Each new mass shooting in the US reignites debate over the country’s treatment of gun rights as virtually sacrosanct. Americans own more guns than anybody else on Earth, even adjusted for population. (Yemenis are second.)
Firearms were involved in the deaths of more than 45,000 people in the US in 2020, 54 per cent of which were suicides. But Americans disagree along partisan political lines on whether that’s a major issue for the country.
MASS SHOOTINGS IN THE US
While mass shootings account for just a fraction of US gun deaths, they attract the most attention. In May 2022, 19 children and two teachers were killed at an elementary school in rural Texas, a week after 10 were killed at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
In a report released the same month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation identified 61 “active shooter” attacks in 2021 that killed 103 people – the most annual deaths since 2017, which was the year a sniper opened fire at a concert in Las Vegas, killing 58 people.
The murder of 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida in 2018 gave voice to a new group of activists – students – who demanded tougher controls. Public opinion shifted in that direction, but has since returned to 2017 levels.
A Pew Research Center poll in 2021 found that 53 per cent of Americans said laws should be more strict, down from 60 per cent in 2019. In the survey, 73 per cent of Democrats and 18 per cent of Republicans said they considered gun violence to be a “very big problem” for the US.
Gun rules are largely determined by the states, and since the Parkland shooting, new restrictions have been enacted in a majority of them. The measures strengthened requirements for background checks on gun purchasers, banned the use of attachments that enable a semiautomatic rifle to fire faster, and aimed to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers.
In 2021, New York became the first state to allow people harmed by guns to take firearm dealers and manufacturers to court. But movement toward stricter controls has not been uniform. It’s now legal in 21 states to carry hidden guns in public without a permit, compared with four states in 2014.
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