What a week it’s been.
First and foremost, I’d like to acknowledge the horrific mass shooting that occurred in Las Vegas, the deadliest in modern American history. I extend my sincerest and most heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families.
America is still in shock after its deadliest mass shooting in modern history.
One reason why killer was able to inflict such a horrifying toll was that he had equipped 12 of the 23 guns he had sneaked into his room with a modification known as a “bump stock”. Largely unregulated and available for as little as $100, bump stocks transform legal semi-automatic rifles into de facto illegal automatic ones, by harnessing the motion produced by the recoil after each shot is fired to pull the trigger repeatedly at high speed. The devices increase a semi-automatic’s rate of fire by tenfold or more, from roughly 45-60 rounds per minute to 400-800.
In contrast to other recent mass shootings in America, the attack in Las Vegas has yielded a smattering of bipartisan support for a legislative response. On October 4th Diane Feinstein, a senator from California, introduced a bill to ban bump stocks. In addition to solid backing from her Democratic colleagues, two Republican senators have already come out in favour. In a rare concession, America’s National Rifle Association, a powerful lobbying group that in the past has invariably opposed restrictions on gun ownership, said on October 5th that regulators should revisit current laws governing bump stocks.
Sceptics might argue that banning bump stocks now will accomplish little, since a large number of them are already in circulation. The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the agency in charge of firearms regulation, does not track the manufacturers of bump stocks, so no one knows exactly how many have been sold.
However, until this week Walmart, America’s largest retailer, allowed third-party vendors to sell them to the general public on its website. (The company has not disclosed how many of those transactions actually occurred.)
History suggests that the market for bump stocks is likely to heat up—both in response to the attack itself and as a reaction to any resulting legal restrictions. In the months following the Sandy Hook school massacre in December 2012, in which 20 six- and seven-year-old children were shot dead, criminal-background checks for firearms (a good proxy for gun purchases) increased by 20%. Similar spikes occurred immediately after the election of Barack Obama, and in the wake of a series of executive orders he issued that sought to tighten enforcement of existing gun rules.
There is a weariness to America’s gun debate and the familiar ritual after mass shootings, which are more frequent than in any other rich country. One study counted 166 of them in 14 countries in 2000-14; 133 were in America. Yet, nothing happens, partly because the National Rifle Association (NRA), which has evolved from an armed version of the Boy Scout movement into the foremost mouthpiece for a view of America in which everyone must be armed for their own protection, has a veto in Washington—including over banning “bump stocks” which make semi-automatic guns more lethal.
Such despair is unworthy of this week’s victims. There are plenty of down-is-up arguments about guns, but the Las Vegas shooting, in addition to being the most deadly, has shown up the old NRA line that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun as the most deceitful of the lot.
Granted, America has chosen permissive gun laws for itself. But the body count does not have to be as high as it is today. Research into murder and suicide suggests that making it just slightly harder to get hold of a weapon can reduce the number of killings, many of which are spontaneous and unplanned.
The road from Mandalay
Tired of waiting for Congress, some cities have introduced their own laws. In upstate New York, where plenty of people hunt, gun laws are permissive. In New York City those laws do not apply. Anyone who wants to carry a gun down Fifth Avenue must first obtain the permission of the NYPD. New York state tightened its laws after Sandy Hook, in effect banning assault weapons. Four other states did the same, though a further 16 responded by making guns easier to buy or carry.
Las Vegas, which sits in a state with some of the loosest rules in the country, should rewrite its own gun laws, too. Real conservatives, who champion local fixes for local problems, ought to cheer that. Of course it would not completely solve the problem. Cities like Chicago, near states with permissive laws, would still be flooded with guns. But in a country with 30,000 gun deaths a year, even small improvements would save a lot of lives.
A rough calculation suggests that in the time between the Las Vegas shooting and the publication of this article, a further 320 Americans lost their life to a bullet.
P.S.
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