In an article published in March 2018, I reviewed the problem of gun violence and mass shootings in the United States, examined the history of the Second Amendment to the Constitution and provided a New Testament perspective on the issue.  I noted that the Second Amendment is not consistent with New Testament teaching, even though many gun rights advocates would like to present it as a God-given right pertaining to individuals.

The above article was posted after the shooting in Parkland, Florida, at a time of general outrage during which the student protests gave hope that it may be possible to reform gun laws.  Four years later, thanks to Republican obstruction in Congress, not much has happened.  Today, the debate has once again been revived by the mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, in Uvalda, Texas and in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  But the fact that these three cases dominate the news cycle does not fully reveal the gravity of the situation.  As David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick write in the New York Times,

“Shootings that kill multiple people are so common in this country that they often do not even make national news. They are a regular feature of American life. Tulsa has become the latest example — yet another gun crime that seems almost ordinary here and yet would be extremely rare in any other country as wealthy as the U.S.”

After listing eighteen mass shootings – defined as shootings in which a gunman killed at least three people – that occurred between January 19 and June 1 of this year, they add:

“As long as this list is, it’s also a very incomplete accounting of American gun violence. It doesn’t include the at least 60 shootings that left three people dead but don’t technically count as mass shootings (because fewer than four people were shot). It doesn’t count shootings that wounded people without killing anybody, like one in Milwaukee that injured 17 people. And it leaves out the individual gun homicides and suicides that make up a majority of the gun violence that kills more than 100 Americans on an average day.”

Gun rights advocates argue that the solution to gun violence is to increase gun availability.  With that in mind, in red states such as Texas, gun laws such as HB1927 that took effect on September 1, 2021, allow anybody at least 21 years of age to carry a handgun in public places without a license.  No restrictions are placed on carrying “a long gun such as a rifle or shotgun.”

This argument is seriously flawed, and it is known that there is a clear correlation between gun availability and gun deaths.  For example the chart below, from The New York Times, shows that the United States is an outlier when compared to other developed nations on both gun ownership and gun homicides.

Is there any possibility of reform?  It is clear that Democrats in Congress support it and Republicans are against it.  Some political pundits suggest that Democrats should change their messaging in their attempts to reach out to Republicans who are paralyzed by their fear of the National Rifle Association: They should avoid talking about “gun control” and emphasize “gun safety” instead.

However, improved messaging may not be the only issue to address.  For some time, polls have been consistently indicating that the public generally supports regulations on gun usage, a fact that is true even among gun owners.  It is therefore surprising that Republicans have not, so far, been punished by American voters for their obstruction.  This question was recently raised by Nate Cohn who writes:

“It’s one of the most puzzling questions for Democrats in American politics: Why is the political system so unresponsive to gun violence? Expanded background checks routinely receive more than 80 percent or 90 percent support in polling. Yet gun control legislation usually gets stymied in Washington and Republicans never seem to pay a political price for their opposition.”

Cohn’s analysis of relevant data leads him to the conclusion that polls may reflect feelings among voters that are not sustained when the voters are confronted with the realities of political campaigns and have to actually make choices on policies:

“Those polls have shortcomings of their own. Many voters hold relatively weak views about specific policy items. They may be especially likely to say they ‘support’ policies in a survey, where ‘acquiescence bias’ can lead respondents to agree with what’s being asked of them. Those attitudes might shift quickly once an issue receives sustained political attention.

‘When we see that initiatives consistently underperform lopsided issue polling, then that suggests that there is a common pattern at work,’ said John Sides, a professor at Vanderbilt who has researched public opinion polling in ballot initiatives. ‘When seemingly popular proposals are subjected to counterarguments in a competitive campaign and when voters have the responsibility of changing policy (as opposed to just answering survey questions), then the results differ.’”

This obviously means the Democrats will continue to have an uphill battle no matter what the polls indicate.  Indeed, the responses offered by Republican officials so far have not been encouraging.  Governor Abbott, after the Uvalde shooting, accused Beto O’Rourke of politicizing the shooting but was at the same time putting forth a political narrative of his own: It was not a gun problem, but a mental health problem.  However, Abbott himself had already stated that the shooter had not showed any sign of mental illness.  Abbott’s critics also point out that the mental health problem is not more severe in the US than it is in other developed nations.  Furthermore, Abbott had previously cut funding for mental health care.

Most Republican officials show no sign of softening their opposition to gun regulations.  Alabama state representative Mo Brooks recently took a stand against regulation on Fox News, declaring that attempts to deprive citizens of their Second Amendment rights were unconstitutional, and that people need their guns to take back their country in case the federal government becomes dictatorial.

Reacting to Republican attitudes regarding mass shootings and other forms of violence, Michelle Goldberg expresses her pessimism:

“The horrifying irony, the hideous ratchet, is that the more America is besieged by senseless violence, the more the paramilitary wing of the American right is strengthened. Gun sales tend to rise after mass shootings. Republicans responded to the massacre in Uvalde by doubling down on calls to arm teachers and ‘harden’ schools. An article in The Federalist argued that parents must home-school so that kids can learn ‘in a controlled environment where guns can be safely carried for self-defense or locked away when not in use.’ It’s a vision of a society — if you can call it that — where every family is a fortress.”

However, in my view, one thing feels somewhat different today: Proponents of gun regulation are less apologetic than they used to be.  Democratic officials no longer start their arguments by introducing themselves as supporters of the Second Amendment, and some Christians are becoming more courageous in denouncing the amendment.

