This Time, Let’s Pass Common Sense Gun Safety Measures - Horowitz

This Time, Let’s Pass Common Sense Gun Safety Measures - Horowitz

Taking place within one week of each other and leaving 18 people dead, the recent mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder have once again moved the debate over whether or not to adopt new national gun safety measures to the top of the news cycle.  I am hoping that this time the end result will be different; that we finally break out of the all too familiar pattern of short-term political momentum for action running aground as public attention turns to other matters and the grassroots and lobbying strength of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the rest of the gun lobby win another war of attrition.  

About 40,000 people lose their lives every year in the United States from gun violence. Putting in place common-sense gun safety measures would significantly reduce that unacceptably high death toll. 

This begins with adopting universal background checks for gun buyers.  Universal background checks are supported by more than 90% of American adults and an overwhelming majority of gun owners, according to multiple national polls.  Yet, about 1-in-5 guns in the United States are still obtained without a background check because we have failed to close significant loopholes.  People can still obtain guns from unlicensed sellers over the internet or at gun shows without a background check.  And the so-called  Charleston loophole, which gives the  FBI only 3 days to conduct a background check and as a result “allowed Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who killed nine people in 2015 at a historically Black church in Charleston, S.C., to buy a handgun even though he should have been barred from doing so,” as The New York Times reported, remains the law of the land.

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Two separate bills, that taken together, would require universal background checks and give the FBI up to 10 days to complete the checks recently passed the House of Representatives in essentially party-line votes.  These measures face an uphill climb in the US Senate in which 60 votes will be required to overcome a near-certain filibuster.  But with the US Senate in Democratic hands, there will be recorded votes, and voting against measures as popular as background checks does pose some element of political risk for at least some Republican Senators.  This reality, along with the at least somewhat reduced influence of the NRA, as plagued by scandals and financial mismanagement, it goes through bankruptcy and reorganization, and the continued rise in influence of gun safety organizations, powered by Mike Bloomberg’s considerable investment in the issue, provide a glimmer of hope.

We should also move to reinstitute the assault weapons ban that included a federal prohibition on high-capacity magazines. A 2018 study cited by Everytown for Gun Safety, “found that mass shooting fatalities were 70 percent less likely to occur from 1994 to 2004, when the federal prohibition on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines was in effect, than during the 12 years studied before and after the prohibition. Researchers estimate a federal Assault Weapon Ban (AWB) would have prevented 314 of 448 mass shooting deaths that occurred during the studied periods where the AWB was not in effect.”

A substantial majority of Americans--more than 6-in-10--- support an assault weapons ban, according to Gallup and other national polls.  While this level of support by the American public provides a solid foundation for a campaign to reinstitute the ban, winning adoption will require more resources and more time than gaining universal background checks with its nearly universal public support.

These common-sense gun safety measures do not impinge on people’s 2nd Amendment rights. Americans will still be able to hunt and to defend themselves. Universal background checks and reinstituting a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, however, will save lives.  Let’s finally make them permanent national law. 
How many wake-calls do we need?

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.