Shifting Perspectives: The Transformation of America's Priorities on Guns and Human Life

Historian and author Dominic Erdozain, known for "One Nation Under Guns," shared his thoughts in a recent commentary. Follow him on X @domerdozain. In light of a recent mass shooting in Maine, Stephen King wrote a brief yet bleak essay on America's addiction to firearms. Despite suffering and slaughter, King stated that Americans' love for guns remains unshakeable.

Dominic Erdozain

Following the national school walkout after the 2018 Parkland mass shooting, Lane Murdock, the student leader, has left the country. Burned out and disillusioned, Murdock now resides in Scotland, where people live without fear of guns, and freedom is a reality.

The sentiment is appreciated, but it changes when you realize that nearly everything we currently live with, from assault rifles to stand-your-ground laws, is actually new. This troubling pattern of domestic armament doesn't reflect the American heritage or the will of the people. It's a political experiment, created and orchestrated by a militant minority. Recognizing this reveals that something can be done.

America has always had a problem with guns, but never on this level. Every day, 327 people are shot in the United States, with over a hundred of them being fatal. These numbers are increasing. Mass shootings, involving four or more victims, have almost doubled in the past five years. Gun deaths among children, already at record highs, increased by 41.6% between 2018 and 2021.

School shootings, once rare and exceptional events, are now becoming more common. In 2010, there were 13 such incidents nationwide. Last year, the number had jumped to 79. By mid-November of this year, there had already been 77. Shockingly, more than half of the 36 deadliest shootings since 1903 have occurred in the last decade.

No previous generation has faced this level of violence. The death toll continues to rise due to the availability of new, more powerful weapons, as well as the right to carry them outside the home. The current norms would have been unimaginable to Americans in any other era.

In the mid-20th century, the majority of Americans were strongly against the idea of carrying weapons and were unsettled by the sight of guns in public. Laws against carrying weapons dated back to the beginning of the country and were firmly established in common law. While shotguns and hunting rifles were commonly owned, handguns were viewed with fear and disdain.

By 1959, almost 60% of Americans supported a complete ban on handguns, and only 16% of households in the United States had such a weapon, with many of them located in the South.

In 1969, the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence suggested significant actions to decrease the amount of handguns in circulation, which was then approximated to be 24 million.

Briana Ruiz's son, Daniel.

Briana Ruiz

Milton S. Eisenhower, the chairman of the commission, initially considered recommending a ban but instead opted for a policy of rigorous and selective licensing. According to the commission, federal law should not view normal household protection as a sufficient reason to own a handgun.

The issue persisted, and even Republican President Richard Nixon expressed support for a ban. "I don't understand why any individual should have the right to have a revolver in their house," he complained to aides in 1972. Disregarding licensing, he questioned why they couldn't go after handguns altogether. Despite opposition from the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers, he was adamant that people should not have handguns. "Guns are an abomination," he exclaimed, expressing his frustration with the situation.

Nixon wasn't alone in his belief that only law enforcement officers should have guns. His attorney general, John N. Mitchell, expressed the same sentiment on "The David Frost Show." In 1973, the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals recommended the criminalization of privately owned handguns by 1983. Russell Peterson, the chairman of the commission and former Republican governor of Delaware, urged for a complete ban on these weapons. The call for gun control was echoed in June 1974, when the City Council of Madison, Wisconsin voted for a citywide ban on handguns, with Mayor Paul Soglin expressing hope that someday guns wouldn't be necessary for anyone in the community, including law enforcement officers.

Content was

After four decades and serving his third term as mayor, Soglin found himself in a new battle: preventing people from openly carrying handguns on crowded buses across the state. The dream was crushed as Republican lawmakers sought to eliminate school zones, the last safe spaces free from guns.

What led to this change? In short, it was President Ronald Reagan. His straightforward, Cold War mentality simplified domestic policy into clear-cut decisions of good and evil, light and dark. He believed that arming the righteous would naturally prevent crime. Reagan referred to it as a "harsh truth" that criminals were not deterred by gun laws, and thus empowering the good people, the silent majority who sustain the nation and never miss, was the answer.

Gun control advocates display signs in front of gun rights supporters at a protest organized by victims of gun violence outside the Supreme Court, coinciding with the commencement of deliberations in a significant gun rights case on November 3, 2021 in Washington, DC. The court is reviewing a New York law that imposes restrictions on carrying firearms outside of the home.

Joshua Roberts/Getty Images

Opinion: The Supreme Court may make Americas gun violence problem even worse

The new conservative view guns as more than just weapons; they see them as symbols of Americanism and tools of destiny. When Reagan took office in 1981, the focus shifted from gun control to the protection of gun owners. Reagan supported the NRA and advanced a "bill of rights for Americas gun owners" despite the advice of his own task force on violent crime.

