In the wake of the latest mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, there has been a palpable fervor among various political and social reform circles for rapid legislation regarding the procurement and possession of so-called “assault weapons.” This vehement push for broadening gun control legislation has been met with an equal and prompt opposition. The conflict between the two groups (the ostensible, “anti-gun,” and, “pro-gun,” groups) has quickly become deadlocked, with the dialogue between the two groups being quagmired by pontification, accusatory statements, sweeping market spurning, and, in some cases, blatant censorship.

Each of the groups equally embattled, set loose the hounds of mass media and social media to recruit John and Jane Q. Public in their armies and to man their trench lines. The conflagration produced because of this entrenched battle has left far more questions than answers, more assumptions than measurement, more arrogance than authenticity.

The battle could easily be won if one side conclusively proved that restricting access to one type of firearm or, indeed, all firearms could empirically reduce the level of violent crime or the mortality and morbidity resulting from violent crime. This should be fairly easy, as the 20th century (and the little time that has elapsed in the 21st century) has brought henceforth numerous examples of firearm legislation across the world. If one were to tabulate the data, it could be easy to see what legislation worked, if any worked at all. Indeed, this data would be quite insurmountable as the data is both longitudinal temporally and cross-cultural. It is truly baffling why such data has not been objectively included into the battle, by either of the entrenched parties. It should be noted that while this objective data has not been entered into the discussion, elements of the data set have. The elements that have been discussed have, generally, only been so because it bolsters a political narrative.

While tempting, the recent shooting spurring this political battle should not be discussed as a one-off event that occurred in a vacuum. If this were truly a one-off event, the discussion would be one of confusion and discovery, not pre-made arguments and assumptions. In fact, the very existence of readied arguments and data points indicates that this type of event has occurred previously, as has the, “debate,” surrounding said occurrence.

The debate around gun control legislation is not in any way aided by media spokespeople who purposefully omit definitions, data and context in order to promote their own success within their market space. For example, it is commonly stated that, “mass shootings are on the rise,” and that, “over 100 mass shootings have already taken place within the United States.” Such statements are intended to be inflammatory, as such inflammation exploits the innate psychological processes that expend vast amounts of energy to maintain the safety of oneself and one’s kin. This exploitation inevitably leads to an understandable but reflexive overreaction on the part of the audience member who wishes to ensure the safety of their family and property. And why wouldn’t someone overreact? According to media sources, there are criminals around every street corner, real-life leviathans, who want nothing more than to cause your family suffering. Alternatively, someone may overreact when they are told that someone is trying to confiscate their property (in this case firearms), the very same property used to fend off beasts in the night and the behemoth that is government oppression. In sooth, who wouldn’t react emotionally to such an external threat? No one!

In an attempt to quell these reflexive emotions of impending doom, it is therefore, my goal to dispel some of the damage done by media exaggerations and the flames brought by partisan conflict. To do this I will utilize the same objective data mentioned earlier.

Foremostly, I believe it is of great importance to illustrate how published figures regarding mass shootings of anytime have been skewed. One set of data gathered by the anti-gun group Everytown For Gun Safety states, “Since 2013, there have been nearly 300 school shootings in America — an average of about one a week,” (Everytown, 2018). If the data presented by Everytown is correct, then there has been no less than 53 school shootings since the school year began (Fattal, 2018). This data indicating that 53 shootings have taken place is modest in comparison to the figures being presented in media circuits. The news station ABC 15 (out of Arizona) claimed that in 2017 alone there were 346 mass shootings, and since February 21, 2018, there was an astounding 34 mass shootings in the U.S. (Jeffrey, 2018)! Who in their right mind wouldn’t go a bit mad upon hearing these numbers?

However, the presentation of this data is wildly misleading. Everytown classifies a school shooting as anytime a firearm is discharged on or near school property. The Everytown definition does not differentiate times a firearm had been discharged negligently, in a parking lot near a school, at a bar near a university, by a police officer directed at a criminal fleeing the scene of a crime, suicide, gang violence, crimes of passion, or in indiscriminate mass shootings. Everytown also includes events where no one was shot in its school shooting data. It should come as no surprise then that 10 of the 18 school shootings reported by Everytown did not result in a single person being shot. An additional three reported shootings were negligent discharges and one shooting was a suicide (suicide committed in a car parked at a defunct school’s parking lot). Subtracting these 14 non-applicable events, Everytown’s data is reduced to 4 school shootings. It should be noted that of these shootings only one (the Parkland shooting) has not been attributed to gang violence, attempted robbery or a crime of passion.

