Today, Explained - The simplest way to fix our gun laws

Episode Date: November 15, 2018

California has the strictest gun laws in the country, but they didn't prevent last week’s mass shooting in Thousand Oaks. Vox’s German Lopez explains the flaws in California’s laws, and points to a far-away state doing a better job. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for today's show comes from KiwiCo. They make fun, hands-on projects for kids to encourage learning about science, technology, engineering, art, and math. I haven't been a kid in at least a decade, but I got a box from KiwiCo right here. Can't wait to open it, maybe in the middle of the show. You can find your box from KiwiCo for free at first by going to KiwiCo.com slash explained. My name is Susan Orfanos. My son was Tel Orfanos. We lost him last night at the borderline shooting.

My son was in Las Vegas with a lot of his friends and he came home. He didn't come home last night and I don't want prayers. I don't want thoughts. I want gun control and I hope to God nobody else sends me any more prayers. I want gun control. No more guns. Thank you. It depends on who you ask, but California is generally considered to have the strongest gun laws in the country. It has some of the most comprehensive background checks. It has really strong child access prevention laws.

It also restricts concealed carry permitting. And it has strict rules around domestic violence. And then they have a very strong extreme risk protection order temporarily, because they're posing some sort of risk. This can be a risk of suicide, a risk of any kind of violence, really. And then finally, they have pretty strict laws around assault weapons and military-style weaponry. Herman Lopez, you cover guns at Vox. You've covered a lot of mass shootings. Why weren't all of these laws enough to stop the shooter in Thousand Oaks last week? So I think there are a couple of things. One is that California is still in the United States,

and that means that there are a ton of guns out there. So even if you put all these strict gun laws in place, these guns can flow from other states. The U.S. currently has more guns than people. The second thing is that the laws that are in place often aren't enforced as well as you would expect them to be or want them to be. So I think one key example here is the extreme protection order, like these red flag laws. California has one in place. And what we know about this guy who carried out the shooting, he had some red flags in place. We've had several contacts with Mr. Long over the years. He was a victim of a battery at a local bar in 2015. In April of this year, deputies were called to his house

for a subject disturbing. He was somewhat irate, acting a little irrationally. They called out our crisis intervention team, our mental health specialist. He was a former military veteran. He was described as a service of not exactly stellar. He had apparently mental health issues in the past. It's not clear exactly whether he

was diagnosed with specific things, but that's another warning sign here. And there were just reports in general that this guy had problems. The thing is, is that for whatever reason, he was never flagged and he was allowed to keep his guns. The weapon used in this horrific shooting was a Glock 21.45 caliber handgun. The handgun is designed to hold, in California, 10 rounds and one in the chamber. This weapon did have an extended magazine on it. California did actually pass a ban on high-capacity magazines, but a judge blocked it after the state got sued.

And that might not have stopped the shooting. I mean, obviously, this guy could have tried to carry out the shooting anywhere with like a lower capacity magazine, but it might have made it less deadly. I don't get it. What failed in this system where you can say this guy seems dangerous and police went to his house? Why didn't these red flag laws work? One of the problems is that there's just not enough awareness

of these laws. And people just don't report people who have problems. And that's because they either don't think that the law enforcement will do anything about it, that law enforcement can do anything about it. So it might be important here to even beyond just changing the laws, just getting people to start knowing that these laws exist and start reporting people who have problems and who you know have guns because that can lead to some of these events. What have California's gun laws accomplished? California still has some of the lowest gun death rates in the country. Over 5,000 people were killed by gun violence in 1993. We've seen a 56% decline in gun violence in this state,

which is substantially greater reduction than the rest of the nation. It is true that it sees some of the most mass shootings, but I think a lot of that is because it's a very big state. So just in terms of population, you're going to see it have more of these events than other parts of the US. But if you look at the overall numbers, mass shootings are less than 2% overall gun deaths. Most are actually suicides. And California consistently ranks among the 10 lowest states in terms of gun deaths in the country. Is there some sort of acknowledgement that increased gun laws can reduce homicides and suicides, but perhaps not mass shootings?

So I think one of the things here that we should think about is different gun laws are going to have different effects on different areas. So I would actually break it down as there's urban violence or gang violence, and then there's domestic violence, then there's suicides, and then there's mass shootings. So you have these four categories. And depending on what you want to do, they're going to have different effects. So waiting periods, for example, seem to be particularly effective for suicides. The other thing is assault weapons bans. These don't seem to be effective for homicides of any kind or suicides because assault weapons are very rarely used in what we would consider like urban violence or domestic violence. And they're almost never used in suicides.

But they are disproportionately used in mass shootings. And also there's some research suggesting that they might make mass shootings more deadly just because they are more powerful weapons essentially. In general, though, it is true that when you pass stricter gun laws, you will eventually see fewer gun deaths. And when you loosen gun laws, when you make guns more accessible or easier to use, you see more gun deaths. Hey, everybody, how's it going? It's The Daily Shooter. And this Tuesday, November 6th, we elect a new governor for the state of California.

