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assault weapons ban
Even a Good President With a Gun Won’t Save Us
VP Harris’ recent political messaging about guns has been less about curbing them and more about how she and her running mate Tim Walz possess them. But that won’t prevent mass shootings.
Sep 25, 2024
It’s happened far more times than I care to remember. Waking up super early on Sunday morning to write my weekend column, I flip on the TV and there’s some dark and fuzzy video of multiple police cars, flashing blue and red outside some urban nightclub or restaurant, as the anchors solemnly report that while we were sleeping, there was yet another mass shooting in America.
But this Sunday morning, the news cut a little differently.
The rapid machine-gun-like fire had lit up a crowded street in Birmingham, Alabama, the city where I lived and worked as a young journalist in the early 1980s. CNN zoomed in with a map, and my heart sank because I instantly knew the exact area where four people were murdered and another 17 were injured, some seriously.
If a mass shooting happens in the dead of a Saturday night and America has forgotten about it by the time Sunday’s 1:00 pm NFL games kick off, did it make a sound?
The shooter, or possibly more than one shooter, fired more than 100 rounds at a packed sidewalk in the Birmingham entertainment district known as Five Points South, a few blocks from the University of Alabama-Birmingham campus. My fading 20-something memories of the place are fond ones—meeting journalist pals for a beer on the Deep South’s brutally humid summer nights, nodding along with the ever-present Alabama or Auburn fans, even drinking my first-ever Long Island iced tea (and, thankfully, one of my last) from a Mason jar.
Some 40 years later, it took just a few seconds for a shooter with a legal semi-automatic and, police believe, a “switch” that turned it into a machine gun, to shatter any happy recollections of the place, and the lives of the people there just out for a fun Saturday night.
“All of a sudden it was just gunshots, gunshots, gunshots,” 24-year-old Gabriel Eslami, who was on the line for the Hush hookah bar, told CNN. “I started running for my life”—but he was struck by a bullet in the leg and fell to the ground. When he looked up, the scene felt like a “horror movie... There are bodies laid out all over the sidewalk, gun smoke in the air. There are shoes. People ran out of their shoes trying to escape. I saw people hiding behind cars, laying under cars.”
It may have sounded like the climax of a gory Hollywood movie, but in 2024 news cycle, the Birmingham mass shooting was something of a blip. NPR did lead its Monday afternoon newscast with the story, but The New York Times buried its print article on pageA14. In an age of school shootings and presidential assassination attempts, bursts of gunfire on crowded city streets are getting shorter and shorter shrift. This was, after all, the third quadruple murder in Birmingham this year, including one outside a public library. Didn’t hear about that? Me neither.
And yet like any mass shooting in the only developed nation that routinely has them, the Birmingham incident raised some serious questions about policy. Why has the gun-loving red state of Alabama not banned these switches, given their potential for mass carnage? Why has Birmingham seen its murder rate increase in 2024, even as crime is mostly falling nationally? Are we truly helpless to get high-powered assault weapons—subject to an imperfect but highly effective federal ban from 1994-2004—off the streets of America’s cities?
If a mass shooting happens in the dead of a Saturday night and America has forgotten about it by the time Sunday’s 1:00 pm NFL games kick off, did it make a sound?
Where is the sense of outrage from the Democratic ticket and the media that I felt when I saw that somebody used an assault rifle to carry out an act of terrorism in Birmingham?
One place where the bullets didn’t seem to have much impact was in the presidential race, where guns have been an issue, but not always in the ways one might expect. To be sure, the Democrats are the party that believes government can do something to reduce gun violence. I was there in Chicago’s United Center in August when the loved ones of gunfire victims gave poignant pleas to Democrats, and the party has vowed to again to ban assault rifles and enact common-sense gun laws—in the highly unlikely event it can get around a GOP Senate filibuster. Republican nominee Donald Trump brags that when he was president,“nothing happened” to stop mass killings.
The Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, didn’t release a statement about the Birmingham shooting. Maybe there’s just too many mass shootings in America, or maybe it would be different if Alabama were a swing state. But also, Harris’ recent political messaging about guns has been less about curbing them and more about how she and her running mate Tim Walz possess them.
Harris again confirmed last week to Oprah Winfrey that she owns a gun for her personal protection from her prosecutor days, telling the TV icon that “if somebody’s breaking into my house, they’re getting shot.” First, if someone’s breaking into the vice president’s home, then the Secret Service is in worse shape than we thought. Second, multiple studies have shown that people with guns in their home are more likely to get shot than those who do not, so I’m not sure why Harris encourages that choice. Her campaign then released an online spot that kicked off with highlighting her gun ownership before saying all the right things, including support for an assault-weapons ban.
