Today, Explained - Gun laws that work

Episode Date: June 15, 2022

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says tougher gun laws wouldn’t have stopped the Uvalde shooter. He’s wrong. This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard and Victoria Dominguez, engineered by Paul Mounsey and Efim Shapiro, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, Noelle, so you wanted to understand the Heller case, District of Columbia v. Heller. We explained it on the show yesterday using some vintage reporting. What did you think? Do you get it? Yeah, I get why everyone is so confused. I get the gentleman at the center of it, interesting guy. You answered a lot of my questions. Thank you.

And then the big takeaway is Heller means individuals have a right to bear arms, but also we get to have gun safety laws. We get to have gun control. Today on the show, because a listener asked us to and because it seemed like a good time to do it, we're going to get into all the gun control in this country that seems to be working really well. Working. Working, working. From state laws to federal laws to that

new thing that the Senate maybe did this weekend, their agreement, whatever that is. We're going to explain all that. So it's going to be an optimistic show. Don't hold your breath. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. It's Today Explained. I'm Sean Ramos-Firman.

I know what the deal is in Texas, you know, Wild West, don't mess, all my exes, etc. But I was still surprised to hear how the state's governor, Greg Abbott, answered a question about more gun control in the wake of the Uvalde Elementary School shooting last month. People who think that, well, maybe if we just implement tougher gun laws, it's going to solve it. Chicago and L.A. and New York disproved that thesis. It seemed an awful lot like he was trying to say, if we had tougher gun laws, that wouldn't have stopped the shooting. And I was just thinking, that can't be right, can it? I don't think so. I highly disagree with that statement. Cassandra Crefasi is the deputy director of the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University. We have at least three tools right now that exist at the state level that could have been impactful in this particular case. Tool one., for example, had the state had an extreme risk protection order in place?

Extreme risk protection orders, known as ERPOs, which allow family members and law enforcement to request a court order that prevents someone from accessing guns if they're worried the person might be at risk of harming themselves or others. Police or family members could have petitioned the court to either temporarily take his firearms away and or keep him from buying more for the duration of the order. And the key thing about these policies is that they're temporary. Does Texas have such a law on the books? Texas does not. Tool two. Another policy that we've done a lot of research on are sometimes called permit to purchase laws or hand gun purchaser licensing laws or purchaser licensing laws. These laws require that before somebody even walks into a gun shop, they first apply for and obtain a license from law enforcement. And this involves a more thorough background check. And then you'll start filling out the federal form 4473.

That form asks for personal information like your age and address. It'll also ask about your legal history, including are you a fugitive from justice? And we know that these laws are associated with a range of public safety benefits, homicide and suicide,

as well as reductions in fatal mass shootings. Does Texas have such a law in the books? Texas does not. Tool three. The third policy that we talk about are raising the minimum age to purchase or possess guns. In Texas, for example, you only need to be 18 to buy a semi-automatic rifle from a licensed dealer. In the state of Texas, it is legal for people who are 18 or older to buy long guns, such as rifles or shotguns. Texans must be 21 to purchase a handgun, though there are some

exceptions, including for those 18 to 20-year-olds who are under the threat of family violence. And given what we've seen over the last few weeks with young people buying firearms and using them shortly thereafter, after turning 18, raising the minimum age to 21, when hopefully they may have been slightly more mature, that could have been an effective policy as well. Again, Texas doesn't have that law either. Well, we had a listener named Hank tweet tweeted us and asked us to go through actual current proposed federal gun safety legislation and maybe even a few of the more innovative state and local laws, he said. And it sounds like you're pretty familiar with a lot of what the states are doing on gun control. So I was wondering if you could help us here. What are, say, three states worth looking at when it comes to proposed gun control legislation? It doesn't sound like Texas is one

of them. Three states that come top of mind for us in our center based on our research are Connecticut, Washington state, and California. Okay. And These are states that have been putting policies into place using data and evidence to drive their policy change instead of focusing on some of the rhetoric that we're hearing. Well, let's go through them one by one, starting with California. So California has policies in place that are informed by evidence and actually also enjoy pretty broad public support. So for example, their age to purchase a long gun from a licensed dealer is 21.

