Mass shootings understandably horrify everyone.

It is a disgrace that the United States, ostensibly the most advanced nation on Earth, can be such a violent place filled with so many people capable of committing such horrific acts.

And it is frustrating that there are no clear, simple solutions to the problem of mass shootings or mass violence in general.

But that is the situation we find ourselves in, because we’re talking about a complicated problem with complicated and imperfect solutions.

We also live in the world as it is, with legal, political and practical constraints.

We live in a country with literally more guns than people and a constitutional right to own a gun if you’re an adult. Accordingly, we can and should dispense with any notion that eliminating the right to gun ownership or making those more than 400 million guns disappear are viable options. Someday, far in the future when all of us are forgotten, that may be possible, but here in 2022, with an interest in stopping mass shootings, such notions are useless to entertain. (Granted, those are the extremes of where some people go.)

We must also proceed with the awareness that laws have their limits. While the most current mass shooting happened in Texas, which has lax gun laws, mass shootings happen here in California, which has strict gun laws, too. Back in 2015, Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler evaluated a claim by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, that proposed gun laws wouldn’t have prevented “the major shootings that have occurred in this country over the last few months or years.” Breaking down the facts of 12 mass shootings from 2012 to 2015, Kessler determined that, in fact, “Rubio’s statement stands up to scrutiny.”

That’s because in many of the cases of mass shootings, the guns used were purchased legally by people with nothing that could have reasonably appeared in a background check to stop them. In some of the cases, proposed weapons bans wouldn’t have covered the guns used. And in other cases, existing laws should have prevented the shootings if not for people breaking the law (by stealing weapons or buying guns for others) or making mistakes (including clerical errors allowing people to buy guns they shouldn’t be able to buy).

Again, laws have limits and every individual mass shooting is complicated when you look closely at the particular facts.

The National Institute of Justice issued a report in February of this year evaluating 172 public mass shootings in the U.S. from 1966 to 2019, uncovering “more than 150 psychosocial history variables, such as those individuals’ mental health history, past trauma, interest in past shootings, and situational triggers.”

While “assault weapons” and what to do about them specifically get most of the political focus, the report notes that over 77% of the shootings involved the use of handguns. Just 25% involved the use of assault rifles. In addition, of the cases in which it is known how the shooters obtained their weapons, 77% acquired at least some of their weapons legally and 13% illegally purchased their weapons.

Red-flag laws

Perhaps most critically, the NIJ report concludes that, “Nearly all persons who engage in mass shootings were in a state of crisis in the days or weeks preceding the shooting.”

The latter point perhaps indicates an opportunity for carefully crafted “red-flag laws,” which allow law enforcement, with a court order, to seize the guns of people deemed to be a threat to themselves or others. But, again, laws have limits and even the left-wing American Civil Liberties Union cautions that, “To be constitutional… [red-flag laws] must at a minimum have clear, nondiscriminatory criteria for defining persons as dangerous and a fair process for those affected to object and be heard by a court.”

New York has a red-flag law on the books and yet it failed to stop the mass shooter in Buffalo. Months before purchasing a weapon, police referred him for a psychiatric evaluation after reports of a threat he made to his school (which he said was just a joke). But that neither showed up on his background check nor was invoked by anyone to seek to have his weapon seized, apparently since the threats were “general,” and a mere evaluation isn’t sufficient to show-up on a record.

“The very concept of ‘red flags’ assumes that experts can reliably distinguish between harmless oddballs and future murderers. But there is little basis for that assumption,” writes Reason Magazine’s Jacob Sullum, who argues that red-flag laws are far from a panacea and risk the civil liberties of people who merely said strange things.

The Uvalde, Texas mass shooter has been described by virtually everyone as strange, as someone who would cut his face with a knife and would try to pick physical fights with people at random. He also reportedly sent social media messages indicating what he planned to do to someone in Germany, who didn’t respond to the messages until the shooting already happened. Texas doesn’t have a red-flag law and it’s not obvious it could’ve been invoked in time to stop him. It’s also hard to imagine a law passing constitutional muster that could stop weirdos who pick fights with people and cut themselves from exercising their constitutional right to own a gun absent an official paper trail.

Gun bans

So, if the vast majority of people who have committed mass shootings bought their guns legally and could’ve passed any currently conceived background check system, we’re brought back to talking about guns.

Should certain types of guns be banned? On what basis? Should we ban the most commonly used types of guns in mass shootings, handguns? Are we talking about only future sales? What about the hundreds of millions of guns in circulation?

The U.S. has previously banned certain assault weapons, but the evidence of its efficacy is at best mixed. In 1999, the National Institute of Justice reported, “The ban has failed to reduce the average number of victims per gun murder incident or multiple gunshot wound victims.” In a review of the evidence for particular gun control measures, Kessler at the Washington Post has recently cited a 2016 study from Emma Fridel of Northwestern University evaluating the 1994-2004 assault weapons ban which found that “the frequency of incidents was virtually unchanged during the decade when the ban was in effect” and that “not only were there countless assault weapons already on the street, but also assailants had a variety of other powerful firearms at their disposal.”

So what am I saying?

I can imagine someone reading what I’ve read so far and saying that I’m just looking for reasons to oppose doing anything.

But, no, that’s not it. I think there are some things that can be done.

For one, governments should ensure that their existing laws are being enforced. If we have background checks on the books, let’s ensure they’re stopping people from purchasing guns who shouldn’t be able to purchase them. Likewise, if there are people known to have guns who should not have them, governments should disarm those people. California has an Armed Prohibited Persons System, with thousands of people in it, and while it’s far from perfect, it’s a starting point.

Second, I have no problem with a carefully crafted red-flag law. California already has one on the books. There are obvious limitations and problems, as previously mentioned, but, yeah, people in crisis and people who threaten others shouldn’t have guns.

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Third, obvious things should be done. The Uvalde shooter reportedly entered an unlocked door to the school after lingering outside for 12 minutes, and police officers on the scene took an hour to do anything (but they did reportedly handcuff and pepper spray parents who gathered in horror outside the school). Schools should probably take better security precautions, including ensuring doors are locked, and police officers shouldn’t be waiting around while kids are getting murdered.

I’m open to other ideas, or being told why my ideas are wrong or too limited. But I also am aware of the constraints and limitations of any particular proposal, including the reality that many of them would merely burden the law-abiding while not necessarily doing anything to prevent a person truly bent on committing a heinous act from doing so.

Sal Rodriguez can be reached at [email protected]