In 2008, a Supreme Court decision gave a new interpretation of the Second Amendment, making it an individual right instead of a right pertaining to militia.  On March 27, 2018, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote an op-ed in which he applauded the efforts of students and other activists demanding gun regulation.  But he encouraged them to go even further and “seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.”

Stevens explained that before the 2008 decision, the Second Amendment was not understood as an amendment that ruled out any idea of gun control.  He wrote:

“For over 200 years after the adoption of the Second Amendment, it was uniformly understood as not placing any limit on either federal or state authority to enact gun control legislation. In 1939 the Supreme Court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a ‘well regulated militia.’

During the years when Warren Burger was our chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge, federal or state, as far as I am aware, expressed any doubt as to the limited coverage of that amendment. When organizations like the National Rifle Association disagreed with that position and began their campaign claiming that federal regulation of firearms curtailed Second Amendment rights, Chief Justice Burger publicly characterized the N.R.A. as perpetrating ‘one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.’”

Regarding the 2008 Supreme Court ruling in which he was one of the four dissenters, Stevens said:

“That decision — which I remain convinced was wrong and certainly was debatable — has provided the N.R.A. with a propaganda weapon of immense power. Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option.”

In August 2019, Elie Mystal also argued for the repeal of the Second Amendment.  He agreed with John Paul Stevens on the prevailing interpretation of the amendment during the first 200 years of the nation and pointed out that a conservative president such as Ronald Reagan supported gun control measures.  He denounced the NRA and the Republican party for their role in the efforts that led to the 2008 ruling.

Today, more people have become vocal either in their calls to repeal the Second Amendment or in pointing out that the words “a well regulated militia,” which appear in the amendment, are a built-in reminder that regulation is necessary.

But I am also encouraged by recent Christian voices calling for repeal of the Second Amendment.  Catholics have been particularly vocal.  After the shooting in Uvalde, Cardinal Blase Cupich wrote the following:

“As I reflect on this latest American massacre, I keep returning to the questions: Who are we as a nation if we do not act to protect our children? What do we love more: our instruments of death or our future?

The Second Amendment did not come down from Sinai. The right to bear arms will never be more important than human life. Our children have rights, too. And our elected officials have a moral duty to protect them.”

Bible readers know that Sinai is the mountain where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments from God.  Therefore, Cardinal Cupich is saying that there is nothing divine about the Second Amendment.

An article by Michael J. O’Loughlin lists statements against gun violence made by Catholic leaders, including Pope Francis.  The statements declare that gun violence is a pro-life issue and make it clear that thoughts and prayers are no longer acceptable if they are not accompanied with action.  But it turns out that the case against the Second Amendment had already been laid out with clarify and boldness by the editors of the Jesuit magazine America in 2013.  Refusing to dwell on interpretational technicalities of the amendment, they pointed the finger at the amendment itself as the problem:

“Even those who subscribe to methods of constitutional interpretation other than Mr. Scalia’s brand of modified originalism must concede the basic point: The Second Amendment impedes the power of the government to regulate the sale or possession of firearms. Unfortunately, the grim consequence of this constitutional restriction is measured in body counts. The murder of 20 elementary school children and six adults in Newtown, Conn., in December was merely the latest in a string of mass shootings: Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Tucson, Aurora, Oak Creek. In the last 30 years, there have been 62 mass shootings (each leaving at least four people dead) in the United States. Since the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colo., there have been 130 shootings at schools; nearly half involved multiple deaths or injuries.”

After explaining the gravity of the situation and refuting the arguments made by supporters of gun rights, they stated the following:

“Americans must ask: Is it prudent to retain a constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms when it compels our judges to strike down reasonable, popularly supported gun regulations? Is it moral to inhibit in this way the power of the country’s elected representatives to provide for the public safety? Does the threat of tyranny, a legitimate 18th-century concern but an increasingly remote, fanciful possibility in the contemporary United States, trump the grisly, daily reality of gun violence? The answer to each of these questions is no. It is time to face reality. If the American people are to confront this scourge in any meaningful way, then they must change. The Constitution must change. The American people should repeal the Second Amendment.”

Catholic leaders are not the only ones calling for change.  An article in The Christian Century lists statements made by faith leaders, including non-Christian leaders, after the Uvalde shooting.  Many of them offered thoughts and prayers while recognizing that action is needed because the situation has gotten out of hand.

Evangelicals, and particularly white evangelicals, are known for their support of gun rights due to their fear of being under attack by people with different roots.  However, the August 2017 Evangelical Leaders Survey was already indicating that while 58% of evangelical leaders lived in a household that has a gun, 55% of them also believed that gun laws should be more strict, even though a significant minority (40%) thought existing gun laws were adequate.  A statement made by Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, seemed to summarize their views on guns:

“Evangelical leaders have nuanced views on guns. Many own guns for hunting or protection. Some own antiques with no bullets. They accept the Second Amendment, but also deeply grieve when weapons are used to take innocent lives.”

Of course, far-right evangelical leaders do not merely “accept the Second Amendment.”  They see it as a divine mandate and go out of their way to provide “biblical” support for the idea that citizens should be armed and ready to fight against a government that is lurking in the dark, ready to take away their freedoms.  No wonder Republican politicians such as Mo Brooks sound the way they do.

As I am getting ready to post this article, Senator Chris Murphy, the Democrat who has invited his fellow senators, including Republicans, to join him in an effort to find some consensus that might lead to reform, is expressing a measure of optimism regarding the ongoing discussions in the group he is leading.  Given the deep disagreements that exist between the two parties, no transformative results are expected, but any advance would be better than the status quo.