It’s Politics 101, right? Harris didn’t have to run in any primaries and woo left-wing Democrats as she did for a time in 2019, but now she hopes her affirmation of gun ownership will win over middle-of-the-road undecideds in the general election. Except where is the sense of outrage from the Democratic ticket and the media that I felt when I saw that somebody used an assault rifle to carry out an act of terrorism in Birmingham? Because that outrage is necessary to convince the public that we need some radical changes if people are going to feel safe again going out on a Saturday night, or putting our kids on a school bus.
A good president with a gun wouldn’t have stopped a mass killing in Birmingham. A good president with a moral crusade and a plan just might stop the next one.
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To Save Children’s Lives, Harris Should Campaign on an Assault Weapons Ban
The shooter in Apalachee High School had an “AR-platform-style weapon,” the popular semi-automatic gun all-too-widely available in the U.S., with hundreds of variations flooding the multi-billion dollar gun market.
Sep 07, 2024
School shootings are recurring markers of a societal sickness, an unshakeable acceptance of violence and senseless death. The murder of two 14-year-old students and two teachers on Wednesday, and the wounding of nine others, at a mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, is the latest in this seemingly permanent contagion.
Ninth-grader Colt Gray, 14, had an “AR-platform-style weapon,” the popular semi-automatic gun all-too-widely available in the U.S., with hundreds of variations and modular accessories flooding the multi-billion dollar gun market.
We know that the accused lived in a home with guns, thanks to a statement from the FBI issued on Wednesday, that read in part:
In May 2023, the FBI… received several anonymous tips about online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time. The online threats contained photographs of guns.
Within 24 hours, the FBI determined the online post originated in Georgia and the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office referred the information to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office for action. The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office located a possible subject, a 13-year-old male, and interviewed him and his father. The father stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them. The subject denied making the threats online. Jackson County alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the subject… there was no probable cause to take any additional law enforcement action.
Authorities had advance warning over a year earlier. Apalachee High School then reportedly received a telephoned threat on the morning of the shooting, warning five schools would be targeted, starting with Apalachee.
The so-called “AR platform” has become the weapon of choice for mass shooters. At the Uvalde mass school shooting in Texas on May 24, 2022, the teenaged shooter killed 21 people, injured 21 more, and held 400 law enforcement personnel at bay, while he killed children one by one for over an hour. It was the lethality of the AR rifle that kept those hundreds of heavily armed agents too frightened to intervene.
As a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2019, Kamala Harris, then a U.S. senator from California, made a renewal of the assault weapons ban a central part of her campaign. She called for the same as recently as December, 2023, while still just the running mate for President Joe Biden.
But now, amid a tight general election race against former President Donald Trump, Harris is being more measured. As news broke of the Apalachee shooting, Harris was taking the stage at a rally in New Hampshire.
“Our hearts are with all the students, the teachers and their families, of course, and we are grateful to the first responders and the law enforcement that were on the scene. But this is just a senseless tragedy on top of so many senseless tragedies,” she said. “We have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country, once and for all… it doesn’t have to be this way.”
Kris Brown is the president of Brady, a gun violence prevention organization named after James Brady, the former press secretary for former President Ronald Reagan. Brady was shot in the head during the attempted assassination of Reagan. Brady survived, and went on with his wife Sarah to campaign for gun control.
“Jim and Sarah Brady are responsible for the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that was put into effect the year after the Brady Law passed in 1993. During the 10-year time period that that assault weapons ban was in effect, you saw a marked decrease in the kinds of mass shootings involving those firearms than in the previous period,” Kris Brown said on the Democracy Now! news hour, the day after the Apalachee shooting.
Brown is optimistic that positive change is possible, despite the entrenched power of the gun lobby.
“There is a growing desire for an assault weapons ban in this country,” she said, “including among Republicans and including among gun owners. So we will certainly push the Harris administration, if we have one, to make that a priority.”
These weapons of war, marketed to U.S. consumers as benign “modern sporting rifles,” need to be banned.
Assault weapons bans can work. A 1996 mass shooting in Australia left 35 dead and 23 injured. Almost immediately, that nation of gun lovers passed an assault weapons ban and mandatory buyback law. There hasn’t been a shooting anywhere near that scale there since.
Success won’t be so swift here in the U.S., a nation awash with hundreds of millions of guns. Still, the Harris-Walz campaign should make an assault weapons ban a central demand and take it to the voters in November. The lives of our nation’s children depend on it.
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Kamala Harris Wins March for Our Lives' First-Ever Endorsement
"Kamala Harris has proven herself to be a thoughtful and forceful leader on gun violence, who has time and again listened to young people and fought for our lives."
