When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down New York’s 109-year-old gun law this summer, it also eliminated an effective way to reduce gun violence through concealed carry policies in the U.S.
New York’s gun law required that people carrying guns in public demonstrate that they had a proper cause to do so before obtaining a license. But after the Court’s ruling that people have a constitutional right to carry a handgun in self-defense, New York’s ‘May Issue’ carry law became unconstitutional. Similar laws that exist in eight other states and Washington D.C. are also likely to be challenged.
Historically, there have been four types of laws regulating concealed carry in the states:
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Prohibited: Prohibits individuals from carrying guns in a concealed manner
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May Issue: Requires permits for concealed carrying, gives law enforcement discretion to issue permits to allow concealed carrying of weapons
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Shall Issue: Requires permits for concealed carrying, removes law enforcement discretion in issuing permits
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Permitless: Allows concealed carry without a permit
The Court’s limiting of state power to control guns has repercussions on public health; In 2020, 45,000 people died from firearms. Over 450 mass shootings have already occurred in 2022, including the deadliest shooting this year of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, which followed the shooting of 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket.
Ali Rowhani-Rahbar and Frederick P. Rivara of the University of Washington School of Public Health have been studying injury and violence control and prevention around firearms. Here, Rivara and Rowhani-Rahbar share the repercussions of the Court’s decision and what needs to happen to prevent gun violence moving forward.
What impact will the Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen have on the proliferation of gun violence in the U.S.?
Rivara: We can expect that this ruling will have an adverse effect on firearm deaths and injuries. New York was one of several states that had ‘May Issue’ laws, which required a proper cause to obtain a concealed carry permit. These types of laws were attempts by states to lower the risk of firearm suicide, homicide, and unintentional injuries and deaths. Many other states had ‘Shall Issue’ laws, which are less strict than ‘May Issue’ laws and don’t require a proper cause to obtain a permit. But in states with ‘Shall Issue’ laws, there is a 9-15% higher rate of homicide and violent crime.
There has been new legislation recently passed by Congress and signed into law by the president to try to reduce the burden of firearm injuries. This legislation at the federal level is important, but in the last decade states have been much more proactive than the federal government in passing legislation to reduce the harm from firearms.
What implications will the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling have on Washington state?
Rivara: Washington state already has a ‘Shall Issue’ law, so there will be no direct effect in the state. However, the concern is that the ruling may result in other laws restricting access to firearms in Washington state and elsewhere to be challenged.
What are some examples of policies in Washington state that are effective in reducing gun violence?
Rivara: In general, policies that restrict access to firearms by people who would use them to harm themselves or others are effective. In Washington state, this includes universal background checks, extreme risk protection orders, limiting high-capacity magazines, and limiting the age for purchase of semi-automatic rifles.
How do the gun policies of neighboring states impact how effective your home state’s gun policies can be in reducing death and injuries by firearms? Does this speak to whether it’s more desirable to have federal laws around guns than leaving policymaking solely up to states?
Rivara: While it may be more desirable to have federal rather than state laws for firearms given the ease of cross border transport of firearms, it is really a moot point. These more effective measures, such as universal background checks, are not politically feasible at the national level and unlikely to be feasible any time soon. Thus, state laws are what we have and need to focus on.
On the other hand, there is a need for better enforcement and more effective implementation of federal laws on firearm sales and possession. For example, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System is used in a variety of ways across the states and even within states. Some states have centralized the process for background checks while in others it may be much more decentralized and done by the local police department.
Over time, some states have changed their policies around carrying handguns in public from more restrictive in the past to more lenient in the present day. What caused this shift?
Rivara: This is purely due to political pressure by the NRA and other such gun rights lobbying groups, which over the last few decades have touted self-protection as the reason people should have guns. They use every mass shooting to say, “The only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
What does the research tell us about this argument? People who support right-to-carry laws argue that arming more people with guns will increase safety, because more armed citizens can more easily intervene in order to deter violence.
Rivara: The data indicates that these right-to-carry laws are associated with higher rates of firearm violence. Yes, there may be the rare situation where someone in a mall or church shoots someone to stop a mass shooting but look at Uvalde: there was not a lack of good guys having guns to stop the massacre.
Dr. Rowhani-Rahbar, your team studied what proportion of handgun-owning adults in the US carry handguns based on the permissiveness of their state's policy on carrying. What did you find?
Rowhani-Rahbar: We found that proportionally fewer handgun owners carry concealed loaded handguns in states that allow issuing authorities substantial discretion in granting carrying permits. The proportion of handgun owners who carried concealed loaded handguns in the past 30 days was:
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21% in permitless states (95% confidence interval (CI) = 12%, 35%)
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20% in Shall Issue states (95% CI = 16%, 24%)
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9% in May-Issue states (95% CI = 6%, 15%)
How has gun ownership changed over the years in America?
Rowhani-Rahbar: Since the mid-1990s, the U.S. civilian gun stock has grown from approximately 200 million to more than 300 million. Today, gun owners own more guns and are more likely to own both handguns and long guns than in the 1990s.
Based on the National Firearms Survey in 2021, an estimated 29% of US adults personally owned firearms, representing approximately 75 million people. About 10% were estimated to live in households with firearms but did not personally own guns. Most firearm owners were male, white, married and lived in a rural or suburban area. About 1 in 3 lived in a household with children. In 2019, approximately 2.4 million U.S. adults became new gun owners (0.9% of U.S. adults); in 2020, 3.8 million did (1.5% of U.S. adults).
In 1996, the Dickey Amendment halted all federal funding for gun violence research. What impact did that have on our knowledge of this topic?
Rivara: The Dickey Amendment had a devastating effect on firearm injury research as a public health problem. Following the Dickey Amendment, there was in effect a prohibition of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding firearm research, and as a result, a dearth of research published for about two decades.
In 2019, Congress began funding research on gun violence for the first time in over two decades, allocating $25 million annually. What does this mean for gun violence research?
Rivara: In the last five years, the NIH and the CDC, as well as philanthropy and foundations (e.g., Arnold Ventures) have funded firearm research, and the number of studies and investigators in the field has blossomed, if not exploded. Additionally, states like Washington, California, and New Jersey have dedicated funds to firearm research. Grassroots organizations have also become more active in supporting this cause.
Rowhani-Rahbar: While this new funding is critical to help develop the field, more is needed considering the burden of firearm-related harm in our country and the fact that the field has been so profoundly underdeveloped for so long. These funded projects will address some of the unanswered questions in the field; however, plenty of other questions remain which will require an answer.