The data utilized in the ABC 15 report comes directly from the Gun Violence Archive (GVA). The GVA definition of a mass shooting is any event where at least four people (not including the shooter) are shot (not necessarily killed) in one general area over a limited span of time (GVA, 2018). GVA does not further categorize the published mass shooting data. Therefore, it is entirely possible for a mass shooting (using GVA’s definition) to include gang violence, confrontations with law enforcement, home invasions, self-defense actions and crimes of passion. To GVA’s credit, however, they do further process the raw data into separate data sets that can be accessed separately from the mass shooting data.

It would be easy at this juncture in the discussion to lay categorical blame on media outlets for neither clarifying definitions used in the cited figures nor illustrating the possible errors inherent with the cited figures. Such blame is merited, in my opinion, as the press has an inherent responsibility to provide accurate clarification and context for each news story (lest the public becomes overcome with emotion and acts rashly). However, it would be remiss not to mention that the U.S. federal government also plays a role in this game of shifting definitions. In 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) redefined mass shootings as involving an active shooter who is not involved in domestic violence or gang activity but who is, “actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area,” (Blair, 2013). In 2013, the U.S. congress issued a federal mandate (through the Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012) to reduce the number of people shot (or shot at) to three for the event to be classified as a mass shooting. By defining mass shootings as such, many federally reported mass shootings involve events where no one was shot or less than four people were shot, which artificially inflates their reported data.

With all these varying definitions of what constitutes a school shooting or mass shooting, is it any wonder why media sources and partisan whips are able to concurrently utilize conflicting data and still claim that their data is official?

Possibly, one of the best sources for unbiased and accurate mass shooting data comes from the first open-source mass shooting database maintained by the media outlet Mother Jones. The Mother Jones data set excludes all shootings where less than three people are directly shot, gang violence, robberies, domestic violence, and crimes of passion (Follman, 2018). In short, the Mother Jones database tracks indiscriminate acts of mass violence where the weapon of choice is a firearm. Additionally, the database notes if the perpetrator had a diagnosed mental illness (though the exact illness is not reported), firearm used in the event, where the weapon was obtained (and if it was obtained legally) and the race and sex of the offending party. The only significant drawback to this database is it omits mass shootings and school shootings that happened prior to 1982.

According to the Mother Jones database, from 1989 to 1999 there were 6 school shootings, and between 2000 and 2018 there have been 10 school shootings. Total mass shootings between 2000 and 2018 (including school shootings) was 66. This data is obviously quite different from the figures cited ad nauseum in media circuits. While 66 mass shootings is an undeniably high number, keep in mind that the 66 took place over a period of 18 years. This means that, on the typical year, the U.S. experiences approximately four mass shootings per year.

While the 10 school shootings, undoubtedly, devastated the lives of many families, it is important to keep the events in context. In this instance, the context of time, location (in relation to the whole of the U.S.), and number of people effected. In context, 124 people were killed at 10 different building complexes, within a total population in excess of 350 million living in an area spanning 3.79 million square miles. While these events, in context, are quite small and incredibly rare, it is imperative to not lessen the impact these events have had on an individual level. A violent death is a violent death, regardless of the tools implemented in the murder. It has the same sting, the same venom, the same abysmal hole left in the lives of those affected. It is equally as important to not forget that, while incredibly tragic, these occurrences are in no way an existential threat to the whole of American society. There is not a nefarious mass shooter lurking in every school, in every venue, in every building.

To further put mass shootings in context, one can compare the deaths attributed to mass shootings to other homicide events. So, since 2000 there were 578 people killed in mass shootings (averaging roughly 32 per year). To put this annual number into absolute perspective, lightning kills, on average, 51 people in the U.S. each year (NOAA, 2014). From 2007 to 2012, on average, 2,000 people were killed annually due to gang violence (15% of the total homicide rate) (NGC, 2018). As said previously, the families of the 578 people that were killed in mass shootings had their lives crushed by violent criminals, and their sorrow must be tactfully respected. On a societal level, though, mass shootings were and are dwarfed by gang violence, and while there exists a chiasmic void in the very souls of the 578 people who had loved ones taken from them by a mass shooter, the same void exists in 2,000 families lives this year and an additional 2,000 next year.