And I just want to remind you all exactly what is at stake here. If you enjoy firearms, if you enjoy your Second Amendment rights, if you want to be able to defend yourself, if you want justice in this state, try and remember that somebody who actively and openly hates firearms and shows his daily ignorance towards firearms is actually running for the highest seat in the state. With the new governor-elect Gavin Newsom coming into office, will there be new attempts to actually deal with mass shootings in any way?

So we do know that this new governor is more supportive of gun control in general than the current governor, Jerry Brown. For one, he has personal experience with gun violence. His grandfather shot himself. The other thing is, I mean, he has been pretty vocal about what he thinks about the NRA, calling them morally bankrupt. It's time to take these guys on. I'm sick and tired of the National Rifle Association, sick and tired of threats. And with all due respect to a lot of my Democratic colleagues, they're threatened as much as Republicans are threatened. He was also supportive of the high-capacity magazine ban. He was one of the leaders in getting that passed in California, although a court eventually blocked it.

So he's been out there on this issue. He knows that California has the strongest gun laws, but he wants to go even further on this issue and has been pretty vocal about it. If Newsom tries to enact new gun control, will he have support in California state legislature to do it? Or is it a divisive issue there? I know the NRA has sued California a couple times, right? Yeah, I mean, I think one of the biggest things will be dealing with the courts and how that works out, especially now that we have a Supreme Court that seems to be poised to block stricter gun laws. But in terms of the state government there, Democrats just want

overwhelmingly in the legislature, they have a super majority in the legislature, meaning that they have veto proof. But it just goes to show that Democrats who are far more liberal and on this issue and far more willing to pass strict gun control laws, I think they would be willing to take on this issue. But they're limited, right, by the Heller decision in the Supreme Court that says the Second Amendment defends a right for the individual to own a firearm. So what exactly can they do with a supermajority in the state legislature and a very progressive pro-gun control governor? What can California do that maybe could serve as a model for other states that are worried

about mass shootings? So I think the biggest remaining gap in California is that they don't have a licensing system. Much like we require a driver's license for cars, this is the idea is you require a license for guns. And I think for that, they could look toward Massachusetts. After the break, we head from the left coast to the right one to figure out how MA's gun laws work better than CA's. Okay, big moment. I'm opening the box from KiwiCo. Didn't bring scissors, so... Bare hand in it.

Alright, I'm done with one box. There's a second box. It's a box within a box. Very Inception. It says contains one playset. Mechanical Sweeper is the name of this playset for ages 5+. Build a handy mechanical sweeper and decorate it

with your own watercolor paintings. Come on, people. Okay. It looks like there's some beads here, some watercolor pieces, some salt. Find out what that's for. A sweeper bin, various sweeper rain pieces

that are made out of wood. And there's a sticker! You can discover the joy of wood. And there's a sticker. You can discover the joy of KiwiCo at kiwico.com slash explained right now. And that's also where you can have a free trial. Herman, you mentioned Massachusetts. What are they doing with gun laws? What are their rules? Well, Massachusetts has a system where you essentially need a license to buy a gun.

They call it like the permit to purchase system, just like you would for a car. So essentially what happens in Massachusetts, if you want to buy a gun, you first have to go to your local police department. You have to apply. You have to do an interview. You have to do, if you're a first-time applicant, you have to do a training course. And once you make it through the system, you also do a background check. Then the police chief has the discretion to say, OK, this person passed all these checks, but do I still see any other red flags here, like anything that might concern me about the record? So that's where the other parts of the investigation, the interview,

and perhaps talking with family members kicks in. So if they hear from someone that, say, like a man comes in and his wife says, hey, my husband has suicidal or homicidal thoughts and tells that to the police chief, or if there are just previous signs like a domestic violence call that didn't lead to charges, so it might not show up on a criminal record, a police chief might say, like, hey, you know, I saw this, and, like, I'm not comfortable giving this person a permit. And they'll essentially refuse at that point to give a permit. Do we have any idea how often Massachusetts is denying gun licenses? Yeah, actually, even with this strict system in place, it's among 5% of permits are actually

denied. And based on the police chiefs I talked to, they say most are denied through automatic disqualifier. So somebody has a criminal record, they're just automatically denied. So when you have your license, then what can you do with it? Can you get multiple guns? Can you get as much ammunition as you want? How does that work? Once somebody gets that license, then they can go to a gun store and they can buy a firearm. And then that firearm has to be crucially registered in a state database.

And this is important because what Massachusetts does is not just require a license to buy a firearm, obviously, but also by keeping track of which guns are attached to each of these licenses. If they ever have to revoke a license in the future, like say they go into a house on a domestic violence call and they want to take away that license, they also have a list of the legally owned guns in the household that they can then go after and secure. And it seems to be pretty effective. But once you get this license, the thinking is, well, this person is qualified to own a firearm, so he should be able to. When did Massachusetts introduce this system? And what was the reason? Was it in reaction to a mass shooting? Or did they just pass gun control?

