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A look at Red Flag laws and the battle over one in Colorado

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A look at Red Flag laws and the battle over one in Colorado

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from CBS News

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Thursday, a high school in Santa Clarita, California, was the scene of the 366th mass shooting in America this year. Each seems to reignite the debate over gun legislation. In recent years, 17 states and the District of Columbia have adopted Red Flag laws which allow the confiscation of firearms if a gun owner raises a Red Flag with threatening behavior. California adopted Red Flag in 2016. And there's been a big movement toward the law recently with 12 states adopting it in the 21 months since the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Colorado is one of them but, in defiance, nearly half of the state's counties have declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries. Colorado's Red Flag law takes effect New Year's Day. The story of how it works and why it's fiercely debated begins with a tragedy on New Year's Eve, 2017.

Apartment 24 was a headache for Douglas County Sheriff's deputies in the suburbs of Denver. They'd met the resident, Matthew Riehl, before. With each dispatch, deputies were reminded Riehl was mentally ill, hostile and armed. He hadn't been violent, but that morning, he live streamed threats and talked of guns. Deputies believed Riehl was suffering a mental breakdown.

Riehl hadn't broken the law, so deputies could only take him into protective custody for a mental evaluation. Instead, Riehl barricaded himself. Deputy Zack Parrish hit the door.

In a 96-minute shootout, five officers were hit. Riehl's bullets flew through walls and wounded two neighbors.

Deputy Zack Parrish was killed, leaving a wife, a 4-year-old and an 18-month-old. Matt Riehl died with 19 legally-owned firearms, including assault rifles, a combat shotgun, and pistols. He had fired 185 rounds. He had 1,067 left.

Tony Spurlock: We had been dealing with this individual for almost two months. We had done a lot of things to try to intervene. But there were no tools available to us to do that.

The casualties Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock suffered made him a leading advocate for the Red Flag law which allows law enforcement to ask a judge for "an extreme risk protection order." The order requires a gun owner to temporarily give up his weapons.

Scott Pelley: If the extreme risk protective order had been available to you then do you think you would have asked for one?

Tony Spurlock: Probably a month before, we would've been able to intervene, and in my opinion, most likely would have saved two lives. We would've saved the suspect's lives and we would have saved Zack's life.

Gun control: Where Washington stands on Red Flag laws

The Red Flag movement began after Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Mental health experts and gun safety advocates wrote a model law which most of the Red Flag states adopted. Among the authors was Josh Horwitz, who leads the coalition to stop gun violence.

Josh Horwitz: This is a law that is a temporary civil restraining order that allows family members or law enforcement to go to a court and remove the most lethal means - a firearm - before a tragedy occurs. And if the judge agrees and issues the order, law enforcement will go and serve the order on the respondent, remove the firearms, and then somewhere between 7 and 21 days everybody will come back to court there'll be a full hearing. If the person, in fact, is dangerous to self or others, the firearms will be kept by law enforcement, and that person won't have access to them for a year.

This is a Red Flag hearing in the state of Washington. As with most Red Flag cases, the police have filed a sworn affidavit alleging threatening behavior by a gun owner. On the judge's order, weapons are taken into police custody and the gun owner is temporarily banned from buying another gun.

Josh Horwitz: They have the right to testify. They have the right to cross-examine witnesses. This is something with court rules, with rules of evidence, with judicial oversight, this is the kinda thing which is a thoughtful, well-developed process to intervene when it matters most.

The law requires the gun be returned to the owner in no more than one year. During that year, the owner can appeal. If there is still a concern at the end of the year, a judge can renew the order based on new evidence.

Scott Pelley: How does this law compare to the kind of temporary restraining orders that we see when a spouse is concerned about being beaten or killed by their loved one?

Josh Horwitz: In a domestic violence law, you can not only lose your firearm, but you can be prevented from going into your own home. You can be prevented from seeing your kids. What we're dealing with, Extreme Risk law, is very narrow. Get the firearm out of an explosive situation before it's too late.

Mark Dreher: If only we could have kept those guns away from him until he could grow up a little bit.

Mark Dreher knew about Red Flag laws, but Colorado didn't have one in 2017 when mental illness overwhelmed his son.

Chris Dreher's family, near Boulder, was devoted to his care-psychologists, psychiatrists, medication-but Chris was tortured by anxiety.

Mark Dreher: He worked at a place and he bought a pistol from one of his co-workers. His long-term psychologist said that he should not have any guns. Because he had suicidal ideation at that point. So we took em away, took it away and locked it up. But then he started telling me that well he could just go out and buy another one.

Scott Pelley: And so, you were faced with the reality that he could have a gun at any time he wanted one.

Mark Dreher: Yes I made a deal with him. I said, "I'll give you the guns back. But you have to let me put trigger locks on the guns, and I'll have the keys. and he found a way to get 'em off. And one night, you know, when he was having some issues he went to a place by his apartments. And he committed suicide that night.

Scott Pelley: How old was he?

Mark Dreher: 20.

Scott Pelley: 20.

Mark Dreher: 20. 20 years old.

Suicides, and memories of massacres including Columbine and the Aurora theater, pushed Colorado's Red Flag law forward against heavy resistance.

The bill failed in the Republican Senate. Then it passed when voters gave both Houses to Democrats. Now, the law has become Colorado's political great divide.

Steve Wells: You've got the people that live in the city that has this idea that it is a good thing. But I think more importantly, this is a political issue where it's a vote getting issue.

Steve Wells' family has been ranching since 1888. He's among those who feel politically powerful cities are trying to corral the countryside.

Scott Pelley: So what's a better idea?

Steve Wells: Well, I think one of the things we really gotta start lookin' at is individual responsibility. If I have a family member, and I think for any reason that family member is gonna be an issue with a firearm, we're gonna go take 'em away from him. We've become so dependent on government making all the answers for everybody.

Dozens of sheriffs in Colorado have dug in their heels including Bill Elder and Steve Reams.

Steve Reams: There are portions of the law I just flat out can't and won't do.

Scott Pelley: This is a law that was passed by the legislature. It's signed by the governor. Nobody asked you.

Steve Reams: That's right.

Scott Pelley: You're just expected to do your job. And enforcing the law is your job.

Steve Reams: Right. And I also take an oath of office that says, I'll support the U.S. Constitution, the Constitution of the state of Colorado and then, I'll enforce the laws of the state of Colorado. When those things are in conflict you know you have to decide which one you are going to adhere to.

Scott Pelley: Are you prepared to get locked up in your own jail?

Steve Reams: That is something that could happen. A judge could order me to my own jail. You know, I would be the one litigating that issue and we'll determine at that point if this Red Flag law is constitutional.

Opponents say Red Flag violates the right to bear arms, the right to due process and the right against unreasonable search and seizure. Some sheriffs say they won't ask for a Red Flag order and if they receive one from a judge, they won't enforce it.

Scott Pelley: If you decline to enforce one of these orders and people die, won't the county be liable for the damages?

Steve Reams: If law enforcement's only objective is to go take someone's firearms and that person still goes out and commits violence, do you think that we would then be off the hook for any damage that they would inflict? No, people would still look at law enforcement and say, "Why did you only take their guns? Why didn't you deal with the person?"

Bill Elder told us the legislature aimed at the wrong target.

Bill Elder: We need to have funding for meaningful mental health assessments and treatment. There just are no programs. The state hospitals are full. The local hospitals are not equipped for it. Jails tend to be the warehousing for people in crisis.

Scott Pelley: Jails are the new asylums.

Bill Elder: I have 1,700 inmates. Anywhere from 50% to 60% of those inmates suffer from some form of mental health issue.

In protest of the law, nearly half of Colorado's 64 counties have declared themselves, symbolically, "Second Amendment sanctuaries." County commissioners passed a Second Amendment resolution even in the county that lost Zack Parrish, Tony Spurlock's deputy.

Scott Pelley: They do not agree with you.

Tony Spurlock: No they don't but I asked them, and they have yet to answer me this question, what does a Second Amendment sanctuary county mean? Does that mean everybody gets to carry a gun? Those who already have restraining orders? The sex offender that's registered down the street here from my office? It's a clever term. But it literally means nothing. The laws of the state of Colorado and the United States are laws to be followed by all elected officials.

There have been court challenges, in other states, based on the Second and Fifth Amendments but, so far, Red Flag laws have been ruled constitutional.

A study in Indiana, published this year, by the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law estimates that for every 10 Red Flag orders, one life is saved.

Police in California are investigating whether any threats were made by the 16-year-old behind Thursday's high school shooting, but a study from the University of California, Davis, credits Red Flag with stopping 21 potential mass murders in California over the last three years. In Colorado, a lawsuit is attempting to prevent the Red Flag law from taking effect January 1. The name of the law is the Zackari Parrish Violence Prevention Act, in memory of Tony Spurlock's fallen deputy.

