China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Mass shootings in US follow familiar script
Further gun control faces such challenges as winning approval in evenly split Senate
Every time there’s a mass shooting in the United States, there is an all-too-familiar script that follows.
The airwaves are full of regrets for the next of kin from the public, politicians and commentators. Flowers and signs go up for the dead and are turned into shrines. Candlelight vigils are held.
“Senseless” becomes one of the most used words. Those who knew the shooter often say, “We don’t know what happened.’’ Some shooters take their motives to the grave by committing suicide.
Eventually, the “why’’ of the killings fades — except for the relatives of the dead and until the next shooting and the one after that.
Will anything change after decades of shootings and many recent mass shootings?
In Congress, that is unlikely unless Democrats can get the votes in the evenly split US Senate to pass two bills approved by the House.
One extends background checks to private sales, and the other closes a loophole by extending the time a person must wait for a check to be completed before getting a gun.
What has changed on the legislative front are two things: the diminished influence of the National Rifle Association, a gun rights organization, and the move by Republican governors, GOP-controlled state legislatures and state-based pro-gun organizations to enact pro-gun legislation.
Republicans say they are approving laws to protect the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, the right to bear arms. The relevant part says: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
While some say the right is absolute, others say the “well regulated militia” clause indicates the intent of the Constitution’s framers, in a time in the 18th century when citizen-soldiers were key in earning US
independence from Britain. They also point out that arms at the time mostly were primitive muskets.
For decades, Democrats largely blamed the NRA for blocking guncontrol measures. The NRA used its deep pockets to corral support from statehouses to Congress.
But the NRA has been facing internal and external pressures over its operations and spending. New York State Attorney General Tish James’ lawsuit seeking to dissolve the NRA can proceed, a state judge ruled on Jan 21. The NRA announced that it was “dumping New York” to reincorporate in Texas and declaring bankruptcy.
Various pro-gun organizations at the state level have been more active than the NRA in claiming to be true defenders of the Second Amendment. Many say the NRA is too focused on collecting donations to fuel a large organization out of touch with gun owners.
“The NRA is no longer the ‘only game in town’ nor is it the 800pound gorilla of days gone by,” Richard Feldman, president of the Independent Firearm Owners Association and a former NRA lobbyist, told The Daily Beast.
On April 8, US President Joe Biden unveiled his first effort to curb gun violence, announcing a set of modest moves to begin revamping federal gun policy by tweaking the definition of a firearm and more aggressively responding to urban gun violence.
“Gun violence in this country is an epidemic, and it’s an international embarrassment,” Biden said. He called it a “blemish on the character of our nation”.
“Nothing I’m about to recommend in any way impinges upon the Second Amendment,” he said.
Biden said he wants other measures, such as pistols that are made more dangerous by modifications to be subject to the National Firearms Act, so that owners would have to register and pay a fee for the modifications.
But gun-rights advocates bristled at Biden’s six executive orders.
That day, a shooting in Bryan, Texas, left one dead and several injured. Hours before, Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted his support for a “Second Amendment Sanctuary State” bill. The bill would make it so Texas authorities wouldn’t have to abide by federal gun-control laws.
“Biden is threatening our Second Amendment rights. He just announced a new liberal power grab to take away our guns,” Abbott said on Twitter. “We will NOT allow this in TX.”
The legislation, introduced in March, is modeled after the sanctuary cities approach in which cities declare themselves sanctuaries from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Last week, several states pushed to strengthen gun rights.
Republican Arizona Governor Doug Ducey also signed a bill making the state a Second Amendment sanctuary by prohibiting the enforcement of any federal laws “inconsistent with any law of this state regarding the regulation of firearms”.
Mary B. McCord, a former acting assistant attorney general for national security, argued in The Washington Post that Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions have no legal basis and that only a court can overturn a state or federal law.
A number of state attorneys general and other legal experts argue that there could be court challenges or lawsuits for localities that stop enforcing state gun laws, according to thetrace.com.
In South Carolina on April 7, the state House passed its second expansion of the right to carry firearms this year, a measure allowing a person to carry a handgun openly without a permit.
That same day, five people, including a doctor, his wife, two of his grandchildren and a worker at a house in Rock Hill, South Carolina, were shot and killed by 32-year-old Phillip Adams, a former National Football League player. A sixth victim, another worker, later died. Adams was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot at a nearby home, the York County Sheriff ’s Office said.
In 2020, there were two mass shootings in the United States. In 2019, there were 10; in 2018, 12; and in 2017, 11.
The Colorado mass shooting on March 23 happened less than a week after eight people — six of them women of Asian descent — died in attacks on spas in the Atlanta area.
The FBI defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are killed.
Last year was a record year for gun homicides and homicides overall in the US, with at least 4,000 more killings than in 2019. Firearms were involved in about 41,000 killings in 2020. Most of the bloodshed occurred in urban areas.
Mass shootings are still the biggest motivator of gun-law changes, studies have found. But the changes are necessarily in favor of gun control.
There also is concern that after coronavirus lockdowns, with more people in public spaces, combined with continuing economic problems and record gun sales, more shootings may occur.