Issue 

How can, and how should, the United States reduce mass shootings?

Left

The federal government can improve public safety by adopting legislation that makes it more difficult to own, possess, and carry firearms.

Right

Passing legislation to make it more difficult for Americans to own, possess, and carry firearms will not improve public safety, but will obstruct our ability to defend ourselves and loved ones against crime and tyranny.

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An Argument for Gun Control

1. In order for a shooter to kill innocent people with a gun, the shooter must have possession of a working and loaded firearm.
2. Making it more difficult for shooters to gain possession of a working and loaded firearm will make it more difficult for them to kill innocent people with a gun.
3. Making it more difficult for shooters to gain possession of high damage capacity firearms (e.g., high capacity magazines, automatic rifles, super-lethal ammunition, explosive devices, bump stocks) will make it more difficult for them to kill innocent people with a gun.
4. We ought to adopt laws that make it more difficult for shooters to kill innocent people with a gun, provided those policies do not unreasonably burden the rights of Americans.
5. There are laws that can be enacted to make it more difficult for shooters to gain possession of a working and loaded firearm, that do not unreasonably burden the rights of Americans.
6. Laws that can be enacted to make it more difficult for shooters to gain possession of a working and loaded firearm or very high damage capacity firearms, include:
   • Imposing universal background checks
   • Banning possession for the subjects of domestic violence restraining orders
   • Banning possession for the subjects of outstanding arrest warrants
   • Mandatory gun licensing
   • Imposing an age limit of 21
   • Prohibiting individuals deemed by the SSA mentally unfit to manage their own affairs from purchasing a firearm
7. Some, or all, of the laws listed in Premise 6 should be enacted to make it more difficult for shooters to gain possession of a working and loaded firearm or high damage capacity firearms.

Most on the Right will tend to agree with premises 1-4. But where we are likely to see the most divide is in Premises 5-7.

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Universal Background Checks

In December of 2014, a felon named Jody Lee Hunt was prohibited under federal law from purchasing or possessing a firearm after being imprisoned for kidnapping his girlfriend. However, after serving his time, he was intent on killing her. Mr. Hunt had a problem. If he were to purchase a firearm at a local gun shop, the standard background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) would likely trigger a red flag and he would be arrested for the attempt. Fortunately for Mr. Hunt, however, a fellow West Virginian had legally put up a gun for sale on Facebook.

Federal gun laws contain a major loophole: Transactions between private sellers and buyers do not require a background check. 

Mr. Hunt used the handgun he found online to kill his ex-girlfriend, a rival business owner, and two others.

This loophole has meant a felon intending to avoid a background check simply needs to purchase the firearm at a gun show, or (as is now the most common method) from a private seller online. Consequently, approximately 1 in 5 gun buys is conducted with no background check.

The National Rifle Association has voiced objection to any expansion on federal mandated background checks. The primary objection is that “background checks don’t stop criminals from getting firearms.” But additional objections are that (1) background checks mean the government has a database that could be used for gun confiscation, which undermines our ability to remain an armed society; (2) if we close off access to every American with a mental health diagnosis (e.g. veterans with PTSD) we are chilling their desire to seek help for fear of a diagnosis; (3) the vagueness around what constitutes an illegal “transfer” in virtually every proposed bill would include truly innocuous behavior (e.g., handing a loaded firearm over to a friend at a shooting range to teach him how to shoot without performing a background check).

Nevertheless, most Americans support universal background checks prior to purchasing a firearm, whether on the Right or the Left.

In fact, Americans agree on universal background checks more than almost any other political issue.

A June 24, 2021 Quinnipiac University poll of Texas registered voters found that 90 percent of Texas say that they support background checks for all gun buyers. This is consistent with polling from two years previous in Texas where a September 11, 2019 Quinnipiac University poll found 89 percent of voters say that they support background checks for all gun buyers.