One of the readied responses by the pro-gun group is that mental health is the main driving factor in mass shootings and school shootings. While the impact of mental illness is in no small part a factor in such repugnant acts of violence, it may not be the chief driving factor. For the sake of expediency, let’s investigate eight of the most infamous mass shootings in American history and see what role mental health played in the act of violence. According to the Mother Jones database, the perpetrator of the Parkland shooting, Nikolas Cruz, had a history of mental illness and had been treated in a number of mental health clinics. Adam Lanza (shooter in the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting) had a long history of serious mental health issues and had previously sought treatment for said issues. Seunghri Cho (infamous for the Virginia Tech shooting) was mentally ill to such an extent that he had been previously deemed by a court as “an imminent danger to himself and the public.” The Columbine high school shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were a mixed bag, with Klebold being a generally depressed and angsty teen, and Harris being a pathological psychopath (Chen, 2009). Stephen Paddock (culprit for the 2017 Las Vegas massacre) had no diagnosed mental illness. The now forgotten 1989 Cleveland elementary school shooter, Patrick Purdy, was an addict who had a history of petty crimes (Vanairsdale, 2014). Tyrone Mitchell, now a long-forgotten criminal and addict (with no diagnosed mental illness), killed 2 students and wounded 12 others in 1984 (Malnic, 1984). And finally, the first true school shooter/mass shooter in the modern sense was Charles Whitman who, in 1968, shot 31 people and killed 17 more from a clock tower at Texas A&M University. Since he was the first school shooter (or mass shooter, depending on your definition), Whitman deserves more analysis than the shooters in the other seven events. Whitman, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, had no prior mental illness or arrest record. Why then did he add turmoil to the lives of 48 people? A brain tumor. The tumor altered his mental state to such a degree that he had an uncontrollable urge for mass violence.

Of the 98 mass shootings recorded in the Mother Jones database since 1982, 46 of the shootings involved a shooter with no currently diagnosed mental illness. That means 46.9% of mass shootings in the past 36 years were perpetrated by someone who assumably was not mentally ill. In the eight examples listed above, three of the nine shooters had a diagnosed mental illness (only 33.3%). One can easily infer that the other shooters had undiagnosed mental illness (as evident by their battles with addiction and prior arrest records). However, the crux of doing such is that one infers undiagnosed neuroses and psychoses, and this inference is a gift largely given from hindsight.

One of the primed arguments utilized by both sides of gun control proposals is that gun control laws have worked/have not worked in other countries. The countries sometimes cited by anti-gun proponents are Japan and Australia. The countries sometimes cited by pro-gun proponents is the Mexico and Australia. I mention Australia twice because, like with the figures given in the media revolving around mass shooting frequency, there is a lot of jerrymandering that occurs with the Australia data. On one hand, by passing sweeping gun control legislation the Australian people saw a massive decrease in homicides involving firearms. On the other hand, by passing sweeping gun control legislation the Australian people saw a massive decrease in homicides involving firearms but not in homicides overall (that is, a decrease specifically due to the firearm legislation). In 1989, the Australian government began tracking trends in homicide within the island continent. In that year, there were approximately 300 homicides (or 1.8 per 100,000) within the nation’s border (Bryant, 2015). In 1996, the Australian government (reacting from the worst mass shooting in their history) passed sweeping firearm legislation that banned some semi-automatic & fully automatic rifles and shotguns and regulated every type of propellant-type weapon down to air rifles and paintball guns. One would expect that such sweeping legislation would drastically reduce the homicide rate in Australia. However, such a reduction never really came to fruition. While the homicide rate has lowered since 1996, it remained somewhat constant from 1996 until around 2003. The latest reported homicide rate in Australia totaled 243, a reduction of approximately 19% from 1989 (Bryant, 2015).

Mexico has some of the strictest gun laws of any nation in the world. While these laws significantly inhibit law-abiding citizens from purchasing firearms, it did nothing to hinder large drug cartels and other criminals from obtaining a wide range of military-grade firearms (to include fully automatic machine guns, rocket launchers and the like). However, it is a fallacy in debate to point to the Mexican criminal underworld as justification for the gun laws not working (as criminals, by definition, are not bound to the social constraints put in place by the rule of law). That said, it is incredibly difficult to parse non-gang/cartel shooters from gang/cartel shooters. Likewise, it is hard to parse governmental corruption (which may have aided criminals in obtaining said weapons) from black market activities, both of which undermine any success in Mexico’s gun control measures.

