Full disclosure—I’m a huge Matthew McConaughey fan. I’m also a huge proponent of the second amendment. As you might imagine, his speech from the white house podium left me conflicted. On the one hand, the cynic in me was dismayed to see him caricature himself by being the latest Hollywood actor to involve himself politically to push for stricter gun control. On the other, I saw an American deeply concerned about a tragedy that struck too close to home for him. It would be a tough task to watch his speech and not be moved by those lost in this senseless act of evil, for the victims’ families, and for the community struggling to pick up the pieces in the wake of this tragedy. I believe Mr. McConaughey is sincere, and I was moved. But are the solutions he proposes the right answer?
If we learned anything from COVID, we should have learned that passing government restrictions that usurp our essential liberties merely because “well, we have to do something” doesn’t always produce the desired effect. In the words of Jefferson, “prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes”. Passing laws while emotions are running high is seldom a recipe for prudent lawmaking. However, in the aftermath of incidents like Uvalde, it’s natural to ask questions. How could this happen? Is there anything that can be done to prevent this from happening in the future? It’s difficult to resist the urge to do something, anything that might prevent future mass shootings from stealing innocent young lives—including gun control.
McConaughey said, “So, we know what's on the table...we need to invest in mental healthcare. We need safer schools. We need to restrain sensationalized media coverage. We need to restore our family values. We need to restore our American values. And we need responsible gun ownership.[1]” So far, I think every second amendment supporter I know is on board with what McConaughey advocated. Unfortunately, he didn’t stop there—he went on, “We need background checks. We need to raise the minimum age to purchase an AR-15 rifle to 21. We need a waiting period for those rifles. We need red-flag laws and consequences for those who abuse them".
These proposals sound logical, but upon further examination we find the Uvalde shooter “had no criminal record, no history of mental illness treatment and no obvious signs he was a danger” according to the associated press [2]. There’s little evidence that a red flag law would have prevented Uvalde. Further, the Uvalde shooter legally purchased the rifle, successfully passing a background check [2]. Expanding background checks will do little good and only complicate private firearm sales between lawful gun owners. It seems to me that these mass shooters have no respect for the law as they are clearly willing to unleash such evil and carnage upon the innocent. The imposition of a waiting period would only make it harder for law abiding Americans to purchase firearms. This proposal often relies on two rationales—that waiting periods provide longer time frames for background checks and they also offer a “cooling off” period for those purchasing a gun with the intent to commit violent crimes. Only there is little evidence to support either of these claims considering background checks come back nearly instantaneously in most cases and according to a 2018 ATF study, the average “time-to-crime for firearms traced” was nearly nine years [3]. Finally, we arrive at the idea to raise the minimum age required to purchase an AR-15 to 21. At least this proposal could have possibly thwarted the Uvalde shooting. However, according to a RAND study, only “26 percent of mass public shooters from 1976 to 2018 were younger than age 25” [4]. This means 74% of mass shootings would not be stopped by this measure.
I think we all agree with Mr. McConaughey when he says “We want secure and safe schools, and we want gun laws that won't make it so easy for the bad guys to get these damn guns”. He is also correct in that we need to invest in mental healthcare and safer schools. We should restrain sensationalized media coverage the publish mass shooters names providing an incentive for fame. We do need to restore our family and American values. Every responsible gun owner would agree with these ideas, and if we have common ground on these issues, I see no good reason we can’t make progress by moving forward with them in a bipartisan fashion. But I have serious concerns with the push for more background checks, raising the minimum age to purchase rifles, longer waiting periods, and red-flag laws. These measures are not alright, alright, alright with me.
Sources
1. Mathew McConaughey Speech Transcript. https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2022/06/08/matthew-mcconaughey-talks-gun-violence-white-house-read-speech/7551975001/
2. Associated Press. As cited in https://reason.com/2022/06/01/bipartisan-support-red-flag-laws-elides-issues-raised/
3. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. “Firearms Trace Data – 2018: Time-to-Crime; Firearms Recovered and Traced in the United States and Territories.” 2018. https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/firearms-trace-data-2018
4. Smart, R & Schell, T. (April 2021). Mass Shootings in the United States. RAND. Retrieved from https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/mass-shootings.html
Comments