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Introduction
On October 1, 2017 from a room on the 32nd floor at the Mandalay Bay hotel/casino, Stephen Paddock fired over 1,000 bullets into a crowd of people attending a country music concert in Las Vegas, Nevada (Associated Press, 2017). Nearly 60 people were killed and many more were wounded. As of this book’s writing, the incident has been deemed the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Law enforcement would later report that thousands more unused bullets were found in Mr. Paddock’s hotel room. The shooter also killed himself that night, leaving the victims, police, and the nation at large to wonder about his motives. What is known, however, is that the shooter had many firearms, and used a device called a bump stock to make his semi-automatic rifle rapidly fire bullets (i.e., bump-fire) like an automatic weapon (Leefeldt, 2017). While citizens owning fully automatic weapons (e.g., machine guns) is generally illegal under federal and many state laws (Jervis, 2017), modification devices like bump stocks are not illegal to purchase or own. Awareness of this loophole in the laws initially led to calls from the public and in Congress to ban bump stocks. A bipartisan bill to ban the device was even introduced by Representatives Carlos Curbelo (Republican, Florida) and Seth Moulton (Democrat, Massachusetts) (Edelman, 2017). Not surprisingly the bill stalled, likely due to the strength of gun lobby organizations.
Unfortunately, even if the bill had passed and it became illegal to own a bump stock, this wouldn’t prevent future mass shootings like the Las Vegas tragedy. If only it were that simple. But the victims were not killed by bump stock. Rather, they were killed because of bump-fired bullets.
A shooter doesn’t need a bump stock device to bump-fire a gun.
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It began with a video I watched back in 2011.
I was shown a YouTube video of a man demonstrating how to make his semi-automatic rifle fire bullets rapidly like an automatic weapon by putting his right thumb in the weapon’s trigger guard, putting that thumb through his pants belt loop, and then moving the rifle back and forth – rather than pulling the trigger – with his left hand. The weapon was fired at waist height, rather than at eye level and shoulder height. The shots did not seem like they would be particularly accurate in terms of hitting a target, but it was rapid-fire shooting. This was bump-firing, and it was legal. So began a journey into the world of gun videos and Internet gun-owner communities.
Watching this video led to a series of questions. How is this legal? was the first thing that popped into my mind. In addition to pondering the legality – and wisdom – of making a video about bump-firing, I wondered whether the man in the video had discovered a legal loophole in existing gun laws. Were there more of these types of videos? (Answer: Yes.) What other information about weapon-handling was legally (or illegally) shared by gun owners on YouTube? What about other social media like Facebook?
Subsequent explorations of Facebook and YouTube uncovered the presence of both gun rights and gun control online communities. Typing search terms like “bump-firing,” “how to clean your rifle,” or “make a silencer” into YouTube unearthed a plethora of videos uploaded by, and for, gun owners. This was also the case for oft-used gun control phrases like “gun violence” and “assault weapons.” If I could find these videos, others would be able to as well – which led to one of the questions that guides this book: How do gun owners use the Internet and social media to communicate their views on gun rights in America, as well as to learn tips on cleaning, handling and possibly modifying weapons? These are different types of questions than those typically posed by researchers studying guns in America. In fact, very few people have investigated the role of the Internet and social media (e.g., Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram) as relates to firearms.
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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.
Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Because of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, citizens may keep and legally use firearms for purposes such as self-defense and hunting. More than two centuries after the Amendment’s original publication, gun ownership and gun control remain hotly contested issues in the U.S. (Dowler, 2002). The U.S. homicide rate – much of it linked to firearms violence – remains much higher than that of socioeconomically similar countries such as England (Cook et al., 2007; Cook & Ludwig, 2003). This has been attributed to, among other things, widespread gun availability in America (Cook et al., 2007), and growth of the illegal drug market, the players in which typically use firearms for self-protection and enforcement (Blumstein & Cork, 1996). During the past four decades, numerous legislators and organizations have clamored for either stricter or looser gun regulations (La Valle & Glover, 2012). Recent horrific incidents of mass murder shooting sprees have forced the issue back into the spotlight, with victims’ parents and others demanding stricter gun laws (Lah & Almasy, 2014) and gun rights advocacy groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) suggesting that the only real protection comes from having armed security guards – more guns – in schools (Castillo, 2012).
