Efforts to Curb and Reduce Gun Violence in the U.S., Lessons Learned in 2022

With the year 2022 drawing to a close, I thought it would be useful to assess what I and others have learned over the past year. Here is my contribution to the discussion and I look forward to the thoughts and experiences of others.

And, with 2023 upon us, we need to work together to generate new approaches and strategies for the future, given the intractable obstacles created this year by the Supreme Court.

So much has changed since 1791, and much of the Second Amendment is truly meaningless today, that a “well organized militia” is “necessary to a free State” is clearly over taken by history, phrasing that only seems potentially relevant if there is a threat of invasion by Canada, Mexico or the Bahamas. And the level of fire power that any individual can unleash at any time is incredible, witness Las Vegas, Orlando, Uvalde, Sandy Hook, Aurora, Buffalo, Boulder, Sutherland Springs and so on and so on. Thousands of families, friends, and colleagues mourn the loss of so many innocent lives. Gun safety advocates personally know that pain and tragedy and are motivated by it to make the country safety and legally more secure.

It was in this context that I launched my own effort to promote a national non-partisan discussion of the Second Amendment under the capstone of “A Second Amendment for 21st Century America.” The immediate goal: to try to generate (unsuccessfully as it turned out) greater public pressure on the Supreme Court justices to put gun lobby bias aside as they considered their ruling in New York Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen. But Justice Thomas’s grievously flawed decision of June 23, 2022 and the 6-3 Court vote has now cleared the way for rampant permitless concealed carry throughout the country, endangering police and civilians alike. With the adverse Bruen ruling, my hope is now to generate interest in a medium and long-term effort to promote that national non-partisan discussion on the Second Amendment in the 21st century, not the 18th.

Some key lessons learned:

Pervasive and deep-seated fear: Through the world of Twitter, I have come to understand more clearly how deeply fearful – and uninformed -- gun rights proponents and defenders are and how oblivious they are to the extent to which their pro-gun, pro-open and pro-concealed carry political push endangers them, the police, and all who live in or visit this country. Equally troubling, so many of the gun rights proponents active in the twitter space convey no empathy for the victims of gun violence, preferring to pay homage to some vague concept of individual freedom while fellow Americans, legal residents and foreign tourists become innocent victims of gun violence by the thousands every year.

For their part, gun safety proponents live in fear of preventable mass casualty events and random gun violence, but are working hard to offer sensible responses within the context of laws and legislation, including the Second Amendment. They are motivated because they know the tragedy of gun violence first hand.

Failure of Law Enforcement to stand consistently with Gun Safety Organizations: National, state and local police organizations can do so much more to improve public safety – and reduce risk to their officers – by working publicly and prominently together with gun safety organizations to promote such sensible and broadly supported gun safety measures as background checks, limiting the capacity of magazines, establishing training requirements, red-flag laws, and banning the kinds of assault weapons that wreak such havoc in mass casualty events and which often overpower police on patrol. To date, the leading police organizations offered some supporting amicus curae briefs to the Supreme Court on both sides of the issue, but there has been no strong, unified police communications effort in support of gun safety. Police organizations must stand up for gun safety measures in addition to their efforts to ensure adequate public support and funding for operations; it is unfortunate that they fail to make the connection that efforts on both fronts are needed for success in improving public safety and reducing risks to law enforcement officers at all jurisdictional levels.

Legal gun owners are not always law abiding gun owners: Gun rights proponents work hard to try to convince us that all legal gun owners are law abiding, an assertion which could not be further from the truth. From the murderous sniper in Las Vegas (who legally acquired 23 firearms, mostly AR 15 weapons and over 5,000 rounds of ammunition) to murderous road-ragers to murderous acts of domestic violence and so on, legally acquired firearms become weapons of criminals as soon as their legal owners use them in illegal, violent ways. No, gun lobby, not just the criminals are dangerous, legal gun owners can be dangerous and become criminals as soon as they use their legal weapons in criminal acts.

