Steven Greene, professor of political science, sat down with Technician to talk about the government’s current stance on gun legislation and the value of the Second Amendment.
How would you sum up the government’s current stance on gun legislation?
We have federalism, which means gun laws can vary a fair amount by state. And so they do vary a fair amount by state. For the most part, the gun laws have become more relaxed or lenient in the past ten, fifteen years. We’ve made it much easier for people to purchase guns, to have concealed carry guns and the current status for most people, who are not convicted felons, it is pretty easy to purchase and own a variety of guns, and auxiliary products, like bump stocks to make guns extra lethal.
How is the United States different than other countries when it comes to gun legislation?
We’ve got much less restrictive gun laws than almost every other modern democracy. Other democracies make it much more difficult to own a gun, or at least have much stricter regulations on what is expected of people who own a gun. The idea that anybody can just go to Walmart and pick up a gun and… no registration, no courses, no nothing, would just seem crazy to people in Europe. That’s the biggest difference, honestly, is what some might call, the openness.
In your opinion, will bump stock laws be passed?
In one sense of a bump stock, it’s almost like owning a grenade launcher; the only legitimate purpose is to kill more people faster. There is no legitimate, non-military use for something like that, and there’s no legitimate military use because they just have fully automatic guns that are better designed for that. So for the NRA to say, “Hey look, you see, we’re reasonable, look at us, we’re saying no bump stocks,” to me, it holds as much validity as saying, “Okay, we’re also against people not having rocket-propelled grenade launchers in their home.” So the idea that, “Oh, look at the NRA and the gun lobby being reasonable on this,” it’s just like, give me a break.
After Las Vegas, do you think public opinion has changed?
It changes for the short term, and then it tends to regress to what it was before. As a lot of people have said, if we can let people go in and shoot up classrooms full of kindergartners and first-graders and not do anything, then we’re not going to do anything about this. Again, I think that says something horrible about our country, as somebody who is the parent of a first grader. When I think about Newtown, that one just hits home.
Does gun legislation normally change after mass shootings, such as Sandy Hook or Virginia Tech?
The most recent [shooting], some people have argued, and I think make a persuasive case, is that if anything, it’s become more lenient because you get this rebound effect from gun lovers, who then take that to, “Oh, now we really need to protect our gun right, so now we really need to make sure that you can have a concealed-carry without even taking a class, and that we really need to make sure it’s easier to buy a gun and the most lethal type of ammunition, so they don’t take that away from us.” So, again, for the past ten or fifteen years, there’s zero evidence that mass shootings have led to stricter legislations.
Do you think the United States can take a cue from countries like Japan and Australia, who have enacted change after mass shootings? Do you think there is a chance of a change in gun laws happening in the next ten years?
No. Twenty years, no. And I just read a great article about the evolution of Americans’ thinking on the NRA and the Second Amendment. This was a decades-long campaign from the NRA and the gun lobby to convince people that you very much have this individual right to gun ownership, and that gun ownership is essential to protecting yourself. That was a decades-long campaign that has gradually, but effectively, moved public opinion. American public opinion on guns has shifted. So it’s not just what the NRA believes; this is what a lot of people believe. I think it’s entirely possible, especially if we keep seeing more and more things like Las Vegas, and with a concerted effort, that we can see that shift back towards something more like Australia … I think there’s a possibility for a decades-long campaign that shifts that back to what I would consider, more rational gun policy. And I would say rational based off of empirical evidence and studying the world… the empirical evidence is really clear. If you own a gun in your home, you are much more likely to be injured from a gun in some way than if you don’t have a gun in your home. That said, most people think and feel they are safer if they have a gun in their home. But they’re not. But it doesn’t matter what the reality is, it matters what people think and feel. And right now, people think and feel they’re safer, even when they’re not.
Do you think the Second Amendment is necessary? Or outdated?
Realistically and rationally, when one looks at gun policies around the developed world, it is breathtakingly clear that the Second Amendment is not necessary. The Second Amendment is currently interpreted as an individual right. There are societies, that by many metrics, that are more free than America, that have incredibly restrictive gun legislation. To argue as many do that the right to own a gun is essential to freedom in democracy is demonstrably false. In that sense, it’s clearly not necessary. And then, is it outdated? In that sense, it is demonstrably outdated. This is based on a political context of late 18th-century America, and again, even then, if one looks at the historical context, and many would argue the meaning of the Second Amendment is a well-regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state, I think you could make a reasonable argument, that seeing it as the collective right, isn’t necessarily outdated. Not even a reasonable one, I would say an unreasonable one. Again, I would say almost the entire rest of the modern free world proves that the Second Amendment is unnecessary and outdated.