Scott Pelley: Would you describe yourself as pro-gun rights?

Tony Spurlock: I am pro-gun rights. I'm a Second Amendment guy.

Scott Pelley: Then how can you support this?

Tony Spurlock: This is not about taking guns away. This is about giving a respite time, a time for someone who is in danger and may not be making rational decisions at this point an opportunity to stay alive. The opportunity not to kill their family members. An opportunity not to hurt some unknown citizen. Let's eliminate as much danger as we can so we can get that individual some care and treatment.
Produced by Ashley Velie. Associate producer, Dina Zingaro.

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A look at Red Flag laws and the battle over one in Colorado

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Thursday, a high school in Santa Clarita, California, was the scene of the 366th mass shooting in America this year. Each seems to reignite the debate over gun legislation. In recent years, 17 states and the District of Columbia have adopted Red Flag laws which allow the confiscation of firearms if a gun owner raises a Red Flag with threatening behavior.

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from Gifford's Law Center

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Watch 2020 Candidates Discuss Gun Safety At Forum

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Watch 2020 Candidates Discuss Gun Safety At Forum

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from NBC News

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Watch 2020 Candidates Discuss Gun Safety At Forum | NBC News

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Smart guns are being developed, but gun shops may not be able to sell them

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Smart guns are being developed, but gun shops may not be able to sell them

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from Newsela.com

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Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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from Newsela.com

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Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Understanding key terms in the gun control debate

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Understanding key terms in the gun control debate

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from Newsela.com

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Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Nearly 40,000 People Died from Guns in U.S. Last Year, Highest in 50 Years 

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Nearly 40,000 People Died from Guns in U.S. Last Year, Highest in 50 Years 

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from New York Times

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Last year was the third consecutive year that the rate of firearm deaths rose in the United States. While public mass shootings like the one in Las Vegas make up a small percentage of firearm deaths, they have changed the national conversation. Credit... Zackary Canepari for The New York Times

More people died from firearm injuries in the United States last year than in any other year since at least 1968, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There were 39,773 gun deaths in 2017, up by more than 1,000 from the year before. Nearly two-thirds were suicides. It was the largest yearly total on record in the C.D.C.'s electronic database, which goes back 50 years, and reflects the sheer number of lives lost.

When adjusted for population size, the rate of gun deaths in 2017 also increased slightly to 12 deaths for every 100,000 people, up from 11.8 per 100,000 in 2016. By this measure, last year had the highest rate of firearm deaths since the mid-1990s, the data showed.

It was the third consecutive year that the rate of firearm deaths rose in the United States, after remaining relatively steady throughout the 2000s and the first part of this decade.

"It is significant that after a period of relative stability, now the rates are rising again," Bob Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the C.D.C.'s National Center for Health Statistics, said in a phone interview.

Guns and ammunition for sale at Big 5 Sporting Goods in Sacramento in May. Credit... Andrew Burton for The New York Times

While there are signs that the movement to prevent gun violence gained momentum this year - state legislatures passed a surge of new gun control laws, gun control groups outspent the National Rifle Association in the midterm election cycle and the medical community recently took on the N.R.A. over an assertion that doctors should "stay in their lane" on gun policy - the findings underscore that even after such efforts ramped up after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, gun violence continued its dizzying assault on America.

Suicides have historically made up most deaths by firearm in the United States, research shows.

In 2017, about 60 percent of gun deaths were suicides, while about 37 percent were homicides, according to an analysis of the C.D.C. data by the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, a public health think tank. (The group is a sister organization of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, an advocacy group that works to oppose the N.R.A.)

Suicide over all has been on the rise for more than a decade and is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, according to the health statistics center. But researchers say firearm homicide has ticked upward recently and also helps explain the rise in gun deaths since 2015.

Among other public health problems, drug overdose deaths have also been surging, a trend that continued in 2017. About 70,000 people died from drug overdoses last year - almost double the number that died from guns, the health statistics center reported.

Mr. Anderson said there could be a correlation between drugs and gun deaths. While the gun death rate is higher than it has been in some time, he noted that it was even higher in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, which corresponded with heroin and crack cocaine epidemics.

"Now with the fentanyl issue and at the height of the drug overdose epidemic, now we are seeing rises in gun deaths," Mr. Anderson said.

Supporters held a gun flag as President Trump spoke at a campaign rally in Houston in October. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times

Dakota Jablon, who analyzed the C.D.C. data for the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, noticed another trend underlying the data: state-by-state variations, which she believes could reflect differences in gun laws.

For example, Kansas, which received an F from the national advocacy group Giffords Law Center's gun law scorecard, had increases in both its firearm suicide and homicide rates over the past decade. New York, which was given an A-minus, had both rates decrease, according to her analysis of C.D.C. data.

"Some states are doing incredible work," Ms. Jablon said. "They are passing these lifesaving policies that are clearly working."

Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine physician who is the director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, said that the rise in firearm deaths was a result of "a national unwillingness to take this problem seriously."

In 1996, under pressure from the N.R.A., Congress stripped the C.D.C. of its budget to study the health effects of shootings and prohibited the agency from advocating or promoting gun control.

"We have decided as a country not to do research on this problem, so we don't understand it," said Dr. Wintemute, a leading researcher on gun violence who identified himself as a member of the N.R.A.

A gunman killed 26 people at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., in 2017. Mass shootings have occurred recently at schools, music venues and houses of worship. Credit... Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

But recently, mass shootings - at schools and music venues and houses of worship - have rocked the American consciousness. Though public mass shootings make up no more than 1 percent of all firearm deaths, Dr. Wintemute said, they have changed the dynamic of the conversation.

"I've been working on this problem full time since the early '80s and there has never been a time like the present in which everybody feels some personal sense of risk," he said.

This spring, student activists led March for Our Lives protests across the country, after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., left 17 dead. More recently, doctors weighed in after the N.R.A. took aim at their profession in a tweet: "Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane." Physicians, in turn, shared painful stories about treating gunshot victims.

In an interview at the Tedmed event in November, the surgeon general, Dr. Jerome M. Adams, defended the right of doctors to talk about gun violence.

"It is absolutely within physicians' lanes to talk to their patients about ways that they can be safer," said Dr. Adams, an anesthesiologist by training who has worked on gunshot victims and is a gun owner himself. "And that includes seatbelts, that includes bicycle helmets and that includes having a discussion about whether or not you have firearms in your home and whether or not you're keeping them safe."

Despite the recent increase in firearm deaths, Dr. Wintemute said he had reason to be optimistic for the future.

"For the first time in our history, everybody has a sense of personal involvement," he said, adding, "That universal sense of personal risk might just lead to an increase in willingness to do something about the problem."

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Nearly 40,000 People Died From Guns in U.S. Last Year, Highest in 50 Years (Published 2018)

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Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. Give this article Give this article Give this article More people died from firearm injuries in the United States last year than in any other year since at least 1968, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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The terrible numbers that grow with each mass shooting

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The terrible numbers that grow with each mass shooting

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from Washington Post

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Emma González on Why This Generation Needs Gun Control

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Emma González on Why This Generation Needs Gun Control

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from Teen Vogue

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In an exclusive op-ed for Teen Vogue's gun control issue, Parkland survivor and activist X González shares why young people are stepping up for gun control.

On Wednesday, February 14, 17 students and faculty at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, were gunned down on the campus where I also attend school. Their names were Alyssa Alhadeff, Scott Beigel, Martin Duque, Nicholas Dworet, Aaron Feis, Jaime Guttenberg, Chris Hixon, Luke Hoyer, Cara Loughran, Gina Montalto, Joaquin Oliver, Alaina Petty, Meadow Pollack, Helena Ramsay, Carmen Schentrup, Alex Schachter, and Peter Wang. Our lives and our community are forever changed due to this senseless tragedy - one we know could have been prevented.

Since that day, many fellow survivors and I have not kept quiet. We have taken the media by storm through appearances and interviews, met with state and federal lawmakers to beg them to enact much stricter gun control laws, and been joined in protest by students around the nation and the world who've held school walkouts and demonstrations that exhibit the energy and power of young people in full force.

In just a few weeks' time, we, the youth of the United States, have built a new movement to denounce gun violence and call for safety in all of our communities.

And this is only the beginning.

A Generation Raised on Violence

I was born in 1999, just a few months after 13 people were left dead after a shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. From 1966 to the Valentine's Day that my school proved to be less than bulletproof, nearly 1,100 people have been killed in mass public shootings in the U.S.. From the deaths of 26 at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, to the 2016 massacre of mostly Latinx people at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, to the loss of 58 lives at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas last year, we've seen mass shootings play out again and again and again.

Gun violence has torn up many communities across the country, mainly due to negligence on behalf of local and national government to properly regulate access to guns, ignorance to their constituents' varying situations, and willingness to take money from organizations that very clearly do not have the best intentions for the future of the United States.

