At the 25th anniversary of the Columbine shootings, the New England Journal of Medicine ran a perspective piece on where our nation stands now on gun ownership and regulation.
After the shooting, in which 12 students were killed, Smith and Wesson, a major manufacturer of firearms, took measures to increase gun safety. These included not allowing dealers to sell high capacity magazines (i.e., bullet clips that allow ten rounds or more to be rapidly discharged before reloading), including safety devices on handguns that alerted users to the presence of live ammunition in the guns, imprinting barrel “fingerprints” that aid tracing the origin of a firearm. The gun industry boycotted the company and the CEO was forced to resign.
The Stats
Sometimes putting numbers to obvious problems helps to understand the depth of the problem.
Statistics from 1999 to 2021 (the last year for which reliable data are available) are illustrative. Before 1999, long gun sales, predominantly used for hunting, dominated sales of firearms. Now, most purchases (that we know about) are for handguns, many of which are military weapons.
Gun-related deaths in 1999 were 28,874, while the total in 2021 was 48,830. During the 22 year period up to 2021, firearm homicide rates increased by 70%. Firearm suicide rates increased by 33%. In 2021, over 80% of homicides, and 55% of suicides, involved guns.
Lobbying and Legal Rulings
The firearms industry spent over $13 million on lobbying in 2021, up from about $6.5 million in 2002. This resulted in part in the non-renewal of the 1994 10 year ban on the sale of assault weapons.
The Supreme Court has made several impactful rulings since the turn of this century. In 2005, the court found the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act to be constitutional. This reduced industry liability from potential tort lawsuits.
In 2008, in contrast to previous understanding of the 2nd Amendment, the court ruled that individuals, along with “well regulated militia,” enjoyed the protection of the amendment.
Regulation
While many obstacles to curbing gun violence in our country remain, polls show that the majority of Americans, even gun owners, favor more effective regulation. Measures that that would undoubtedly result in less gun violence include: universal registration of all new gun purchases, universal background checks, safe storage laws, proscription of assault weapons and high capacity magazines, cooling-off periods (a period of waiting from the time a gun is ordered to the time the weapon is possessed), required training for gun owners/purchasers, and many more.
Thank you.
In a recent interview, Steven Breyer, the retired Supreme Court justice, recalled a conversation he had had with Antonin Scalia about the second amendment. Scalia maintained that the first part of the one-sentence amendment, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state…” had nothing to do with the remaining words, “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” He saw the latter as an independent truth. Evidently the textualists in the court not only read the constitution as it was meant to be understood over 200 years ago, but prefatory qualifiers in sentences could be lopped off at will to suit one’s views. From one misread sentence in the Heller case of 2008, we have come to this.
Sorry about the anonymous. Writer of April 28, 2:26 pm is Helen.