So in general, Massachusetts, even going back to like the colonial era, has had regulations on guns. Boston, for example, used to restrict the transportation of gunpowder, especially old-timey gunpowder was, as you can imagine, very explosive and dangerous. So they had strict regulations on that. They restricted whether you can have a loaded firearm in your house, that kind of thing. I've heard this, yeah. So over the decades, as this has become a bigger national issue, I think, Massachusetts has just slowly strengthened its gun laws. There's not any particular moment where they said, all right, let's have this system in place. In general, it's something that they've built up over the decades.

And I think this is actually really important to note because Massachusetts consistently has the lowest gun death rates in the country. There actually have been studies, particularly on this permit-to-purchase system, and they've repeatedly found that it seems to be pretty effective. I think one of the most recent studies is these researchers at Johns Hopkins looked at urban counties, and they looked at what gun laws have what effects here. And two of the laws they compared were, one, this permit-to this permit to purchase system, and then the other was comprehensive background checks. And one of the things that's interesting, they actually found that comprehensive background checks do not seem to have an effect on gun homicides, while this permit to purchase system was correlated with a drop in gun homicides. Two other studies that I think are important here are in Connecticut, once it passed

its permit to purchase system, it saw gun homicides drop. And I think Missouri, once it repealed its permit to purchase system, it didn't just see gun homicides increase, but it saw other kinds of homicide stay stable, which suggests that something in particular happened with guns and only guns there that led to an increase in gun homicides. One key thing to keep in mind here, though, is that we are in a national context, a federal context. And that means that even if a state like Massachusetts passes stricter gun laws, they are still beholden to what their neighbors are doing and what other states are doing. So you think about Massachusetts, that's a pretty strong system, but its neighbors in New England, particularly like New Hampshire, for example, do not have strict gun

laws. So if you want to bypass the Massachusetts law, this offers a big loophole for you. You can just go to New Hampshire, you can buy a gun fairly easily, and then come back into Massachusetts and sell the guns, give them away, have them stolen. And this is actually something the police chiefs consistently said to me. You know, I actually don't have much of a problem with our state laws. What I do have a problem with is New Hampshire's laws or southern states' laws, where a bunch of guns are shipped from and then we have gun violence problems in Massachusetts. With the Democrats taking control of the House, is there any federal gun control on the horizon?

Might they force the issue? Well, we've already heard Nancy Pelosi say that as Speaker of the House, she will push background check legislation quite early on in the House. But we've already seen Mitch McConnell suggest that he doesn't want to do that and that it's not going to be introduced in the Senate, which is still Republican controlled. So I don't see federal legislation, at least strong federal legislation, moving on this issue anytime soon. Definitely don't see like the federal government suddenly adopting a permit to purchase system like Massachusetts has. It could be something that if Democrats take control of the White House and if

Democrats take control of the Senate, they might do something on gun control if they get into power. Hermann, I think to like a lot of Americans, just hearing that one of the people who died in the Thousand Oaks shooting was actually a survivor of the Las Vegas shooting, it just feels like these things are getting more frequent, far worse. They're just spinning out of control. Are they? One thing that makes these mass shootings terrifying is obviously that they're random. We really can't predict them. They come out of nowhere. And that makes a lot of people feel like this can happen to them. Statistically, that's not true. They're too common in the US. They're like a huge public safety concern, obviously. But that's one thing that people

should keep in mind. They should not be in constant fear of their lives that this will happen to them. And so the silver lining with this is that it makes the issue much harder to ignore. This is very different than a few years ago when one of the fundamental issues was gun control was essentially this intensity gap. So people who supported gun rights, people who had guns and didn't want the government to take them away or whatever, they were ready to vote on this issue as their single issue. It would be the one thing that they would vote out a politician for. In comparison, the people who supported more gun control were not willing to vote on this issue as a single issue. That seems to be changing now

in that gun control and gun violence is closer to the top of the issues that these generally more liberal voters are thinking about when they head out and vote for a politician. And several of the politicians who helped take the House on the Democratic side this year, they ran on gun control. They didn't care that the NRA would spend money against them. So these are signs that like now Democrats are getting mobilized on this issue and getting ready to do something about it. is today explained. One last shout out to KiwiCo for the support of the show today. I've got a whole mess of a KiwiCo crate, the mechanical sweeper before me. I was impressed by it, but I think I'm going to have to present it to a small child and see what he or she thinks about it. So I'm going to work on that. In the meantime, kiwico.com slash explained, K-I-W-I-C-O dot com slash explained. Spencer Hall, you host a Vox Media

Podcast Network podcast about cheating in sports. Yeah, I do. I do. It's called It Seems Smart. I believe there's a six-episode season. I would like to hear about the fourth episode, if possible. What's going on in the fourth episode of It Seems Smart? The fourth episode covers a well-known, but I don't think well-known enough, scandal in college football, which earned a name familiar to anyone in geopolitics, which is Wakey Leaks.

Not WikiLeaks, WikiLeaks. It involves Wake Forest, a stolen playbook, a mole, some inside information, and the most incompetently executed espionage scam in all of college football history. Wow, that sounds pretty promising. It was. It was. It worked out well for us, for the listener, and for everyone except the people behind it. Okay, great. So people can find that in their feeds right now. Absolutely. Anywhere you get your podcasts, you can get It Seems Smart, hosted by me, Spencer Hall, from SB Nation and Vox Media.