The problem of gun violence goes beyond the countless demographic differences between people. Any way you cut it, one of the biggest threats to life as a teen in the U.S. today is being shot. People have been shot to death en masse in grocery stores, movie theaters, nightclubs, and libraries, on school campuses and front porches, and at concerts - anywhere and everywhere, regardless of socioeconomic background, skin color, age, ethnicity, religion, gender, geographical location.

Young people in this country have experienced gun violence for their entire lives, only to be faced with a number of representatives and officials who have been seduced by the gun lobby or have generally failed to make effective change. The pro-gun propaganda peddled by the National Rifle Association feeds myths about gun ownership, and these myths arguably perpetuate the suffering of thousands of Americans each year.

After all of this pain and all of this death caused by gun violence, it seems as if the kids are the only ones who still have the energy to make change.

What Do We Mean When We Say "Change"?

Parkland youth are working to end gun violence through actions like the March for Our Lives event in Washington, D.C., on March 24 and the ongoing #NeverAgain movement. I'm one of them. Fed up with the apathy pervading this country, we realized that we don't need to wait around to have our voices heard or for someone else to make change - we have to be the change we need to see.

The mass walkouts held around the country on March 14, which marked the one-month anniversary of the mass shooting at our school, weren't even organized by March for Our Lives. They were efforts led by students around the world who were speaking in the most influential way they knew how: civil disobedience, marching in the streets with signs and chanting truth to power. Efforts to mobilize young voters are widespread, and many are being conducted by first-time organizers.

Students around the country have already shown commitment to doing their part. Now it's on the adults to join us.

Many companies have broken ties with the National Rifle Association, and the House of Representatives passed a bill to fund more security measures in schools. That's great, but it's not enough.

We need to digitize gun-sales records, mandate universal background checks, close gun-show loopholes and straw-man purchases, ban high-capacity magazines, and push for a comprehensive assault weapons ban with an extensive buyback system.

It would also benefit us to redefine what assault weapons are so that when we call for a ban against them, it's clear that we aren't trying to ban all guns. No one needs to use an assault weapon to protect themselves while walking home at night. No one should be allowed to use an AR-15 to strategically hunt people, which, in case anyone forgot, is what made us speak out in the first place.

Rather than engage with this logic, many are suggesting that a possible solution to increasing school safety would be arming teachers. This doesn't make any rational or logical sense. For those who don't agree, I have questions:

How would arming teachers work, logistically?

Would they have to buy their own guns, or would there be armories in schools? Would students be able to break into armories?

While teaching, would a teacher keep their weapon on their person or in a lockbox?

If it was in a lockbox on the other side of the room when a threatening person walked in, would the teacher be able to get to their gun in time?

If the threat and the teacher were in close proximity, would the threat not be able to disarm the teacher and turn the pistol on them and in turn the students?

Why would a student shooter even need to worry about metal detectors or getting patted down if they already know they can overpower the teacher and take that gun for their own use?

If the teacher wasn't in close proximity, what would stop the teacher's bullets from hitting other students who might be in the way and obscured by gunsmoke?

And since there was a resource or police officer on campus to help protect students and teachers, why didn't that stop 17 people from getting killed and 15 from getting injured on February 14?

At Stoneman Douglas, the entire shooting lasted roughly six minutes. In that time, the shooter - a former student who conducted this violence in a three-story building known as the freshman building - fired at least 100 shots, which hit walls, windows, classrooms, and 32 people. Seventeen people's lives ended far, far too soon, and each of them had ties and connections to countless other individuals, and all of those people have to grapple with the fact that these students and faculty - our friends, our teachers, our coaches, our family - are gone.

This is the reality we face as young people in America today: the constant fear of being gunned down in the places we should feel the most secure. We have grown up in this country and watched violence unfold to no resolution. We have watched people with the power and authority to make changes fail to do so.

And that's why we are stepping up. Some of us are new to this fight, but across America there are people, young and old, who have been fighting for gun safety and an end to gun violence of all kinds.

This month, Teen Vogue is dedicating its digital cover to rising voices in the gun control movement, young people who are working on the issue in different ways, all of them impacted by gun violence.

There is 21-year-old Howard University student Clifton Kinnie, who, in 2014, mobilized teenagers to organize against gun violence and register to vote after 18-year-old Mike Brown was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Natalie Barden, a 16-year-old sophomore at Newtown High School in Connecticut, was a preteen when she lost her younger brother, Daniel, in 2012, during the Sandy Hook shooting. She's been asking for change for more than five years as part of a family that has become vocal anti-gun-violence organizers, and she is now courageously stepping up to mobilize her peers.

Jazmine Wildcat, a 14-year-old member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe, is part of a gun-owning family in Riverton, Wyoming, and she started writing letters to her lawmakers after the students were killed in Parkland. In her community, where gun ownership is considered a fact of life and a point of pride, she's bravely taking a stand as one of the few voices advocating for change in her area. Kenidra Woods, a 17-year-old junior from St. Louis, was already advocating for more discussion of self-harm and mental health among teens before Parkland, after which she sprang into action to help conduct a walkout at her school in February in solidarity. She and her classmates faced resistance from administrators after students were barred from returning to class, and she's since become one of the most vocal young activists in this nationwide movement.

Nza-Ari Khepra of Chicago founded Project Orange Tree after a friend, 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, was shot and killed in 2013. She's now 21 and a student at Columbia, continuing her efforts to end gun violence; her smart work was the inspiration for the nationwide "Wear Orange" campaign.

Then there are those of us representing Parkland: Fellow Stoneman Douglas student Nick Joseph lost one of his best friends, Joaquin Oliver, on February 14, and is speaking out in his name by organizing and marching, rising to a challenge no 16-year-old in mourning should have to face. Sarah Chadwick, 16, has been organizing the March for Our Lives event set for March 24, and she is loudly denouncing critics like the NRA's Dana Loesch on Twitter. Jaclyn Corin, 17, who lost her friend Jaimie Guttenberg on February 14, planned a trip to meet lawmakers at the very start of the movement and has been a crucial member of #NeverAgain.

We Stoneman Douglas students may have woken up only recently from our sheltered lives to fight this fight, but we stand in solidarity with those who have struggled before us, and we will fight alongside them moving forward to enact change and make life survivable for all young people. People who have been fighting for this for too long, others who were never comfortable enough to openly talk about their experiences with gun violence, or still others who were never listened to when opening up about their experiences with gun violence or were afraid to speak out - these are the people we are fighting with and for.

The media afforded a group of high school students the opportunity to wedge our foot in the door, but we aren't going through this alone. As a group, and as a movement, it's vital that we acknowledge and utilize our privilege, use our platforms to spread the names of the dead and the injured, promote ideas that can help spread kindness rather than hostility, support those who aren't being heard, take our voices and use them together with the megaphones provided.

We the Wounded of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Future, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common People, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Generations to Come, do ordain and establish this March for the United States of America.
This story is a part of Teen Vogue's ongoing coverage on gun violence and the growing movement for gun control. Be sure to check out the other features: Meet the Young Activists Fighting to End Gun Violence A Roundtable Talk With 5 Young Gun Control Activists Where to Join the March For Our Lives How the NRA Came to Influence America The Truth About Mental Illness and Gun Violence How to Survive a School Shooting Real Students Read the Haunting Text Messages Sent During Mass Shootings

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In an exclusive op-ed for Teen Vogue's gun control issue, Parkland survivor and activist X González shares why young people are stepping up for gun control.

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Why Gun Violence Can’t Be Our New Normal

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Why Gun Violence Can’t Be Our New Normal

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from Dan Gross, TED Talk

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A Solution to Gun Violence Found in US History

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A Solution to Gun Violence Found in US History

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from David Farrell, TED Talk

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A solution to gun violence found in US history

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Guns weren’t always the contentious issue they are today in the US. Forty years ago, guns were primarily used for sport and recreation, and mass shootings were a rarity. Much has changed since then, and while there’s a lot of debate around how to put an end to gun violence, there has yet to be a solution that everyone can agree on. Gun safety advocate David Farrell thinks he has the answer, and takes us through America’s history to get there.

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Four countries with gun control—and what America could learn from them 

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Four countries with gun control—and what America could learn from them 

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from The Guardian

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Thirty people will be shot dead in America today. On average. It could be more. If it's less, then more will die tomorrow. Or the next day.

The United States's gun homicide rate is 25 times higher than other high-income countries, according to a recent study.

Americans are divided on whether the country's gun deaths could be reduced through tougher laws on gun ownership. Liberals argue that legal restrictions on gun ownership could save lives. Conservatives say that tougher gun laws would do nothing to change the behaviour of violent criminals.

Even the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting that left 20 first-graders dead was not enough to convince American lawmakers to pass new gun control laws, with many people seeing the ownership of guns as a crucial check on government tyranny. The country's highest court has ruled that outright bans on civilian ownership of handguns are unconstitutional.

