tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/las-vegas-shooting-2017-44158/articlesLas Vegas shooting 2017 – The Conversation2023-01-25T00:10:21Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1984862023-01-25T00:10:21Z2023-01-25T00:10:21ZTypical mass shooters are in their 20s and 30s – suspects in California’s latest killings are far from that average<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506204/original/file-20230124-16-st7p3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C106%2C3531%2C2255&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two deadly mass shootings have California on edge.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXCaliforniaShooting/067f0d30edf4470ab167896ccb42161b/photo?Query=Monterey%20Park%20Jae%20C.%20Hong&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=99&currentItemNo=37">AP Photo/Jae C. Hon</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The two men who <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/california-staggered-by-deadly-back-to-back-mass-shootings-2023-01-24/">shot dead 18 people in separate incidents</a> just days apart in California are the latest perpetrators in America’s long history of mass gun violence. But something about these public shootings, and the men held responsible, stands out.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/key-findings/">median age of mass shooters in the United States is 32</a>. Yet the man who is alleged to have <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/us/monterey-park-california-mass-shooting-tuesday/index.html">shot dead 11 people in Monterey Park</a> on Jan. 21, 2023, before turning the gun on himself <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/24/1150818507/the-suspected-monterey-park-attacker-was-72-heres-why-older-shooters-are-rare">was 72 years old</a> – the <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/key-findings/">oldest mass shooter in modern American history</a>, our records show. Meanwhile, the gunman who <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/us/half-moon-bay-california-shootings-tuesday/index.html">took the lives of seven more in Half Moon Bay</a> two days later was also <a href="https://apnews.com/article/northern-california-shootings-3eb00c19a36ad129ca7f0063f4b2aaf9">older than most</a> — 66, the third-oldest in history. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iS4HAEMAAAAJ">We</a> are <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hoHQX8MAAAAJ&hl=en">criminologists</a> who <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org">built a database</a> of 191 mass shooters using public data. The shooters in our records date back to 1966 and are coded on nearly 200 different variables, including age at the time of attack. Our research shows that mass shootings – <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/methodology/">defined here</a> as events in which four or more people are killed in a public place with no underlying criminal activity – have become more frequent, and deadly, over time.</p>
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<p>Prior to the January 2023 Californian shootings, mass shooters were also <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/06/02/mass-shooting-killers-young-teens">getting younger overall</a>. From 1980 to 1989, the median age of mass shooters was 39. Over the next two decades, it was 33. And from 2010 to 2019, it was 29. </p>
<p>Since 2020, the median age of mass shooters has come down to just 22 years old — mostly young men and boys who were born into or came of age in an <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/">increasingly divided America</a> and carried out their attacks <a href="https://doi.org//10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.9393">amid the disruption of a global pandemic</a>.</p>
<h2>Older mass shooter behind deadliest assault</h2>
<p>Ages vary by shooting location, <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database/">the data shows</a>. Though mass shooters at offices, warehouses and houses of worship skew older, shooters at K-12 schools, colleges and universities tend to be younger – in large part because many school shooters tend to be current or former students.</p>
<p>Prior to the tragic incidents in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay, just six mass shooters in our study were over the age of 60. The oldest was a <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/10/17/Mountain-town-shocked-by-shooting-outburst/9178372139200/">70-year-old who killed five people</a> at an auto parts store in Kentucky in 1981. The list also includes the perpetrator of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history – a 64-year-old who <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/las-vegas-shooting/las-vegas-police-investigating-shooting-mandalay-bay-n806461">killed 60 people at a 2017 music festival</a> in Las Vegas.</p>
<p>The others were a 66-year-old who was supposed to turn himself in to serve a prison sentence but instead <a href="https://murderpedia.org/male.B/b/baker-william.htm">killed four people at the manufacturing plant</a> where he used to work in Illinois in 2001; a 64-year-old who <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/03/14/upstate-new-york-herkimer-mohawk-suspect-surrounded/1986913/">killed four barbershop and oil change shop patrons</a> in rural New York in 2013; a 62-year-old who <a href="https://www.fosters.com/story/news/local/2017/02/22/author-to-speak-at-library-about-colebrook-shooting/22146250007/">killed four people</a> in 1997 in New Hampshire, including two state troopers and a judge; and a 60-year-old <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-04-25-mn-990-story.html">who killed six at a shopping center</a> in Palm Bay, Florida, in 1987.</p>
<p>Nearly all of the over-60s perpetrators of mass shootings prior to the January 2023 Californian incidents were white men – just one was a nonwhite male. This differs in the Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay incidents, both of which are thought to have been carried out by Asian Americans.</p>
<h2>Less likely to leak details of attack</h2>
<p>Mass shooters over 60 also tend to have prior criminal records and to target their place of employment, or retail and outdoor locations in communities they knew well.</p>
<p>What separates the older mass shooters from their younger counterparts is that mass shooters in their 20s and 30s typically study previous mass shooters for inspiration and validation. Younger shooters also tend to <a href="https://doi.org//10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.33073">communicate intent to do harm</a> in advance. This practice, known as leakage, is often seen as a final cry for help. Younger shooters also tend to leave behind manifestos to communicate their anger and grievances to the world, the data shows. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2019.07.005">Analysis of their expressed motives</a> suggest they are seeking fame and notoriety for their actions. </p>
<p>None of the shooters aged 60 and above in our database did that – although investigations are ongoing in the back-to-back California cases. Instead, they tend to have experienced a recent stressor, such as a family conflict or debt. They are more likely to be motivated by legal, financial and interpersonal conflicts, not hate or fame-seeking like many of their younger counterparts.</p>
<p>But all perpetrators of mass shootings, young and old, have some things in common. Their mass shooting is intended to be their final act. Whether they die by suicide – as is <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-01-22/la-me-monterey-park-mass-shooting">seemingly the case with the alleged Monterey Park shooter</a>, are killed on scene, or <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-01-23/half-moon-bay-shooting-multiple-victims">sit and wait to be arrested like the Half Moon Bay suspect did</a>, mass shootings are a final act of hopelessness and anger. </p>
<p>They also have access to the firearms they need to commit these devastating crimes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jillian Peterson receives funding from the National Institute of Justice and the Joyce Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Densley has received funding from the National Institute of Justice and the Joyce Foundation. </span></em></p>Mass shooters over the age of 60 are rare, but often differ from younger gunmen in motives and actions prior to their attack.Jillian Peterson, Professor of Criminal Justice, Hamline University James Densley, Professor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1550172021-02-19T13:18:51Z2021-02-19T13:18:51ZWhy do mass shootings spawn conspiracy theories?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384816/original/file-20210217-21-h7039n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C6%2C2160%2C1376&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman places painted rocks at a memorial to those killed in the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SchoolShootingFloridaCourtCase/ca30e57e32f3432991036e173ea67108/photo">AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While conspiracy theories are not limited to any topic, there is one type of event that seems particularly likely to spark them: mass shootings, typically defined as attacks in which a <a href="https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/advancing-mass-shooting-research-inform-practice">shooter kills at least four other people</a>.</p>
<p>When one person kills many others in a single incident, particularly when it seems random, people naturally seek out answers for why the tragedy happened. After all, if a mass shooting is random, anyone can be a target. </p>
<p>Pointing to some nefarious plan by a powerful group – such as the government – can be more comforting than the idea that the attack was the result of a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-duwe-rocque-mass-shootings-mental-illness-20180223-story.html">disturbed or mentally ill individual</a> who <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2020.1818805">obtained a firearm legally</a>.</p>
<p>In the United States, where <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/08/why-so-many-americans-think-the-government-wants-their-guns/">some significant portion of the public believes</a> that the government is out to take their guns, the idea that a mass shooting was orchestrated by the government in an attempt to make guns look bad may be appealing both psychologically and ideologically.</p>
<p>Our studies of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4hU2OG8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">mass shootings</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=y0qgh3oAAAAJ">conspiracy theories</a> help to shed some light on why these events seem particularly prone to the development of such theories and what the media can do to limit the ideas’ spread.</p>
<h2>Back to the 1990s</h2>
<p>Mass shootings and conspiracy theories have a long history. As far back as the mid-1990s, amid a spate of school shootings, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125012828/https://www.cuttingedge.org/index.html">Cutting Edge Ministries</a>, a Christian fundamentalist website, found a supposed connection between the attacks and then-President Bill Clinton.</p>
<p>The group’s website claimed that when lines were drawn between groups of school-shooting locations across the U.S., <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210209204532/https://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1350.cfm">they crossed in Hope, Arkansas</a>, Clinton’s hometown. The Cutting Edge Ministries concluded from this map that the “shootings were planned events, with the purpose of convincing enough Americans that guns are an evil that needs to be dealt with severely, thus allowing the Federal Government to achieve its Illuminist goal of seizing all weapons.”</p>
<p>Beliefs persist today that mass shootings are staged events, complete with “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/21/crisis-actors-deep-state-false-flag-the-rise-of-conspiracy-theory-code-words">crisis actors</a>,” people who are paid to pretend to be victims of a crime or disaster, all as part of a conspiracy by the government to take away people’s guns. The idea has been linked to such tragedies as the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, and the Sandy Hook Elementary attack that resulted in the deaths of 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.</p>
<p>These beliefs can become widespread when peddled by prominent people. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been in the news because of her belief that the Parkland shooting was a “<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-marjorie-taylor-greene-perpetuate-parkland-shooting-conspiracy-theory-1564992">false flag</a>,” an event that was disguised to look like another group was responsible. It’s not clear, though, in this instance who Rep. Greene felt was really to blame. </p>
<p>Conservative personality Alex Jones has <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/535447-texas-supreme-court-rejects-alex-jones-request-to-toss-lawsuits-from">failed to persuade the Texas Supreme Court</a> to dismiss defamation and injury lawsuits against him by parents of children who were killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. Jones has, for years, <a href="https://theconversation.com/falsehoods-sandy-hook-and-suing-alex-jones-97056">claimed that the Sandy Hook massacre didn’t happen</a>, saying “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-lawsuit-alex-jones/infowars-founder-who-claimed-sandy-hook-shooting-was-a-hoax-ordered-to-pay-100000-idUSKBN1YZ1BB">the whole thing was fake</a>,” and alleging it happened at the behest of gun-control groups and complicit media outlets.</p>
<p>After the country’s deadliest mass shooting to date, with <a href="https://time.com/4964666/mandalay-bay-las-vegas-shooting/">59 dead and hundreds injured</a> in Las Vegas in 2017, the pattern continued: A conspiracy theory arose that there were <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/opinion/ct-ptb-davich-conspiracy-theory-las-vegas-st-1011-20171010-story.html">multiple shooters</a>, and the notion that the shooting was really done for some other purpose than mass murder.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A parent with a child walks near police officers with rifles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.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>
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<span class="caption">A parent is reunited with a child in Newtown, Connecticut, after the 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NewtownShootingInfowars/5ee1267706534b66867439dcb9e0a784/photo">AP Photo/Jessica Hill</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Making sense of the senseless</h2>
<p>These conspiracy theories are all attempts to make sense of incomprehensibly terrifying events. If a lone shooter, with <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/opinion/ct-ptb-davich-conspiracy-theory-las-vegas-st-1011-20171010-story.html">no clear motive</a>, can singlehandedly take the lives of 60 individuals, while injuring hundreds more, then is anyone really safe? </p>
<p>Conspiracy theories are a way of understanding information. Historian <a href="https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/">Richard Hofstadter</a> has indicated they can provide motives for events that defy explanation. Mass shootings, then, create an opportunity for people to believe there are larger forces at play, or an ultimate cause that explains the event. </p>
<p>For instance, an idea that a shooter was driven mad by <a href="https://www.cchrint.org/2013/04/17/are-psychotropic-drugs-actually-linked-to-mass-shootings/">antipsychotic</a> <a href="https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/verify-in-the-past-20-years-did-the-majority-of-mass-shooters-take-psychotropic-drugs-before-committing-a-crime/65-60d0c48d-9dab-4129-9176-47d58e4a283a">drugs</a>, distributed by the <a href="https://journal.emwa.org/good-pharma/the-big-pharma-conspiracy-theory/">pharmaceutical industry</a>, can provide comfort as opposed to the thought that anyone can be a victim or perpetrator.</p>
<p>Polls have shown that <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/18/a-majority-of-u-s-teens-fear-a-shooting-could-happen-at-their-school-and-most-parents-share-their-concern/">people worry a lot</a> about mass shootings, and more than 30% of Americans said in 2019 that they refused to go particular places such as public events or the mall <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/08/fear-mass-shooting">for fear of being shot</a>. </p>
<p>If the shootings are staged, or the results of an enormous, unknowable or mysterious effort, then they at least becomes somewhat comprehensible. That thought process satisfies the search for a reason that can help people feel more comfort and security in a complex and uncertain world – especially when the reason found either removes the threat or makes it somehow less random. </p>
<p>Some people blame mass shootings on other factors like mental illness that make gun violence an individual issue, not a societal one, or say these events are somehow explained by outside forces. These ideas may seem implausible to most, but they do what conspiracy theories are intended to do: provide people with a sense of knowing and control.</p>
<h2>Conspiracy theories have consequences</h2>
<p>Conspiracy theories can spark real-world threats – including the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/22/533941689/pizzagate-gunman-sentenced-to-4-years-in-prison">QAnon-inspired attack on a pizza restaurant</a> in 2016 and the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/qanon-emerges-recurring-theme-criminal-cases-tied-us/story?id=75347445">Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection</a>.</p>
<p>They also misdirect blame and distract from efforts to better understand tragedies such as mass shootings. High-quality scholarship could investigate how to better protect public places. But robust debates about how to reduce events such as mass shootings will be less effective if some significant portion of the public believes they are manufactured.</p>
<p>Some journalists and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/press-releases/archive/2020/05/shadowland-on-the-power-and-danger-of-conspiracy/611641/">news organizations</a> have already started taking steps to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-spot-a-conspiracy-theory-when-you-see-one-133574">identify and warn audiences against</a> conspiracy theories. Open access to reputable news sources on COVID-19, for example, has helped manage the <a href="https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/the-different-forms-of-covid-19-misinformation-and-their-consequences/">misinformation of coronavirus</a> conspiracies. </p>
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<p>Explicit and clear <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jb-IoKjzjDUCA1lB9AImOJAcTPqjf-1S/view">evaluation of evidence and sources</a> – in headlines and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/lifestyle/style/how-cable-news-chyrons-have-adapted-to-the-trump-era/">TV subtitles</a> – have helped keep news consumers alert. And <a href="https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/twitter-adds-new-warning-pop-ups-when-users-attempt-to-like-tweets-which-in/589617/">pop-up prompts</a> from Twitter and Facebook encourage users to read articles before reposting.</p>
<p>These steps can work, as shown by the <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/misinformation-dropped-dramatically-the-week-after-twitter-banned-trump/">substantial drop in misinformation</a> on Twitter following former President Donald Trump’s removal from the platform.</p>
<p>Mass shootings may be good fodder for conspiracy theories, but that does not mean people should actually consume such ideas without necessary context or disclaimers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155017/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Rocque receives funding from the National Institute of Justice (2018-75-CX-0025). He is affiliated with the Scholars Strategy Network. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Kelley-Romano 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>When many people believe the government is trying to take away their guns, events that make guns look bad can be misinterpreted as part of that nonexistent plan.Michael Rocque, Associate Professor of Sociology, Bates CollegeStephanie Kelley-Romano, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies, Bates CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1133012019-04-10T10:49:22Z2019-04-10T10:49:22ZHow a ‘missing’ movement made gun control a winning issue<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267910/original/file-20190406-115803-1844i79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler shakes hands with Aalayah Eastmond, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, during a hearing on guns violence at Capitol Hill on Feb. 6, 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Congress-Guns/4914a790284a46058a0eaf8f5ec1f12c/2/0">AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thirty-three Republicans and all but one Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives agreed to pass <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/04/707685268/violence-against-women-act-gets-tangled-up-in-gun-rights-debate">additional restrictions</a> on gun ownership as part of a renewed Violence Against Women Act earlier this month. This move came on the heels of the February passage of two gun control bills: the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/8/text">Bipartisan Background Checks Act</a> and the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1112">Enhanced Background Checks Act</a>, all of which were opposed by the NRA.</p>
<p>As the first gun control legislation to pass either the House or Senate since the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/4296/text">1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban</a>, the recent bills mark a historic shift in American politics. </p>
<p>We have studied contemporary American gun culture for the past four years, tracing the foundation of the emerging gun control movement. Our <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0276146717715744">research</a> offers insight into the ways that gun violence prevention groups have promoted cultural shifts around guns, and why so many legislators are now willing to broach this contentious issue. </p>
<p>For the past 25 years, gun control has been the untouchable “third rail” of American politics. Even in the face of multiple mass shootings – <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/18/us/columbine-high-school-shootings-fast-facts/index.html">Columbine</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/us/16cnd-shooting.html">Virginia Tech</a>, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/back-aurora-colorado-movie-theater-shooting-years/story?id=48730066">Aurora</a>, <a href="http://time.com/5061579/sandy-hook-newtown-history/">Sandy Hook</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/2016-orlando-shooting">Orlando</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/02/555229322/many-questions-remain-in-the-aftermath-of-the-las-vegas-shooting">Las Vegas</a>, to name a few – very few politicians have declared themselves in favor of gun control. On the other hand, many successful politicians have positioned themselves as “pro-gun.” </p>
<p>By avoiding associating themselves with gun control, politicians have skirted a divisive issue. But they have also perpetuated the notion that gun regulations are not feasible or palatable to American citizens.</p>
<p>Background check <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gun-control-overhaul-is-defeated-in-senate/2013/04/17/57eb028a-a77c-11e2-b029-8fb7e977ef71_story.html?utm_term=.33fe4e3698cb">bills failed</a> in the 2013 Democrat-led Senate. They failed again in the 2016 Republican-led Senate. That seems surprising given that national <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/images/polling/us/us01142019_trends_utsc21.pdf/">polls</a> report that, for the last six years, nine in 10 Americans have supported background check requirements on gun purchases. The failure of these bills provoked a <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Parkland.html?id=ZrhnDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false">sense of resignation</a> from many Americans weary of the violence, who feared that if the Sandy Hook shooting hadn’t prompted legislative action, nothing would. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://cctweb.org/about">consumer culture</a> scholars, we find two things particularly notable about the passage of the House bills. First, the gun control movement’s seeds, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=04Y3AwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">planted as far back as 1974</a>, have now begun to sprout. Second, passage of the bills is remarkable evidence of this social movement, irrespective of any Senate action or inaction.</p>
<h2>The emerging movement</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267908/original/file-20190406-115797-1h93ndk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267908/original/file-20190406-115797-1h93ndk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267908/original/file-20190406-115797-1h93ndk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267908/original/file-20190406-115797-1h93ndk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267908/original/file-20190406-115797-1h93ndk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267908/original/file-20190406-115797-1h93ndk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267908/original/file-20190406-115797-1h93ndk.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">March 24, 2018 ‘March for Our Lives’ rally in Washington in support of gun control.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Youth-Vote-Midterms/82e956f385c14ea9acf1426b512f98e1/7/0">AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>American gun violence has provoked routine public condemnation and support for stronger gun laws. Yet, gun policy experts like Duke University political scientist Kristin Goss have described gun control as America’s “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=FFgQC1hZnpoC&lpg=PP1&dq=kristin%20goss&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=kristin%20goss&f=false">missing movement</a>.” As of 2006, groups of concerned citizens had not gathered the financial resources, strategic framing and incremental policy changes needed to galvanize into a full-fledged movement.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/20426761211203247">Research</a> on government anti-smoking campaigns has shown that changing the culture requires influencing change at multiple levels, including legislation, business and organization policies and individual behavior. </p>
<p>In recent years, groups like <a href="https://everytown.org/">Everytown for Gun Safety</a> and <a href="https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/">Sandy Hook Promise</a> have worked mostly independently, but in ways that reinforced each other, on issues related to gun violence prevention. For instance, some groups encouraged voters and state legislators to institute <a href="https://giffords.org/issue/background-checks/">universal background checks</a> and businesses to adopt preventive policies, such as Dick’s Sporting Goods’ <a href="https://everytown.org/press/moms-demand-action-everytown-applaud-dicks-sporting-goods-for-changing-its-policies-on-gun-sales-following-the-parkland-school-shooting/">decision</a> to stop selling “assault-style” rifles, while others focused on convincing <a href="https://momsdemandaction.org/preventing-child-access-guns-safeandsound/">gun owners to store</a> their guns in a locked safe. The groups often used <a href="https://lawcenter.giffords.org/facts/statistics/">statistics and research data</a> in their efforts.</p>