Japan is another country pointed to as a success story for gun control. Indeed, gun violence is incredibly low on the Japanese isles as is all violent crime. In 2014, there were 395 reports of homicide, 26,653 assault reports, 3,056 cases of robbery and 8,650 cases of sexual assault and/or rape. This makes the respective crime rates by crime (per 100,000) 0.31, 21.02, 2.41, and 6.82 (UNDOC, 2018).

Finally, I want to address the final spoke in this wheel of confusion around the issue of gun control. This spoke being the banning of assault rifles. To address this proposal, I must first break the issue down into two subjects. The first being what a law is and the second being what an assault rifle is. On to the first subject. A law is a wrought iron beam, which when combined with other beams, form a structure to barricade socially unacceptable behavior. Laws are necessary in a functioning society, as it tames human impulses in a manner that facilitates civility. Without law (or with overly oppressive law), society will devolve into tribal sects (at best) or animalistic barbarism (at worst). A law proclaims with absolute certainty what is and what isn’t acceptable behavior within a society. It is a binary declaration. In a way, a system of laws is a manifestation of what a society determines what is to be the highest good a person could achieve. All laws (at least in modern civilizations) assume each person has free agency over themselves and that each person can freely choose to follow the path to become the highest good (i.e. be a law abiding citizen) or choose to forego the law and become a social delinquent. Society chooses to punish these social delinquencies accordingly as these acts corrupt the progress of the society to reach its ultimate good.

So, by banning a certain type of weapon, you are decrying ownership of that weapon as a corrupting act to society at large. A corrupting act that was carried out by someone with free agency. Someone who will (if such an act be passed) be punished for corrupting the society. Is it any wonder why such suggestions of banning weapons receive so much resistance? Should the mere possession of an inanimate object be seen as criminal? By implementing such a ban, you are stating that the item (in this case an assault weapon) has innate corrupting properties. Properties so great that anyone in contact with them should be quarantined from society, until their act of contrition is completed. Have we not evolved in our sensibilities enough to realize that objects hold no metaphysical power? Have we not evolved out of this most primal superstition? Has the, so called, war on drugs in the U.S. not shown us the irreparable damage placing such mystical power on an object does? Apparently not.

The second portion of this argument resides in the actual definition of an assault weapon. The definition itself is fundamentally flawed, though the definition itself sounds very cosmopolitan. By including the word “assault” in the definition, external action (independent of the object itself) is brought into the definition. This is of critical importance. Unlike other definitions for firearms (bolt-action, leaver-action, pump-action, semi-automatic, etc.), the definition includes nothing that directly pertains to the internal machinations or structure of the weapons itself. Therefore, utilizing this nebulous definition, a club could be interpreted as an assault weapon. It could be interpreted as such because the primary defining word is the action being carried out by the party with free agency (assault), and the secondary word being a general classification of an object (weapon). By combining these two words in a legal definition, you’ve allowed for an almost indefinite amount of interpretations. With the importance of law being stated above, is society willing to endure these interpretations?

Etymology aside, there are many other flaws in this definition. I’ve heard many definitions of what makes a firearm an “assault weapon.” These definitions include weapons, “intended for military use,” or, “weapons with large-capacity magazines,” or, “weapons that have flash hiders,” or, “weapons that have select fire switches.” The problem with these definitions should be immediately apparent. What constitutes military use? Does the, “military use,” classification expire? After all, muskets, revolvers, bolt-action rifles, pistols, and semi-automatic rifles were all, at one point, standard military issue. What exactly constitutes a large-capacity magazine? 5 rounds of ammunition? 10? 100? Are firearms less dangerous with small magazines? Without flash hiders? Are select-fire weapons more dangerous than non-select fire weapons? These are questions that need to be met before anyone even considers a ban on assault weapons. As it currently stands, the only definition of an assault weapon is purely cosmetic. While it is currently popular to demonize assault weapons in the wake of the latest shooting in Parkland, Florida, bear in mind that the Texas A&M shooter used a bolt action rifle in his rampage (and managed to shoot over 40 people); the columbine shooters used shotguns and pistols; and the Virginia Tech shooter used only a pistol and a revolver. Any firearm can be used in a mass shooting. The only factor that determines the mortality rate, is chance. Did the bullet hit a vital area? Maybe, maybe not. Is the shooter at point-blank range? Maybe, maybe not. Thankfully, these events are so rare the vast majority of us will never have to ask those questions.

