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Enough is Enough. We Need a Paradigm Shift.

End this Epidemic at its Source.

A Full-On Crisis

“Gun violence in America is a public health crisis.” (Surgeon General advisory 6.25.24) “Among America’s most deadly and costly, it has exploded in recent years—from mass shootings at concerts and supermarkets to school fights settled with a bullet. Most shootings draw little attention—while the injuries and toll pile up.” (KFF Health 3.6.24)

The crisis is growing more alarming and out of control.

  • Most Americans (62% vs. 31%) expect it to get worse over the next five years. (“Gun Violence Viewed as Major National Problem,” Pew 6.28.23)
  • “You step outside the U.S. and people think what is happening here is insane.” (Jon Lowy, Global Action on Gun Violence, New Yorker 1.31.24)
  • Before Labor Day 2022—and 18 mass shootings per Mass Shooting Tracker—Joyce Fdn’s Ellen Alberding cited the “unrelenting violence [and] Supreme Ct decisions that steered our country off-course,” calling the latest a “far-reaching setback.”
  • “Gun deaths have skyrocketed in recent years, a devastating trend that shows no sign of slowing.” (Robyn Thomas, Giffords Law Ctr. 1.27.22)
  • School shootings hit all-time highs year after year, “a distressing portrayal of the dangers facing kids today” (Sarah Sharps, Everytown for Gun Safety, USA TODAY 9.14.23). “More active shooter drills. Safe rooms. Bulletproof backpacks.” (CNN 9.22.23)
  • Brady’s Kris Brown in “One Nation, Packing Heat” (Bus. Wk 7.26.21) warns of “a dystopian universe where the only rational thing is to have a gun.”
  • Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom asked: “What the hell is going on in the United States?”
  • MomsDemand’s Shannon Watts posted: “So many shootings it’s hard to keep track.” Refusing to give up, asked: “WHAT IS THE OTHER OPTION?”

Addressing symptoms, not the disease, isn’t working. Marginal reforms like the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, as Fareed Zakaria said in a CNN special, “Lessons on Guns,” are “umbrellas in a hurricane” that make “no perceptible difference.”

“There’s been so little change it’s hard to deny there is something we’re just not doing right.” (Sandy Hook Elementary survivor Matt Holden, Wash. Post 11.1.24)

The Real Problem and its Source

Almost no one asks what changed to cause gun violence to explode. Since 2014, “excluding accidents and suicides, over 300,000 Americans have been shot; nearly half have died. Millions suffered trauma as witnesses to shootings or as friends and family of victims. By every measure, the physical, financial, and emotional toll of gun violence in our society is staggering.” (Dir., Inst. for Policy Research, Wash. Post 11.24.23). Even this measure, an arbitrary decade, understates the problem. From when the crisis began in 2008 through today, and including accidents and suicides—two-thirds of all gun deaths—the toll more than triples. No one researches what changed.

“To understand the real problem with guns in the USA, just google ‘Argument turns deadly.’” That June 2023 post by A. Wiles replied to one by MomsDemand’s Watts, in disbelief that an Ore. father of 3 was shot dead when his wiper fluid hit a car. That July 4th weekend, she posted again, incredulous that another father of 2 was killed in D.C. over grass clippings blown on another car.

Most shootings are by law-abiding citizens. An ex-Va. Lt. Gov. just killed his wife and then himself. In August 2023, a Cal. judge arguing drunk texted: “I lost it. I shot my wife.” In September, an Okl. judge shot at 6 cars in road rage. That February, a Pa. judge shot her boyfriend. In April, a Nev. lawyer shot another dead at deposition.

They occur anywhere, at major sports events and even the beach. In the last month, two mass shootings over disputes on Virginia Beach left 14 injured. Another argument left 22 shot, 1 dead at Kansas City’s Super Bowl parade in 2024, despite the presence of 800 police. Months before, fights left 10 shot after Denver’s NBA title, 2 more at its parade.

“Anyone interested in gun policy should set a google alert for ‘shooting parking lot’. These are not gang shootings. Every day regular people get shot by armed civilians during disputes at malls, grocery stores, and shopping centers.” (K-12 School Shooting Database, 1.30.24)

“Nobody settles anything with fists anymore.” (bartender after mass shooting left 3 dead, 3 injured, Columbus Dispatch 5.18.24)

“Tragedies often begin with an argument. Instead of words or a punch, a gun is pulled.” (Wash. Post editorial, 3.25.22)

“Now we’re seeing what’s always been part of human conflict coupled with the accessibility of guns,” with “all ages using guns to resolve their disagreements.” “Arguments that should be resolved through words” “end up where someone’s dead.” (Milwaukee police chief, 05.22)

Mixing guns with human conflict is dangerous and unregulatable
This sampling is of ordinary disputes that end in shootings in America—often daily (or hourly in cases of confrontations, domestic violence, hate crimes, road rage):

