The recent massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut—the second worst school shooting in U.S. history, behind the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007— has renewed calls for the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban.
Responding the Sandy Hook shooting, in which suspected gunman Adam Lanza, 20, fatally shot 26 people, including 20 6- and 7-year old children, President Obama suggested he is prepared to take a tougher stance on gun control. The president recently said, “we have to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this. Regardless of the politics.”
Meanwhile, the White House expressed its continued commitment to an assault weapons ban, reflecting a 2008 and 2012 campaign pledge by Obama.
When President Bill Clinton signed the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act into law in 1994 as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, the measure was popular and enjoyed broad public support and the blessing of law enforcement. The ban on semiautomatic pistols, rifles and shotguns expired in 2004 under the Bush administration due to a sunset provision in the law.
Since that time, the gun control debate has subsided, and numerous attempts to reinstate the ban in Congress have failed. Typically, the proposals have failed to get out of committee due to the lack of political will among Democrats and Republicans alike.
Further, in 2011, following the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, the Justice Department developed a list of measures to expand background checks to reduce the risk of criminals and the mentally ill obtaining guns. The proposals also called for enhanced sentences for people who act as straw purchasers for those who cannot pass a background check. But the department shelved the proposals as the 2012 election campaign season approached, and the Republican-controlled Congress began investigating the Operation Fast and Furious gun trafficking case.
This resistance to enacting even the most modest gun control reforms is the result of the power and influence of the pro-gun lobby in U.S. politics, and its ability to frame the terms of the debate. Gun control advocates have lost control of the narrative because their advocates in Congress fear retaliation from the National Rifle Association, or the NRA.
Backed by conservative lawmakers and judges, the NRA has succeeded in promoting an uncompromising interpretation of the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. The amendment states: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
And the gun lobby—which opposes all forms of gun control, assault weapons ban, firearms registration and background checks—spends overwhelmingly to support Republican candidates and defeat Democratic candidates. According to OpenSecrets.org, of the $17.6 million the NRA spent on the 2012 federal election cycle, $11.4 million was spent to vote Democratic candidates out of office, and $5.9 million to support Republican candidates. In 2010, the NRA spent at least $100,000 to support or oppose 11 different candidates, with over $1.43 million to help Pat Toomey (R-Pennsylvania) win a Senate seat against Democrat Joe Sestak.
During the 2012 election, the NRA ran ads in battleground states accusing Obama of chipping away at the right to bear arms. And four years earlier, gun sales surged after the president was elected, amid concerns that Democrats would restrict gin ownership.
In July of this year, one week after the Aurora, Colorado mass shooting, the NRA halted U.S. ratification of the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty to prevent the illicit flow of arms to war-ravaged regions of the world.
The NRA has spent over $2 million on lobbying this year. Of the organization’s 28 lobbyists, 15 have previously held government positions.
Mother Jones reports that in the past four years, the NRA has passed 99 laws in 37 states making it easier to own guns and carry them in public, and more difficult for the government to track these guns. The laws, two-thirds of which were passed in Republican-controlled state houses, often received bipartisan support.
Eight states permit guns in bars, and Missouri allows intoxicated people to carry firearms. Kansas allows concealed weapons in K-12 schools, while Virginia repealed a law requiring gun sellers to submit sales records, and ordered previous sales records destroyed. In Louisiana, the law allows gun enthusiasts to pack heat in church, while Utah permits allows people under a felony indictment to purchase a gun, and those charged with a violent crime to carry a concealed gun. Further, Nebraska allows people who have pled guilty to a violent crime to carry a weapon.
According to a 2011 report from the Violence Policy Center, while the NRA positions itself as the representative voice of gun owners, in reality the organization is bankrolled by the firearms manufacturing industry and corporate America. Since 2005, corporate partners have contributed as much as $52.6 million through the NRA corporate giving program. Nearly three-quarters of that amount, or $38.9 million, were from the firearms industry. 22 of NRA’s corporate partners are gun manufacturers, with 12 producing assault weapons. Xe—the military contractor formerly known as Blackwater that was implicated in the murder of Iraqi civilians— has contributed between $500,000 and $999,999 to the NRA.