<p>These gun violence prevention groups have sought incremental policy changes, while also explicitly supporting Americans’ <a href="https://lawcenter.giffords.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Supreme-Court-and-the-Second-Amendment-Factsheet.pdf">constitutional rights</a>. This measured, <a href="https://today.oregonstate.edu/archives/2017/jul/gun-violence-prevention-groups-strike-middle-ground-meet-goals">middle-ground</a> approach appears to have laid the necessary scaffolding for the full-fledged movement sparked by the Parkland shooting in February of 2018.</p>
<h2>What changed after Parkland</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331843674_Negotiating_the_Legitimacy_of_an_American_Icon_Myth_and_the_US_Gun_Market">research</a> indicates that a critical change happened after Parkland. Parkland survivors galvanized both citizens previously involved in gun violence prevention and a broader range of Americans not with statistics and data, but by employing two powerful and complementary narratives. </p>
<p>The first involves hero-kids taking on the infamous gun lobby – a David-and-Goliath story easy to rally behind. The second challenged parents, and young adults who grew up in an age of lockdown drills, to be heroes themselves by voting pro-gun candidates out of office.</p>
<p>The second narrative involves <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=q2N8DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=goss+kristin&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj937vg4IzhAhWqjFQKHVhDAIsQ6AEIPTAD#v=onepage&q=goss%20kristin&f=false">parental duty</a> to protect children. This has been successful for many social movements, and the pro-gun movement is no exception.</p>
<p>A movement’s success can manifest in different forms. Legislation is one such form. Changes in public opinion, individual behaviors or organizational policies, or, more broadly, shifts in the way we talk about social issues are others. This latter form of change is significant. When a contentious issue shifts from a taboo, fringe or radical topic into the mainstream, public attention moves from a question of “whether” to a question of “how” to address the issue.</p>
<p>The activism in the wake of Parkland appears to have made a difference. Many candidates for the federal elections in 2018 made “common sense gun control” part of their <a href="https://lucyforcongress.com/issue/gun-safety/">platform</a>. Notably, many of these candidates, like U.S. Reps. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/04/us/politics/gun-control-candidates-election.html">Jason Crow</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/09/gun-control-is-winning-issue-in-midterms-as-advocates-gain-in-house-defy-nra.html">Jennifer Wexton</a>, were elected. </p>
<p>These election results suggest the movement’s efforts in laying the groundwork for cultural change and shifting the social discourse has enabled many Americans to disentangle “gun control” from “anti gun,” and to simultaneously support both the right to bear arms and reasonable restrictions on that right. The movement’s success in doing so has made supporting gun control possible for today’s politicians.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113301/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 control bills passed recently by the House of Representatives may never become law, but they are still a sign of important change.Aimee Dinnín Huff, Assistant Professor, Marketing, Oregon State UniversityMichelle Barnhart, Associate Professor of Marketing, Oregon State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1040982018-10-01T10:37:37Z2018-10-01T10:37:37ZWe provided psychological first aid after the Las Vegas shooting – here’s what we learned<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238505/original/file-20180928-48631-1uj3rr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Evacuees arrive at the UNLV Thomas & Mack Center after a gunman opened fire Oct. 1, 2017 in Las Vegas.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Las-Vegas-Shooting/5a1657648bdc48d3a5ffe6a8f939f72f/2/0">Al Powers/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editors’ note: In the aftermath of the Oct. 1, 2017 <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/06/here-all-victims-las-vegas-shooting/733236001/">shooting massacre</a> that claimed the lives of 58 people, several psychology and counseling scholars at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas sprang into action to offer trauma counseling to victims and witnesses of the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/16/us/20-deadliest-mass-shootings-in-u-s-history-fast-facts/index.html">deadliest mass shooting</a> in recent U.S. history. The UNLV scholars helped provide aid and comfort to <a href="https://www.unlv.edu/news/article/hundreds-gather-campus-candlelight-vigil">hundreds of evacuees</a>, mostly noninjured, who were driven by bus from the strip to the UNLV Thomas & Mack Center soon after the shooting. The Conversation recently connected with those scholars to hear what they learned from the experience.</em></p>
<p><strong>What is “psychological first aid”? How do mental health experts like you work side by side with traditional first responders?</strong></p>
<p>The goal of <a href="https://www.nctsn.org/resources/psychological-first-aid-pfa-field-operations-guide-2nd-edition">psychological first aid</a> is to sooth, assist and help people function and cope in a healthy way in the wake of a traumatic event. </p>
<p>It’s employed in the hours and days following the event, when people’s immediate needs, including medical care, as well as basic needs like food, shelter and water, must be met, along with their psychological and physical safety needs.</p>
<p>The point is not to push people to express emotion or describe in detail what they experienced. Rather, mental health professionals can help first responders by offering survivors practical assistance, comfort, safety, good compassionate company and emotional support.</p>
<p>For example, in the hours following the Oct. 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas, nonwounded victims and evacuees from the Strip needed basic things: blankets to cut the chill of the evening hours and psychological shock, cellphone chargers so they could stay in touch with loved ones, rides home and reliable news updates to reduce chaos and control rumors. By helping provide these simple needs, our team of mental health professionals was able to free up first responders and law enforcement to do their jobs.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238504/original/file-20180928-48647-1yishn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238504/original/file-20180928-48647-1yishn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238504/original/file-20180928-48647-1yishn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238504/original/file-20180928-48647-1yishn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238504/original/file-20180928-48647-1yishn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238504/original/file-20180928-48647-1yishn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238504/original/file-20180928-48647-1yishn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Police run toward the scene of the Oct. 1, 2017 shooting near the Mandalay Bay resort and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Las-Vegas-Shooting/712f54b9ef2548d1aaf427b517783224/46/0">John Locher/AP</a></span>
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<p><strong>What tools and treatments can mental health clinicians offer in the wake of this kind of almost unimaginable tragedy?</strong></p>
<p>In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, people needed to know how this stressful event would affect them. For example, potential effects may have included trouble sleeping, increased nervousness or feeling easily upset or agitated.</p>
<p>People also needed guidance to pursue healthy coping strategies. They needed to know where to find support services then and in the future, as well as information regarding the signs that someone might need a higher level of professional care. Such signs include persistent anxiety.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, we heard from victims who were initially given ill-informed treatment by poorly trained providers. Some were “debriefed” in a group setting for hours, encouraged to share their stories and describe the trauma in detail. As psychology and counseling researchers, we know this <a href="https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/trauma/disaster-terrorism/debriefing-after-disasters.asp">outdated treatment approach</a> is harmful and can retraumatize people who are already vulnerable and hypersensitive.</p>
<p>In the days, weeks and months after an event like this shooting, people are often hyperaroused – that is, in a ramped-up jittery state – and hypervigilant – that is, overly aware and reactive to everything in their environment. They’re expecting danger and feeling unsafe, fearful, angry or distressed. Others may keep thinking about the traumatic event. Memories of the event can intrude on their day. They may have difficulty sleeping because the memories keep running through their mind. Or they may have nightmares. Others may experience emotional numbing or avoidance.</p>
<p>We helped victims build resilience skills such as problem-solving and engaging in positive activities, like spending quality time with loved ones and participating in activities that they enjoy. We educated people on how to manage emotional and physical reactions through things such as breathing exercises or identifying and planning for triggers. Mental health professionals also promote helpful thinking and identify opportunities for establishing a sense of community and belonging. Perhaps more importantly, professionals trained in psychological first aid are prepared to identify and assist those who won’t recover on their own.</p>
<p>When the skills-building approach isn’t enough, mental health professionals know how to identify those who will need a higher level of care.</p>
<p><strong>What did you learn in the heat of disaster response that’s applicable now a year later and on into the future in terms of mental health?</strong></p>
<p>Different people need different things. Some of the people we worked with following the Oct. 1 shooting needed to talk. Some needed to sit quietly. Some needed to get busy and find something to do to feel helpful. Some needed to take a day to themselves. There are typical human stress responses to an abnormal event, but there is no one prescribed journey toward healing.</p>
<p>We also know that people are naturally wired to <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-the-name-love/201403/why-we-all-need-belong-someone">need a sense of belonging and human connection</a>. And, in this sense, personal and community healing go hand in hand. One cannot exist without the other.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104098/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Paul is the Director of The PRACTICE: A UNLV Community Mental Health Training Clinic, housed on and sponsored by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Dahl, John A. Nixon, and Noelle Lefforge 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>One year after the Oct. 1 shooting massacre in Las Vegas, a team of scholars from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas offers insights into how to best help those affected by the violence.Michelle Paul, Associate Faculty-in-Residence in Psychology, University of Nevada, Las VegasHeather Dahl, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Counselor Education, School Psychology, and Human Services, University of Nevada, Las VegasJohn A. Nixon, Assistant Professor-in-Residence of Counselor Education and Assistant Director of Clinical Services, The PRACTICE, University of Nevada, Las VegasNoelle Lefforge, Assistant Professor-in-Residence in Psychology and Assistant Director of Clinical Services and Research at The PRACTICE, University of Nevada, Las VegasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1002292018-07-19T10:41:06Z2018-07-19T10:41:06ZMGM is suing the victims of the worst mass shooting in US history. Here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228322/original/file-20180718-142423-18aacnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The scene in Las Vegas several days after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Gun-Background-Checks-Nevada/b9b5faef764a4af091cf21a4cee294b6/11/0">AP Photo/Gregory Bull</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last October, Stephen Paddock unleashed a barrage of automatic gunfire from a 32nd-floor hotel room overlooking a large crowd of concertgoers attending a country music festival in Las Vegas. With a body count of 59 dead and another 500 wounded, it was the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/us/las-vegas-shooting.html">worst mass shooting</a> in U.S. history. </p>
<p>Victims of the attack <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/us/vegas-shooting-lawsuits.html">filed lawsuits last fall</a> against MGM Resorts International, the owner of the hotel and the festival grounds, alleging that the company provided lax security, ignored warning signs that Paddock was stockpiling guns and ammunition in his hotel rooms for days, and failed to respond quickly once the shooting was underway.</p>
<p>On July 13, MGM fired back.</p>
<p>The company <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/17/us/mgm-resorts-sues-victims.html">filed a lawsuit in federal court</a> against the victims, seeking a declaration that, under federal law, it is immune from any liability for injuries arising out of the Las Vegas mass shooting. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yQUI6yEAAAAJ&hl=en">two decades of writing</a> about litigation arising out of gun violence, I believe that MGM’s legal strategy is unprecedented but not entirely unexpected. If successful, MGM’s lawsuit would fundamentally alter the duties that hotels and concert venues owe to their patrons at a time in our nation’s history when mass shootings have made them especially vulnerable.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228314/original/file-20180718-142432-6w8at8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228314/original/file-20180718-142432-6w8at8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228314/original/file-20180718-142432-6w8at8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228314/original/file-20180718-142432-6w8at8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228314/original/file-20180718-142432-6w8at8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228314/original/file-20180718-142432-6w8at8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228314/original/file-20180718-142432-6w8at8.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">
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<span class="caption">A sign asks for prayers outside of the MGM hotel in Las Vegas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Las-Vegas-Shooting/fafbf3241e044b7b9415cd10b4266b66/6/0">AP Photo/John Locher</a></span>
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<h2>The basis for MGM’s lawsuit</h2>
<p>MGM’s claim of immunity is based on a federal statute called the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/6/chapter-1/subchapter-VIII/part-G">Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act</a> – known as the SAFETY Act – passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. </p>
<p>The act limits the liability of companies that develop new technologies or sell services to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks. More importantly for MGM’s purposes, the act makes the customers of such companies entirely immune from liability. These liability provisions apply to any claims arising out of “an act of terrorism.”</p>
<p>To provide security at the Route 91 music festival, MGM hired the <a href="https://csc-usa.com/">Contemporary Services Corporation</a>, a company whose security services have been certified by the secretary of Homeland Security to fall under the provisions of the SAFETY Act, which would render MGM, as a client, immune from liability.</p>
<h2>Why is MGM suing the victims?</h2>
<p><a href="http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2018/images/07/17/mgm.complaint.pdf">MGM’s complaint</a> asserts that more than 2,500 individuals have filed or threatened to file lawsuits against the company for injuries – ranging from death to emotional distress –arising from the shooting. </p>
<p>Because MGM’s lawsuit is based on a federal statute, it will be heard in a federal court. The company likely expects a federal judge would be less sympathetic to the victim’s claims than the local state court judges by whom the victims’ lawsuits will be heard. If the federal judge decides in MGM’s favor, that would put an end to the lawsuits in state courts.</p>
<p>MGM’s lawsuit seeks a declaratory judgment that it is immune from liability under the SAFETY Act, which would dispense with all 2,500 potential claims against it in one fell swoop. </p>
<p>The initial public response to MGM’s lawsuit has been <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/17/mgm-resorts-sues-victims-las-vegas-massacre-denies-liability/791511002/">highly critical</a>, but the company is likely betting that reducing its potentially disastrous liability exposure – which could run into hundreds of millions of dollars – is worth any damage to its brand.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228315/original/file-20180718-142417-sb9q16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228315/original/file-20180718-142417-sb9q16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228315/original/file-20180718-142417-sb9q16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228315/original/file-20180718-142417-sb9q16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228315/original/file-20180718-142417-sb9q16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228315/original/file-20180718-142417-sb9q16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228315/original/file-20180718-142417-sb9q16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">People carry flowers as they walk near the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino during a vigil for victims and survivors of the mass shooting in Las Vegas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Las-Vegas-Shooting/51db84d4431e4459914f110d41609c98/3/0">AP Photo/John Locher, File</a></span>
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<h2>MGM’s odds of success</h2>
<p>To obtain immunity under the SAFETY Act, MGM will have to convince the court that the Las Vegas mass shooting was an act of terrorism, which <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/6/444#2_A">the law</a> defines as an illegal act that “uses or attempts to use instrumentalities, weapons or other methods designed or intended to cause mass destruction.” Just how the court will decide that issue remains unclear.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/17/us/mgm-resorts-sues-victims.html">According to MGM’s own lawyer</a>, this is the first litigation invoking the act, and no court has yet interpreted the provisions of the act.</p>
<p>Gun sellers and retailers are already immune from such lawsuits arising out of the criminal misuse of the weapons that they sell under the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. </p>
<p>If successful, MGM’s lawsuit would extend similar protection to the hotels, concert halls, fairgrounds, schools and other venues currently responsible under the law for taking reasonable measures to protect the public. MGM’s denial of any responsibility for public safety on its property represents a new strategy by public accommodations for responding to mass shootings: run for the exits.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy D. Lytton has provided expert consulting services to law firms representing gun violence victims</span></em></p>The hotel company filed an unprecedented lawsuit against the victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas last October, arguing it has immunity from liability under federal law.Timothy D. Lytton, Distinguished University Professor & Professor of Law, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/932412018-03-13T17:53:28Z2018-03-13T17:53:28ZWhy do gun-makers get special economic protection?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210101/original/file-20180313-30989-4deywb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A line of AR-15s are on display at gunmaker Daniel Defense in Georgia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Lisa Marie Pane</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The gun industry is <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/16/hillary-clinton/clinton-gun-industry-wholly-protected-all-lawsuits/">one of very few industries</a> to have congressionally backed <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-repeal-the-gun-industrys-exceptional-legal-immunity-51950">immunity from liabilty</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, it’s been largely shielded from responsibility for the deaths and injuries its products cause, with few exceptions. </p>
<p>How did this happen? And, in the aftermath of another tragic mass shooting, could this protection ever be overturned? </p>
<p>As an expert in constitutional law and product liability, I believe the answer to these questions lies in examining the economic and political clout of the gun industry. </p>
<h2>Gun industry gets a protector</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-firearms-industry-influences-us-gun-culture-in-6-charts-92142">gun industry</a> <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/s397/text">acquired its protective shield</a> in 2005 after a <a href="http://www.bradycampaign.org/sites/default/files/city-lawsuits-review.pdf">wave of lawsuits</a> by cities threatened gun companies’ survival.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-repeal-the-gun-industrys-exceptional-legal-immunity-51950">New Orleans became the first government</a> to file a lawsuit against gun manufacturers in 1998. More than 30 other American cities and counties soon followed. </p>
<p>The suits, prompted by the growing epidemic of urban gun violence and patterned after claims brought by states against tobacco companies, initially succeeded by shining a spotlight on the industry. I was one of the lawyers at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence who helped put these cases together. They uncovered <a href="http://www.bradycampaign.org/resources/smoking-guns">evidence</a> about how gun manufacturers could reduce risks by making changes in the way they design and distribute their products.</p>
<p>But then came the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/109/plaws/publ92/PLAW-109publ92.pdf">Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act</a>, which gave gun-makers a special immunity from legal responsibilities and blocked most of the claims. While Congress has occasionally limited the liability of companies making other products, <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/16/hillary-clinton/clinton-gun-industry-wholly-protected-all-lawsuits/">such as medical devices and small aircraft</a>, the degree of protection given to the gun industry was unusual and didn’t create alternative ways to regulate the industry and compensate those injured, as <a href="https://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/ReportaProblem/VaccineAdverseEvents/QuestionsabouttheVaccineAdverseEventReportingSystemVAERS/default.htm">it did with the makers of childhood vaccines</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210108/original/file-20180313-30989-dkdigw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210108/original/file-20180313-30989-dkdigw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210108/original/file-20180313-30989-dkdigw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210108/original/file-20180313-30989-dkdigw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210108/original/file-20180313-30989-dkdigw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210108/original/file-20180313-30989-dkdigw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210108/original/file-20180313-30989-dkdigw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Bush sits down to sign the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which shielded the firearms industry from civil lawsuits brought by victims of gun crimes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Good times for gun-makers</h2>
<p>Now a string of recent mass shootings, from <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting/index.html">Orlando</a> to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/after-the-las-vegas-shooting-massacre-survival-can-be-excruciating/2018/03/10/23fd3998-23aa-11e8-badd-7c9f29a55815_story.html">Las Vegas</a> to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-respond-shooting-parkland-florida-high-school-n848101">Parkland</a>, has brought renewed scrutiny to the gun industry’s products and practices. </p>
<p>It comes at a time when the firearms industry has enjoyed remarkable growth. In an unintended and sadly ironic way, the mass shootings actually contribute to the industry’s financial success. </p>
<p>Gun sales are strongly correlated to prospects for gun control and surge whenever it seems more likely that new legal restrictions on guns may be imposed. And this was the case in 2008, when the election of Barack Obama rejuvenated the then-stagnant industry. Fearful that President Obama would take away their guns, many Americans rushed to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/03/11/barack-obama-may-have-been-at-least-a-9-billion-boon-to-the-gun-industry-so-far/?utm_term=.748e31c9ea4e">stock up</a> on new weaponry. <a href="https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/docs/undefined/firearms-commerce-united-states-annual-statistical-update-2017/download">Production</a> of firearms rose steadily throughout Obama’s first term, even though he did <a href="https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/docs/undefined/firearms-commerce-united-states-annual-statistical-update-2017/download">virtually nothing</a> at that time to advance a gun control agenda.</p>
<p>The massacre at <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/07/us/connecticut-shootings-fast-facts/index.html">Sandy Hook Elementary School</a> shortly after Obama won re-election in 2012 drove gun sales to unprecedented levels, with production reaching an all-time high of nearly <a href="https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/docs/undefined/firearms-commerce-united-states-annual-statistical-update-2017/download">11 million</a> in 2013 – yielding more economic clout than ever before. </p>
<p><iframe id="Pu4sH" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Pu4sH/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The <a href="https://d3aya7xwz8momx.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/EconomicImpactofIndustry2017.pdf">industry’s economic impact rose</a> from $19 billion in 2008 to over $51 billion in 2016, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry’s trade association. And its impact is felt across the country in both red and blue states and politically important ones, from Texas and California to Florida and Ohio. Some of the nation’s oldest and largest gun companies are still based in the legendary <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2013/04/13/greetings-from-new-england-gun-valley/bnluvQAU7sgWyhe4x8FVgP/story.html">“Gun Valley”</a> region of New England, but there are other manufacturers scattered around the nation. Wholesale distributors and retail dealers operate virtually everywhere. </p>
<p><iframe id="2zGgn" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/2zGgn/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The <a href="https://d3aya7xwz8momx.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/EconomicImpactofIndustry2017.pdf">number of jobs</a> supported by the industry nearly doubled to about 301,000 in that period, with the largest totals in Texas and California. The taxes paid by the industry have increased even more dramatically.</p>