They have extreme risk protection orders that allow a wide range of individuals to petition the court to temporarily remove firearms. And they also have large capacity magazine bans. And so looking at the evidence, raising the minimum age is associated with reductions in suicide among young people. And they've also been used in instances of mass shootings. And those individuals who were subject to an ERPO didn't go forward and commit that mass shooting. When states regulate magazine capacity, we see lower rates of fatal mass shootings and actually fewer victims injured if a mass shooting incident did occur. Let's move to Connecticut. I guess we're going in alphabetical order here. No matter where I chance to be, Connecticut is the place for me.

Connecticut actually had several policies in place since the mid-90s. So for example, they're one of the few states that require purchasers to get a license before they buy a firearm, which is associated with reductions in homicide and suicide and fatal mass shootings. They have had an extreme risk protection order like policy in place since 1999. And that policy was used more effectively after actually the Virginia Tech shooting. Folks realized if we have situations effectively after actually the Virginia Tech shooting. Folks realized if we have situations like the issue in Virginia Tech, then we should probably use this. But that policy in Connecticut, the firearm removal law, was the inspiration, for lack of a better term, for some of the contemporary extreme risk protection orders. Connecticut also has a restriction on magazine capacity, which I think

is really important when thinking about not just the firearms, but those accessories. And what's going on in Washington state? So Washington state is really interesting because they haven't relied solely on their legislature. So they have had gun safety legislation go through and be signed by the governor, but they've also leveraged their ballot initiative in order to make progress when it seemed like politicians were not going to take action. Washington state approved one of the toughest gun safety laws in the nation. The measure increases the age limit to buy an assault rifle from 18 to 21. It also imposes a 10-day waiting period for purchases.

So that's another way that residents of states that want to see change, they want to see action, they can come together and leverage that ballot initiative if it's an option. So in the wake of what we saw a couple weeks ago in Uvalde and then before that in Buffalo, are other states looking at what states like California and Connecticut and Washington have accomplished and considering similar legislation? Absolutely. So we've seen Delaware is actively engaged in conversations. One of the challenges is, you know, we don't want to make legislation solely in the aftermath of a mass shooting because mass shootings in the grand scheme are still exceptionally rare. They're terrible and we want to prevent them, but we can't legislate only with the eye towards preventing mass shootings. We need solutions that touch on multiple forms of violence. Suicides, everyday gun violence in cities, what have you. Yeah, a lot of folks don't know that the leading cause of firearm death is actually suicide.

It varies from year to year. In 2020, about 55 or so percent of gun deaths were suicides. And so when we focus solely on mass shootings, which are about 2% of all gun violence, it can feel like we're trying to fight against something that almost seems inevitable, but we have policies that can touch on multiple forms of violence. And we'd be remiss to skip over the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States is currently considering undoing a policy from the state of New York. We will hear argument this morning in case 2843, New York State Rifle

and Pistol Association versus Bruin. So the Bruin case before the Supreme Court right now is really focused on law enforcement discretion in issuing permits. During arguments this past November, some conservative justices expressed concern over requirements needed to obtain a permit. But lawyers for the state of New York say the law is in the interest of public safety. And that discretion, the ability of law enforcement to decide essentially who can carry and who can't. So right now, only eight states have this discretionary element. And those states tend to have lower rates of crime and violence in aggregate. And some folks credit limiting the ability of civilians to carry firearms in public. So if New York's law is struck

down and if it's related to the discretionary element, it would make the eight states that currently have more robust law enforcement decisions in who can carry firearms, more like the other 42 states. And the broader concern is whether the Supreme Court will come down with a much more sweeping decision that could fundamentally change the way courts are instructed to evaluate gun laws. It's important to keep in mind this decision that will be coming out won't overnight make all of our gun laws disappear, but it will make the ones that currently exist perhaps more susceptible to a challenge. And I think the other important thing, this case right now before the Supreme Court, Bruin, is the first time the Supreme Court has

decided to hear a case since the 2008 Heller decision. So it's been a very long time since the Supreme Court has taken something up. And they have immense capacity to alter how people think about regulating guns moving forward. All the more reason to talk about federal laws, perhaps. Absolutely. More with Cassandra Crefasi from the Center for Gun Violence Solutions in a minute on Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family,

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There's only one thing we can do. We have to get guns. Guns? It's the only way for us to be safe. Kyle, even if we thought it could help protect us, how are we all going to get our hands on guns? All right, cool. We got guns. So now what?

