America's gun conundrum: Potential solutions to gun violence
The topic of guns is pervasive in American politics. It's also poignant and partisan.
So, let's examine the contentious issue that could potentially determine the outcome of this year’s election.
This is a four-part series, breaking down the data, root causes, solutions and political implications of guns and gun violence in America.
Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 4 here.
This is Part 3: The potential solutions.
Similar to the causes of gun violence, the solutions to the issue are multifaceted.
The first idea is stronger gun legislation. According to recent from the Pew Research Center, 58% of Americans support stricter gun laws.
Proposals that include preventing people with mental illnesses from buying guns (89%), increasing the minimum age for buying a firearm to 21 years old (79%), banning high-capacity ammunition rounds that hold more than 10 rounds (66%) and banning assault-style weapons (64%).
Some states have already implemented these measures. In the case of an assault-style weapons ban, have adopted it, including Washington, which prohibits the sale and manufacture in addition to the ban on purchase and possession.
The federal government had an assault weapons ban between 1994 and 2004. The legislation, which prohibited the manufacture of certain semi-automatic weapons and large-capacity magazines for civilian use, was signed by former President Bill Clinton and expired 10 years later. to renew the bill have failed in Congress.
Evidence that the ban reduced total firearm and homicide rates is inconclusive and limited.
However, there is that shows a federal assault weapon and high-capacity magazine ban may reduce mass shooting injuries and fatalities.
A suggests that the 1994 bill prevented 11 mass shootings during the decade it was in place. It also states that, if left in place, it would have prevented 30 more mass shootings and saved 339 deaths and 1,139 injuries.
Even in the last five years, Jill Peterson, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Hamline University, said there has been a noticeable in the use of high-powered semi-automatic firearms, particularly AR-15s, in mass shootings.
She gave two reasons for why she thinks that is. First, semi-automatic rifles are effective in killing . Secondly, the weapon has become almost a trademark of mass shootings, and using them is essentially a call back to past similar events.
"Perpetrators are looking for the biggest headlines," said Peterson, who is also the co-founder of The Violence Project, a nonprofit violence prevention research center. "And, I think, mass shootings, in a way, are this kind of performative act. It's kind of meant to be watched and witnessed and to have media coverage, and you want it to kind of look like a mass shooting. And those AR-15s have just become kind of representative of a mass shooter … it's the prop that you carry, sadly."
Peterson said she believes limiting access, especially to young people, would be effective in preventing future mass shootings.
"To me, there’s not a great argument for why you would need one," Peterson said.
Video above: Jillian Peterson on the prevalence of AR-15-style weapons in recent mass shootings
Gun rights advocates argue that the recent push to ban assault-style weapons is misguided and will infringe on the Second Amendment, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."
They point to the mischaracterization of the term "assault weapon" itself, asserting that it is a catch-all used to expand the reach of gun control advocates.
"The goal behind popularizing the term ‘assault weapons’ was always to deliberately mislead the American people in order to pass anti-gun legislation," the NRA .
The NRA claims that the term "assault weapon" derives from the military term, "assault rifle," which refers to a selective-fire rifle chambered for a cartridge of intermediate power. The term "assault rifle" only applies to automatic firearms. Semi-automatic weapons, including AR-15s, do not fall under the umbrella.
Essentially, the NRA said, the creation and use of the term "assault weapon" serves to lump together semi-automatic and automatic weapons and co-opt the aversion to the more powerful firearms.
"Gun control advocates refer to semi-automatic and fully automatic firearms interchangeably — in a deliberate effort to confuse voters and advance their broad agenda," the NRA stated.
Additionally, gun rights advocates maintain that semi-automatic firearms' principal purpose is not for violence, signaling the weapon’s marginal influence in total gun deaths. But, they are for tools of self-defense, hunting and shooting competitions.
In 2020, the most recent year the FBI published detailed data, assault-style weapons were only used in 3% of all firearm homicides, while handguns constituted 59%.
Regardless, gun rights advocates say, above all else, these weapons are protected under the Second Amendment, citing the 2008 Supreme Court decision D.C. v. Heller, which ruled that lawful ownership of a handgun in your home for self-defense purposes is constitutionally protected.
The NRA avers that Heller's ruling extends to semi-automatic weapons, too.
"Because they’re among the arms that are most useful for the entire range of defensive purposes, they’re ‘in common use’ for defensive purposes, a standard articulated by the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller," the NRA .
The Supreme Court declined to hear a Second Amendment challenge to an assault weapons ban in Illinois this past session.
Video above: Supreme Court hears case on Biden administration's ghost gun law
While addressing assault-style weapons and mass shootings is pivotal to curbing gun violence, Giffords Law Center Communications Director Aneesa McMillan said, other aspects, such as community and domestic violence, are just as significant.
"Whether it's mass shootings, and school shootings in particular, or the everyday community violence, which does not get as much coverage or is not discussed as much on the national level compared to other acts of gun violence," McMillan said. "And there is the domestic violence aspect and how guns can impact women and children. There are so many different ways we experience this differently as Americans."