After similar mass shootings, other countries have taken more dramatic steps to regulate gun ownership. A look at four countries show that tougher gun laws have been central to these efforts, but that enforcement and culture may also play important roles in preventing violence.

UK

From the moment 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton unloaded his legally held arsenal of handguns on children and staff at Dunblane primary school on 13 March 1996, gun control was on the cards.

Nothing like Dunblane - a massacre of 16 five- and six-year-olds, along with the teacher who tried to protect them - had taken place before in Britain. The shock and collective grief of the whole nation resonated from the northernmost point of Scotland to the tip of Cornwall. This was not the United States, where by 1996, classroom shootings had occurred in many places including Nashville, San Diego and South Carolina.

Gwen Mayor died with 16 of her young pupils at the school in Dunblane, Scotland. Photograph: PNR/PA

As grief turned to a national anger, public debate focused on how someone like Hamilton, a former Scout leader who had been ostracised because of his suspicious behaviour with young boys, had been allowed to own such lethal weapons.

Public petitions, most notably by the Snowdrop Campaign, founded by friends of the bereaved families, called for a total ban on the private ownership and use of handguns in the UK. Signed by 750,000 people it was symbolic of the weight of public opinion.

Nine years before Dunblane, there had been Hungerford, where Michael Ryan went on a rampage through the Berkshire town, killing 16 people in a series of random shootings before turning the gun on himself. He had been carrying a handgun and two semi automatic rifles, for which he had firearms certificates.

The aftermath of Hungerford brought to an end the right to own semi-automatic firearms in Britain; they were banned along with pump action weapons, and registration became mandatory for shotgun owners.

With Dunblane the focus turned to handguns - held by tens of thousands who took part in pistol shooting across the country. The Conservative then prime minister, John Major, passed the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 after the Cullen inquiry into the massacre. It banned all cartridge ammunition handguns, except 22 calibre single-shot weapons.

But with the landslide election of Labour and Tony Blair the same year, the law was tightened further, and the remaining .22 cartridge handguns were also banned. The decision, supported by a majority of the public, all but wiped out target shooting as a sport in the UK.

Dave Thompson, chief constable of the West Midlands, and the lead on gun crime for the National Association of Chief Constables, said: "The legislation coincided very well with a culture."

Overnight, however, about 200,000 owners of handguns, most of whom kept them for pistol shooting, found their weapon banned and their pastime wiped out. All small-bore pistols and rifles used by target shooters were included in the ban. Penalties for anyone in possession of an illegal firearm were tough - from heavy fines to prison terms of 10 years.

The hostility of those involved in the sport to what they term the draconian legislation is still strong, 20 years after Dunblane. Mike Wells, secretary of the Sportsman's Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, set up in 1996 to counter public pressure for a ban on handguns, said politicians had been driven by a need to show they were doing something but their actions did nothing to stop the criminal use of guns. "It never, never has any effect. The criminal underworld in England, the drug dealers ... have all got guns, but they are illegal guns," he said.

Mark Mastaglio, an expert on firearms who worked for the Forensic Science Service for 20 years, said there was no evidence that the ban on handguns after Dunblane had done anything to cut the criminal use of firearms. "It was very rare that there was ever leakage from the licensed gun owners to the criminal fraternity. Most guns used by criminal are either illegally imported or converted weapons. And that remains the case today," said Mastaglio.

Crime statistics in the years after the ban was introduced appear to support the theory that it had little impact. Gun crime rose sharply, to peak at 24,094 offences in 2003/4. After that the number of crimes in which a firearm was involved fell consistently, to 4,779 offences in 2013. In the year ending September 2015 there was a small rise of 4% to 4,994 offences.

Thompson said the legislation was only part of it: law enforcement agencies had to prove they would carry through on the tough penalties and there was also poor policing of gang areas, and poor ballistics records and analysis. Both were addressed in the early 2000s, when there was a huge decline in gun crime, he said.

But there has been only one mass shooting in the UK - in Whitehaven, Cumbria, in 2010, during which Derrick Bird killed 12 people - since Dunblane.

Mastaglio said: "Dunblane was certainly a turning point. It was a huge piece of legislation, and had a huge impact on registered gun owners in the UK. We now have one of the most stringent set of firearms legislation in the world - only Japan has tougher laws."

Japan

Japan has what may be the closest any country comes to "zero-tolerance" of gun ownership - a policy that experts say contribute its enviously low rates of gun crime. As of 2011, legal gun ownership stood at 271,000, according to police records, in a country of 127 million people.

There were six reported gun deaths in Japan in 2014, according to the National Police Agency. In 2006 just two people were killed in gun attacks; when the number rose to 22 in 2007 it prompted a bout of national soul-searching.
In his seminal 1993 paper for the Asia Pacific Law Review, whose conclusions still hold true more than 20 years later, David Kopel described Japanese gun control laws as "the most stringent in the democratic world".

The 1958 law on the possession of swords and firearms states: "No one shall possess a firearm or firearms or a sword or swords." Among the few exceptions are shotguns, but here too, the restrictions would cause outrage among American gun owners.

Before they can even lay hands on a shotgun for hunting and sport shooting, prospective owners must attend classes and pass written and practical exams. They must then undergo psychological assessments to determine they are fit to own a firearm. Police background checks are exhaustive and even extend to the gun owners' relatives.

The aim, according to Kopel, is to make possession of a shotgun so complex and drawn out that few people believe it worthwhile applying for one.

Civilian ownership of handguns is banned. The few violations reported in the media usually involve members of the country's many crime syndicates who have managed to smuggle them in from abroad.

But Japan was not always a low-crime, gun-intolerant nation. Guns quickly became the weapon of choice for feuding warlords after Portuguese traders introduced them to the country's south-west in the early 1500s. Over time, Japan improved the design and performance of firearms and began mass producing them.

The beginning of the end of widespread gun ownership came when the feudal warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) unified Japan, then disarmed the peasant population by banning civilians from owning swords and firearms in 1588.

Seized plastic handguns which were created using 3D printing technology are displayed by police in Yokohama, south of Tokyo. Photograph: Kyodo/Reuters

"The shogunate banned them because they were fearful of the consequences of having guns in hands of an angry populace," said Robert Whiting, author of Tokyo Underworld. The quid pro quo, Whiting added, was that the general population's safety would be assured provided they paid their taxes.

The notion that gun ownership should be limited to the authorities survived Japanese militarism and carried through to the postwar period. Japanese police officers did not begin carrying pistols until 1946, with the permission of the US-led occupation authorities.

Despite sporadic outbreaks of gun violence, Japan's yakuza crime syndicates are reluctant to build up caches of firearms. Threatening a rival with a gun is often seen as an "unmanly" departure from the yakuza's traditional code of honour, to which even modern-day mobsters try to adhere, according to Whiting.

Kopel says Japan's gun laws do not necessarily prevent criminals - especially the yakuza - from acquiring guns. But, he added, even gangsters "see themselves as within the social system, in a broad sense. Even when breaking the law, they still play by certain rules of society."

Australia

Eerily, Australia's moment of truth also occurred almost exactly 20 years ago, when a shooting spree in a gift shop in Port Arthur, Tasmania, resulted in 35 people dying in about half an hour. It was the worst mass shooting by one person in Australia's history. The killer, Martin Bryant, received a sentence of 35 terms of life imprisonment.

Less than two weeks later, Australia's then prime minister, John Howard, announced a sweeping package of gun reforms in a country where guns had long been considered an essential prop in the national mythology of life in the bush.

"Port Arthur we acted on," said Tim Fischer, then Howard's deputy prime minister. "The USA is not prepared to act on their tragedies."

Before Port Arthur, most states had a weak licensing system and no requirement to register guns. Howard proposed each state and territory should introduce and enforce a firearm licensing and registration system which required people to have a "genuine reason" for having a firearm, such as sport or target shooting, recreational hunting or being a farmer.

Howard also introduced a national gun buyback policy for all weapons that did not comply, which led to the buying and melting down of more than 650,000 firearms at a cost of A$350m (now £185m). One study said the buyback cut the rate of firearm suicides by 74% in the first 10 years.

There have been no mass shootings in the 20 years since Port Arthur; in the 20 years before the massacre there had been 13.

However, since the 1996 National Firearms Agreement, four states have moved to wind back the mandatory 28 days "cooling off" period between applying for and buying a gun, a trend Howard has described as disturbing.

One of those states was Tasmania.

Germany

Germany's relationship with firearms is intriguing: while there are a lot of guns in the country, they don't seem to kill a lot of people.

Germany has one of the highest weapons-per-head rates in the world. In 2014, 5.5m legal weapons were registered as being in the hands of 1.45 million private individuals. The country's police union estimates the number of illegal weapons in the country to be considerably higher, around 20m. According to GunPolicy.org, this puts Germany at 15th place out of 175 nations in terms of guns per capita.

