Texas School Shooting: How many more children will be sacrificed to protect America's 2nd Amendment rights?
The recent Texas school shooting - was, without doubt, a great tragedy and will remain a deeply saddening part of modern American history. However, what is more unfortunate is that it may be overlooked as simply one of many.
Following the incident, it is not at all surprising to see the heated discussions surrounding gun laws resurface again as a reflexive reaction after every mass shooting that reaches the headlines. However, the greater and perhaps more insidious problem is the countless incidents we do not hear about, which, unbeknownst to us, rapidly accumulate and form a shocking statistic by the end of every year. For example, this shooting is only one out of over 250 mass shootings in the US this year, and it was only 10 days prior that 10 people lost their lives in the 2022 Buffalo shooting. What is more alarming is that the total number of gun deaths annually has been constantly increasing over the last 10 years - unless swift action is taken, America is set for a very dark future.
The situation America finds itself in stems from the 2nd amendment of the Constitution, which infamously protects “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms”. Being so deeply rooted as a deserved right for citizens of the ‘land of the free’, it is very difficult to make change here. The problem America faces could not be more clear, but it is the solution which presents difficulties.
What can be done?
While repealing the second amendment may seem to be the ideal solution, it is almost impossible for this to occur, at least in the near future. This is because both of the possible routes for repealing an amendment are very difficult to achieve: the first would involve the proposed amendment being passed by the House and the Senate, with two-thirds majorities in each. It would then have to be ratified by a minimum of 38 states. Not only is this a very difficult set of criteria to fulfil, but, for this amendment in particularly, there is little chance that enough many states would be in favour of it, given the ardent support for the right to bear arms, in Southern and Midwestern states. The second route, involving two-thirds of state legislatures calling for a Constitutional Convention, is no easier. In fact, this route has never been successfully used to change the Constitution ever since the Constitution was ratified. Therefore, it is very clear that, despite many people’s wishes, this idealistic plan must be ditched in order to make any progress.
However, there are several different laws that can be implemented to reduce the number of gun deaths. Elinore Kaufman, a public health policy analyst, outlined three ways in which this can be done: limiting children's access to guns, restricting concealed-carry permits, and restricting "stand your ground" policies. Such policies, when implemented collectively, were shown to create an 11% reduction in annual gun deaths. These are just a handful of laws that can be used by the government to tackle the issue at hand, but the overarching focus must be on strictness. Numerous studies have shown that within the US, the states with the strictest laws have the lowest gun death rates, one analysis demonstrating that such laws can even halve the mortality rate.
In fact, the US has trialled implementing a strict law, known as the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB), from 1994 to 2004. This not only restricted the manufacture of certain semi-automatic firearms, but also restricted high-capacity magazines to ten bullets. Overall, the ban did manage to reduce the number of mass shootings and the number of fatalities, but it is clear that this was not by a large degree. This was largely down to the many flaws within the ban itself, most notably that it failed to ban weapons that are used in the majority of gun crimes. Without listing the several flaws of the AWB, such federal law provides a real sense of hope and possibility that action can be taken now, learning from both previous mistakes and the many studies that have been conducted in this area. While America may not be able to repeal its second amendment, a well thought out federal law, similar to the AWB, has strong potential to significantly reduce gun crime deaths.
Unironically, there is no magic bullet for the US, which leaves swift enactment of stricter gun laws as the only option. Implementing stricter gun laws is not just a personal view, but according to polls is one shared with the majority of Americans. In fact, Biden has been involved in tackling gun crime for more than 29 years, which explains the anguish in his voice when he exclaimed “Why are we willing to live with this carnage?”. But with the immense public support by his side, and the clear need for action, President Biden must stop asking ‘why’ and start working on the ‘how’ immediately, because any delay comes with a human cost.