Across America, the issue of gun control has driven a wedge between friends and family. Could anything have been done to prevent the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary? Proponents of gun control ask how many more tragedies will it take before something is done, while gun advocates insist that the current gun laws are strict enough. Like with any controversial issue, this is a debate heavily fueled by emotion on both sides. I’d like to break down what we know about the situation and see if any of the proposed ideas to stop future violence would have in fact prevented this senseless tragedy.
Psychological Screenings for All Gun Purchases
According to the description of the gunman by those who knew him, he was most certainly an introvert. Introverts make up 30-40% of the population, so the media’s classification of him being “quiet”, “shy” and “keeping to himself” isn’t as red of a flag as they would have you believe. If it was, that would mean there are over ~120 million potential school shooters walking around America at this very moment. In addition to being introverted, he suffered from Asperger Syndrome. I do not know if Asperger causes violent behavior, but the experts claim that there is no link between the two.
Connecticut has sort of lax laws when it comes to allowing the mentally handicapped to purchase weapons. Under the current system, it’s highly unlikely that the law alone could have prevented him from purchasing a weapon. His behavior and Asperger syndrome may have been enough to stop a store owner from selling him a weapon, but we will never know, because the gunman did not purchase any weapons.
Do I think individuals suffering from Anti-social personality disorder (ASPD), such as infamous cult leader Charles Manson, should be able to purchase a firearm? No. Do we know if the Connecticut gunman had ASPD or a similar disorder? Unfortunately, we do not. If he was ever diagnosed, that information has not yet come to light.
Let’s say for a moment that Connecticut had stricter gun laws, which actually prevent those suffering with violent mental disorders from purchasing guns. Let’s also say that the gunman had been diagnosed with ASPD or something similar. It would not have stopped him from getting access to weapons. Why? Because he stole the weapons from his mother. Even if psychological screenings were in place, she would have been allowed to purchase weapons. This would not have changed the outcome whatsoever.
Assault Weapons Ban
“Assault Weapon” is a complicated term that causes much confusion in the gun control debate. Many Americans claim that they do not support complete gun control, but do support banning military/assault style weapons. Before we can decide one way or another on this issue, we must first know what an Assault Weapon is. I’ve been asking this question for the last week and have yet to get the right answer from anyone pushing for stricter gun laws. The weapon used in the shooting was not an Assault Rifle. In order for a weapon to be an Assault Rifle, it must meet a number of criteria, including the capability to switch to automatic fire. Neither the Bushmaster XM-15 rifle he used nor the civilian AR-15 it is based on are assault rifles as they lack selective automatic fire capabilities.
Should Assault Rifles be banned from civilians? They already are. For the most part, it’s only military and police that have access to such weapons. If Assault Rifles are already banned and if the gunman did not use one, why are they being pushed to the foreground of the debate? Because proponents of gun control legislation know that most people, even those opposed to broader gun control, still support the ban of Assault Rifles. By focusing on this issue, they attempt to convince the public that further gun control legislation is necessary, despite the fact that their proposed laws will have nothing to do with Assault Rifles.
If you watch the video above, you’ll see that there are clear problems distinguishing between a regular hunting rifle and a “mean looking” semi-automatic rifle. There isn’t any easy way to separate the two, which is one of the primary reasons the 1994 Assault Weapon ban was not renewed. How do you enforce a law when there isn’t a clear distinction between the two?
But let’s say for a moment that there was some way to easily distinguish between a semi-automatic Assault Weapon and a regular hunting rifle. If we used that criteria to ban the sale of certain guns, could we have prevented the shooting? No. The gunman also had with him two semi-automatic handguns and a shotgun. Sadly, those weapons would have been just as deadly and taken as many lives as the rifle.
Longer Waiting Periods, Additional Licenses, Gun Registries and Other New Requirements for Purchasing Weapons
As with psychological screening, this wouldn’t have stopped the gunman from stealing weapons from someone who already purchased a weapon legally. His mother had those weapons for longer than any realistic waiting period. A gun registry would not have stopped his rampage. None of this legislation could have prevented the tragedy from taking place nor does it realistically prevent future massacres.
