Maine mass shooting reopens the question of tougher gun control laws in the US

In my time in the United States, it seems I have written about gun violence more frequently than most other subjects.

In reality this is not the case.

However, from the massacre of young children in Uvalde to the killing of shoppers in a supermarket in Buffalo to the sniper attack on the July 4th parade in Highland Park in Illinois, a catalogue of carnage forms a regular backdrop.

In early May I wrote about the mass shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets, about 40km northeast of Dallas, Texas.

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At the time it represented the 199th such incident this year.

There was a predictable inevitability that there would be more. Indeed, between the time the story appeared in The Irish Times the following morning, the tally had reached 200.

[ The 199th US mass shooting this year – a depressingly familiar scene ]

By this week, with the murder of 18 people in Maine, there were more than 565 mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive in the US. It defines a mass shooting as any incident in which four or more people, not including the person carrying out the shooting, are killed or wounded.

There is also a pattern to what generally happens after such events.

The media rushes to the scene. We tell the harrowing stories of those affected, the relatives of the dead and those who escaped the carnage.

Then there is the killer and the red flags that were missed or not waved at all.

After that comes the politics. Inevitably the White House will say more should be done to control access to firearms while Republicans and the pro-gun lobby will argue that law-abiding citizens should not lose their constitutional right to own weapons because of the actions of a few.

Following the killing of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers in Uvalde a year ago, US president Joe Biden signed into law the first significant gun control measures in the country for about 30 years. It had received backing from both sides on Capitol Hill.

The president has also introduced a number of other unilateral executive actions on firearms and has established the first White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

But Biden himself acknowledged this week that these measures are “simply not enough”.

What the president would really like is the reintroduction of a ban on assault rifles – generally the weapon of choice for perpetrators of the mass shootings in the US.

Gun control advocates maintain that the only purpose of such high-powered weapons is to kill as many people as possible. As Biden has said on several occasions, you don’t need an assault rifle to hunt deer.

However, with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives and insufficient support in the Senate to overcome a filibuster, further legislation seems unlikely.

[ Ed O’Loughlin on Bloodbath Nation by Paul Auster: Why the nihilistic slaughter? The gleeful scorn? ]

On Thursday, the new Republican House speaker Mike Johnson said in response to the Maine shooting:

“This is a dark time in United States.

“We have a lot of problems and we’re really, really hopeful and prayerful. Prayer is appropriate in a time like this, that the evil can end and this senseless violence can stop.”

He did not take any questions, including about the possibility of new gun control legislation.

Initial indications suggested that the man sought by police about the attack in Maine had experienced a mental health crisis during the summer.

After previous mass killings, Republicans have argued that the real cause of mass gun violence was mental illness and not easy access to weapons.

It seems very plausible that there is a serious problem of untreated mental illness in the United States. Indeed, the concept of involuntary committals to psychiatric facilities seems to be making a comeback. Legislation along these lines was signed into law in California earlier this month.

Republicans are criticised regularly over their opposition to new gun controls.

However, in Maine where the mass shooting took place on Wednesday, Democrats control both chambers of the state’s legislature.

Maine, which has a long history of hunting and a high rate of gun ownership, has quite liberal laws regarding firearms. The state, generally for those over 21 years, does not require permits to carry concealed weapons, nor does it demand background checks for private gun sales.

Maine Democratic congressman Jared Golden said the shootings in his hometown of Lewiston had led him to change his mind and he now supports a national ban on assault rifles.

Gun control advocates may welcome the move but may also ask whether politicians will only be prepared to back new laws in the wake of any mass shootings that may take place in their own constituencies.