Pierre Atlas: On guns, the political winds may be shifting

When it comes to gun violence, the United States is unique among the world’s advanced democracies. According to the Centers for Disease Control, between 2009 and 2013, the U.S. suffered more than 56,000 gun homicides; in Canada during the same period, there were 977. America’s population is almost 10 times larger than Canada’s, but it had 57 times as many gun homicides in this period. Other democracies have even far fewer gun deaths than Canada.

When I wrote my June 12 Forefront column (“Let’s focus on who has access to guns”), it was in the aftermath of the May 31 Virginia Beach mass shooting that killed 12 people and injured four. Virginia Beach now seems like ancient history.

As I write this (on Sept. 4), there have been 12 mass shootings since Virginia Beach. I am defining a mass shooting as an incident in which three or more people were killed, using data from the exhaustive Gun Violence Archive.

Some of these horrific incidents received widespread national attention, such as Gilroy, El Paso, Dayton and Odessa. But other mass shootings only made local headlines: In Santa Monica, San Jose, and Canoga Park, California, 14 killed in total; in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, five killed; in Abbeville, South Carolina, three killed; in St. Louis, five killed; in Houston, three killed; and Hobbs, New Mexico, three killed. The most recent mass shooting as of this writing occurred on Sept. 2 in Elkmont, Alabama, where five people were killed.

By the time this column goes to press, additional mass shootings might have been added to the tracker.

My arbitrary definition excludes all incidents where multiple people were injured by gunfire but fewer than three were killed, such as the June 23 shooting at Kelly’s Pub in South Bend, which left 10 wounded and one dead. In the period from June 1 to Sept. 2 (the last day data was available), there were 29 incidents in which at least five people were shot and wounded but no one was killed. These shootings took place all over the country, including urban Chicago and rural Alabama, and they too deserve to be acknowledged.

Such statistics can become mind numbing, but behind every number there is a human being who is dead or injured (and perhaps disabled for life) by gunfire, and a family and community that is devastated. And yet, to put these mass shootings in perspective, more than 10,000 people have been killed so far this year by firearms (not including suicides, which account for about 60% of total annual gun deaths).

While the Constitution guarantees a right to firearms ownership, no right is absolute, not even the right to bear arms. There is always tension between the rights of the individual and public safety. In addition, there is often tension between conflicting rights. Citizens in various states may have the right to carry a gun openly or concealed, but places of business (and places of worship) have property rights. Just as a business can restrict the dissemination of political materials on its premises, so too should it be able to restrict the carrying of weapons if it so chooses.

The political winds seem to be shifting on the questions of gun policy in the face of increasingly unacceptable levels of gun violence, with widespread calls for red flag laws and universal background checks, among other things. The private sector has taken notice: Walmart and Kroger have now entered the fray, prioritizing their property rights over the gun rights of some of their customers.•

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Atlas is a professor of political science and director of The Richard G. Lugar Franciscan Center for Global Studies at Marian University. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.

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