Popular demand for change can prompt legislators to act
THREE years ago, following the machine-gunstyle slaughter of 58 people from a Las Vegas hotel and the firearm killing of 17 people at a Florida high school in 2018, I considered the possibility of the American government passing effective gun-control legislation.
Now, with a grocery-store shooting in Colorado, resulting in 10 deaths, and shootings at three massage parlours in Georgia, causing the deaths of eight others, widespread interest and concerns have resurfaced.
Is it possible to stop gun violence in the United States? No, but it is possible to minimise it. Response to the Florida shootings offers a prime example of how laws can be changed to reduce the likelihood of mass shootings. In Florida a person over the age of 18, with no criminal record or documented history of mental illness, once could purchase most commerciallysold firearms, including the AR15 semi-automatic rifle used by the 19-year-old killer at Douglas High School.
Following the massacre, the state raised the age to purchase a gun from 18 to 21, prohibited the sale of firearms to people with mental problems, and banned “bump stocks” (devices which turn semi-automatic guns into machine guns, by allowing rapid firing without repeatedly pulling the trigger). They represented an important start on the road to firearm sanity.
Gun proponents often rattle off claims about the US Constitution’s second amendment without bothering to address its limitations. In 2014, the US Supreme Court, in the case Heller v. District of Columbia, held that the second amendment grants individuals the right to possess firearms. But the court did not even hint that certain restrictions on that right were unconstitutional.
Gun control laws vary tremendously from state to state, and restrictive laws — for example, on age minimums, waiting periods for purchasing firearms and carrying concealed weapons — are legal. But the federal government can pass its own gun control laws. In 1968, for example, Congress passed a law prohibiting interstate handgun trade, and in 1993 passed the Brady Act, which requires background checks on most firearm sellers.
The National Rifle Association (NRA), the nation’s leading gunadvocacy interest group, insists that most American adults agree with its hardline resistance to any form of gun control. But opinion surveys show this is not true.
According to the Pew Research Centre, in 2019, 60 per cent of Americans favoured stricter gun control laws.
So why is it so difficult to pass laws that most Americans favour? One problem that stands out involves a gigantic partisan split. The same Pew poll revealed that, among Democrats, 86 per cent favoured tougher laws, but only 31 per cent of Republicans did. This polarisation spills over into Congress, where GOP lawmakers, fearful of punishment by voters, have for decades refused to budge on new gun-control measures.
Part of the problem associated with firearm reform lies in federalism, the division of governmental power between the national and state governments. Even if most Americans feel one way about guns, a majority of those in a single state might disagree, and federalism weighs in favour of the people in that state. Another impediment to change is saliency. The number one concern of members of Congress and state legislatures is getting reelected.
But the issue might not resonate as much with gun control advocates as it does with gun control opponents. Thus, taking a majority position on the issue might cost a candidate votes. This accounts for a good deal of the NRA’s potency, as the group targets anti-gun legislators and attacks them furiously — and there is no group with the political or financial resources sufficient to effectively counter such attacks.
In 2018, following the Florida high school shootings, 67 state laws were passed in the US, enacting tougher gun control measures. That year, the US House of Representatives approved two bills: one which would extend background checks for private sales, and another lengthening the time period for sellers to conduct such checks on purchasers of firearms. But neither bill was brought to the Senate floor for discussion, much less a vote.
The next year, three much more meaningful bills were introduced in the House, greatly restricting sales to criminals, ban the sale or transfer of high-capacity magazines and similar devices used to turn ordinary guns into “machine guns,” and empower family members and law enforcement officials to petition courts to remove firearms from high-risk individuals.
Now the House has acted again, and President Joe Biden is urging Congress to act on two bills: one to broaden background checks and the other to ban sales of assault-style weapons. There are reasons to be optimistic that change may be on the horizon, if we reflect on American history.
First, Americans have changed their collective mind on other things, such as civil rights, women’s rights and racial desegregation, and changes have occurred. Second, the recent spate of gunrelated killings has caused national revulsion unmatched in times past, aided by round-theclock television coverage reminding viewers, with alarming visuals, of the carnage tied to lax gun laws.
So popular demand for change can prompt legislators to act. Perhaps the March 2021 killings will cause them to rethink their commitment to new and tougher gun laws.