Editorial: In America's endless debate, using guns for 'safety' trumps push for controls

A boy walks along a memorial outside Robb Elementary School created to honour the victims killed in the school shooting at Uvalde, Texas. Photo / AP

One of the myths about mass shootings in the United States is that nothing changes afterwards.

In fact, the inertia in recent years has been all around introducing sensible gun control legislation at a federal level.

In contrast, the people trying to advance alternative ideas - which ironically involve weapons - have been far more successful. The result has been regular horrific events, a creeping security focus in US schools for years, and an increasingly surreal public debate.

It is the opposite approach to what has happened internationally, including in New Zealand, in response to eruptions of mass gun violence. Various countries have tightened rules over gun ownership and tried to reduce the amount of guns in circulation.

America's own experience with gun violence shows that there were far fewer rampages when a 10-year ban on assault arms was in place under the Clinton administration from 1994.

The murder weapon in countless attacks since the Bush administration allowed the ban to lapse has been the AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle. President Joe Biden said last month: "When we passed the assault weapons ban — mass shootings went down. When the law expired — mass shootings tripled."

A lot of the focus after the massacre of innocents in a primary school at Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed, has been on how school safety can be increased rather than doing anything about guns themselves. In 2021 the state's Republican governor signed a law which ended the need for a licence to carry a handgun.

The Republican Governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, in an interview with CNN proposed arming schools by saying: "Think about after 9/11 ... we put air marshals there, we put armed guards there, we armed the cockpits ... We could do the same thing with our schools."

Ohio, which has a Republican-controlled general assembly and a GOP governor, has now finalised a bill that allows teachers and other school staff to be armed once they have completed up to 24 hours of basic training. School districts would have to notify parents if they decide to let armed teachers onto the grounds.

Teacher groups in the state say the bill would put "educators in the impossible position of making split-second life-and-death decisions without sufficient training".

AP reported on Saturday that Axon, which develops Tasers and police body cameras, wants to build drones armed with Tasers that could fly in schools and "help prevent the next Uvalde, Sandy Hook, or Columbine".

New York University law professor Barry Friedman, who is a member of the firm's ethics board, called it a "crackpot" idea. "Drones can't fly through closed doors ... unless you have a drone in every single classroom in America, which seems insane, the idea just isn't going to work."

This Thursday, parents of victims and survivors of Uvalde will appear before a House of Representatives committee to try to create momentum for change. Biden has appealed for Congress to act rather than just talk.

An analysis by the New York Times found that four ideas for gun control now being discussed in Congress might have made a difference in dozens of shootings had they been law in the past two decades. These involve the age of legally buying guns, background checks, safer gun storage and the use of large capacity magazines.

Billions are being spent on school security and technical solutions and experts say more money is needed for counsellors for stressed students. Guns are now the biggest danger to young people in the US.

America's entrenched gun culture means adapting and trying to survive it are the areas where changes in future will most likely be made.