Confrontations

  • Texas man, told his shooting made a neighbor’s baby cry, came over with his AR-15, killing 3 women, a man and boy (“A gun transforms another everyday interaction into carnage,” Eugene Robinson, Wash. Post. 5.2.23)
  • motorcycle club dispute leaves 2 dead, 4 wounded (Wash. Post 5.16.23)
  • Fla. 78yo man shoots threatening neighbor dead in tree-trimming dispute (Wash. Post 9.20.23)
  • multiple people pull guns during fight in Borger, TX, leaving 1 dead, 3 wounded (Wash. Post 10.23.23)
  • Mich. man shot for spitting in sink (“unfathomable to take a human life for something so absurdly trivial,” Oakland Sheriff, Detroit News 2.22.24)
  • during argument, holder of a concealed carry license shoots man in Chicago Loop (3.14.24)
  • argument between two women led to gunfight that left 11 wounded in busy tourist area of Savannah, GA (5.18.24)
  • argument between passengers leads to one taking gun from other, shooting him, and hijacking the bus (Atlanta, GA 6.11.24)
  • 67yo ice cream vendor shot following argument over price of a dollar ice cream (abc7chicago.com 6.15.24)
  • July 4th fight at Ft Worth car wash leaves 3 dead (including two young girls), 3 wounded (NBCDFW 7.4.24)
  • graveside gathering turns deadly as argument ends in fatal shooting (Jefferson Cty, CO 8.17.24)

Confrontations – Mistakes

  • 84yo white homeowner in Kansas City shot 16yo black youth who rang his doorbell by mistake (4.13.23)
  • Upstate NY homeowner shot woman who accidentally turned up the wrong driveway (4.15.23)
  • Austin man shot two girls getting into the wrong car after cheerleading practice (4.18.23)
  • teen returning BB gun to sporting goods store fatally shot by a vigilante off-duty guard who mistook it for a Glock (Renton, WA 6.8.24)
  • teen with replica gun killed by police in Utica, NY (AP 7.1.24)
  • town councilman unintentionally shoots 17yo in face who was on his property seeking permission to take homecoming photos (Mountain View, CO 8.10.24)
  • 18yo shoots and kills father, mistaking him for an intruder (Harrisburg, PA 9.13.24)

Domestic violence

  • San Diego man, distraught by breakup, makes ex-girlfriend listen over phone as he kills 1, wounds 6 at his apartment pool (Wash. Post 5.2.17)
  • Pa. man sentenced for fatally shooting in a “fit of rage” his dad who “never paid attention to him” (2.8.24)
  • man shoots and kills 56yo mother at home, fatally shoots himself (Pacific, MO 5.14.24)
  • woman pulls gun to “scare” sister’s boyfriend, accidentally shoots her own 15yo son in head (Portland, OR 5.17.24)
  • father shoots son during domestic dispute (Diamond Bar, CA 5.18.24)
  • man shoots and kills brother after argument (Mexico, MO 5.19.24)
  • Memphis woman gets into drunken fight with husband, he hands her gun and says “shoot me,” she kills him in front of 3 kids (5.21.24)
  • argument between brothers at home ends in deadly shooting (Farmington Hills, MI 5.22.24)
  • husband protects wife while she’s arguing with stepson, unintentionally shoots both (Stratford, CT 5.22.24)
  • police officer and his wife both shot during domestic quarrel at home (Drew, MS 5.23.24)
  • 39yo man shoots fiancée multiple times at home (Columbia, SC 5.24.24)
  • son shoots mother in head and kills her dog (Laurinburg, NC 5.25.24)
  • mother finds 15yo daughter in bed with boyfriend who shoots when kicked out, mother’s boyfriend shoots another daughter and teen by mistake (Cordova, TN 5.25.24)
  • husband shoots and kills wife on her 60th birthday (Milwaukee, WI 5.25.24)
  • man fatally shoots father and uncle (Eubank, KY 5.25.24)
  • man fatally shoots father after history of animosity and dropped cross-petitions for protective order (Sante Fe, NM 5.25.24)
  • man shot by police after following estranged wife onto freeway (San Bernardino, CA 5.26.24)
  • man kills woman at home, fires at police as children hide upstairs (Houston, TX 5.26.24)
  • man shoots woman’s new boyfriend in chest during domestic-related incident (Memphis, TN 5.26.24)
  • 34yo man shoots and kills 29yo woman at home (Eaton Twp., OH 5.26.24)
  • couple dead in murder-suicide shooting (Brooklyn, NY 5.27.24)
  • 61yo man kills another person in domestic-related shooting (Atmore, AL 5.27.24)
  • man fatally shoots another man during domestic dispute (Belleville, IL 5.27.24)
  • man shoots, wounds ex-girlfriend in domestic altercation, then nonfatally shoots himself (Pine Manor, FL 5.28.24)
  • two men pull guns on each other during domestic dispute, one is killed (Lancaster, TX 5.28.24)
  • man with anger management issues shoots stepfather in the head (Eutawville, SC 5.28.24)
  • woman sprays boyfriend with mace during domestic dispute, he pulls out a gun and shoots her (Baton Rouge, LA 5.28.24)
  • woman in line to use Chase ATM, ex-boyfriend pulls up to her minivan, shoots and kills her and 3yo son in car seat (West Kendall, FL 6.8.24)
  • woman is shot and killed on side of road by intoxicated male acquaintance (Crossville, AL 6.25.24)
  • man kills 3 siblings, niece and self in home dispute after mother’s death. ‘Entire family is now gone’ (Syosset, NY 8.26.24)
  • 8yo dies after shooting himself in car while mother was inside convenience store (Utah 9.5.24)
  • mother shoots and kills her 3 children and then herself in mass shooting (West Haven, UT 9.6.24)
  • 26yo mother was shot and killed in front of 2 young children at birthday party by the father (Houston, TX 9.12.24)