Total Gun Control
With all of the aforementioned arguments and legislation rendered nil, we are left with one last possible solution, total gun control. Could total gun control have prevented the tragedy? In a perfect world, where every gun on the face of the planet magically vanished and no one ever built another weapon again, I would still only say, “maybe.” It is still possible that he would have committed a violent crime using a knife, like the kinds of attacks prevalent in China. But, we don’t live in a perfect world where we can ensure that every gun vanishes the moment gun control is instituted. What about the the hundreds of millions of guns already in circulation?
Even more disturbing, if you attempted to institute total gun control, it would probably send the country into a civil war. This would be the last straw for many who already believe their freedoms and the constitution are under attack. The bloodshed and death toll of a modern civil war would be ten thousand fold everyone ever killed in a school shooting. If you do not think it would send the country into a civil war, consider watching this next video of the late Charlton Heston from when he was President of the NRA.
The main problem with gun control, despite the threat of civil war, is that it just doesn’t work. Guns will still be available, but only to those willing to break the law. Law abiding citizens would be defenseless against these individuals. Gun control advocates argue that this is not the case, but there have been plenty of studies to prove them wrong.
A final remark in one Harvard study states, “If you are surprised by [our] finding[s], so [are we]. [We] did not begin this research with any intent to ‘exonerate’ hand‐ guns, 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.” The New York Times explains the complex relationship between crime and gun control, citing Justice Breyer on Washington D.C., “comparison with 49 other major cities reveals that the district’s homicide rate is actually substantially higher relative to these other cities than it was before the handgun restriction went into place.” Finally, the Examiner reports more violent crime in Australia despite gun ban. These are just a few of the many examples.
Not only do guns protect citizens from criminals, they also provide protection against a tyrannical government. Living in a democracy, we change regimes every four to eight years. It is very possible that the country may one day unknowingly elect a leader like Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin. Without the means to protect ourselves, we would be helpless to defend against this threat.
From the video below, “I was going through all the exhibits, all the soap and the lampshades made of people skin. While I was looking, I heard a funny noise and there was an old woman maybe two meters from me. She was trying not to cry, she was sort of sobbing very quietly… She obviously had gone through that, that’s when the whole impact of it hit me. And I promised myself I would never be in her situation. I would want to be free, never in a situation where somebody could march us off to ovens or prisons or take away our freedom.”
Conclusion
When tragedy strikes and emotions are high, everyone wants to find an easy solution. If you’ve read through this article, you understand that none of the current issues or ideas being discussed would have actually prevented this tragedy. There is not nor will there ever be an easy solution.
When you live in a free society, people will always be free to make bad choices and hurt others. There is little to nothing you can do to dissuade someone from committing any kind of crime when their plan includes suicide.
You are absolutely correct stricker gun “sale” laws would not have prevented this tragedy, as those laws pertain to who can purchase a gun. What would help would be the mandatory integration of new technologies in sidearm sales. Making it mandatory that every side arm purchased is immediately palm print matched to the owner and no one else could operate it. Additionally you could sale bullets that are registered to one owner, so that if they are used in a crime they can more easily be tracked back to a unique individual. While current changes in gun laws are crap, there are ways of changing the system for the better.
Imprinting a weapon so that it could only be used by a single operator destroys the value of a gun. What if I want to resell it later? What if I want to let others in my family use it? It’s not a realistic solution. What about the hundreds of millions of weapons out there that wouldn’t have this technology? I think you’ve been watching a little bit too much James Bond.
Virtually anyone can learn to make their own bullets in minutes. All that bullet registries would do is raise the prices for people who buy bullets at the store because of the new requirements. Many would start making their own to save on costs, but more importantly, people intent on committing crimes would make their own as well.