Texans reflect the attitude of the nation on this particular policy. An April 15, 2021 Quinnipiac University poll revealed 89 percent of Americans support requiring background checks for all gun buyers. A recent May 2022 poll by Morning Consult and Politico found the same results, 88 percent in favor of universal background checks on gun sales.

In response to the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., the Senate introduced a proposed bill named The Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013, which expanded background checks to cover more types of gun sales and banned the sale of some semiautomatic weapons. The NRA fiercely opposed it, and several amendments were proposed. Senators Chuck Grassley and Ted Cruz proposed an amendment to the bill that Sen. Cruz described as taking “important, concrete steps to improve the [National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)] and bolster alerts to law enforcement.” Sen. Cruz went so far as to blame the failure of the Senate to enact his amendment with the San Antonio church shooting at Sutherland Springs.

The bill was designed to:

• Improve and reauthorize grants for NICS database;
• Require federal courts to submit relevant information to NICS;
• Ensure that relevant mental health records are submitted by states to NICS;
• Condition federal grant money for states on their submission of mental health records to NICS;
• Increase federal prosecution of gun violence by establishing the Nationwide Project Exile Program and establishing a high level federal taskforce;
• Study of the causes of mass shootings;
• Responsibly addresses gun violence by criminalizing straw purchasing of firearms and gun trafficking;
• Second Amendment Protections for Veterans;
• Require the Department of Justice to explain to Congress why it has or has not been prosecuting gun cases;
• Place Limitations on Fast & Furious type operations by DOJ;
• Authorize FFL’s to utilize the NICS database to for voluntary background checks of employees;
• Authorize FFL’s to access the FBI’s National Crime Information Center stolen gun database to ensure that a firearm is not stolen prior to acquisition;
• Reauthorize the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act (MIOTCRA) with amendments;
• Address school safety by Reauthorizes the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Secure our Schools Program through 2023.

This amendment drew some limited bipartisan support, as it focused on perceived shortcomings in the current background check system. Grassley and Cruz argued that the NICS database has been arthritic and blind, and focus should be on improving the system we have instead of expanding a broken system. Republicans proposed and passed the “Fix NICS Act” precisely to address this. This statute:

• Requires federal agencies and states to produce NICS implementation plans focused on uploading all information to the background check system showing that a person is prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms under current law—including measures to verify the accuracy of records.
• Holds federal agencies accountable if they fail to upload relevant records to the background check system through public reporting and prohibiting bonus pay for political appointees.  
• Rewards states who comply with their NICS implementation plans through federal grant preferences and incentives, while increasing accountability through public reporting for those who do not comply with their plans.
• Reauthorizes and improves important law enforcement programs to help state governments share relevant criminal record information with NICS.
• Creates a Domestic Abuse and Violence Prevention Initiative to ensure that states have adequate resources and incentives to share all relevant information with NICS showing that a felon or domestic abuser is excluded from purchasing firearms under current law.
• Provides important technical assistance to federal agencies and states who are working to comply with NICS record-sharing requirements.

In September 2019, the Texas Republican Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said he would defy the NRA and support an expansion of background checks for stranger-to-stranger gun sales as a “common sense” protection.

Sen. Cruz distanced himself from the policy, saying that expanding background checks was “a mistake.”

Academic research has had mixed results in being able to provide empirical data demonstrating the efficacy (or lack thereof) of universal background checks to mitigate the risk of gun deaths.

