Never-ending and never-settled, the partisan debate over gun control rages again after the Las Vegas shooting that killed at least 59 Sunday night. Stephen Paddock, 64, was armed to a T and slaughtered concert-goers trapped in an enclosed area from his 32nd-floor casino suite before turning a weapon on himself when police closed in.
Democrats have pushed for more gun control in the aftermath, while Republicans have defended the right to bear arms.
This debate is not new, and there’s no indication of it being resolved. Of course, here in Mississippi public opinion leans strongly toward broad 2nd Amendment rights, but in other parts of the country the opposite perspective is just as firmly entrenched. Neither side seems willing to budge.
So it was interesting to read a perspective from someone who said she tried to study the issue based on the facts and changed her mind as a result. Writing in The Washington Post, Leah Libresco said she once supported gun-control measures like banning assault weapons, restricting silencers and shrinking magazine sizes.
But the statistician, who formerly worked at data journalism site FiveThirtyEight, said she spent three months analyzing the 33,000 gun deaths each year. She said she found that “assault rifle” is difficult to define and any hobbyist can modify a rifle at home to become one. And silencers don’t do enough to make gun-fire dangerously quiet, while skilled shooters can change magazines fast enough to make a size limit meaningless.
So what to do? Although mass shootings get outsized attention, three groups of people are most likely to die at the hands of a gun, according to her research. In order, they are 1. Older men who commit suicide (suicides make up two-thirds of U.S. gun deaths each year). 2. Young men killed in street violence. 3. Abused women.
Libresco said the most effective policy would be to do things to protect those sub-groups rather than trying to limit the lethality of guns. That includes better access to mental health treatment for people at risk of suicide, restraining orders preventing men who have endangered women from owning guns and identifying troubled young men and teaching them to de-escalate conflicts.
Although they’re costly and difficult solutions to implement, maybe these recommendations can nudge the gun-control debate into more productive territory.
— Charlie Smith
