July 4, a day of celebration and festivities, was marred by a mass murder that left at least six people dead and many more injured. The shooter took aim from a rooftop looking over a parade, giving him ample access to a large group of innocent people enjoying the holiday.
The FBI defines mass murders as four of more people killed, unrelated to the shooter. They occur at an average rate of slightly more than once every two weeks in the United States. This rate has been remarkably persistent for many years, with the Gun Violence Archive reporting 15 such incidences so far in 2022, 28 in 2021, 21 in 2020 and 31 in 2019.
In contrast, mass shootings involve one or more person killed or injured. This is most often reported in the media, with over 300 having occurred so far this year.
Recent gun safety legislation, which includes expanded background checks for those between 18 and 21 years old and provisions to encourage state “red flag” laws, is designed to help stop such events. Regrettably, it cannot, certainly in the short term, and likely, not even in the long term.
The best takeaway from this legislation is that there is progress in compromise from both sides of the aisle, even if the details lack substantive and meaningful changes.
Guns kill, and in the hands of those who do not appreciate their power, they will continue to kill. The challenge is ensuring that the majority of gun owners, who are responsible, get to keep their firearms, while the small group of people who use them to inflict harm, are prevented from doing so.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) deals with an issue like this every day. They are effectively looking for a small number of needles of bad actors buried in a large haystack of passengers. Screening over 2 million people every day demands a systematic approach to ensure that the air system remains secure for all.
Their solution is not to treat every passenger as of equal threat. The time and expense of such a one-sizes-fits-all approach would be onerous. What the TSA does is partition the haystack of passengers into groups, focusing on where they believe the needle is most likely to be.
This is the foundation of risk-based security. And if our nation is to move forward and reduce gun violence, risk-based gun ownership is a reasonable and viable path forward.
Such a policy will permit the large number of gun owners in this country to keep their firearms. This is consistent with the Second Amendment, so they can continue to enjoy their gun ownership privilege for hunting, recreational shooting and self-defense.
What it will also do is allow the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and law enforcement to scrutinize those who have suspicious characteristics that are aligned with gun violence.
Every responsible gun owner is saddened every time a mass murder occurs. Every responsible gun owner hopes that such heinous events cease, which is in their best interest. The question is whether every responsible gun owner is willing to undergo the necessary screening asked by risk-based gun ownership to make society safer for all?
Much like how the TSA operates, risk-based security says that known travelers are least likely to be bad actors in the air system. Using this same strategy, known gun owners are least likely to use firearms to harm others and themselves.
Every person who flies commercially allows the TSA to get to know them either by being enrolled in programs like PreCheck or for those not enrolled, providing information about themselves when they fly. This is the price that everyone must pay if they wish to travel by air, or they must choose to avoid air travel completely.
If a standard of security is needed and used when we get onto a commercial flight, should not a commensurate standard of security be applied for gun ownership? Such a question should be the beginning of a dialogue to move our nation forward to reduce gun violence that impacts everyone, including responsible gun owners.
Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor in Computer Science and the Carle Illinois College of Medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A data scientist, he applies his expertise in data-driven risk-based decision-making to evaluate and inform public policy. He has researched aviation security since 1996, providing the technical foundations for risk-based security that led to the development of TSA PreCheck.