Gun Control – Blind Injustice

Buffalo. Laguna Woods. Uvalde. Tulsa. The recent mass shootings I’ve heard about on the news over the past few weeks have been…a lot. And I know I am far from the only person who feels this way.

What simultaneously angers, upsets, and grieves me is the fact that some of our politicians are absolutely tone-deaf to all of this. Just days after a mass shooting in Texas, some top politicians went to a convention for the National Rifle Association (NRA)—the entity arguably most responsible for the fact that our country does little to nothing after every single mass shooting—in, of all places, Texas.

We ask ourselves why America is the only country that keeps on having these mass shootings. There are many theories, but I think a part of it may be because too many of our politicians refuse to do anything of substance after the mass shootings. Other countries have taken significant measures after mass shootings, and in at least one of those cases (Australia) and arguably another of those cases (the United Kingdom), those measures were effective in curbing gun violence.[1] And then in a third such case (New Zealand), it is simply too early to tell.

So if we know that there are other countries that have successfully made attempts to reduce gun violence, then why can’t we have the same in the United States? I think a part of it is because too many politicians at the national level don’t have the courage to break ranks with the NRA and its supporters in order to do anything of substance. And because of that, it seems like the votes likely aren’t there for substantive gun control.

But even if the votes for needed gun control measures were there in Congress, the current Supreme Court seems to have an appetite for, if anything, expanding gun rights through a rather expansive view of what the Second Amendment (the amendment used when it comes to gun rights) means.[2]

So what should be done?

The first thing I will suggest may be extremely controversial, but if the courts are going to interpret the Second Amendment in ways that will keep states or the federal government from making any gun control measures stick—even ones that have worked in other countries—we need to repeal the Second Amendment. If the way we use the Second Amendment is as an excuse to do nothing about who owns a gun, or as a means of striking down any gun control laws, even in the wake of mass shootings, it’s time to repeal the amendment that provides this excuse.[3]

Now, just to be clear, if the Second Amendment were to be repealed (and I would wager that I have a better chance of becoming a billionaire than I do of seeing a repeal of the Second Amendment), this doesn’t mean that nobody will be able to own a gun. Instead, what it means is that, as with many other things in life that require registrations and licenses, there are responsibilities that one might be required to meet in order to become a gun owner. Some of the responsibilities that should become a part of gun control legislation should be modeled off of what Australia—a country with a significant hunting culture, I might add—did after its most recent mass shooting decades ago:

Extensive licensing and registration processes
A 28-day waiting period for firearm sales
A severe restriction or even a ban on fully automatic or semi-automatic weapons
A federal gun buyback program to help people give back guns in a responsible way

I recognize that some of what I am suggesting is not only controversial, but perhaps politically untenable, for many politicians right now—hence why I’m not hearing my suggestion for repealing the Second Amendment coming even come from many liberals. But honestly, given the illness of mass shootings that this country is going through right now, I think everything—and I mean everything—needs to be on the table. And that includes things that may be politically untenable to even some gun control advocates.

[1] https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisville/news/2022/05/25/mass-shooting-uvalde-dunblane-port-arthur-gun-control

[2] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/supreme-court-verge-expanding-second-amendment-gun-rights

[3] A constitutional amendment can be repealed and was repealed once before. Namely, the 18^th Amendment (having to do with alcohol prohibition) was repealed by the 21^st Amendment.

Many of the readers who have listened to some of the debates between candidates for President of the United States may be aware of a line of attack often used against former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders: “You voted for the 1994 crime bill.”

It’s a line used when the candidates on stage, all of whom are trying to become the presidential nominee from the Democratic Party, are trying to distinguish themselves from Senator Sanders and former Vice President Biden on the issue of criminal justice. It is especially important for other candidates to distinguish themselves from those two candidates because Senator Sanders and former Vice President Biden are viewed as frontrunners for the Democratic Party nomination. It is also a line that the other candidates use to try and convince their voters that they, not Senator Sanders or former Vice President Biden, should be trusted on the issue of criminal justice.

Which begs the question: What is the 1994 crime bill, and why is it so controversial? With the first caucus of the election year happening in Iowa tonight, answers to these questions are important.