Today Explained, we're back with Cassandra Crefasi from the Center for Gun Violence Solutions. We talked about the states. Let's talk about the Fed. Throughout the history of the country, I think a lot of folks have a misperception that gun policy is a new topic. There's really interesting and rich history of how, just how regulated, you know, if you

wanted to go to a town, even in the Wild West, where people carried firearms everywhere, if you walked into town, you turned your guns over to the sheriff in many places because you weren't allowed to carry them around in town. I guess that means your boys can read. So I guess that means that you saw the signs outside of town there saying, surrender your firearms. Not a lot changed at the federal level after the Second Amendment until the National Firearm Act, and that was in 1934.

There were concerns around gangsters, mobsters using machine guns to fight with each other, to fight with police. All right, all right, big mouth. Well, you better get your hat and start running, see, because you're all through. Call up the papers and tell them that, you rotten, dirty, lying copper. And so that act identified a set of regulated firearms. In the case of some of these firearms, new ones are not allowed to be manufactured. It's not that you can't own them, but the National Firearms Act said, if you want to own them, you can, but you need to pay a tax and you

need to go through a more rigorous vetting process. So some of these firearms are machine guns, short barreled rifles or shotguns, suppressors actually, which people commonly refer to as a silencer, but there's no such thing as a silencer because it doesn't make it silent. It just suppresses the sound. But these types of guns, you very rarely see used in crime or violence in the U.S. because there are so many safeguards and structures put around the acquisition of these that they just don't often fall into the wrong hands. And so I think that's an important thing to think about.

We do have a history of banning certain kinds of firearms. Fast forward to 1968, there were several assassinations and assassination attempts that had occurred. And folks said, you know, we need to put some policies and procedures in place. The Gun Control Act of 1968, just passed by the Congress

and signed into law by the president, grants possessors of certain types of firearms 30 days of grace in order to register these weapons. And so a lot of the framework that we think of for who's prohibited, what characteristics might keep you from being able to lawfully buy a gun, that really was established in the Gun Control Act of 1968. It bars the interstate sale of all guns and the bullets that load them. It stops the sale of lethal weapons to those too young to bear their terrible responsibility. It wasn't until the Brady Law in the mid-90s that background checks were mandated for guns sold by licensed dealers. So Jim Brady was the press secretary of Ronald Reagan. There was an assassination attempt

against Ronald Reagan, and Jim Brady suffered a life-changing injury. The bullet in his brain changed Jim Brady's life forever. Brady was so seriously wounded that news wires reported his death. And so the bill was named after him. And this is what led to the creation of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The assault weapons ban went into effect in 94 as well. This day is the beginning, not the end of our effort to restore safety and security to the people of this country. There were a lot of things coming together that were having people recognize that maybe there were some types of firearms that were too risky for

people to have. And many of these weapons were banned and then it was not renewed and lapsed in 2004. What happened to the assault rifle ban? It was this historic piece of legislation. Why did Congress let it lapse? Yeah, the assault weapons ban that passed in 1994 had what is referred to as a sunset provision in it, meaning that it would lapse after 10 years unless Congress took action to extend the ban.

