Al Goldis / AP
Police investigate the scene of a shooting at Berkey Hall on the campus of Michigan State University, late Monday, Feb. 13, 2023, in East Lansing, Mich.
Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023 | 2 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
Three young people are dead. Five more are critically injured. The victims were all students at Michigan State University with bright futures ahead of them. They died in the 67th mass shooting this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. We’re only 45 days into the year. The archive defines a mass shooting as one with four or more victims not including the gunman.
As of the writing of this editorial, 2,250 people have died in the United States this year due to nonsuicide-related gun violence. That’s an average of 50 people per day. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that’s 18 more people who die each day from gun violence than from drunk driving.
Family members of the victims of drunk driving formed organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to advocate for legislative and regulatory change. By 2013, the number of deaths due to drunk and drugged driving was 55% lower than when MADD was founded in 1980. Drunk and drugged driving was not eliminated, but tens of thousands of lives are spared each year due to increased regulation of driving privileges.
Many of the same strategies used to curb traffic violence would be effective at curbing gun violence.
To drive a car legally in the United States, you must undergo mandatory training and licensing that includes both a knowledge and skills test. Information about your identity and the vehicle identification number (VIN) of your car is stored in a government database so that if your car is involved in a crime or a deadly collision, the police can find you. If you operate your vehicle irresponsibly by drinking and driving, you can lose your license.
Yet almost none of these requirements exist for gun owners in most states.
According to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, only nine states and the District of Columbia require any form of training, education or demonstration of knowledge and skills to purchase a gun. Thirty-two states allow people to publicly carry a concealed weapon without any knowledge or training requirements for how to fire one.
Gun rights advocates often claim that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. But it’s delusional to think that giving a gun to someone with absolutely no knowledge, skills or experience with a firearm is the “solution” to stopping a bad guy with a gun. It’s no surprise that, as we’ve documented in previous editorials, there is a long history of “good guys with guns” who failed to act or whose actions made a situation worse.
Even in states that do require some form of education or training requirements, there are few accountability systems to respond to gun violence. Only six states and the District of Columbia require all firearms to be registered so that law enforcement can track when a gun is used in a crime. Six other states require registration only for highly dangerous weapons such as assault rifles. Conversely, eight states ban government firearms registries except in limited circumstances.
As the National Rifle Association and Republican lawmakers offer big talk about curbing violence in our communities, they’re actively preventing law enforcement from solving violent crimes by tracing guns back to their owners.
Even if violent criminals admit to crimes, that may not prevent them from possessing guns legally in the future.
A recent ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a known drug dealer who was involved in multiple shootings had a constitutional right to possess firearms, even after he voluntarily agreed to surrender his guns to avoid domestic violence charges. Their logic was that states cannot prohibit violent domestic abusers from possessing firearms today because the framers of the Constitution didn’t prohibit it in the 18th century.
Just like the founders of MADD 40 years ago, the friends, family members and loved ones of the victims of gun violence are pleading for change. Their stories are real, their pain is palpable and they deserve better than thoughts and prayers that are forgotten or ignored just hours or days later.
Lawmakers should learn from the victim impact panels championed by MADD and invite the people left behind in the aftermath of gun violence to testify at any hearing in which a vote on gun control legislation will occur.
Responsible lawmakers should not allow themselves to make life and death decisions without a full understanding of the lives of the people whose death they are enabling. It isn’t right for current law to place far more restrictions on owning and operating a vehicle designed for transportation than a weapon designed for death.
The overwhelming majority of Americans support reasonable gun control. Now it’s time for elected officials to listen and act, before the next group of young people with bright futures end up dead or hospitalized. At the very least, if they’re going to continue putting firearms into the hands of criminals, they should be forced to do so while looking into the eyes of a parent whose child died because of gun violence.