I always find it odd when people ask for bullet registries; every gun already leaves a unique finger print on the bullets it fires. This, in a sense, is already a registry of who shot the bullet. It’s been used by the FBI for decades to catch criminals. There is also a way to look at the shell casing and line it up with the type of gun that fired it.
All new handguns sold in the United States are fired once so that this information about your gun’s “fingerprint” can be recorded into a database. I am not sure if this is the case for rifles as well, but they would leave a fingerprint of their own. The only weapon that would not leave a fingerprint on the bullet would be a shotgun, but how do you expect to put serial numbers on buckshot or BBs either?
“Additionally you could sale bullets that are registered to one owner, so that if they are used in a crime they can more easily be tracked back to a unique individual.”
You are suggesting something that doesnt stop the tradedgy at all, would cause the price of ammo to go up, and wont help against the millions of boxes ammo already in circulation.
There are some points I agree with you about and others I wonder about. I agree with you about what an assault rife is and isn’t, but how about the rounds of ammunition available to the killers. You didn’t mention the legal selling of that. One of my FB friends was a gun shop owner and he believes that high efficiency weapons are useful for hunting, but sees no point in anyone other than the military and law enforecment to have access to any of these othr guns whose sole purpose is to kill many people quickly. I agree with you about the mental illness aspect being tricky. Many people in the medical community feel that people who are so paranoid they are afraid of going down to the grocery store without their gun are displaying elements of mental disorders associated with paranoia. Probably half the people who own this high capacity killing weaponry and ammunition would be considered mentally ill and have their gun possessions confiscated. Mental illness detection to determine who can have or cannot have a gun would have to be up to the medical community and they are now more apt to error on the safe side after what happened in VA Tech. That could be a problem.The other aspect is getting rid of violent entertainment. Now that impinges upon the 1st amendment and is not grounded in fact. People in other advanced countries have access to the same entertainment but they do not come close to having the gun violence we do. The judicial system believes that poverty plays a role in gun violence in the inner cities and , God knows, we aren’t going to deal with that. (Also gun violence is the reason for the countries which exceed us in gun violence – S. Africa and Columbia, for instance, so it is a legitimate cause). Poverty can not be blamed for the mass shooting here in the US. One success story — Austrialia had a similar mass shooting years ago and they stopped the trade of certain types of guns and the country bought back as many guns on the street as possible. This was a successful move that we failed to do when we initiated the Brady Law. I agree with you that it will not make much difference unless we can buy back these weapons. Because America seems to only be affected by money, I wonder if making gun owners liable for any crimes committed with their stolen weapons and gun manufacturers liable, also, would cut at the gut of the problem — gun profits. We do this now with bars that are responsible for a DUI death after a customer was allowed to purchase too many drinks. Finally, repealing the 2nd would not be impossible. I am afraid that if there are any more mass shootings the American public will be whistling past the NRA. They whistled past Dixie this last election and the public is becoming more and more distraught with the fruits of gun freedom. I would not be worrying about a civil war. The second was put into place for militias to defend the central government from rebel groups, not vice-versa. The days of Henry VIII were two centuries before our Const. and with the exception of freedom of religion, ol Henry was pretty much ancient history to the Framers. Our military could take care of those who did not cooperate . I do not think they would have any long term worrys about gun owners who would not comply. They would be more worried about a Prohibition type problem which would happen. It would become an underground profit and that would be very bad. I personally believe the only way is to make each gun ownership and gun manufactoring a great monetary liability not worth the bother. Sort of like doctors who would rather not practice than have to carry the malpractice insurance. Money can make or break anything and anybody.
Your piece should be posted where it would get read by a larger audience. Post where ever there is topic on guns.. You will reach many more & might help to get people thinking..Which seems to be pretty hard these days. Thanks again
Oh, I forgot another thought I wanted to ask you about. The phrase that the NRA uses — “The only thing that gets rid of a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with one “– must surely mean something entirely different to me than it does to someone who thinks such an idea would convince anyone that having more guns is a good idea. To me it means — you don’t know me and I don’t know you. Considering neither of us knows who is good or who is bad the only REAL and recognizable good guys are those in law enforcement or the military, thus they are the only good guys in a crowd who should ever have a gun. To me anyone else is bad. I guess I just do not see the logic in the statement from their end. It seems to weaken the point they would attempt to make.
