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NYT Review of Shootings Finds No Easy Gun Control Fix

Pushes gun control anyway

New York Times
Credit: Instagram user edelage
October 25, 2016

The New York Times published on Friday a review of a number of shootings and found no easy legislative fix for the cases involved.

The paper looked at 130 shootings from 2015 where four or more people were injured and at least one was killed (including the attacker), a standard apparently taken from a group of anti-gun Reddit users. The shootings spanned a wide variety of crimes, from drug-related attacks to domestic violence to random violence.

"They afford a panoramic view of some of the gun control debate’s fundamental issues: whether background checks and curbs on assault weapons limit violence; whether the proliferation of open-carry practices and rules allowing guns on college campuses is a spark to violence; whether it is too easy for dangerously mentally ill or violent people to get guns," the Times' Sharon LaFraniere and Emily Palmer wrote.

After reviewing the shootings, the authors concluded that there is no simple gun control answer to preventing these types of shootings in the future.

"The findings are dispiriting to anyone hoping for simple legislative fixes to gun violence," they wrote. "In more than half the 130 cases, at least one assailant was already barred by federal law from having a weapon, usually because of a felony conviction, but nonetheless acquired a gun. Including those who lacked the required state or local permits, 64 percent of the shootings involved at least one attacker who violated an existing gun law."

"Of the remaining assailants, 40 percent had never had a serious run-in with the law and probably could have bought a gun even in states with the strictest firearm controls. Typically those were men who killed their families and then themselves," the article continued.

That conclusion did not keep the authors from advocating for stricter gun control measures in urban areas, universal background checks, restrictions on open carry, restrictions on campus carry, permits for purchasing firearms, and greater discretion for government officials to deny American citizens access to firearms.

They also repeatedly misused the term "assault rifle," misapplying it to semi-automatic-only rifles.