Financial institutions

  • Louisville bank employee kills 5, wounds 8 at Old National Bank branch (4.10.23)
  • woman in line to use Chase ATM, ex-boyfriend pulls up to her minivan, shoots and kills her and 3yo son in car seat (West Kendall, FL 6.7.24)

Graduations

  • shooting at high school graduation party injures 4 (Beaufort Cty, SC 6.7.24)
  • shooting at high school graduation party leaves 1 dead, 1 wounded (Houston, TX 6.8.24)
  • shooting at high school graduation party injures 2 (Petersburg, VA 6.9.24)
  • “Chaos unfolds” during Albuquerque high school graduation as 21yo shoots his step-mother (KOAT7 6.14.24)

Hate crimes – “More than 28 hate crimes involving a firearm occur daily in the US.” (X@Giffords 6.17.24)

  • racist Minneapolis man shoots his neighbor as he pruned a tree, leaving a bullet in his spine (KARE11.com 10.28.24)

Hotels and apartments

  • argument escalates into shots fired at Hyatt Regency Phoenix, leaving 1 dead, 7 wounded (Wash. Post 5.10.21)
  • 78yo landlord argues with tenants over unpaid rent, kills two women and wounds man in Las Vegas (Wash. Post 8.11.21)

Intoxication

  • groom in drunken argument with wedding guest, gets gun from car, in struggle shoots innocent bystander (Salem, IN 5.18.24)
  • Memphis woman gets into drunken fight with husband, he hands her gun and says “shoot me,” she kills him in front of 3 kids (5.21.24)
  • woman is shot and killed on side of road by intoxicated male acquaintance (Crossville, AL 6.25.24)
  • man shot and killed his brother while wrestling intoxicated (Kansas City, MO 7.9.24)

Legal profession

  • NJ man, angry with federal judge, shoots and kills her son who answered the door and critically wounds her husband (7.19.20)
  • Cal. judge, arguing drunk, texted: “I lost it. I just shot my wife. I won’t be in tomorrow. I will be in custody” (8.3.23)
  • Okla. judge shot at 6 cars in road rage, and rammed a woman who cut him off (9.11.23)
  • man upset at losing custody of his children shoots and kills Md. judge at home (10.21.23)
  • Cal. man, upset by Uvalde and a possible vote to ease gun restrictions, is arrested with a Glock outside Justice Kavanaugh’s home and charged with attempted murder (6.8.22)
  • Pa. judge shot her ex-boyfriend who tried to end their relationship (2.10.24)
  • Nev. lawyer shot opposing counsel and his wife dead at deposition over custody dispute (4.8.24)
  • Ky. sheriff shoots and kills judge in his chambers following an argument (9.19, 24)

Mass shootings

  • mass shooting after argument over parking spot leave 4 wounded (Memphis, TN 8.16.24)
  • man kills 3 siblings, niece and self in home dispute after mother’s death. ‘Entire family is now gone’ (Syosset, NY 8.26.24)

Medical facilities

  • man shoots doctor and 3 others dead for ongoing pain after surgery at Tulsa hospital, killing himself (Wash. Post 6.3.22)
  • man kills 3 siblings, niece and self in home dispute after mother’s death. ‘Entire family is now gone’ (Syosset, NY 8.26.24)
  • Atlanta man opens fire with handgun in Northside Medical Midtown (5.3.23)

Neighbors & Roommates

  • man kills roommate in argument over safety objections to his shooting targets in residential backyard, sentenced to life in prison (Decatur, GA 1.12.23)
  • man fatally shoots neighbor in argument over his unleashed dog (Lincoln, NE 1.21.23)
  • Texas man, told his shooting made a neighbor’s baby cry, came over with his AR-15, killing 3 women, a man and boy (“A gun transforms another everyday interaction into carnage,” Eugene Robinson, Wash. Post. 5.2.23)
  • woman complaining of kids trespassing on her property shoots mother through closed door, claiming self-defense (Ocala, FL 6.2.23)
  • Fla. 78yo man shoots threatening neighbor dead in tree-trimming dispute (Wash. Post 9.20.23)
  • man gets into altercation with neighbor, fatally shoots him, then turns hand gun on himself (Killeen, TX 5.15.24)
  • man shoots neighbor after parking dispute: ‘I would have kept shooting, but my gun jammed’ (Pompano Beach, FL 5.26.24)
  • neighbor shoots 7 (3 adults, 4 children) in racially motivated mass shooting, kills himself (Crete, NE 6.28.24)
  • man in argument over yard debris, throws branch, gets punched, shoots neighbor multiple times (Pensacola, FL 7.1.24)
  • man shot to death by neighbor angry that his young daughter touched neighbor’s mulch (Canton Township, MI 8.12.24)

Parking spaces – “School parking lots are the most common place for a shooting on campus” (X@K12ssdb 5.28.24)