In August 2009 George Sodini, a Pittsburgh resident and concealed gun permit holder who participated in the NRA’s corporate partners program, opened fire at an LA Fitness Center in Collier, Pennsylvania. He killed three people and wounded nine others before taking his own life.
Gun control advocates are concerned that once elected officials have issued platitudes to the families of victims of gun violence, they will retreat into silence and refuse to take action on flawed gun laws that allow mass shootings to occur.
“If we’ve reached a point where our children cannot attend school without fear of being gunned down by a homicidal maniac who has obtained easy access to firearms, then the freedom we cherish as citizens of the world’s greatest democracy is at risk of extinction,” the Washington-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) said in an official press statement on the Connecticut shooting.
The CSGV criticized elected officials for failing to speak out and call for gun control, and accused them of allowing NRA contributions and threats to dictate their votes.
“After today’s horror, Americans must demand immediate action by our President and Congress to reform our gun laws. This must include legislation requiring background checks on all gun sales, strengthening those background checks (particularly in terms of mental health and substance abuse screening), and renewing the ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines,” the group added. “We expect President Obama—as a man who has seen first hand the devastation that gun violence inflicts on families and communities during his time as a volunteer in Chicago—to be a leader in this process and to speak out boldly and directly.”
The NRA declined to comment on the Sandy Hook school tragedy “until the facts are thoroughly known.” But Larry Pratt of the gun advocacy group Gun Owners of America said that “Gun control supporters have the blood of little children on their hands. Federal and state laws combined to insure that no teacher, no administrator, no adult had a gun at the Newtown school where the children were murdered.” He added: “This tragedy underscores the urgency of getting rid of gun bans in school zones. The only thing accomplished by gun free zones is to ensure that mass murderers can slay more before they are finally confronted by someone with a gun.”
The U.S. is no stranger to gun violence, with the assassinations of high-profile figures such as President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X etched into historical memory. With around 300 million guns in private hands, nearly one gun for every citizen, America is the most heavily armed nation per capita. Each year, over 100,000 Americans are shot with guns, and 30,000 are killed due to homicide, suicide and accidental death. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, people are at a higher risk of homicide in areas with a higher concentration of firearms. States with stricter gun control laws have fewer deaths.
In addition, mass shootings are not a rare occurrence. Since the expiration of the federal assault weapon ban, the number of shooting per year has doubled, and the number of people shot in mass killings has nearly tripled. There have been 19 mass shootings in five years, a rate of one every four months. Seven of these have occurred this year alone, while five of the twelve deadliest gun massacres in U.S. history took place during Obama’s first term.
Of the 61 mass shootings Mother Jones examined since 1981, 80 percent of the perpetrators obtained the weapons legally. More importantly, at least 38 had shown signs of mental health problems before the killings. These incidents occur more frequently in the U.S., which accounts for 11 of the worst 20 mass shootings in the past 50 years.
Meanwhile, as the public waits to see if recent events will become the catalyst for a new wave of gun control reforms, pressure mounts on the president and lawmakers to take action. For example, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the majority of Americans, including gun owners and NRA members, favor common sense gun control laws.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D, New York) has called for a war on the NRA, which in his opinion is the “enabler of mass murderers.” Rep. John B. Larson, a Connecticut Democrat, has called for federal legislation requiring background checks for all gun purchases, and banning assault rifles and high-capacity clips. Moreover, on the first day of the new Congress Democrats plan to introduce an assault weapon ban.
But it remains to be seen whether President Obama, nearing his second term in office and unencumbered by reelection, is willing engage in full-scale warfare with the NRA.
Follow David A. Love on Twitter at @davidalove