The Supreme Court’s flawed ruling in NYRPA v Bruen means more guns and violence on the streets, and more death and wounding of innocent people: SCOTUS’s political bias was on full display in 2022, and its bizarrely argued ruling to gut New York’s concealed carry permit requirement has led to a wave of lower court rulings against requiring permits for concealed firearms.

Somehow, Justice Thomas managed to assert “self-defense” as the “central component” of the Second Amendment right, although such a concept appears nowhere in the Constitution as amended by the Bill of Rights and subsequently. That the Heller decision summarily dismissed the history and logic of the Stevens dissent addressing all 27 words in the amendment was a sign of the Court’s and Justice Scalia’s obeisance to gun lobby positions; perhaps more unfortunate is the weak dissent offered by Justice Breyer in the Bruen case this year in the face of Justice Thomas’s deeply questionable assertions.

Today, adding to the danger are the numerous state legislatures that have passed permitless concealed carry legislation, despite law enforcement admonishments not to do so, all driven by the relentless campaigning of the gun lobby and its acolytes. Alabama and other states open the floodgates to permitless carry on January 1; in the Alabama case, the state sheriffs association argued against the law, and today, having failed to influence the gun lobby politicians, are left struggling with the greater risk to their people as well as the loss of revenue from permit issuance.

Federal, state and local gun safety legislation will always face serious challenge in the wake of Bruen. As some of the links below attest, the scope and force of the flawed SCOTUS ruling in Bruen means that most new gun safety legislative initiatives may not be sustainable in the face of gun lobby legal challenges. The past sixth months have shown lower courts are dealing with various challenges to new local or state regulations, and the major federal legislation signed into law on June 25, 2022, just two days after the SCOTUS hammer came down via Bruen, could encounter problems sooner than later.

The gun lobby’s false and distorted historical narrative must be challenged relentlessly and publicly at every opportunity.. Perhaps most simply and directly, the Bill of Rights and Second Amendment are due to the discussion and debate in the First Congress; what was said and discussed in that context should be determinative. And is is clear from the record (see link below) that the Congress focused on establishing the key institutions of government, including the militia as it related to national defense. It is also clear that the Second Congress focused early on how best to ensure a “well regulated militia”, and it passed the 1792 Militia Act on May 8, 1792, a mere six months after the Bill of Rights came into force on December 15, 1791.

Gun lobby propaganda seeks to assert that previous political statements (for example, Patrick Henry’s famed “Give me Liberty or Give me Death” speech in March 1775) are more significant along with commentary by George Mason, certainly an influential person but not a participant in the First Congress, and others. Justice Scalia’s pre-emptory dismissal of the significance of the Second Amendment’s clause on a “well organized militia” was a strategic maneuver to allow his to focus on ‘shall not be infringed”, much as was his adroit assertion that the definition of arms should not address the technical level and fire power of modern day weapons vis a vis the single shot muskets of the 1789 First Congress era.

And there is the huge, intractable problem of countering the gun lobby’s now entrenched claim that the Second Amendment justifies armed rebellion against our democratically elected government despite the clear language and intent of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. More on that below.

American historians could and should be doing more to set the record straight on the Second Amendment. But it was heartening to see the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association challenge SCOTUS on the history asserted in its Dobbs ruling; it is unfortunate that they failed to do the same with regard to Bruen. We can only hope that they will remedy this in 2023. Indeed, the Court’s ruling in Bruen has now opened the door to any and every lower court judge having to play the role of historian in the search for historical decisions of relevance from the era of the Constitution’s adoption.

We need to redouble efforts to publicize the Second Amendment’s true cost in lost innocent civilian and police lives, social disruption and fear, medical expenses, foregone economic potential, and in tremendous and never-ending mourning on the part of the families and friends of innocent victims of gun violence. Brady, Giffords, Everytown, Moms Demand Action, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions and so many other national, state, and local organizations, and individuals committed to a safer country are convincingly documenting the painful and insidious cost of every-day gun violence.