<h2>The gun lobby’s power</h2>
<p>Gun companies have made it clear they are willing to relocate their operations if the price is right, and state and local governments have thrown <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/fully-loaded-ten-biggest-gun-manufacturers-america/">millions of dollars</a> in subsidies and tax breaks at them in recent years. For example, Remington Arms shifted much of its manufacturing from New York to Alabama a few years ago, drawn by <a href="http://www.al.com/business/index.ssf/2014/02/alabamas_incentive_offer_to_re.html">$68.9 million</a> in government handouts, as well as displeasure with New York’s enactment of tougher gun laws. </p>
<p>And the industry has used this growth in wealth, employment and taxes to exercise its political muscles at the state and national levels. The trade association’s <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000054336&year=2017">annual lobbying expenditures</a>, negligible prior to Obama’s election, soared after Sandy Hook to more than $3.3 million in 2017.</p>
<p>Its biggest political influence comes through its customers, who are a <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-nra-an-educational-organization-a-lobby-group-a-nonprofit-a-media-outlet-yes-92806">uniquely potent force</a>. The National Rifle Association <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000082&cycle=2016">spends over 50 percent more</a> on lobbying than the gun industry and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nra-power-lobbying-statistics-gun-control-2017-10">nearly 10 times</a> as much as any gun control group. </p>
<p>And while the industry’s interests are usually aligned with those of the NRA, even when a gun-maker wants to take a softer position on gun policy it’s extremely risky to do so. A case in point came in 2000, when Smith & Wesson tried to ease the burden of the lawsuits against it by agreeing to be more careful in how it designed and distributed its products as part of a <a href="https://clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov/textonly/WH/New/html/20000317_2.html">settlement agreement</a>. Its modest steps prompted <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/02/27/a-gunmaker-once-tried-to-reform-itself-the-nra-nearly-destroyed-it/">boycotts</a> by gun owners that nearly destroyed the company in a few short months.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210104/original/file-20180313-30954-16npywb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210104/original/file-20180313-30954-16npywb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210104/original/file-20180313-30954-16npywb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210104/original/file-20180313-30954-16npywb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210104/original/file-20180313-30954-16npywb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210104/original/file-20180313-30954-16npywb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210104/original/file-20180313-30954-16npywb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Smith & Wesson nearly went bankrupt after modest steps to make its guns safer sparked a backlash.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Julie Jacobson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Turning the tables</h2>
<p>The question now is, can the increasing frequency of tragedies like Parkland and the resulting raw youth outrage turn the tables on the gun industry?</p>
<p>Applying financial pressure is one way to get the industry’s attention. Several years ago, a coalition of organizations began a <a href="http://www.adweek.com/creativity/powerful-anti-violence-film-wants-you-unload-gun-companies-your-401k-157492/">divestment campaign</a>, encouraging people to move their savings out of mutual funds that invest in gun companies. Fund managers say the campaign is having its intended effect, with <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/2/28/17058342/wall-street-gun-stocks-divestment">more investors</a> demanding that funds dump gun stocks. According to one study, the amount of assets precluded from being invested in companies that make weaponry for military or civilian use has increased [1,042 percent] since Sandy Hook. This campaign is <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/dan-morain/article200813194.html">cited as a factor</a> that led to the bankruptcy of Remington, the maker of the AR-15 rifle used in that shooting. </p>
<p>The idea has recently gained <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/2/28/17058342/wall-street-gun-stocks-divestment">new momentum</a>. <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-guns-new-jersey/new-jersey-democrats-seek-to-bar-gunmakers-from-pension-funds-idUSKCN1G62B6">Legislators in New Jersey</a> and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-22/teacher-retirement-funds-in-12-states-hold-gun-company-stocks">teachers in Florida</a> are now calling for public employee pension funds to sell their shares of firearms companies. Other socially conscious investors are keeping their shares and using them as a channel to express concern. Shareholders of companies that make or sell firearms, like Sturm Ruger & Co. and Dick’s Sporting Goods, have <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-23/guns-and-more-guns-will-wall-street-ever-let-go-of-firearms">called</a> for gun-makers to explain what they are doing to reduce the risks posed by their products.</p>
<p>Americans <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-the-nra-boycott-working-so-quickly-92513">fed up with the NRA’s intransigence</a> have also begun putting pressure on a <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/nra-boycott-full-list-companies-have-cut-ties-gun-lobby-over-florida-shooting-819050">wide range of businesses</a> to cut ties with the gun rights group.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210105/original/file-20180313-30979-1b7eat6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210105/original/file-20180313-30979-1b7eat6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210105/original/file-20180313-30979-1b7eat6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210105/original/file-20180313-30979-1b7eat6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210105/original/file-20180313-30979-1b7eat6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210105/original/file-20180313-30979-1b7eat6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210105/original/file-20180313-30979-1b7eat6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Connecticut State Police detective holds up a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, the same make and model of gun used by Adam Lanza in the Sandy Hook school shooting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jessica Hill</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What the future holds</h2>
<p>Preventing some NRA members from <a href="http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2018/02/23/car-rental-companies-nra-discounts/">getting a discount</a> on a car rental or airline flight is obviously not going to bring the gun lobby to its knees or lead to a repeal of the industry’s immunity. But every small step brings attention to the issue and builds the pressure that will eventually change the political calculus for legislators.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.pollingreport.com/guns.htm">large majority</a> of Americans support the enactment of stricter gun laws, but the crucial question will be whether the intensity of their feelings about the issue ever match the passion of those who fiercely favor gun rights.</p>
<p>Change will happen if enough people make it clear that their preference for stronger regulation of firearms is something that affects how they spend their money and how they cast their votes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93241/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Allen Rostron was a senior staff attorney at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence prior to becoming a law professor in 2003.
</span></em></p>The gun industry has been virtually immune from liability for the deaths and injuries caused by its products since 2005. Can this change?Allen Rostron, Associate Dean for Students and William R. Jacques Constitutional Law Scholar and Professor of Law, University of Missouri-Kansas CityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/920052018-02-16T22:02:23Z2018-02-16T22:02:23ZThe American public has power over the gun business – why doesn’t it use it?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206814/original/file-20180216-75994-1yh9slx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Attendees attend a candlelight vigil for the victims of a shooting at a Florida school.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As teenagers in Parkland, Florida, dressed for the funerals of their friends – the latest victims of a mass shooting in the U.S. – weary outrage poured forth on <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ParklandStrong&src=tyah">social media</a> and in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/15/opinion/congress-gun-progress.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=sectionfront">op-eds</a> across the country. Once again, survivors, victims’ families and critics of U.S. gun laws demanded action to address the never-ending cycle of <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44126.pdf">mass shootings</a> and <a href="http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/">routine violence</a> ravaging American neighborhoods. </p>
<p>The 14 children and three adults shot dead on Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were casualties of the nation’s <a href="http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting">30th mass shooting</a> this year – defined by the Gun Violence Archive as involving at least four victims including the injured – and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/14/health/parkland-among-deadliest-mass-shootings-trnd/index.html">one of the deadliest</a> in U.S. history. A question on many minds is whether this massacre will finally compel Washington to act. Few commentators seem to believe so. </p>
<p>If advocates for reform <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/opinion/gun-control-vegas-shooting.html">despair</a>, I can understand. The politics seem intractable. It’s easy to feel powerless. </p>
<p>But what I’ve learned from a decade of studying the history of the arms trade has convinced me that the American public has more power over the gun business than most people realize. Taxpayers have always been the arms industry’s indispensable patrons.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=363&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 maker Simeon North made this flintlock pistol around 1813.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Balefire/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Washington’s patronage</h2>
<p>The U.S. arms industry’s close alliance with the government is as old as the country itself, beginning with the American Revolution. </p>
<p>Forced to rely on <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_438624">foreign weapons</a> during the war, President George Washington wanted to ensure that the new republic had its own arms industry. Inspired by European practice, he and his successors built public arsenals for the production of firearms in Springfield and Harper’s Ferry. They also began doling out lucrative arms contracts to private manufacturers such as Simeon North, the <a href="http://www.courant.com/courant-250/moments-in-history/hc-250-simeon-north-middletown-berlin-20141223-story.html">first official U.S. pistol maker</a>, and <a href="https://www.eliwhitney.org/7/museum/eli-whitney/arms-production">Eli Whitney</a>, inventor of the cotton gin.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/638798">government provided</a> crucial startup funds, steady contracts, tariffs against foreign manufactures, robust patent laws, and patterns, tools and know-how from federal arsenals. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.academia.edu/8058237/American_Arms_Manufacturing_and_the_Onset_of_the_War_of_1812">War of 1812</a>, perpetual conflicts with Native Americans and the U.S.-Mexican War all fed the industry’s growth. By the early 1850s, the United States was emerging as a world-class arms producer. Now-iconic American companies like those started by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eliphalet-Remington">Eliphalet Remington</a> and <a href="https://connecticuthistory.org/the-colt-patent-fire-arms-manufacturing-company/">Samuel Colt</a> began to acquire international reputations. Even the mighty gun-making center of Great Britain started emulating the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/00076798900000002">American system</a> of interchangeable parts and mechanized production. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189448/original/file-20171009-9731-kwg9r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189448/original/file-20171009-9731-kwg9r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189448/original/file-20171009-9731-kwg9r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189448/original/file-20171009-9731-kwg9r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189448/original/file-20171009-9731-kwg9r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189448/original/file-20171009-9731-kwg9r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189448/original/file-20171009-9731-kwg9r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This is an advertisement for a Remington rifle in the Army and Navy Journal in 1871.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Army and Navy Journal</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Profit in war and peace</h2>
<p>The Civil War supercharged America’s burgeoning gun industry.</p>
<p>The Union poured huge sums of money into arms procurement, which manufacturers then invested in new capacity and infrastructure. By 1865, for example, Remington had made nearly <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=E86oBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=remington+Union+contracts+during+the+civil+war&source=bl&ots=TNb6SfMJxE&sig=hhrPb76HA0rOyDzbvj3PbE8VzVU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZuZfYj-LWAhUE2LwKHWSyC7cQ6AEIPTAE#v=onepage&q=earned%20nearly%20three%20million&f=false">US$3 million</a> producing firearms for the Union. The Confederacy, with its weak industrial base, had to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/historians-reveal-secrets-of-uk-gun-running-which-lengthened-the-american-civil-war-by-two-years-9557937.html">import</a> the vast majority of its weapons.</p>
<p>The war’s end meant a collapse in demand and bankruptcy for several gun makers. Those that prospered afterward, such as Colt, Remington and Winchester, did so by securing <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=VeeiAgToOq4C&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=remington%27s+contracts+with+the+Ottoman+Empire&source=bl&ots=KqHBeJro9w&sig=nZmi4Xp-ubj98K5FbldhZiVlav0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiKkeaYud_WAhUEHZQKHYknCecQ6AEILjAD#v=onepage&q=remington's%20contracts%20with%20the%20Ottoman%20Empire&f=false">contracts</a> from foreign governments and hitching their <a href="http://pamelahaag.com/writing-archive/connecticut-explored/">domestic marketing</a> to the brutal romance of the American West. </p>
<p>While peace deprived gun makers of government money for a time, it delivered a windfall to well-capitalized dealers. That’s because within five years of Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, the War Department had decommissioned most of its guns and <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b2979306;view=1up;seq=52">auctioned</a> off some 1,340,000 to private arms dealers, such as <a href="https://centerofthewest.org/2016/12/09/schuyler-hartley-graham-original-gun-dealer/">Schuyler, Hartley and Graham</a>. The Western Hemisphere’s largest private arms dealer at the time, the company scooped up warehouses full of cut-rate army muskets and rifles and <a href="http://library.centerofthewest.org/cdm/search/collection/SHG/order/identi/ad/asc">made fortunes reselling them at home</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=85nfz5URJZkC&pg=RA1-PA91&lpg=RA1-PA91&dq=%22schuyler,+hartley,+and+graham%22&source=bl&ots=PA3HCpk5Qm&sig=uEJuvgsen6rxocKadN7XFKeg5Zc&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22schuyler%2C%20hartley%2C%20and%20graham%22&f=false">abroad</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189447/original/file-20171009-6990-p3yvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189447/original/file-20171009-6990-p3yvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189447/original/file-20171009-6990-p3yvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189447/original/file-20171009-6990-p3yvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189447/original/file-20171009-6990-p3yvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189447/original/file-20171009-6990-p3yvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189447/original/file-20171009-6990-p3yvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A soldier fires the Sig Sauer P320, which the Army has chosen as its new standard pistol.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">U.S. Army</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>More wars, more guns</h2>
<p>By the late 19th century, America’s increasingly aggressive role in the world insured steady business for the country’s gun makers. </p>
<p>The Spanish American War brought a new wave of contracts, as did both <a href="https://www.remingtonsociety.org/remingtons-allied-rifle-contracts-during-wwi/">World Wars</a>, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and the dozens of smaller conflicts that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations">U.S. waged around the globe</a> in the 20th and early 21st century. As the U.S. built up the world’s most powerful military and <a href="http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/daniel-immerwahr/GUS.pdf">established bases across the globe</a>, the <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100833931">size of the contracts soared</a>. </p>
<p>Consider <a href="https://www.sigsauer.com/usage/pro/military/">Sig Sauer</a>, the New Hampshire arms producer that made the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/06/14/the-gun-the-orlando-shooter-used-was-not-an-ar-15-that-doesnt-change-much/?utm_term=.fd14defaee8e">MCX rifle</a> used in the Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre. In addition to arming <a href="http://www.monch.com/mpg/news/14-land/708-sig-sauer-takes-the-extra-mile.html">nearly a third</a> of the country’s law enforcement, it recently won the coveted <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/01/us-army-sig-sauer-p320/">contract</a> for the Army’s new standard pistol, ultimately worth $350 million to $580 million.</p>
<p>Colt might best illustrate the importance of public money for prominent civilian arms manufacturers. Maker of scores of iconic guns for the civilian market, including the AR-15 carbine used in the 1996 massacre that prompted <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704353/">Australia</a> to enact its famously sweeping gun restrictions, Colt has also relied heavily on government contracts since the 19th century. The Vietnam War initiated a long era of making M16s for the military, and the company continued to <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/071315/why-colt-went-out-business.asp">land contracts</a> as American war-making shifted from Southeast Asia to the Middle East. But Colt’s reliance on government was so great that it filed for bankruptcy in 2015, in part because it had <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/15/why-cops-and-soldiers-fell-out-of-love-with-colt-guns/">lost the military contract</a> for the M4 rifle two years earlier.</p>
<p>Overall, gun makers relied on government contracts <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/12/19/seven-facts-about-the-u-s-gun-industry/?utm_term=.2ca2524d1816">for about 40 percent</a> of their revenues in 2012. </p>
<p>Competition for contracts spurred manufacturers to make lethal innovations, such as handguns with magazines that hold 12 or 15 rounds rather than seven. Absent regulation, these innovations show up in <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/susannahbreslin/2013/08/16/gun-magazines/#6dd3a4d2215c">gun enthusiast periodicals</a>, sporting goods stores and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/how-military-guns-make-the-civilian-market/375123/">emergency rooms</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189451/original/file-20171009-6971-kzyn3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189451/original/file-20171009-6971-kzyn3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189451/original/file-20171009-6971-kzyn3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189451/original/file-20171009-6971-kzyn3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189451/original/file-20171009-6971-kzyn3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189451/original/file-20171009-6971-kzyn3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189451/original/file-20171009-6971-kzyn3e.jpg?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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An activist is led away by security after protesting during a statement by NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, left, during a news conference in response to the Connecticut school shooting in 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>NRA helped industry avoid regulation</h2>
<p>So how has the industry managed to avoid more significant regulation, especially given the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/02/politics/gun-control-polling-las-vegas-shooting/index.html">public anger and calls for legislation</a> that follow horrific massacres like the one in Las Vegas? </p>
<p>Given their historic dependence on U.S. taxpayers, one might think that small arms makers would have been compelled to make meaningful concessions in such moments. But that seldom happens, thanks in large part to the National Rifle Association, a complicated yet invaluable industry partner. </p>
<p>Prior to the 1930s, meaningful firearms regulations came from <a href="http://time.com/3921663/gun-regulation-history/">state and local governments</a>. There was little significant federal regulation until 1934, when Congress – spurred by the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/history-of-gun-control-legislation/2012/12/22/80c8d624-4ad3-11e2-9a42-d1ce6d0ed278_story.html?utm_term=.69769313c6be">bloody “Tommy gun era”</a> – debated the <a href="https://www.atf.gov/rules-and-regulations/national-firearms-act">National Firearms Act</a>. </p>
<p>The NRA, founded in 1871 as an organization focused on hunting and marksmanship, rallied its members <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=0xQsDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=NRA+and+the+1934+National+Firearms+Act&source=bl&ots=K50kyM78W0&sig=Iv19dxaW0r3LwG9L9J0AddIG6N4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjW0eCWpODWAhUJzLwKHY-bBcQ4FBDoAQguMAI#v=onepage&q=NRA%20and%20the%201934%20National%20Firearms%20Act&f=false">to defeat</a> the most important component of that bill: a tax meant to make it far more difficult to purchase handguns. Again in 1968, the NRA ensured <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29197">Lyndon Johnson’s Gun Control Act</a> wouldn’t include <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/10/05/even-in-the-1960s-the-nra-dominated-gun-control-debates/?utm_term=.e172d93ae81a">licensing and registration</a> requirements. </p>
<p>In 1989, it <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2016/01/nra-background-check-system-brady-bill-wayne-lapierre/">helped delay and water down</a> the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/1025/text/rh">Brady Act</a>, which mandated background checks for arms purchased from federally licensed dealers. In 1996 the NRA engineered a virtual ban on <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cdc-still-cant-study-causes-gun-violence-180955884/?no-ist">federal funding</a> for research into gun violence. In 2000, the group led a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/smith-and-wesson-almost-went-out-of-business-trying-to-do-the-right-thing-2013-1?r=US&IR=T">successful boycott</a> of a gun maker that cooperated with the Clinton administration on gun safety measures. And it scored another big victory in 2005, by <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/7901">limiting the industry’s liability</a> to gun-related lawsuits. </p>
<p>Most recently, the gun lobby has succeeded by promoting an ingenious <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/jun/15/nra-right-obama-coming-our-guns/">illusion</a>. It has framed government as the <a href="https://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/how-gun-industry-made-fortune-stoking-fears-obama-would-take-peoples-guns-ammo">enemy</a> of the gun business rather than its indispensable historic patron, convincing millions of American consumers that the state may <a href="http://thehill.com/regulation/248950-gun-production-has-doubled-under-obama">at any moment</a> stop them from buying guns or even try to confiscate them. </p>
<p>This helps explain why the share price of gun makers so often <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/business/gun-stocks-vegas-shooting-trump.html">jumps</a> after mass shootings. Investors know they have little to fear from new regulation and expect sales to rise anyway.</p>
<h2>A question worth asking</h2>
<p>So with the help of the NRA’s magic, major arms manufacturers <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-14/the-nra-racks-up-victories-the-atf-wants-to-give-them-more">have for decades thwarted regulations</a> that <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/22/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-of-guns-and-gun-ownership/psdt_2017-06-22-guns-00-03/">majorities of Americans support</a>. </p>
<p>Yet almost never does this <a href="https://www.citizensforethics.org/gun-companies-arm-trade-association-cash-influence-2016-elections/">political activity</a> seem to jeopardize access to lucrative government contracts. </p>
<p>Americans interested in reform might reflect on that fact. They might start asking their representatives where they get their guns. It isn’t just the military and scores of federal agencies. States, counties and local governments buy plenty of guns, too. </p>
<p>Take Smith & Wesson, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/15/florida-shooting-suspect-bought-gun-legally-authorities-say/340606002/">maker of the AR-15</a> Nikolas Cruz just used to kill his teachers and classmates at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Smith & Wesson is well into a <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lapd-officers-gun-purchase-discounts-smith-wesson-20150925-story.html">five-year contract</a> to supply handguns to the Los Angeles Police Department, the second-largest in the country. In 2016 the company <a href="https://www.nssf.org/smith-wesson-tops-nssf-gunvote-chairmans-club-with-500000-contribution/">contributed $500,000</a> (more than <a href="https://www.citizensforethics.org/gun-companies-arm-trade-association-cash-influence-2016-elections/">any other firm</a>) to a get-out-the-vote operation designed to defeat candidates who favor tougher gun laws. </p>
<p>Do voters in LA – or in the rest of the country – know that they are indirectly subsidizing the gun lobby’s campaign against regulation? Concerned citizens should begin acting like the consumers they are and holding gun makers to account for political activities that imperil public safety.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on Oct. 9, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92005/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian DeLay receives funding from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.
