Our Recent Mass Shootings Are Acts of Terrorism and Should Be Treated Accordingly
Since I first wrote about our recent spate of mass shootings last July in the wake of the Charleston church massacre, there have been countless other mass shootings. In that piece, I argued that the media had shrouded the real issue in that shooting with the Confederate flag, and not gone deeper to ferret out what I saw as the root cause of many of these tragedies, the shooter’s mental illness. I posited that we could do better than what we are doing right now, which is continue to engage in the age-old and trite argument that on one hand, we need to just get rid of the Second Amendment altogether, or on the other hand, do nothing at all. I predicted mass shootings would only continue, and I am saddened to say I was correct. But although I argued forcefully that we could do better at keeping firearms out of the hands of the mentally unstable, I never offered any practical plan of action. A solution to our mass shootings is the enigma of our times as the old argument rages hot as ever between those who want stricter gun control laws and those who say guns are not the issue. But perhaps we are approaching this epidemic from the wrong perspective.
Up front, this issue is too complex to give it justice in 3 minutes, so if you don’t have any more time than that, go ahead and move on to another article. But as I spent much time in the last few months attempting to dig deeper to come up with a solution that I had not offered, the deeper I went, the more I began to realize the quest is futile; not because possible solutions are hard to come up with, but because when one applies logic and plays the argument all the way out to its practical result, one hits the same wall: Gun restriction X will not prevent mass shootings.
Why Syllogisms Are Great Devices for Argument and Enlightenment, and Why Their Innumerable Postulations on The Gun Issue Never Equate to a Solution
Aristotle, pictured above, gave us the syllogism. A syllogism is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two or more propositions or premises that are asserted or assumed to be true. Generally, these premises are defined as the major and minor premises. For instance, a simple version of a syllogism is as follows. Major premise: All men are mortal. Minor premise: Socrates is a man. Conclusion: Socrates is mortal. Syllogisms are great devices for argument because they are a double-edged sword; they help establish when an argument is sound, but they also reveal when an arguments fails. And on the gun issue, almost every syllogistic argument that claims outlawing guns will stop mass shootings fails.
“Other Nations Without Guns Don’t Have Our High Rates of Gun Killings.”
Up front, it’s necessary to point out a few fallacies in the arguments of those who think the simple solution is to get rid of guns. One of the primary arguments made by those who want to get rid of the Second Amendment and guns is that other nations where gun possession is illegal don’t have the high rate of gun killings we do in the U.S. They point to these statistics alone and think that’s the end of the argument: taking away everyone’s guns will stop mass shootings. Period. But it’s just not that simple. These people never take their argument all the way through to the end. If their argument is that gun-free nations don’t have mass shootings, then the inverse ought to be true too; other nations that allow gun ownership should have the same high levels of mass shootings as we do in America, right? But that isn’t true.
For instance, Switzerland allows gun ownership and has had only one mass shooting in recent history, in 2001. Right after it, an anti-gun lobby attempted to restrict firearms, but the populace rejected that referendum in a nation-wide vote. Switzerland should be having as many mass shootings as the U.S., right? But they don’t. So what’s the difference between Switzerland and the U.S.? In a single word: Culture. The Swiss treat gun ownership as responsibility and duty and inculcate their citizens in the safe ownership and use of firearms. As I stated in my article last year, we don’t do that in the U.S. And our popular culture glorifies violence. By the time he has reached age 16, the average American teenager has seen thousands of killings on television, in theaters, on the internet, and committed them while playing video games. Other than a gun being used, mass shootings have one other common thread, and it’s there — rather than guns and the Second Amendment — that we should be looking for a possible solution to this epidemic.
Why Scrapping the 2nd Amendment is Not an Option (And Why Even if It Were Scrapped, That Would Still Not Keep Firearms Out of the Hands of Would-Be Shooters)
Regardless of the faulty reasoning in some anti-gun arguments, let’s go ahead and say we want to get rid of the Second Amendment. Syllogism: Major Premise: The 2nd Amendment gives us the right to bear (possess) firearms. Minor premise: Mass shootings are committed with firearms. Conclusion: If we get rid of the 2nd Amendment, we get rid of mass shootings because no will will have the right to possess a firearm to commit a mass shooting.
For those who want to get rid of the Second Amendment altogether, there are numerous problems with these arguments, most noticeably the perception that all we have to do is take a vote in Congress tomorrow to get it accomplished. That’s what a lot of virulent anti-gun proponents think; just vote people into office who will get rid of guns.
I see a lot of these arguments from foreign citizens who come from a place where there is no Constitution, typically parliamentary nations where they are used to licking their fingers and sticking them in the air to test the wind, changing their minds, and changing their leaders and laws on an almost daily basis. The notion of a single document that guards against such emotive and reflexive change is totally unfamiliar to them. And sadly, a lot of Americans seem to have picked up this type of reactionary thought process. But the United States doesn’t operate that way.