Two measures often pushed that could tackle those issues are extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs) and universal background checks.
Extreme risk protection orders, or red flag laws, allow state courts to temporarily seize firearms from individuals who pose a threat. Typically, the process starts with a family member or law enforcement petitioning the court after detecting worrying behavior, similar to a restraining order.
According to a , 80% of Americans supported guns being taken away from those considered a danger to themselves or others.
Meanwhile, universal background checks is a policy that requires screenings for all firearm sales and transfers, including licensed and private dealers. It aims to close the .
"Under federal law, background checks are only required for sales conducted by licensed dealers," according to , a nonprofit gun control advocacy group. "Federal law does not address gun sales by unlicensed sellers (e.g., non-dealers who sell guns online or at gun shows). This loophole makes it easy for people with felony convictions, domestic abuse restraining orders, and/or prohibiting histories of mental illness to buy guns with no questions asked."
The same Fox News poll from before found 87% support for background checks on all gun buyers.
Neither measure is implemented at the federal level. However, have a form of ERPOs, and utilize a universal background check system.
Gun rights advocates push back against these measures as well, arguing that they create a slippery slope for the Second Amendment and due process rights.
State Rep. Bryan Fontenot, a Republican pro-gun rights legislator from Louisiana, made the case.
"Red flag laws have been used against honest citizens," Fontenot said. "I have a constitutional right to have a firearm, and Jane Doe says that you are a risk to yourself, so the police come along and seize firearms. I think red flag laws are violation of the conditional rights without due process."
Video above: California Gov. Newsom signs bills that expand gun restrictions
Fontenot added, "Now, once convicted of specific crimes, that's different. You've been through due process; the court has adjudicated your case."
Gun rights advocates, like Second Amendment Foundation Executive Director Adam Kraut, also contend that most gun measures don’t successfully keep firearms out of the hands of criminals.
"At the end of the day, the stricter laws do not seemingly impact individuals' unlawful use of firearms," Kraut said.
Kraut added, "People who wish to commit atrocious acts will find a way to attempt to do so."
The idea is that criminals will operate outside the legal system either way, and the new laws will not stop them. At the same time, the laws will actually punish well-meaning citizens who attempt to follow the rules.
"Ultimately, the criminal acts of some should not allow for the destruction of the right of many," Kraut said.
Everytown disagrees with that conclusion. According to their , states with stricter laws have less gun violence.
"When we compare the states head-to-head on the top 50 gun safety policies, a clear pattern emerges. States with strong laws see less gun violence," the gun control advocacy group stated. "Indeed, the states that have failed to put basic protections into place … have a rate of gun violence two and a half times higher than the states that are national gun safety leaders."
Their model presents two numerical values for each state: a gun law strength score (0-100) and a gun violence rate (gun deaths per 100,000). Their for calculating the gun law strength score involves analyzing what they consider the top 50 most important gun policies and giving states points for implementing them.
"The top 50 laws we focus on represent a wide range of interventions," Everytown wrote. "Some block gun access by people who pose a threat with a firearm while others focus on limiting gun violence in public. Some seek to increase police accountability and protect civil rights, while another set targets bad actors in the gun industry."
Of the top 50, the five most crucial policies, as they describe as "foundational laws," are universal background checks, ERPOs, secure gun storage requirements, and rejecting "stand your ground" laws and permitless concealed carry.
The RAND Corporation paints a less clear picture of gun policies' effectiveness. Their found that most gun measures produce inconclusive evidence for curtailing gun violence. Though, not all gun measures.
They observed that a few measures have generated at least limited success:
- ERPOs on suicides
- Minimum age requirements on suicides
- Restrictions for domestic abusers and the mentally ill on violent crime
- Background checks on violent crime
- Assault weapons/high-capacity bans on mass shootings
- Licensing and permitting requirements on mass shootings
- Waiting periods on suicides and violent crime
"Where we conclude that evidence for a policy is weak, that does not mean that the policy is ineffective; the policy itself might well be quite effective," Rand wrote. "The absence of evidence about a law can result from the law not having been studied or studied well, which may reflect shortcomings in the contributions that science has made to policy debate."
Peterson's opinion is similar to RAND’s assessment. She said that while there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to show gun policies can be effective, there isn’t definitive evidence.
"It's not a direct causal," Peterson said. "I think it certainly plays a role, just in terms of how easy it is to get your hands on a gun when you're a young person in crisis, in particular. But it's hard to say, you know, scientifically, this is causal."
Video below: Jillian Peterson on solutions to gun violence, bridging the divide on the issue
Putting aside gun laws, there are other angles to the campaign against gun violence, chiefly, community and financial investment in social services, economic opportunities and mental well-being.
Things like better public education, , extensive social safety nets and proactive health care systems could go a long way in diminishing the proclivity for violence in the U.S.
One specific program Peterson advocates for is universal trauma screenings in kindergarten.
"A lot of this starts really early," Peterson said. "These kids are on the radar really early. How do we build systems to intervene, being so we don't actually even have to necessarily have that gun debate?"