Articles	Findings
Wintemute GJ, et al., Subsequent criminal activity among violent misdemeanants who seek to purchase handguns: risk factors and effectiveness of denying handgun purchase. JAMA. 2001;285(8):1019-1026.	“Our results indicate that denial of handgun purchase to violent misdemeanants is associated with a specific decrease in risk of arrest for new gun and/or violent crimes.”
Alvaro Castillo-Carniglia, et al., California’s comprehensive background check and misdemeanor violence prohibition policies and firearm mortality, Annals of Epidemiology, Volume 30, 2019, Pages 50-56.	“CBC and MVP policies were not associated with changes in firearm suicide or homicide. Incomplete and missing records for background checks, incomplete compliance and enforcement, and narrowly constructed prohibitions may be among the reasons for these null findings.”
Kagawa RMC, et al. Repeal of Comprehensive Background Check Policies and Firearm Homicide and Suicide. Epidemiology. 2018;29(4):494-502.	“We found no evidence of an association between the repeal of comprehensive background check policies and firearm homicide and suicide rates in Indiana and Tennessee. In order to understand whether comprehensive background check policies reduce firearm deaths in the United States generally, more evidence on the impact of such policies from other states is needed.”
Makarios, M., et al., The Effectiveness of Policies and Programs That Attempt to Reduce Firearm Violence: A Meta-Analysis. Crime & Delinquency. 2008; 58(2):222-244	Meta analysis finding little statistically significant evidence that checks reduce shootings.
Santaella-Tenorio J, Cerdá M, Villaveces A, Galea S. What Do We Know About the Association Between Firearm Legislation and Firearm-Related Injuries? [published correction appears in Epidemiol Rev. 2017 Jan 1;39(1):171-172]. Epidemiol Rev. 2016;38(1):140-157.	Meta analysis finding reductions in the percent of homicides and firearm homicides between -3% and -19% as a result of background checks, across four studies between 2000 and 2010.
Lee LK, et al. Firearm Laws and Firearm Homicides: A Systematic Review. JAMA Intern Med. 2017;177(1):106-119.	“The strength of firearm legislation in general, and laws related to strengthening background checks and permit-to-purchase in particular, is associated with decreased firearm homicide rates. High-quality research is important to further evaluate the effectiveness of these laws.”
The RAND Corporation (2017)	Background checks “may decrease” violent crime.

The empirical research is inconclusive on the efficacy of checks to reduce violence for a variety of reasons, including: (1) the variation of reliability in the databases being utilized in the studies; (2) the difficulty in controlling for only one policy related to gun violence; and (3) the ability for gun buyers to work around the system through sister states.

What is clear is that background checks are not a panacea and will not always work as intended. The mass shootings in Sutherland Springs, Charleston, and Virginia Tech were all committed by a shooter who passed a background check despite convictions for domestic violence, a history of drug abuse, or involuntary psychiatric hospitalization, respectively. Sometimes, the database records are incomplete, not updated, or incorrectly labeled/organized. Sometimes, there is a problem with compliance of sellers to follow the law. Additionally, “bad guys” do not automatically trigger a red flag – the checks can only detect limited data. The Uvalde shooter purchased his firearm from a federally licensed gun store, and therefore presumably passed a background check. There is, however, some additional data to suggest that universal background checks will effectively constrain the illegal gun market.

It is understandable why manufacturers, distributors, and their associations, invested in optimizing profits from sales of firearms, would want to oppose any legislation that would have the effect of slowing the manufacture and purchase of firearms throughout the country and see any dampening of their ability to sell guns to everyone as a substantial burden on their liberty. However, it is equally clear that American voters do not generally see background checks as a substantial burden on their liberty, and it is likely that there is some public safety benefit even if not quantified empirically yet.

On a policy measure that likely provides significant benefit to public safety and minimal burden on liberty, the rhetoric surrounding it is often ramped up to the highest levels:

Critics of universal background checks escalate the discussion to a challenge to America’s first principles, arguing universal background checks would be an end to the protections guaranteed by our founding fathers in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

It is relatively clear that background checks do not violate the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that the Amendment protects an individual right to own a handgun for private purposes like self-defense within one’s own home. Justice Scalia’s majority opinion also emphasized repeatedly that the right to keep and bear arms, like other constitutional rights, is “not unlimited,” and is subject to regulation. In
the Court’s words:

[N]othing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding
prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008)

The frustration that I think is felt by so many across this country over the failure to pass universal background checks stems from the apparent inaction in Congress following American tragedy after American tragedy.