The tricky thing about summarizing the 1994 crime bill is that the piece of legislation tried to address many issues, ranging from funding for police to gun control to domestic violence. The short story is that the 1994 crime bill, whose proper name is actually the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, was supposed to focus on enforcement of and prevention of violent crimes, though it did some things beyond that scope (a couple of which I will talk about later in this post). For a detailed summary of the 1994 crime bill, view the bill’s summary here.

As one might expect with a bill trying to deal with a wide range of issues, the reality of how “good” or “bad” it was is actually more complicated than many candidates might make it out to be.

In spite of that fact, there are, undoubtedly, parts of the bill that should make one question Biden and Sanders on criminal justice (since they both supported the act and Biden helped write it[1]). For example:

The bill “stripped all Pell Grant funding for college education for prisoners.”[2] This sort of action counters the narrative among many (especially on the left) that incarceration should have a restorative element, that it should not just be about punishing someone for their actions, but that they also can be able to work towards being productive contributors to society when/if they leave prison.
The bill provided $6 billion (in 1994 dollars) in funding “for prevention programs which were designed with significant input from experienced police officers”[3]—money that was, from all accounts, spent on punitive measures for the most part. On the surface, it sounds like a good idea to let people with experience in law enforcement be able to have a say in how to prevent violent crime. The problem? As it turned out, that money was predominantly used for punitive measures[4]—measures that would go against the ideal among many Democrats that there should be a restorative element to time in prison.
The 1994 crime bill is blamed for being a factor in a drastic increase in incarceration in the United States.[5] The extent to which the current mass incarceration issues should be attributed to the 1994 crime bill is up for debate, especially since the increase in mass incarceration was already beginning to happen, but there seems to be significant agreement from criminal justice scholars that the bill made this problem worse.

However, there were also some aspects of the 1994 crime bill that are either popular with progressives or popular on a bipartisan basis. Three of those aspects are as follows:

There was considerable gun control in the 1994 crime bill. According to the bill’s summary, the bill, “Bans the manufacture of 19 military-style assault weapons, assault weapons with specific combat features, “copy-cat” models, and certain high-capacity ammunition magazines of more than ten rounds.”[6] While one could debate the effectiveness of this form of gun control, the fact is that gun control tends to be a major aspect of most candidates’ platforms on the Democratic side, and that therefore the 1994 crime bill did much of what a lot of Democrats want on guns (including Democrats critical of Biden and Sanders for their support of the 1994 crime bill).
One of the most popular aspects of the 1994 crime bill was the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). VAWA, which was within the 1994 crime bill, added measures to better hold perpetrators of domestic violence accountable.[7] For example, before the 1994 crime bill, “domestic abusers could cross state lines to avoid prosecution for beating their spouses, as law enforcement was not to required to listen to orders of protection filed in other states” (something that, from my understanding, was not possible after the act passed).[8]
VAWA, which as I said was under the 1994 crime bill, also created the National Domestic Violence Hotline.[9] Before finding out that this hotline was established so recently, I have to admit to taking the existence of this hotline for granted; however, the fact is that the hotline is younger than I am (I’m twenty-five) and was only established thanks to the 1994 crime bill.

So, while it might make for a good debate line to be critical of Biden’s or Sanders’ support of the 1994 crime bill, the reality is somewhat complicated. Some aspects of it, such as the generally more punitive approach to crime as a result of the bill, have been quite controversial and even problematic. Other aspects, such as the creation of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, are quite important. Regardless, it’s important to recognize both the good and the bad in the 1994 crime bill (as well as Biden’s and Sanders’ support of it), because otherwise, we’d be doing an injustice to ourselves and to others when evaluating the platforms these candidates have on criminal justice.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/15/politics/joe-biden-1994-crime-bill-incarceration-fact-check/index.html

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36020717

[3] https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/billfs.txt

[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36020717

[5] Ibid.

[6] https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/billfs.txt. I should note that this provision of the bill expired in 2004: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/13/750656174/the-u-s-once-had-a-ban-on-assault-weapons-why-did-it-expire

[7] https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/billfs.txt

[8] https://time.com/5675029/violence-against-women-act-history-biden/

[9] https://www.vera.org/justice-in-focus-crime-bill-20/confronting-violence-against-women

Tag: Gun Control

A Post on the Recent Mass Shootings

What is the 1994 Crime Bill, and Why is it So Controversial?