</span></em></p>Advocates of gun control may despair in the wake of mass shootings like the one in Parkland, Florida, but the history of government support for the gun industry shows Americans have more sway than they think.Brian DeLay, Associate Professor of History, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/869902017-12-12T02:52:18Z2017-12-12T02:52:18ZThe moral questions in the debate on what constitutes terrorism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198646/original/file-20171211-9410-cu060i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who is a terrorist?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/barcelona-spain-august-18-2017-protesters-700815841?src=y-7OhWWmRSJ__e1vT6-DtA-6-58">Evan McCaffrey/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Akayed Ullah, a 27-year-old man, has been accused of detonating a pipe bomb strapped to his body in a New York subway, injuring four people on the morning of Dec. 11. The Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating the attack and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/nyregion/explosion-times-square.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news">New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said</a> it was <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/11/us/new-york-possible-explosion-port-authority-subway/index.html">“an attempted terrorist attack.”</a></p>
<p>Just over a month ago, when Sayfullo Saipov killed eight people in New York on Oct. 31 by driving a truck through a bicycle path, it was called a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/31/us/new-york-shots-fired/index.html">terrorist act</a> within a few hours. </p>
<p>In contrast, Devin Kelley, who killed 26 people in a church in Texas, was not called a terrorist. Like <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44126.pdf">many mass shooters</a>, he had a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/11/06/texas-shooting-shows-that-domestic-violence-is-a-national-security-issue/?utm_term=.79d2689f661b">history of domestic violence</a>. His motivation was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/us/texas-shooting-church.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-ab-top-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news">supposedly rage at his ex-wife</a>. </p>
<p>This distinction between terrorist and nonterrorist mass killers is not new. The <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting/index.html">Pulse Nightclub shooter</a> in Orlando and the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-san-bernardino-shooting-terror-investigation-htmlstory.html">San Bernardino shooters </a> were quickly labeled terrorists, but not the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/index.html">Sandy Hook shooter</a> or the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/feature/las-vegas-shooting/">Las Vegas shooter</a>. Dylann Roof, who killed nine African-American churchgoers in 2015, was labeled a terrorist by <a href="https://www.salon.com/2015/06/21/we_must_call_him_a_terrorist_dylann_roof_fox_news_and_the_truth_about_why_language_matters/">some commentators</a> but <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/19/why-we-shouldnt-call-dylann-roof-a-terrorist/?utm_term=.4071bc3582f4">not others</a>. </p>
<p>Going by the accepted definitions of terrorism, some mass killers are terrorists but others are not. But, from my perspective as <a href="https://philosophy.wvu.edu/faculty-and-staff/faculty-directory/jessica-wolfendale">an ethicist</a> and <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10576100600791231?journalCode=uter20">scholar of terrorism</a> this raises some ethical questions: Is this distinction applied fairly? And are there moral differences between terrorist and nonterrorist violence? </p>
<h2>The significance of the label ‘terrorist’</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198648/original/file-20171211-9404-1xc9rxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198648/original/file-20171211-9404-1xc9rxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198648/original/file-20171211-9404-1xc9rxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198648/original/file-20171211-9404-1xc9rxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198648/original/file-20171211-9404-1xc9rxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198648/original/file-20171211-9404-1xc9rxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198648/original/file-20171211-9404-1xc9rxg.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">Law enforcement officials work following an explosion near New York’s Times Square.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Andres Kudacki</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Calling an act “terrorist” has huge implications: Terrorism is often depicted as a serious threat justifying radical counterterrorism measures, including <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2013/06/18/nsa-head-surveillance-helped-thwart-more-than-50-terror-attempts/?utm_term=.828a74f7ea93">mass surveillance</a>, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states">immigration bans</a> and even <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2011/09/07/the-case-for-torture-warrants/">torture</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, the label “terrorist” often expresses a particularly strong form of moral condemnation. Philosopher <a href="http://prospect.org/article/excusing-terror">Michael Walzer</a>, for example, calls terrorism “indefensible” because it targets innocent people and creates fear in everyday life. While we condemn all murders, terrorist murders are often regarded as particularly morally reprehensible. </p>
<p>So in thinking about whether Ullah, Saipov and other mass killers are terrorists, two questions arise: Do their actions meet an accepted definition of terrorism? And is there something about their actions that justifies strong moral condemnation and radical preventive measures? </p>
<h2>What is terrorism?</h2>
<p>Let’s first consider whether Ullah’s and Saipov’s actions count as terrorism. </p>
<p>Leading philosophers, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/igor-primoratz-150401">Igor Primoratz</a> and <a href="https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/display/person12663">C. A. J. Coady</a>, define terrorism as <a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0745651445.html">politically</a> or <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230204546_1">ideologically motivated violence</a> targeting innocent people. Other scholars, such as <a href="https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/goodin-re">Robert Goodin</a>, include the <a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0745634982.html">intention to spread fear</a>.</p>
<p>According to some reports, Ullah was “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/nyregion/explosion-times-square.html?_r=0">inspired by the Islamic State</a>.” Saipov also, like the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-shooter-omar-mateen/index.html">Pulse nightclub shooter</a>, apparently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/11/03/isis-claims-suspected-new-york-truck-attacker-as-its-soldier/?utm_term=.3843df5dad82">claimed allegiance to the IS</a>. Although he acted alone, his motivation seems ideological, he killed innocent people and spread terror. Dylann Roof also plausibly fits this <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/24528/describing-violence-charleston-shootings-label-terrorism/">definition of terrorism</a> because he was motivated by an ideology of racial hatred, despite not being charged with domestic terrorism. </p>
<p>In contrast, the Texas church shooter Kelley was apparently not ideologically motivated, even though he too killed innocent people and spread terror. So labeling some killers “terrorist” helps distinguish their motivation from killers like Kelley. </p>
<h2>Comparing terrorists and other killers</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198649/original/file-20171211-9410-ejrqo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198649/original/file-20171211-9410-ejrqo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198649/original/file-20171211-9410-ejrqo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198649/original/file-20171211-9410-ejrqo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198649/original/file-20171211-9410-ejrqo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198649/original/file-20171211-9410-ejrqo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198649/original/file-20171211-9410-ejrqo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The sun sets behind 26 crosses placed in a field before a vigil for the victims of the First Baptist Church shooting on Nov. 6, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/David J. Phillip</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But do terrorists deserve stronger moral condemnation than other mass killers? Many might argue that terrorists are particularly abhorrent for two reasons: One, ideologically motivated violence threatens innocent lives more than other forms of violence, and two, terrorism involves “<a href="http://prospect.org/article/excusing-terror">the intrusion of fear into everyday life</a>.” Reasons like these are taken to justify a range of U.S. counterterrorism responses. </p>
<p>I disagree.</p>
<p>Between December 2001 and December 2015, <a href="https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa798_1_1.pdf">five terrorist attacks killed 24 people</a>. If we include the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/orlando-shooting/victims/">2016 Orlando shooting,</a> the deadliest attack since 2001, the toll would be 73 over a 15-year period. In contrast, in the same time span mass shootings killed approximately <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths/">500 people each year</a>. And what is more shocking, between 2003 and 2014, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/07/homicides-women/534306/">over 5,000 women</a> were murdered in domestic killings. The truth is, <a href="https://ncadv.org/statistics">one in four women</a> will experience severe domestic violence in her lifetime. </p>
<p>However, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jopp.12124/abstract">I agree</a> that terrorists undermine our basic sense of security. Terrorism has serious <a href="http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/living-with-terror/html">long-term effects</a> on victims and communities. As philosopher <a href="https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/display/person8587">Karen Jones</a> explains, victims of intentional violence are more likely to be “<a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780742534797">psychologically devastated</a>” than victims of natural disasters or accidents. </p>
<p>But this is true of mass killers who are not labeled terrorists. Mass shooters have killed people in churches, cinemas and schools. Like terrorism, <a href="https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/newsletters/research-quarterly/V18N3.pdf">mass shootings</a> cause profound harm to victims and communities.</p>
<p>This is also true of domestic violence. Domestic violence severely harms <a href="http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/violence/9241593512/en/">women’s physical and mental health</a>, harms <a href="https://search.proquest.com/openview/8c7f0698d1972a68c834dd7dabdb0c7c/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1576347">children</a> and undermines women’s ability to feel safe in their intimate relationships. For scholar <a href="https://www.edsurge.com/writers/jay-lynch">Jay Sloane-Lynch</a>, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2011.01250.x/abstract">these are reasons</a> to “recognize domestic abuse for what it truly is: terrorism.” Other philosophers, such as <a href="http://philosophy.wisc.edu/card/">Claudia Card</a>, agree. </p>
<h2>The problem of inconsistency</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198650/original/file-20171211-9410-14ah2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198650/original/file-20171211-9410-14ah2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198650/original/file-20171211-9410-14ah2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198650/original/file-20171211-9410-14ah2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198650/original/file-20171211-9410-14ah2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198650/original/file-20171211-9410-14ah2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198650/original/file-20171211-9410-14ah2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Domestic violence and nonterrorist violence kills more Americans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/silhouettes-quarreling-parents-little-child-on-728258470?src=AjxFO6vnVkCQFR9lXurQ8w-1-63">Africa Studio</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even though domestic killings and nonterrorist mass shootings kill more Americans than terrorism and undermine our security, these acts typically don’t lead to calls for radical preventive measures, such as <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/06/politics/trump-guns-texas-shooting/index.html">new gun control laws</a>. Indeed, in <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/07/12/485726439/mass-shootings-influence-spike-in-gun-related-laws-at-state-level">some cases</a>, gun laws are relaxed, rather than tightened, after a mass shooting.</p>
<p>From an ethical perspective, <a href="https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/consistency-and-ethics/">that’s a problem</a>. If two acts of violence kill or injure similar numbers of people, have similar effects on victims and communities, and spread fear and terror, we, as a society, should see them as equally abhorrent, regardless of whether they are ideologically motivated. And we should see the goal of preventing such acts as equally urgent.</p>
<p>But, as I see it, most of us don’t. And that’s unfair. It’s unfair to the victims of mass killers and domestic violence, whose safety and security are not regarded as warranting the same outrage and demand for radical preventive measures that terrorist killings call for.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86990/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Wolfendale 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>A scholar asks: If two acts of violence kill similar numbers of people, have similar effects on victims and communities, and spread fear and terror, should they not be seen as equally abhorrent?Jessica Wolfendale, Associate Professor of Philosophy, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/868122017-11-14T23:42:40Z2017-11-14T23:42:40ZThe debate over what constitutes terrorism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194665/original/file-20171114-26457-hregew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A memorial for the victims of the shooting at Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church, including 25 white chairs painted with a cross and and rose, is displayed in the Texas church. A man opened fire inside the church yet his attack has not been labelled terrorism.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Eric Gay)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this month, a group of innocent people were praying in a small church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., when a gunman carrying a semiautomatic rifle opened fire and killed <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2017-11-11/community-to-honor-church-attack-victims-on-veterans-day">25 parishioners</a>. </p>
<p>Officials investigating the shooting asserted that they would not treat the attack as a terrorist act. </p>
<p>Just a few days earlier, a man in a rented truck drove down a busy bicycle path in New York City, killing eight people and injuring almost a dozen more. Officials, including New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, immediately labelled the attack “an act of terror, and a particularly cowardly act of <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/31/us/new-york-shots-fired/index.html">terror</a>.”</p>
<p>In October, another gunman named opened fire at a music festival in Las Vegas, killing at least 59 and injuring as many as 527 <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/02/las-vegas-strip-shooting-multiple-casualties-reported-near-mandalay/">people</a>. Although this attack went down as the deadliest mass shooting in American history, officials refrained from calling it a terrorist act. </p>
<p>The controversy around how acts of deadly violence are labelled has revived the old, ferocious debate about the various definitions of an act of terror. Should terrorism always be politically motivated? Is the label “terrorist” only and exclusively assigned to attacks perpetrated by Muslim individuals? Can we consider the Texas and Las Vegas shootings as apolitical forms of terrorism? </p>
<p>As a PhD candidate at the department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta, a big part of my research deals with terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida. </p>
<h2>What is terrorism?</h2>
<p>For several years, various scholars and policymakers have tried to define terrorism. The renowned professor <a href="https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/51172_ch_1.pdf">Yonah Alexander</a> defines it as “the use of violence against random civilian targets in order to intimidate or to create generalized pervasive fear for the purpose of achieving political goals.”</p>
<p>In the United States, terrorism is defined in the <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005">Code of Federal Regulations</a> as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” Unlike these two definitions highlighting political motivation, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92340&page=1">the Federal Emergency Management Agency</a>’s definition includes the use of illegal force or violence “for purposes of intimidation, coercion or ransom,” but does not require it to be politically motivated. </p>
<p>The failure to craft an agreed-upon definition of terrorism, accompanied by a growing politicization of the concept by American politicians and media outlets, has left a vacuum for different interpretations. Most disturbingly, it’s stigmatized a specific religious group — Muslims.</p>
<h2>What makes a Muslim a terrorist by default?</h2>
<p>Let’s go back to June 12, 2016, when Omar Mateen, an American with Afghan origins, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36511778">killed 49 people and wounded 58 others</a> in an armed attack inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. </p>
<p>Media outlets rushed to speculate that Mateen had perpetrated this act of terror because he’d pledged allegiance to ISIS. But I contend Mateen invoked the name of ISIS in order to add notoriety and publicity to what was then the worst mass shooting by a single shooter in American history. Mateen, after all, had been interviewed by the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting/index.html">FBI</a> in 2013 and 2014 but was not found to be a threat. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194673/original/file-20171114-26460-uefgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194673/original/file-20171114-26460-uefgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194673/original/file-20171114-26460-uefgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194673/original/file-20171114-26460-uefgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194673/original/file-20171114-26460-uefgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194673/original/file-20171114-26460-uefgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194673/original/file-20171114-26460-uefgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Norman Casiano, a survivor of the Pulse nightclub shooting, writes a note on a banner during a vigil in Orlando, Fla., in October 2017 to show solidarity with the victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas. Casiano was hiding in a bathroom stall with dozens of others when the Orlando gunman shot him twice through the stall door.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/John Raoux)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Regardless of the allegiances the shooter might have pledged, all evidence suggests it was <a href="https://theconversation.com/lets-not-get-confused-about-this-orlando-was-a-queerphobic-attack-60957">a queer-phobic attack</a>. </p>
<p>The irony is that in the American subconscious, any violent attack perpetrated by a Muslim or by someone of Middle Eastern descent is immediately and automatically deemed as an act of terror no matter what their motivations. In other words, Muslims tend to be viewed as inherently political terrorists even if they’re mentally unstable or have serious personal or family issues. </p>
<p>Mateen’s father told NBC News that his son was “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/orlando-nightclub-massacre/terror-hate-what-motivated-orlando-nightclub-shooter-n590496">enraged</a>” after seeing two men kissing in front of his family. Besides that, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ex-wife-of-suspected-orlando-shooter-he-beat-me/2016/06/12/8a1963b4-30b8-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html">Sitora Yusifiy</a>, who was briefly married to Mateen, stated that “Omar was not a stable person.”</p>
<p>When white people commit acts of domestic terror, they’re often labelled deranged, evil and mentally ill, just as <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/05/politics/trump-texas-shooting-act-evil/index.html">U.S. President Donald Trump</a> described the perpetrator in Texas.</p>
<h2>Why aren’t mass shooters considered terrorists?</h2>
<p>Apparently, it’s essential an act of violence has political motivations in order to be considered terrorism. </p>
<p>But if we move from a purpose-based to an effect-based approach, the crimes committed by white men in Texas and Las Vegas are instances of apolitical terrorism: Their deeds mimicked the spectacle of a terrorist attack without the political demand. They are acts of terror because they were intended to terrorize and punish a population of innocent people by causing the biggest number of indiscriminate causalities as possible.</p>
<p>Even after their heinous acts, Devin Kelley, the Texas shooter, and Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas killer, are afforded the privilege of being white. </p>
<p>They are not placed in a category of <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/white-men-have-committed-more-mass-shootings-any-other-group-675602">white men who commit more mass shootings than any other racial or ethnic group</a>. News reports will not place them in the category of terrorists, even though in the case of Paddock, Nevada state law defines the Las Vegas mass shooting as an act of <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/las-vegas-shooting-nevada-terrorism-state-law-act-police-stephen-paddock-a7978456.html">terrorism</a></p>
<p>According to the Trump administration, Muslims need more vetting and travel bans need to be implemented to protect the American people, but a white person can commit cold-blooded, racially motivated murder, <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/dylann-roof-making-of-an-american-terrorist">as Dylann Roof did in South Carolina,</a> and simply be described as mentally unstable and deranged. </p>
<p>This is the most common and widespread explanation every time white men gun down countless innocent people, even when medical evidence backing up a mental illness diagnosis is lacking. It’s high time Trump comes up with a system that vets white people — particularly when it comes to the ease with which they can obtain guns — in order to address the plague of terrorism by white Americans.</p>
<p>I sometimes wonder if white people themselves are aware of how often the <a href="https://theconversation.com/charlottesville-white-educators-need-to-fight-racism-every-day-82550">crimes committed by their racial group are excused or minimized</a> under the guise of anxiety, mental illness, drug addiction, depression and BS fragility sensitivity syndrome (yes, I made up that last one).</p>
<p>Am I saying that excuses and pretexts should be provided when Muslims, Black or brown people commit terrible crimes? Absolutely not. </p>
<p>My point is that all attacks of this nature — regardless of the race, colour, and ethnicity of the perpetrator — are acts of terror. There should not be a disentangling of the motives of the attacks almost the instant they’ve happened. The gravity of the butcheries committed in mass shootings are so horrific, it is terrorism, pure and simple. Time to label it as such.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86812/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Houssem Ben Lazreg 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>White men routinely gun down innocent victims in mass shootings in the United States. Yet they are not branded terrorists the way Muslims who commit violent acts are. Why not?Houssem Ben Lazreg, PhD Candidate/ Teaching Assistant of French/ Freelance Translator/Interpreter, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/856102017-11-06T02:48:32Z2017-11-06T02:48:32ZWhat the NRA can teach us about the art of public persuasion<p>Today’s mass shooting at a small Baptist church in the small Texas town of <a href="http://time.com/5010772/texas-sutherland-springs-church-shooting/">Sutherland Springs</a> highlights the role of pro-gun advocates in blocking the progress of effective gun control.</p>
<p>Such advocacy often reflects the persuasive power of “issue management” – a communication process that enables organisations to isolate public issues and steer them in a direction that suits their interests. In the case of the terrible mass-shooting in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/10/02/police-shut-down-part-of-las-vegas-strip-due-to-shooting/?utm_term=.cb00b40a31e0">Las Vegas</a>, the NRA turned a potential PR disaster into a near-triumph.</p>
<p>This approach has been used since the early 1980s, when issues management was developed as a strategy to help US businesses compete on an equal footing in setting the social agenda. It was soon adopted around the world by governments, non-profits, community groups and activist organisations. </p>
<h2>Controlling the headlines</h2>
<p>Usually it’s pretty transparent who’s managing the issue and trying to persuade the public, the government or some other decision maker. </p>
<p>For example we know broadly who is trying to convince us to vote <a href="http://www.equalitycampaign.org.au/join?splash=1">for</a> or <a href="http://australianmarriage.org">against</a> same-sex marriage, or to <a href="http://www.adaniaustralia.com">support</a> or <a href="https://www.acf.org.au">oppose</a> the Adani coal mine, or to join the campaign to <a href="http://www.duck.org.au">ban duck-shooting</a> in Victoria.</p>
