Media Outlets Must Hold Gun Safety Advocates to Higher Standards
In a recent editorial published by The Guardian, students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School proposed nine policy changes that they believe will reduce gun violence in the United States. I have no doubt these proposals were offered in good faith by a group of high school students who survived a horrific — and possibly preventable — tragedy, and who feel moved to action on gun safety.
Unfortunately, the editorial displays two of the worst tendencies among modern gun control advocates: (1) a basic lack of understanding about the devices that they are attempting to regulate, and (2) a failure to apply the most rudimentary standards of fact-checking to claims that support the broader goal of gun safety.
It is understandable that high school students might not be fully conversant with certain terminology around gun policy, and may get some details wrong. But major media outlets must do a better job of correcting obviously erroneous claims and presenting more substantive policy proposals around gun safety, rather than offering polemics that fail to engage with even the most obvious counter-arguments.
In this post, I would like to review three of the proposals put forward in this editorial, and offer some thoughts on where the arguments fall short. The purpose of this post is not to impugn the integrity of high school students passionately advocating for stricter gun safety measures, but to show how major media outlets often fail to apply their own editorial standards — asking questions, clarifying arguments, and checking facts — to opinion pieces dealing with firearms.
Proposal 1: Banning semi-automatic weapons that fire high-velocity rounds.
Civilians shouldn’t have access to the same weapons that soldiers do. That’s a gross misuse of the second amendment.
These weapons were designed for dealing death: not to animals or targets, but to other human beings.
It is common for gun safety advocates to argue that civilians should not have access to “military-style” weaponry, or “weapons of war”. (See representative examples here, here, here and here.) In particular, many assert that AR-15-style rifles and other semi-automatic rifles constitute “military-grade” firearms not properly suited to civilian ownership. Yet very few advocates offer clear and consistent criteria to distinguish between weapons that they believe are authorized for civilian use, and those that should be designated only for military purposes.
Despite the plethora of opinion pieces on this topic, it is rarely acknowledged that many common semi-automatic handguns in the United States — the weapons explicitly protected under the D.C. v. Heller precedent — also originated as military weapons, and are still used by military personnel today. In fact, several of the most popular handguns in America are civilian variations of the Colt 1911 and the Glock 19, both of which where specifically developed as military sidearms. United States Navy SEALs and other elite military forces continue to rely on the Glock 19 as their standard-issue service weapons.
Unlike the civilian variants of these military handguns, which operate virtually identically to their military counterparts, the civilian versions of the AR-15 are not “the same weapon” that soldiers use in combat. The primary infantry weapon of the American military is the M4 carbine, which is a select-fire weapon capable of firing in three-round bursts or (in some variants) in fully automatic mode. By contrast, the civilian versions of the AR-15 are semi-automatic weapons, capable of firing only one shot per trigger-pull. As even a cursory glance at Wikipedia would reveal, the M4 carbine cannot be sold to civilians in the United States:
Sales of select-fire or fully automatic M4s by Colt are restricted to military and law enforcement agencies. No private citizen can own an M4 in a select-fire or fully automatic configuration, as this model of fully automatic rifle was developed after the 1986 ban on full automatic weapons available to be purchased by US citizens under the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986, which was signed prior to the development of the M4.
Pretending that some guns are “military-style” weapons designed to kill other humans, while others are only useful for game hunting or target shooting conveys a lack of basic understanding of firearms. Insisting that the Second Amendment only protects weapons designed to harm “animals or targets” rather than providing broad protections for self-defense against other humans (as the Supreme Court as repeatedly ruled) conveys a failure to engage seriously with the legal hurdles surrounding this issue.
It is difficult to believe that opinion editors would allow arguments so easily challenged and distinctions so thoroughly unexamined to be presented so carelessly on virtually any other topic.
Proposal 2: Banning accessories that simulate automatic weapons.
High-capacity magazines played a huge role in the shooting at our school. In only 10 minutes, 17 people were killed, and 17 others were injured. This is unacceptable.
That’s why we believe that bump stocks, high-capacity magazines and similar accessories that simulate the effect of military-grade automatic weapons should be banned.
