#gunsense: Today is the Day! (And so is tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow. And the day after that.)

Even before last Saturday’s mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, gun violence had emerged as a major issue leading up to the 2018 midterm elections. Our country’s recent history is fraught with a cycle of tragic mass shootings that stir public outcry for better firearm regulation, only for the outrage to wane with time, and with it any efforts to pass new laws… until the next mass shooting.

Recently, though, a more sustained push for gun legislation reform has taken hold, perhaps because the frequency and intensity of mass shooting incidents has increased. The most visible advocates for gun violence prevention are survivors of a February 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, during which a former student used an AR-17 semi-automatic rifle to kill 17 students and staff and injure 17 others. In the wake of the incident, students and their families organized protests andother events to draw attention to the issue of gun violence prevention. They also founded organizations advocating for the passage of legislation that would make it harder to obtain large-capacity semi-automatic weapons. One such entity is the Families vs. Assault Rifles Political Action Committee (FAMSVSARPAC), whose stated aim is to keep military-grade weapons out of schools, chiefly by backing political candidates who support legislation banning assault rifles from the general public. As their name suggests, it has pitted the students and their families squarely against the National Rifle Association (NRA). FAMSVSARPAC president Jeff Kasky, whose son Cameron is one of the students at the forefront of post-Parkland activism, contrasts the “field and stream NRA” of old with the current “Call of Duty” NRA.  He notes that though individual NRA members often respond to polls indicating their support of background checks, waiting periods, and other regulation of firearms, “NRA leadership adamantly oppose any legislation that impacts theon-demand availability of deadly weapons of all kinds, which would slow downsales and bring down revenues for their constituent gun manufacturers”.  Moreover, the NRA has weaponized the Second Amendment, religious messaging, and the general concept of patriotism in order to stoke fear and thereby increase support for candidates who promise not to address firearm regulation while in office.

Though the Parkland shooting has prompted more restrictive gun legislation in certain states, federal laws to the same effect have been notoriously elusive. In 2013, the Senate failed to pass a bill to increase background check requirements. Viewed at the time as “low-hanging fruit” of the gun-control legislation forest, the bill would have required background checks at gun shows and for internet sales, without imposing them for “private transactions” between family and friends. Although crafted as a bipartisan compromise, the political environment at the time prevented certain Senate Democrats from supporting the law. Specifically, several Democrats from Republican-leaning states were up for reelection in 2014 and feared that coming out in favor of gun regulations – even those as minimal as laid out in the bill – would doom their chances of reelection. This outcome illustrates the insidious grip held by the NRA on our political process: the organization has rather handily achieved its legislative objectives while bankrolling only a minority of elected officials and accurately representing the views of a small swath of Americans.

As a result of this fraught political climate, other groups have emerged to advocate for apolitical, community-based approaches aimed at reducing gun violence. Speaking at a recent event on Long Island, Sandy Hook Promise founder Nicole Hockley used drunk driving as an analogy. While laws against driving under the influence of alcohol were necessary in deterring the harmful behavior, marked decreases in the number of drunk driving incidents only occurred after several decades of advocacy for a change in culture among at risk groups (namely, teens first experimenting with alcohol).  Hockley urged ignoring people “at the extremes” of the gun control debate, and fighting apathy amongst those in the middle who are disillusioned about ensuring safety in our communities. To this end, a lot of Sandy Hook Promise’s programs aim to address at-risk behaviors, the signs of which often manifest in middle school and high school. They provide training for teachers and others to recognize the signals of someone in crisis, before they obtain a gun and/or attempt to use it. Sandy Hook Promise also advocates for anonymous reporting systems, whereby individuals can notify local authorities of suspicious activity without compromising their identities. When it comes to addressing harmful antisocial behavior, the organization advocates for disciplinary methods that address the underlying causes in a non-confrontational way, instead of merely pushing students away with suspension or expulsion. Another program called Start With Hello trains children to interact with their peers in a way that reduces bullying and social isolation. Teaching children to reach out and include others prevents vulnerable kids from withdrawing from society, a necessary first step in avoiding the seclusion that can set certain individuals on a path toward the commission of mass violence. Sandy Hook Promise advocates for acceptance, community, and openness, in sharp contrast with the NRA’s individualistic, fear-based methods of persuasion.

The foregoing yields a mixed message with respect to the election. Voters should visit gunsensevoter.org to learn which candidates in their local races will advocate for gun control legislation, and cast their ballots accordingly. Overcoming the NRA’s influence will require electing a sufficient majority of officials not under their financial purview, who are thereby willing to push for more restrictive firearms laws. That this has proven to be a difficult hurdle demonstrates that Election Day is merely a small part of the necessary action. The rest of the year, it is imperative that we work toward building communities in which children receive support and attention that prevents them from straying onto a path of dangerous behavior. In addition to overcoming the apathy that sets in between high-fatality mass shootings, we must push back against societal forces that weaken the bonds between neighbors and classmates. 

Voting for #gunsense is only the beginning. Acting for #gunsense needs to be something we do every day.

Gun Chaos

It's been over two weeks since the mass shooting at the Route 91 music festival in Las Vegas, which killed 58 people and injured nearly 500 others. 

In the interim, you've probably seen and heard all the related banter: calls for restricting firearm access for the mentally ill, proposed bans on accessories that can be used to make guns fire more rapidly, lamentations that gun control laws couldn't have prevented this sort of incident anyway, assertions that the way to make people safer is more widespread firearm dispersion, etc. You've likely come across the staggering fact that more people have been killed by guns in the United States since 1968 than have died in all wars, combined. You've seen Second Amendment advocates lament that these sorts of incidents are simply "the price of freedom", amidst frightening statistics that there have already been around 275 mass shootings this year. Parents' forums have bubbled with fears of the next school shooting.   

