white supremacy – is willing to sacrifice its children to keep its guns. </p>
<p>Those guns have become symbols of that white supremacy, as conservative forces in the American media encourage and spread the same hateful, violent ideologies that meet their logical endpoints in <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-mass-shootings-are-happening-at-grocery-stores-13-of-shooters-are-motivated-by-racial-hatred-criminologists-find-183098">supermarkets in Buffalo</a>, as they have since even before the nation was founded. The suffering Americans willingly inflict on each other, on their own children, is as horrifying as it is mundane. </p>
<p>But it wasn’t always this way. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Enrique Owens, a cousin of Roberta Drury, wears a t-shirt with her photograph on it before her funeral service, Saturday, May 21, 2022, in Syracuse, N.Y. Drury was one of 10 killed during a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lauren Petracca/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-nra-evolved-from-backing-a-1934-ban-on-machine-guns-to-blocking-nearly-all-firearm-restrictions-today-183880">How the NRA evolved from backing a 1934 ban on machine guns to blocking nearly all firearm restrictions today</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The Second Amendment, Reagan and racist politics</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm">Second Amendment</a> to the US Constitution forms the centrepiece of American gun culture and conversations about how to dismantle it. It is one of the ten amendments to the Constitution which form the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791. Its words are no doubt familiar, but they are worth repeating: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The amount of ink spilt in legal, philosophical, historical and political debates about the true meaning of those 27 words defies assimilation. What is inarguable is that those words were composed by white men worried not so much about an individual’s right to buy and use the kind of weaponry their 18th-century minds could scarcely imagine, but about protecting the political revolution they had led and institutionalised. </p>
<p>The Second Amendment reflected <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/02/22/what-the-second-amendment-really-meant-to-the-founders/">contemporary fears</a> that a standing army, in service to the state, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/second-amendment-text-context/555101/">would present</a> an unacceptable threat to true freedom. (A freedom that, it must always be pointed out, was reserved only for white people.) </p>
<p>It did not anticipate that the standing army of the new nation would go on to become, two centuries later, the biggest and most dangerous in the world, or that it would feed into the vicious circle of American militarism. </p>
<p>The men who wrote it did not anticipate that it would be used to excuse the murder of American children. Their indifference to the murder of children they would not have considered American – Black Americans, Native Americans – must sit at the heart of any attempt to historicise the Second Amendment and its consequences.</p>
<p>But that amendment’s morph into a unique political monster was not inevitable, and is in fact fairly recent. Until the 1980s, interpretations of the Second Amendment tended not towards permissiveness, but to control. In the 1930s – a century and a half after the ratification of the Bill of Rights – both the federal government under President Franklin Roosevelt and the Supreme Court actually curtailed gun rights. </p>
<p>In the late 1960s, in the aftermath of the successive assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr and Senator Robert F. Kennedy – and, critically, the rise of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/chicago-1969-when-black-panthers-aligned-with-confederate-flag-wielding-working-class-whites-68961">Black Panther movement</a> – the Johnson administration oversaw the passage of the <a href="https://time.com/5429002/gun-control-act-history-1968/">1968 Gun Control Act</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President John F. Kennedy waves from his car in a motorcade in Dallas, on November 22, 1963. In the aftermath of his assassination, and others, the Gun Control Act was passed in 1968.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jim Altgens/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For decades, gun control measures were successful at least in part because they were aimed at <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/28/us/race-politics-gun-control-the-price-of-freedom/index.html">curtailing the ability</a> of Black people to own guns. Not uncoincidentally, from its founding in 1871 until the mid-1970s, the National Rifle Association offered mostly bipartisan support to gun control measures.</p>
<p>It was not until the mid-1970s that gun culture and the role firearms play in American politics began to resemble what we are familiar with today. As the NRA radicalised, it built enormous political force. In 1980 the NRA endorsed a presidential candidate for the very first time – Ronald Reagan. Reagan had largely been <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/582926/how-ronald-reagan-learned-love-gun-control">in favour of gun control</a> measures precisely because they were aimed at disarming African Americans. But by the 1980s, that had changed.</p>
<p>During Reagan’s second term, Congress passed the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/99th-congress/senate-bill/49">1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act</a>, which did exactly as its name suggests. Even an assassination attempt on that most beloved of NRA Presidents five years before did not shake what was quickly becoming an entrenched politics of gun rights, particularly on the right. Four decades ago, the Republican Party became the party of the NRA, and it remains so today.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President elect Ronald Reagan introducing James Brady, who would survive a devastating head wound in the 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan, as his press secretary in Washington. Brady later undertook a personal crusade for gun control.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Walt Zebowski/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Clinton’s assault weapons ban</h2>
<p>But at the end of the Reagan era, as a triumphant US emerged victorious from the Cold War and the 1990s promised a new era of American ascendancy, things looked like they might change. A new president sought to emulate his Democratic forebears in successfully enacting significant gun control measures. </p>
<p>In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/1025">Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act</a>, which created a national register of background checks. The following year, the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act – more commonly known as the assault weapons ban – was passed as part of the infamous omnibus <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act">Crime Bill of 1994</a>. The Act specifically banned military-style semiautomatic weapons. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Clinton signs the Brady Bill in the East Room of the White House in this Nov file photo as James Brady, who it was named for, looks on (seated at left).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marcy Nighswander/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The NRA – which had spent an eye-watering (at the time, anyway) $1.7 million trying to get gun-friendly congresspeople elected – vowed electoral revenge. </p>
<p>But in this new era, coverage mused that maybe the NRA’s electoral influence was, at long last, <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1994-05-08-1994128021-story.html">waning</a>, and in the new political culture of the 1990s, technocratic bipartisanship seemed to be winning out. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan had <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-05-05-mn-54185-story.html">written to Congress</a> in support of the ban. It passed the House and the Senate easily. </p>
<p>But the promise of the 1990s was always an illusion. Clinton’s assault weapons ban <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/understanding-1994-assault-weapons-ban-ended/story?id=65546858">did not signal</a> a systemic change in American gun culture so much as a brief interregnum. The ban was full of loopholes and included what would turn out to be a catastrophic sunset clause. The Act came into force in September 1994 and lasted for a decade. It was not renewed. </p>
<p>Attempts to revive it have repeatedly failed. And even before it had expired, it was clear that it had not worked to prevent mass shootings.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-gun-control-laws-dont-pass-congress-despite-majority-public-support-and-repeated-outrage-over-mass-shootings-183896">Why gun control laws don't pass Congress, despite majority public support and repeated outrage over mass shootings</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Columbine: the first televised mass shooting</h2>
<p>On April 22, 1999 – over four years before the assault weapons ban expired – two teenaged gunmen shot and killed 12 students and two teachers at Columbine High School in Colorado. Inspired by Timothy McVeigh and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/13/oklahoma-city-bombing-20-years-later-key-questions-remain-unanswered">Oklahoma bombing</a>, they had planned the attack for a year. </p>
<p>McVeigh and his apprentice were both white supremacists, motivated by extreme right-wing views – including a hatred for federal government – that took on a new virulence during the Clinton presidency. That connection is largely forgotten, now. </p>
<p>Columbine – in fact deeply connected to the racist history of both the gun rights movement and the US political system – was far from the first mass shooting, and far from the last. But it was the first to be televised. Columbine became the first in a long line of what has become an all-too-familiar international spectacle of unfathomable grief and astounding political failure.</p>
<p>Columbine did not shake American gun culture. The reluctance to really reckon with Columbine – to recognise and address the systemic failures that allowed it to happen – has meant that <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-columbine-became-a-blueprint-for-school-shooters-115115">the pattern continues</a>. Though at the time it seemed such a cataclysmic event that the idea it would <em>not</em> lead to some kind of reform was unfathomable to those of us watching from afar, Columbine was very quickly attributed not to structural failures, but to errant individuals, high-school bullying, and video games. Just as Ted Cruz scrambled to blame Uvalde not on gun laws, but on <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/ted-cruz-uvalde-shootings.html">insecure schools</a>, calling for them to “harden” up and have just one door (with armed guards) accessible to the outside.</p>
<p>Since Columbine, aside from Michael Moore’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mmflint/posts/yesterday-walmart-finally-announced-theyd-stop-selling-ammo-for-assault-weapons-/10156212258796857/">successful effort</a> to get Walmart to stop selling ammunition, nothing much changed – and even that small victory didn’t last. </p>
<p>Since Columbine, the failures have piled up, like the dead bodies at Virginia Tech (2007), Fort Hood (2009), Aurora (2012), Charleston and San Bernadino (2015), Orlando (2016), Las Vegas (2017), Parkland (2018), and now Ulvade (2022). </p>
<h2>Defying logic and compassion</h2>
<p>There is no clearer example of the failure of American democracy than this incomplete list of massacres. Over 60 per cent of Americans are in favour of some kind of gun control measures, such as background checks or a ban on military-grade assault weapons. The failure of Congress, the presidency, and the courts to prevent these ongoing tragedies – and at times their efforts to make it easier for them to occur – defies all logic and compassion. </p>
<p>In recurring debates over gun control, Americans and international observers alike turn their eyes beyond American shores – more often than not, across the Pacific to Australia, and more recently, New Zealand. </p>
<p>Not long after President Clinton oversaw the passage of the temporary assault weapons ban in the US, a lone gunman massacred 35 people in <a href="https://theconversation.com/forgetting-martin-bryant-what-to-remember-when-we-talk-about-port-arthur-58139">Port Arthur</a>, Australia. As the American version of the story goes, the public outpouring of grief and anger after that already rare event created what <em>The New York Times</em> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/world/australia/australia-gun-ban-shooting.html">has described</a> as a “national consensus” that gun control was the answer. </p>
<p>The subsequent reforms – enacted by a conservative government – are described in alternatively incredulous and envious terms. But even the <em>Times</em> can’t resist importing American debates into its coverage of Australia, mischaracterising a national “debate” about gun reform around the nature of the controls and their legacy. </p>
<p>But the implied logic, the rationality, of <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-massacres-and-an-accelerating-decline-in-overall-gun-deaths-the-impact-of-australias-major-1996-gun-law-reforms-61212">Australian reforms</a>, and later, Jacinda Ardern’s in New Zealand, is unmistakable. So too is the deep sense of resignation that such reform is not possible in a country so burdened by the unique nature of its foundation and politics. Ardern got a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2022/may/27/jacinda-ardern-receives-standing-ovation-for-harvard-speech-on-gun-control-and-democracy-video">standing ovation</a> at Harvard last week, after giving a speech about gun control. It won’t change a thing.</p>
<iframe width="100%" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YlMnx-cp7rY" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>What Australians and New Zealanders fail to understand when we ask ourselves why Americans can’t just do what we did is the nature of American exceptionalism, its depth, and how it defies rationality. </p>
<p>We can recite our own national statistics all we like – Americans do the same. Scots, New Zealanders and Australians, with their hearts in the right places, do it after every massacre, and we will do it after the next one, and the one after that. </p>
<p>American parents will be forced, again and again, to share their grief with millions of viewers on cable television. Even before Ulvade, it was easy to imagine the new president, so <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/01/16/joe-biden-designated-mourner/">accomplished at mourning</a>, shedding his own entirely genuine tears at the first school shooting that occurred under his administration. It is also easy to imagine that, just like his predecessors, he won’t change a thing.</p>
<p>Australians should never pretend that we have the answers to the failures of American gun control. It isn’t helpful, or kind, when smug Australians look condescendingly at the US and its failures to rationally address its own deeply embedded and violent culture. </p>
<p>We tend to underestimate the power of the NRA, which has the entire Republican Party and too many Democrats on its payroll. A lot of us underestimate the power of American white supremacy. We also underestimate American reverence for the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, from those opposed to gun control and those in favour.</p>
<p>Americans, meanwhile, tend to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/05/07/americans-vastly-overestimate-the-number-of-gun-owners-thats-a-problem/">overestimate</a> the power of the NRA, and have allowed that power to become self-perpetuating. The NRA is powerful because it has created a narrative which sees that power as permanent and unshakeable. Combined with the force of American exceptionalism, that power – real and imagined – leads not to action, but to resignation and acceptance among the very people who are in a position to change things.</p>
