<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1655409964687,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000172-3377-d6df-ad7a-3fffec390000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1655409964687,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000172-3377-d6df-ad7a-3fffec390000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_55409830", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1025383"} }); ","_id":"00000181-6e1f-dd13-a9fb-7e3f6de60000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedIn 2015, the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler determined that gun control proposals pushed by Democrats would not have prevented the mass shootings they used to promote them. Now, Kessler has provided a much-appreciated update to that analysis, and the result remains the same.
Kessler counted 41 mass shootings since 2015 and determined that “only about one-third of these mass killings might have been prevented by any major proposals [emphasis added].” He listed 14 shootings as being unpreventable by proposed policies and 12 as being an example of existing laws failing. When you dig into the particulars of the other cases, you find that gun control proposals would have done little, if anything, to prevent those either.
Of the two cases Kessler says might have been prevented by universal background checks, one was by a shooter who purchased a gun he didn’t use in the shooting. That man was dismissed from the Army and would have been ineligible to buy firearms, but “possible administrative errors” resulted in him receiving an honorable discharge, allowing him to buy several guns legally. In the other case, the man who sold a firearm to the shooter was sentenced to two years in prison.
Under the shootings that might have been prevented by an assault weapons ban, Kessler includes the Buffalo shooting earlier this year, even though New York already has an assault weapons ban. He also includes the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, and the 2018 synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, but he emphasizes that the shooters were also armed with pistols. The Parkland, Florida, shooting is also included, though the red flags around the shooter that were ignored would mean that the proposal wasn’t needed.
Banning semiautomatic rifles based on how scary they look or requiring universal background checks would do next to nothing to prevent these incidents or gun crimes more broadly. The two biggest takeaways from Kessler’s analysis are that many mass shooters display several red flags and that many of them are young men under the age of 30. Many of these warning signs are ignored by family members and law enforcement, while the crisis of disaffected young men is a society-wide problem that must be addressed. An “assault weapons” ban wouldn’t solve either.
The longer that Democrats try to center discussions about shootings and gun crime on gun control, the longer they will be ignoring the problem. Unless they want to admit that they support wide-scale gun confiscations and repealing the Second Amendment, they are wasting everyone’s time talking about proposals that would do next to nothing to solve these problems, no matter how passionately they promote them.