First off, a court can’t capriciously just throw out a piece of the Constitution; the drafters created a vehicle within the Constitution for doing that. It’s in Article 5, in pertinent part: “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress…” So it first takes two-thirds of both houses of Congress or the states to propose any amendment; if that hurdle is cleared, then it takes three-fourths of the states to change the Constitution.
How does that operate with amendments? Let’s take prohibition as a good example. In 1920, the 18th amendment created prohibition, outlawing alcohol in the United States. After just 13 years, including an upsurge in crime and violence surrounding the illicit production, distribution and sale of illegal alcohol (and the lack of a government ability to tax it), the amendment was repealed in 1933 with the 21st amendment. It is the only time in American history where an amendment was repealed. That’s something Second Amendment opponents should consider. Moreover, there has not been a Constitutional Amendment since 1992. That year the 27th amendment limiting when Congress can increase or decrease their personal salaries was ratified after a 202-year long wait. That’s right; the amendment was submitted by Congress to the states for ratification in 1789. Typically Congress gives the states seven years to ratify an amendment. So changing the Constitution is extremely hard to do.
Accordingly, to get rid of the Second Amendment today would require not only getting Congress to adopt a proposed amendment, but 38 of 50 states to ratify it. That just isn’t going to happen. And one common theme running through the anti-gun position is that these shooters came out of nowhere when they committed their atrocities, providing no warning. This feeds the argument that the only way to prevent this from continuing is to just cut off everyone’s access to firearms. But that just isn’t correct. Before most, if not all, of these shootings, the shooter showed signs of having problems. A lack of intervention combined with no way to legally restrict the person’s access to guns prevented anyone from possibly heading off the act.
Why Amending and Expanding the Primary Federal Illegal Possession Statute (18 U.S.C. 922g) Will Not Automatically Solve the Problem
Syllogism: Major Premise: Federal law already prevents certain persons from possessing firearms. Minor Premise: The kinds of people who have committed some of these recent mass shootings are not captured under the law. Conclusion: If we amend the federal “illegal possession” law with more categories of persons who may not possess firearms, it will stop these kinds of people from committing mass shootings. This is one place I thought I might find a solution.
For decades the federal criminal law in Title 18 of the U.S. code has set forth a laundry list of exceptions to a person’s right to possess a firearm. 18 U.S.C. 922(g) makes it a felony for anyone who falls in the following categories to possess a firearm:
- Convicted felons;
- Fugitives;
- “unlawful users of or addicted to any controlled substance,”
- anyone who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution,
- illegal immigrants,
- anyone who has been discharged dishonorably from the Armed Forces,
- Americans who have renounced their citizenship,
- persons under a restraining order to not to harass, stalk, or threaten an intimate partner and who have been found by a court to present a threat to a domestic partner or child, and
- anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.
The categories italicized will be revisited later, as each one includes a situation in which a judge has intervened and ordered that the person not be allowed to possess a firearm. All of these categories have been upheld by the courts as not violating the Second Amendment. This list already captures people who are mentally defective. It’s not that far of leap to expand it to include people who exhibit behavior or make statements that present a threat to engage in some kind of violence motivated by politics, religion, or jihadist radicalization. And if you just dig a bit into all of these recent shootings, you can find evidence the shooter expressed these types of sentiments before they acted.
And as I said up front, scrapping the Second Amendment or expanding the above list of ineligibles will not keep firearms out of the hands of woud-be shooters. How do we know this? Because any line federal prosecutor who prosecutes gun cases will tell you the bread and butter of his or her caseload are 18 U.S.C. 922(g) cases in which felons have been caught in possession of a firearm. For example, in fiscal year 2014, the Department of Justice brought 7, 925 gun prosecutions, and a shocking 51.3 percent of these (4,065) involved a convicted felon possessing a firearm.
What does that statistic tell us? That despite a long-standing law on the books that makes it illegal for a felon to have a firearm, they are routinely able to obtain one anyway.
How do we get out ahead of this problem? We have to find a way to intervene before the would-be shooter acts. So how might we possibly do that? Other than the use of a firearm, what else do these mass shootings have in common?
The Other Common Thread in All Mass Shootings: They Are Acts of Terrorism
Yes, mass shootings are committed with guns. But let’s go deeper. It appears the precipitating factors for mass shootings take a number of different forms, including mental illness, or a multi-pronged motive under which I will put politics, radicalization, religion; what I will call jihad. Jihad can take on a number of definitions, and to be fair to Arabic speakers and Muslims, the root definition is not what it has become in recent years. Some say it simply means the duty of Muslims to maintain their religion, and it is not a violent concept. Others at the opposite end of the spectrum say it means “holy war.” I just want to make it clear when I use the term I am not directing it at any nationality or religion; I will use it to describe any shooter who has stated a political or religious basis for his act. So that can apply to not only someone who is a Muslim, but it can also apply to any shooter who claims to be a Christian or other religion or who claims to have targeted his victims based on their religion or political stances. In that vein, then, to punctuate my point, Eric Robert Rudolf, a white, self-proclaimed Christian American who blew up an abortion clinic, bombed an LGBT bar, and set off the Olympic Park bomb in Atlanta in 1996, was a jihadist. Because he targeted his victims for political reasons, he was also a terrorist, which will lead into my argument for a possible solution below.