<p>American institutions are seemingly powerless to enact gun reform because so many Americans believe – consciously or not – that any cost or sacrifice is worth it to live in the best country in the world. Even the potential massacre of their own children. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-shootings-norway-and-finland-have-similar-levels-of-gun-ownership-but-far-less-gun-crime-183933">US shootings: Norway and Finland have similar levels of gun ownership, but far less gun crime</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>An elite inured to violent death</h2>
<p>Yale University is full of immensely powerful and influential people, and people who will go on to hold positions of immense power and influence. Four out of the nine Supreme Court Justices — including Trump appointee <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-us-supreme-court-nominee-brett-kavanaugh-and-where-does-he-stand-on-abortion-99670">Brett Kavanaugh</a> — are graduates of Yale Law School (the other four went to Harvard; Trump’s final appointment, <a href="https://supremecourthistory.org/supreme-court-justices/associate-justice-amy-coney-barrett/">Amy Coney Barrett</a>, went to Notre Dame). Five Yale alumni have gone on to become president (Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Gerald Ford, and William Taft).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harkness Tower on the campus of Yale University, a a place of elite power.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Beth Harpaz/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yale graduates are everywhere that matters in American politics. They are journalists, foreign policy types, Wall Street brokers, and congresspeople. They’ve served at every level of almost every presidential administration, in every agency, every department, every lobby group, and every think tank.</p>
<p>They also went to school just under 25 miles from Newtown, Connecticut – the home of <a href="https://theconversation.com/connecticut-shootings-guns-dont-kill-people-lack-of-gun-control-kills-people-11362">Sandy Hook Elementary School</a>. I didn’t know that, when I arrived. It wasn’t until Parkland prompted discussions about school shootings with my colleagues that I realised just how close it was. </p>
<p>On December 14, 2012 – exactly five years and two months before Parkland – a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary and murdered 20 children aged between six and seven years old, along with six adult staff members. He shot himself when police arrived.</p>
<p>Many Yale Faculty, especially those with families, don’t live in the college town of New Haven. They live instead in the leafy outer suburbs, in big New England weatherboard houses with rolling lawns and trees that turn red and gold in autumn and where everything sparkles under a blanket of pristine white snow in winter. </p>
<p>On that day, December 14, 2012, their children’s schools went into lockdown. Before it became clear what was happening, those parents didn’t even know which school was under attack. They thought their children might be dead.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if the existential horror of this was just new to me, an outsider, but by the time I was there, five years after Sandy Hook, what struck me most was the sad resignation of every single person I spoke to at Yale about Sandy Hook and Parkland. </p>
<p>By that time — more than halfway through my fellowship – I had grown accustomed to the ritual of the very powerful and influential people I met asking me what I might do next, after Yale. When everyone is connected to someone, your answer to that question might make or break the rest of your life. </p>
<p>In the five months prior to February 2018, I had answered it very carefully, probably with visible desperation. But after Parkland, I got braver. I changed my answer. </p>
<p>We were going home, I started to say – we were going home because we could not send our child to school here. We could not live with the unadulterated existential horror of our three-year-old doing lockdown drills less than 25 miles from the site of the mass shooting of 20 other babies. We couldn’t do it. </p>
<p>The response I got never, ever varied. Sure, they would reply – that’s a reasonable position. But a ripple across the forehead, a tiny frown, almost always gave them away. I could see a switch flicking. I was either written off as lacking ambition or encouraged to reconsider – to look at this or that program, or university.</p>
<p>In all honesty, it was only then – despite over a decade of study, despite multiple visits – that I really understood the poison of American exceptionalism. These powerful, rich people were utterly convinced that the US, and the small corner of it that they occupied, was the best possible place in which to be, and <em>it was worth it to be there</em>. It was worth the risk of Sandy Hook. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">White roses with the faces of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting are attached to a telephone pole near the school in Newtown, Connecticut.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jessica Hill/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They were, of course, partly insulated from that risk. Their kids went to schools with better security than most; they had money and health insurance. But it was still a risk. They had been exposed to that risk directly. </p>
<p>The pervasiveness of the threat means that gun massacres can and do happen to people who are otherwise protected from the most excessive cruelties of American society. To take just one example: in 2017, a gunman <a href="https://theconversation.com/las-vegas-the-us-is-racked-with-impossible-divisions-over-rights-and-freedoms-85121">opened fire</a> on a mostly white crowd at a country music festival in Las Vegas. It was the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/02/us/las-vegas-attack-deadliest-us-mass-shooting-trnd/index.html">deadliest</a> mass shooting in American history.</p>
<p>They were all horrified by gun violence, of course. They were sad, and frightened. But they weren’t angry. They were resigned to the continuing occurrence of mass shootings of children: just another thing that happens in America. </p>
<p>Powerful Americans would see this as unfair, of course. But after nearly four years of reflection, I do not know what else to take from it. These enormously powerful and influential people had decided that not only was the risk worth it, but that they could do nothing about it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Angelica Cervantes kneels at her son Erick Silva’s grave in Las Vegas in 2018. Silva was working as a security guard at the Route 91 Harvest Festival and was shot while helping people climb over a barricade to escape the gunfire on October 1, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Locher/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The result of that failure – of Yale, of the other Ivy Leagues, of the institutions of American political power – is a country awash with fear and violence. In the US there are more guns than people. Americans purchased 17 million guns in 2020, after Parkland; they already had 400 million. Put another way, five per cent of the world’s population <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/fedex-indianapolis-mass-shooting-gun-violence-statistics-charts">owns</a> 45 per cent of the world’s guns. </p>
<p>That population suffers from <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081">the highest</a> rate of gun-related deaths in the developed world. Gun violence kills roughly 40,000 people <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/gun-industry-america/">every year</a>. Gun violence is now the <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/05/26/gun-deaths-children-america">leading cause of death</a> for American children. The guns that kill those children are manufactured by American companies deeply ingrained in the American military industrial complex. American capitalism is geared towards war.</p>
<p>The result of all this is also a powerful elite, riding the conduit from the Ivy Leagues to government and Wall Street, inured to violent death and absolved of personal responsibility.</p>
<h2>‘The blob’ and institutionalised violence</h2>
<p>That group of powerful people make up the courts, the government, and the “blob” — the foreign policy establishment made up of academics, think tanks, and government. The blob is what takes Americans to war, where they use weapons similar to, and worse than, the AR-15 that killed children at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High and at Sandy Hook Elementary. </p>
<p>The blob sends American men to fight unwinnable wars, where they shoot people with guns, and then some of them come back and threaten the very fabric of the democracy powerful Americans so revere and that they had promised to protect. One investigation <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/21/958915267/nearly-one-in-five-defendants-in-capitol-riot-cases-served-in-the-military">found</a> that nearly one in five of the assailants on the Capitol had a military history. Some of them were former or current law enforcement officers. Many of them <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/05/rise-of-body-armor-in-mass-shootings-like-buffalo-and-uvalde.html">were wearing</a> military-grade body armour, just like the man in Ulvade.</p>
<p>Joe Biden’s “blob” might look and sound different to Donald Trump’s, but it won’t do anything to really address this violence. Biden’s blob is made up of the same kind of people who have failed to act before. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/">2020 Democratic Party Platform</a> said all the right things about ending gun violence – about universal background checks and banning the manufacture of assault weapons. They invited X González, a Parkland survivor, to narrate <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-TisrsVkUk">a stirring video</a> about gun violence at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. But even in that video, you could almost hear the resignation in González’s voice. </p>
<iframe width="100%" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F-TisrsVkUk" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>The President and First Lady visited Ulvade on Sunday. President Biden said all the right things; his grief was visceral, and genuine. But it all came, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/29/politics/joe-biden-uvalde-texas-visit/index.html">as CNN reported</a>, “without promise of major legislative action to prevent further carnage”. </p>
<p>And Biden’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/29/biden-texas-uvalde-00035867">promise</a> that he “will”, as one mourner begged him, “do something”, doesn’t factor in the prospect of the Democrats losing their tiny congressional majority in November. Lawmakers are in talks now, but even if they do keep their majority, holding a coalition of Democrats together to pass even the most basic of gun control measures would be incredibly difficult. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden pay their respects to the victims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Evan Vucci/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More broadly, none of this addresses the institutional failures that have let the gun lobby torpedo gun control efforts for decades. And it doesn’t reflect on the nature of American exceptionalism – on why 27 words written over 200 years ago hold American society hostage, and why powerful Americans allow that to continue. </p>
<p>It doesn’t address why those words are held up as uniquely good in the world, despite the way they are weaponised against Americans themselves. It doesn’t ask why it is that so many powerful Americans who know better – who know that most of the rest of the world doesn’t have to live with the very real threat of their children dying at school at the hands of their peers – have decided that that risk is worth it, for them and their fellow citizens. </p>
<p>That exceptionalism has allowed every generation of American children since Columbine in 1999 to face an existential threat in their own schools, in the full knowledge that the people who hold power and influence in their exceptional country are unable and unwilling to protect them. </p>
<p>This is Joe Biden’s “beacon”, Ronald Reagan’s “force for good in the world”. This is what American exceptionalism does, at home and abroad: it puts Americans on a permanent war footing, against each other – against their own children – and against outsiders. This is the true face of the country that rules our world.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-u-s-capitol-raid-exposes-the-myth-and-pathology-of-american-exceptionalism-152668">The U.S. Capitol raid exposes the myth and pathology of American exceptionalism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In mid-2018, we drove out of New Haven for a weekend away in upstate New York. Summer had finally arrived, and everything was green and full of life. The drive was beautiful, not at all like the ten-lane American highways we had grown accustomed to, but tree-lined and skirting around rivers and lakes. Clara was asleep in the backseat as it dawned on the both of us where we were. As we followed the curves of Berkshire Road, we saw the signs for Newtown, and, a little later, Sandy Hook. </p>
<p>Nothing is worth that. Nothing.</p>
<p><em>An earlier version of this essay was shortlisted for the 2022 <a href="https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/prizes-programs/calibre-prize">Calibre Essay Prize</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Shortis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>American institutions are seemingly powerless to enact gun reform because so many Americans believe – consciously or not – that any sacrifice is worth it to live in the best country in the world.Emma Shortis, Lecturer, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1839092022-05-27T22:00:45Z2022-05-27T22:00:45ZArming teachers – an effective security measure or a false sense of security?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465810/original/file-20220527-23-pqd7cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=33%2C109%2C5573%2C3598&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even trained police officers often miss their target during gunfights.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/firearm-instructor-and-student-royalty-free-image/157616700?adppopup=true">RichLegg / Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In the wake of the <a href="https://www.statesman.com/story/news/nation/2022/05/24/texas-school-district-locked-down-active-shooter/9910214002/">mass shooting at Robb Elementary School</a> in Uvalde, Texas, some elected officials are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/05/25/harden-schools-arm-teachers-uvalde/">making calls anew</a> for
<a href="https://twitter.com/acyn/status/1529224340071297025">teachers to be armed and trained to use firearms</a> to protect the nation’s schools. To shine light on the matter, The Conversation reached out to <a href="https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=RrYCnwIAAAAJ&hl=en">Aimee Huff</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=6gjKzYoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Michelle Barnhart</a>, two Oregon State University scholars who have studied the ins and outs of putting guns in the hands of the nation’s teachers as a way to protect students.</em></p>
<h2>1. What does the public think about arming teachers?</h2>
<p>According to a 2021 poll, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/04/wide-differences-on-most-gun-policies-between-gun-owners-and-non-owners-but-also-some-agreement/">43% of Americans</a> supported policies that allow school personnel to carry guns in schools.</p>
<p>But if you take a closer look, you see that most of that support comes from Republicans and gun-owners. For instance, 66% of Republican respondents expressed support for such policies, versus just 24% of Democratic respondents. And 63% of gun owners supported allowing school personnel to carry guns, versus just 33% of non-gun owners. </p>
<p>The majority of <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/231224/teachers-prioritize-gun-control-prevent-shootings.aspx">teachers</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/survey-finds-wide-opposition-among-parents-to-arming-teachers/2018/07/16/03674e34-8927-11e8-8aea-86e88ae760d8_story.html">parents</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2020.1858424">students</a> oppose allowing teachers to carry guns.</p>
