Let’s start here: No single effort, no stand-alone piece of legislation is certain to prevent the next Orlando, the next San Bernardino or even the next Marysville.
But a guarantee of certainty shouldn’t be the standard by which Congress and our state lawmakers adopt legislation. Dismissals that a legislative proposal “wouldn’t have worked” to prevent a particular massacre ignore the cumulative and combined effect that a range of laws and efforts can have.
There can be no certainty, for instance, that a ban on the sale of weapons to those on the federal terrorism watch list or suspected by the Justice Department of having ties to terrorist organizations would have prevented Omar Mateen from obtaining the AR-15 assault-style weapon that he used to kill 49 people and wound scores of others at an Orlando, Florida, nightclub. No certainty that a ban on assault-style weapons, themselves, would have prevented Mateen from getting his arsenal by other means.
But those laws offer the possibility that others, whether driven by mental illness or hateful ideology, who may come after Mateen can see their efforts to prepare for bloodbaths frustrated and slowed in order to give authorities the opportunity to stop mass shootings before they happen.
The logic in the watch-list ban is clear: If someone can’t be trusted to board a plane, why should they be trusted to obtain a firearm?
There are concerns for civil liberties. Mark Joseph Stern, in a recent opinion piece for Slate, argues that gun ownership is protected by the promise of due process, that the government must not revoke a Constitutional right without an opportunity for appeal.
But the legislation rejected by Congress in December following the San Bernardino, California, massacre and now being revived in Congress, does allow for an appeals process for those who might be misidentified or wrongly placed on either the no-fly list or the broader terrorism watch list.
Stern further argues that using the watch list to deny rights granted by the 2nd Amendment could invite similar weakening of civil liberties regarding freedom of speech and association and against unreasonable search and seizure. But exercise of those rights does not involve the same immediate risk for grievous harm inherent in a firearm. There’s simply less justification and little to gain by seeking limits on those rights.
There is much less concern for a loss of civil liberties in banning the sale of assault-style weapons. A similar ban was in effect from 1994 until 2004. It wasn’t a Supreme Court ruling that ended the ban, no Constitutional flaw, just the unwillingness of members of Congress, under the influence of the National Rifle Association, that allowed the law to lapse.
These are weapons that are appropriate only for theaters of war, not for movie theaters, nightclubs and schools. They are of no use to hunters or those seeking a weapon for self-defense.
At the state level there have been repeated attempts in recent years to pass legislation that would require that firearms that are accessible to those under 16 be kept in a locked box, gun safe or secured with a trigger lock. Failing to secure firearms around children could result in a charge of reckless endangerment, punishable by up to a year in jail, a $5,000 fine or both. Gun dealers would be required to offer for sale a gun safe or trigger lock to anyone buying a firearm.
Again, the benefits of added safety in homes with children outweigh the inconveniences of gun safes and trigger locks.
All such legislation requires consideration and debate, particularly when public safety is weighed against civil liberties. But potentially effective legislation is too often dismissed with a defeatist attitude that “it wouldn’t have made a difference.”
Which is the same guarantee offered by doing nothing.
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