With respect to motives, let’s take a few recent mass-shootings in the order they happened. On July 16, 2015, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, the Chattanooga shooter, opened fire and killed five Marines and a Sailor. He had a history of mental problems and had also expressed a desire to “martyr” himself. The notion of “martyrdom” is familiar to those of us who have worked in the national security and counter-terrorism arenas. The most distilled definition of this term is sacrificing one’s self for a cause in the hopes of reward in the afterlife. In modern terrorism terms it means engaging in a suicidal bombing or similar act. The nineteen al-Qaeda hijackers on 9/11 were hailed as martyrs by their “brothers.” So Abdulazeez falls into the mental illness and jihadist categories.
On October 1, 2015, Chris Harper-Mercer killed 10 people at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, in which he apparently targeted Christians during his shooting spree. It also came out afterward that he may have suffered from mental illness. He falls into the heading of mental illness and politics/religion.
On November 27, 2015, Robert Dear opened fire at a Planned Parenthood Center in Colorado, killing three people including a veteran and a police officer. He claims to have committed his shooting because he is opposed to abortion. His Public Defender has expressed concerns about Dear’s mental competency. So Robert Dear falls into the hybrid category of mental illness, religion and politics.
And on December 2nd, 2015, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married couple living in the city of Redlands, targeted a San Bernardino County Department of Public Health training event and holiday party of about 80 employees. They killed fourteen people before fleeing and later dying in a shootout with police officers. On December 6th, the President called the shootings an act of terrorism. In testimony before Congress on December 9th, FBI Director James Comey stated the shooters were “homegrown violent extremists” who were “inspired by foreign terrorist organizations.” Comey said that the attackers “were talking to each other about jihad and martyrdom,” before their engagement and as early as the end of 2013. The motive here appears to be the same as in the other shootings: terrorism.
Then, after this spate of mass shootings, things appeared to calm down for a while. And then in the early hours of last Sunday, in Orlando, Omar Mateen opened fire with an AR-15 automatic rifle in a crowded nightclub and killed at least 49 people. This all sounds sickeningly familiar: A semi-automatic rifle is used to exact a massive body count, where the shooter appears to be tied to a terrorist group and targeted a certain group of people based on his political and social beliefs. In this instance, it doesn’t appear to involve mental illness. Irregardless, it was an act of terrorism.
So what do many of these shootings since Charleston back in June, 2015, have in common, along with a firearm being used? As with Eric Rudolf, they are all on some level acts of terrorism. The most succinct definition of terrorism is “the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.” Under that broad definition we can put anyone who had a political or religious motive behind their acts, including the subject of my prior article, Dylan Roof (Confederate flag/racism). And whatever the precipitating motives have been for these mass shootings — mental illness, politics, jihad, hate, racism — in the end they are all acts of terrorism.
While a solution for the mass shooting epidemic continues to evade us, we actually have evidence that scrapping the Second Amendment or outlawing gun ownership for law-abiding citizens is not the answer. Even a ban on assault weapons does not prevent mass shootings; the Columbine massacre in 1999 happened in the middle of the 1994–2004 assault weapons ban. A terrorist — regardless of his motives — will find a way to inflict mass casualties. They have used everything from bombs to box-cutters. None of the 9–11 hijackers had a firearm on September 11. It’s time we started treating these attacks for what they are: acts of terrorism. So what should we consider when we seek to prevent acts of gun terrorism? Where can we start?
Threat assessments
Threat assessments take place every day in a variety of areas. Developed in the 1980s, threat assessments are done at schools, colleges, universities, and workplaces to identify individuals who may be contemplating acts of violence, and they are also used by law enforcement and security agencies to prevent attacks on the President and other public officials. Threat assessments have thwarted numerous potential school attacks. As stated, judges can already restrict certain categories of people from having firearms, including people deemed a threat to others, and there’s no reason courts can’t be given more discretion to work with threat assessment teams to try and thwart impending gun massacres. Could this type of judicial intervention have provided a wake-up call to any of our recent mass shooters? It’s difficult to say, but we will never know if we don’t take action.
Judicial Intervention
In 2011, the British government instituted the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act. Under this law, the Home Secretary can impose various restrictions on those who engage in actions and behavior similar to what the Orlando shooter did prior to last Sunday. These measures and rulings are subject to review by the courts, who can uphold, modify, or remove them. But at least the British have a system in place for taking action when a suspect has engaged in possibly threatening actions. The U.S. should consider this approach. Would an order from the Attorney General or a judge to add a certain suspect to the list of ineligibles prevent that person from engaging in a mass shooting? It’s hard to know, but we will never know if we don’t take any action.
None of these considerations are easy or quick solutions, but we should start thinking about them and start pushing our elected representatives to start talking about them. As stated, Congress tried banning assault weapons in the 90s, and it didn’t solve the epidemic. It’s time to get more creative.
