Gun Violence Prevention?
Columbine. Virginia Tech. Sandy Hook. These are all infamous terms, epitomising horror and the tragic loss of life in a school environment. What one does not immediately associate with these incidents, however, are radical changes in gun legislation in the United States. As I write this, the worst mass shooting in the countryâs history, the âLas Vegas massacreâ at a country music festival, has just taken place, killing 58 and injuring hundreds. Yet it can be postulated with some degree of confidence that there will be very little in the way of gun reform following this. This book sets out to explain why high-profile school shootings involving mass casualties give traction to policy debates but then do not tend to result in legislative change. Drawing upon the expertise of policy-makers and gun violence prevention (GVP) activists in the field, alongside examining news media and policy debates, reasons for why three well-known school shootings have failed to significantly change gun legislation are explored.
The following factors are pertinent to the success of legislation: how the problem of gun violence is framed, the approach and make-up of the government in office, levels of public support, other social issues competing for attention and the campaigning activities of GVPâprobably more commonly known as âgun controlââ
interest groups. In her introductory chapter, Goss (
2006) spoke about a lack of scholarly attention paid to the âgun control movement.â Whether such a movement exists will be debated later on in the book; the point taken from her argument is that further research is needed on those on the âgun controlâ side of the debate. Notably, only activists campaigning within the purview of GVP are included within the research sample to narrow the scope of the work. Examined are the reasons why gun policies have changed or, conversely, failed to change following high-profile school shootings. For that reason, the groups and campaigners involved in âgun rightsâ are not included in the research sample, although this would be an interesting avenue to pursue in future work. The empirical research conducted for this book includes a broad range of expertise:
National and state GVP interest groups
A political pollster who was also a former aide to Tim Kaine when he was Governor of Virginia
A think tank director who has previously written gun legislation
A senior policy analyst specialising in crime and guns who works at a national policy institute
Two politicians who support gun regulation to varying degrees
An emergency management director responsible for school safety procedures
There is already a plethora of work on interest group activities in the United States and elsewhere (interested readers are directed to, for instance, Grossmann 2008, 2012; Holyoke 2014; Jordan and Maloney 2007; Rozell et al. 2006; gun-related interest groups are discussed in, for instance, Noel 2008; Patterson 1998). A number of recent studies have examined gun laws and culture in the United States (Carlson 2015: Goss 2006; Spitzer 2012; Stroud 2015; Vizzard 2015). There is also detailed and diverse literature on policy changes following school shootings. Scholars have begun to explore the intricacies of gun-related proposals, such as the relationship between children and guns or the legal implications of restricting weapon carrying on educational institutions (see, for instance, Rizzi 2015; Schildkraut and Hernanckez 2014).
What is needed in the current scholarship is a detailed inquiry focusing on the relationship between the countryâs political landscape and the gun-related policy proposals following school shootings. This book will address that gap, offering an insight into interest groups specialising in GVP. My research aims were refined by utilising the current body of literature on school shooting policy research, as well as political structures and interest groups in the United States. Doran (2015) provided a âsnapshotâ of the activities of these groups and their prescriptive proposals for policy change to reduce gun violence more generally. This book builds upon this earlier piece of work, offering a focused examination of their feelings about gun policies, the policy landscape surrounding gun legislation and the future of the GVP movement.
School Shootings: Rethinking Guns
A review of global mortality data found there is the equivalent of 32.5 deaths from guns in the United States every day (Wintemute 2015, 8). The gun homicide rate in the United States is 25.2 times higher than in 23 other high-income countries combined. For instance, the firearm homicide rate in the United States is 7 times and 18 times higher than Canada and the United Kingdom respectively (Grinshteyn and Hemenway 2016, 269). The rate of gun deaths also varies geographically across the United States, with south-eastern regions having a higher risk of both suicide and homicide gun deaths (Parsons and Weigend 2016).
The purpose of this book is to provide a detailed inquiry into the gun-related policy responses to an atypical form of gun violence: âschool shootings.â A key conceptual problem in school shooting research is defining the phenomenon in order to separate it from all other gun-related incidents in the United States (BondĂŒ et al. 2013, 343). Firstly, these incidents fit under the rubric of âspreeâ or âmassâ shootings (Böckler et al. 2013; Larkin 2009). The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines âmass shootingsâ as a shooting attackâusually planned well in advanceâkilling three or more people in a short period of time.1 Perpetrators generally tend to commit suicide after their attack either themselves or by provoking law enforcement to shoot them (known as âsuicide by copâ) (Douglas and Olshaken 1999; Kelly 2012). Within the âschool shootingâ definition utilised in this book, the term âschoolâ is all-encompassing, including elementary, middle and high schools, as well as further and higher education institutes. It refers to shootings occurring at a school-related location, including off-campus ones used for a school event (e.g. a school dance held at a community hall). Excluded from this definition are incidents of gang violence, revenge killings over a relationship breaking down, drug deals gone wrong or students simply bringing a gun to school for attention (Böckler et al. 2013; Harding et al. 2002; Larkin 2009; Muschert 2013; Newman and Fox 2009). Most school shooting definitions include internal perpetrators, that is, former or current students, teachers or administrators working at the school. There has been some debate amongst scholars (e.g. Böckler et al. 2013; Dumitriu 2013; Larkin 2009; Muschert 2013), conversely, about whether this definition should also encompass external attackers, such as adults out with the school. This book concedes that âschool shootingsâ can include external attackers, such as the massacres in Dunblane, Scotland (1996), and Newtown, Connecticut (2012), perpetrated by adult attackers who did not work at the schools.
Although high-profile school shootings have also occurred in countries like Finland, Germany and Canada, the 76 incidents which have taken place in the United States is greater than the combined total of 44 attacks in other countries (Böckler et al. 2013, 10). The notion of school shootings being a particular problem in the United States is why this book mainly focuses on policy debates taking place there. While it is outside the scope of this book to detail every school shooting that has occurred in the United States, some of the most well-known ones will be briefly discussed here. There was a series of school shootings in the late 1990s perpetrated by adolescents. In 1996, Barry Loukaitis killed his algebra teacher and two students at Frontier Middle School in the state of Washington. Evan Ramsey killed a student and the principal of Bethal Regional High School in Alaska in 1997. Luke Woodham stabbed his mother to death and then killed two female students at Pearl High School in Mississippi in 1997. At ...
