Inside the Gun Control Debate: From Mass Shootings to Ownership Challenges

Praha 6. ledna 2024 Sdílet na Facebooku Sdílet na Twitteru Sdílet na LinkedIn Tisknout Kopírovat url adresu Zkrácená adresa Kopírovat do schránky Zavřít

The recent shooting at Charles University in Prague, where 14 lives were lost, has stirred a debate in the Czech Republic about tightening firearm laws. The question on everyone's mind is whether such tragedies should prompt changes in the legislation or if we should look for causes elsewhere? What do you think?
Well, I do think that the problem of mass shootings is certainly a significant one in the U.S. and has needed a holistic approach to try to deal with it. Obviously it's an unusual event to occur, and of course, the Czech Republic is a small country, so it’s less frequent in the Czech Republic than in a big country like the U.S. But I do think it's a concern, because even in the case of the latest shooting in the Czech Republic, there were clearly indications that the shooter had seen other mass shootings from around the world. I think we've got these sort of copycat events occurring that are somewhat ominous in the sense that you don't want a pattern to develop of troubled young men launching these very deadly episodes. So I do think serious concern should be taken to see what steps could be used to address this problem.

But is it necessary to look at the legislation or should we look at problems in society or school preparation…
I think it's a combination of factors. Certainly, right now, the world is in a more stressed posture than is ideal. And of course, these stresses tend to play out on individuals, particularly young men, who may be under some sort of unusual mental stress themselves. So trying to address that is important. But of course, the Czech Republic is just one country in a vastly more stressed European environment right now. And even across the globe, I think the rise of far-right populist movements are adding to stresses and strains that tend to play out in violent spasms at times. So addressing that is one concern. But one needs to look at the gun side. Of course, in the U.S. the gun problem is much more serious than in almost any other affluent nation. But the Czech Republic could probably do well to see how the shooter got access to this weaponry and what steps can be taken to at least reduce the lethality that's available to troubled young men.

A proposed amendment to the firearms law is on the table in the Czech Chamber of Deputies. It will allow doctors to check the firearms registry and it will give the police the authority to take away weapons from an individual based on security information. However, the Minister of the Interior doubts that even the best law can completely stop similar incidents. What, in your opinion, would be the most effective steps to prevent these kinds of shootings?
I do think that such measures can be helpful. We who study this in the U.S. realize that you cannot stop all mass shootings, especially in a country like the U.S., which has vastly more guns in circulation than the Czech Republic has on a per capita basis. But you can make a difference. One area to look to is signs of troubled individuals. If we had a regime in the U.S. that tried to keep guns away from troubled individuals, we could make a significant dent in reducing mass shootings. But there will always be some. For example, a few years back, we had a terrible mass shooting in Las Vegas where 60 people were murdered. And that individual had not given a lot of indication that he was troubled and planning this. But with almost every other mass shooting in the U.S. that has reached the level of lethality that we saw in Prague, there were many, many signs. And an effort to identify those people and keep guns away from them could have played a significant role. It would not stop them all, but it could play a significant role in reducing these incidents.

You said that it could be helpful to not let troubled people have guns. Can psychological tests really help?
Yes, psychological tests can play a role. But even without testing, almost every one of the most lethal mass shooters in the U.S. betrays significant problems, so that all you would need is neighbors identifying these measures to the police and giving the police the authority to move to take away guns or try to limit gun access for these individuals. There are usually some very significant indications of trouble beforehand. In the U.S., unfortunately, the gun lobby is so powerful that they have tried to reduce the capacity of the government to take guns away from troubled individuals. But when a country has the capacity to look at individuals and screen out those who seem to be particularly troubled, I think it's wise for them to exercise that power.

Regarding the tests, we can question their reliability, and then, of course, there is another aspect of this debate: people who support owning guns often say that having a weapon can stop someone else with a weapon. Also, in the Czech Republic, the right to have a gun is protected by the constitution. More than three hundred thousand people out of 10 million have guns here. Is this the right argument for this debate?
Yes, and in the United States, the Supreme Court has really tried to enormously strengthen the ability of almost everyone to have guns. And of course, we are paying a price for that. So a lot depends on what one's goals are for the country. Some of the people who advocate for gun rights in the U.S. think it's necessary for individuals to be able to attack the government if the government is tyrannical. Other people think it's useful because they want to be able to protect against crime. But we see the consequence in the U.S. that it does lead to a significant mass shooting problem and much higher levels of overall gun violence than most European nations would tolerate.

Looking at your experience and data from the U.S., is there a link between more guns in society and more tragic incidents?
Yeah, for mass shootings, there’s no question that as the prevalence particularly of assault weapons and high capacity magazines has proliferated throughout the country, the lethal weaponry in the hands of troubled young men has grown. And with that, you see a pretty substantial increase in mass shootings. So there is a tight link. We did have, for 10 years, a ban on both assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. And there was a depression or decline in the number of mass shootings over that 10-year period. When the law was allowed to lapse in 2004, then we saw the increase start to rise pretty dramatically.

How big is the gun control debate in the U.S. right now?
Well, it's a very unusual moment where more Americans than ever want significant gun control because of the mass shooting problem primarily. But the Supreme Court has moved very much in the direction of the gun industry after three appointments by President Trump and they are actively trying to stop all gun control measures. So you have quite a bit of tension in the United States where the people, by a very wide margin, want more gun control, and yet the Supreme Court is striking down gun control measures all across the country.