Jul 24, 2024
March for Our Lives, which was launched six years ago after yet another U.S. mass shooting, announced its first-ever political endorsement on Wednesday, backing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' bid for the White House.
"The stakes couldn't be higher," said the group, which was founded in the wake of the February 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. "As one of the largest youth-led movements in the nation, we are clear-eyed about the challenge ahead and we believe that Kamala Harris is uniquely suited to meet this moment."
Warning of the threat posed by Republican former President Donald Trump—who just survived an assassination attempt—and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), March for Our Lives said that "the country that young people will soon inherit stands at the precipice—on one side, authoritarianism that threatens our fundamental rights, including our right to live freely without fear of gun violence; on the other, a world where we can keep fighting to build the future that young people know we deserve."
"We need an ardent defender of democracy, a gun violence prevention champion, and a leader who will listen to young people, give us a seat at the table, and fight for our future. We believe that Kamala Harris is that candidate, and the right person to stand up for us and fight for the country we deserve," the organization continued, detailing how she has been "a forceful champion for gun safety and for young people" as vice president and a U.S. senator representing California.
"Young people are inheriting an increasingly precarious world," the group added, highlighting youth deaths from gun violence, Israel's war on the Gaza Strip, the escalating climate emergency, and far-right politicians pushing extremist policies. "We have been struggling to feel excited about voting in this election, and are increasingly pessimistic that change is possible. But we know that another Trump presidency is simply not an option that young people can afford—our lives are literally at stake."
Harris began seeking the Democratic nomination for November after President Joe Biden dropped out and endorsed her on Sunday. March for Our Lives said that "we call on her to run a campaign that fights for the policy solutions that young people want, like an assault weapons ban, action on climate change, a vigorous defense of abortion, court reform, and an immediate and lasting cease-fire in Gaza. Young people are savvy voters, who will see through empty promises and cynical horsetrading. We believe that Kamala will step above that and fight for a bold, progressive future—and we will hold her accountable for that."
Since Sunday, Parkland shooting survivor and March for Our Lives co-founder David Hogg has been fiercely supporting Harris, posting on his social media frequent updates about her historic fundraising successes over the past few days.
"Kamala Harris has proven herself to be a thoughtful and forceful leader on gun violence, who has time and again listened to young people and fought for our lives," Hogg said in a statement Wednesday. "Given her strong record on gun safety and prioritizing youth voices during her time in office, I'm proud that Kamala Harris will receive March for Our Lives' first-ever endorsement, and I'm so excited for our work to mobilize young people for her campaign."
Natalie Fall, the group's executive director, toldABC News—which first reported on the endorsement—that "we see a lot of energy around Vice President Harris in this election; there's no denying that. I think everybody's seeing it right now."
"I just think young people in particular didn't really see themselves represented or reflected in the Biden ticket in the way that they wanted. It's not to say that President Biden hasn't had great accomplishments," she explained. "But I think we need someone who can meet this moment and who is up to the challenge of taking Donald Trump to task and really defeating his effort to erode all of our institutions and our democracy."
March for Our Lives members plan to participate in this year's election through creative campaigns, door-knocking, and phone banks, Fall said. In a statement, she added that the group aims to elect not only Harris but also candidates "up and down the ballot" who support its priorities.
"March for Our Lives will work to mobilize young people across the country to support Vice President Harris and other down-ballot candidates, with a particular focus on the states and races where we can make up the margin of victory—in Arizona, New York, Michigan, and Florida," she pledged. "We are ready to double down on this commitment and elect the first woman, first Black woman, and the first person of South Asian descent to become our next president."
Welcoming the support, Harris' campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodriguez, said that the vice president "is proud to earn this historic endorsement and she is committed to working closely with young people to end the epidemic of gun violence. Kamala Harris heads the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, and she worked for years in the Senate and as a prosecutor to keep guns out of our schools and off our streets."
"In stark contrast, Donald Trump promises to weaken regulations on guns, sides with the NRA over our children's safety, and reduced funding for public safety in every single one of his budget proposals," she added, referring to the National Rifle Association. "No one is more experienced at or more committed to stopping this senseless violence than the vice president. With the support of March for Our Lives, a powerful organizing force that has mobilized millions of young voters, Vice President Kamala Harris will win in November so that everyone has the freedom to live safe from gun violence."
The gun violence prevention group's endorsement adds to Harris' mounting pile. Throughout the week, she has also received support from many Democratic governors and members of Congress as well as climate, labor, and reproductive rights groups.
As young people rally behind Harris, she is also seeing support from advocates for older Americans. Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, wrote in a Wednesday opinion piece for Common Dreams that "Joe Biden has been the best president for seniors in over half a century. Kamala Harris will be even better."
This post has been updated with comment from Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign.
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