Gun ownership is more widespread in the west of the country than in the former East Germany, where private gun ownership was illegal before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Recent reports suggest that gun ownership is rapidly increasing still: between November 2015 and February 2016 alone, 20,000 applications were filed for new gun licences.

Yet in Germany gun homicide rate is one of the lowest in Europe: a death rate of 0.05 per 1,000 people, compared with 3.34 in the US. In fact, incidents of gun crime, including both weapons being fired and used to threaten people, have declined by almost a quarter since 2010 (pdf).

Experts put this trend down to a number of tweaks to gun law in the wake of high-profile shootings.

In 2002, a 19-year-old student in the Thuringian state capital, Erfurt, shot dead 16 people at the school that had recently expelled him, using weapons he had obtained from his gun club.

Within a year, the law regulating access to guns had been changed: Germany is the only country in the world where anyone under the age of 25 who applies for their first firearms licence must undergo a psychiatric evaluation with a trained counsellor, involving personality and anger management tests.

Experienced hunters or sports shooters over the age of 25 may be called in for psychiatric tests if they display certain kinds of behaviour, such as being caught drink-driving.

A further tweak to the gun law in 2008 means that inherited guns have to be fitted with a state-of-the-art blocking mechanism, making them unusable.

A tribute to the victim of the school shooting in Winnenden, near Stuttgart, by 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer. Photograph: Alex Grimm/Getty Images

There were calls for even more stringent laws after 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer shot dead 15 at a school in Winnenden near Stuttgart in March 2009. Kretschmer had obtained his weapons from an arsenal of 15 guns kept by his father, who was a member of a shooting club.

Under the newly amended weapons act, it is now harder for individuals to own multiple weapons. A national gun register was established for the first time in 2013 - previously, records of gun ownership were kept only at regional level.

Police officers can now also visit registered gun owners' home for spot checks without warning. Guns in private possessions have to be locked away in a safe, with the security code or location of the key known only to the owner of the gun.

A number of politicians went even further in the wake of the Winnenden massacre, calling for a complete ban on the storage of firearms in private homes. Even hunters or sportsmen, they argued, should have to deposit their arms at centralised depots.

The proposal was rejected after protests from hunters, who argued that they frequently need access to weapons at short notice, such as when wildlife was involved in traffic accidents.

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Four countries with gun control - and what America could learn from them

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The UK, Australia, Japan and Germany have all taken measures to reduce gun homicides. Can the US learn anything from them?

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17 Big Pros and Cons of the 2nd Amendment

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17 Big Pros and Cons of the 2nd Amendment

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from Connect US

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During the initial days of the United States as an independent nation, the founding fathers worked together to form a governing set of laws that would apply to all people. It would begin with the Constitution, and then proceed to the Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights is a set of amendments that are treated as if they were part of the original Constitution. Each amendment is given a number under American law, and then implemented immediately once three-quarters of the state's ratify any new ideas. One of the most important amendments in the U.S. is the Second Amendment, which states the following.
"A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The founding fathers adapted the wording of the Second Amendment from clauses that were nearly identical in some of the original state constitutions that were written during the 18th century. Recent rulings by the Supreme Court have set the precedent that all people in good standing can own a gun or guns without being part of a recognized state militia.

"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own," Jeff Cooper wrote in Art of the Rifle. "Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."

Is this perspective correct? Or should Americans work to embrace more gun control legislation that could reduce the ownership of weapons that could create mass casualties?

Here are some of the pros and cons of the Second Amendment to consider.

List of the Pros of the Second Amendment

1. Gun ownership works to reduce other types of crime in society.
Frank Lloyd Wright once said, "I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters." The fact will always be that a gun is a tool and nothing more. Can it be used to kill someone? Yes. Is it possible to inflict mass casualties with certain types of firearms? Yes. It can also be useful for hunting to provide food for one's family. Guns can protect you when someone breaks into your home. People use them to drive off predators that try to take their livestock. Owning a gun can even reduce homicide numbers, sexual assault, and aggravated assault by at least 5%.

2. The Second Amendment offers people a chance to defend themselves.
According to information published by the National Sheriffs' Association, the average amount of time for a school shooting to take place is 12.5 minutes, but it takes police officers 18 minutes to respond to the first calls that come across emergency lines. Active shooter incidents in all locations, but especially schools, have risen at an alarming rate in recent years. During the entire decade of the 1960s, there was one incident. In 2015, there were 55 active shooter incidents in American schools. As Cooper wrote, the only choice that we can make is one that allows us to protect ourselves. We can't stop bad people from getting their hands on a gun to use it for evil purposes, but we can help good people find ways to stop them with the same tool.

3. It reinforces the laws of the Constitution by its mere presence in the Bill of Rights.
Alan Dershowitz may not be a fan favorite of every conservative in the United States, but he does offer this observation about the Second Amendment. "Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."

Guns might be controversial in some ways because of the ease that they inflict damage, but it is also because of this tool that people in the U.S. have the freedoms that are available to them. When you start to erode one granted right, it does not take long for more of them to experience the same outcome.

4. The Second Amendment allows the average person to defend their country.
In Priority, Aaron Powell makes this observation about the Second Amendment. "When the Chinese invade our country, who do you want to depend on? The over-extended police force and the National Guard? Or the next-door neighbor who is a former Marine and has enough guns and ammunition for your entire block?"

The entire point of the Second Amendment from the perspective of the founding fathers is still valid. When you own a gun, then it is more difficult to take away what you have earned in life than if you did not own this weapon. People will think twice (or more times) about trying to take something from you, including domestic and foreign governments, if you have the capacity to defend yourself adequately.

5. It allows for a well-regulated militia to be part of U.S. culture.
The focus on the Second Amendment is often on the right of gun ownership, but it is also essential to note that there is the right for states to have a well-regulated militia because of this addition to the Bill of Rights. Even though we have numerous levels of law enforcement that work to serve and protect our communities, there may still come a time when there is a need to keep the peace in other ways. This option allows for states to develop their own defensive resources without costing taxpayers in other locations any money to do so. If you need to defend your home for any reason, all you need to do is get together, form a militia, and follow whatever state rules are in place for organization.

6. You must qualify to own a gun in the United States already.
There are already regulations in place that make it impossible for anyone to walk into a gun shop to make a purchase. Any store that sells firearms must use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, called NICS, to see if there are any records in place that would prevent a customer from owning a gun. This system scans three different databases to ensure there are no matches. Anyone declared mentally unfit, convicted of a felony, or receives a misdemeanor sentence of 2+ years will not qualify for the purchase. Lying on the form in an attempt to purchase the gun is also considered an illegal act which could strip you of the firearm when discovered.

7. The Second Amendment offers more checks-and-balances for society.
When the founding fathers creating the structure of the American government, they wanted to make sure that no one branch of it could hold more power than the other. The system of checks-and-balances ensures that the executive, legislative, and judicial branches must work together to the benefit of society.

The Second Amendment offers this same benefit for the average person in their daily routines. It is a way to protect your individual liberties to ensure that you are not deprived of the right to pursue happiness. "The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted," said James Madison. Gun ownership is a way to ensure that the government is obliged to control itself in addition to supervising the governed.

List of the Cons of the Second Amendment

1. It does not provide for the safe usage and implementation of a gun in society.
"Saying gun control hurts our freedom is a false argument amounting to propaganda," said DaShanne Stokes. "Gun laws don't curtail freedom any more than speed limits or seat belts. You still get to drive your car and have guns. We're just trying to save lives as you do." Although the Second Amendment does allow for the private ownership of guns according to the current interpretation offered by the Supreme Court, it does not contain provisions that require the safe use of this tool. That level of implementation is left to the states, which means there is a patchwork series of laws that gun owners must follow to stay in compliance.

2. There is no guarantee that a good guy with a gun is going to be around.
DaShanne Stokes has also said that gun violence in the United States is not a Republican or Democrat problem, but an American problem - and one that requires an American solution. "When a country with less than 5% of the world's population has nearly 50% of the world's privately-owned guns and makes up nearly a third of the world's mass shootings, it's time to stop saying guns make us safer," he said.

Even though there are plenty of stories about a good guy with a gun stopping a crime that you can find, there are also more than 14,000 homicides attributed to firearms each year in the United States. That means 4.5 deaths per 100,000 population are because of guns.

3. Gun ownership comes with great risk to the owner's household.
There are plenty of good reasons to own a gun in today's American society, but there are also a few reasons why some families believe that the rights given under the Second Amendment are not something they want to use. That is because up to 95% of the suicides that occur with a firearm are potentially preventable if the gun wasn't present in the home. Households that own just one gun carry a 7 times higher risk of experiencing premature death than those without one.

Even the states which have the least amount of controls places on gun ownership see homicide rates that are more than double those of states with the most extensive restrictions. The problem with a firearm is that this tool doesn't offer many second chances.