Do Americans think that the laws really make a big difference?
There are more guns than people in the United States loose in the hands of civilians. So it is a problem. But the evidence does show that certain measures can at least reduce the level of lethal violence. We're never going to get down to the level of lethal violence of, let's say, England or certainly Japan. But we can maybe at least hope to get down to the level of Finland or even Switzerland.

Could it be a different problem than only with the gun laws?
So there are two things to remember. Certainly, social factors play a big role. The more stable the country is and the less urban it is, usually you're going to have lower levels of gun violence. In some of the rural areas of the U.S., even though there are a lot of guns, the level of gun violence is not very high. Also, in the northeast in the U.S., which is probably more stable, more affluent and less influenced by some of the extreme populist ideologies that are prevalent now in many places in the U.S., gun violence is lower as well. So you're absolutely right that cultural factors do play a role. The more stable the society is, the better. The less drug addiction and alcohol abuse - those are all things that restrain gun violence. By no means are guns the only source of problems, but all of these factors are made worse if troubled young men get access to lethal weaponry. And that's where the U.S. is particularly bad and why we lead the world in shootings. Also, if you just look at the overall homicide rates for the U.S., we don't look like other affluent nations.

John, you closely monitor gun law debates in the US. Have there been cases around the world where making gun laws stricter after a mass shooting led to fewer similar incidents?
Yes. The country where you saw a truly horrific mass shooting that led to a very strict change in laws was Australia. In 1996, they had a mass shooting where something like 35 or 36 people were killed. And 12 days later, the Australian government implemented very stringent gun restrictions and, in fact, bought back a lot of the weapons that, for a while at least, had been banned in the United States. And the consequences were terrific. It was controversial at the time, when the Australian prime minister called for these gun control measures. But the effect and the benefits of the measures were so great that overwhelmingly Australians are very grateful for eliminating the assault-type rifles that led to the mass shooting. Before 1996, Australia actually had a higher level of mass shootings per capita than the United States. And now, after the 1996 change, they virtually wiped out their mass shooting problem.

Talking about changes in gun laws, the military analyst Jan Kofron mentioned concerns about who should be allowed to have semi-automatic pistols and rifles. Do you think we need to differentiate what kind of weapons we are talking about?
There's been interesting work on this in the United States, where some researchers looked very closely at the types of weapons that are most lethal for shootings on the streets. And it definitely seems to be the case that if you lower the power of the gun, whether it's a handgun or a long gun, the number of criminal deaths will go down. So I do think there are advantages of reducing the lethal power. One very visible example of this was back in 1981, when there was an attempt on the life of President Reagan in the United States. The assassin had a six-shooter, low-caliber handgun. He fired all six bullets in the gun and shot four people, including President Reagan. But nobody died. Today, that same individual would likely have a semi-automatic pistol with maybe 17 bullets in the magazine. And the gun would both be more lethal and have the ability to fire many more bullets. So I suspect that if that same assassination attempt were to occur today, it would have killed Reagan and many others as well. I think it underscores the fact that there are things that can be done, especially if you're trying to reduce the body count in mass shooting incidents.

One more interesting argument I came across on social media: could ownership of a weapon like a semi-automatic rifle be subject to collaboration, possibly with the military?
For the United States, this would not be a useful measure. The U.S. military is so powerful that to have Americans running around with guns would only reduce the capacity of the nation to fight. But in countries like Switzerland, where they do have a very well-regulated militia system, there it does play a different role, I think. But of course, the restrictions on guns in Switzerland are very, very stringent compared to what exists in the United States.

In your opinion, what are good reasons for regular people to have guns? This is a big question in the Czech Republic now. How is this dealt with in the U.S.?
Certainly in the U.S. you don't see much of a problem when people want guns for hunting or for target shooting. Those people usually have a reason for having the gun, they know how to use it so that they don't tend to harm people inadvertently, and they tend to hang on to their weapons so they're not stolen as much. The real problem in the U.S. comes when people say they want guns to protect themselves or their families. First of all, a lot of very troubled individuals are interested in getting guns. That's the first problem. And then in the U.S., these people who want to protect their families start carrying around their guns and they're stolen at very high rates. We have 400,000 guns stolen each year in the United States. And of course, that's arming criminals. So the area where I would be most worried is having guns for so-called self-protection. It doesn't always work out all that well. And that becomes a problem. You know, if you do have very stringent psychological controls and maybe take guns away from people who start abusing them, I think that system can work. But certainly, if you're like in the U.S. and anyone is allowed to get a gun and it's hard to take them away, you're going to end up with a lot more incidents of gun violence than is ideal.

On the other hand, could the toughest gun laws in the world prevent attacks by individuals who systematically prepare for them?
Gun laws will never be effective enough to stop all shootings. It's always going to a trade-off. There certainly are cases in the U.S. where people do use guns to thwart crimes or to defend themselves. So it's not as though this is a simple decision to make because there are trade-offs. In the U.S., we know we've gone too far in this direction. But I do have a cautionary note for Europe, because we know that gun industries are trying to collaborate with far-right populist movements in Europe and also work with Putin to try to undermine gun laws for their own economic benefits. And you don't want to end up in a situation like the U.S. where the economic power of the gun industry influences policy in very harmful ways.