Yes to new gun laws, but the crisis is deeper than firearms
It’s happened again. Nearly 20 children and multiple teachers have been cut down by a madman — or, rather, a mad boy — wielding semiautomatic rifles. The natural human response to acts of great evil, such as Tuesday’s massacre in Uvalde, Texas, is to ask: What can we do to prevent this from happening again? The greater the evil, the more urgent is the sense that something — anything — must be done.
This is why calls for gun control immediately follow every act of mass gun violence. It’s clear as day: no gun, no killing. President Biden pleaded with the nation, “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?”
This suggests the country has a stark choice: either lax gun laws and mass shootings, or strict gun laws and no mass shootings. This is magical thinking.
We have always supported the bipartisan background check bill proposed by Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., in the wake of the Sandy Hook killings. The bill would set up a national background check system required to inform local law enforcement when someone fails a check. It is a commonsense measure that law-abiding gun owners should support.
The same goes for red flag laws, which prohibit selling firearms to anyone suspected to be a danger to himself or others.
But these would not have kept either the Uvalde or the Buffalo shooter — who bought his weapon in a red flag state — from getting a gun. If someone is convinced that his purpose in life is to inflict suffering on as many innocent people as possible, no rules or regulations will stop him. Remember that Sandy Hook Elementary is located in the strict gun-control state of Connecticut.
If background checks won’t work, shouldn’t we just ban most or all guns outright? The obvious constitutional
question could be resolved by the Supreme Court adopting a different reading of the Second Amendment.
But the practical problem can’t. There are more guns than people in the United States. Unless the government is willing to undertake, and the people to tolerate, thousands of Waco- and Ruby Ridge-style operations, we are largely stuck with the guns, and the gun culture, we already have.
Commonsense gun regulations are an essential response to America’s crisis of mass violence. The nation has several, including the background check bill and red flag laws.
Republicans and their gun-lobby supporters, for the sake of the common good, must relax their strident, irrational opposition to any and all regulations. Democrats must cease demanding that guns be denied to or taken away from people who use them for hunting or sport, and know how to handle them.
But no regulation, however commonsensical, can do more than inhibit would-be killers. The heart of the matter is not firearms, but the nihilism and hatred and mental illness that is leading more and more people — often children themselves — to kill for the sake of killing. It is a crisis that no single policy, no matter how well-crafted, can solve.