Michael Beard, head of the National Coalition to Ban Handguns, expressed disbelief at the idea of weakening handgun control laws in the face of the country's problems in 1984.

When Florida passed one of the nation's first concealed carry laws, the Governor at the time, Bob Graham, a Democrat, vetoed it due to the potential dangers it presented. A senator expressed relief and indignation, fearing that people would soon be able to carry guns into shopping centers, movies, and school yards.

Similarly, in 1993, when Texas passed a similar law, Democratic Governor Ann Richards vetoed it with a strong stance against amateur gunslingers and the belief that more people would be killed by gunfire as a result of the bill. She vehemently argued that the people of Texas did not need to be reminded of the deadly consequences of violence and weapons.

The debate had evolved into a culture war where facts were optional and reality was negotiable. Opposition to the concealed weapons bill resulted in Richards losing the next election, and her successor, George W. Bush, signing it into law, claiming it would make Texas a safer place. This marked the beginning of a new era.

In 1986, only Vermont allowed citizens to carry a gun without a permit. Twenty-five states restricted the privilege to those who could demonstrate "good cause," while sixteen states prohibited carrying firearms altogether.

By 2023, the revolution was nearly complete: 27 states now allow permitless, unrestricted "right to carry," a concept that was almost unheard of in the 20th century. Seventeen states have adopted the permissive, "shall-issue" approach that initially horrified Graham and Richards. The number of states criminalizing the concealed carrying of handguns is now zero. Additionally, the once prominent training requirements for "concealed carry" have been largely abandoned.

A makeshift memorial outside the Tree of Life Synagogue in the aftermath of the deadly shooting in October, 2018.

Matt Rourke/AP

My community was devastated by the Pittsburgh shooting. But then, something unexpected occurred.

Adding to the tragedy, a shift in the laws regarding gun ownership has also resulted in a shift in the laws surrounding self-defense. The "duty to retreat" in confrontations has been eliminated by stand-your-ground laws, making it legal to use deadly force in situations where danger is perceived, not just actual.

In the late 19th century, standing your ground was scorned as a remnant of the Slave Power and a threat to the rule of law. A century later, it made a comeback. By 2004, no state had a "stand-your-ground" law, leaving the decision to the courts. Currently, 38 states have such laws, which some argue promote lethal force in situations where it is not necessary.

In the 1920s, gangsters with fully automatic "Tommy" guns caused terror and were criticized as a prime example of peace-time barbarism. The National Firearms Act of 1934 taxed these weapons out of circulation, and automatic gunfire vanished from American streets. The University of Texas massacre in 1966 involved an ex-Marine sharpshooter using a sniper rifle. Such incidents were rare, if not impossible, until automatic firepower resurfaced in the 1980s.

In 1989, when 24-year-old Patrick Purdy used an AK-47 to kill five children and wound 29 others at an elementary school in Stockton, California, most Americans were unaware of the availability of such weapons to civilians. The defense of these weapons as an American prerogative now comes as a surprise to many, with some questioning the need for civilians to have access to warlike weapons. Retired military personnel and law enforcement officials alike question the necessity of making these weapons available to the public and the potential for preventing similar tragedies in the future.

The immediate ban had support from first lady Barbara Bush, and likely her husband as well, although he did not express his thoughts publicly. However, in the midst of a culture war, preserving guns became a patriotic obligation.

The National Rifle Association, once disapproving of the AR-15 at gun shows in the 1980s, now fiercely championed it. Libertarian activist Grover Norquist remembered, "People who never intended to purchase one ended up getting one." He happily noted that "it was a defiant message to the left."

Get Our Free Weekly Newsletter

Sign up for CNN Opinions newsletter

Connect with us on Twitter and Facebook.

In 1992, this particular weapon only made up less than 1% of gun sales, but by 2019, it accounted for a quarter of the market. This weapon, which is more powerful than the banned Tommy guns from the 1930s, is now both affordable and easily obtainable.

This is not freedom. It is the erosion of the American commitment to peace and "domestic tranquility." Regardless of the outcome of the current gun case being deliberated by the Supreme Court, it cannot be denied that the "constitutional right" to own a gun for self-defense is a recent development, stemming from the "dramatic upheaval" of the District of Columbia v. Heller decision in 2008.

For years, advocates of gun ownership have appropriated history to support their extreme agenda, portraying gun control as a betrayal of patriotism. However, their version of the past is a fabrication, one that distorts the true essence of freedom and is now causing division within American communities.

If a government cannot safeguard its citizens from "reckless shootings," Franklin D. Roosevelt cautioned in 1931, it is not in line with contemporary thinking. We must retrace our steps to a time when American values prioritized human life over firearms.