The hesitancy republican senators seem to be demonstrating towards the adoption of this policy, despite its overwhelming popularity among their own constituents underscores the likely capture of these members of Congress by the NRA.

The following is a list of the U.S. Senators who have “benefitted the most” over their careers by NRA contributions, according to The Brady Campaign:

Senator	NRA Spending	Gun Deaths in State (per year)
Mitt Romney (UT)	$13,647,676	400
Richard Burr (NC)	$6,987,380	1,470
Roy Blunt (MO)	$4,555,722	1,288
Thom Tillis (NC)	$4,429,333*	1,470
Marco Rubio (FL)	$3,303,355	2,449
Joni Ernst (IA)	$3,129,723*	302
Rob Portman (OH)	$3,063,327	1,602
Todd C. Young (IN)	$2,897,582	1,021
Bill Cassidy (LA)	$2,870,574*	1,036
Tom Cotton (AR)	$1,971,214*	596
Pat Toomey (PA)	$1,475,448	1,628
Josh Hawley (MO)	$1,391,548	1,288
Marsha Blackburn (TN)	$1,306,130*	1,273
Mitch McConnell (KY)	$1,283,515*	770
Ronald Harold “Ron” Johnson (WI)	$1,269,486*	641
Mike Braun (IN)	$1,249,967	1,021
John Thune (SD)	$638,942	112
Shelley Moore Capito (WV)	$346,688*	330
Richard Shelby (AL)	$258,514	1,090
Chuck Grassley (IA)	$226,007	302
John Neely Kennedy (LA)	$215,788	1,036
Ted Cruz (TX)	$176,274	3,647
Lisa Murkowski (AK)	$146,262	173
Steve Daines (MT)	$133,611*	214
Johnny Isakson (GA)	$131,571	1,693
Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS)	$112,047*	686
Roger Wicker (MS)	$106,680	686
Rand Paul (KY)	$104,456	770
Mike Rounds (SD)	$100,549*	112
John Boozman (AR)	$82,352	596
John Cornyn (TX)	$78,945	3,647
Ben Sasse (NE)	$73,573*	183
Jim Inhofe (OK)	$74,708*	735
Lindsey Graham (SC)	$66,420*	964
Mike Crapo (ID)	$55,039	278
Jerry Moran (KS)	$34,718	434
John Barrasso (WY)	$26,989	125
John Hoeven (ND)	$23,050*	238
Jim Risch (ID)	$22,013*	278
Susan Collins (ME)	$19,850*	154
Deb Fischer (NE)	$19,638	183
James Lankford (OK)	$18,955	735
Tim Scott (SC)	$18,513	964
Kevin Cramer (ND)	$13,255	238
Bill Hagerty (TN)	$10,550	1,273
Roger Marshall (KS)	$5,950	434
Tommy Tubberville (AL)	$4,950	1,090
Cynthia Lummis (WY)	$2,500	125

While financial influence cannot be ignored, it also does not always provide a perfectly predictable story about what senators will say and how they will vote.

Mitt Romney, the senator at the top of this list, has articulated support for expanded background checks for commercial purchases, and recently has gone a little further in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, telling reporters that “Background checks and updating our background check technology is something that I think is an appropriate federal responsibility,” and that he’ll review legislation to expand universal background checks prior to gun sales that Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., proposed in 2013 in response to the shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Admittedly, this language is guarded and he has been careful to leave himself an out at the end of the day. However, even this tempered language from the largest recipient of NRA contributions demonstrates just how difficult it is to mount a public objection to universal background checks today.

The limitations of universal background checks would carry more weight if the burden being proposed on the American people were greater. This is not a substantial burden on American’s liberty to purchase or possess a firearm. The relative cost/benefit analysis of this policy seems to weigh heavily in favor of its adoption. Complaints that universal background checks would practically restrict the ability of friends to sell a firearm to one another is hardly a sufficient justification for maintaining a society that so readily and eagerly arms our children’s’ murderers.

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