Will the guns ever go away?

Image - Tim Mudd

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On the morning of the 27^th of August 23-year-old Robin Westman arrived at a Catholic church in Minneapolis, equipped with 3 firearms, and opened fire on a group of school children attending a worship service. Two children, aged 8 and 10, were killed; 17 were injured. The attack leaves families broken and a city reeling from shock, yet this tragedy is far from being a unique incident.

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Since 2018 there have been 229 school shootings in the US. That’s 229 deliberate attacks on innocent children in just 7 years. Even more shocking is that there were roughly 586 mass shootings in the US in 2024, 8 on the 28^th of July 2024 alone. The US surgeon general has gone so far as to declare gun violence a public health crisis. The sheer scale of the gun problem in America is almost unfathomable, and it is not by any means a new problem. As Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey was asked following the shooting,

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“How many times have we been here?”

“This has happened in other countries and guess what, they do something about it”.

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The centrality of guns to American society stems from the 2^nd amendment of the US constitution: the right to bear arms. Banning guns entirely would be almost impossible, given that changing the constitution requires multiple supramajorities (over 2/3 of the vote). There have, however, been many other efforts over the years to ban certain types of guns or add more safeguards regarding the purchase of them. In 1994 Bill Clinton signed into law a ban on assault weapons, a policy championed by then senator Joe Biden, however the Republican-led congress overturned this in 2004.

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Following the Sandy Hook shooting in 2013, polls showed near unanimous public consensus for closing all loopholes in the background check system, and small majorities also supported bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Feeding of the mood in the country, Barak Obama attempted to enact a wave of legislation, but even then the bills failed to make it through the senate. As a twitter post from British columnist Dan Hodges read,

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“In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over”.

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The inability of the American political system to do anything meaningful about the gun violence in their country is beyond frustrating and can be blamed on a series of factors. The senate filibuster allows minorities to shut down bills that otherwise would’ve passed, including one of the 2013 gun control bills that had passed successfully in the House of Representatives. The makeup of the American political system as a whole also adds to the challenge as it disproportionately favours lightly populated rural areas, which happen to be areas where support for guns is high.

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The biggest barrier to gun restriction in the US, however, is the alarmingly powerful gun lobby. The notorious national rifle association (NRA) are at the forefront of this, boasting between 3 and 5 million members. They argue that guns make the country safer, suggesting that the change needed is better school security, not less weapons. NRA members often cast their votes according to how much a candidate supports guns, and with the disproportionalities in the system, this is a huge boost for pro-gun candidates. The organisations political victory fund campaigns for pro-gun electoral candidates, and it is estimated that they have spent over $140 million doing so. (No points for guessing which presidential candidate they endorsed in 2024). They also have an institute for legislative action, to lobby governments across the country to back their agenda, and in 2021 alone they spent over $4 million.

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The wealth of the NRA from a mix of membership fees and the firearms industry, who pump then with money in exchange for the NRA fighting their political battles and offering them advertising. The industry is also a political heavyweight in itself, worth approximately $91 billion as of 2024 and providing over 150,000 jobs.

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With a gun lobby as powerful as this, plus systematic factors, it is hardly surprising that gun restrictions fail to become law. This is despite the fact that, according to a 2024 survey by Pew Research Centre, around 58% of US adults would favour stricter gun laws and only 15% want them to be stricter. One could optimistically believe that this most recent tragedy in Minneapolis could be the one to make the difference, but its highly unlikely.

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What scale of tragedy would it take to finally convince the gun advocates that change is essential? Or maybe, we’ll see a political revolution where bipartisanship is possible and rich companies and organisations have far less influence. Until then, parents are forced to send their children to school everyday with a pit of fear in their stomachs and teachers have to keep running gun drills, just in case...