In contrast, the gun lobby works diligently around the clock to block discussion and research, correctly understanding that knowledge gained justifies gun policy changes that they oppose solely for reasons of ideology and their false Second Amendment narrative. Or stated more simply, they offer thoughts and prayers as the sadness and societal cost increase every year.

Right wing extremism and threat of “insurrection” are very real concerns: Gun rights proponents include any number of people who truly believe, or have convinced themselves, that the Second Amendment somehow established a fundamental right to overthrow the elected US government, despite the clear fact and language of the Article 1 (section 8) of the Constitution authorizing the militia to be called out to enforce the laws and suppress insurrections. That Kyle Rittenhouse is being hailed as a hero with almost a million twitter followers and an active fund raising effort should be evidence enough of how skewed this thinking is and how it has gained traction in a nether world of right wing conspiracies, false history and narratives.

There are other lessons learned, lessons that I will address in the year ahead.

I would like also to offer below some of the top gun safety related links from 2022, links that convey compelling evidence of the true societal cost of the Second Amendment’s distortion by the gun lobby, the incredibly tragic record of lost lives, the missteps of the Supreme Court, and other issues of importance or relevance.

I hope that readers will take the time to visit these links, the associated reports and analysis, and look for ways to use this knowledge and information in devising more effective strategies and tactics going forward in 2023 and subsequent years.

We need to do this, if only because the Supreme Court in Heller (2008) and Bruen (2022) has deformed and reshaped the Second Amendment’s intent and meaning to fit the gun lobby’s post-1977 false narrative and bias. We all, and the country as a whole, will bear the burdens of future gun violence tragedies as a result.

My sincere appreciation to those who have worked to reduce gun violence in 2022 and who are committed to doing more in this important – indeed critical – national crisis in 2023. Let’s see this effort through to the end goal, a safer and more prosperous USA, one freed from the fear of the bullet.

All the best in 2023!

Key links from 2022

· The BBC tries to explain in seven charts the incredible level of gun violence in the US:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bmicrosoft%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D;#SCOTUSits2022not1791

· Thoughts on the gun lobby’s hollow condolences via “thoughts and prayers”:

https://twitter.com/TheGoodLiars/status/1531019935308304386?s=20&t=OdBD7A_ZnxlHxOymSf_aLw;

· https://t.co/xCb23hv9T9;

· The reality of the tragic universe of US gun violence, including casualty figures from recent years, most notably the “must-read” Las Vegas Police Department’s 187 page investigative report on the October 1, 2017 mass murder of 59 people and wounding of 600 others in a ten minute, 1,059 round barrage from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Hotel in Las Vegas.

· https://www.lvmpd.com/en-us/Documents/1-October-FIT-Criminal-Investigative-Report-FINAL_080318.pdf#page65

· https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2022/shooting-victim-names-america-mass-shooting-list/?tid=ss_tw

· https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/02/mass-shootings-in-2022/?tid=ss_tw

·

An FBI report on Active Shooters events in 2021:

· http://ow.ly/OGSI50JfNr4;

· Everytown on Economic Cost of Gun Violence:

· https://everytownresearch.org/report/the-economic-cost-of-gun-violence/

·

· Police Organizations on the impact of gun violence on their work:

· https://twitter.com/GLFOP/status/1530666769802792960?s=20&t=oWWXNvw5SScXStZyywivIw;

· https://fop.net/2022/12/officers-shot-killed/

· Extreme right

· https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/27/opinion/us-second-amendment.html?smid=tw-share

· https://everytownresearch.org/report/extreme-right/

· SCOTUS and 2nd

· https://www.historynet.com/history-of-gun-control-and-second-amendment/

· https://www.thetrace.org/2022/08/nysrpa-v-bruen-challenge-gun-regulations/

· https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/a-federal-judge-calls-clarence-thomas-bluff-on-gun-rights-and-originalism/ar-AA13F3wW?li=BBnbfcL

· https://www.oah.org/insights/posts/2022/july/joint-oah-aha-statement-on-the-dobbs-v-jackson-decision/

·

· First and Second Congresses on establishing the government, Bill of Rights and Organizing the Militia

· https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwaclink.html