  • 5 shot over a Detroit parking spot, the same day a woman shot an Ann Arbor woman in another lot (CBS, FOX 5, 3.29.24)
  • Wis. man shoots relative in dispute over parking spot (WMTV15News.com 5.13.24)
  • man gets in dispute over a parking spot, “stands his ground” and fatally shoots other driver (High Springs, FL 5.25.24)
  • man shoots neighbor after parking dispute: ‘I would have kept shooting, but my gun jammed’ (Pompano Beach, FL 5.26.24)
  • early morning dispute in crowded parking lot led to 38yo man being shot and killed (Indianapolis 5.26.24)
  • 9yo boy shot after parking lot dispute (Lauderhill, FL 5.27.24)
  • man dies after argument in business parking lot leads to gunfire (Jacksonville, FL 5.27.24)
  • man shot, hospitalized after gun fight in parking lot (Durham, NC 5.27.24)
  • four shot after argument in parking lot (Charlotte, NC 6.8.24)
  • man “stands his ground,” shoots another dead in dispute over street parking spot (Export, PA 6.18.24)
  • man armed and drunk at boat ramp, kills another in dispute over handicapped parking space (Sarasota, FL 8.8.24)
  • mass shooting after argument over parking spot leave 4 wounded (Memphis, TN 8.16.24)

Parties – “are no longer safe now that ‘everyone’ has a gun and is allowed to carry it ‘everywhere’” (X@fincaelsordo)

  • shooting at Juneteenth celebration in parking lot leaves 23 hurt (Willowbrook, IL 6.18.23)
  • shooting at birthday pool party leave 1 dead, 4 wounded (Compton, CA 6.7.24)
  • shooting at high school graduation party injures 4 (Beaufort Cty, SC 6.7.24)
  • shooting at high school graduation party leaves 1 dead, 1 wounded (Houston, TX 6.8.24)
  • shooting at high school graduation party injures 2 (Petersburg, VA 6.9.24)
  • 9 shot at apartment roof party (Madison, WI 6.9.24)
  • 5 dead, 3 wounded at birthday party (Florence, KY 7.6.24)

Political violence

  • ‘No data centers’ note and shots fired at home of Indianapolis city council member (4.6.26)

Public places

  • Times Square is “O.K. Corral” after argument breaks out and guns are pulled, shooting 3 bystanders waiting in line (Wash. Post 5.10.21)
  • sidewalk fight in entertainment district leaves 4 wounded (Dallas, TX 6.9.24)

Public transit

  • altercations leading to back-to-back shootings on D.C. Metro leave 1 dead, 4 hurt (Wash. Post 12.9.22)
  • altercation leads to shooting of 3 bus and subway passengers and death of D.C. Metro employee (Wash. Post 2.2.23)
  • dispute between two groups on NYC subway platform leaves 1 dead, five injured, including bystanders (WSJ 2.13.24)
  • fight erupting on D.C. metro bus leaves 5 people shot (1.22.26)

Restaurants & Fast Food

  • spilled drink leaves 5 shot, including 2 dead at a Norfolk restaurant (3.19.22)
  • dispute leaves 5 shot plus 2 dead at a Louisville restaurant (8.27.23)
  • couple upset over a delayed WhataBurger order shot a Houston employee (KTRK 3.2.24)
  • man wounds girlfriend and kills her friend during argument outside restaurant (Uniontown, PA 5.13.24)

Road rage – nearly hourly per @DefensiveGun (“Man arms himself to drive, becomes enraged to…”)

  • Denver man, after road altercation, follows woman to parking lot, gets into argument, critically wounds her and one son, kills another son (USA Today 6.17.18)
  • NC man on I-95, upset by lane merge by Pa. couple heading to beach for anniversary, shot into passenger door, killing wife (NYT 3.28.21)
  • Aide to VA gubernatorial candidate (aka “Annie Oakley” for .38 on hip) pulls AR-15 pistol in rage while driving campaign van (Wash. Post 5.1.21)
  • LA-area man cuts off mom who gestures at him, shoots dead son being driven to kindergarten (Wash. Post 6.8.21)
  • LA man in road rage incident fires bullet into pickup truck of actress Denise Richards and husband (People 11.15.22)
  • Md. man cuts off boxer Danny Kelly Jr. on Christmas Eve 2021, kills him after verbal exchange in front of wife and 3 children (Wash. Post 7.21.23)
  • Okla. judge shot at 6 cars in road rage, and rammed a woman who cut him off (9.11.23)
  • motorist shot a San Antonio landscaper for blowing leaves onto his car (ksat.com 2.29.24)
  • man gets into accident with another driver, then shoots him (Columbia, KY 5.11.24)
  • motorist shoots woman who unintentionally cut him off (University City, MO 5.15.24)
  • man pulls gun to move traffic backed up at high school graduation (Boiling Springs, SC 5.18.24)
  • Indy man becomes enraged at another driver, shoots him in neck at red light (5.19.24)
  • man, angry over another “spinning his tires near him” in a parking lot, sprays gunfire killing bystander (District Heights, MD 5.19.24)
  • man runs stop sign and almost hits couple, becomes enraged when they yell at him and shoots woman (Eastpointe, MI 5.21.24)
  • Houston motorist becomes enraged at another driver, shoots and kills 16yo passenger (5.22.24)
  • man becomes enraged, shoots and kills other driver in high school parking lot (Anthony, NM 5.24.24)
  • man gets into altercation with another car, gets hit in the face by one, shoots and kills the other (Myrtle Beach, FL 5.25.24)
  • man in minor accident, shoots 18yo driver who tries to exchange info, and is left paralyzed on way home from prom (Houston, TX 5.26.24)
  • Fla. man becomes enraged at another driver, chase and then shoots her in front of child (Pomona Park, Fla. 5.28.24)
  • Motorist becomes enraged at another driver on the Pa. Turnpike, shoots him in the head (Narvon, Pa. 5.31.24)
  • man gets into minor accident with another driver, chases and critically shoots him (Mesquite, TX 6.1.24)
  • woman gets into altercation with another woman at gas station, shoots her dead (Tuscaloosa, AL 6.1.24)
  • 3 people shot, 2 critically wounded after car accident turns into shooting (St. Louis, Mo. 6.2.24)
  • man shoots woman who “flipped each other off” in bridge road-rage incident (Charleston, SC 6.8.24)
  • motorist becomes enraged at another driver, shoots and kills him (Lebanon, OH 6.20.24)
  • man in fender-bender accident with another driver, shoots and kills him (Lewisville, TX 6.20.24)
  • July 4th road rage leaves 1 dead, 3 wounded including baby (Taneytown, MD 7.4.24)
  • Indianapolis man gets 60 years for road rage killing of another (AP 9.14.24)