<p>But sometimes it is much less clear. A case in point is the television campaign purportedly launched by Australian convenience-store owners to oppose plain packaging of cigarettes, which turned out to be <a href="https://mumbrella.com.au/tobacco-funded-lobby-group-begins-attack-ads-31056">funded</a> by Big Tobacco. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191525/original/file-20171024-20375-o2umwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191525/original/file-20171024-20375-o2umwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191525/original/file-20171024-20375-o2umwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191525/original/file-20171024-20375-o2umwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191525/original/file-20171024-20375-o2umwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191525/original/file-20171024-20375-o2umwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191525/original/file-20171024-20375-o2umwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A section of the advertisement that appeared in the Australian media that was actually partly funded by the tobacco industry.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fact some of the most effective issue management is only partly visible to the public, and in some cases is never seen at all in the mainstream media. </p>
<p>Conversely, there are rare occasions when a major controversy is fought out almost entirely in the headlines and the issue management is laid bare for all to see.</p>
<h2>NRA agenda setting</h2>
<p>Whatever you think of the National Rifle Association you have to give them credit for some highly effective issue management. In the wake of the shooting rampage in Las Vegas, they could have dusted off their usual response after every previous mass shooting. </p>
<p>But instead, the plotters at NRA came up with an audacious new approach – they called for a review of the so-called <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/04/us/bump-stock-las-vegas-gun.html">bump stocks</a>, which are devices retrofitted to turn a legal semi-automatic weapon into an illegal automatic killing machine. </p>
<p>Bump stocks allow the gun to fire faster than you can manually pull the trigger, which is how the Las Vegas shooter could fire so many shots in such a short time.</p>
<p>In issue management terms, the NRA’s strategy was a classic case of “look over here” while maintaining its devotion to its core objectives.</p>
<p>By seeming to give away something that is peripheral to the gun rights issue, the NRA implemented a perfect example of the tried and true “issue diversion tactic”. In doing so, it positioned itself as part of the solution, rather than as a key part of the problem.</p>
<h2>The long and short of it</h2>
<p>While some issue management campaigns are very long-term - like the decades-long tussle over cigarette sales - there are also occasions when the issue management strategy seems to be a short-term initiative explicitly designed to influence the media headlines (such as the NRA campaign).</p>
<p>Commentators and reporters in the US and elsewhere rushed to express amazement that the NRA was actually “supporting gun control”. Headlines around the world hyped a minor concession on bump stocks into an apparently substantive change of direction.<br>
For example, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/las-vegas-shooting-leads-1st-signs-movement-gun-50313809">ABC America</a> headlined it: “Las Vegas shooting leads to first signs of movement in gun control stalemate” and The Orange County Register <a href="http://www.ocregister.com/2017/10/05/gun-control-war-dramatically-changes-with-gop-nra-agreeing-to-regulations/">trumpeted</a>: “Gun control war dramatically changes with GOP, NRA agreeing to regulations.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in Australia the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/worldtoday/nra-supports-crackdown-on-rapid-fire-device-used-in-las-vegas/9023098">ABC</a> reported: “NRA supports crackdown on rapid-fire device used in Las Vegas” and <a href="https://sputniknews.com/us/201710051057987478-NRA-additional-gun-control-las-vegas-shooting/">Sputnik News</a> carried the headline “NRA calls for additional gun control following Las Vegas massacre.”</p>
<p>Overall the NRA’s strategy produced a real media win, placing itself at the centre of claimed reform. At the same time the group also achieved political success. </p>
<p>Republican politicians were predictably quick to embrace a call for “<a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/paul-ryan-indicates-support-for-banning-bump-stocks/article/2636677">sensible regulation</a>” which they could endorse without alienating their gun-rights-endorsing voters. </p>
<p>Even anti-gun Democrats had little choice but to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/04/dianne-feinstein-bump-stocks-senate-gun-control-bill">support the proposal</a>, thus delivering a faux image of bipartisanship, with the NRA appearing as honest broker. </p>
<p>The NRA’s plan was an ingenious win-win for them – though not for actual gun control. </p>
<h2>The art of issue management</h2>
<p>Issue management is a serious discipline taught in universities and practised in boardrooms around the world. </p>
<p>It can be used by a corporation to persuade the government and the public to accept construction of a new toll road, or by the government to encourage childhood vaccination. Or it might be used by a non-profit to increase funding to combat aboriginal inequality, or to drive domestic violence onto the national agenda. </p>
<p>Yet issue management has always had its critics, who claim it is often just a mask for manipulation and everything that is bad about public relations. </p>
<p>There is a <a href="http://www.issueoutcomes.com.au/Websites/issueoutcomes/Images/Embedding%20IM%20for%20crisis%20prevention%20DPMJ.pdf">large body of literature</a> and evidence to refute this assertion, but some controversial cases undoubtedly give strength to the critics who claim it is all about “dirty tricks,” like the example of Big Tobacco’s “hidden” campaign against plain packaging of cigarettes.</p>
<p>Whatever you think of the NRA, their response to the Las Vegas tragedy was a lesson in well executed issue management - and we can expect them to use a similar strategy in response to today’s tragedy. It’s just a shame that such strategic audacity wasn’t applied in support of a more worthy cause.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85610/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Jaques 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>In the wake of the Vegas shooting, the NRA has turned the public’s attention away from the core issue of banning guns by using a business strategy called issue management.Tony Jaques, Senior Research Associate, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/855192017-10-18T23:31:14Z2017-10-18T23:31:14ZWhy is there so little research on guns in the US? 5 questions answered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190699/original/file-20171017-30394-1qzmcxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5300%2C3176&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With no money to research guns, there's no evidence to base policy on.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dahlstroms/16344250606">Håkan Dahlström</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/12/us/las-vegas-shooting-investigation-updates/index.html">Stephen Paddock opened fire</a> Oct. 1 on concertgoers in Las Vegas, killing 59, the city became the unfortunate host of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Investigators are still trying to piece together the events that took place that evening, and why. </p>
<p>Like other recent mass shootings, the events in Las Vegas were quickly followed by <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/angry-democrats-demand-action-guns-after-las-vegas-shooting-n806561">demands for change</a> to gun control policy.</p>
<p>But which policy do we choose? Following the Las Vegas shooting, debate has focused on <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/sen-lankford-congress-address-issue-bump-stocks/">bump stocks</a>, accessories that allow a semiautomatic weapon to fire more rapidly. Will restrictions on them help prevent another mass shooting? Is there a better policy option?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the research we need to answer these questions doesn’t exist – and part of the problem is that the federal government largely doesn’t support it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190892/original/file-20171018-32355-vll154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190892/original/file-20171018-32355-vll154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190892/original/file-20171018-32355-vll154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190892/original/file-20171018-32355-vll154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190892/original/file-20171018-32355-vll154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190892/original/file-20171018-32355-vll154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190892/original/file-20171018-32355-vll154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190892/original/file-20171018-32355-vll154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Congresspeople call for action on gun safety legislation on Oct. 4.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Congress-Las-Vegas-Shooting/1acfe79287294019a8e995009b215e7e/1/0">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. Why do we need research about guns?</h2>
<p>Gun violence is a public health issue. It’s a leading cause of premature death in the United States, killing more people each year than diseases like HIV, hypertension and viral hepatitis.</p>
<p>While <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/21/5-facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/">violent crime has generally been on the decline</a> since the mid-1990s, the latest reports from the FBI suggest <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016">crime rates may be starting to increase</a>. Gun crime has been a persistent problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm">33,594 individuals</a> were killed by firearms in 2014 alone. That’s only about 200 less than the number of <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm">people killed in motor vehicle accidents</a>. In 2015, roughly <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/nonfatal.html">85,000 people were injured by firearms</a>, including nearly 10,000 children.</p>
<p>In order to prevent gun injuries and deaths, we need accurate information about how they occur and why. While police reports and <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016">FBI data</a> can provide some detail, they don’t include the thousands of cases that go unreported each year. Between 2006 and 2010, the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that more than a third of victims of crimes involving a firearm <a href="https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vnrp0610.pdf">did not report the crime to police</a>. The <a href="https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&iid=245">National Crime Victimization Survey</a>, which collects victimization data from about 90,000 households each year, helps to fill in this gap. However, even this survey has its drawbacks. It doesn’t collect data from youth younger than 12, it doesn’t include murder and it doesn’t help us fully understand the offender’s motivations and beliefs.</p>
<p>Social scientists like me need more research in order to get the level of detail we need about gun crime. There’s just one major roadblock: The federal government won’t fund it.</p>
<h2>2. How much federal money is there?</h2>
<p>In 1996, Congress passed the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/10/09/447098666/ex-rep-dickey-regrets-restrictive-law-on-gun-violence-research">Dickey Amendment</a>. The legislation stated that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” While that wording did not ban CDC gun research outright, the legislation was accompanied by a <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/cdc-launched-comprehensive-gun-study-15-years/story?id=39873289">US$2.6 million budget cut</a>. That amount happened to match the amount the CDC had spent on firearms research the previous year. The message was clear. From 1996 to 2013, CDC funding for gun research <a href="http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence.aspx">dropped by 96 percent</a>. </p>
<p>The CDC wasn’t the only federal agency affected. In 2011, Congress added a similar clause to legislation that regulated funding for the National Institutes of Health. However, due to a <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/nih-quietly-shelves-gun-research-program">directive from the Obama administration</a>, the NIH continued to provide funding for gun research. That push faded as the Obama administration left office.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, the <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2017/10/03/nih-gun-research-funding-las-vegas-shooting/">NIH discontinued its funding program</a> that specifically focused on firearm violence. While firearms researchers can still apply for funding through more general NIH funding opportunities, critics say that makes <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/nih-quietly-shelves-gun-research-program">funding for gun research less likely</a>.</p>
<h2>3. What prompted these funding restrictions?</h2>
<p>The Dickey Amendment was passed after a <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199310073291506">CDC-funded study</a> led by physician and epidemiologist Arthur Kellerman found that having a gun in the home increased homicide risk. After the results were published, the National Rifle Association pressured lawmakers, arguing that the CDC was <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-10-08/congress-has-chance-lift-its-prohibition-cdc-gun-research-it-wont">inappropriately using its funds to advocate for gun control</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190893/original/file-20171018-32378-1gtp7nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190893/original/file-20171018-32378-1gtp7nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190893/original/file-20171018-32378-1gtp7nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190893/original/file-20171018-32378-1gtp7nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190893/original/file-20171018-32378-1gtp7nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190893/original/file-20171018-32378-1gtp7nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190893/original/file-20171018-32378-1gtp7nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190893/original/file-20171018-32378-1gtp7nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&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 NRA spends a lot of money supporting political campaigns, including that of President Trump.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump/eaeb2983174147758196b0007ae6deb6/26/0">AP Photo/Mike Stewart</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Opposition from the NRA is serious business for lawmakers. The NRA is one of the most powerful special interest lobbying organizations in the U.S. In 2014 alone, the NRA spent more than <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35261394">$3.3 million</a> on lobbying activities – things like meeting with politicians, drafting model legislation and advertising.</p>
<p>The NRA also spends additional millions to advocate or oppose political candidates. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nra-power-lobbying-statistics-gun-control-2017-10/#while-the-cigarette-pharmaceutical-and-insurance-industries-spend-far-more-the-nra-spends-nearly-10-times-as-much-as-the-biggest-gun-control-lobbying-group-in-the-country-1">In 2016, the NRA spent</a> nearly $20 million on efforts opposing Hillary Clinton and nearly $10 million on efforts supporting Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the NRA has successfully <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/14/inside-the-nra-the-officials-keeping-gun-control-laws-off-the-us-agenda">blocked gun control legislation</a> in the past, including renewal of the 2004 assault weapons ban.</p>
<h2>4. Can state or private sector dollars fill the gap?</h2>
<p>Another potential option for research is to seek out funding from private agencies or philanthropists. But few of these opportunities are available.</p>
<p>According to Garen Wintemute, director of the <a href="http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp/">Violence Prevention Research Program</a> at the University of California, Davis Medical Center, <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/12/gun_violence_research_nra_and_congress_blocked_gun_control_studies_at_cdc.html">fewer than five private organizations are willing</a> to provide gun research funding.</p>
<p>Private funding is also somewhat risky for researchers. If a funder has a political leaning on gun-related issues, the researcher may be under pressure to produce the “right” results. Even just the implication that a researcher could have a conflict of interest can undermine a study’s results and perceived legitimacy. </p>
<p>State funding may be another option. In 2016, California announced its intent to fund the <a href="https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/nation%E2%80%99s-first-state-funded-firearm-violence-research-center-be-established-uc-davis/">University of California Firearm Violence Research Center</a>. This is the first time a state has stepped forward to fund a research center focused on guns. California remains the only state to take this step.</p>
<h2>5. Has gun research stopped?</h2>
<p>The lack of funding has discouraged firearms research. Many researchers are employed within academia. In this publish-or-perish environment, researchers are under pressure to publish their work in academic journals and fund it through sources beyond their home institution. Without outside funding, their research often isn’t possible. Leading firearms researcher Garen Wintemute says “<a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-wintemute-20170714-story.html">no more than a dozen active, experienced investigators</a> in the United States have focused their careers primarily on firearm violence.” </p>
<p>Lack of funding leaves some researchers, like myself, limited to small-scale studies with a low budget. The problem with studies like these is that they are often based on samples that are not nationally representative. That means we can’t generalize from the findings or address all the questions we might have.</p>
<p>Without increased funding for gun research, it will be extremely difficult for researchers to provide accurate answers to the gun policy questions currently under debate.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article has been updated with the correct name of the Las Vegas suspect.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85519/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lacey Wallace 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>Horrific mass shootings in the US typically renew the national debate about gun policy. A gun researcher explains the lack of funding for study in this area and what that means for informed policy.Lacey Wallace, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/853622017-10-11T23:18:45Z2017-10-11T23:18:45ZIn Las Vegas, excess and fantasy bleed into tragedy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189659/original/file-20171010-17691-8ohv47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tourists play slot machines at the Paris Las Vegas hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Casino-Downturn/e7eee06a48e24399b965e1b85329e8b3/97/0">Jae C. Hong/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Sin City, people often do bad things to themselves. </p>
<p>Rather than deal with their lapses – moral, financial, marital – there’s a <a href="http://theweek.com/articles/459434/brief-history-what-happens-vegas-stays-vegas">ready-made marketing slogan</a> to fall back on: “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”</p>
<p>It’s a way of permitting yourself to indulge, and Vegas casinos – built on a manic dynamic of gambling, sex and food consumption – make their owners billions of bucks off this mantra. </p>
<p>Although living a long 60-mile desert drive from the city, Stephen Paddock spent most of his time there gambling. How did a seemingly happy habitual casino player conjure up serial murder by killing and injuring hundreds using enough firepower to equip a small army? </p>
<p>As an urban sociologist, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=0RT1XqkLy7gC&dq=Las+Vegas+Mark+Gottdiener&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjci_D84ubWAhVGw4MKHShLBFkQ6AEIJjAA">I’ve written about</a> how Las Vegas operates as a “themed environment,” one that channels the power of fantasy to promote a form of boundless, excessive indulgence.</p>
<p>We may never know Stephen Paddock’s true motives. But what if his horrific act were to be interpreted through this lens of fantasy and indulgence?</p>
<h2>The power of theme</h2>
<p>The famous French literary critic <a href="https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-barthes-1/">Roland Barthes</a> was the first to discuss the multilayered power of “the sign” as a myth that can project multiple meanings, while uniting them under the umbrella of a “megatheme.” For example, he saw the Eiffel Tower as a structure that fused early industrialization with modernity, as well as the international symbol of Paris.</p>
<p>The American semiotician Charles S. Peirce had a similar name for this phenomenon; <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/">he called it</a> an “icon.” Think of the American flag. It means different things to different people and, simultaneously, the same thing to millions. </p>
<p>Any themed environment, from Disneyland to the Olive Garden, uses an overarching message to unite consumers around a single purpose, whether it’s a reverie of youthful innocence or the prospect of an abundant, family-style Italian dinner. </p>
<p>These signals – conveyed and repeated through architecture, design, advertisements, logos and slogans – have the power to attract large audiences in a way so that each individual can find something meaningful in the consumer experience. </p>
<h2>Eat the most, spend the most, win the most…</h2>
<p>I argue that in Las Vegas, the sign of “excess” is the unifying element of its themed environment. And I’ve compared its culture <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/semi.2011.2011.issue-183/semi.2011.007/semi.2011.007.xml">to that of Dubai</a>, a Middle Eastern city that has experienced rapid development over the past 20 years.</p>
<p>Yet the two are distinct. In Dubai, excess is purely symbolic and simplistic, with every material object directly alluding to it. Hotel rooms cost thousands of dollars a night. They come with gold faucets, gold beds, gold bedding – gold everywhere. </p>
<p>You don’t need to be rich to go to Las Vegas. But its excess is palatable, with threads that work through a range of connotative associations. Buffets compete for the privilege of serving the most food; casinos promote games with the allure of “whale” level jackpots; luxury goods, gold or otherwise, saturate hotel rooms and shopping malls; and spectacular shows take place on a nightly basis. Excess in Las Vegas cues the lizard brain to indulge and spend.</p>
<p>Although people may imagine that they journey there to be winners, they are merely on a conveyor belt of excessive consumerism <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2016/03/28/las-vegas-flier-hits-933080-jackpot-airport-slot-machine/82351206/">the moment they step off the plane</a>. When casinos began a copycat period of renovations in the late 1970s, they started incorporating shopping malls and Godzilla-scale buffets, inventing a closed circuit of excessive spending. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189660/original/file-20171010-19989-hyljqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189660/original/file-20171010-19989-hyljqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189660/original/file-20171010-19989-hyljqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189660/original/file-20171010-19989-hyljqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189660/original/file-20171010-19989-hyljqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189660/original/file-20171010-19989-hyljqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189660/original/file-20171010-19989-hyljqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Patrons take food from the buffet line at Las Vegas Hilton, which set a Guinness world record for the largest buffet in 2006.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Nevada-United-St-/d421ec9c0be8da11af9f0014c2589dfb/7/0">Jae C. Hong/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, fantasies of the Old West, Ancient Egypt, the circus and tropical paradise are built into casino environments that, at their core, simply offer different flavors of the same thing: manic gambling, eating, drinking and sex. </p>
<p>Perhaps this is why Ceasars Palace has no apostrophe after the “r.” In Las Vegas, everyone can be a Roman emperor, even if they cannot be an Arab prince.</p>
<p>We don’t know much about Stephen Paddock, the mass murderer. But we do know that he wagered <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-vegas-shooting-gambler-20171009-story.html">excessive amounts of money every day</a>. It was his way of life, and he could afford it.</p>
<p>Excess is also one way to end your life. Just look at “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070130/">La Grande Bouffe</a>,” James Gandolfini, Orson Welles or any celebrity who took what’s called an “overdose” to die. </p>
<h2>Kill the most?</h2>
<p>“Smokin’ Aces” was a 2006 Hollywood film directed and written by Joe Carnahan. It tells the story of an assortment of assassins who have been ordered to kill a Las Vegas entertainer set to testify against a casino mob boss. The heavily armed assassins converge on a hotel where the entertainer is holed up awaiting trial; one sets up a M82 50 caliber sniper rifle on a tripod, similar to Paddock. The ensuing mayhem results in at least 20 law enforcement officials and civilians dead or wounded. </p>
<p>Of course, this was only a fantasy. Nobody died. New York Times film critic A.O. Scott <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/movies/26smok.html">called it</a> a “dumb film,” adding that it might cause “dumbness in others.” Carnahan, the auteur, went on to do two more “Smokin” films, so popular was the (dumb) original. </p>
<p>There’s something fitting about Las Vegas being a place where a fictional fantasy ended up mirroring tragic reality. In the wake of the shooting, conspiracy rumors abound. Law enforcement officials and the news media report little about Paddock’s motives. I don’t possess any more knowledge than they do. </p>