<p>The largest teachers unions, including the National Education Association, also oppose arming teachers, arguing that bringing more guns into schools “<a href="https://www.nea.org/about-nea/media-center/press-releases/nea-rejects-call-arm-teachers-wake-school-massacre-uvalde-texas">makes schools more dangerous and does nothing to shield our students and educators from gun violence</a>.”</p>
<p>These teachers unions <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/American%20Federation%20of%20Teachers%20(AFT)%20statement.pdf">advocate</a> a preventive approach that includes more gun regulations.</p>
<p>While the public is justifiably concerned with eliminating school shootings, there is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-conservatives-armed-teachers-are-solution-school-shootings-2022-05-25/">disagreement</a> over the policies and actions that would be most effective. A 2021 study found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12538">70% of Americans</a> supported the idea of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12538">armed school resource officers</a> and law enforcement in schools, but only <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/npr-ipsos-poll-majority-americans-support-policies-aimed-keep-guns-out-hands-dangerous-individuals">41%</a> supported the idea of training teachers to carry guns in schools.</p>
<p>In our research on <a href="https://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/2552033/volumes/v47/NA-47">how Americans think about the rights and responsibilities related to armed self-defense</a>, we even find disagreement among conservative gun owners over how to best protect schoolchildren. Some advocate arming teachers, while other gun owners believe guns in schools ultimately make children less safe. These conservative opponents of arming teachers instead support fortifying the building’s design and features.</p>
<p>After the massacre in Uvalde, we are seeing renewed calls from politicians to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/05/25/harden-schools-arm-teachers-uvalde/">arm teachers</a> and provide them with <a href="https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article261779287.html">specialized training</a>.</p>
<p>However, amid <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-44a7cfb990feaa6ffe482483df6e4683">conflicting reports</a> about whether police officers engaged the Robb Elementary School shooter, there are renewed questions about whether armed teachers would make a difference. Police have <a href="https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2022/05/27/police-mistakenly-blocked-classroom-during-texas-school-shooting-dps-says/9959949002/">acknowledged they didn’t enter the school</a> even as kids frantically dialed 911.</p>
<p>Given that there were also armed officers present at the <a href="https://extras.denverpost.com/news/col1123b.htm">Columbine</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/us/parkland-scot-peterson.html">Parkland</a> school massacres in 1999 and 2018, respectively, the public is understandably right to wonder whether armed teachers can effectively neutralize a shooter. Amid reports that trained and experienced police officers may have been unable or unwilling to intervene against the Uvalde shooter, it’s not clear whether teachers would be, either.</p>
<h2>2. What are the potential drawbacks of arming teachers?</h2>
<p>Arming teachers <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-trumps-idea-to-arm-teachers-may-miss-the-mark-92335">introduces risks to students and staff</a>, as well as school districts themselves. These include the risk of teachers accidentally shooting themselves or students and fellow staff. There are also moral and legal risks associated with improper or inaccurate defensive use of a firearm - even for teachers who have undertaken specialized firearms training.</p>
<p>One <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/public_information/RAND_FirearmEvaluation.pdf">study</a> found that highly trained police in gunfights <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/public_information/RAND_FirearmEvaluation.pdf">hit their target only 18% of the time</a>. Even if teachers, who would likely have less <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/19/teachers-utah-guns-school-shootings">training</a>, achieve the same accuracy, four or five of every six bullets fired by a teacher would hit something or someone other than the shooter. Further, a teacher responding with force to a shooter may be mistaken for the perpetrator by law enforcement or by armed colleagues. </p>
<p>Introducing guns to the school environment also poses <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/695762">everyday risks</a>. Armed teachers may unintentionally discharge their firearm. For instance, an armed police officer accidentally discharged his weapon in his office at a school in <a href="https://bit.ly/2BnC8zT">Alexandria, Virginia</a> in 2018. Guns can also fall into the wrong hands. <a href="https://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(12)01408-4/fulltext">Research</a> on shootings that took place in hospital emergency rooms found that in 23% of the cases, the weapon used was a gun the perpetrator took from a hospital security guard.</p>
<p>Students could also access firearms that are improperly stored or mishandled. <a href="https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304262">Improper storage</a> is a common problem among American gun owners. In a school setting, this has resulted in students finding a <a href="https://everytownresearch.org/report/arming-teachers-introduces-new-risks-into-schools/">teacher’s misplaced firearm</a>, sometimes taking it or reporting it to another school official. News reports show that guns carried into schools have <a href="https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2018/10/24/student-substitute-teacher-back-flip-gun-falls-out">fallen out</a> of teachers’ clothing, and have been left in <a href="https://bit.ly/2G9jlfF">bathrooms</a> and <a href="https://bit.ly/2GtNfeb">locker rooms</a>. There have also been reports of students <a href="https://bit.ly/2V3psWX">stealing</a> guns from teachers.</p>
<p>Insurance companies also see concealed guns on school grounds as creating a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-arming-teachers-20180226-story.html">heightened liability risk</a>.</p>
<p>Other <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/90024239">drawbacks</a> to arming teachers involve the learning environment. In particular, owing to structural racism and discriminatory school security policies, Black high school students are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X211046637">less supportive</a> than white students of arming teachers – 16% versus 26% – and report feeling less safe if teachers are carrying firearms. </p>
<h2>3. What are the arguments for arming teachers?</h2>
<p>Proponents emphasize that teachers, as Americans, have a right to use firearms to defend themselves against violent crime, including a school shooter. Our <a href="https://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/2552033/volumes/v47/NA-47">research</a> shows that some people interpret their right to armed self-defense as a moral obligation, and argue that teachers have both a right and a responsibility to use firearms to protect themselves and their students. </p>
<p>Parents who regularly carry handguns to protect themselves and their children may take comfort knowing that their child’s teacher could perform the role of protector at school. </p>
<p>In a school shooting, where lives can be saved or ended in a matter of seconds, some people may <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/shooting-people-is-deescalation-three-days-with-teachers-training-to-use-guns-in-schools/">feel more secure</a> believing a shooter would immediately meet armed resistance from a teacher without needing to wait for an armed school officer to respond. </p>
<h2>4. Have any school districts allowed teachers to arm themselves?</h2>
<p>Yes. Teachers may <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12538">carry guns at school</a> in districts in at least 19 states. The idea surfaced as a viable policy after the 1999 Columbine shooting, and gained momentum after the 2018 Parkland shooting. </p>
<p>The number of school districts that permit teachers to be armed is <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/439z7q/exclusive-how-parkland-created-a-rush-to-arm-teachers-and-school-staff-across-the-country">difficult</a> to ascertain. Policies <a href="https://gunsandamerica.org/story/19/03/22/with-no-national-standards-policies-for-arming-teachers-are-often-left-to-local-school-districts/">vary</a> across states. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/nyregion/guns-schools-ban-teachers-ny.html">New York</a> bars school districts from allowing teachers to carry guns, while <a href="https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/laws-allowing-armed-staff-in-K12-schools.html">Missouri and Montana</a> authorize teachers to carry firearms.</p>
<h2>5. What were the results?</h2>
<p>There are documented <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/great-mills-high-shooter-shot-by-school-officer-killed-self-police/44326/">incidents</a> of school staff using their firearm to neutralize a shooter. However, researchers <a href="https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/laws-allowing-armed-staff-in-K12-schools.html">have not found evidence</a> that arming teachers increases school safety. Rather, arming teachers may contribute to a <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/vio.2018.0044">false sense of security</a> for teachers, students and the community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183909/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Putting guns in the hands of schoolteachers is a popular idea among gun-owners and conservatives, but research suggests it may pose more problems than it solves.Aimee Dinnín Huff, Associate Professor, Marketing, Oregon State UniversityMichelle Barnhart, Associate Professor, Marketing, Oregon State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1839002022-05-26T22:27:34Z2022-05-26T22:27:34Z6 charts show key role firearms makers play in America’s gun culture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465589/original/file-20220526-26-uvb4ct.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=289%2C426%2C3335%2C2116&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sales of handguns have exploded in recent years. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TexasHandguns/51de393bcbaf4e07a240de3b54da6981/photo?Query=Texas%20rifle&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=351&currentItemNo=11">AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Americans have blamed many culprits, from <a href="http://time.com/5160917/florida-school-shooting-donald-trump-mental-health/">mental illness</a> to inadequate security, for the tragic mass shootings that are occurring with <a href="https://theconversation.com/19-children-2-adults-killed-in-texas-elementary-school-shooting-3-essential-reads-on-americas-relentless-gun-violence-183811">increasing frequency in schools</a>, offices and theaters across the U.S. </p>
<p>The latest, which occurred on May 24, 2022, at a Texas elementary school and left at least 19 children and two teachers dead, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/24/1101050970/2022-school-shootings-so-far">was the 213th mass shooting this year</a> – and the 27th that took place in a school. </p>
<p>Yet during much of America’s ongoing conversation about the root causes of gun violence, the makers of guns have typically escaped scrutiny. As a public health researcher, <a href="https://medicine.tufts.edu/people/faculty/michael-siegel">I find</a> this odd, because <a href="http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/22/3/216.long">evidence shows</a> that the culture around guns contributes significantly to gun violence. And firearm manufacturers have played a major role in influencing American gun culture. </p>
<p>That’s beginning to change, particularly since the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/sandy-hook-school-shooting-remington-settlement-e53b95d398ee9b838afc06275a4df403">US$73 million settlement</a> between the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and the maker of the rifle used in the massacre. This may open the door for more lawsuits against firearm manufacturers. </p>
<p>To help support this much-needed discussion, I’d like to share some critical facts about the firearm industry that I’ve learned from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2017.05.002">my research on gun violence prevention</a>.</p>
<h2>Surging handgun sales</h2>
<p>The U.S. is saturated with guns, and has become a lot more so over the past decade. In 2020 alone, U.S. gun manufacturers produced <a href="https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/2020-annual-firearms-manufacturers-and-export-report-afmer">11.1 million firearms</a>, up from 5.4 million in 2010. Pistols and rifles made up about 75% of the total.</p>
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<p>In addition, only a small number of gun-makers dominate the market. The top five pistol manufacturers alone controlled <a href="https://www.atf.gov/about/docs/undefined/afmer2016webreport508pdf/download">over 70% of all production</a> in 2020: Smith & Wesson; Sig Sauer; Sturm, Ruger & Co.; Glock and Kimber Manufacturing. Similarly, the biggest rifle manufacturers – Sturm, Smith & Wesson, Springfield, Henry Rac Holding and Diamondback Firearms – controlled 61% of that market.</p>
<p>But all that only tells part of the story. A look at the caliber of pistols manufactured over the past decade reveals a significant change in demand that has reshaped the industry. </p>
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<p>The number of manufactured large-caliber pistols able to fire rounds greater than or equal to 9 mm has soared over the past 15 years, rising from just over half a million in 2005 to more than 3.9 million by 2020. The number of .38-caliber pistols – small handguns designed specifically for concealed carry – jumped to a record 1.1 million in 2016 and totaled 660,000 in 2020, compared with 107,000 in 2005.</p>
<p>This indicates a growing demand for more lethal weapons, especially those focused specifically on self-defense and concealed carry.</p>
<p>The production of rifles has also increased, doubling from 1.4 million in 2005 to 2.8 million in 2020, though down from a record 4.2 million in 2016. This is driven primarily by a higher demand for semi-automatic weapons, including assault rifles.</p>
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<h2>Explaining the stats</h2>
<p>So what can explain the jump in the sale of high-caliber handguns and semi-automatic rifles? </p>
<p>Gun-makers <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/last-gun">have become very effective</a> at <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/making-killing">marketing</a> their wares as <a href="http://www.vpc.org/studies/militarization.pdf">necessary tools for self-defense</a> – perhaps in large part to <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/making-killing">offset a decline</a> in demand for recreational use.</p>
<p>For example, in 2005, Smith & Wesson announced a <a href="https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Smith+%26+Wesson+launches+aggressive+strategy.-a0135568802">major new marketing campaign</a> focused on “safety, security, protection and sport.” The <a href="http://ir.smith-wesson.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=90977&p=irol-sec&secCat01TF.1_rs=21&secCat01TF.1_rc=10&control_selectgroup=Annual%20Filings">number of guns</a> the company sold soared after the switch, <a href="http://ir.smith-wesson.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=90977&p=IROL-secToc&TOC=aHR0cDovL2FwaS50ZW5rd2l6YXJkLmNvbS9vdXRsaW5lLnhtbD9yZXBvPXRlbmsmaXBhZ2U9NDI3NTAzMSZzdWJzaWQ9NTc%3d&ListAll=1">climbing 30% in 2005</a> and <a href="http://ir.smith-wesson.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=90977&p=IROL-secToc&TOC=aHR0cDovL2FwaS50ZW5rd2l6YXJkLmNvbS9vdXRsaW5lLnhtbD9yZXBvPXRlbmsmaXBhZ2U9NTA1MTUzOCZzdWJzaWQ9NTc%3d&ListAll=1">50% in 2006</a>, led by strong growth in pistol sales. By comparison, the number of firearms sold in 2004 <a href="http://ir.smith-wesson.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=90977&p=irol-SECText&TEXT=aHR0cDovL2FwaS50ZW5rd2l6YXJkLmNvbS9maWxpbmcueG1sP2lwYWdlPTM2MzU2OTEmRFNFUT0xJlNFUT0zMSZTUURFU0M9U0VDVElPTl9QQUdFJmV4cD0mc3Vic2lkPTU3">rose 11%</a> over the previous year. </p>
