Mass Shootings! Here we go again!

The two recent mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde have once again brought the matter of gun laws in the U.S. to the forefront, with one side rallying to press for stricter gun laws while the other rallies to defend the constitutional right to possess firearms.

I understand both sides. We all want violent crime to subside. If we impose new laws that ban all guns, the number of deaths by guns will decrease significantly. If we make it more difficult to obtain and/or possess a gun, the number of deaths by guns will decrease significantly. Isn’t this what we want? So why not impose such laws? Seems like a no-brainer, right?

It’s not that simple. Americans have owned guns for over 200 years. Yet, it’s only fairly recent that the problem with mass shootings has occurred. What changed? That’s the question on which we should be focusing. Until that occurs, here are 3 important things to consider.

FIRST, it’s doubtful that strict gun control laws in the U.S. would have their intended effect. A 2007 study published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy compared countries with strict gun control laws with those without them and revealed it is NOT true that stricter gun control laws result in fewer violent deaths (click here to read the article). The conclusion appears on pages 693-94 and is as follows:

This Article has reviewed a significant amount of evidence from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at the very least the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra. To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world.This Article has reviewed a significant amount of evidence from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at the very least the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra. To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world.

Over a decade ago, Professor Brandon Centerwall of the University of Washington undertook an extensive, statistically sophisticated study comparing areas in the United States and Canada to determine whether Canada’s more restrictive policies had better contained criminal violence. When he published his results it was with the admonition:Over a decade ago, Professor Brandon Centerwall of the University of Washington undertook an extensive, statistically sophisticated study comparing areas in the United States and Canada to determine whether Canada’s more restrictive policies had better contained criminal violence. When he published his results it was with the admonition:

If you are surprised by finding, so . did not begin this research with any intent to “exonerate” handguns, but there it is—a negative finding, to be sure, but a negative finding is nevertheless a positive contribution. It directs us where not to aim public health resources.

Many politicians would do well to read the research.

SECOND, on balance, the liabilities of the present access to firearms do not outweigh the benefits. Following the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, then-President Obama commissioned research on firearms in the U.S. The resulting

report can be viewed here. On page 15, we read that virtually all surveys considered estimated that the defensive use of firearms in the U.S. are at least equal to and may even greatly exceed offensive use by criminals. For example, one of my former neighbors and her 14-year-old daughter were spared from being gang raped because she had recently completed firearms training, obtained her concealed carry permit, and had her Walther PPQ handgun on her person that day.

Click here to see Gun Rights Are Women's Rights. 

THIRD, although proponents of strict gun control may not like the slogan “Guns don’t kill, people do,” its truth is no more deniable than saying “Cars don’t kill, people do.” Just as one would not blame a car driven by a drunk driver or bad actor who drives a car into a crowd of pedestrians, one should not blame a gun shot by a bad actor in a school setting. Moreover, we are naïve if we believe that bad actors who would engage in mass shootings will not find another tool to carry out their evil deed, should stricter gun laws make it difficult for them to obtain a firearm. Although stricter gun laws will certainly decrease the number of violent crime by guns, no real progress has been made if the number of violent acts remain virtually the same after such laws have been imposed, as per the first point above.

So where do we go from here?

Unfortunately, many who are either in positions of authority or want to be (e.g., Beto O’Rourke) have called for restrictive gun laws based on flawed information. VP Kamala Harris is now calling for a ban on “assault weapons” (click here). She said, “e are not sitting around waiting to figure out what the solution looks like. . . . We know what works on this. It includes, let's have an assault weapons

ban.” A problem with this is that, as seen above, multiple research reports, one of which was commissioned by then-President Obama, have already suggested the solution she is proposing will not work.

Moreover, by “assault weapons,” she means “It was designed for a specific purpose—to kill a lot of human beings quickly. An assault weapon is a weapon of war.” However, the present guns being used in mass shootings are not weapons of war. Weapons of war are automatic. In other words, you pull the trigger and the gun continues to fire as long as the trigger is held back. It is already illegal in the U.S. to own an automatic weapon without a special permit. In contrast, an AR-15 is a semi-automatic gun, which requires a separate trigger pull for every shot fired. Many hunting rifles, many shotguns, and all pistols are semi-automatics. And while it is true that hunting rifles and pistols can kill a lot of people quickly, so can a car or truck in the hands of a bad actor. Naivete and misinformation go higher up than the current VP. Over the Memorial Day weekend, President Biden said he wants to ban all high-caliber weapons and specifically named 9mm pistols. Why? Because some doctors told him that “a .22-caliber bullet will lodge in the lung, and we can probably get it out — may be able to get it and save the life. A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body. . . . So, the idea of these high-caliber weapons is, uh, there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of self-protection, hunting." On the other hand, .22 bullets are small and are typically used for killing squirrels and rabbits. 

For those who are not familiar with the different ammo calibers, 9mm is the ammo of choice for the Secret Service, the FBI, and most police and sheriff departments. It is also by far the most popular handgun used by civilians for personal protection.

9mm is preferred because it has adequate stopping power. That’s what law enforcement wants when they need to use a firearm to stop a bad guy. And that’s what a law-abiding armed citizen like my former neighbor wanted when she needed to stop five guys from raping her and her daughter. 9mm very often stops the attack but not always. In contrast, the stopping power of a .22 round pales in comparison to a 9mm and is not recommended for self-defense by experts. Let President Biden suggest to his Secret Service agents and the FBI that they should change their ammo from 9mm to .22-caliber, since he wants physicians to be able to extract a bullet from a bad guy’s lung. It would be interesting to see if any of the agents would be able to keep a straight face when explaining to the President why that would be a very bad idea!

Problems arise when a politician intends to make laws about something for which she or he has flawed knowledge and that have already been judged ineffective. Moreover, why should law abiding gun owners trust politicians who want to restrict gun ownership while simultaneously promoting policies that have resulted in and even promoted violence while also undermining work by law enforcement to curb it? Americans are less safe now as a result of their policies on crime. Making stricter gun laws would only further worsen the situation. Most Americans understand this. And that is why gun sales in the U.S. were up just shy of 30 percent in 2021 with purchases among women and minorities making the largest jump.

President Biden should commission a study to learn what has changed in our culture that has resulted in mass shootings. Let’s get to the root of the problem and deal with it, instead of making decisions that change our constitution and potentially impact law abiding citizens in a negative manner while naively hoping the multiple studies that have concluded such moves won’t work are wrong.

Mike Licona