The Mass Shooting Conundrum: What America Got Wrong

Seventeen young faces flash across the screen. Once again, a community is in mourning over lives tragically taken. American mass shootings have been in the news a lot lately.  The nature of them has changed over time, but today such shootings take the form of delinquents on a shooting spree, lone wolf terrorism and isolated estranged members of society running amok. Let's take a look at of some of the worst mass shootings for the sake of brevity and how regulations could have prevented them. 

Gun regulation relies on knowledge to be effective.  The government must know who has what firearm and where they are.  They must be able to search and find an individual’s record to determine whether he or she should be able to own a firearm.

To do this, the firearm must be acquired, purchased legally and have a serial number.  This is how firearms are tracked.

To do an assessment on whether regulation could be effective, several things must be established:

1.      What weapons did the individual possess prior to committing the crime?

2.      How were these weapons acquired?

3.      What is the criminal profile of the individual committing the crime?

4.      What is the mental health profile of the individual committing the crime?

5.      What links does the individual have to organized crime or terror groups?

6.      How much are they on the radar of the security forces prior to committing the act?

 Problems with discussions on the issue

One of the greatest obstacles to healthy discussions on the issue is propaganda.  Both the gun lobby and anti-gun lobbies have their own propaganda.

 Gun lobby propaganda

Gun lobbyists will use such slogans as ‘guns don’t kill people, people kill people’, stating that if there were no guns, people would merely commit the same crimes with knives or other weapons. This is not the case with mass shootings.  Guns, especially the auto-loading variety, are infinitely more potent than a knife when it comes to mass murder.  Can a ‘drive by’ be committed with a knife?  Of course not. A knife attacker must get up close and personal to be capable of inflicting damage.  Even then, an enterprising would-be victim can effectively defend himself with a stick or chair.  It is simply not the same thing.  In addition, the ‘wound cavity’ typically has much more damage when inflicted with a firearm than a knife. 

Gun lobbyists will often use Switzerland as a case in point for their arguments.  Switzerland has a negligible gun crime rate with legally held weapons and no school shootings like one would see in America, despite high rates of gun ownership.  Their comparisons fail for reasons which will be explored later.

Anti-gun lobby propaganda

Anti-gun lobbyists will focus on terminology.  ‘Assault style weapons’ is a typical phrase characteristic of this viewpoint. However, the term 'assault style' comes from a simple misunderstanding of weapons and how they are categorised. The style of the weapon means nothing whatsoever when it comes to internal operation. 

To understand weapons categories, one must understand the basics of gun operation.  A semi-automatic weapon will shoot once every trigger pull. 

Semi-Automatic Ruger SR 556 rifle

 It does not function like a machine gun.  Fully automatic means that one can squeeze the trigger and empty the magazine of all ammunition.  This is the issue.  It has nothing to do with the style of weapon.

An assault rifle is a select-fire weapon that fires an intermediate power round.  Select-fire means that it can be switched from semi-automatic to fully-automatic with a select switch on the side.  Again, having nothing to do with style.

An M2 carbine has the aesthetic profile of a sporting gun yet is a fully automatic weapon.  It is a true assault weapon.  A semi-automatic AR 15 is not.  As one can see, it is easy to confuse the style of the weapon with the function.

Fully automatic M2 rifle

 The Switzerland Argument – a case in point that shouldn’t be used

Switzerland is a country that has a long history of armed citizen soldiers.  Until recently, the rules of conscription, which affect males above a certain age, stipulate that the conscripts must have the standard issue service rifle ready for use and in domestic storage along with fifty rounds of ammunition.  Soldiers must continually qualify with the service rifle which they take to designated gun ranges. 

The Swiss gun ownership comes with a few quid pro quos. The onus for providing a license is up to the individual district (or canton).  One is automatically disqualified from military service and consequent rifle ownership if one fails mental health checks and/or criminal background checks.  This helps to weed out potential mass murderers. 

In addition, an important part of their firearms training, along with precision shooting, is learning when not to fire a weapon.  When the gun owners are used to strict fire discipline, the temptation to use a gun irresponsibly will likely be checked before it occurs. 

 Proposed solutions that likely would not work:

Arming Teachers:  All it takes is one would-be murderer to surprise and overpower the armed teacher to cause this solution to fail.  A massacre would far more easily take place if this method was implemented.

Blanket Bans:  This is an emotionally driven ‘solution’ which fails to take the problem on a case-by-case basis.  It would likely result in the innocent being punished along with the guilty.  It also ignores the understudied deterrent presence of gun ownership in certain circumstances.  