Much scholarship has been published both supporting the right of citizens to own firearms and discussing the failure of gun control efforts (e.g., Stell, 2004; Ludwig & Cook, 2000; Jacobs & Potter, 1995; Koper & Roth, 2002), as well as warning of the dangers of citizen gun ownership and touting the effectiveness of gun control legislation (e.g., La Valle, 2010; Braga & Pierce, 2005; Zimring, 2004; Cook & Ludwig, 2004; Fagan et al., 1998; Hoskin, 2001; Kwon et al., 1997; McDowall, 1991; Kleck, 1979). Both legal (e.g., Lizotte et al., 1994; Lizotte & Bordua, 1980; Bordua & Lizotte, 1979) and illegal (e.g., Braga et al., 2002; Hoskin, 2001; Koper & Reuter 1996; McDowall, 1991) gun ownership have been studied. Despite all the work to date, empirical questions remain about which gun policies most effectively prevent lethal violence (La Valle & Glover, 2012). This is not likely to be resolved anytime soon.
This book has a different focus, however. To be examined is how gun owners make use of the Internet and social media; how gun culture operates online;1 whether online gun-related content warrants free speech protections under the First Amendment; whether online platforms like YouTube and discussion forums may undermine gun control laws; and the possibility of the gun control and gun rights camps reaching common ground through social media. These avenues have been explored very little, possibly because much of the gun-related scholarship predates the Internet’s creation and the ascendancy of social media. The Internet and social media in their many forms have only come to dominate modern American life during the past decade. Facebook, the current social media giant, became accessible to anyone over 13 years of age in 2006. Scholarly books about social media (e.g., van Dijck, 2013; Standage, 2013; Lipschultz, 2014) have only recently been published.
The ideas in Part II of the book – that gun-related online content (e.g., YouTube gun videos) deserve free speech protections, and that the Internet and social media have the potential to undermine certain types of gun control laws – are controversial and may stir discussion among both gun control and gun rights advocates. For instance, laws that seek to restrict specific features of guns, such as how many bullets a magazine2 can hold, or the ability of regular citizens to obtain automatic weapons, are undercut by gun owners legally uploading videos of themselves discharging and rapidly reloading magazines that only hold a few bullets. (As one YouTube video’s title announces, “Revolver speed reload! 16 rounds3 in 4 seconds!”) Since the average bullet travels more than 1,500 miles per hour, an individual with an automatic weapon is only marginally more dangerous than a person who practices rapidly firing and reloading a semi-automatic weapon. And she or he has the evidence of this posted on YouTube.
My perspective is that while controversial and a leading cause of lethal violence, guns in America are here to stay. After watching hundreds of YouTube videos of gun owners – law-abiding citizens, not criminals – showcasing their shooting abilities, as well as visiting numerous Facebook pages of gun owners, what became clear is that there are strong online communities of gun owners for whom firearms are part of the fabric of their lives. For people willing to look through this window and see how individuals with very different lifestyles than their own live, this can be an eye-opening experience. This idea is explored further in Part III of the book.
