We already have gun-control laws
Thoughtful, targeted legislation matters, but all too often lawmakers don’t consider if new policies will be effective
Late Sunday night, sketchy first reports of the Las Vegas shooting began to appear on social media. Seconds after shaky videos and disturbing photos were tweeted, partisans on all sides began tying the crime to their pet political issue.
Going on incomplete and often incorrect information, some on the right insisted it must have been a coordinated terror attack, proving we need to get tougher on radical Islamists. Many on the left said it proved that guns are far too easy to get in America and this never would have happened if it weren’t for the evil NRA.
As I write this, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police still haven’t revealed the specific type of weapons Stephen Paddock used or his twisted motivation. There is much we still don’t know about this hideous crime.
Nevertheless, Democratic politicians, celebrities and activists redoubled their push for gun control — coincidentally, the same agenda they had long before the events of Sunday night. Never let a good crisis go to waste, and all that.
Sen. Chuck Schumer told the president to “come out against the GOP’s absurd silencers law,” even though there’s no indication those devices were used in Las Vegas or that it would matter if they were.
“We can and must put politics aside,” Hillary Clinton insisted, immediately adding that we must “stand up to the NRA.”
Comedian-turned-policy-wonk Jimmy Kimmel said Republicans “should be praying for God to forgive them for letting the gun lobby run this country.”
Every decent person is sickened by the massacre and wants to prevent anything like it from ever happening again. But an emotional reflex to “just do something” rarely has the intended effect.
Deep emotion is expected, even laudable, after a tragedy like the one in Las Vegas. But law — whether legislating, enforcing, or prosecuting — has never been the domain of emotion, but rather cold, hard facts. Laws passed in haste often create more problems than they solve.
Investigators found 23 firearms, and from the sound of the rapid gunfire, many wondered if that included fully automatic weapons.
Automatic firearms have been strictly regulated by the federal government since 1934. Since 1986, new automatic weapons were banned for civilians as are semi-automatic rifles that are converted after the fact. Machine guns made prior to that year were grandfathered in, but are very expensive and tracked individually by the federal government.
Another common trope is that these firearms can be purchased without “universal background checks.”
But, for at least some of the legal weapons he purchased recently, Paddock passed all federal background checks. He was not a felon, and nothing in the federal database raised any red flags.
There are already laws restricting private ownership of automatic weapons and laws to provide background checks. And obviously, there are laws against firing guns in crowded urban centers, let alone using them in an act of murder.
If the feds had tougher regulations on suppressors it likely wouldn’t have made a difference.
Paddock was intent on mass murder, regulations be damned.
One wrinkle in this are reports that bump-stock devices may have been used. This modification can be added to a semi-automatic weapon and make it mimic an automatic. They are currently legal, exploiting a loophole in the law, though politicians and authorities have grown increasingly concerned with their use.
If it turns out bump-stock devices were used and contributed to the carnage, at least their regulation might help prevent a similar massacre from taking place in the future. Thoughtful, targeted laws are crucial and effective.
It’s easy for lawmakers to exploit crises and raw emotion for political gain. And it’s hard to blame them with a crime as grisly as what happened in Las Vegas. But their job is to ensure that new laws actually achieve their intended result.