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<p>There’s strong survey evidence that gun owners have become less likely to cite hunting or sport as a reason for their ownership, instead pointing to personal security. The percentage of gun owners who <a href="http://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx">told Gallup</a> that the reason they possessed a firearm was for hunting fell to 40% in 2019 from almost 60% in 2000. The share that cited “sport” as their reason fell even more.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Gallup found that 88% of gun owners in 2021 reported <a href="http://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx">self-defense</a> as a primary reason, up from 67% in 2005.</p>
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<h2>‘Stand your ground’ laws flourish</h2>
<p>Another possible explanation for the uptick in handguns could be the widespread adoption of state “<a href="https://everytownresearch.org/reports/shoot-first/">stand your ground” laws</a> in recent years. These laws explicitly allow people to use guns as a first resort for self-defense in the face of a threat. </p>
<p>Utah enacted the first “stand your ground” measure in 1994. The second law wasn’t adopted until 2005 in Florida. A year later, “stand your ground” laws took off, with 11 states enacting one in 2006 alone. Another 15 have passed such laws since then, bringing the total number of states that have them on the books to 28. </p>
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<p>These laws were the result of a concerted <a href="https://everytownresearch.org/reports/shoot-first/">National Rifle Association lobbying campaign</a>. For example, Florida’s law, which <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/05/us/trayvon-martin-shooting-fast-facts/index.html">George Zimmerman used</a> in 2013 to escape charges for killing Trayvon Martin, was drafted by former NRA <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/the-nra-lobbyist-behind-floridas-pro-gun-policies">President Marion Hammer</a>. </p>
<p>It’s not clear whether the campaign to promote stand-your-ground laws fueled the surge in handgun production. But it’s possible that it’s part of a larger effort to normalize the ownership of firearms for self-defense. </p>
<p>This overall picture suggests that a marketing change fueled an increased demand for more lethal weapons. This, in turn, appears to have fostered a change in gun culture, which has shifted away from an appreciation of the use of guns for hunting, sport and recreation and toward a view that guns are a necessity to protect oneself from criminals. </p>
<p>How and whether this change in gun culture is influencing rates of firearms violence is a question I’m currently researching. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-firearms-industry-influences-us-gun-culture-in-6-charts-92142">an article published</a> on Feb. 23, 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183900/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Siegel receives funding from the 97 Percent Foundation.</span></em></p>A closer look at firearms sales reveals some interesting trends that should be part of America’s ongoing conversation about the root causes of gun violence.Michael Siegel, Visiting Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1838962022-05-26T21:16:06Z2022-05-26T21:16:06ZWhy gun control laws don’t pass Congress, despite majority public support and repeated outrage over mass shootings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465569/original/file-20220526-21-lkanmr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C6%2C4421%2C2947&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The front page of the local newspaper in Uvalde, Texas, on May 26, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-front-page-of-the-local-newspaper-is-seen-in-the-media-news-photo/1240917109?adppopup=true">Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>With the carnage in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York in May 2022, calls have begun again <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/after-uvalde-congress-hears-calls-for-gun-control-legislation-compromise-remains-elusive">for Congress to enact gun control</a>. Since the 2012 massacre of 20 children and four staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, legislation introduced in response to mass killings has consistently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/26/us/republicans-gun-control.html">failed to pass the Senate</a>. We asked political scientists <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0UmsWdAAAAAJ&hl=en">Monika McDermott</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Jks9RasAAAAJ&hl=en">David Jones</a> to help readers understand why further restrictions never pass, despite a <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3500861-majority-in-new-poll-favors-stricter-gun-control-measures/">majority of Americans supporting tighter gun control laws</a>.</em></p>
<p><strong>Mass killings are becoming more frequent. Yet there has been no significant gun legislation passed in response to these and other mass shootings. Why?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Monika McDermott:</strong> While there is consistently a majority in favor of restricting gun access a little bit more than the government currently does, usually that’s a slim majority – though that support tends to <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx">spike in the short term</a> after events like the recent mass shootings. </p>
<p>We tend to find even <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/may/25/steve-kerr/polls-consistently-show-high-support-gun-backgroun/">gun owners are in support of restrictions</a> like background checks for all gun sales, including at gun shows. So that’s one that everyone gets behind. The other one that gun-owning households get behind is they don’t mind <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/us/red-flag-laws.html">law enforcement taking guns away</a> from people who have been legally judged to be unstable or dangerous. Those are two restrictions on which you can get virtual unanimous support from the American public. But agreement on specific elements isn’t everything.</p>
<p>This isn’t something that people are clamoring for, and there are so many other things in the mix that people are much more concerned about right now, like the economy. Also, people are insecure about the federal budget deficit, and health care is still a perennial problem in this country. So <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2022/05/25/terror-in-texas-reignites-gun-control-debate-00035024">those kinds of things</a> top gun control legislation in terms of priorities for the public.</p>
<p>So you can’t just think about majority support for legislation; you have to think about priorities. People in office care what the priorities are. If someone’s not going to vote them out because of an issue, then they’re not going to do it.</p>
<p>The other issue is that you have just this different view of the gun situation in <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/10-fear-mass-shooting-gun-laws-poll/story?id=65414785">gun-owning households and non-gun-owning households</a>. Nearly half of the public lives in a household with a gun. And those people tend to be significantly less worried than those in non-gun households that a mass shooting could happen in their community. They’re also unlikely to say that stricter gun laws would reduce the danger of mass shootings. </p>
<p>The people who don’t own guns think the opposite. They think guns are dangerous. They think if we restricted access, then mass shootings would be reduced. So you’ve got this bifurcation in the American public. And that also contributes to why Congress can’t or hasn’t done anything about gun control.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut speaks on the Senate floor, asking his colleagues, ‘Why are you here if not to solve a problem as existential as this?’</span></figcaption>
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<p><strong>How does public opinion relate to what Congress does or doesn’t do?</strong></p>
<p><strong>David Jones:</strong> People would, ideally, like to think that members of Congress are responding to public opinion. I think that is their main consideration when they’re making decisions about how to prioritize issues and how to vote on issues. </p>
<p>But we also have to consider: What is the meaning of a member’s “constituency”? We can talk about their geographic constituency – everyone living in their district, if they’re a House member, or in their state, if they’re a senator. But we could also talk about their electoral constituency, and that is all of the people who contributed the votes that put them into office. </p>
<p>And so if a congressmember’s motive is reelection, they want to hold on to the votes of that electoral constituency. It may be more important to them than representing everyone in their district equally. </p>
<p>In 2020, the most recent congressional election, among citizens who voted for a Republican House member, <a href="https://electionstudies.org/data-center/2020-time-series-study/">only 24% of those voters</a> wanted to make it more difficult to buy a gun.</p>
<p>So if you’re looking at the opinions of your voters versus those of your entire geographic constituency, it’s your voters that matter most to you. And a party primary constituency may be even narrower and even less in favor of gun control. A member may have to run in a party primary first before they even get to the general election. Now what would be the most generous support for gun control right now in the U.S.? <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000180-fe72-d0c2-a9ae-ff7250f80000&nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000156-93f5-d63c-a7d6-93ff85830001&nlid=630318">A bit above 60% of Americans</a>. But not every member of Congress has that high a proportion of support for gun control in their district. Local lawmakers are not necessarily focused on national polling numbers. </p>
<p>You could probably get a majority now in the Senate of 50 Democrats plus, say, Susan Collins and some other Republican or two to support some form of gun control. But it wouldn’t pass the Senate. Why <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/106591290105400107">isn’t a majority enough</a> to pass? <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/filibusters-cloture.htm">The Senate filibuster</a> – a tradition allowing a small group of Senators to hold up a final vote on a bill unless a three-fifths majority of Senators vote to stop them.</p>
<p><strong>Monika McDermott:</strong> This is a very hot political topic these days. But people have to remember, that’s the way our system was designed.</p>
<p><strong>David Jones:</strong> Protecting rights against the overbearing will of the majority is built into our constitutional system.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465573/original/file-20220526-13-xz7zvp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man with gray hair, a gray jacket, white shirt and blue tie talking outside a building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465573/original/file-20220526-13-xz7zvp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465573/original/file-20220526-13-xz7zvp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465573/original/file-20220526-13-xz7zvp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465573/original/file-20220526-13-xz7zvp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465573/original/file-20220526-13-xz7zvp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465573/original/file-20220526-13-xz7zvp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465573/original/file-20220526-13-xz7zvp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">GOP Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan said he ‘had to have police protection for six months’ after voting in 1994 for an assault weapons ban.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2022CongressUpton/94c372a13da54f4bb92310ab4dde6c76/photo?Query=Fred%20Upton&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=208&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Susan Walsh</a></span>
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<p><strong>Do legislators also worry that sticking their neck out to vote for gun legislation might be for nothing if the Supreme Court is likely to strike down the law?</strong></p>
<p><strong>David Jones:</strong> The last time gun control passed in Congress was the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/4296">1994 assault weapons ban</a>. Many of the legislators who voted for that bill ended up losing their seats in the election that year. Some Republicans who voted for it are on record saying that they were receiving <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/us/politics/congress-assault-weapons-ban.html">threats of violence</a>. So it’s not trivial, when considering legislation, to be weighing, “Yeah, we can pass this, but was it worth it to me if it gets overturned by the Supreme Court?” </p>
<p><strong>Going back to the 1994 assault weapons ban: How did that manage to pass and how did it avoid a filibuster?</strong> </p>
<p><strong>David Jones:</strong> It got <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/us/politics/congress-assault-weapons-ban.html">rolled into a larger omnibus bill</a> that was an anti-crime bill. And that managed to garner the support of some Republicans. There are creative ways of rolling together things that one party likes with things that the other party likes. Is that still possible? I’m not sure. </p>
<p><strong>It sounds like what you are saying is that lawmakers are not necessarily driven by higher principle or a sense of humanitarianism, but rather cold, hard numbers and the idea of maintaining or getting power.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Monika McDermott:</strong> There are obvious trade-offs there. You can have high principles, but if your high principles serve only to make you a one-term officeholder, what good are you doing for the people who believe in those principles? At some point, you have to have a reality check that says if I can’t get reelected, then I can’t do anything to promote the things I really care about. You have to find a balance.</p>
<p><strong>Wouldn’t that matter more to someone in the House, with a two-year horizon, than to someone in the Senate, with a six-year term?</strong></p>
<p><strong>David Jones:</strong> Absolutely. If you’re five years out from an election and people are mad at you now, some other issue will come up and you might be able to calm the tempers. But if you’re two years out, that reelection is definitely more of a pressing concern.</p>
<p><strong>Some people are blaming the National Rifle Association for these killings. What do you see as the organization’s role in blocking gun restrictions by Congress?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Monika McDermott:</strong> From the public’s side, one of the important things the NRA does is speak directly to voters. The NRA publishes for their members <a href="https://www.nrapvf.org/grades/">ratings of congressional officeholders</a> based on how much they do or do not support policies the NRA favors. These kinds of things can be used by voters as easy <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2005.00314.x">information shortcuts</a> that help them navigate where a candidate stands on the issue when it’s time to vote. This gives them some credibility when they talk to lawmakers.</p>
<p><strong>David Jones:</strong> The NRA as a lobby is an explanation that’s out there. But I’d caution that it’s a little too simplistic to say interest groups control everything in our society. I think it’s an intermingling of the factors that we’ve been talking about, plus interest groups. </p>
<p>So why does the NRA have power? I would argue: Much of their power is going to the member of Congress and showing them a chart and saying, “Look at the voters in your district. Most of them own guns. Most of them don’t want you to do this.” It’s not that their donations or their threatening looks or phone calls are doing it, it’s the fact that they have the membership and they can do this research and show the legislator what electoral danger they’ll be in if they cast this vote, because of the opinions of that legislator’s core constituents. </p>