<p>However, I do wonder if Paddock, as he slapped those automatic rifles onto tripods, had Las Vegas-style excess – high stakes, big numbers, bright lights, the book of Guinness – dancing through his mind.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85362/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Gottdiener 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>Excessive indulgence is the city’s unifying theme. It’s also a way to end your life. Just ask Stephen Paddock.Mark Gottdiener, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University at BuffaloLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/852442017-10-10T19:15:34Z2017-10-10T19:15:34ZOversimplifying gun control issues can pose a real threat to community safety<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189477/original/file-20171010-25631-x7vqa4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Compliance with firearms legislation requires co-operation between lawmakers, police, gun dealers, and those with a legitimate interest in using firearms.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>America’s <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/las-vegas-shooting/las-vegas-gunman-stephen-paddock-kept-firing-10-minutes-police-n807831">worst mass shooting</a> in recent history has left some in the US <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/21884/should-us-adopt-australias-gun-laws-heres-why-james-barrett">looking to Australia</a> for lessons on how best to implement gun control.</p>
<p>While there are important questions we should be asking about the current state of gun control in Australia, many of the claims about how well or poorly it is working oversimplify the issues of control and compliance.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/imported-factoids-should-have-no-place-in-australias-gun-control-debates-48741">Imported factoids should have no place in Australia’s gun control debates</a></strong></em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Left up to the state and territories</h2>
<p>Australia has largely been considered the global poster child of gun legislation since the <a href="http://www.nma.gov.au/online_features/defining_moments/featured/port_arthur_massacre">Port Arthur massacre</a> in 1996 inspired the <a href="http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/rpp/100-120/rpp116/06_reforms.html">National Firearms Agreement</a>.</p>
<p>The agreement is a national guideline; each state and territory has the responsibility and jurisdiction to implement their own legislation. Differences between states are therefore inevitable. </p>
<p>Like all legislation, firearms laws also evolve and change over time. This is the right course of action: policymakers ought to respond to society’s changing needs. In some instances, this may mean tightening restrictions. In others, it may mean loosening restrictions that are not contributing to community safety.</p>
<p>Some of these similarities and differences between Australian jurisdictions include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>All states list possession of a restricted firearm as an offence. </p></li>
<li><p>In all states, it is illegal to manufacture a firearm without permission.</p></li>
<li><p>All states prohibit the modification of a firearm that would deface or de-identify a firearm (this helps keep track of firearms and allows for a gun registry).</p></li>
<li><p>The use and attachment of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/10/05/what-exactly-are-bump-stocks-and-why-do-they-matter-now/?utm_term=.895add2c0676">bump fire stocks</a>, like that used in the Las Vegas shooting, is restricted across all Australian states and territories in some way, shape or form.</p></li>
<li><p>Firearms suppressors (commonly referred to as silencers) are also restricted. In some states, suppressors can be used with a licence.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Each state must decide how best to implement the National Firearms Agreement in ways that allow them to enforce it and foster compliance. Each will have its own capacity to do so, as well as its own political, social, and community contexts that shape the state’s laws. </p>
<p>The agreement’s most pertinent provisions remain intact. One of its primary benefits is not the specific ways in which it has been implemented, but that it provides a basis for the socialisation of firearms. It provides important norms about how and why firearms should be used, how to store them safely, and how to prevent them from getting into the hands of those who pose a danger.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/documents/6936-firearm-legislation-in-australia-21-years-after-the-national-firearms-agreement/file">recent report</a> claimed that despite restrictions, all Australian states and territories allow minors <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/oct/05/gun-control-audit-finds-states-failed-to-fully-comply-with-1996-agreement?CMP=soc_568">access to firearms</a>. In general, a minor’s access to firearms is allowed under specific conditions, and this is a departure from the original 1996 agreement and its <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/LegalSystem/Firearms/Documents/2017-national-firearms-agreement.pdf">revision in 2017</a>. However, this is an over-simplification of reality.</p>
<p>In Queensland, for example, minors can obtain a licence for shooting sports or rural primary production (the only instances where minors can obtain a licence) provided they:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>undertake a firearms safety course;</p></li>
<li><p>have written approval from a parent or guardian; and</p></li>
<li><p>be able to state why and where their firearms use will take place.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Young people growing up on rural farms will inevitably need knowledge of firearms to use them responsibly. Early socialisation under adult supervision is hardly problematic in this instance. If people choose to take up firearms for sport or use on the land, we should want them socialised into responsible users of these firearms from an early age.</p>
<p>Responsible behaviour <a href="https://www.dl.icdst.org/pdfs/files1/44057e6e3fd2820a14fa7bec19d75968.pdf">is learned</a>, just as deviant behaviour is learned. Young people who have a legitimate interest in shooting sport or primary production need responsible teachers and mentors to demonstrate responsible behaviour. </p>
<p>There is no peer-reviewed evidence we know of that suggests minors with access to firearms under these conditions in Australia is problematic. </p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-us-gun-control-compares-to-the-rest-of-the-world-79490">How US gun control compares to the rest of the world</a></strong></em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Compliance hinges on co-operation and a common-sense debate</h2>
<p>Compliance with firearms legislation requires co-operation between lawmakers, police, gun dealers, and those with a legitimate interest in using firearms.</p>
<p>There are many instances of this type of co-operation working well. For example, the <a href="https://firearmsamnesty.ag.gov.au/Pages/home.aspx">recent firearms amnesty</a>, which aimed to reduce the number of unregistered firearms in Australia, was supported by several groups that <a href="https://ssaa.org.au/news-resources/politics/ssaa-secures-successful-amnesty-model/">represent legal gun owners</a>.</p>
<p>For co-operation to continue, discussion of firearms legislation, implementation and compliance must refrain from extreme views at either end of the spectrum. </p>
<p>Extreme views do not allow a commonsense debate to take place. Instead, they restrict the ability of law enforcement and policymakers to respond to concerns about gun-related crime and violence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85244/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suzanna Fay-Ramirez consults with Queensland Police Service, NSW Police Service, and the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia. She receives funding from Sporting Shooters Association of Australia and The University of Queensland. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Belgrove receives funding from The University of Queensland. </span></em></p>Gun control in Australia is not a black-and-white issue, and it’s time we had a public debate that reflected that fact.Suzanna Fay-Ramirez, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, The University of QueenslandEmma Belgrove, Research Assistant in Criminology, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/851672017-10-09T23:23:18Z2017-10-09T23:23:18ZHow the US government created and coddled the gun industry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189471/original/file-20171009-25649-1ts0kj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A U.S. soldier fires a Colt M16 in Vietnam in 1967.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Operation_“Cook”,_8_September_1967,_Quang_Ngai_Province,_Republic_of_Vietnam-R.C._Lafoon.PNG">U.S. Army</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After Stephen Paddock opened fire on Las Vegas concertgoers on Oct. 1, <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/354448-talk-of-gun-control-dominates-sunday-shows-after-las-vegas">many people responded</a> with calls for more gun control to help prevent <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44126.pdf">mass shootings</a> and the <a href="http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/">routine violence</a> ravaging U.S. neighborhoods. </p>
<p>But besides a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/top-house-republicans-open-to-legislation-regulating-bump-stocks/2017/10/05/4580cb54-a9dc-11e7-b3aa-c0e2e1d41e38_story.html?utm_term=.640105e36861">rare consensus</a> on restricting the availability of <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/rounds/nra-bump-stocks-fox-news-wayne-lapierre-chris-cox/">so-called bump stocks</a>, which Paddock used to enable his dozen semi-automatic rifles to fire like machine guns, it’s unclear if <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/opinion/banning-bump-stocks-wont-solve-anything.html?_r=0">anything meaningful</a> will come of it. </p>
<p>If advocates for reform <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/opinion/gun-control-vegas-shooting.html">despair</a> after such a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/10/02/why-congress-still-wont-do-something-about-gun-laws-after-las-vegas/">tragedy</a>, I can understand. The politics seem intractable right now. It’s easy to feel powerless. </p>
<p>But what I’ve learned from a decade of studying the history of the arms trade has convinced me that the American public has more power over the gun business than most people realize. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189449/original/file-20171009-6999-una1zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=363&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 maker Simeon North made this flintlock pistol around 1813.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Balefire/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Washington’s patronage</h2>
<p>The U.S. arms industry’s close alliance with the government is as old as the country itself, beginning with the American Revolution. </p>
<p>Forced to rely on <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_438624">foreign weapons</a> during the war, President George Washington wanted to ensure that the new republic had its own arms industry. Inspired by European practice, he and his successors built public arsenals for the production of firearms in Springfield and Harper’s Ferry. They also began doling out lucrative arms contracts to private manufacturers such as Simeon North, the <a href="http://www.courant.com/courant-250/moments-in-history/hc-250-simeon-north-middletown-berlin-20141223-story.html">first official U.S. pistol maker</a>, and <a href="https://www.eliwhitney.org/7/museum/eli-whitney/arms-production">Eli Whitney</a>, inventor of the cotton gin.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/638798">government provided</a> crucial startup funds, steady contracts, tariffs against foreign manufactures, robust patent laws, and patterns, tools and know-how from federal arsenals. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.academia.edu/8058237/American_Arms_Manufacturing_and_the_Onset_of_the_War_of_1812">War of 1812</a>, perpetual conflicts with Native Americans and the U.S.-Mexican War all fed the industry’s growth. By the early 1850s, the United States was emerging as a world-class arms producer. Now-iconic American companies like those started by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eliphalet-Remington">Eliphalet Remington</a> and <a href="https://connecticuthistory.org/the-colt-patent-fire-arms-manufacturing-company/">Samuel Colt</a> began to acquire international reputations. Even the mighty gun-making center of Great Britain started emulating the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/00076798900000002">American system</a> of interchangeable parts and mechanized production. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189448/original/file-20171009-9731-kwg9r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189448/original/file-20171009-9731-kwg9r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189448/original/file-20171009-9731-kwg9r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189448/original/file-20171009-9731-kwg9r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189448/original/file-20171009-9731-kwg9r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189448/original/file-20171009-9731-kwg9r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189448/original/file-20171009-9731-kwg9r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This is an advertisement for a Remington rifle in the Army and Navy Journal in 1871.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Army and Navy Journal</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Profit in war and peace</h2>
<p>The Civil War supercharged America’s burgeoning gun industry.</p>
<p>The Union poured huge sums of money into arms procurement, which manufacturers then invested in new capacity and infrastructure. By 1865, for example, Remington had made nearly <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=E86oBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=remington+Union+contracts+during+the+civil+war&source=bl&ots=TNb6SfMJxE&sig=hhrPb76HA0rOyDzbvj3PbE8VzVU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZuZfYj-LWAhUE2LwKHWSyC7cQ6AEIPTAE#v=onepage&q=earned%20nearly%20three%20million&f=false">US$3 million</a> producing firearms for the Union. The Confederacy, with its weak industrial base, had to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/historians-reveal-secrets-of-uk-gun-running-which-lengthened-the-american-civil-war-by-two-years-9557937.html">import</a> the vast majority of its weapons.</p>
<p>The war’s end meant a collapse in demand and bankruptcy for several gun makers. Those that prospered afterward, such as Colt, Remington and Winchester, did so by securing <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=VeeiAgToOq4C&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=remington%27s+contracts+with+the+Ottoman+Empire&source=bl&ots=KqHBeJro9w&sig=nZmi4Xp-ubj98K5FbldhZiVlav0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiKkeaYud_WAhUEHZQKHYknCecQ6AEILjAD#v=onepage&q=remington's%20contracts%20with%20the%20Ottoman%20Empire&f=false">contracts</a> from foreign governments and hitching their <a href="http://pamelahaag.com/writing-archive/connecticut-explored/">domestic marketing</a> to the brutal romance of the American West. </p>
<p>While peace deprived gun makers of government money for a time, it delivered a windfall to well capitalized dealers. That’s because within five years of Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, the War Department had decommissioned most of its guns and <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b2979306;view=1up;seq=52">auctioned</a> off some 1,340,000 to private arms dealers, such as <a href="https://centerofthewest.org/2016/12/09/schuyler-hartley-graham-original-gun-dealer/">Schuyler, Hartley and Graham</a>. The Western Hemisphere’s largest private arms dealer at the time, the company scooped up warehouses full of cut-rate army muskets and rifles and <a href="http://library.centerofthewest.org/cdm/search/collection/SHG/order/identi/ad/asc">made fortunes reselling them at home</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=85nfz5URJZkC&pg=RA1-PA91&lpg=RA1-PA91&dq=%22schuyler,+hartley,+and+graham%22&source=bl&ots=PA3HCpk5Qm&sig=uEJuvgsen6rxocKadN7XFKeg5Zc&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22schuyler%2C%20hartley%2C%20and%20graham%22&f=false">abroad</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189447/original/file-20171009-6990-p3yvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189447/original/file-20171009-6990-p3yvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189447/original/file-20171009-6990-p3yvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189447/original/file-20171009-6990-p3yvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189447/original/file-20171009-6990-p3yvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189447/original/file-20171009-6990-p3yvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189447/original/file-20171009-6990-p3yvkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A soldier fires the Sig Sauer P320, which the Army has chosen as its new standard pistol.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">U.S. Army</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>More wars, more guns</h2>
<p>By the late 19th century, America’s increasingly aggressive role in the world insured steady business for the country’s gun makers. </p>
<p>The Spanish American War brought a new wave of contracts, as did both <a href="https://www.remingtonsociety.org/remingtons-allied-rifle-contracts-during-wwi/">World Wars</a>, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and the dozens of smaller conflicts that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations">U.S. waged around the globe</a> in the 20th and early 21st century. As the U.S. built up the world’s most powerful military and <a href="http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/daniel-immerwahr/GUS.pdf">established bases across the globe</a>, the <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100833931">size of the contracts soared</a>. </p>
<p>Consider <a href="https://www.sigsauer.com/usage/pro/military/">Sig Sauer</a>, the New Hampshire arms producer that made the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/06/14/the-gun-the-orlando-shooter-used-was-not-an-ar-15-that-doesnt-change-much/?utm_term=.fd14defaee8e">MCX rifle</a> used in the Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre. In addition to arming <a href="http://www.monch.com/mpg/news/14-land/708-sig-sauer-takes-the-extra-mile.html">nearly a third</a> of the country’s law enforcement, it recently won the coveted <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/01/us-army-sig-sauer-p320/">contract</a> for the Army’s new standard pistol, ultimately worth $350 million to $580 million.</p>
<p>Colt might best illustrate the importance of public money for prominent civilian arms manufacturers. Maker of scores of iconic guns for the civilian market, including the AR-15 carbine used in the 1996 massacre that prompted <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704353/">Australia</a> to enact its famously sweeping gun restrictions, Colt has also relied heavily on government contracts since the 19th century. The Vietnam War initiated a long era of making M16s for the military, and the company continued to <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/071315/why-colt-went-out-business.asp">land contracts</a> as American war-making shifted from southeast Asia to the Middle East. But Colt’s reliance on government was so great that it filed for bankruptcy in 2015, in part because it had <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/15/why-cops-and-soldiers-fell-out-of-love-with-colt-guns/">lost the military contract</a> for the M4 rifle two years earlier.</p>
<p>Overall, gun makers relied on government contracts <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/12/19/seven-facts-about-the-u-s-gun-industry/?utm_term=.2ca2524d1816">for about 40 percent</a> of their revenues in 2012. </p>
<p>Competition for contracts spurred manufacturers to make lethal innovations, such as handguns with magazines that hold 12 or 15 rounds rather than seven. Absent regulation, these innovations show up in <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/susannahbreslin/2013/08/16/gun-magazines/#6dd3a4d2215c">gun enthusiast periodicals</a>, sporting goods stores and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/how-military-guns-make-the-civilian-market/375123/">emergency rooms</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189451/original/file-20171009-6971-kzyn3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189451/original/file-20171009-6971-kzyn3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189451/original/file-20171009-6971-kzyn3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189451/original/file-20171009-6971-kzyn3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189451/original/file-20171009-6971-kzyn3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189451/original/file-20171009-6971-kzyn3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189451/original/file-20171009-6971-kzyn3e.jpg?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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An activist is led away by security after protesting during a statement by NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, left, during a news conference in response to the Connecticut school shooting in 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>NRA helped industry avoid regulation</h2>
<p>So how has the industry managed to avoid more significant regulation, especially given the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/02/politics/gun-control-polling-las-vegas-shooting/index.html">public anger and calls for legislation</a> that follow horrific massacres like the one in Las Vegas? </p>
<p>Given their historic dependence on U.S. taxpayers, one might think that small arms makers would have been compelled to make meaningful concessions in such moments. But that seldom happens, thanks in large part to the National Rifle Association, a complicated yet invaluable industry partner. </p>
<p>Prior to the 1930s, meaningful firearms regulations came from <a href="http://time.com/3921663/gun-regulation-history/">state and local governments</a>. There was little significant federal regulation until 1934, when Congress – spurred by the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/history-of-gun-control-legislation/2012/12/22/80c8d624-4ad3-11e2-9a42-d1ce6d0ed278_story.html?utm_term=.69769313c6be">bloody “Tommy gun era”</a> – debated the <a href="https://www.atf.gov/rules-and-regulations/national-firearms-act">National Firearms Act</a>. </p>
<p>The NRA, founded in 1871 as an organization focused on hunting and marksmanship, rallied its members <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=0xQsDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=NRA+and+the+1934+National+Firearms+Act&source=bl&ots=K50kyM78W0&sig=Iv19dxaW0r3LwG9L9J0AddIG6N4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjW0eCWpODWAhUJzLwKHY-bBcQ4FBDoAQguMAI#v=onepage&q=NRA%20and%20the%201934%20National%20Firearms%20Act&f=false">to defeat</a> the most important component of that bill: a tax meant to make it far more difficult to purchase handguns. Again in 1968, the NRA ensured <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29197">Lyndon Johnson’s Gun Control Act</a> wouldn’t include <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/10/05/even-in-the-1960s-the-nra-dominated-gun-control-debates/?utm_term=.e172d93ae81a">licensing and registration</a> requirements. </p>
<p>In 1989, it <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2016/01/nra-background-check-system-brady-bill-wayne-lapierre/">helped delay and water down</a> the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/1025/text/rh">Brady Act</a>, which mandated background checks for arms purchased from federally licensed dealers. In 1996 the NRA engineered a virtual ban on <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cdc-still-cant-study-causes-gun-violence-180955884/?no-ist">federal funding</a> for research into gun violence. In 2000, the group led a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/smith-and-wesson-almost-went-out-of-business-trying-to-do-the-right-thing-2013-1?r=US&IR=T">successful boycott</a> of a gun maker that cooperated with the Clinton administration on gun safety measures. And it scored another big victory in 2005, by <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/7901">limiting the industry’s liability</a> to gun-related lawsuits. </p>
<p>Most recently, the gun lobby has succeeded by promoting an ingenious <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/jun/15/nra-right-obama-coming-our-guns/">illusion</a>. It has framed government as the <a href="https://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/how-gun-industry-made-fortune-stoking-fears-obama-would-take-peoples-guns-ammo">enemy</a> of the gun business rather than its indispensable historic patron, convincing millions of American consumers that the state may <a href="http://thehill.com/regulation/248950-gun-production-has-doubled-under-obama">at any moment</a> stop them from buying guns or even try to confiscate them. </p>
<p>Hence the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/business/gun-stocks-vegas-shooting-trump.html">jump</a> in the shares of gun makers following last week’s slaughter in Las Vegas. Investors know they have little to fear from new regulation and expect sales to rise anyway.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189452/original/file-20171009-6984-13poxmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189452/original/file-20171009-6984-13poxmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189452/original/file-20171009-6984-13poxmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189452/original/file-20171009-6984-13poxmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189452/original/file-20171009-6984-13poxmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189452/original/file-20171009-6984-13poxmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189452/original/file-20171009-6984-13poxmw.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">People have been leaving memorials and tributes in honor of the victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">gotpap/STAR MAX/IPx via AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A question worth asking</h2>
<p>So with the help of the NRA’s magic, major arms manufacturers <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-14/the-nra-racks-up-victories-the-atf-wants-to-give-them-more">have for decades thwarted regulations</a> that <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/22/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-of-guns-and-gun-ownership/psdt_2017-06-22-guns-00-03/">majorities of Americans support</a>. </p>
<p>Yet almost never does this <a href="https://www.citizensforethics.org/gun-companies-arm-trade-association-cash-influence-2016-elections/">political activity</a> seem to jeopardize access to lucrative government contracts. </p>
