As police identified the bodies at a Texas school and students’ parents prayed their children were not among the 21 victims, lawmakers re-enacted the age-old debate over how to stop the frequent shootings. Given the way the US political system is set up, however, there is no way out of one of the great US crises. The country must continue to facilitate the purchase and possession of weapons, bleeding statistics instead of stagnating them.
Since the 2012 attack at Sandy Hook High School, which left 26 dead, the United States has seen at least another 3,500 shootings. The figure is from the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit organization that maps episodes with four or more dead or injured per incident. These events are so common that the country only pays attention to extreme cases, such as the one experienced this Tuesday (24) in Texas. There are 400 million firearms in the country. In comparison, there are 330 million inhabitants.
One of the major obstacles to resolving this crisis is the fact that the issue is historically polarized. With few exceptions, Democratic lawmakers vote in favor of limiting access to guns, while Republicans vote against. “This is one of the clearest party lines in the country,” says Casey Burgat, a professor at George Washington University and an expert on US legislative issues.
There are some proposals to limit the purchase of weapons in the country, but it is very unlikely that they will pass the Senate, in which each party now has 50 seats. Under the rule known as “filibuster”, a majority of 60 votes in favor is required – that is, ten Republicans must jump the wall. Since that’s not going to happen, these laws aren’t going to make it to President Joe Biden’s desk.
Among the projects under discussion is an attempt to end the “gun-show loophole”, which facilitates sales at events or on the internet without proper background checks on the buyer. This measure passed the House in 2021, but never passed the Senate.
Burgat describes the Republicans as “the right-to-gun party”. In general, lawmakers of this acronym argue that this right is guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. Beyond ideology, this is a political bet. The right to guns is one of the debates that electrify voters. “Republicans know that their base is extremely pro-gun, they vote accordingly, donate to the party and punish candidates who interfere in this issue.”
With that in mind, the party has been legislating in favor of guns for the past decade. In 2021, the governor of Texas passed a law that effectively allows anyone of legal age to carry a gun in the state, even without having permission or receiving any type of training.
The closest the country came to making gun access difficult was in 2013, after the Sandy Hook massacre. That’s when lawmakers tried to pass the bipartisan measure known as the Manchin-Toomey — named after two of its supporters, one on each side. It was a half-hearted attempt just to make gun purchases harder, not stop it. There were 54 votes in favour, four of them from Republican lawmakers.
A similar proposal is unlikely to go that far in the current scenario. Of the 54 senators who voted “yes” in 2013, eight were replaced by conservative Republicans, who vote “no.”
Added to this is the fact that this year the United States is going through its “midterms”, as the midterm elections are known. The GOP hopes to gain ground in the Senate and have a majority of seats. So, says Burgat, it has even less interest in alienating its electoral base. “The problem is that we are always close to an election and we always hear the same thing.”
There is, therefore, no reason for optimism among those who want to make access to weapons more difficult. “We know what’s going to happen. Democrats are going to speak up, say it can’t happen again,” says Burgat. “And Republicans are not going to join the debate, let alone pass a bill. We will keep repeating the script.”
Indeed, during the morning of Wednesday (25), Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said he was tired of reading messages from Republicans on social media expressing condolences to the families of gun victims. “Our job is not to offer our condolences and prayers, but to legislate.”
Republican senator Mike Lee criticized “the left” for using the massacre to try to pass laws restricting the right to carry. The fault, he said, is the breakup of families — not firearms.