<p>Interest groups can help to pump up enthusiasm and make their issue the most important one among members of their group. They’re not necessarily changing overall public support for an issue, but they’re making their most persuasive case to a legislator, given the opinions of crucial voters that live in a district, and that can sometimes tip an already delicate balance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183896/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monika L. McDermott is a consultant for brilliant corners Research and Strategy. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David R. Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The nature of elected office combines with the lasting priorities of public opinion to put gun control on the back burner, even in times when it does get massive public attention.Monika L. McDermott, Professor of Political Science, Fordham UniversityDavid R. Jones, Professor of Political Science, Baruch College, CUNYLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1838292022-05-26T06:29:52Z2022-05-26T06:29:52ZWill the latest shooting of US children finally lead to gun reform? Sadly, that’s unlikely<p>Mass shootings in the United States are all too common and, sadly, unsurprising to much of the world.</p>
<p>But when the victims of such violence are primary school students, the world takes notice.</p>
<p>Coverage of <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/texas-school-shooting-robb-elementary-gunman-timeline-how-massacre-unfolded/e5a9a188-72ee-4b17-afd4-3fc2645094e7">this week’s mass shooting at a Texas elementary school</a> in the coming days will follow a predictable pattern. After all the horrifying details are released of the shooting, we return to a very simple debate: why can’t America stop the scourge of gun violence?</p>
<p>The reason is that gun violence is emblematic of a broken political system that fails to protect its own citizens.</p>
<h2>A stain on America’s reputation</h2>
<p>Frequent mass shootings are one of the most widely known things about the US internationally, and are a stain on the country’s international reputation.</p>
<p>President Joe Biden came to office promising to restore some measure of faith in American democracy, and to prove the American system was a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2022/">superior model</a> to that of autocratic great powers such as China and Russia.</p>
<p>But when it comes to curbing gun violence in America, a very different international narrative takes hold. Global audiences often see the failure to take aggressive action against gun violence as a symptom of a dysfunctional system of government incapable of protecting its own citizens, including children.</p>
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<p>News agencies of countries such as China often taunt the US for failing to take aggressive action on guns. In 2019, Chinese tabloid Global Times <a href="https://abc17news.com/news/national-world/cnn-asia-pacific/2021/09/20/china-and-the-us-were-both-born-from-armed-conflict-theyre-now-polar-opposites-on-gun-control/">claimed</a> China’s effective gun control was “a lesson for the US”.</p>
<p>These arguments are obviously made for self-interested reasons: namely, to present the Chinese government in a much more favourable light. But given the extent to which the US believes in the superiority of its values, one would think the criticisms should sting. Sadly, this isn’t the case.</p>
<p>A 2021 Pew Research Survey <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/04/20/amid-a-series-of-mass-shootings-in-the-u-s-gun-policy-remains-deeply-divisive/">found</a> 53% of Americans want stricter gun laws. This includes 81% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, but only 20% of Republicans and those who lean Republican.</p>
<p>However, support for specific restrictions like “background checks” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/06/opinion/how-to-reduce-shootings.html">is a lot higher</a>.</p>
<h2>No longer a good model of democracy</h2>
<p>No matter how often Biden talks about restoring “America’s soul”, as he did in his inaugural address, America’s international reputation has taken a big hit.</p>
<p>International student numbers in America, a good gauge of America’s ability to attract foreign talent to its universities, <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/international-students-united-states-2020">declined during the Trump years</a> and wasn’t solely attributable to the pandemic. The country’s broken politics, which included rising anti-immigrant sentiment and gun violence, played its part in making the US a <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/international-students-united-states-2020">much less attractive environment</a>. </p>
<p>Opinion polls also confirm a declining faith in the health of American democracy. Across 16 advanced economies surveyed by the Pew Research Center, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/11/01/what-people-around-the-world-like-and-dislike-about-american-society-and-politics">an average of 83%</a> of people said the US is no longer a good model of democracy to follow.</p>
<p>This makes for depressing reading and seemingly makes it incumbent on the Biden administration to take action on gun control.</p>
<h2>But this will prove difficult</h2>
<p>Biden is rightly appalled by this latest massacre and will advocate the need for gun reform. But without the support of the Congress, little will happen federally. </p>
<p>This is the story of the Obama presidency on gun reform. It’s shameful the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in 2012, where 20 children were killed along with six staff members, didn’t lead to comprehensive gun reforms in the way the Port Arthur massacre and the Christchurch mosque shootings did in Australia and New Zealand.</p>
<p>Worse still, some American politicians bragged about their ability to stop gun reform. Republican Senator Ted Cruz ran a campaign ad <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/seeing-america-again-in-the-texas-elementary-school-shooting">stating</a>: “After Sandy Hook, Ted Cruz stopped Obama’s push for new gun-control laws”. He’s now tweeting <a href="https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1529190433091461123">that</a>: “Heidi & I are fervently lifting up in prayer the children and families in the horrific shooting.”</p>
<p>This is America’s broken political system in a nutshell.</p>
<p>Cruz doesn’t represent majority opinion in America, but the Democrat-controlled Congress won’t enact reform because Democrat Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema don’t support getting rid of the “filibuster”. A filibuster is when a member of a legislative body such as the US Senate endlessly talks in order to obstruct the passage of a piece of legislation. Senate rules dictate that 60 US Senators out of the 100 must vote to end a filibuster and force a vote. This holds true when it comes to gun reform legislation, and this isn’t going to happen anytime soon. </p>
<p>What’s more, too many American politicians are disinterested in comparing American public policy with laws in other wealthy nations, or showing any concern about America’s reputation in the wider world. </p>
<h2>Change at the state level?</h2>
<p>Change to American gun laws is most likely to happen <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-mass-shootings-like-uvalde-national-gun-control-fails-but-states-often-loosen-gun-laws-183879">at the state level</a>.</p>
<p>In Texas, the current governor signed into law last year seven pieces of legislation loosening restrictions of gun-rights now and into the future (one new law “exempts” Texas from potential federal restrictions).</p>
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<p>If you <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272719301446?via%3Dihub">dive deep into the data</a>, it finds states controlled by Democrats are more likely to enact gun restrictions after mass shootings, and states controlled by Republicans are more likely to loosen gun controls.</p>
<p>Given the Republican party is the dominant party at the state level (with 28 of the 50 state governorships), and Congressional Republicans can easily block legislation at the federal level, this most recent tragedy will sadly lead to more inaction on gun reform.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183829/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Frequent mass shootings are a stain on the country’s international reputation. But it’s likely the latest episode will lead to more inaction on gun control.Brendon O'Connor, Associate Professor in American Politics at the United States Studies Centre, University of SydneyDaniel Cooper, Lecturer at Griffith University, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1838792022-05-25T20:56:52Z2022-05-25T20:56:52ZAfter mass shootings like Uvalde, national gun control fails – but states often loosen gun laws<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465365/original/file-20220525-12-c3wncn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A girl cries outside the Willie de Leon Civic Center in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/girl-cries-outside-the-willie-de-leon-civic-center-where-grief-will-picture-id1240884163?s=2048x2048">Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Calls <a href="https://rollcall.com/2022/05/24/biden-renews-calls-for-congress-to-stand-up-to-gun-lobby-after-texas-school-shooting/">for new gun legislation</a> that previously failed to pass Congress are being raised again after the May 24, 2022, mass shooting at an elementary school in the small town of Uvalde, Texas. </p>
<p>An 18-year-old shooter<a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/05/25/ted-cruz-texas-school-shooting-comments"> killed at least</a> 19 <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/25/1101175912/uvalde-texas-shooting-victims-4th-grade-classroom">fourth grade students</a> and two teachers at Robb Elementary School, marking the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. in a decade. </p>
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<p>The U.S. has been here before – after shootings in Tucson, Aurora, Newtown, Charleston, Roseburg, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, El Paso, <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2021/03/22/police-active-shooter-shooting-king-soopers-boulder/">Boulder</a>, and 10 days earlier at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. </p>
<p>Gun production and sales in the U.S. remain high, following a <a href="https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-violence-and-covid-19-in-2020-a-year-of-colliding-crises/">purchasing surge</a> during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the firearms <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/01/05/us-bought-almost-20-million-guns-last-year---second-highest-year-on-record/?sh=138bc4de13bb">industry sold</a> about six guns for every 100 Americans.</p>
<p>Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut was among the Democratic politicians who pleaded for action on gun control as horrifying details of the Uvalde school shooting unfolded.</p>
<p>“What are we doing?” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/24/us/chris-murphy-texas-shooting-sandy-hook.html">Murphy asked</a> other lawmakers, speaking from the Senate floor on the day of the shooting. “Why are you here if not to solve a problem as existential as this?”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-many-gun-control-proposals-have-been-offered-since-2011/">Congress has declined to pass significant new gun legislation after dozens of shootings</a>, including those that occurred during periods like this one, with Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, Senate and presidency.</p>
<p>This response may seem puzzling given that national opinion polls reveal <a href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/343649/american-public-opinion-gun-violence.aspx">extensive support for several gun control policies</a>, including expanding background checks and banning assault weapons. </p>
<p>In October 2021, 52% of people <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx">polled by Gallup</a> said that they thought firearm sales laws should be made more strict.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-polls-say-people-want-gun-control-why-doesnt-congress-just-pass-it-92569">polls do not determine policy</a>. </p>
<p>I <a href="https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty-and-research/strategy/faculty/poliquin">am a professor of strategy at UCLA and have researched gun policy</a>. With my co-authors at Harvard University, I’ve studied <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.104083">how gun laws change following mass shootings</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.104083">Our research</a> on this topic finds there is legislative activity following these tragedies, but it’s at the state level. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391690/original/file-20210325-21-qnymkw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Democratic senator and Sandy Hook parents and teachers at a press conference in the US Capitol in 2013." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391690/original/file-20210325-21-qnymkw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391690/original/file-20210325-21-qnymkw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391690/original/file-20210325-21-qnymkw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391690/original/file-20210325-21-qnymkw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391690/original/file-20210325-21-qnymkw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391690/original/file-20210325-21-qnymkw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391690/original/file-20210325-21-qnymkw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) speaks to the media as teachers, parents and residents from Newtown, Conn. – where the Sandy Hook school massacre happened – listen after a Capitol Hill hearing on Feb. 27, 2013, on the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/senator-richard-blumenthal-speaks-to-the-press-as-newtown-news-photo/162798731?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Restrictions loosened</h2>
<p>Stricter gun laws at the national level are <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/04/20/amid-a-series-of-mass-shootings-in-the-u-s-gun-policy-remains-deeply-divisive/">more popular among Democrats than Republicans</a>, and major new legislation would likely need votes from at least 10 Republican senators. Many of these senators represent constituencies opposed to gun control. </p>
<p>Despite national polls showing majority <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/13/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/">support for an assault weapons ban</a>, <a href="https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/hardware-ammunition/assault-weapons/">not one</a> of <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/partisan-composition.aspx#">the 30 states with a Republican-controlled legislature</a> has such a policy. </p>
<p>U.S. Texas Senator Ted Cruz <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/2022/05/25/ted-cruz-uvalde-texas-school-shooting-sot-nr-intl-vpx.cnn">said on May 24</a> that more gun control laws could not have prevented the Uvalde attack, explaining “that doesn’t work, it’s not effective, it doesn’t prevent crime.”</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>But a lack of action from Congress doesn’t mean gun laws are stagnant after mass shootings. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>We then compared gun laws before and after mass shootings in states where mass shootings occurred, relative to all other states.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>In fact, mass shootings have a greater influence on lawmakers than other homicides, even though <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44126/5#page=12">they account for less than 1% of gun deaths in the United States</a>.</p>
<p>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, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.104083">our research</a> found that mass shootings do not regularly cause lawmakers to tighten gun restrictions. </p>
<p>In fact, we found the opposite. Republican state legislatures pass significantly more gun laws that loosen restrictions on firearms after mass shootings.</p>