4. There are multiple ways to deter crime other than gun ownership.
In Guns Part 2, Aaron Powell makes this observation.

1. "So, disturbed kids are taking guns to school and killing teachers and classmates. We better make sure kids can't get guns."

2. So, disturbed kids are taking guns to school and killing teachers and classmates. We better find out what's making these kids want to kill, fix that, and then they won't want to use guns to kill teachers and classmates."

Both sides of the Second Amendment debate can quote statistics which support their argument. There are stories about how gun ownership can save lives, just as there are times when it takes lives. Saying that guns are the only way to deter crime is laziness. There are multiple facets of protection that we can implement every day if we are willing to take bold steps to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities. Can guns stop a crime? Sure. So can an alarm system, an airlock system in schools, metal detectors, and many more methods. We cannot have tunnel vision on just one outcome.

5. It creates the potential for a domestic arms race.
"If Jesus Christ himself were to come down off the cross and grant you one wish, would you opt for a world without guns - or the one we live in now?" asks Quentin Bufogle. "If every gun owner truly feared for their life and liberty, the answer would be obvious."

When we push toward a world of gun ownership, then we are creating a society where good and evil are both racing toward a place where each feel like it can be a dominant force. This perspective is what fueled the nuclear race during the Cold War, and it is also what causes some people to stockpile firearms. There are an estimated 89-100 guns for every 100 Americans, but only up to 29% of households actually own one. 14% of owners have between 8 to 140 guns in their possession, accounting for 50% of civilian ownership.

6. We already know that the current gun control laws don't work.
According to reporting from The New York Times, only 8 states have laws which provide an explicit mechanism so that people who are suspected of owning guns in violation of their prohibitions are required to hand them over. Some of these laws allow, but do not require, the police to seek a court order for confiscation.

Authorities in Chicago knew for over 4 years that Gary Martin was a felon with a violent history, yet did nothing to make sure that he surrendered his Smith and Wesson handgun with a laser sight. He used that weapon to kill five of his co-workers in Aurora, IL, in February 2019. It would be helpful to enforce the laws on our books to ensure that we are doing all that we can to stop the bad guys with guns.

7. The Second Amendment increases the cost of law enforcement.
Open-carry laws for gun ownership because of the Second Amendment create a phobia about this tool that increases the amount of resources that law enforcement must receive each year. 40% of Americans already say that one of their biggest fears is that they will end up being the victim of a mass shooting. Firearms are already the second-leading cause of death for American children and teens. Women are 21 times more likely to be killed with a gun in the United States than they are in other high-income countries.

Because there are so many guns on the streets, even if they are owned by a minority of the population, the resources dedicated to law enforcement activities are that much higher. Even a slight reduction in this cost could be directed toward something more useful, like free firearm education programs.

8. This amendment has seen inconsistent application in the law.
Before the recent Heller ruling set the precedent for individual ownership as a right, the judicial system interpreted the Second Amendment as applying to militias only. That meant no one had the right to travel with their gun across state lines. The common law standard was that there was a duty to retreat if someone wanted to take your things. If you lived in the city, then a loaded firearm was banned from being in your home.

Once upon a time, you even had to swear a loyalty oath as an American to have the right to own a firearm. Refusing to take that pledge meant that your right to gun ownership disappeared. It is an inaccurate statement to say that the U.S. has never had gun restrictions in place before. What we are doing is creating inconsistent case law based on current political desires.

9. There is no right to own a firearm if you cannot afford the cost.
One of the unique aspects of the Second Amendment is that it doesn't mention the cost of ownership as part of your individual rights as an American. There is nothing that would stop Congress from passing a law which required a minimum price for this item, similar to the expense one must pay to obtain a passport or a driver's license. The only thing that the Bill of Rights guarantees is that if you can afford the cost of a gun and there are no other restrictions in place for you, then this is an opportunity that you can have.

10. The Second Amendment does not exclude specific actions, behaviors, or choices.
The Second Amendment would be arguably more powerful if it created specific restrictions to ownership based on high-risk behaviors. Several demographics, including teens with a history of violence, can still purchase firearms despite their history of choices. Even people convicted of a gun crime can still buy more of them if they are not convicted of a felony and their misdemeanor sentence is less than 2 years in some states.

One Final Thought on the Second Amendment

Most people read the key pros and cons of the Second Amendment in the form of an echo chamber. They will see the areas in which they agree and use that information to support their position while dismissing everything else. Although it is true that guns have long been part of the culture in the United States, we cannot be honest with ourselves by saying that we treat this tool differently than other elements of life.

When terrorists flew airplanes into the twin towers, the Pentagon, and Flight 93 was retaken by passengers to crash so it couldn't do more damage, the legislative response from the U.S. government was immediate. The focus is on the outside threats more than it is the domestic ones. We cannot change the actions of a person with evil intent when they get their hands on a gun, but what we can do is initiate an extensive, accurate, and mandatory screening and licensing process which allows each person to access their right to own a gun if they should so choose.

You cannot legally drive without a driver's license that you earn by proving you have the skills and knowledge to be successful. You must also renew that license periodically. Some states make a similar requirement for those who wish to have a concealed carry permit. Extending that process to all gun ownership with minimal fees to process the paperwork seems like a common-sense compromise that could help to reduce the amount of violence that is present in U.S. society.

The status quo is not working. It is time to do something.

Author Bio
Natalie Regoli is a child of God, devoted wife, and mother of two boys. She has a Master's Degree in Law from The University of Texas. Natalie has been published in several national journals and has been practicing law for 18 years.

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17 Big Pros and Cons of the 2nd Amendment

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During the initial days of the United States as an independent nation, the founding fathers worked together to form a governing set of laws that would apply to all people. It would begin with the

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6 Real Ways We Can Reduce Gun Violence in America

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6 Real Ways We Can Reduce Gun Violence in America

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from TIME

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Should More Gun Control Laws Be Enacted?

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Should More Gun Control Laws Be Enacted?

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from ProCon.org

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History of Gun Control Laws
Gun control laws are just as old or older than the Second Amendment (ratified in 1791). Some examples of gun control throughout colonial America included criminalizing the transfer of guns to Catholics, enslaved people, indentured servants, and Native Americans; regulating the storage of gun powder in homes; banning loaded guns in Boston houses; and mandating participation in formal gathering of troops and door-to-door surveys about guns owned.

Guns were common in the American Colonies, first for hunting and general self-protection and later as weapons in the American Revolutionary War. Several colonies' gun laws required that heads of households (including women) own guns and that all able-bodied men enroll in the militia and carry personal firearms. Read more history...

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1

The Second Amendment is not an unlimited or individual right to own guns.

Further, the Second Amendment was intended to protect the right of militias to own guns, not the right of individuals to own guns. Former Justice John Paul Stevens, in his dissenting opinion for District of Columbia et al. v. Heller, wrote, "the Framer's single-minded focus in crafting the constitutional guarantee 'to keep and bear arms' was on military use of firearms, which they viewed in the context of service in state militias," hence the inclusion of the phrase "well regulated militia."

Michael Waldman, President of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, stated there is nothing about an individual right to bear arms in the notes about the Second Amendment when it was being drafted, discussed, or ratified; the US Supreme Court declined to rule in favor of the individual right four times between 1876 and 1939; and all law articles on the Second Amendment from 1888 to 1959 stated that an individual right was not guaranteed.
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Pro 2

More gun control laws would reduce gun deaths.

Approximately 50% of unintentional fatal shootings were self-inflicted; and most unintentional firearm deaths were caused by friends or family members.

Five women are murdered with guns every day in the United States. A woman's risk of being murdered increases 500% if a gun is present during a domestic dispute. During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, 5,364 US soldiers were killed in action between Oct. 7, 2001 and Jan. 28, 2015; between 2001 and 2012 6,410 women were killed with a gun by an intimate partner in the United States.

Researchers found that a "general barrier to firearm access created through state regulation can have a significant deterrent effect on male suicide rates in the United States. Permit requirements and bans on sales to minors were the most effective of the regulations analyzed."

Gun licensing laws were associated with a 14% decrease in firearm homicides, while increases in firearm homicides were seen in places with right-to-carry and stand-your ground-laws.

More gun control leads to fewer suicides. When US gun ownership goes down, overall suicide rates drop; meanwhile, each 10 percentage-point increase in gun ownership is linked to a 26.9% increase in the youth suicide rate. In Indiana and Connecticut, after "red flag" laws to remove guns from people who may pose a threat were enacted, gun suicides decreased by 7.5% and 13.7% respectively, while suicides by other means did not decrease during the same time. A person who wants to kill him/herself is unlikely to commit suicide with poison or a knife when a gun is unavailable.

The US General Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that 31% of total accidental shooting deaths could have been prevented by installing safety devices on guns: 100% of deaths per year in which a child under 6 years old shoots and kills him/herself or another child could be prevented by automatic child-proof safety locks; and 23% of accidental shooting deaths by adolescents and adults per year could be prevented by loading indicators showing when a bullet was in the chamber ready to be fired.

