The Columbine shooting in 1999 reintroduced gun control to the political conversation. President Clinton backed activists pushing for handgun bans, but a lack of continuity between various gun control groups bogged down any potential progress and no legislation was passed.
Recently, with the tragedies in California, the Senate pushed for the first major piece of gun control legislation since the Sandy Hook massacre in 2013, but similar to many forms of gun regulation legislation, the vote failed when progun legislators voiced opposition to the bills. As is often the case, gun legislation is usually connected to another issue or federal government funding and is frequently opposed by Republican lawmakers, interest groups and the progun lobby. Democrats, however, have been criticized for overstepping federal, regulatory authority and trampling on a Constitutional 2nd Amendment right. Others have also challenged Democrats for impeding on the 10th Amendment right for states to determine their own gun control legislation.
While the 2nd Amendment affirms “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” an increasing number of pro-gun supporters are taking an absolutist view, claiming the government can’t interfere with this right. “We see a lot more absolutist rhetoric today than we did in the past,” said UCLA law professor Adam Winkler in a report by the Washington Post, “partly because we have over the last 40 years seen the rise of a rather extreme progun movement led by the National Rifle Association (NRA).”
In a 2013 study conducted by Pew Research Center, the public was divided over whether or not the NRA had too much influence over gun-right legislation: “40% say the NRA has too much influence over gun control laws in this country, 17% say it has too little influence, while 36% say it has the right amount of influence,” all numbers are comparable to those of the year 2000. In the same study, researchers investigated the bipartisan viewpoints of the NRA and found that “Nearly three-quarters of Democrats (73%) say it is more important to control gun ownership [while] 71% of Republicans say it is more important to protect gun rights.”
On Capitol Hill, gun control advocates have pushed to enact quality legislation limiting the sale of handguns and assault weapons.
Many thought that this reform would be carried out when a young man with mental disabilities fired on an elementary school, killing innocent young children in Newtown, Connecticut. The Sandy Hook shooting made national headlines, with the faces of the young victims posted on news stands across the country, but no legislative action was passed by Congress.
After the Louisiana movie theater shooting during the showing of Amy Schumer’s film “Trainwreck,” Senator Chuck Schumer enlisted the help of his second cousin and star of the movie to help push for improved gun regulation. The celebrity appearance failed to gain traction in Congress and gun legislation took a back seat to highway and infrastructure legislation and a Congressional debate of the Export- Import Bank at the end of the summer of 2015.
Although Congressional attempts to pass gun control legislation and stricter, universal background checks failed, states took matters into their own hands. Most notably, New York took strong state action authoring and passing “The Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act” which passed the state senate after only a few hours of debate. The state legislation received bipartisan support in the state assembly. Similarly, Maryland and Connecticut passed restrictions and assault weapons and limited the amount of ammunition a weapon could fire.
Since 2013, movement toward official gun control legislation, such as that detailed above, has been relatively stagnant. The Guardian reported that nine states have introduced “new laws that prohibit people convicted of domestic abuse from buying or possessing firearms, as well as three governors who vetoed NRA legislation.” Beyond this, no national legislation has been approved.
It hasn’t only been lawmakers that have tried to take action. With 27 in Connecticut and 2 in Louisiana dead, the media and American public flared and took a stance over gun control. Activist groups like Sandy Hook Promise, celebrities, and other public figures spoke out against the abuse of gun use in the United States and an alleged rise in gun related violent crimes.
In response to widespread public
outcry against national gun violence President Obama announced a fourpart gun control reform plan in early 2013. Components of the President’s proposal entail “closing background check loopholes banning assault weapons and large capacity magazines; making schools safer; and increasing access to mental health services,” as detailed by The White House. At the time, a Huffington Post poll indicated that a majority of Americans favored stricter gun laws with the intention of preventing future mass shootings
By early 2014, 40% of Americans reported feeling satisfied with current gun laws (opposed to a 29% satisfaction rate in 2013) according to Gallup polls. Then last week, 14 civilians were killed in San Bernardino, California. And again, gun control reentered the sociopolitical spotlight.
According to BBC, a “mass shooting” is defined as an event where four or more people are killed. By this logic, the United States has seen 1,052 mass shootings in the past 1,066 days, with more mass shootings in 2015 than elapsed calendar days. An emerging crowdsourcing website entitled ShootingTracker has collected and reported these numbers daily.
In the wake of these statistics spreading rapidly through social media channels, Obama stated last Wednesday that “we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world.” Indeed, according to the Wall Street Journal, “the U.S. represents less than 5% of the 7.3 billion global population but accounted for 31% of global mass shooters during the period from 1966 to 2012, more than any other country.” Further, “mass shootings in the U.S. amounted to five times as many as the next highest country.”
Yet, gunrelated deaths in the U.S. (and violent homicides overall) appear to be on the decline. In the early 2010s, firearm homicide rates fell below 3.5 in 100,000 for the first time in nearly 50 years, Vox Media reports. With overall rates dropping, but gun ownership and use and mass killing rates allegedly climbing, America finds itself yet again poised for potential policy reform. Do we wait and watch as mass shooting rates continue virtually each day, knowing that overall numbers indicate a safer America? Or is legislative action required, despite a potentially moot cause?