<p>In 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/24/us/texas-gun-laws.html">signed a new law</a> that eliminated a requirement for Texans to obtain a license or receive training to carry handguns. <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/03/el-paso-walmart-mass-shooting-legislature/">This came</a> two years after a 2019 mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso.</p>
<p>That’s not to say Democrats never tighten gun laws – there are prominent examples of Democratic-controlled states passing new legislation following mass shootings. </p>
<p>California, for example, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-brown-guns-20160701-snap-story.html">enacted several new gun laws following a 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino</a>. Our research shows, however, that Democrats don’t tighten gun laws more than usual following mass shootings.</p>
<p>After the Buffalo shooting in early May 2022, <a href="https://www.timesunion.com/state/article/Hochul-calls-to-raise-the-age-to-purchase-an-17198169.php">New York Governor Kathy Hochul said</a> that she would work to increase the age for legal gun purchasing from 18 to 21 “at a minimum.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391697/original/file-20210325-23-1i2bw5k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="'Change gun laws or change Congress' reads a sign at a 2018 rally in New York City." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391697/original/file-20210325-23-1i2bw5k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391697/original/file-20210325-23-1i2bw5k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391697/original/file-20210325-23-1i2bw5k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391697/original/file-20210325-23-1i2bw5k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391697/original/file-20210325-23-1i2bw5k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391697/original/file-20210325-23-1i2bw5k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391697/original/file-20210325-23-1i2bw5k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In August 2018, Moms Demand Action hosted a rally at New York City’s Foley Square to call upon Congress to pass gun safety laws.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/moms-demand-action-hosted-a-recess-rally-and-community-news-photo/1229015033?adppopup=true">Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Ideology governs response</h2>
<p>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. </p>
<p>While Democrats tend to view social factors as contributing to violence, Republicans are more likely to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2012.00894.x">blame the individual shooters</a>. </p>
<p>Cruz, for example,<a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/05/25/ted-cruz-texas-school-shooting-comments"> has said </a>that stopping individuals with criminal records from committing violence could help prevent mass shootings. </p>
<p>Politicians favoring looser restrictions on guns following mass shootings frequently argue that more people carrying guns would allow <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4954192/user-clip-ted-cruz-guns-defense">law-abiding citizens to stop perpetrators</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, <a href="https://doi.org/10.7326/M16-1574">gun sales often surge after mass shootings</a>, in part because people fear being victimized.</p>
<p>Democrats, in contrast, typically <a href="https://aclanthology.org/N19-1304.pdf">focus more on trying to solve policy</a> and societal problems that contribute to gun violence. </p>
<p>For both sides, mass shootings are an opportunity to propose bills consistent with their ideology.</p>
<p>Since we wrote <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.104083">our study</a> of gun legislation following mass shootings, which covered the period through 2014, several additional tragedies have energized the <a href="https://www.sandyhookpromise.org">gun control movement</a> that emerged following the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. These include the May 2022 shooting at the Tops grocery store in Buffalo, as well as the Uvalde school massacre. </p>
<p>While President Joe Biden issued <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/07/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-initial-actions-to-address-the-gun-violence-public-health-epidemic/">executive orders</a> in 2021 with the goal of reducing gun violence, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/22/guns-biden-democrats-buffalo/">action in Congress remains elusive</a>. States, meanwhile, have been more active on the issue.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/08/02/after-parkland-states-pass-50-new-gun-control-laws">new gun control laws</a>. </p>
<p>With more funding and better organization, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-missing-movement-made-gun-control-a-winning-issue-113301">this new movement is better positioned</a> than prior gun control movements to advocate for stricter gun policies following mass shootings. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/25/biden-reaction-uvalde-school-shooting">Public outcry</a> and devastation over the Uvalde shootings will likely provide fuel to this advocacy work.</p>
<p>But with states historically more active than Congress on the issue of guns, both advocates and opponents of new restrictions should look beyond Washington for action on gun policy.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/gun-control-fails-quickly-in-congress-after-each-mass-shooting-but-states-often-act-including-to-loosen-gun-laws-157746">article originally published on March 21, 2021</a>. This article was updated to indicate there were 10 days between the Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas shootings.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183879/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Poliquin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After mass shootings, politicians in Washington have failed to pass new gun control legislation, despite public pressure. But laws are being passed at the state level, largely to loosen restrictions.Christopher Poliquin, Assistant Professor of Strategy, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1838122022-05-25T12:52:35Z2022-05-25T12:52:35ZWhat we know about mass school shootings in the US – and the gunmen who carry them out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465309/original/file-20220525-24-m0gxi3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C25%2C5708%2C3802&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The archbishop of San Antonio, Gustavo Garcia-Siller, comforts families following a deadly school shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CORRECTIONTexasSchoolShooting/5a865a4af618489aaefdaac9d0fee3b3/photo?Query=uvalde&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=92&currentItemNo=3">AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/1990s/columbine-high-school-shootings">Columbine High School massacre took place in 1999</a> it was seen as a watershed moment in the United States – the worst mass shooting at a school in the country’s history.</p>
<p>Now, it ranks fourth. The three school shootings to surpass its death toll of 13 – 12 students, one teacher – have all taken place within the last decade: 2012’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/index.html">Sandy Hook Elementary attack</a>, in which a gunman killed 26 children and school staff; the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/parkland-shooting-one-year-later-congress-still-avoids-action-on-gun-control-111796">claimed the lives of 17 people</a>; and now the <a href="https://theconversation.com/19-children-2-adults-killed-in-texas-elementary-school-shooting-3-essential-reads-on-americas-relentless-gun-violence-183811">Robb Elementary School assault in Uvalde, Texas</a>, where on May 24, 2022, at least 19 children and two adults were murdered.</p>
<p>We <a href="https://www.metrostate.edu/about/directory/james-densley">are criminologists</a> <a href="https://www.hamline.edu/faculty-staff/jillian-peterson/">who study</a> <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/">the life histories</a> of public mass shooters in the U.S. As part of that research, we built <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database/">a comprehensive database</a> of mass public shootings using public data, with the shooters coded on over 200 different variables, including location and racial profile. For the purposes of our database, mass public shootings are defined as incidents in which four or more victims are murdered with at least one of those homicides taking place in a public location and with no connection to underlying criminal activity, such as gangs or drugs.</p>
<p><iframe id="kKOh2" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/kKOh2/9/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Our database shows that since 1966, when our database timeline begins, there have been 13 such shootings at schools across the U.S – the first in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/18/us/five-children-killed-as-gunman-attacks-a-california-school.html">Stockton, California</a>, in 1989.</p>
<p>Four of those shootings – including the one at Robb Elementary School – involved a killing at another location, always a family member at a residence. The most recent perpetrator <a href="https://www.npr.org/live-updates/texas-school-shooting-2022-05-24">shot his grandmother</a> prior to going to the school in Uvalde.</p>
<p>The majority of mass school shootings were carried out by a lone gunman, with just two – Columbine and the <a href="https://www.kait8.com/2022/03/24/24-years-later-remembering-westside-school-shooting-victims/">1998 shooting at Westside School in Jonesboro</a>, Arkansas – carried out by two gunmen. In all, some 129 people were killed in the attacks and at least 166 victims injured.</p>
<p>The choice of “gunmen” to describe the perpetrators is accurate – all of the mass school shootings in our database were <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database/">carried out by men or boys</a>. And the average age of those involved in carrying out the attacks was 18. </p>
<p>This fits with the picture that has emerged of the <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/robb-elementary-school-gunman-salvador-ramos-bought-two-rifles-on-his-18th-birthday-texas-officials-say">shooter in the Robb Elementary School attack</a>. He turned 18 just days ago and reportedly <a href="https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article261766762.html">purchased two military-style weapons</a>. It is believed that the shooter used one miltary-style weapon in the attack, authorities said May 25, 2022.</p>
<p>Police have <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-05-24/texas-elementary-school-shooting">yet to release key information</a> on the shooter, including what motivated him to kill the children and adults at Robb Elementary School. The picture of the shooter that has emerged conforms to the profile we have built up from past perpetrators in some ways, but diverges in others.</p>
<p>We know that most school shooters have a connection to the school they target. Twelve of the 14 school shooters in our database prior to the most recent attack in Texas were either current or former students of the school. Any prior connection between the latest shooter and Robb Elementary School has not been released to the public.</p>
<p>Our research and <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/about-us/our-book/">dozens of interviews with incarcerated perpetrators of mass shootings</a> suggests that for most perpetrators, the mass shooting event is intended to be a final act. The majority of school mass shooters die in the attack. Of the 15 mass school shooters in our database, just seven were apprehended. The rest died on the scene, nearly all by suicide – the lone exception being the Robb Elementary shooter, who was shot dead by police.</p>
<p>And school shooters tend to preempt their attacks by leaving posts, messages or videos warning of their intent. </p>
<p>Inspired by past school shooters, some perpetrators are <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-quest-for-significance-gone-horribly-wrong-how-mass-shooters-pervert-a-universal-desire-to-make-a-difference-in-the-world-183199">seeking fame and notoriety</a>. However, most school shooters are motivated by a generalized anger. Their path to violence involves self-hate and despair turned outward at the world, and our research finds they often communicate their intent to do harm in advance as a final, desperate <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2785799">cry for help</a>. The key to stopping these tragedies is for society to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/accused-buffalo-mass-shooter-had-threatened-a-shooting-while-in-high-school-could-more-have-been-done-to-avert-the-tragedy-183455">alert to these warning signs</a> and act on them immediately. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the year of the 1998 shooting at Westside School in Jonesboro, Arkansas and amend the total number of those killed and injured in the school shootings.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183812/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Densley receives funding from the National Institute of Justice.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jillian Peterson receives funding from the National Institute of Justice</span></em></p>Of the 13 mass school shootings that have taken place in the US, the three most deadly occurred in the last decade. Data from these attacks helped criminologists build a profile of the gunmen.James Densley, Professor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University Jillian Peterson, Professor of Criminal Justice, Hamline University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1838112022-05-25T04:21:53Z2022-05-25T04:21:53Z19 children, 2 adults killed in Texas elementary school shooting – 3 essential reads on America’s relentless gun violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465188/original/file-20220525-22-r8n9he.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C8%2C5514%2C3692&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Friends and families gather outside the civic center after the mass school shooting on May 24, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/friends-and-families-gather-in-mourning-outside-the-willie-news-photo/1240884434?adppopup=true">Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>At least <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-44a7cfb990feaa6ffe482483df6e4683">19 children and two adults were killed</a> when a teenage gunman shot them at a Texas elementary school on May 24, 2022 – the latest mass shooting in a country in which such incidents have become common.</em> </p>
<p><em>A lot remains unknown about the attack at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, a small, predominantly Latino town in South Texas. Police have not as yet revealed a possible motive behind the attack, in which the 18-year-old went <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-b4e4648ed0ae454897d540e787d092b2">classroom to classroom</a> dressed in body armor and <a href="https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article261766762.html">carrying two military-style rifles</a>, according to reports.</em></p>
<p><em>As the graph below shows, the frequency of school shootings in the U.S. has increased dramatically over the last few years.</em></p>
<p><iframe id="7h90C" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7h90C/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><em>Here are three stories from The Conversation’s archives to help fill in the recent history of mass shootings in the U.S. - and explain why the government has failed to take action on gun control, despite the carnage.</em></p>
<h2>1. School shootings are at a record high</h2>