The ‘glory’ aspect

One of the perverse mannerisms of some shooters is the obsession with immortality in the public mind.  This is also bound within the copycat phenomenon.  The shooter sees the shocking result of previous massacres and the profile of the murderer immortalized in newspapers, documentaries, and memorials.  This is particularly true with alienated pupils idolizing the Columbine shooters. We often see this type of phenomenon taking place among those suffering from mental disorders. Even the Golden Gate Bridge in California, a notorious suicide hotspot, stopped releasing its death count for fear of spurring further suicides. Research suggests that reporting the offense without even naming the offender is the best solution to this problem.* 

The crimes in the context of universal background checks:
Sandy Hook Shooting:

The perpetrator obtained his guns after murdering his mother who legally held the firearms.  According to CBS news, a report from Connecticut Child Advocate noted that the perpetrator had a “severe and deteriorating internalized mental health problems” in the years prior to the shooting.***  The study was conducted years prior to the event.  Regulation could have prevented his seizure of the firearms, however.  Laws concerning ‘constructive possession’ might stipulate that a firearm cannot be kept in a place where a felon or mentally ill person can obtain it.   

Aurora Movie Theatre Shooting:

The perpetrator passed the existing background checks to legally purchase his weapons.  He was suicidal at an early age, and according to his girlfriend, he had previously professed a desire to kill people.  He had also admitted to being obsessed with killing prior to the shooting.  A medical check should have disqualified him from owning a weapon.

Washington Naval Yard Shooting:

The perpetrator claimed that low-frequency electromagnetic attacks drove him to kill others.  A background check (or possibly simple Googling) would have revealed a police report from when he claimed these delusions.

Charleston Church Shooting:

A background check would have shown the perpetrator to have a drug arrest on his record.  The firearms were legally purchased on a technicality in his favor. 

Umpqua Community College Shooting:

The perpetrator obtained the firearms legally.  A mental health background check would have revealed a suicide attempt at a US Army base where he failed to pass basic training standards. 

San Bernardino Shooting:

The perpetrators illegally acquired the weapons from a neighbor who purchased them.  FBI anti-terrorist databases would have revealed that the two perpetrators shared jihadist motivations on the internet.  Swift interdiction should have prevented these two from being in a position to commit a massacre. 

Orlando Night Club Shooting:

The perpetrator obtained his arms legally.  A universal background check could have shown that he was investigated by the FBI for connections to foreign terrorist organizations.  Like the formerly mentioned perpetrators, swift interdiction was required, but not carried out.

Las Vegas Shooting:

This is one of the most perplexing shootings in recent history. The perpetrator obtained his arsenal of arms legally.  A medical check would have revealed an increasing reliance on Valium for anxiety leading up to the attack, which should have prompted further investigation.  However, in this case, it might not have made a difference if these firearms were obtained prior to the prescribed Valium use.

The Sutherland Springs Shooting:

This perpetrator could be considered the easiest to catch on any background screening.  He had a lengthy history of domestic violence and bad conduct in the Air Force. 

These tendencies should certainly have caused his application to be rejected.

Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting:

The deadliest school shooting was arguably the most preventable.  The perpetrator obtained his weapon legally despite having been expelled from school after making threats and even went to a mental health facility for treatment.  Furthermore, the FBI failed to act upon a tip concerning the imminent threat of a school shooting.  
Columbine High School Shooting:

The two perpetrators of the Columbine school shooting obtained their firearms from a friend and made many pipe bombs of their own.  A background check for firearms would not have worked here because they obtained them from an external source.  This is one of the few cases where a universal background check would fail to prevent a shooting. 

However, one of the friends described the circumstances surrounding the shooting as a ‘perfect storm’.  One of the shooters detailed on his website that he had been detonating pipe bombs.  If the police had been allowed to obtain the search warrant they had asked for, they would have uncovered the boys’ considerable arsenal of weapons.

A detailed chart showing the effectiveness of the UBC is shown below.

A universal background check or even a mental health screening could prevent such massacres from occurring.  In the few cases where the UBC would not work, would-be perpetrators tend to leave such a trail of evidence that it is hard not to predict a potential disaster. 

*DISCLAIMER* All the facts and figures here pertain to firearms.  One would be right to raise the issue of other improvised weapons, such as the ISIS vehicle ramming tactic or pipe bombing.  Other weapons can be used to deadly effect, but with regulations, we can mitigate some of the damage. 

Information for each individual shooting and chart references were cross-checked across multiple big-name media outlets for the most accurate information.

*http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0002764217730854         
** https://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting/fbi-admits-failure-to-act-on-florida-school-gunman-drawing-anger-idUSKCN1G00T7     
*** https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sandy-hook-mental-health-care-worries-linger/