Schools – “Disputes that escalate into a shooting are the most common situation when a gun is fired at a k-12 school” (X@K12ssdb)

  • shots fired during fight at high school graduation, in Des Moines (5.18.24), part of a dramatic increase in shootings over disputes at school graduations (@K12ssdb)
  • fight between attendees escalates into shots fired near KC charter school graduation (5.18.24)
  • man shot and killed outside Florida middle school by his ex-partner’s fiancé during a custody dispute (Citra, FL 5.22.24)
  • armed man in body armor tries to get on school bus picking up kids and threaten driver, upset it was blocking intersection near his house (Baton Rouge, LA 8.25.24)

Shopping

  • man at Walmart sees teens in car shoot other teens with “gel blaster” toy guns, chases and fires, critically wounds one (Wichita, KS 5.11.24)
  • Family Dollar greeter shoots customer in ankle in argument over having to present receipt at exit (Cleveland, OH 5.18.24)
  • “Shoplifter gets shot stealing candy at Walgreens” (WSJ 9.25.24)

Sports events

  • 22 shot, 1 dead after argument at Kansas City’s Super Bowl parade, despite presence of 800 police (2.14.24)
  • 10 shot in dispute after Denver’s NBA title win, 2 more at its parade (6.12-15.24)
  • 20 shot in fights after a Milwaukee’s NBA playoff game (5.13.22)
  • 2 shot dead in dispute at popular tailgating spot after Detroit Lions game (9.15.24)

Workplace

  • employee fatally shoots 2 co-workers and seriously wounds 3 following argument (Chester, PA 5.22.24)
  • two employees die in domestic murder-suicide outside subway station (Washington, DC 4.9.26)

What changed was the Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), a “dramatic upheaval in the law” (Stevens, J., dissenting), that guaranteed law-abiding citizens a right to a gun in the home for self-defense. Striking D.C.’s ban on handguns—used in most shootings—Heller boosted gun sales, unleashed deregulation, and shackled gun control. After McDonald v. Chicago extended Heller nationwide in 2010, tossing bans in Chicago and other cities, gun proliferation and deaths increased, then accelerated, creating an unmistakable inflection across nearly every metric.

This epidemic cannot be explained by mental health, poverty, inequality, youth, Covid-19, or crime. While factors, all were present before Heller, and all are found in other nations with a fraction of our gun violence. None account for the surge in gun deaths and injuries after Heller (2008) as expanded in McDonald v. Chicago (2010). Or spike in school shootings, flat for decades, whose sudden rise post-2008/2010 could not be more graphic (depicted at right). Most gun violence is due not to mental illness but anger, 9% or 22 million adults have a history of impulsive anger and access to a gun, and 1.5% or 4 million adults with anger issues carry a gun (Behavioral Sciences & Law, 4.8.15). Naturally impulsive teens with access to guns make the problem worse.

What does explain the surge—and epidemic—is Heller guaranteeing all “law-abiding citizens” a gun.

An historian Heller relied on, Joyce Malcolm, called such a right a “dangerous freedom.” An 1832 treatise it cited noted pistols often “turn a quarrel into a bloody affray.” Justice Breyer also warned, citing the American Journal of Psychiatry: “‘Most murders are committed by law-abiding citizens, in spontaneous violence generated by anger, passion or intoxication.’” An 1882 decision noted the “danger to the community” of pistols “ready to be used on every outbreak of ungovernable passion.” Guaranteeing law-abiding citizens a gun, Heller turned those with poor impulse control into criminals. And their homes, schools, and communities into killing fields.

“Many like to point out that most gun owners are law-abiding citizens. The problem is that any society as gun-saturated as ours isn’t going to see senseless violence just from criminals. It’s going to see senseless violence from people who were law-abiding citizens, until they used a gun to kill or maim someone.” (Jill Filipovic, CNN 4.19.23)

Empowering impulsive human beings with a constitutional right to guns is little different than giving them a constitutional right to drive drunk—just as deadly and unregulatable.