Readers who favor gun control may wonder why, in this 24/7 media age of highly publicized mass shootings, one would write a book that doesn’t openly condemn guns in America. I understand and am even sympathetic to the sentiment. Prior to becoming a criminal justice professor, I worked for eight years as a researcher at an organization called the Violence Institute of New Jersey (VINJ), a department within Rutgers University,4 based in Newark, New Jersey. The VINJ was created by the New Jersey state legislature shortly before the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado. Ironically, on the day of the Columbine shooting I was facilitating a focus group with high school students in preparation for the VINJ’s first Youth Summit on Violence. While at VINJ, I worked on a number of projects including a gunshot wound (GSW) surveillance effort (Hassett-Walker & Boyle, 2007) coordinated with University Hospital Trauma Center at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Some of the GSW victims died, but many lived. For some victims, it was not their first assault-related ER visit, having previously been shot or stabbed and having the scars or bullet fragments still lodged in their bodies as proof of their earlier victimization. Some GSW victims were teenagers. Some had already been locked up, or – lying in their hospital bed wearing handcuffs – were headed to jail. Bullets wreck the body. Despite the American infatuation with TV and movie violence,5 there’s nothing appealing about real-life gun violence and its aftermath. A visit to a city emergency room underscores this point.
During one summer vacation, my family visited the NRA National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Virginia. While at the museum, I was struck by how different it was from the at-times violent streets of Newark, where I worked at the time. Other than being linked by guns, these were two completely different worlds. Newark often has New Jersey’s highest crime rate, including violent crimes like homicide. The Museum featured many glass cases with myriad guns on display. The history of American firearms, it was made clear, was interwoven with the history of the country. I realized how much I did not know about guns in America. An idea began to form. Gun control in America is a largely politically deadlocked idea. That said, what if one could set aside personal beliefs to try to see the Other Side’s view on its own terms (city residents wanting safe communities; hunters wanting freedom to hunt; sportsmen wanting freedom to target shoot)? Could some common ground not be found in the process? No one – including law-abiding citizen gun owners – favors crime, violence or injury, after all. Perhaps through the lens of the Internet and social media some common ground, or something approaching common ground, would be possible.
Key Points in the Gun Control Debate
The published literature on gun control and gun rights is vast, with scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles6 outnumbering books. Publications tend to fall into one camp (gun control) or the other (gun rights). A brief synopsis of some key points and studies is presented below, beginning with gun rights. My interest is not in revisiting well-trodden ground; indeed, that has already been done very well by others before me (e.g., Cook & Goss, 2014; Webster & Vernick, 2014; Winkler, 2013; Ludwig & Cook, 2003). Rather, my aim is to provide the reader with enough of a foundation on some main points about gun rights and gun control, before moving into the rest of the book. As such, not every argument and sub-topic will be discussed. For more exhaustive coverage of the gun control debate, I invite the reader to check out (for instance) Philip Cook’s excellent coverage of gun control and its many particulars (e.g., Ludwig & Cook, 2003; Cook & Goss, 2014). It should also be acknowledged that various books advocating either the gun rights or gun control perspective have been published as well, including those from John Lott (1998, 2003), Glenn Beck (2013), and Katie Pavlich (2014) – all gun rights proponents.
Gun Rights
More than 200 million guns are owned by Americans, 65 million of which are handguns (Cook & Ludwig, 2003). Recent statistics from the Pew Research Center indicate that three in ten American adults own a firearm, and 36% would consider owning a gun in the future (Parker et al., 2017). Of those who own guns, many own more than one firearm (Parker et al., 2017). Many gun rights supporters note that most gun owners are law-abiding citizens who do not commit gun crimes. They would point out that only law-abiding citizens follow the law, and increasing the number or strictness of gun laws would simply make their lives harder, not deter criminals from violent acts. Indeed, some research points to the lack of a relationship between firearms and criminal violence. Kleck and Patterson (1993), for instance, found no connection between gun prevalence and violence rates; nor did gun control regulations impact either violence or gun prevalence. Other research shows that legal gun ownership is not inherently related to a violent subculture (Bordua & Lizotte, 1979; Lizotte & Bordua, 1980), or delinquency among adolescent sportsmen (Lizotte et al., 1994).
A basic gun rights argument is that gun ownership acts as a deterrent to violent crime, as criminals will avoid a would-be victim if they know the target possesses a gun (Kleck, 2005). Some evidence (e.g., Polsby, 1995; Kleck & Gertz, 1995) supports this idea. One estimate puts the use of guns defensively by potential victims against attackers at 108,000 times annually (Cook et al., 1997)...
