ANALYSIS | Why the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court Can't, or Won't, Stop Mass Shootings

These were the most violent school shootings in the US 2:08

(CNN) --

This cycle of gun violence is sad, predictable and permanent.

It is permanent because presidents are powerless while the Capitol is paralyzed by minority rule.

And the federal courts, while willing to hand power back to the people's representatives on abortion, have systematically struck down state laws to reasonably curb access to guns.

One part of the country thinks the answer is fewer guns, while another part wants to see more guns everywhere to take down deranged attackers.

Journalists like me aren't even writing new stories about how little can be done to address the problem.

They are regurgitating old stories written after previous shootings because nothing has changed.

We know that gun violence can happen anywhere because it has happened everywhere.

Schools, churches, supermarkets, sports fields, Walmarts.

Gun violence targets young children, Black people, Asian Americans, random citizens, and politicians of both parties.

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In 2021, more U.S. children ages 17 and younger died from gun violence than have died from COVID-19 during the pandemic:

• 1,560 gun violence deaths in people ages 0-17 in 2021, according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA).

• 1,070 deaths from covid-19 in people aged 0 to 17 during the pandemic, as of Wednesday, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, for its acronym in English)

incompetent president

President Joe Biden couldn't even get a director confirmed for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in the first year and a half of his presidency.

His first candidate, though a career ATF official, had ties to groups that support gun restrictions.

His second candidate, Steve Dettelbach, had his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

Biden, doing what he can, has launched administrative efforts to crack down on so-called homemade “ghost guns,” but he lacks the power to do much about weapons used in mass shootings.

• This is what you should know about "ghost weapons" and why Biden calls for their regulation

The administration of former President Donald Trump tried to reinterpret an existing law against civilian ownership of machine guns to ban weapon modifiers like the one used to kill 58 people in Las Vegas in 2017. Gun rights groups sued the government of Biden by the norm.

senate paralyzed

Following the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, a majority of senators agreed to a bipartisan bill to expand background checks for all gun purchases except those between family members, but it failed because a bipartisan minority opposed the bill. bill.

These were the most violent school shootings in the US 2:08

Notably, the three Democrats who opposed that 2013 bill have been replaced by Republicans in the Senate.

Another Democrat opposed the bill on procedural grounds.

Three Republicans supported the bill and two of the seats they represented are up for grabs in a hotly contested election this fall.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had no answers on how to move gun legislation forward, aside from encouraging people to vote in November's midterm elections.

But no likely election result will give either party the 60 votes needed to pass meaningful legislation.

partisanship grows

Democrats, who now narrowly control the Senate, have moved toward a vote on a background check bill, but it is doomed to fail without those 60 votes.

There are efforts to legislate in other ways, with red flag laws to take guns away from people who raise concerns about a shooting, for example.

In Florida, a red flag law was enacted after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018, for example.

Any compromise seems to be a long way from being realized.

And it's not clear that those bills have prevented most of the people who carry out these horrific crimes from using guns.

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said he worries that red flag laws also unnecessarily take guns away from people.

"Pretty much every [law] I've seen here has been the kind that sweeps law-abiding gun owners into what I consider to be overreach," Tillis told CNN on Tuesday.

Many states continue to relax laws.

The laws of other states do not work

The Texas Tribune newspaper looks at how Texas, despite having recorded many mass shootings in the state, has moved toward increasingly lax gun laws.

Last year, gun permits were removed, allowing most people to openly carry weapons without a permit or training.

Meanwhile, laws in other states have been ineffective.

Red flag laws failed to identify the shooter who attacked black Americans in a Buffalo supermarket this month.

A red flag law in Indiana failed to identify the shooter who killed eight people at a FedEx facility in 2021. The law has since been changed.

The advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety notes that perpetrators of mass shootings often manage to work their way around property restrictions, despite prior warning signs.

Courts nullify laws

Most gun restrictions are enforced at the state level, and there are a wide variety of laws across the country.

Even in states where a strong majority supports gun control measures, the federal courts have stood in the way.

Citing the heroism of musket-toting youths he says fought in the American Revolutionary War hundreds of years ago, a federal judge earlier this month struck down a California law that prohibited the sale of semi-automatic weapons to minors. 21 years old.

The Supreme Court appears willing to increase the number of guns on US streets if it decides to strike down New York's law regulating concealed carry.

A decision is expected in the next month or so.

The country is clearly divided on the question of weapons and how to restrict them.

There is an apocryphal belief among many Americans that the Constitution treats gun ownership in the same light as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

An increasingly conservative Supreme Court has turned that belief into precedent.

Surely you have read that large majorities in the country support certain restrictions on weapons, and that is true.

Support for gun restrictions varies

But it is not a large majority of the country that is seeking a complete rewrite of the nation's gun laws.

CNN polling director Jennifer Agiesta notes that "support for tougher gun laws tends to rise after high-profile mass shootings, like the one at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, which occurred a few weeks before Gallup measured its recent high of 67% support for tougher laws in March 2018."

In more recent Gallup polls, only a narrow majority of Americans favor tougher laws on gun sales, and a poll last year by ABC News and The Washington Post found that about half of the public say neither Neither stricter laws nor stricter enforcement would reduce the number of violent crimes in the United States.

All this could change after this new and horrible chain of shootings.

In an analysis of polling conducted by the Pew Research Center last year, there is broad support for some specific ideas that go far beyond what is possible in Congress:

• 87% support preventing the purchase of weapons from people with mental illnesses.

• 81% support private gun sales and sales at gun shows being subject to background checks.

People support concrete things

According to the Pew analysis, smaller but substantial majorities support more contentious ideas:

• 66% supported creating a federal database to track gun sales.

• 64% approved of "banning high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds."

• 63% approved of "banning assault weapons."

Despite the Supreme Court's skepticism about New York's gun law, only 20% in the Pew poll, including 35% of gun owners nationwide, favored a law that "allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit."

What all of this means is that despite claims that something, anything, needs to be done, the US government is predisposed to inaction, the courts are very respectful of gun rights, and absolutists have a grip on gun rights. whole system.

Until one or all of those things change, and as long as there are more guns than people in America, this cycle will continue.

Firearms Shootings in the United States