<p>The attack at Robb Elementary School was, according to the data, the 137th school shooting incident to take place in the U.S. so far this year. In 2021, there were 249 school shootings – by far the worst year on record.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iS4HAEMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">James Densley</a>, of Metropolitan State University, and Hamline University’s <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=hoHQX8MAAAAJ">Jillian Peterson</a> log such incidents in a database of U.S. mass shootings. It has helped them <a href="https://theconversation.com/school-shootings-are-at-a-record-high-this-year-but-they-can-be-prevented-173027">build a profile</a> of the typical school shooting suspect – some of which appears to apply to the suspect in the latest massacre, such as his age and gender. In general, school shooters overwhelmingly tend to be current or former students of the school they attack. And they are “almost always” in a crisis of some sort prior to the incident, as evidenced by changes in their behavior. Suspects are also often inspired by other school shooters, which could go some way in explaining the rapid growth in such attacks in recent years.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465180/original/file-20220525-23-wfcxtj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd of people in uniforms and safety vests, standing near an ambulance and empty gurney." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465180/original/file-20220525-23-wfcxtj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465180/original/file-20220525-23-wfcxtj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465180/original/file-20220525-23-wfcxtj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465180/original/file-20220525-23-wfcxtj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465180/original/file-20220525-23-wfcxtj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465180/original/file-20220525-23-wfcxtj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465180/original/file-20220525-23-wfcxtj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Emergency personnel gather near Robb Elementary School following the shooting on May 24, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TexasSchool-Shooting/75967cc3d313454a8202d52a111e7177/photo?hpSectionId=b1a31fac82e344e1a676d23a6893d1d6&st=hpsection&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=66&currentItemNo=33">AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills</a></span>
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<p>Densley and Peterson write that the “overwhelming number of shootings and shooting threats” have left schools struggling to respond, resulting in a patchwork of different measures that have failed to slow the frequency of attacks across the states. The two scholars contrast this local response to school shooting in the U.S. to the national legislative action taken in countries such as the U.K., Finland and Germany, concluding: “School shootings are not inevitable. They’re preventable. But practitioners and policymakers must act quickly because each school shooting feeds the cycle for the next one, causing harm far beyond that which is measured in <a href="https://theconversation.com/school-shootings-are-at-a-record-high-this-year-but-they-can-be-prevented-173027">lives lost.”</a></p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/school-shootings-are-at-a-record-high-this-year-but-they-can-be-prevented-173027">School shootings are at a record high this year – but they can be prevented</a>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465176/original/file-20220525-21-wfcxtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C21%2C4735%2C3159&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A uniformed officer walks past a sign saying 'Welcome Robb Elementary School Bienvenidos'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465176/original/file-20220525-21-wfcxtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C21%2C4735%2C3159&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465176/original/file-20220525-21-wfcxtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465176/original/file-20220525-21-wfcxtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465176/original/file-20220525-21-wfcxtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465176/original/file-20220525-21-wfcxtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465176/original/file-20220525-21-wfcxtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465176/original/file-20220525-21-wfcxtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">An officer in uniform walks past a sign that says ‘Welcome Robb Elementary School Bienvenidos.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-officer-walks-outside-of-robb-elementary-school-in-news-photo/1240883008?adppopup=true">Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>2. More guns within reach of would-be school shooters</h2>
<p>While some of the traits that make up a “typical” U.S. school shooter may appear in those living in other countries, too, there is one area in which the U.S. stands alone – access to guns.</p>
<p>The suspect in the Robb Elementary School reportedly bought his military-style rifles <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/24/school-shooting-uvalde-texas-updates/">shortly after his 18th birthday</a>. That he was able to do so apparently with ease is likely due to the lax gun control laws in place in Texas, where the alleged shooter lived, and in the U.S. That lack of substantive regulation has led to an ever-increasing number of firearms in the hands of U.S. residents – a trend that has <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-school-shooters-get-their-guns-from-home-and-during-the-pandemic-the-number-of-firearms-in-households-with-teenagers-went-up-172951">only accelerated in recent years</a>, as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=3xTR4rsAAAAJ">University of Michigan’s Patrick Carter</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=B9HaG4kAAAAJ">Marc A. Zimmerman</a> and <a href="https://socialwork.wayne.edu/profile/hf8856">Rebeccah Sokol</a> of Wayne State University note.</p>
<p>“Since the onset of the public health crisis, firearm sales have spiked. Many of these firearms have ended up in households with teenage children, increasing the risk of accidental or intentional injury or fatalities, or death by suicide,” they write. It also makes it easier for would-be school shooters to get their hands on firearms that left unsecured around the house. </p>
<p>“Most school shooters obtain the firearm from home. And the number of guns within reach of high school-age teenagers has increased during the pandemic,” they write.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/most-school-shooters-get-their-guns-from-home-and-during-the-pandemic-the-number-of-firearms-in-households-with-teenagers-went-up-172951">Most school shooters get their guns from home – and during the pandemic, the number of firearms in households with teenagers went up</a>
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<h2>3. Why popular support for gun control isn’t enough</h2>
<p>In response to the killings in Texas, calls for stronger gun control laws are already being made, including by President Joe Biden in his speech the night of the shooting. But as evidenced by the lack of meaningful political action after the Sandy Hook massacre, in which 20 children and six school staff members were killed, the chances of getting anything through Congress appear slim.</p>
<p>This is despite polling that shows that a majority of Americans actually support stronger gun laws such as a ban on assault weapons.</p>
<p>So why doesn’t the government do what the people want? Harry Wilson, a professor of public affairs at Roanoke College, has <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-polls-say-people-want-gun-control-why-doesnt-congress-just-pass-it-92569">a three-part answer</a>. </p>
<p>First, the United States is not a direct democracy and, as such, citizens do not make decisions themselves, Wilson writes. Instead, the power to make laws lies in the hands of their elected representatives in Congress. But “the composition and rules of Congress are also crucial, especially in the Senate,” he writes, “where each state has two votes. This allocation of senators disproportionately represents the interests of less populous states.”</p>
<p>Secondly, “polling and public opinion are not as straightforward as they seem. Focusing on only one or two poll questions can distort the public’s views regarding gun control,” says Wilson.</p>
<p>And finally, the influence of voters and interest groups acts as a counterbalance to popular opinion. </p>
<p>“Gun owners are more likely than non-owners to vote based on the issue of gun control, to have contacted an elected official about gun rights, and to have contributed money to an organization that takes a position on gun control,” writes Wilson. </p>
<p>Meanwhile lobbying groups representing huge membership, like the NRA, put further pressure on elected representatives. “Elected officials want votes. There is no doubt that money is essential for political campaigns, but votes, not money or polls, are what determine elections. If a group can supply votes, then it has power,” writes Wilson.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-polls-say-people-want-gun-control-why-doesnt-congress-just-pass-it-92569">If polls say people want gun control, why doesn't Congress just pass it?</a>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183811/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A school shooting in a small Texas town was almost as deadly as the worst such event in US history. Such shootings have increased in frequency over the last few years.Matt Williams, Senior International EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1831992022-05-19T12:17:47Z2022-05-19T12:17:47ZA quest for significance gone horribly wrong – how mass shooters pervert a universal desire to make a difference in the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464078/original/file-20220518-14-bc5qpi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C17%2C5973%2C3961&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A memorial to the victims of the mass shooting at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/shannon-waedell-collins-pays-her-respects-after-placing-news-photo/1240744838?adppopup=true">Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Agonizing questions are being raised by the recent tragic mass shootings <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/25/us/shooting-robb-elementary-uvalde">at a school in Texas</a> <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/buffalo-ny-supermarket-shooting-latest-news">and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York</a>. As in the recent years’ similar acts of horror at a synagogue in <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-portraits-11-victims/story?id=58823835">Pittsburgh</a>, a Walmart in <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/03/el-paso-walmart-mass-shooting-legislature/">El Paso</a>, and a mosque in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/christchurch-shooting">Christchurch, New Zealand</a>, people want to know how such senseless acts of violence can even happen, why they happen so often, and whether anything can be done to stem their dreadful tide.</p>
<p>An easy answer has been to shunt the discourse over to mental illness as the cause and in this way marginalize the problem and identify a ready, if superficial, solution to it: improving mental health. It also absolves the rest of society of responsibility to address a pernicious trend of mass shootings that between 2009 and 2020 <a href="https://everytownresearch.org/maps/mass-shootings-in-america/">claimed 1,363 lives in the U.S. alone</a>, more than anywhere else in the world. </p>
<p>The idea that committing atrocities and killing innocent victims reflects mental illness has been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10683169808401747">long discarded by terrorism researchers</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.gr/citations?user=Trd2BdsAAAAJ&hl=en">like me</a>. The over 40,000 foreign fighters who joined the Islamic State organization to kill and die <a href="https://icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ICSR-Report-From-Daesh-to-%E2%80%98Diaspora%E2%80%99-Tracing-the-Women-and-Minors-of-Islamic-State.pdf">weren’t all mentally disturbed</a>, nor were the mass shooters who in the first 19 weeks of 2022 managed to carry out nearly <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/15/1099008586/mass-shootings-us-2022-tally-number">200 attacks on U.S. soil</a>. </p>
<p>There is a mental and psychological dimension to the problem, to be sure, but it is not illness or pathology. It is the universal human quest for significance and respect – the mother, I believe, of all social motives. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464081/original/file-20220518-25-bqudko.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young man with medium length brown hair." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464081/original/file-20220518-25-bqudko.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464081/original/file-20220518-25-bqudko.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464081/original/file-20220518-25-bqudko.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464081/original/file-20220518-25-bqudko.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464081/original/file-20220518-25-bqudko.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464081/original/file-20220518-25-bqudko.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464081/original/file-20220518-25-bqudko.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Payton Gendron, the accused Buffalo shooter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BuffaloSupermarketShootingRadicalization/bad2e3eda1954506960553b2e76351c5/photo?Query=Gendron&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=41&currentItemNo=4">Erie County District Attorney's Office via AP</a></span>
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<p>I <a href="https://psyc.umd.edu/facultyprofile/kruglanski/arie">am a psychologist</a> who studies this ubiquitous motivation and its far-reaching consequences. My research reveals that this quest is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211034825">a major force in human affairs</a>. It shapes the course of world history and determines the destiny of nations. </p>
<p>It also plays a major role in the tragic incidents of mass shootings, including, it seems, the Buffalo killings. </p>
<h2>Triggering the quest</h2>
<p>This quest for significance and respect must first be awakened before it can drive behavior.</p>
<p>It can be triggered by the experience of significant loss through humiliation and failure. When we suffer such a loss, we desperately seek to regain significance and respect. The quest for significance can also be triggered by an opportunity for substantial gain – becoming a hero, a martyr, a superstar.</p>
<p>Both circumstances appear acutely in adolescence, during the momentous life transition between childhood and adulthood, marked by soaring hormones, turbulent emotions and gnawing uncertainty about one’s self-worth. Gendron is 18; most school shootings were carried out by <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/971544/number-k-12-school-shootings-us-age-shooter/">young people between 11 and 17 years old</a>, although the <a href="https://rockinst.org/gun-violence/mass-shooting-factsheet/">average age of mass shooters is 33.2</a>.</p>
<p>Yet, neither age nor the quest for significance alone can explain the occurrence of mass shootings. After all, the vast majority of adolescents go through their teen years without resorting to murderous violence. What is it, then, that tips the scales for those who don’t? </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464084/original/file-20220518-24-w4cas7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white haired man in a black jacket and black face mask in a crowd of people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464084/original/file-20220518-24-w4cas7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464084/original/file-20220518-24-w4cas7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464084/original/file-20220518-24-w4cas7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464084/original/file-20220518-24-w4cas7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464084/original/file-20220518-24-w4cas7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464084/original/file-20220518-24-w4cas7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464084/original/file-20220518-24-w4cas7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">President Joe Biden greets family members of victims of the Tops market shooting on May 17, 2022, in Buffalo, N.Y.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-greets-family-members-of-victims-of-the-news-photo/1397764216?adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>‘Shortcuts to fame and glory’</h2>