<p>Americans interested in reform might reflect on that fact. They might start asking their representatives where they get their guns. It isn’t just the military and scores of federal agencies. States, counties and local governments buy plenty of guns, too. </p>
<p>For example, Smith & Wesson is well into a <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lapd-officers-gun-purchase-discounts-smith-wesson-20150925-story.html">five-year contract</a> to supply handguns to the Los Angeles Police Department, the second-largest in the country. In 2016 the company <a href="https://www.nssf.org/smith-wesson-tops-nssf-gunvote-chairmans-club-with-500000-contribution/">contributed $500,000</a> (more than <a href="https://www.citizensforethics.org/gun-companies-arm-trade-association-cash-influence-2016-elections/">any other company</a>) to a get-out-the-vote operation designed to defeat candidates who favor tougher gun laws. </p>
<p>Do taxpayers in L.A. – or the rest of the country – realize they are indirectly subsidizing the gun lobby’s campaign against regulation?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian DeLay receives funding from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.</span></em></p>While advocates of gun control may feel powerless in the wake of mass shootings like the one in Las Vegas, the history of government support for the industry shows Americans have more sway than they think.Brian DeLay, Associate Professor of History, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/852862017-10-06T00:01:20Z2017-10-06T00:01:20ZAre mass shootings a white man’s problem?<p>In the terrible aftermath of the Las Vegas massacre people have been urgently trying to explain it. Some have put race at the centre of their explanations. Mass shootings, they argue, reveal something sinister in the heart of whiteness.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/white-men-have-committed-more-mass-shootings-any-other-group-675602">Newsweek</a> headline asserted</p>
<blockquote>
<p>White men have committed more mass shootings than any other group. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>At <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/03/opinions/mass-shootings-white-male-rage-modan-opinion/index.html">CNN</a> a commentator opined that “America has silently accepted the rage of white men” and diagnosed mass shootings as “a white man’s problem”. <a href="http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a12772832/stephen-paddock-las-vegas-mass-shooter-profile/">Elle</a> magazine told us “white men’s violence is the violence we’ve normalized” and that “white men’s rage … is burning down the world”.</p>
<p>There is no shortage of violence committed by white men. Their violent behaviour is sometimes viewed differently from that committed by other groups. But is it true there is a link between whiteness and mass shootings?</p>
<p>Mother Jones magazine has <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/">collated a database</a> of American mass shootings that extends from 1982 to now. It contains a grievous record of 91 crimes where a shooter killed at least four victims. The race of the shooter was coded as unknown or unclear in three cases. Of the 88 remaining shootings, 51 (58%) were committed by whites.</p>
<p>Sure enough, the statistically typical mass shooter is a white man. But is that evidence for a meaningful link between race and this form of violence? Not if we remember that whites are statistically typical Americans.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045216">2016 US census</a>, 61.3% of Americans were “white alone, not Hispanic or Latino”. The proportion of white mass shooters is therefore almost exactly what we would expect it to be if whites and non-whites committed mass shootings at the same rate. Indeed it is (trivially) lower. </p>
<p>This graph plots the proportion of the 88 mass shooters in census-based racial groups against each group’s proportion in the US population. The dotted line represents equality between the two proportions. Groups falling above or below the line have committed mass shootings above or below the rate expected given their representation in the population. Generally speaking, groups defined by race have committed these outrages at approximately the same rate, given their relative size.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189021/original/file-20171005-9774-fytofr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189021/original/file-20171005-9774-fytofr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189021/original/file-20171005-9774-fytofr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189021/original/file-20171005-9774-fytofr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189021/original/file-20171005-9774-fytofr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189021/original/file-20171005-9774-fytofr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189021/original/file-20171005-9774-fytofr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">US mass shootings by race.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps the surprising fact that white mass shooters are not proportionally over- represented is due to the long period covered by the Mother Jones database. Are more recent shootings whiter? The answer is no: of the 27 shootings in the past five years where the murderer’s race is recorded, 10 (37%) were committed by white men.</p>
<p>This is not to say mass shootings committed by white men might not be distinctive in some respects. Nor does it preclude a racial double standard in how their atrocities are reported or perceived compared to those of others. But it does indicate that mass shootings themselves are not an inherently white problem.</p>
<h2>Illusory correlation</h2>
<p>Why is it then, that many people see a causal connection between whiteness and mass killings? Part of the answer may come from the searing recency of the Las Vegas killings and their white perpetrator. Part of it may come from the vexed links between race, US politics and gun culture. And part of the answer may be found in the typical colour contrast between mass shootings and mass killings committed by Islamic extremists.</p>
<p>Another part of the answer may involve a bias in how people judge associations between two phenomena. Humans often perceive “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_correlation">illusory correlations</a>” where none exist objectively. There is evidence from cognitive psychology this is especially likely when one of the two phenomena is highly prevalent.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9450.00082/abstract">study published in 1998</a>, participants were given information about 60 fictitious patients. Each patient was described as either having or not having a made-up disease (such as van Ork’s disease) and as either having or not having a made-up symptom of the disease (such as swollen joints). Participants were then asked to judge how strongly the symptom and the disease were correlated.</p>
<p>Participants were assigned to several different experimental conditions, which differed in how prevalent the disease was among the fictitious patients. But when it came to the symptom, in two of these conditions there was no correlation at all between symptom and disease, meaning the symptom was equally likely to occur whether the disease was present or absent.</p>
<p>In the low prevalence condition the disease was present 30% of the time. The symptom was present in half of these cases and absent in the rest. In the high prevalence group the disease was present 70% of the time. Again, the symptom was present in half of the disease cases and also in half of the no disease cases.</p>
<p>Participants in the low prevalence condition group correctly judged that there was no relationship between symptom and disease. But those in the high prevalence group saw a correlation between symptom and disease that simply did not exist.</p>
<p>The likely explanation is that participants paid special attention to cases where the symptom and disease co-occurred. This happened only nine times in the low prevalence condition, but 21 times in the high prevalence condition. Seeing symptom and cause occurring together so often led people to believe they were associated, although they were not. </p>
<p>The analogy to race and mass shootings should be clear. The shootings are the symptom and, in the eyes of some, whiteness is the disease that causes it. There is no actual correlation between being white and being a mass shooter in the US, but because whiteness is common we see many examples where the symptom and the disease go together. As a result, mass shootings are seen as linked to whiteness.</p>
<p>In this case, the diagnosis is incorrect. The problem is not white men, but men. So, not race, but gender. Only <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/">two of the 91</a> mass shootings were perpetrated by women.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85286/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Haslam receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>In the terrible aftermath of the Las Vegas massacre people have been urgently trying to explain it. Some have put race at the centre of their explanations. Mass shootings, they argue, reveal something…Nick Haslam, Professor of Psychology, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/851212017-10-04T11:05:20Z2017-10-04T11:05:20ZLas Vegas: the US is racked with impossible divisions over rights and freedoms<p>In the immediate aftermath of the October 2 Las Vegas massacre – the US’s <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/las-vegas-shooting-us-number-gun-massacres-2017-latest-stephen-paddock-a7979666.html">273rd mass shooting</a> in 2017 alone – it seems neither President Donald Trump nor his Republican colleagues will entertain a review of current gun legislation in America. </p>
<p>As is the norm at times like this, both sides of the gun control argument will simply trot out their usual pleas. As they did after the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/us/politics/senate-obama-gun-control.html">Sandy Hook massacre</a> of elementary school children, gun control advocates will claim this new event is surely the tipping point required to finally get a sensible gun policy in place. </p>
<p>Gun ownership advocates, meanwhile, argue that these events are the work of unstable “lone wolves” who simply spin out of control. They will point to reports that Paddock used a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/02/las-vegas-suspect-stephen-paddock-gun-semi-automatic">device</a> to convert his legal semi-automatic rifle into a fully automatic rifle as evidence that laws controlling ownership do not work, nor prevent people from killing each other. As disgraced former Fox News commentator <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/bill-oreilly-vegas-shooting-the-price-of-freedom">Bill O’Reilly</a> said in the aftermath of the attack, many consider this massacre and events like it to be the “price of freedom” in America.</p>
<p>But beyond the gun control debate, something deeper is at work here. I’d argue that between this tragedy, the O'Reilly comment, and several other events in the last few months, the contradictions among the many freedoms to which Americans lay claim are coming into sharp relief. As this highly polarised country enters a seemingly unresolvable moment of crisis, the conflict of rights is not new, but some of the deepest divisions of American society are suddenly on full display.</p>
<h2>Speech and silence</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment">First Amendment to the US Constitution</a> protects freedom of speech, a protection that some might argue the US has interpreted very liberally, even to include what many call <a href="https://qz.com/1055351/how-the-american-right-co-opted-the-idea-of-free-speech/">hate speech</a>.</p>
<p>Elements within the liberal left argue for tighter limits on the grounds that some forms of speech may make people feel uncomfortable. Some even take steps to enforce such limits themselves: they campaign to have speakers banned from university campuses, and some free speech events are even being forcibly shut down by the so-called <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-antifa-and-where-did-it-come-from-82977">Antifa</a> – leading to cries from the conservative right that political correctness has run amok and that the liberal left is intolerant.</p>
<p>Many on the conservative right also argue for limits to free speech, but on the grounds that some forms of speech may desecrate national symbols such as the American flag or show disrespect for those who paid the ultimate price for American freedom. The “take a knee” controversy in the NFL is akin to the famous flag-burning case, where an act of civil disobedience to protest injustice in the US is <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-national-anthem-outrage-ignores-decades-of-supreme-court-rulings-84725">considered unpatriotic</a>. </p>
<p>President Obama’s <a href="http://time.com/4955050/trump-obama-nfl-nba-kaepernick-kneeling/">reaction to this controversy last year</a> was to show disdain for the act itself, but to understand that upholding the right to protest in this way underpins the very freedom for which the flag stands. Trump, on the other hand, has argued that the NFL teams should <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/09/23/trump_calls_on_nfl_owners_to_fire_players_who_kneel_during_anthem.html">fire players</a> for showing such disrespect.</p>
<h2>Life and liberty</h2>
<p>Then there’s the second amendment, which protects an individual’s right to bear arms. According to the gun lobby’s generous interpretation, this means that there should be no restrictions on the ability for individuals to acquire weapons, the firepower of those weapons, the amount of ammunition that can be purchased, and if new legislation is passed in Congress, the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/las-vegas-shooting/silencers-armor-piercing-bullets-congress-looks-rollback-gun-laws-n806881">use of silencers</a>. Any attempt to limit access is framed as an attempt to confiscate guns. </p>
<p>The liberal left, by contrast, sees unfettered access to guns as a threat to public safety and point to countless examples that show the benefits of gun control (the UK’s response to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/dunblane-massacre-20-years-on-how-britain-rewrote-its-gun-laws-and-the-challenge-it-faces-now-55896">Dunblane massacre</a>, say, or Australia’s <a href="http://mashable.com/2017/10/03/australia-national-gun-amnesty/#zI7ywXMYbmqr">gun amnesties</a>) as evidence that such measures reduce gun-related deaths. For many, it’s analogous to road safety legislation: seat belt laws, air bags, and reduced speed limits have all helped curb road fatalities.</p>
<p>Lastly, there’s the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade, which upheld a woman’s right to have an abortion on the basis of the right to privacy found in the US Constitution’s fifth amendment. The liberal left argues that abortion rights are about a woman’s right to choose to have a baby or not – that is, to have control over her own body. </p>
<p>The conservative right, meanwhile, argues that the right to life as set out in the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fifth_amendment">fifth amendment</a> and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv">14th amendment</a>, in which no state “shall deprive any person the right to life”, is more sacrosanct than privacy or individual choice, and that it extends to the life of a gestating foetus.</p>
<h2>Never compromise</h2>
<p>On all these fronts, the opposing arguments start from incommensurate positions. As long as both sides come at the debate from those positions, they will rarely if ever agree or reach a compromise. And that sets the US up for years and decades of rancour, deadlock and mutual antipathy.</p>
<p>Arguments over the boundaries of free speech will continue unabated, vilifying civil disobedience and limiting legitimate speech across a wide range of events. The sanctity of guns and the second amendment mean that little to no progress can be expected on gun control, even in the face of the deadliest mass killing in recent memory. Many conservative-controlled states, acting under residual powers accorded to them under the US Constitution, will continue to chip away at abortion access using a wide range of restrictions.</p>
<p>There is little on the horizon to suggest how America can find its way through these paradoxes and contradictions. All the while, the level of public discourse, beset by the problems of social media, alternative news outlets, and a cacophony of yelling voices, is descending to a point well below the threshold of reason.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85121/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Todd Landman receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.. </span></em></p>Trump’s America is marked by the clash of intransigent, bitter opinions. And it’s not just about gun control.Todd Landman, Professor of Political Science, Pro Vice Chancellor of the Social Sciences, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/850562017-10-03T10:08:12Z2017-10-03T10:08:12ZHow dangerous people get their weapons in America<p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/us/las-vegas-shooting.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-ab-top-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news">recent mass shooting</a> in Las Vegas that left dozens of people dead and hundreds injured raises two important questions: How do dangerous people get their guns? And what should the police and courts be doing to make those transactions more difficult? </p>
<p>The fact is that, even leaving aside the assault in Las Vegas and terrorist attacks <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/us/weapons-in-san-bernardino-shootings-were-legally-obtained.html">like the one in San Bernardino</a>, California, in 2015, gun violence is becoming almost routine in many American neighborhoods. The <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/25/politics/fbi-crime-report-2016-homicide-rate/index.html">U.S. homicide rate increased</a> more than 20 percent from 2014 to 2016, while last year’s 3.4 percent rise in the violent crime rate was the largest single-year gain in 25 years. </p>
<p>The guns carried and misused by youths, gang members and active criminals are <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00917435/79">more likely than not</a> obtained by transactions that violate federal or state law. And, as I’ve learned from my decades of researching the topic, it is rare for the people who provide these guns to the eventual shooters to <a href="http://www.phlmetropolis.com/2010/03/the-gun-wars-targeting-straw-buyers.php">face any legal consequences</a>. </p>
<p>How can this illicit market be policed more effectively? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188414/original/file-20171002-12122-49b98s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188414/original/file-20171002-12122-49b98s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188414/original/file-20171002-12122-49b98s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188414/original/file-20171002-12122-49b98s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188414/original/file-20171002-12122-49b98s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188414/original/file-20171002-12122-49b98s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188414/original/file-20171002-12122-49b98s.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">Police officers stand at the scene of a shooting near the Mandalay Bay resort and casino on the Las Vegas Strip.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/John Locher</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Undocumented and unregulated transactions</h2>
<p>The vast majority of gun owners say they obtained their weapons in transactions that are documented and for the most part legal.</p>
<p>When asked where and how they acquired their most recent firearm, about 64 percent of a cross-section of American gun owners <a href="http://annals.org/aim/article/2595892/firearm-acquisition-without-background-checks-results-national-survey">reported</a> buying it from a gun store, where the clerk would have conducted a background check and documented the transfer in a permanent record required by federal law. Another 14 percent were transferred in some other way but still involved a background check. The remaining 22 percent said they got their guns without a background check.</p>
<p>The same is not true for criminals, however, most of whom obtain their guns illegally. </p>
<p>A transaction can be illegal for several reasons, but of particular interest are transactions that involve disqualified individuals – those banned from purchase or possession due to criminal record, age, adjudicated mental illness, illegal alien status or some other reason. Convicted felons, teenagers and other people who are legally barred from possession would ordinarily be blocked from purchasing a gun from a gun store because they would fail the background check or lack the permit or license required by some states. </p>
<p>Anyone providing the gun in such transactions would be culpable if he or she had reason to know that the buyer was disqualified, was acting as a straw purchaser or if had violated state regulations pertaining to such private transactions. </p>
<p>The importance of the informal (undocumented) market in supplying criminals is suggested by the results of inmate surveys and data gleaned from guns confiscated by the police. A <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00917435/79">national survey</a> of inmates of state prisons found that just 10 percent of youthful (age 18-40) male respondents who admitted to having a gun at the time of their arrest had obtained it from a gun store. The other 90 percent obtained them through a variety of off-the-book means: for example, as gifts or sharing arrangements with fellow gang members. </p>
<p>Similarly, an ongoing study of how Chicago gang members get their guns has found that only a trivial percentage <a href="http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol104/iss4/">obtained</a> them by direct purchase from a store. To the extent that gun dealers are implicated in supplying dangerous people, it is more so by accommodating straw purchasers and traffickers than in selling directly to customers they know to be disqualified. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188434/original/file-20171002-12122-1n1z7nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188434/original/file-20171002-12122-1n1z7nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188434/original/file-20171002-12122-1n1z7nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188434/original/file-20171002-12122-1n1z7nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188434/original/file-20171002-12122-1n1z7nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188434/original/file-20171002-12122-1n1z7nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188434/original/file-20171002-12122-1n1z7nu.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">A makeshift memorial in Chicago lies at the site where a baby girl, her mother and her father – a known gang member – were shot in 2013. Most Chicago gang members appear to get their guns secondhand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/M. Spencer Green</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The supply chain of guns to crime</h2>
<p>While criminals typically do not buy their guns at a store, all but a tiny fraction of those in circulation in the United States are first sold at retail by a gun dealer – including the guns that <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-gun-debate-9780199338986?cc=us&lang=en&">eventually end up</a> in the hands of criminals. </p>
<p>That first retail sale was most likely legal, in that the clerk followed federal and state requirements for documentation, a background check and record-keeping. While there are scofflaw dealers who sometimes make under-the-counter deals, that is by no means the norm. </p>
<p>If a gun ends up in criminal use, it is usually after several more transactions. The <a href="http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol104/iss4/">average age</a> of guns taken from Chicago gangs is over 11 years. </p>
<p>The gun at that point has been diverted from legal commerce. In this respect, the supply chain for guns is similar to that for other products that have a large legal market but are subject to diversion.</p>
<p>In the case of guns, diversion from licit possession and exchange can occur in a variety of ways: theft, purchase at a gun show by an interstate trafficker, private sales where no questions are asked, straw purchases by girlfriends and so forth. </p>
<p>What appears to be true is that there are few big operators in this domain. The <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2007.02098.x">typical trafficker</a> or underground broker is not making a living that way but rather just making a few dollars on the side. The supply chain for guns used in crime bears little relationship to the supply chain for heroin or cocaine and is much more akin to that for cigarettes and beer that are diverted to underage teenagers. </p>
<p>There have been few attempts to estimate the scope or scale of the underground market, in part because it is not at all clear what types of transactions should be included. But for the sake of having some order-of-magnitude estimate, suppose we just focus on the number of transactions each year that supply the guns actually used in robbery or assault. </p>
<p>There are about 500,000 violent crimes <a href="http://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/gun-violence/pages/welcome.aspx">committed with a gun</a> each year. If the average number of times that an offender commits a robbery or assault with a particular gun is twice, then (assuming patterns of criminal gun use remain constant) the total number of transactions of concern is 250,000 per year. </p>
<p>Actually, no one knows the average number of times a specific gun is used by an offender who uses it at least once. If it is more than twice, then there are even fewer relevant transactions. </p>
<p>That <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year.pdf/view">compares</a> with total sales volume by licensed dealers, which is upwards of 20 million per year. </p>
<h2>All in the family</h2>
<p>So how do gang members, violent criminals, underage youths and other dangerous people get their guns?</p>
<p>A consistent answer emerges from the inmate surveys and from ethnographic studies. Whether guns that end up being used in crime are purchased, swapped, borrowed, shared or stolen, the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00917435/79">most likely source</a> is someone known to the offender, an acquaintance or family member. </p>
<p>For example, Syed Rizwan Farook – one of the shooters in San Bernardino – relied on a friend to get several of the rifles and pistols he used because Farook doubted that he could pass a background check. That a friend and neighbor was the source is quite typical, despite the unique circumstances otherwise. </p>