Marjorie Sanfilippo, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Eckerd College who has researched children's behavior around guns, stated, "We put gates around swimming pools to keep children from drowning. We put safety caps on medications to keep children from poisoning themselves.... [B]ecause children are naturally curious and impulsive, and because we have shown time and again that we cannot 'gun-proof' them with education, we have a responsibility to keep guns out of the hands of children."
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Pro 3

The presence of a gun makes a conflict more likely to become violent.

The FBI found that arguments (such as romantic triangles, brawls fueled by alcohol or drugs, and arguments over money) resulted in 1,962 gun deaths (59.9% of the total).

An editorial published in the American Journal of Public Health noted, "gun-inflicted deaths [often] ensue from impromptu arguments and fights; in the US, two-thirds of the 7,900 deaths in 1981 involving arguments and brawls were caused by guns." A study published in the same journal found that "the weapons used [in altercations]... were those closest at hand." And thus, according to another study, "[r]ather than confer protection, guns kept in the home are associated with an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance."

Common sense gun control laws can decrease the likelihood of a violent situation turning deadly. President Ronald Reagan and others did not think the AR-15 military rifle (also called M16s by the Air Force) should be owned by civilians and, when the AR-15 was included in the assault weapons ban of 1994 (which expired on Sep. 13, 2004), the NRA supported the legislation. A Mother Jones investigation found that high-capacity magazines were used in at least 50% of the 62 mass shootings between 1982 and 2012.When high-capacity magazines were used in mass shootings, the death rate rose 63% and the injury rate rose 156%.
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Pro 4

A majority of adults, including gun owners, support common sense gun control such as background checks, bans on assault weapons, and bans on high-capacity magazines.

According to a Feb. 20, 2018 Quinnipiac Poll, 97% of American voters and 97% of gun owners support universal background checks. 67% support a nationwide ban on assault weapons, and 83% support mandatory waiting periods for gun purchases.

As much as 40% of all gun sales are undocumented private party gun sales that do not require a background check (aka the "gun show loophole").

53% of all adults surveyed approve of high-capacity magazine bans. 89% of adults with a gun in the home approve of laws to prevent the purchase of guns by the mentally ill, and 82% approve of banning gun sales to people on no-fly lists.

77% of Americans support requiring a license to purchase a gun.

Don Macalady, member of Hunters against Gun Violence, stated, "As a hunter and someone who has owned guns since I was a young boy, I believe that commonsense gun legislation makes us all safer. Background checks prevent criminals and other dangerous people from getting guns."

Many would like to see the U.S. enact more laws like other countries, citing the fact that countries with restrictive gun control laws have lower gun homicide and suicide rates than the United States. Both Switzerland and Finland require gun owners to acquire licenses and pass background checks that include mental and criminal records, among other restrictions and requirements. In 2007 Switzerland ranked number 3 in international gun ownership rates with 45.7 guns per 100 people (about 3,400,000 guns total). In 2009 Switzerland had 24 gun homicides (0.31 deaths per 100,000 people) and 253 gun suicides (3.29 deaths per 100,000 people). Finland ranked fourth in international gun ownership rates with 45.3 guns per 100 people (about 2,400,000 guns total). In 2007 Finland had 23 (0.43 deaths per 100,000 people) gun homicides and 172 gun suicides (4.19 deaths per 100,000 people).
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Con 1

The Second Amendment of the US Constitution protects individual gun ownership.

The Second Amendment of the US Constitution reads, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Lawrence Hunter, Chairman of Revolution PAC, stated, "The Founders understood that the right to own and bear laws is as fundamental and as essential to maintaining liberty as are the rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of religion and the other protections against government encroachments on liberty delineated in the Bill of Rights."
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Con 2

Gun control laws are discriminatory and infringe on citizens' rights

Current gun control laws are frequently aimed at inner city, poor, black communities who are perceived as more dangerous than white gun owners. Charles Gallagher, Chair of Sociology at LaSalle University, stated that some gun control laws are still founded on racial fears: "Whites walking down Main Street with an AK-47 are defenders of American values; a black man doing the same thing is Public Enemy No. 1."

Background checks and micro-stamping are an invasion of privacy. Background checks require government databases that keep personal individual information on gun owners, including name, addresses, mental health history, criminal records, and more. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) worried that Senator Harry Reid's 2013 proposed background check legislation (the bill failed 54-46) would have allowed the government to keep databases of gun purchases indefinitely, creating a "worry that you're going to see searches of the databases and an expansion for purposes that were not intended when the information was collected." Micro-stamping similarly requires a database of gun owners and the codes their personal guns would stamp on cartridge cases. Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ted Cruz (R-TX) wrote that they would oppose any legislation that infringes "on the American people's constitutional right to bear arms, or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to government surveillance."

Gun control laws infringe upon the right to self-defense and deny people a sense of safety. The police cannot protect everyone all of the time. 61% of men and 56% of women surveyed by Pew Research said that stricter gun laws would "make it more difficult for people to protect their homes and families." Nelson Lund, Professor at George Mason University School of Law, stated, "The right to self-defense and to the means of defending oneself is a basic natural right that grows out of the right to life" and "many [gun control laws] interfere with the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves against violent criminals." A Pew Foundation report found that 79% of male gun owners and 80% of female gun owners said owning a gun made them feel safer and 64% of people living in a home in which someone else owns a gun felt safer. Even Senator Dianne Feinstein, a gun control advocate, carried a concealed gun when her life was threatened and her home attacked by the New World Liberation Front in the 1970s.

Gun control laws, especially those that try to ban "assault weapons," infringe upon the right to own guns for hunting and sport. In 2011, there were 13.7 million hunters 16 years old or older in the United States, High-powered semiautomatic rifles and shotguns are used to hunt and in target shooting tournaments each year. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, "So-called 'Assault weapons' are more often than not less powerful than other hunting rifles. The term 'assault weapon' was conjured up by anti-gun legislators to scare voters into thinking these firearms are something out of a horror movie... [T]he Colt AR-15 and Springfield M1A, both labeled 'assault weapons,' are the rifles most used for marksmanship competitions in the United States. And their cartridges are standard hunting calibers, useful for game up to and including deer." According to a Feb. 2013 Pew Research report, 32% of gun owners owned guns for hunting and 7% owned guns for target or sport shooting.
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Con 3

Gun control laws simply do not work.

Gun control efforts have proved ineffective. According to David Lampo, Publications Director of the Cato Institute, "there is no correlation between waiting periods and murder or robbery rates." Banning high-capacity magazines will not necessarily deter crime because even small gun magazines can be changed in seconds.The "gun show loophole" is virtually nonexistent because commercial dealers, who sell the majority of guns at shows and elsewhere, are bound by strict federal laws. According to a Mar. 10, 2016 Lancet study, most state-level gun control laws do not reduce firearm death rates, and, of 25 state laws, nine were associated with higher gun death rates.

Mexico has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world and yet, in 2012, Mexico had 11,309 gun murders (9.97 gun homicides per 100,000 people) compared to the United States that had 9,146 gun homicides (2.97 per 100,000 people). The country has only one legal gun store (the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales), compared to at least 63,709 legal gun stores and pawn shops in the United States as of Feb. 10, 2014. Mexico's gun store is on a secure military base and customers must present a valid ID, go through a metal detector, and turn over cellphones and cameras to guards. To actually buy a gun, customers have to show proof of honest income, provide references, pass a criminal background check, prove any military duties were completed with honor, and be fingerprinted and photographed. If allowed to purchase a gun, the customer may buy only one gun (choosing from only .38 caliber pistols or lower) and one box of bullets. Between 2006 and 2010, Mexico's one gun shop sold 6,490 guns, yet as of 2012, Mexicans own about 15,000,000 guns, or about 13.5 guns per 100 people.

The main reason gun control doesn't work is because laws will not prevent criminals from obtaining guns or breaking laws. Of 62 mass shootings in the United States between 1982 and 2012, 49 of the shooters used legally obtained guns. Collectively, 143 guns were possessed by the killers with about 75% obtained legally. A Secret Service analysis found that of 24 mass shootings in 2019 at least 10 (42%) involved illegally possessed guns.

The logical conclusion is that gun control laws do not deter crime; gun ownership deters crime. A study in Applied Economics Letters found that "assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level" and "states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murders." While gun ownership doubled in the twentieth century, the murder rate decreased. Journalist John Stossel explained, "Criminals don't obey the law... Without the fear of retaliation from victims who might be packing heat, criminals in possession of these [illegal] weapons now have a much easier job... As the saying goes, 'If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.'"