So far, I have spent the vast majority of this essay discussing the data and controversy surrounding these types of violent crime. Unfortunately, I cannot spend as much time discussion solutions. This is not because I’m avoiding the subject, quite the contrary I would very much enjoy discussing solutions. The reason why I am at a loss for solutions is because I believe that we in the U.S. have already done as much as we can (in regard to mass shootings) before we begin reaching the point of diminishing returns. Could modifying mental health treatment stop mass shootings? Some, but not all. Even if we could solve the problem solely through mental health reforms, what shall we do? Should we lock up all persons suspected of having a mental condition correlated to a violent behavior in an institution? Have we been so quick to forget the boils and blemishes the mental health profession had to rid themselves of from the 19th and 20th centuries, boils and blemishes that came from the asylum? Are we to assume that everybody suspected of depression, psychopathy, sociopathy or addiction are on the verge of committing mass murder? What of people like Charles Whitman, who had a physical disease that robbed him of his free agency? I say we’ve made great strides in mental health, moving back to the asylum is not the way forward.

Should we ban “assault weapons” to save our children? Would doing so rid us of the parasite of violent chaos? Historical data contradicts this proposal outright. The first modern school shooting/mass shooting was carried out by Charles Whitman. Prior to then, people were literally able to order a machine gun from a catalog (a machine gun that may or may not have a serial number) and have it delivered to their door step. In this wild time of no gun regulation, there were no mass shootings or school shootings (at least in the modern sense). Thus, the type of firearm allowed to the public has no impact on the types of crime that will plague American society, proving that there is no inherent corrupting malice within guns of a certain appearance or function.

Should we remove all background checks required for firearm purchases, or expand them? So far, I see little reason to remove background checks. The only people that have anything to fear from a background check, at the moment, are criminals and ex-convicts. Should background checks be expanded? I’m not certain how. Should mental health be included in the background check? Should mental health professionals be granted the power to strip someone of their rights? I am not in a position to say with certainty; however, I will err on the side of caution and say that endowing those professionals with such civic responsibility will result in severe unintended consequences.

All the proposals given by media personalities and political spokespeople regarding eliminating mass shootings assume that mass shootings/school shootings are a large problem in American society. If it were a large problem, maybe such proposals would be successful. However, as stated earlier, these events are random and incredibly rare. This indicates, to me, that either the problem could be snuffed out easily or is impervious to any type of sanitization effort. I tend to agree with the latter. The only way these violent acts can be prevented is by local intervention (local meaning at the level of the individual or family). With American society becoming more distant; with tribalism on the rise (and with it true objectification of people); with people being more concerned with status over family, I see little hope for the type of local intervention necessary. While I may not see such hope in the future, I also realize that I’m blind (both willfully and ignorantly) to a great many things. I pray that this is just a blind spot and not a prophecy of societal gloom.

_______________________

References:

Blair, J. P., & Schweit, K. W. (2013). A study of active shooter incidents in the United States between 2000 and 2013 (United States, Federal Bureau of Investigation). Washington, DC: Washington Navy Yard.

Bryant, W., & Bricknell, S. (2015). Homicide in Australia 2012–13 to 2013–14: National Homicide Monitoring Program report (Australia, Australian Institute of Criminology).

Chen, S. (2009, April 20). Debunking the myths of Columbine, 10 years later. http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/20/columbine.myths/-Everytown

Fattal, I. (2018, February 14). Another School Shooting, but who’s counting? https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/02/another-school-shootingbut-whos-counting/553412/

Follman, M., Aronsen, G., & Pan, D. (2018, February 15). A Guide to Mass Shootings in America. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map/

General Methodology. (2018). http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/methodology – GVA

Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012, § Section 2 (2013)

Jeffrey, C. (2018, February 21). Mass shootings in the U.S.: When, where they have occurred in 2018. https://www.abc15.com/news/data/mass-shootings-in-the-us-when-where-they-have-occurred-in-2018

Lightning Safety Awareness Week. (2014, June 24). https://www.weather.gov/iln/lightningsafetyweek -NOAA

Malnic, E. (1984, February 25). Almost like a guilt: sniper escaped jonestown but not its horror. Los Angeles Times.

National Youth Gang Survey Analysis. (2018). https://www.nationalgangcenter.gov/survey-analysis/measuring-the-extent-of-gang-problems -NGC

The long, shameful list of school shootings in America. (2018, February 15). https://everytownresearch.org/school-shootings/

UNDOC Statistics. (2018, February 28). https://data.unodc.org – UNDOC

Vanairsdale, S. (2014). Trigger Effect. Sactown Magazine. http://www.sactownmag.com/December-January-2014/Trigger-Effect/index.php?cparticle=3&siarticle=2

Like this: Like Loading...