If I read/hear the oft mentioned myth that more legislation loosening gun laws has passed versus those tightening gun laws since Newtown, I'm going to scream.
The latest - liberal gun guy, Dan Baum has succumb to the myth. Writing for High Country News (subscription required), he relies on the simply tally of laws passed and assigns equal weight to all laws rather than looking at what those laws actually do, their impact and how many people are affected - stating these looser laws outnumber tighter laws by 2 to 1.
https://www.hcn.org/...
DKos' own Meteor Blades cites the same 2-1 figure:
Since the Sandy Hook elementary school slaughter of first-graders nearly 16 months ago, those advocates—veteran activists or ones spurred into action by that horror—have managed to push several mostly modest new restrictions on guns in some states. But nearly twice as many laws loosening the rules have passed, according to a survey by The New York Times. This has occurred primarily in Southern and Western states.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Chris Cilizza writing in the Washington Post says support for tighter laws is declining:
As you can see, the numbers of those advocating for "more strict" gun laws have dwindled steadily over the past two decades. The one recent bump for stricter laws came in the wake of the Newtown shootings but, as anyone who has followed the politics of the issue even casually knows, the attempt by the Obama administration to enact sweeping gun measures in the wake of that tragedy failed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
More over the fold as to why this is a mistake.
From the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence:
Since Newtown, about the same number of laws (64) have strengthened state gun regulations as those that have weakened them (70), not including 38 newly-enacted gun laws that have a minimal impact on gun violence. However, a strict comparison of these numbers without deeper insight into the substance of the laws and where they were enacted is only half the story. Of the states that enacted laws to strengthen gun regulation, 8 states made very significant and, in some cases, sweeping changes to the way it regulates firearms. Alternatively, only 4 states enacted laws that have significantly weakened gun regulation. ... Despite popular belief, in the last sixteen months since Newtown, the media has incorrectly portrayed the complicated and nuanced activity in fifty different state legislative bodies. The new laws have been tallied, and often, have been inappropriately equalized. Small bills which keep concealed weapons permit holders’ information private have been categorized as having equal weight to sweeping new laws that require background checks and ban assault weapons. The stories proclaiming the Georgia bill to be a pro-gun backlash make little of the fact that it was the NRA’s top priority in Georgia for two years and, after failing last year, barely scraped by this year and only in a watered-down version. The backlash stories also fail to mention the groundswell of activism that rose in opposition to the bill and succeeded in forcing the gun lobby to strip provision after provision from the measure.
http://smartgunlaws.org/...
Why are people still writing and saying laws loosening gun rights are having more of an impact than those tightening?
Is it a case of not digging into the story?
Is the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence wrong? Is it true that laws loosening gun rights are having more of an impact than those that are tightening? Is it true support for tightening gun laws is declining?
It seems there are two very different takes on whether the laws passed are either loosening or tightening gun rights.
What is going on here?
5:54 PM PT: To clarify - the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence says there are 12 "sweeping" gun laws that have passed, 8 that tighten and 4 that loosen.
The sweeping laws that tighten are such things as universal background checks, assault weapons bans and magazine capacity limits.
Sweeping legislation to weaken gun laws are such things as Georgia's "guns everywhere" bill - that allows guns in churches, bars, etc., unless otherwise prohibited.
The point of the diary is to say that when media reports that gun laws passed have loosened more than tightened gun rights, these media reports are assigning the same value to all laws rather than weighting some laws more than others. For example, an AWB is a strong tightening law, that could be given a weight of 10 versus a law that permits information sharing for gun owners, which could be weighted a 1.