I was discussing this this very point today.. Thanks AGAIN..
Sorry about the spelling errors. (for ex.– worries). It would be good to proofread well before hitting post. LOL
All other arguments aside, it bears pointing out that this article says “If we ban all guns there will be a civil war.” And yet, it claims, that guns protect us from tyranny. I would say that “If you try to take our guns we’ll wage against you” is EXACTLY the definition of tyranny.
That’s actually not the definition of tyranny, although I understand what you’re trying to say. They are defending their liberty to keep the weapons and the government would be trying to take away their rights. Fighting for liberty and personal freedom is never tyrannical.
# 1 STOP using the term WEAPON lets start using the proper term and that is Firearm whether it abe a shotgun, handgun or Rifle please refrain from using the term weapon in your writings the connotaion is something offensive and destructive and is a Military term not a civilian term. # 2 He didn’t have an ” assault Weapon” he had a civilian AR-15 that doesn’t not meet the criteria of an assaulkt weapon as determined by Connecticut Law http://www.jud.ct.gov/ji/criminal/glossary/assaultweapon.htm it also does not meet the requirements under Ct State Statues Sec. 53-202c. Also if the Law regarding proper storage needs amending to include any unauthorized/ unlicensed person. Lets keep things in perspective and factual lets not contribute to the terrorist media.
Because you are regurgitating points from my article, but in a defensive manner, I’m unsure if you actually read the article or are simply responding to the headline.
Judie, “Considering neither of us knows who is good or who is bad” shows little thought on your part. I know I am always the good guy and since I do not know wether you are good or not I am prepared to treat you as bad should the need arise, and that is the whole point and the right to do so “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED UPON”…
I would like to say that I have no desire for a policy debate. The reason I am commenting is this post was filed under General Skepticism and there are some issues with the data presented.
While it is true that mandatory psychological screening for firearm purchases would not have prevented the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary, it most likely would have prevented James Eagan Holmes from acquiring the firearms used in the shooting in Aurora, Colorado. If we wish to determine the efficacy of psychological screening for firearm purchases a study would need to be conducted of mass shootings in the United States.
The Harvard study is not a peer reviewed study. The paper was initially published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and the standards for publication in a law review are different than a peer reviewed academic journal. It is also a partisan, therefore biased, publication. I have not reviewed the data in the paper but if it is accurate, it should be available from an objective source.
http://www.harvard-jlpp.com/about/
If you are interested, here are the violent crime statistics going back to the early 1990′s for Australia directly from the Australian government.
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/341-360/tandi359/view%20paper.html
Also, does your blog support the use of html tags in the comments? I would have used them but I think it makes it harder to read when they show up as plain text. I do enjoy your content and would like to better format my comments in the future.
Most Americans do not support full gun control, so while you may dispute the couple of references listed above, the idea of the article is to show that an assault weapons ban wouldn’t have changed anything.
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/27/5079151/california-gun-sales-increase.html
As for Aurora, had he been unable to purchase the firearms legally, he could have went through someone else or just built a bigger bomb and skipped firearms altogether. It really isn’t relevant because those who want to do harm will find a way.
I honestly have no opinion on gun control and I am not debating policy. As a fellow skeptic, I think it is important we use objective data to support our claims.
What James Eagan Holmes would have done if he could not have purchased the firearms legally is speculation. It is important that we base our arguments on facts.
