In gun control debate, improved access control is best short-term solution

The visibly destructive mass shootings over the last year have struck several chords with the American public. Gun control advocates are quick to suggest that we should redouble our efforts to limit the kind and amount of weapons sold, the types of people who will get access to guns and the manner by which we should store them once we have them in our possession.

{mosads}Pro-gun advocates seem to support better mental health screening and therapy, enhanced training in the use of firearms, and better and safer methods of storing weapons. These suggestions are directed toward the saner and law-abiding people of our society. But the anti-gun-control advocates have no solution to the gunman, either motivated by malice or suffering from a major mental illness, who walks into a crowded movie theater and opens fire on the crowd.

Then there are those who dislike the suggestion of installing access controls (the range of security measures used to monitor and prevent unwarranted entry into a room, floor, building, etc.) at vulnerable locations, like our college and university campuses, improving the methods and technology to detect and deter individuals who may open fire on the defenseless public.

Here are their arguments. First, some believe that the mass shooting statistics come out of thin air, suggesting that the data are cooked or misleading. Not so, as they are derived from Mass Shooting Tracker, a reputable organization that clearly outlines the way it operationalizes these incidents. Although this website does not use the FBI definition for “mass killing,” it is one that has been accepted by numerous experts.

Second, others suggest that it would take too long to get bags searched going from building to building on the typical college campus. The solution to this inconvenience might be having classes in the same building. This may be easier for upper-level classes, but it is doable. Alternatively, having swipe-through-entrance control, without bag searches. Again, this is doable. At the very least, it may deter certain individuals when their access to the building is denied.

Third, this is not a contest between the Second (the right to bear arms) and Fourth Amendments (which prohibits “unreasonable search and seizure”). No one is forcing anyone to go to a movie, church service or to leave the country. Moreover, there is no tradeoff between the right to bear arms and right to be secure in our residences and other property from a so-called surveillance state. And this is not a slippery slope where, once we have eliminated one right, then we will be quickly undoing another.

The sad reality is that death by firearms in this country is estimated to cost close to $4 billion a year. This cost is not simply born by the family of the victims, but also by the legal system adjudicating cases.

The American public forgets that there are always externalities and unintended consequences to every piece of legislation passed, whether it was passed in 1791 or 2015. One of the outcomes of the right to bear arms is the possibility that you or a loved one will be held up at gunpoint, or that someone with evil intent will come into a movie theater, church service or a classroom and think that they are reenacting a scene out of “Rambo.”

Fourth, others have suggested that all this danger should force instructors out of the classroom and into online teaching. Notwithstanding the benefits of face-to-face teaching at the college and university level, and the numerous drawbacks of online teaching chronicled elsewhere, much like the suggestion to increase security measures in access controls, our institutions of higher learning will require an infrastructure — which in many colleges and universities is not present — to support an increase in online teaching throughout the United States.

Fifth, some implore that increasing or improving access control is helping the state better monitor and contain dissent, and hasten a totalitarian society, because, “as we all know,” universities are bastions of leftist radicalism. If only this were true. This argument (about locking down the university) may have seemed fair up until the 1970s, but the invention and widespread use of electronic communication and social media have called this position into question. For example, did the numerous Occupy efforts concentrate their efforts to college campuses? I hardly think so.

Sixth, another proposal advocates a compromise position like providing everyone with cans of mace, or having individuals wear Kevlar vests. These are defensive strategies that supposedly pose no threats to others and would cost less than elaborate security checkpoints. Less-than-lethal weapons could have the same side effects as allowing everyone to pack a gun, but having a flak jacket is just as untenable as increased security everywhere.

Seventh, some suggest that we are somehow blowing these episodes of mass shootings out of proportion and that the risk of dying in one of these incidents is akin to being a victim of a terrorist attack. Or that one is more likely to be a victim of a car crash then a mass shooting. True enough, but this does not mean we should ignore these incidents.

Eighth, another criticism is that better access controls will not solve the problem of a shooter entering a building and killing the security guard and then proceeding forward, or the shooter shooting people in parking lots. This may be true, but another security guard, campus police officer or local law enforcement may respond to provide back-up security to assist in resolving this incident.

How will we pay for increased security and access controls? I think that the cost should be born by the gun manufacturers, and not the state. After all, they are the ones who are benefiting the most from the manufacture and sales of weapons.

In the end, once the gun manufacturers — wholesalers and retailers — and the pro-gun lobby realize how much money they are spending on access control, perhaps they will take the wider issue of gun control more seriously and consider the ways that the American public gets access to guns, how many they can own and how to better monitor their use.

Ross is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Baltimore. He is the editor of the Encyclopedia of Street Crime in America (Sage, 2013).