‘GOOD GUY WITH A GUN‘ ISN’T WORKING

MARGINAL GUN SAFETY ISN’T ‘WINNING’

WE NEED A NEW SOLUTION AND APPROACH

Problem Turns Epidemic

f you’re serious about the worsening gun epidemic, then you should be serious about the FACTS.

This epidemic was triggered and is fueled by one of the most misguided blunders in Court history: the Heller decision.

The Heller Inflection

In 2008, the Court in Heller, for the first time in 200 years, found in the 2nd Amendment’s “keep and bear Arms” text an “implied” right to have and carry a handgun in the home for self-defense. Not addressing existing law—a state right to keep armed militia, under which there had been no gun epidemic—a divided 5-4 Court declared: “We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country. . . . But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.”

Since no one talks about what resulted, we’ve mapped the data to show how a dangerous new right to have a gun enabled a devastating gun epidemic.

Heller isn’t solely responsible for the gun epidemic, but it is central to it. And central to Heller is guesswork invited by gun rights and control advocates. Neither side acknowledges Heller’s role, or deadly effects.

The correlation is undeniable. Justice Stevens later revealed, “all justices could foresee the negative consequences” of “such a radical change in the law,” calling Heller the “worst self inflicted wound in Court history.” In 2014, Stevens warned: it’s “profoundly important” to see Heller “curtails the power to regulate handguns that contribute to” the record gun violence, deploring “the slaughter caused by the prevalence of guns.” 

It should then be no surprise that by 2015, America’s gun problem became a “Gun Epidemic,” declared by the New York Times.

More Guns, More Gun Violence

The numbers tell the story. Since Heller in 2008 (expanded by McDonald to all states in 2010), guns and gun deaths surged in tandem, from 305 to over 400 million guns and 31,500 to over 45,000 annual deaths.

Thanks to Heller, America suffers record gun proliferation and violence—twice daily mass shootings, daily school shootings, multiple daily suicides, domestic shootings, road-rage shootings, and accidents—that keeps growing worse, year after year.

To confront this epidemic, we need to understand the magnitude of Heller’s disastrous legacy. Let’s break it down.

Primary Effect: Feeding America’s Gun Obsession

Heller marks an unprecedented shift in the history of American gun ownership. Reinterpreting the 2nd Amendment from the longtime state right to maintain militia to an individual right to own guns, Heller made it unlawful and more difficult to regulate most gun ownership. The result has been a startling rise in gun proliferation.

The contrast is stark. Between 2008 and 2016 twice as many guns entered the U.S. market as did in the previous decade.

By 2017, this increase resulted in 393 million guns in private ownership, the equivalent of 6 guns for every 5 Americans.1 As of 2021, The Trace calculates the number of guns has risen to 474 million. In Heller’s America, it is now easier to buy guns than to regulate their safe use. The unsurprising result of this is a dangerous and sustained rise in gun violence.

Parallel Effect: A Gun Violence Epidemic

Heller’s boost to record gun ownership has been mirrored by record gun violence. Having undone and stifled legislative efforts at prevention, Heller enabled the sharpest rise in gun violence since the 1960s—a period of extraordinary civil unrest and assassinations during the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War—and reversed a historic drop in gun deaths.

2017 had the highest number of gun deaths since records began in 1968, with 39,773 deaths documented. Since then, numbers have continued to rise. The Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit organization that tracks gun violence, has reported that annual deaths in 2020 far exceeded that previous record, reaching over 43,500.

Gun Suicides

Gun suicides have risen steadily over the fifteen years since Heller. 2018 set the record for both the highest rate and the highest number of gun suicides in 40 years.2

This rise is unsurprising in light of findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine that gun owners are four times more likely to commit suicide than non-gun owners. Multiple factors contribute, but guns are disproportionality dangerous, making up only 10% of all attempts yet over 50% of fatal attempts.3

It thus stands to reason that Heller’s new right, which has grown gun stock by almost 100 million in less than a decade, has contributed to a sharp rise in both overall suicides and gun suicides, showing how dangerous guns are for vulnerable individuals.

Yet Heller is commonly ignored by research. A 2020 study published in the Harvard Political Review cited 2006 as the start of the rise in gun suicides. But the decade ending 2008 showed a largely flat rate. Reflecting Heller’s impact, 2008 was the first year since 1998 that the rate exceeded 6 per 100,000. Gun suicides took off after Heller and have increased ever since.

Mass And School Shootings

Heller also marks the beginning of a sharp rise in mass and school shootings.

After records began in 2013, mass shootings steadily increased, becoming daily in the period 2015 through 2018, and jumping again since.

May 2020 marked the first month on record that mass shootings doubled to two a day according to the Gun Violence Archive. One month later, June 2020 broke this record with an average of three mass shootings a day, as did July, nearly matched again in August. That escalation made 2020 the first year in American history to exceed 600 mass shootings, which reached a new record of at least 688 mass shootings in 2021, that America is on pace to exceed in 2023.

None of this is normal. But it is the new normal in Heller’s America.

