The Las Vegas Mass Shooting: What Prevents Better Gun Laws In The US?

The tragic killing of 58 innocent American citizens and injuring of 529 in Las Vegas has been a traumatic event the like of which is repeated once too often in the US. Investigations are revealing little on what could have been the trigger to set off such a negative emotion in 64-year-old Stephen Paddock to shoot from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel into a crowd of some 22,000 concertgoers. Police say the shooting went on for close to 11 minutes resulting in the havoc at the concert end where people could not even take cover. The vantage position from where the raking fire came made it almost impossible to look for cover.

It is unlikely that the authorities will ever get to the bottom of the reasons for Paddock’s action because all initial indicators show him to be just another citizen with no unusual history except that his father was a criminal. Paddock had overcome that stigma, made enough money in real estate and was a gambler of sorts. The more important thing is why a nation as developed as the US with a quality of life of such high standard and an abiding interest in keeping its citizens safe at any cost has not been able to find an answer to mass shootings, which occur at a rate of more than one a day; apparently six times higher than Canada and 16 times higher than Germany.

More than 100,000 people are shot every year by firearms with almost 30,000 killed and two thirds being those who commit suicide. During the 9/11 tragedy approximately 3,000 people are known to have been killed. Yet, the event was classified as traumatic and a watershed due to the simultaneity of events and deaths, bringing on a homeland security system which has largely delivered. Why hasn’t something ever been considered to resolve a problem, which takes away 30,000 lives every year? Well actually it has and there is a history behind it.

Before addressing the history, let us take a quick glance at an obvious issue – hotel security. Paddock could create a stockpile of weapons as high as 42, 19 of which he stored at the hotel room. Leaving aside anything else, one is left to question whether US security at hotels from terror threats is so seriously lax that a guest could stockpile 19 weapons and hordes of ammunition in his room or suite and use 10 suitcases and boxes to transport these. This in the days of threats from ISIS and other Islamic radicals and the experience of 9/11 behind them makes US security systems appear terrifyingly low level.

People around the world are left wondering why there is such resistance to better and more effective gun control laws in the US. I can remember debates on the subject right through my growing years with cover stories in major news magazines at frequent intervals. To trace the evident irrationality we need to go back to 15 December 1792, the date of the Second Amendment to the American Constitution. The amendment reads as – ‘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’.

It makes little sense until seen in the context of the suspicion against standing armies brought on by the War of Independence against Great Britain. It aimed at protection for local and state militias, who would provide a bulwark against any possible encroachment of power by the new national government – and its national army – which was established by the Constitution in 1789. Thus private citizens with authority to bear arms could be called upon at any time, similar to a system of levies, to fight for the state as required. The state did not have to bear the expenditure of arming and maintaining soldiers.

With the Second Amendment every US citizen has the ‘right to possess arms’ and over time this has remained the main theme even as the spirit of federalism was fully executed with different laws in each state. The state of Nevada where Las Vegas is located has among the most liberal laws, which apparently do not require even a background check on anyone wishing to buy and retain a firearm. With the strength of the rights movement any feasibility of amending something which is a right under the Constitution becomes extremely difficult to rescind in a country, where democratic principles are respected in more than letter and spirit. Besides this, it appears to remain embedded in the US psyche that firearms are macho symbols required for self defence, sporting and hunting activities.

It is not as if there has been no resistance to the right to bear arms by private citizens. There have been peripheral rules and regulations enshrined through the judicial route right through the 19th and 20th centuries.

An attempt at elimination of private ownership of firearms came with the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934. It sought to circumvent the Second Amendment or simply make it more expensive to possess firearms through a tax excise — $200 for each gun sale. The NFA targeted fully-automatic weapons, short-barrelled shotguns and rifles which could be used by the underworld. Interestingly, the rise of gangster and mafia violence further led to The Federal Firearms Act of 1938, which required that anyone selling or shipping firearms must be licensed through the US Department of Commerce. Guns could not be sold to persons convicted of certain crimes. It required that sellers log the names and addresses of anyone to whom they sold guns.

Yet, even as traumatic and tragic an event as the assassination of former president John F Kennedy by the use of a firearm and the killing of his assassin Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, again by firearms, took four years for enactment of the Gun Control Law of 1968. The contents were pathetically low profile. It increased licence requirements for sellers and broadened the list of persons prohibited from owning a firearm to include convicted felons, drug users and the mentally incompetent. There was nothing comprehensive, with archaic laws continuing to run the policies of states under the spirit of federalism.

In 1994 came the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which gave five days waiting period for the purchase of firearms as background checks were initiated. At the same time was the ban on assault weapons, which in US parlance refers to semi-automatic weapons with a military orientation. Two attempts to restrict the possession of handguns were struck down by the US Supreme Court in 2008 and 2010. Political interests have also prevented any serious efforts at more comprehensive controls; for instance the quantum of weapons that can be owned by an individual or the amount of ammunition. The firearm industry is annually worth $32 billion and a great source of political funding. Its lobbies exist in all states and they campaign against most stringent gun control laws.

Australia’s success in tightly restricting gun ownership after its worst mass shooting in 1996, and the subsequent reduction in gun crimes and mass shootings, is what are being recommended for the US after its latest mass shooting on 2 October 2017. However, in a nation with intense belief in robust individualism and rights, can this ever be executed? Can Las Vegas and Orlando (where a similar action by a lone wolf in Florida on 12 June 2016 led to 50 deaths) be conscience creators to bring about a realisation in the US that the path to self-destruction of a developed society lies in too many rights? Under the presidency of Donald Trump this looks unlikely and the US will have to find greater emotional response around the nation to drum up the required political commitment to put an end to the self-destruction, which frequently comes to pass on its citizenry.

Also Read: Las Vegas Killings: America’s ‘Frontier’ Psyche Needs To Be Put On The Couch, Not Just Stephen Paddock