Multiple gunmen reportedly carried out a mass shooting in Birmingham, Alabama, on Saturday, killing four people and injuring 17. The shooting has already elicited calls for more gun restrictions – especially from the city’s mayor, who blamed the state’s permitless carry law for the incident.
Mayor Randall Woodfin on Sunday called for the federal and state governments to pass more gun control laws in response to the shooting, saying, “I don’t care about Democratic politics, Republican politics,” and that “public safety” is his “top priority.”
In 2022, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed the permit-less carry law, which allows people to carry a concealed gun without a license.
The mayor believes this is part of the problem.
“We are prepared to be overly aggressive,” Woodfin said. “Dogmatic is you will and go after every shooter in the city, but as it stands, they can ride around with no permit.”
Woodfin asked members of Congress to reinstate a measure similar to the Assault Weapons Ban signed by President Clinton in the 1990s. It was lifted in 2004.
“Our country, and not just our country, but the City of Birmingham in that 10-year window saw the lowest form of gun violence,” the mayor stated. “We don’t have any interest in this whole debate about Second Amendment rights. We don’t have any interest in people who want to protect their homes, militia, whatever else you want to say.”
Woodfin’s arguments are typical of anti-gunners who exploit mass shootings to call for restrictions on law-abiding gun owners. As usual, the solutions he recommends would not have stopped the shooting.
For starters, the authorities have not yet apprehended those suspected of carrying out the shooting, so we do not yet have the details. However, ending permitless carry would not somehow decrease this type of violence.
Multiple studies suggest that a significant portion of mass shooters possessed concealed carry licenses. A report from the Violence Policy Center documents 37 mass shootings committed by perpetrators with concealed handgun permits between 2007 and 2019.
Requiring people to obtain a permit to carry a firearm won’t stop would-be mass shooters from murdering people. One can simply get the permit, then carry out a mass shooting. It is also worth noting that a significant percentage of mass shooters were not legally authorized to carry firearms. Yet, this did not stop them from obtaining and using firearms. In light of this, it makes absolutely no sense to suggest that permitless carry somehow contributes to mass shootings.
Unfortunately, the anti-gunners don’t seem to care much about the facts. Instead of looking at actual solutions to curb gun violence, they seek to punish those who do not use their firearms to commit crimes, which further suggests that their aim is not to protect the population but to make it harder for people to keep and bear arms.
Whenever a tragedy like this occurs, anti-gunner politicians and media figures immediately focus the conversation on the instruments used to commit the crime rather than trying to stop people from using them in the first place. What is sad is that this only serves as a distraction from those seeking real measures to stop these atrocities from happening.