School shootings likewise have increased tenfold since Heller, according to data compiled by the k-12 School Shooting Database, whose surge after Heller was expanded nationwide by McDonald in 2010, could not be more graphic.

The available data shows a steady rise in both mass and school shootings post-Heller.

Desensitized to their increasing frequency, America fixates instead on the details and whether the incidents constitute mass shootings. Accurate analysis is difficult due to lack of a uniform definition and data. Gun Violence Archive requires 4 or more shot excluding the shooter, while Mass Shooting Tracker includes the shooter, yielding a higher count of 818 mass shootings last year. The oldest database is that of the FBI, but its definition, for “mass murder,” requiring 4 or more dead, greatly understates the problem. It excludes, for example, the 2020 cookout shooting in D.C. that left 21 shot and one dead—a mass shooting by any definition.

The limited data for mass shootings prior to 2013 and for school shootings prior to 2009 has obscured the Heller inflection. Regardless of data used, one thing is clear: the 18 years since Heller have seen a dramatic rise in mass and school shootings, so much so it triggered by 2018 a nationwide student March for Our Lives, and regular protests since.

Road Rage And Other Angry Shootings

Most fundamentally, by empowering all law-abiding citizens with guns, Heller turned those unable to control their human impulses while armed into “criminals.” This dynamic accounts for most gun violence today, whether mass shootings, school shootings, domestic shootings, or a new normal: road rage and other angry shootings.

“To understand the real problem of gun violence in the USA just google ‘Argument turns deadly.’ Angry people should not have a gun. Even normal people get angry.” (Andrew Wiles tweet, 7.24.22). After Heller, anger and other human emotions that were always part of human conflict were suddenly coupled with widespread accessibility of guns. The results were predictable, and predicted. As dissenting Justice Breyer warned, quoting the American Journal of Psychiatry: “‘Most murders are committed by previously law-abiding citizens, in situations where spontaneous violence is generated by anger, passion or intoxication.’” All three are presented in everyday shootings, the most visible perhaps involving road rage.

Before Heller, no one thought to track road rage incidents because they seldom led to shootings. But like mass shootings that were first systematically measured in 2014, shortly after Heller was expanded nationwide in 2010, road rage shootings had suddenly become another problem. Tracking revealed that road rage shootings doubled from 2014 to 2016, and again from 2017 to 2021 (Trace 5.2.22). They “continue to surge,” with one occurring now each day in America, in fact every 16 hours (Everytown 3.20.23).6

These senseless road rage shootings are recorded in daily postings on Twitter/X by @DefensiveGunUse. They are now widespread and a real threat to all Americans on the roads. In September 2023, even an Oklahoma judge succumbed to road rage, shooting six cars and twice rear-ending a woman who ‘cut him off.’

Their details vary, but the petty, shocking nature of such shootings of other drivers, their passengers (often children) and bystanders is the same. And they are but part of the larger pattern of petty shootings in anger that now occur hourly across America.

Emboldened Pseudo Militia

Heller’s related right, of “citizens’ militia as a safeguard against tyranny” when order breaks down, has normalized intimidating, dangerous, and unlawful public displays of military-grade weapons by pseudo militia. It has inspired militia activity across America: in anti-government insurgencies including the U.S. Capitol, in statehouses and town halls, along the border, and at protests across the country, including those that turned deadly in Charlottesville, Kenosha and Portland.

Predictably, since Heller endorsed the myth of a citizen’s right to guns as a check on tyranny, there have been almost weekly “incidents of insurrectionist violence (or the promotion of such violence),” as catalogued by the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence on its “Insurrectionism Timeline.”

Militia

The Southern Poverty Law Center tracks private militias and radical anti-government groups, typically spouting “a set of baseless conspiracy theories about the federal government working to destroy the liberties of Americans.” Data compiled in its Intelligence Report shows the number of antigovernment ‘Patriot’ Groups—of which private militias are a part—has risen dramatically since Heller.

The overall number of these groups fluctuates, but the sustained elevation every year since Heller demonstrates they have become far more prevalent. Research into the relationship between these increases and Heller is limited, due again to the failure to consider the obvious correlation, and with it the clear threat Heller poses to domestic tranquility and public safety.

Misdirected Media, Research, and Solutions

Heller’s clear role has gone unnoticed, unresearched, and unaddressed for 15 years.

Mainstream media, never investigating or shining a spotlight on Heller’s role, have normalized unprecedented, increasingly-frequent shootings, which hardly make news anymore, reporting them, if at all, as an everyday “part of American life.”

Gun violence research, unfocused on Heller, misdirected, and lacking a centralized effort to comprehensively record the violence, has resulted in a fundamental misdiagnosis of the epidemic.

Gun violence prevention (GVP)’s institutional avoidance of the elephant in the room (and role in creating and perpetuating it) has left mainstream organizations to offer modest “common sense” reforms. They barely slow and won’t stop the rising epidemic.

Universal background checks won’t reach the ongoing misuse of over 400 million guns, too often by angered, impassioned, or intoxicated law-abiding Americans. Age minimums, magazine limits, and red flag (“extreme risk”) laws won’t prevent most shootings. Most involve Heller-protected handguns that enable impulsive domestic violence and suicides in the home. When predictably taken out in public, as commonly done even before NYSRPA v. Bruen in 2022 extended Heller to public carry, they contribute to the unprecedented rise in impulse and grievance shootings, mass and school shootings, and street violence.