More gun control is not needed; education about guns and gun safety is needed to prevent accidental gun deaths. 95% of all US gun owners believe that children should learn about gun safety. The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute, Inc (SAAMI), stated, "Whether in the field, at the range or in the home, a responsible and knowledgeable gun owner is rarely involved in a firearms accident of any kind." According to Kyle Wintersteen, Managing Editor of Guns and Ammo, studies show that "children taught about firearms and their legitimate uses by family members have much lower rates of delinquency than children in households without guns" and "children introduced to guns associate them with freedom, security, and recreation-not violence." [82] [85] [154]
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Con 4

Gun control laws give too much power to the government and may result in government tyranny and the government taking away all guns from citizens.

57% of people surveyed by Pew Research in Feb. 2013 said that gun control laws would "give too much power to the government over the people."

The NRA's Wayne LaPierre stated, "if you look at why our Founding Fathers put it [the Second Amendment] there, they had lived under the tyranny of King George and they wanted to make sure that these free people in this new country would never be subjugated again and have to live under tyranny."

Concurring, Alex Jones, radio host, stated, "The Second Amendment isn't there for duck hunting, it's there to protect us from tyrannical government and street thugs... 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms!"

Marco Rubio (R-FL), US Senator, speaking about gun control laws during his 2016 presidential campaign, stated, "If God forbid, ISIS visits our life, our neighborhood, our school, any part of us, the last thing standing, the last line of defense could very well be our ability to protect ourselves."
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Did You Know?

1. A Pew Foundation report found that 79% of male gun owners and 80% of female gun owners said owning a gun made them feel safer, and 64% of people living in a home in which someone else owns a gun felt safer.

2. The US General Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that 100% of deaths per year in which a child under 6 years old shoots and kills him/herself or another child could be prevented by automatic child-proof safety locks.

3. The Centers for Disease Control listed firearms as the #12 cause of all deaths between 1999 and 2015, representing 1.3% of total deaths. They were also the #1 method of death by homicide (67.3% of all homicides) and by suicide (51.9% of all suicides).

4. Mexico has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world and yet, in 2012, Mexico had 11,309 gun murders (9.97 gun homicides per 100,000 people) compared to the United States that had 9,146 gun homicides (2.97 per 100,000 people).

5. Carrying a concealed handgun in public has been permitted in all 50 states since 2013, when Illinois became the last state to enact concealed carry legislation.

6. Five women a day are killed by guns in America. A woman's risk of being murdered increases 500% if a gun is present during a domestic dispute.

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Proponents say the Second Amendment is not an unlimited right to own guns. Opponents say the amendment protects individual gun ownership.

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After Parkland, a New Surge in State Gun Control Laws

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After Parkland, a New Surge in State Gun Control Laws

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from New York Times

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After the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., in February, Congress did not act. But state legislatures did, passing 69 gun control measures this year - more than any other year since the Newtown, Conn., massacre in 2012, and more than three times the number passed in 2017.

According to an end-of-year report by the national advocacy group Giffords, provided to The New York Times before its publication this week, more than half of the states passed at least one gun control measure in 2018.

The report also found a decrease in measures enacted to expand access to firearms - a major change from the year after the Newtown shooting, when a surge in gun control laws was matched by a surge in gun rights expansions.

This year, legislators rejected about 90 percent of state-level bills backed by the National Rifle Association, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control group created by Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire and former New York City mayor.

Data provided by the N.R.A. shows a similar overall trend this year, with gun control measures passed overtaking pro-gun measures for the first time in at least six years, though to a lesser extent than the Giffords data shows. The N.R.A. also said that nearly 200 gun control measures were rejected this year, but did not provide a list of specific legislation backing up their claims.

"Michael Bloomberg-funded gun control groups have invested unprecedented resources in their state lobbying and public relations efforts shifting the gun control battleground to the state level," the N.R.A. said in a statement. (Mr. Bloomberg provides about a third of the budget of Everytown for Gun Safety, and does not fund the Giffords group.)

The N.R.A. added that it "continues to win legislative battles in state legislatures across America like the important self-defense legislation that was passed out of the Ohio legislature last week."

Gerald Herbert/Associated Press

Seventeen students and staff members were killed in the Parkland attack, but it was certainly not the nation's first mass shooting. It is, however, the first one that appears to have been a legislative turning point - a "tectonic shift," in the words of Allison Anderman, who compiled the report as managing attorney at the Giffords Law Center.

"A lot of policies that we had been working on as a movement for years were pushed across the finish line because of Parkland," Ms. Anderman said.

In large part, the shift this year is a product of a less visible turning point after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, in which 20 children and six adults were killed. In response to that massacre, activists founded the organizations that would become Giffords and Everytown for Gun Safety, which gradually built the infrastructure that the current movement has taken advantage of.

The laws were passed in both Republican- and Democrat-controlled state legislatures.

In the past, state laws were broken down roughly as you would expect, with stricter gun regulations in states controlled by Democrats and more permissive laws in states controlled by Republicans. That divide is still apparent, but the exceptions are increasing.

Democratic state legislatures passed more than twice as many gun restrictions as Republican legislatures this year, and Republican legislatures were the only ones to pass laws loosening restrictions.

Still, Republican chambers passed 18 gun control laws, and Nebraska - whose Legislature is conservative even though it is formally nonpartisan - passed another two. Republican governors also signed restrictions passed by Democratic legislatures in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and Vermont.

Florida, New Jersey and Vermont have passed the most laws.

More than half of the gun restrictions passed this year came in a post-Parkland flood in March and April, including omnibus bills in Florida and Vermont.

In many places, legislators said outright that the Parkland attack had motivated them to act. Nowhere was this clearer than in Florida, where the shooting took place. Legislators there named their omnibus bill the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, after the school where the shooting took place.

By the time the Parkland shooting happened, Moms Demand Action, the grass-roots arm of Everytown, had a chapter in every state and local groups in hundreds of communities. Nationally, the group's volunteer numbers tripled in the months after the shooting, and those volunteers organized en masse in favor of gun restrictions and against permitless carry bills in Alabama, Oklahoma, Virginia and other states. All of the permitless carry bills were defeated.

"There was this structure we had built that could take in all of that anger and heartbreak and make it into action and put it into passing laws," Taylor Maxwell, a spokeswoman for Everytown, said in September.

Jim Mone/Associated Press

Another factor was strategic. Many people who wanted stricter gun laws despaired when Congress didn't pass any after Sandy Hook. But it was precisely that inaction in Congress that prompted advocates to start focusing on state legislatures instead.

And in some states, a third front has opened up: ballot measures. In last month's election, voters in Washington State approved an initiative that, among other things, expanded background checks, raised the minimum age to buy semiautomatic rifles, established a waiting period and mandated safe storage of guns.

Laws addressing domestic abuse, bump stocks and background checks were popular.

Many of the restrictions passed this year are popular across the aisle. Polls show that public support for universal background checks is almost unanimous. Extreme risk protection laws, commonly known as red flag laws, are also very popular; they allow judges to order the confiscation of guns from people who family members or law enforcement believe pose an imminent threat. Such a law might have been able to prevent the Parkland massacre, whose perpetrator had been reported to the F.B.I. multiple times.

Bans on bump stocks, which allow semiautomatic rifles to fire almost as rapidly as machine guns, have enough bipartisan backing that the Trump administration plans to enact one at the national level.

Other measures - like banning certain types of guns, restricting concealed carry and capping magazine sizes - are more divisive, though many of them still have majority support in polls.

Most states have their legislative sessions in the first half of the year, and activists on both sides are gearing up for the next round.

Robin Lloyd, government affairs director at Giffords, said two areas of focus next year would be extreme risk protection laws and laws banning 3D-printed and other untraceable firearms.

Groups like the N.R.A. have been focusing on loosening restrictions on where guns can be carried - for instance, by allowing them in schools - and on letting people carry concealed weapons without a permit.

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After Parkland, a New Surge in State Gun Control Laws (Published 2018)

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After the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., in February, Congress did not act. But state legislatures did, passing 69 gun control measures this year - more than any other year since the Newtown , Conn., massacre in 2012, and more than three times the number passed in 2017.

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from CBS Miami

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"We're Not Asking For A Ban, We're Asking For A Compromise"

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from CBS News

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Mya Middleton: "Guns have become the voice of America & the government is becoming more negligent"

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A Parkland Teacher’s Homework for Us All 

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A Parkland Teacher’s Homework for Us All 

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from Diane Wolk-Rogers, TED Talk

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A Parkland teacher’s homework for us all

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Diane Wolk-Rogers teaches history at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, site of a horrific school shooting on Valentine’s Day 2018. How can we end this senseless violence? In a stirring talk, Wolk-Rogers offers three ways Americans can move forward to create more safety and responsibility around guns -- and invites people to come up with their own answers, too. Above all, she asks us to take a cue from the student activists at her school, survivors whose work for change has moved millions to action. “They shouldn’t have to do this on their own,” Wolk-Rogers says. “They’re asking you to get involved.”