Maybe there's a bit of a silver lining in having a president who's a populist, who doesn't have much institutional knowledge on public policy to guide his actions. Maybe this once. On this one topic.
Whereas other politicians are finding ways not to deal with the gun laws, or lack of same--or worse, editorialists from coast to coast who bravely say something should be done, but never say what--Donald J. Trump seems to be all ears when it comes to reforming some of America's gun rules. Better said, he seems to understand what can be done, and what should be.
Compare that to those calling for the repealing of the Second Amendment. (See regular columnist Bret Stephens on these pages Friday.) That just isn't going to happen in our system. Not the way the rulebook, i.e., the Constitution of the United States, is set up. The best bet for those wanting to excise the Second Amendment is to pack the United States Supreme Court with more liberal justices who'll say the Second Amendment doesn't really say what it says. But that could take a generation. And how many more school shootings must we put up with till then?
What can be done today--or at least soon?
Surprisingly, a lot. If we only will.
For example:
• In the aftermath of the Las Vegas shootings, some called for the banning of bump stocks, which attach to a rifle's stock and allow for it to be shot close to fully automatic. The ban was a good idea then, and it's a good idea now. If fully automatic weapons are to be closely regulated in this country, and they are, then why not also regulate a device that turns regular rifles into machine guns?
• The president also seems to agree that raising the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 is a good idea. At least he tweets so. For those who've been asking what new law on the books could have prevented the latest massacre in Florida, here's one. The perp in the latest case, Nikolas Cruz, is 19 years old.
• There's something called the Gun Show Loophole that doesn't affect only gun shows. (A definition that's off just enough to set the Internet afire with conspiracy theories.) Private sellers without federal licenses aren't required to conduct background checks before selling a firearm to a complete stranger. And this can happen at gun shows. There should be a rule on the books to tighten this regulation at places where, say, 50 or more people meet to buy and sell guns. This wouldn't be a cure-all, obviously, but it's one more step that'd be easy enough to take. Having background checks at Walmart isn't going to do a whole lot of good if a criminal can grab a gun for the price of a $10 ticket at the fairgrounds.
• Currently, schools are what's fashionably known as Soft Targets. Change that soonest. We've seen schools with locks on outer doors. This should be a requirement. All teachers should have panic buttons, too. And yes, Mr. President, active shooter drills should be required. Every bit as much as fire drills are.
• A dozen states are mulling so-called "red flag bills," which would allow law enforcement or family members to take steps to keep firearms out of the hands of the unbalanced or mentally unwell. This wouldn't be a haphazard undertaking. A judge would have to sign off on it. But by all accounts, such a law would have been an obstruction to the Florida killer. Legislation for this might take years to become law in the several states. So let's get started.
• But the best reform being debated these days, and one which the president also tweets: Why not allow certain teachers to be armed on campus?
The Washington Post published an op-ed by a teacher this past week titled "Why I will never carry a gun in my classroom." Unlike most recent opinionators, her essay was both compelling and thoughtful. But--and there's always a but--nobody is asking her to carry a gun on campus, and likely never will. Allowing some teachers to carry weapons, however, would make your neighborhood school less likely to be a soft target. And if this particular teacher isn't interested, maybe someday she'll be glad the teacher in the next room was.
We'd prefer another approach: Having more armed police in our nation's schools. Trained cops, off-duty cops, cops who've been trained already, know what they're doing and could use the extra money. And would certainly make the crazies think twice before walking onto a campus with a weapon. But if a rural school, a poor school, a school 30 minutes away from the sheriff's office, can't afford police protection, the protection of an armed and recurrently trained vice principal is one more layer between our kids and the crazies.
Maybe the best thing we can do for our kids, ourselves, and even the disturbed killers who stalk the rest of us is to take the advice of a physician of some note, Dr. Charles Krauthammer, who wrote this in 2012:
"Monsters shall always be with us, but in earlier days they did not roam free. As a psychiatrist in Massachusetts in the 1970s, I committed people--often right out of the emergency room--as a danger to themselves or to others. I never did so lightly, but I labored under none of the crushing bureaucratic and legal constraints that make involuntary commitment infinitely more difficult today.
"Why do you think we have so many homeless? Destitution? Poverty has declined since the 1950s. The majority of those sleeping on grates are mentally ill. In the name of civil liberties, we let them die with their rights on.
"A tiny percentage of the mentally ill become mass killers. Just about everyone around Tucson shooter Jared Loughner sensed he was mentally ill and dangerous. But in effect, he had to kill before he could be put away--and (forcibly) treated.
"Random mass killings were three times more common in the 2000s than in the 1980s, when gun laws were actually weaker. Yet a 2011 University of California at Berkeley study found that states with strong civil-commitment laws have about a third lower homicide rate."
The killer in Florida was held for a psychiatric evaluation in 2016 after he sent out a Snapchat video of him cutting his own arms and saying he wanted to buy a gun. That is some red flag. But he was a minor and could only be held for 12 hours, according to dispatches. He was let go, put on the streets, and finally got his gun(s), and his victims.
We can talk about theoretical recourses, such as changing the Constitution or the federal courts. But while we waste time on that, we are in a race to beat the next shooter to the next massacre. First things first. Let's do what we can do now.
Editorial on 02/24/2018