And there was a misperception that the ban was not effective. It was not keeping assault-style weapons out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them. And so folks decided not to continue it. I think one really important challenge that we face in public health broadly, but in gun policy and gun violence prevention specifically, it's really hard to measure what didn't happen. So it's really hard to articulate all of the violence that was prevented because of the assault weapons ban or the lives that were saved. But we have seen substantial increases in mass shootings since the lapse, particularly substantial increases in high casualty mass shootings since the lapse, particularly substantial increases in high casualty mass

shootings. And now here we are, Congress is currently considering new legislation on gun control, violence prevention. What's on the table in the House, in the Senate? There are several things on the table. I think the House has taken a much more expansive approach to the kinds of things that they are looking at, increased funding, banning particular kinds of weapons, raising the minimum age for purchasing firearms, for example. The Senate framework, so it's important to note that they don't actually have legislation yet. It is framework for what would come out, bipartisan legislation. It includes a few things. So it does include expanding funding for extreme risk protection orders. It includes an enhanced background check for people under the age of 21

with an investigative period and accessing additional records, some increased penalties for straw purchasing. Importantly, it extends domestic violence protections to dating partners, which has been an important gap. And it also better clarifies what it means to be in the business of selling firearms, which is an important loophole because private sellers under federal law are not required to be licensed. I think I saw analysis somewhere, maybe in the Times of New York, that said this falls dramatically short of what Democrats want, but is surprisingly more than Democrats thought they could get. It's an interesting perspective. I mean, I think there are three big gaps that I saw in what was

put forward in the Senate framework. For example, the Senate framework does nothing to address Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which is the law that gives the gun industry pretty broad immunity from lawsuits. It doesn't address an assault weapons ban or anything related to large capacity magazines. And in my perspective, I think some low-hanging fruit that was a real missed opportunity is not addressing the default proceed loophole. Right now, under federal law, if a background check does not come back within three days, the default is to sell the firearm in the absence of complete information, and then law enforcement would have to go take the gun away after the fact. And this happens around 5,000 times a year. My perspective is we shouldn't be pushing forward selling firearms in the absence

of complete information. So all told, this is significant, but nowhere near big enough, sweeping enough legislation that could change this picture of gun violence in the United States? Certainly there is more that they could do, but too much of our focus has been on areas where we don't agree, and that makes it hard to get anything done. So the fact that we have a group of senators who have come together with this bipartisan framework and have said these are things that we're working toward agreement on, it's going to make it that much easier to do something else. And hopefully people will see we can put forward bipartisan legislation that can advance our efforts to reduce gun violence,

and we're not going to be taking anybody's guns away. Let's set aside the politicians for a minute. What do the majority of Americans want? We see very broad majority support for several policies. I have to get on a soapbox for a second. It drives me nuts when people ask, do you want more or less gun control? Or do you think our laws should be stronger or weaker? If 100% of people responded to a poll and said, yes, I want my laws to be stronger,

what the hell does anybody do with that? Okay, but what laws? Like, how do we make them safer? So I'll get off my soapbox now. More than 85% of Americans say that everybody should have to pass a background check every time they buy a gun, no matter who they buy it from. More than 70% of people say extreme risk protection orders are a good idea, including more than

60% of gun owners. We also see lots of folks supporting raising the minimum age to buy a semi-automatic rifle. More than 70% of Americans and more than 60% of gun owners. So it's a myth. We're sort of constantly being fed the idea that we don't know what works and we don't agree on anything. And that's why we can't get anything done. That's not why we can't get anything done. We can't get anything done because our elected officials care more about their political contributions from gun lobbies than they do about what their constituents have to say.

There are policies right now in states across the U.S. that have broad public support and can help us reduce not just mass shootings, but the everyday gun violence, domestic violence, suicide that we're seeing that contributes to us having had more than 45,000 gun deaths in 2020. Guns were the leading cause of death for kids in 2020, more than cars. But we have solutions. We know that there are things that work. We have the support, we have the tools, and we just need our policymakers to act. What you're saying is Greg Abbott's wrong. Greg Abbott is wrong. Yeah. Cassandra Crefasi is a deputy director at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where she's also a professor. Our show today was produced by Professor Avishai Artsy. He had help from Matthew Collette, Laura Bullard, Tori Dominguez, Paul Mounsey, and Dr. Afim Shapiro. I'm Sean Ramos-Verm. It's Today Explained.