<p>The research my colleagues and I have done suggests that a crucial factor in turning a person into a mass murderer is the significance-promising narrative – essentially, a story – that individuals come to embrace. This story acquires its powers of persuasion through the support of the individuals’ social network, the group <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190851125.001.0001/oso-9780190851125">from which one seeks approval</a>. </p>
<p>The mainstream narrative that most of us follow promises significance and social worth as rewards for hard work, notable achievements and social service. </p>
<p>Yet there exist alternative narratives that offer tempting shortcuts to fame and glory. These identify an alleged villain, scheme or conspiracy that threaten one’s group – race, nation, or religion. The mortal danger being invoked calls for brave heroes willing to sacrifice all on the altar of the cause. </p>
<p>A striking example of such a narrative is the so-called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/buffalo-mass-shooting-latest-linked-to-great-replacement-theory-2022-5">“white replacement theory” that Gendron allegedly embraced</a>. It is the idea that progressive leftists are planning to flood the country with people of color, aiming to disempower the white population and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/16/1099034094/what-is-the-great-replacement-theory">destroy its values and way of life</a>. </p>
<p>The sense of existential danger this theory invokes fuels blind hatred against the alleged usurpers, and presumed conspirators, a loathing that overrides all restraints. It <a href="https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/The-Great-Replacement-The-Violent-Consequences-of-Mainstreamed-Extremism-by-ISD.pdf">unleashes the rawest, most primordial impulses</a> of which the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4406946/">human reptilian brain is capable</a>. Murderous rage and mayhem are often the result.</p>
<p>In 21st-century America, such toxic narratives not only proliferate but increasingly gain <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/16/gop-replacement-theory-timeline/">legitimacy and currency within public discourse</a>. Some politicians are quick to recognize the seductive appeal of these ideas, particularly in times of widespread, significance-threatening uncertainty engendered by creeping <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Bowling-with-Trump_Fabian-et-al.pdf">economic inequalities</a>, the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/17/coronavirus-psychology-of-uncertainty-not-knowing-whats-next.html">pandemic</a>, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/02/16/publics-top-priority-for-2022-strengthening-the-nations-economy/">inflation</a> and other destabilizing problems. </p>
<p>The wide availability of <a href="https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/extremism-digital-age">social media platforms exacerbates the problem</a> by orders of magnitude. In the not-so-distant past, those with heinous views would need to look hard for similarly minded others. But these days, no matter how deviant or morally abhorrent their beliefs, people have no trouble finding soulmates on <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26984798">4chan, 8chan</a> or <a href="https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/binaries/content/assets/customsites/perspectives-on-terrorism/2021/issue-2/walther-and-mccoy-.pdf">Telegram</a>. </p>
<h2>First, understand the psychology</h2>
<p>This technologically based predicament, and the primitive appeal of violence as a path to significance, make the problem of violence in our public spaces particularly difficult and unlikely to respond to quick solutions. </p>
<p>I have studied this appeal to violence for decades, and I believe that to conquer it requires first understanding the psychology that drives it all. It requires parents to appreciate <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12376">the dread of insignificance their children may be experiencing</a>, their quest of proving themselves worthy and how the combination of human <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/04/conversation-kruglanski">needs, narratives and networks can produce murder</a>. </p>
<p>It also requires educational and community institutions to provide youngsters idealistic alternatives to violence, to quench their thirst for mattering. </p>
<p>It requires attention to social justice and economic inequalities that leave millions feeling disrespected and left behind. And it requires resolutely confronting hateful narratives, and our demonization of one another. </p>
<p>No doubt, these challenges are a tall order and call for a whole society’s effort, all hands on deck. But if we fail to measure up to the task, murder will not stop. Recent horrific shootings are but grim reminders of the evil that can happen. Ignoring it is at our own peril.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article published on May 19, 2022, portions of which had originally appeared in an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-quest-for-significance-and-respect-underlies-the-white-supremacist-movement-conspiracy-theories-and-a-range-of-other-problems-156027">published on March 11, 2021</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183199/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arie Kruglanski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is a mental and psychological dimension to what leads people to commit mass killings. But it is not mental illness or pathology.Arie Kruglanski, Professor of Psychology, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1763402022-02-03T02:14:46Z2022-02-03T02:14:46ZThe sun sets on Erin O'Toole as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444184/original/file-20220203-13-g0e7hy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=36%2C131%2C4010%2C1862&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Erin O'Toole speaks about climate change at an Ottawa event in April 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-sun-sets-on-erin-o-toole-as-leader-of-the-conservative-party-of-canada" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>When the dust settled and the caucus votes had been counted, 73 MPs from the Conservative Party of Canada <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2022/02/02/erin-otoole-makes-final-appeal-to-keep-his-job.html">voted to oust their leader</a>, Erin O'Toole.</p>
<p>After weeks of speculation about whether or when it would happen, the vote proved a quick and decisive repudiation. Just what the rejection was about, however, will be the subject of debate both inside and outside the party as it moves to select <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/how-the-race-was-won-otooles-campaign-to-take-down-mackay-for-the-conservative-leadership">its third leader in less than five years.</a> </p>
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<p>For some, the vote will be seen as a rejection of O'Toole’s very public attempts to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/20/world/canada/the-conservative-erin-otoole-shifted-left-to-broaden-his-partys-appeal.html">shift the party towards a more moderate stance on a range of issues</a>, in a bid to expand the pool of potential voters.</p>
<h2>Not the ‘Liberal lite’ party</h2>
<p>For those critics, the party must stop trying to be some version of <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/o-toole-versus-the-grassroots-conservative-leader-finds-himself-divided-from-base-1.5649949">“Liberal lite</a>” and plant its flag firmly on issues supported by the party’s most fervent, and typically right-leaning, supporters. </p>
<p>Such measures include <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/truckers-vaccine-vandetta-conservative-mps-1.6325761">unwinding restrictions related to the pandemic</a>, <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/conservative-mp-supports-riding-association-s-petition-against-o-toole-carbon-tax-1.5761464">rejecting a carbon tax</a>, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-otoole-faces-caucus-revolt-as-35-mps-sign-letter-calling-for/">standing up for social conservative values,</a> and more. </p>
<p>For others, including many who agreed with O'Toole’s conclusion that the party had to moderate in order to win back the urban supporters it had lost to the Liberals, the vote may seem instead a rejection of the fitful style in which O'Toole attempted to remake the party.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three smiling men in blue suits in the House of Commons." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444185/original/file-20220203-21-x0pvft.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444185/original/file-20220203-21-x0pvft.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444185/original/file-20220203-21-x0pvft.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444185/original/file-20220203-21-x0pvft.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444185/original/file-20220203-21-x0pvft.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444185/original/file-20220203-21-x0pvft.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444185/original/file-20220203-21-x0pvft.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">O'Toole is lead into the House of Commons by former prime minister Stephen Harper and
the late Jim Flaherty, finance minister at the time, in December 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shift to the centre</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative-party-leadership-results-1.5695925">After winning the leadership with a campaign based on a commitment to “true blue” values</a>, O'Toole began to tack to the centre with his comments.</p>
<p>It was reminiscent of an American Republican presidential candidates, <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18664285">like John McCain</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/us/politics/entering-stage-right-romney-moved-to-center.html">and Mitt Romney</a>, moderating their positions during the general election after winning the support of their right-wing base in the primaries. But while such activity is the norm in the United States for Republicans and Democrats alike, it struck many in Canada as disingenuous. </p>
<p>At the heart of the critique for most Conservative Party supporters, however, is the party’s showing in September 2021 federal election. In the space of a five-week election campaign, O'Toole updated and reversed positions repeatedly. </p>
<h2>Reversed course</h2>
<p>Most of the changes were intended to further moderate the party, like when he suggested <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal-election/2021/09/14/erin-otoole-says-the-liberals-carbon-price-wont-automatically-get-scrapped-if-he-is-prime-minister.html">the Liberal carbon tax might persist under a Conservative Party government</a>, or when he <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/gun-control-wedge-issue-1.6165532">reversed course on a Conservative platform pledge to end a ban on some assault-style weapons</a>. </p>
<p>The strategy was clear: win over disgruntled Conservative supporters who had migrated toward the Liberals while hoping to hold on to as much of the far right wing of the party as possible.</p>
<p>For the first two weeks of the campaign, the strategy appeared to be working, as the Conservatives erased the pre-election Liberal lead. Through the first week of September, O'Toole appeared to pull ahead. One enthusiastic pollster <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/federal-election-2021/o-toole-a-political-freight-train-as-conservatives-take-clear-lead-nanos-1.5572456">described O'Toole as a “political freight train.”</a> </p>
<p>That momentum eventually stalled however, even as the policy reversals increased in frequency. In the end, even though the CPC once again won the popular vote, it finished a distant second to the Liberals in seats as Justin Trudeau <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-21/trudeau-wins-third-term-as-canada-prime-minister-ctv-projects">was returned to power with a minority government</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A bald man in a dark suit speaks into a microphone with stadium lights beside him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444205/original/file-20220203-19-z52z6e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444205/original/file-20220203-19-z52z6e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444205/original/file-20220203-19-z52z6e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444205/original/file-20220203-19-z52z6e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444205/original/file-20220203-19-z52z6e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444205/original/file-20220203-19-z52z6e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444205/original/file-20220203-19-z52z6e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">O'Toole speaks during a campaign stop at a campaign office in Flamborough, Ont.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Accused of flip-flopping</h2>
<p>For critics in the party, the flip-flopping throughout O'Toole’s leadership created the impression of a leader willing to say and do anything to be elected. As one caucus member described it, the reversals were the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/otoole-post-election-report-1.6329961">“elephant in the room” and should have been a focus of the party’s official post-mortem report</a>.</p>
<p>At the same time, O'Toole’s attempts to expand the tent and move the party to the centre alienated many in the more conservative wing of the party. Many of the <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/conservatives-headed-for-yet-another-tense-caucus-meeting-over-move-to-oust-otoole">loudest and most public post-election critiques</a> of O'Toole’s leadership, in fact, came from social conservative groups. </p>
<p>Ironically, in the months since the election, O'Toole had to make additional course corrections to mollify his opponents within the party.</p>
<p>After initially agreeing to COVID-19 containment measures, he subsequently felt compelled to <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/otoole-does-about-face-on-vaccine-mandate-for-mps-in-commons-now-says-decision-infringes-on-their-rights">voice opposition to a vaccine mandate</a> for MPs entering the House of Commons.</p>
<p>As the Omicron variant tore through provinces across the country, O'Toole <a href="https://kitchener.citynews.ca/national-news/erin-otoole-urges-accommodations-for-unvaccinated-canadians-amid-omicron-wave-4929008">supported exemptions for the unvaccinated</a> even as polling continues to suggest <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/majority-of-canadians-surveyed-support-fines-for-unvaccinated-citizens-nanos-1.5752630">most Canadians were less tolerant of those who wouldn’t get jabbed</a>. </p>
<h2>A party divided</h2>
<p>While the party united sufficiently to expel O'Toole, it remains unclear what else its members can agree upon. In his departing remarks, <a href="https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2374237">O'Toole issued a warning that the country faced a dire moment of division.</a> At present, however, it’s the party that he led that’s bitterly divided.</p>
<p>Candice Bergen, a right-wing member of the party, has been named interim leader in a possible signal of what direction the Conservative caucus is heading.</p>
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<p>Throughout his time as leader, O'Toole continually tried to ride two horses going in different directions. No leader, however adept, can indefinitely look graceful doing that. The endless reversals that were a hallmark of his leadership were the inevitable result.</p>
<p>Whoever follows him in the role will have to grapple with those same divisions, and face the same choice. </p>
<p>The leadership race will certainly feature would-be successors planting flags on either side of the fault line dividing the party, but when the dust settles once more, the next Conservative leader will face the same unpalatable choices — and the same seemingly unbridgeable divide.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176340/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stewart Prest does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After being ousted as Conservative leader, Erin O'Toole warned the country faced a dire moment of division. At the moment, however, it’s the party he attempted to lead that’s bitterly divided.Stewart Prest, Lecturer, Political Science, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.