Mass shootings demonstrate the extensive lethal capabilities of firearms, naturally placing the spotlight on the extremely divisive national debate over gun control. When it comes to policies and regulations, though, they "are a bad way to understand gun violence." 

Most everyday incidents of firearm-related death and injury differ significantly from tragedies such as the recent one in Vegas. Many gun-related deaths occur in connection with domestic violence incidents, with an average of 50 women per month killed by romantic partners. The presence of a gun in a domestic altercation makes it five times more likely that the woman will be killed. Others firearm fatalities occur in inner-city communities, with black men statistically fourteen times more likely to be shot and killed than white men. Around 62 percent of all firearm deaths are suicides. 

On an average day, 93 Americans are killed with guns. This number exceeds the amount of fatalities in certain so-called mass shootings, but because the deaths occur under various circumstances, dispersed around the country, they don't garner the same immediate attention and outpouring of sympathy and outrage. With any policy issue, it's unproductive to focus only on the most significant, horrific, and sensationalistic national events and shouting about one particular solution. As reported on fivethirtyeight.com:

If we focus on mass shootings as a means of understanding how to reduce the number of people killed by guns in this country, we’re likely to implement laws that don’t do what we want them to do — and miss opportunities to make changes that really work. Gun violence isn’t one problem, it’s many. And it probably won’t have a single solution, either.

The response to this tragedy has been mixed. Some have opined that there is no solution, at all - the Second Amendment guarantees the right to own guns and thus can't be infringed upon, period. A few, including U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, asserted that better health care for mental illness could prevent mass shootings. Other advocates acquiesced that background checks and other regulations are necessary to restrict gun ownership to people who will use them responsibly. Gun control cynics pointed out that background checks won't necessarily prevent criminals from obtaining dangerous weapons. Some have made the distinction between rifles or sport-shooting guns and more deadly semi-automatic weapons. 

Despite this range of opinions, today's climate of clickbait news headlines and viral social media memes has portrayed the issue as falling on a typical "us-vs.-them," "conservative-vs.-liberal," "pro-vs.-anti-" divide. The implication is that one must pick a side - you're either pro-gun, or anti-gun, and that's it. This sort of environment makes it easy for individuals to misunderstand the positions of others. People miss the nuance of the debate, assuming that anyone who disagrees even slightly must have a view diametrically opposed to their own. 

Viewing the Second Amendment as absolute ignores the fact that all of our rights are subject to oversight for safety purposes. No one would seriously assert that the regulation of driver's licenses and automobile ownership unconstitutionally limits our freedom; we accept as reasonable that operating a car is a complicated and potentially dangerous activity that should be undertaken only by those with proper training - not to mention insurance. In fact, some have suggested that we should regulate guns in the same manner we do cars. (I know, I know, there's an obvious distinction insofar as there's no line item in the Bill of Rights about vehicles; aside from the fact that there couldn't have been one since automobiles didn't exist in the 18th century.) 

Another line of discussion has emerged about consumer areas more regulated than firearms - cold medicine, wireless phone contracts, puppies, and hunting. An important note here is that these are regulations on industry players - not on the consumers they serve. Part of our social contract as a democratic nation is that the government places restrictions on entire industries, limiting what products might be sold and to whom. Where there are safety, security, or even practical concerns, the state might require licensing and registrations to ensure compliance with  goals. So a better analogy than the car industry may involve the First Amendment: we each enjoy "freedom of speech," but no one expects to take the Time Warner Center elevator up to the CNN studios for unfettered access to an on-air microphone that broadcasts their opinions globally. 

While the outcry in favor of gun ownership usually centers on the individual right to bear arms, most observers agree that it's driven by the gun industry itself. Statistically, it's estimated that 37% of Americans own a firearm. Though gun owners comprise much less than a majority of the population, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has mobilized them as a vocal political presence closely allied with the Republican party. Their lobbying has eliminated manufacturer liability for gun fatalities, spurned the passage of state laws allowing firearms in public places, and exacerbated the cultural importance of guns as a states' rights issue. 

Another statistical approximation is that there are around 300 million guns in the United States. Speaking during a live episode of Pod Save America, University of Chicago Crime Lab director Jens Ludwig asserted that most such weapons are owned by otherwise law-abiding citizens who keep them in a basement or garage and don't actually put them to sue. He asked the audience to imagine the country as a bathtub, wherein the entire tub is full of guns "but we only need to worry about the drain" - "the drain" representing use of firearms for dangerous criminal activity. 

The Las Vegas massacre has yielded some discussion of graded weaponry and deadly gun accessories. The shooter used what's known as a "bump stock" to make his semi-automatic weapon operate like an automatic one. Since such a device exists only to make it shoot faster, thereby making it more harmful to targets, a bipartisan effort has emerged to ban bump stocks. As with many politically divisive issues, though, the focus on this particular facet of the debate seems destined to please no one: those who truly want to eliminate firearms from society feel that bump stock regulation doesn't go far enough, while staunch Second Amendment advocates see any such limitation as an infringement on their rights. 

Thus, it's likely that any policy changes will be achieved slowly as the debate rages on. Oddly enough, I keep coming back to the idea of compassion. Those on all sides of the issue obviously feel that their view is the correct one, without considering why their opponents feel the way they do. Like many other divides in our political climate, we stand a better chance of making meaningful progress if people venture out of their insular communities where everyone is like-minded. This, too, must be incremental; it seems unfair to say that someone who lost a loved one to a gun fatality (and therefore opposes gun ownership) should commune with firearm enthusiasts. 

Nonetheless, we must strive for a meaningful exchange of ideas across these divides. The current approach, wherein everyone remains set in their individual camps, clearly isn't working very well.