As the Las Vegas shooting demonstrated, accessories that facilitate bump-firing have the potential to make mass shootings significantly more lethal. It is perfectly reasonable to argue that these kinds of accessories should be prohibited, and even the NRA has provided tepid and inconsistent support for such a ban. (The U.S. Department of Justice recently signaled its intention to ban bump stocks through the regulatory process.) However, there is a clear inconsistency in arguing that (1) civilian semi-automatic rifles are “the same weapons” to which soldiers have access, and (2) additional accessories are needed to “simulate the effect of military-grade automatic weapons”. The disconnect between these two positions should be obvious to any opinion editor.
There is also a clear difference between firearm accessories that simulate automatic fire and “high-capacity magazines”, typically defined in legislation as magazines capable of accepting more than 10 to 15 rounds. It may be true that higher-capacity magazines have the potential to make mass shootings more lethal, but rigorous studies have not supported this conclusion. In its meta-analysis of various gun violence prevention measures, the RAND corporation concluded:
We found no qualifying studies showing that bans on the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines decreased any of the eight outcomes we investigated.
Some of the worst mass shootings have been carried out using standard-capacity magazines. The Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, relied on two handguns with 10 to 15-round magazines to commit what is still the worst school shooting in American history. A serious consideration of large-capacity magazine bans should engage with these high-profile counter-examples, as well as the limited research suggesting that such bans would yield the desired results.
Yet the most egregious problem with the evidence presented in this editorial is that it is simply not correct that high-capacity magazines played a “huge role in the shooting” at Stoneman Douglas High School. As the Miami Herald reported, Nikolas Cruz did not rely on high-capacity magazines.
Cruz went in with only 10-round magazines because larger clips would not fit in his duffel bag . . . Had Cruz used high-capacity magazines, he would not have had to reload as frequently.
Once again, it is difficult to believe that such a glaring error could have passed editorial muster on virtually any subject but gun control. This is the only actual evidence offered in support of the policy, and an honest assessment of the facts contradicts the central claim being advanced.
Proposal 3: Establishing a database of gun sales and introducing universal background checks.
Just as the department of motor vehicles has a database of license plates and car owners, the Department of Defense should have a database of gun serial numbers and gun owners. This data should be paired with infractions of gun laws, past criminal offenses and the status of the gun owner’s mental health and physical capability.
Reasonable people can disagree about the effects of universal background checks. There is some limited evidence that expanding background checks could reduce the overall rate of violent crime, and many Americans understandably support expanding background checks to most private firearm sales and transfers. Similarly, reasonable people can disagree about the potential efficacy of state or local firearm registries, which could be set up in a manner consistent with existing Supreme Court precedents.
However, the conflation of state-level motor vehicle registration with a national firearms database maintained by the U.S. Department of Defense and linked to a wide variety of other federal databases seems almost designed to raise alarm bells among civil libertarians. Gun safety advocates frequently argue that firearms should be regulated like cars, while proposing regulations that go well beyond the kinds of regulations typically applied to vehicle ownership.
As Eugene Volokh explained:
[O]ne can certainly argue that guns should be regulated more heavily than cars; thoughtful gun control advocates do indeed do this. But then one should candidly admit that one is demanding specially burdensome regulation for guns — and not claim to be merely asking “why can’t guns be treated like cars?”
Here again, opinion editors should insist upon a more honest presentation of the argument.
Conclusion
Ken White once suggested that it is important for gun safety advocates to clearly understand firearms and offer cogent, well-supported arguments — rather than vague slogans — if they wish to both (1) craft good policy that is consistent with the Second Amendment, and (2) persuade those who may be skeptical of further gun controls.
Advocates for stricter gun regulation can certainly do a better job of advancing their arguments. But opinion editors in particular must do a better job of adjudicating high-quality arguments from poorly-reasoned polemics, and insist upon stricter adherence to the facts in the context of discussions around gun safety. By allowing opinion pieces to continually regurgitate some of the most egregious errors and weakest arguments from gun control advocates, mainstream media outlets bear much of the responsibility for the troubled state of our discourse on this topic.