<p>Also important are “street” sources, such as gang members and drug dealers, which may also entail a prior relationship. Thus, social networks play an important role in facilitating transactions, and an individual (such as a gang member) who tends to hang out with people who have guns will find it relatively easy to obtain one. </p>
<p>Effective policing of the underground gun market could help to separate guns from everyday violent crime. Currently it is rare for those who provide guns to offenders to face any legal consequences, and changing that situation will require additional resources to penetrate the social networks of gun offenders. </p>
<p>Needless to say, that effort is not cheap or easy and requires that both the police and the courts have the necessary authority and give this sort of gun enforcement high priority. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on Jan. 15, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85056/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip J. Cook receives funding from private and public organizations to conduct research on gun violence. He is a contributor to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
</span></em></p>While mass shooting tragedies in Las Vegas and elsewhere make headlines, the reality is gun violence is becoming almost routine in many American neighborhoods. Where do the guns come from?Philip Cook, Professor of Public Policy Studies, Duke UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/627452016-09-27T09:56:49Z2016-09-27T09:56:49ZWhat drives lone offenders?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139285/original/image-20160926-31837-1izljmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What's in the mind of a solo attacker?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-288681617/stock-photo-silhouette-rear-of-man-standing-hand-holding-gun-revolvers-and-eagle-fly-on-big-sunset-background.html">Man with gun image via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Lone offender attacks – sometimes called “lone wolf” attacks – make headlines fairly regularly. It’s not just the single shooter <a href="https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2018/10/27/Mass-shootings-in-Pittsburgh-history-timeline-baumhammers-taylor-poplawski/stories/201810270082">killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue</a>, but also shootings <a href="https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/the-strip/it-was-a-horror-show-mass-shooting-leaves-at-least-58-dead-515-wounded-on-las-vegas-strip/">at a Las Vegas music festival</a> and <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/09/24/seattle-shooting-cascade-mall-burlington/91009272/">at Washington</a> and <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/09/26/houston-police-gunman-shoots-several-people/91108136/">Texas shopping centers</a>. In <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36801671">Nice, France</a>; <a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pulse-orlando-nightclub-shooting/">Orlando, Florida</a>; and elsewhere, atrocities committed by individuals apparently acting alone have surprised and concerned the public and authorities alike.</p>
<p>Because just one person is at the center of the event, these sorts of attacks can seem more puzzling and be harder to explain than, say, bombings or shootings by organized terrorist groups. That also makes them more difficult to detect and prevent.</p>
<p>As law enforcement and military efforts attempt to reduce attacks from organized groups, lone offender attacks may become a more prevalent threat. My colleagues and I have worked to understand what we can about these attacks and the individuals who carry them out with the goal of helping to prevent them.</p>
<h2>A long history of solo attackers</h2>
<p>Although these recent attacks are troubling, the phenomenon of individual attackers acting largely alone is not new. In the late 1800s, <a href="http://mondediplo.com/2004/09/03anarchists">anarchists</a> (mainly Russian and European) were calling for individuals to target government, authorities and the bourgeois as a way to bring attention to their cause. They referred to this type of publicity-seeking violence as “<a href="http://slackbastard.anarchobase.com/?p=23096">propaganda by the deed</a>.” Within a period of just seven years between 1894 and 1901, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/blood-rage-history-the-worlds-first-terrorists-1801195.html">lone anarchist attackers</a> had assassinated the ruling heads of state in France, Spain, Austria and Italy, and <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-william-mckinley-is-shot">a U.S. president</a>. </p>
<p>What is new is uncertainty about the attackers’ motivations. Some, like the truck driver in Nice, appear to be <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/29/lone-wolf-attacks-in-europe-are-nothing-of-the-sort/">inspired by terrorist organizations</a> such as the Islamic State group. Others, like most mass shooters, don’t have any obvious political or societal aim, though the attacks themselves do often sow fear. And some individuals will devise an attack and only then invoke an ideology or a “cause” as a justification, as some have suggested of the “last minute” 9-1-1 call by the Orlando nightclub shooter <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2016/06/lone_wolf_terrorists_like_omar_mateen_present_a_different_kind_of_threat.html">pledging his allegiance to ISIS</a>.</p>
<h2>Not every offender is really ‘alone’</h2>
<p>In attempting to study lone-offender attacks, it can be difficult to find scholarship and data, much less observe patterns in the events. One reason is that different researchers use <a href="https://rusi.org/publication/occasional-papers/lone-actor-terrorism-definitional-workshop">different definitions</a>. Some research has included examination of attacks beyond just those conducted solely by one person. For example, some attackers have had help from accomplices. Some studies have researched only perpetrators who had a specific discernible motive (such as a political, social or ideological movement); others have included attackers with fuzzy blends of personal and wider motivations. <a href="https://rusi.org/publication/occasional-papers/lone-actor-terrorism-definitional-workshop">Studies also differ</a> on whether they label someone as a “lone attacker” if they have had contact with an extremist group. </p>
<p>It can be more useful to look at features of the attack, rather than just debating whether a given attacker was a “lone” offender. This is commonly referred to as a “dimensional” approach because it looks at aspects, or dimensions, of an incident, each of which stretches <a href="http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/59/">along a range or spectrum</a>. Specifically, it looks at what my colleagues and I call “loneness,” “direction” and “motivation.” </p>
<p>Loneness describes the extent to which the attacker initiated, planned, prepared for and executed the attack independently, without assistance from anyone else. Elements of loneness include whether the perpetrator worked with any accomplices or contacted extremists, and to what degree anyone else was involved in any aspect of the attack. In Nice, for example, the attacker acted alone when he drove the truck through crowds of people but had logistical <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/21/europe/nice-france-attacker-plot-accomplices/">support and encouragement from a number of accomplices</a>. </p>
<p>Direction refers to the attacker’s independence and autonomy in making decisions about the attack. It describes not only external influences but also the degree to which outsiders – or the attacker himself – made choices about whether, by whom, when, where or how to attack. The “Underwear Bomber” in 2012 said he was directed to deploy a bomb on a U.S. airplane, but <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/us/underwear-bomb-plot-detailed-in-court-filings.html">had discretion to choose the flight</a> and date. </p>
<h2>Understanding motivation</h2>
<p>Motivation is the dimension characterizing the extent to which the attack is primarily driven by a political, social or ideological grievance – or, by contrast, a personal one, such as revenge. Trying to determine what caused an individual to act a certain way is, of course, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10576100290101197">highly subjective</a> – and made more difficult if the attacker has not survived the incident. </p>
<p>Interpreting evidence on motivations can be tricky. Reasons perpetrators give for their attacks may or may not be the real reasons; at least, they may not tell the whole story. A safe approach is to start by assuming that the cause of the attack may not be as simple as it initially appears. It’s important to consider evidence of various political, social or ideological grievances, but also to look at anything that may have recently happened in the individual’s life to destabilize his or her usual ways of coping with stress. </p>
<p><a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.12312">Multiple motivations</a> are the norm. Investigators, scholars and the public at large should not work too hard to find a single master explanation. Rather, they should keep in mind the full range of possible contributing motives, and remain mindful that the combination of these factors – rather than any single one – may have precipitated the attack.</p>
<h2>The role of mental illness</h2>
<p>Historically, researchers have not found a strong connection between <a href="http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/46/">mental illness and terrorist behavior</a>. Having a mental disorder doesn’t necessarily prevent a person from <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1520/JFS14457J">planning and executing an attack</a>. And several studies of attack perpetrators have shown that people who attack alone are <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000102">perhaps 13 times more likely</a> to have significant psychological problems than those who conduct attacks as part of a group. </p>
<p>In one study, nearly one-third of 119 lone-actor terrorists investigated <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000102">appeared to have a mental disorder</a>. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1520/JFS14457J">Studies of lone attackers of public figures</a> have similarly found that <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2007.01077.x">severe mental health problems are common</a>. Among <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17919154">24 attackers on European politicians</a> between 1990 and 2004, 10 were judged to be “psychotic.” And among <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1520/JFS14457J">83 individuals known to have attacked</a>, or approached to attack, a prominent public official or public figure in the United States since 1949, 43 percent were experiencing delusions at the time of the incident.</p>
<p>That said, it remains important to understand that, as with any other potential factor, mental illness on its own rarely provides an overarching single-cause explanation for any particular attack or behavior. In determining a person’s risk of becoming a lone offender, the presence of a mental health diagnosis <a href="http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/60/">may be less important</a> than the person’s ability to form coherent intentions and engage in goal-directed behavior.</p>
<h2>What about ‘radicalization’ as a factor?</h2>
<p>Many lone attackers are not spotted by extremist groups, recruited and indoctrinated into a radical ideology. Even those who espouse extremist rhetoric, or claim allegiance to a cause, may not be true ideologues. Recall that lone terror attacks typically involve a blend of personal and ideological motives. </p>
<p>In the wake of an attack, especially if there is any evidence the subject was interested in an extremist group or ideas, a common reaction is to ask, “Where and how was he radicalized?” Some were not. <a href="http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Edge_of_Violence_-_web.pdf">Fanatically embracing an ideology</a> is <a href="http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/56/">not a necessary condition</a> for <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0192512112454416">terrorism or mass killing</a>. </p>
<p>People become involved in terrorism and violent extremist activity <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/testimony/41.pdf">in a variety of ways</a>, at <a href="http://www.terroristbehavior.com/blog/2014/6/28/from-profiles-to-pathways-and-from-roots-to-routes-perspectives-from-psychology-on-radicalization-into-terrorism">different points in time</a> and <a href="http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/55/">perhaps</a> in <a href="http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/56/">different</a> <a href="http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/57/">contexts</a>. Radicalizing by developing or adopting extremist beliefs that justify violence is one possible pathway into terrorism involvement, but it is certainly not the only one. </p>
<h2>Watching for signals</h2>
<p>Attackers – including lone attackers – often <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1520/JFS14457J">communicate about their intent</a> prior to their attacks, although they may not threaten the target directly. A study examining public information about lone-actor terrorists found that in <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.12312">nearly two-thirds of the cases</a> the perpetrators told family or friends about their intent to attack. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.12312">more than half of the cases</a>, people other than friends and family knew about the actor’s “research, planning and/or preparation prior to the event itself.” Finding ways to <a href="https://www.ombudsassociation.org/IOA_Main/media/SiteFiles/2009Vol2Journal.pdf">encourage concerned people to come forward</a> and to facilitate reporting will be critical to long-term prevention efforts.</p>
<h2>Media coverage matters</h2>
<p>Media coverage alone does not cause acts of lone offender terrorism. The actors themselves are responsible. But research suggests that media coverage typically focuses much more heavily on attackers than victims, and that those <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media-contagion-effect.pdf">media portrayals</a> can feed a temporary “<a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039994">contagion effect</a>” for <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/12/the-media-needs-to-stop-inspiring-copycat-murders-heres-how/266439/">mass shootings</a>. Researchers at Western New Mexico University found that the frequency of these shootings has <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media-contagion-effect.pdf">increased in proportion to mass media</a> and social media coverage.</p>
<p>Considering that mass shooters (not necessarily just lone actor attackers) are often <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2016.02.002">seeking fame or notoriety</a>, and may desire to emulate a prior mass shooter, the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/stalking-threatening-and-attacking-public-figures-9780195326383?cc=us&lang=en">contagion effect</a> may not be terribly surprising. <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media-contagion-effect.pdf">Media should report</a> these <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039994">events differently</a>, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/12/the-media-needs-to-stop-inspiring-copycat-murders-heres-how/266439">particularly by avoiding details</a> of the specific weapons used and methods of the attack, not displaying the attacker’s social media accounts, not immediately releasing the attacker’s name, and not interviewing victims and survivors when they are most vulnerable.</p>
<p>Terminology matters, too. Personally, I try to avoid characterizing solo actors as “lone wolves.” That’s not just because it isn’t always an accurate metaphor, but also because I don’t think glorifying the acts or actors is helpful. The <a href="http://www.ksat.com/news/fbi-to-media-dont-name-mass-shooters">FBI</a> and others (including the “<a href="http://www.dontnamethem.org/">Don’t Name Them</a>” campaign) have encouraged media to be cautious about how and how much they focus their coverage on the attacker specifically.</p>
<p>It is not always easy to “make sense” of lone-offender attacks. But by understanding their origins, elements and context, we can avoid misconceptions and more accurately describe the problem. That will be a key to helping detect and prevent these kinds of attacks.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article first published Sept. 27, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62745/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Randy Borum 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>Lone offender – sometimes called “lone wolf” – attacks may become a more prevalent threat. What can we understand about them and the people who carry them out?Randy Borum, Professor of Intelligence Studies, University of South FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/489342015-12-03T11:06:35Z2015-12-03T11:06:35ZSix things to know about mass shootings in America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188356/original/file-20171002-12122-1reos40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman sits on a curb at the scene of a shooting on the Las Vegas Strip, Monday, Oct. 2, 2017, in Las Vegas. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/John Locher</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>America has experienced yet another mass shooting, this time from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/us/las-vegas-shooting.html">the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the strip in Las Vegas, Nevada</a>. It is reportedly the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. </p>
<p>As a criminologist, I have reviewed recent research in hopes of debunking some of the common misconceptions I hear creeping into discussions that spring up whenever a mass shooting occurs. Here’s some recent scholarship about mass shootings that should help you identify misinformation when you hear it.</p>
<h2>#1: More guns don’t make you safer</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.sascv.org/ijcjs/pdfs/Lemieuxijcjs2014vol9issue1.pdf">A study</a> I conducted on mass shootings indicated that this phenomenon is not limited to the United States.</p>
<p>Mass shootings also took place in 25 other wealthy nations between 1983 and 2013, but the number of mass shootings in the United States far surpasses that of any other country included in the study during the same period of time. </p>
<p>The U.S. had 78 mass shootings during that 30-year period.</p>
<p>The highest number of mass shootings experienced outside the United States was in Germany – where seven shootings occurred. </p>
<p>In the other 24 industrialized countries taken together, 41 mass shootings took place. </p>
<p>In other words, the U.S. had nearly double the number of mass shootings than all other 24 countries combined in the same 30-year period.</p>
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<p>Another significant finding is that mass shootings and gun ownership rates are highly correlated. The higher the gun ownership rate, the more a country is susceptible to experiencing mass shooting incidents. This association remains high even when the number of incidents from the United States is withdrawn from the analysis. </p>
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<p>Similar results have been found by the <a href="http://www.unodc.org/documents/gsh/pdfs/2014_GLOBAL_HOMICIDE_BOOK_web.pdf">United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime</a>, which states that countries with higher levels of firearm ownership also have higher firearm homicide rates. </p>
<p>My study also shows a strong correlation between mass shooting casualties and overall death by firearms rates. However, in this last analysis, the relation seems to be mainly driven by the very high number of deaths by firearms in the United States. The relation disappears when the United States is withdrawn from the analysis.</p>
<h2>#2: Shootings are more frequent</h2>
<p>A <a href="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/mass-public-shootings-increasing-in-us/">recent study</a> published by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center shows that the frequency of mass shooting is increasing over time. The researchers measured the increase by calculating the time between the occurrence of mass shootings. According to the research, the days separating mass shooting occurrence went from on average 200 days during the period of 1983 to 2011 to 64 days since 2011.</p>
<p>What is most alarming with mass shootings is the fact that this increasing trend is moving in the opposite direction of overall intentional homicide rates in the U.S., which decreased by almost <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/">50 percent since 1993</a> and in Europe where intentional homicides decreased by 40 percent between <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/ACONF222_4_e_V1500369.pdf">2003 and 2013</a>.</p>
<h2>#3: Restricting sales works</h2>
<p>Due to the Second Amendment, the United States has permissive gun licensing laws. This is in contrast to most developed countries, which have restrictive laws.</p>
<p>According to a seminal work by criminologists <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=07305x0AAAAJ&citation_for_view=07305x0AAAAJ:ufrVoPGSRksC">George Newton and Franklin Zimring</a>, permissive gun licensing laws refer to a system in which all but specially prohibited groups of persons can purchase a firearm. In such a system, an individual does not have to justify purchasing a weapon; rather, the licensing authority has the burden of proof to deny gun acquisition. </p>
<p>By contrast, restrictive gun licensing laws refer to a system in which individuals who want to purchase firearms must demonstrate to a licensing authority that they have valid reasons to get a gun – like using it on a shooting range or going hunting – and that they demonstrate “good character.”</p>
<p>The type of gun law adopted has important impacts. Countries with more restrictive gun licensing laws show fewer deaths by firearms and a lower gun ownership rate.</p>
<h2>#4: Background checks work</h2>
<p>In <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/canada-australia-japan-britain-gun-control-2013-1">most restrictive background checks</a> performed in developed countries, citizens are required to train for gun handling, obtain a license for hunting or provide proof of membership to a shooting range. </p>
<p>Individuals must prove that they do not belong to any “prohibited group,” such as the mentally ill, criminals, children or those at high risk of committing violent crime, such as individuals with a police record of threatening the life of another. </p>
<p>Here’s the bottom line. With these provisions, <a href="http://www.sascv.org/ijcjs/pdfs/Lemieuxijcjs2014vol9issue1.pdf">most U.S. active shooters</a> would have been denied the purchase of a firearm.</p>
<h2>#5: Not all mass shootings are terrorism</h2>
<p>Journalists <a href="http://baltimorepostexaminer.com/mass-shootings-are-homegrown-terrorism/2015/10/04">sometimes describe</a> mass shooting as a form of domestic terrorism. This connection may be misleading. </p>
<p>There is no doubt that mass shootings are “terrifying” and “terrorize” the community where they have happened. However, not all active shooters involved in mass shooting have a political message or cause. </p>
<p>For example, the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina in June 2015 was a hate crime but was not judged <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/25071/reason-dylann-roof-charged-terrorism/">by the federal government</a> to be a terrorist act.</p>
<p>The majority of active shooters are linked to mental health issues, bullying and disgruntled employees. Active shooters may be motivated by a variety of personal or political motivations, usually not aimed at weakening government legitimacy. Frequent motivations are revenge or a quest for power.</p>
<h2>#6: Historical comparisons may be flawed</h2>
<p>Beginning in 2008, the FBI used a <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/serial-murder/serial-murder-july-2008-pdf">narrow definition</a> of mass shootings. They limited mass shootings to incidents where an individual – or in rare circumstances, more than one – “kills four or more people in a single incident (not including the shooter), typically in a single location.” </p>
<p>In 2013, the FBI <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2014/september/fbi-releases-study-on-active-shooter-incidents/pdfs/a-study-of-active-shooter-incidents-in-the-u.s.-between-2000-and-2013">changed its definition</a>, moving away from “mass shootings” toward identifying an “active shooter” as “an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.” This change means the agency now includes incidents in which fewer than four people die, but in which several are injured, like this 2014 shooting in <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/09/twenty-of-us-were-shot-on-mother-s-day-but-new-orleans-dropped-the-attempted-murder-charges.html">New Orleans</a>. </p>
<p>This change in definition impacted directly the number of cases included in studies and affected the comparability of studies conducted before and after 2013. </p>
<p><a href="http://dropbox.curry.com/ShowNotesArchive/2013/12/NA-576-2013-12-22/Assets/War%20on%20Crazy/Homicide%20Studies-2013.pdf">Some researchers</a> on mass shooting, like Northeastern University <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/15/mass-shootings-tripled_n_5992702.html">criminologist James Alan Fox</a>, have even incorporated in their studies several types of multiple homicides that cannot be defined as mass shooting: for instance, familicide (a form of domestic violence) and gang murders.</p>
<p>In the case of familicide, victims are exclusively family members and <a href="http://www.jaapl.org/content/8/3/298.full.pdf">not random</a> bystanders. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=97687">Gang murders</a> are usually crime for profit or a punishment for rival gangs or a member of the gang who is an informer. Such homicides don’t belong in <a href="http://hsx.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/11/27/1088767913510297">the analysis</a> of mass shootings.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: this piece was updated on Oct. 2, 2017. It was originally published on Dec. 3, 2015.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48934/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frederic Lemieux 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>In the wake of the tragedy in Las Vegas, a criminologist reviews recent research to dispel common misconceptions about mass shootings.Frederic Lemieux, Professor of the Practice and Faculty Director of the Master's in Applied Intelligence, Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.