What I have noticed in the debates on gun control in the USA which are raised following massacres from at least the Columbine massacre on (well at least in the parts of the debates that reach Australia) is the immediate confusion between these massacres and the use of firearms in what might be called single victim crimes. It occurs to me that single victim crimes like armed robbery with the killing or wounding of one (or two) victims, a domestic dispute leading to murder or some other form of armed assault are different in kind from the random shooting of cinema patrons or the massacre of school children because of some real or imagined offense they have caused to the shooter(s),
In Melbourne, Australia, 1987 Julian Knight killed seven and wounded 19 in the Hoddle Street massacre. His main weapon was an M14 selective fire automatic rifle. He also carried a Ruger .22 calibre rifle and a shotgun. In the same year, also in Melbourne, Frank Vitkovic shot eight dead with an M1 carbine, again a semi-automatic military weapon. This apparently was originally an attempt to kill a former friend who was a post office worker but when the intended victim ducked under a counter, Vitkovic began shooting others. Vitkovic himself died in a fall and his diary was assessed as that of a paranoid schizophrenic.
In 1996 Martin Bryant, a man with intellectual disabilities used two semi-automatic military rifles to kill 35 people and wound 23 at and near the old convict site of Port Arthur in Tasmania. Victims included 3 and 6 year old girls, one of whom was shot with the rifle pressed into her neck. While Bryant killed people in a few different locations, ten were killed and 12 injured in the Broad Arrow Cafe within 15 seconds.
it was after this massacre that the conservative government of the day led by former Prime Minister John Howard banned the possession of semi-automatic rifles of any kind, whether sporting or military. Other weapons have been further restricted, but it is still possible to own and use pistols and rifles legally.
No sane legislator in the USA or Australia should argue that a ban on semi-automatic rifles with compulsory purchase of those within private ownership would prevent killings in armed robberies, domestic disputes or gangland wars. Neither would such measures entirely prevent the possibility of another massacre. However these measures should make such massacres more difficult and limit the number of victims by the simple fact that the rate of fire would be limited.
Did Prime Minister John Howard do this on his own after all these massascures & had just had enough or did he waste time with their type of congress/senate? Or does this the working of a sane goverment that doesnt have a small population that’s so unwilling (afraid0 of doing something that would benefit the public..Children & adults from usless killings from guns DAILY ..Sad our country couldnt be so grown up..
Hi Dale, sorry for the delayed reply. I am not certain which method was used to ban semi-automatic weapons in Australia. A likely method would have been a change in the regulations, not the legislation. Obviously legislation already exists banning private ownership of various items eg substances like heroin. The actual items banned would be listed in the regulations, or under a schedule attached to the regulations. These regulations may be altered at will by the “Governor in council” and do not have to go before the parliament, but may be reviewed by courts and obviously in the parliament as well. I suppose that the government of the day might obtain the formal or informal consent of the opposition before doing some of these things, but as they are regarded as merely administrative and not matters of party policy the opposition usually would not object.
“Governor in council” means a person who is formally the representative of the monarchy plus a quorum of the ministers of state, who are elected parliamentarians. A governor is appointed by a government, rubber stamped by the Queen and may still be in office when another government takes over after an election. The governor has essentially very little political power, they may refuse to approve legislation or dismiss a government under some circumstances but that’s about all. They are usually selected from senior distinguished military, lawyers, scientists, sometimes churchmen. Present governor general is Ms Quentin Bryce, former academic and human rights campaigner.
Since all firearms in Australia are supposed to be registered, like cars, it was a relatively simple matter to identify the legal owners of semi-automatic rifles and require then to give them up. I do not know how much compensation was paid, but a distant cousin had to give his semi-automatic up, though he kept his bolt action rifle(s). I do not know what hoops you have to jump through to get a licence to own pistols or rifles, but the details are likely to be readily available on state or federal government web sites.
In the fairly recent past there has been a problem with military weapons dumped down abandoned mines after VP day 1945. These were turning up in criminal hands. More recently, pistols have been smuggled in by organised gangs, notably Glock pistols. In one recent case the gang bought the franchise for a suburban post office in Sydney and had the weapons mailed directly there.
There are probably thousands of unregistered weapons in Australia, many lying half forgotten on the tops of wardrobes. Every now and then there is a gun amnesty and people who have guns that once belonged to grandfather can turn them in without being charged with any offence.