To Cure the Epidemic: Focus on and Overrule Heller

The divisive debate over America’s gun epidemic targets its symptoms—typically the circumstances of each shooting, shooter, gun, and purchase. It ignores the disease.

The country struggles to make sense of WHY THIS KEEPS HAPPENING and get past the empty ritual of thoughts and prayers. Few ask—not media, researchers, other GVP groups—what’s behind the growing gun violence, and what to do about it.

They remain focused on modest solutions; not the deadly, chilling effects of Heller which triggered this crisis, and blocks and marginalizes legislative efforts to end it.

Justice Stevens, recognizing the root of the problem, urged “more effective and more lasting reform.” As implored in his memoir, “overruling Heller is desperately needed to prevent [more] tragedies.”

AEP, dedicated to overturning Heller in the courts, takes no position on what legislative reform might be, whether at the state and local level under each State’s constitution, or in Congress. But when real reform becomes possible post-Heller, examples of what is possible abound.

Canada next door, that shares not only a long border but our heritage, frontier experience, and rural-urban divide, classifies firearms as non-restricted (hunting rifles), restricted (handguns and semiautomatics) and prohibited (certain handguns and automatic weapons). That seems to work for gun rights and control groups alike. And for schools: against our 34 school shootings as of the March 24, 2018, March for Our Lives,4 the number in Canada: zero.

Or Australia, which experiences few mass shootings since gun reforms in 1996. “Few Australians would deny their country is safer today,” says its former prime minister.

Or Great Britain, the direct descendent of “our English forefathers” in whom Heller found a supposed “ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms.” Today, Britain has some of the strictest gun laws and lowest gun violence in the world, and its media assail America’s “obscene proliferation of guns.”

Know the truth about Heller, and help us end its epidemic.

Heller’s Consequences

Heller’s impact is impossible to ignore, with American society unable to protect itself. Due to a court decision, we now face a devastating public health and safety crisis of escalating guns, deaths, injuries, and fear, and other destabilizing, costly effects.

Justice Stevens

Justice Stevens, deploring the “slaughter caused by the prevalence of guns,” disclosed all justices could forsee the “negative consequences” of Heller’s “radical change in the law,” and urged “overruling Heller is desperately needed.”

Record high guns, deaths, shootings
  • Record levels of civilian firearms, now exceeding 465 million (X@NewtownAction 6.16.24)
  • “16 million people – 1 in 20 adults – own at least one AR-style rifle” (Wash. Post 12.28.23)
  • Ghost gun proliferation: from 2016 to 2021, over 45,200 suspected self-made guns were recovered from crime scenes (Wash. Post 6.6.24)
  • Rampant gun proliferation
  • “Gun Industry Targets Kids Using TikTok, Instagram, and Video Games” (Mother Jones 10.24.23)
  • Grocery stores in Ala. and Okla. install vending machines (“ammo kiosks”) for easy access ammunition (Cleveland.com 7.6.24)
  • Records gun deaths, 25,198 by July 2023, set to pass 2021 all-time high of 45,080 (Gun Violence Archive)
  • Americans are 26 times more likely to be shot & killed than people in other high-income countries (BradyUnited.org)
  • “2 in 10 Americans report experience or connection to gun violence: poll” (PBS New Hour 9.1.22)
  • Record mass shootings, 500+ killed by August 2023, the most in at least 10 years (Forbes 8.29.23
  • “In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable. It was over.” (Daily Mail’s Dan Hodges 6.19.15). A dozen years and more than 5,000 mass shootings later, little has changed.
  • 131 mass shootings (4+ shot not incl. shooter) by July 2023 versus 113 last year (Gun Violence Archive)
  • Record high 818 mass shootings (4+ shot incl. shooter) in 2021—over 2 a day (Mass Shooting Tracker)
  • Most mass shootings involve guns obtained legally, and are motivated by grievances, not mental illness (FBI, 6.2018)
  • Record mass killings (4+ killed)—on average every 6.5 days (WSJ 4.23.23)
  • Record school shootings, another new high, “doubling in past year” (The Hill 9.14.23)
  • “Number of guns found in schools is soaring” (Wash. Post 10.16.23)
  • Soaring impulsive, angry, grievance, intoxicated shootings
  • Record domestic shootings of all ages, gender, race: partners, parents, grandparents, kids shooting each other
  • “More than 700 women are shot to death by intimate partners each year” (Giffords.org)
  • Every month, 70 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner (Everytown.org)
  • 46% of mass killings of 4 or more in 2015-22 were of intimate partners or family (Everytownresearch.org)
  • In over 66% of mass shootings, the perpetrator either killed at least one partner or family member or had a history a history of domestic violence
  • More than half of all women who die by homicide are killed by a current or former male intimate partner.
  • A 2016 study found that, of women alive, 1 million had been shot or shot at by an intimate partner, and 4.5 million had been threatened with a gun.
  • When an abuser has a gun, they are five times more likely to kill a partner
  • Dozens of women are killed with a gun by an intimate partner each month
  • “Every day in America 41 children lose a parent to shootings” Wash. Post 4.21.22
  • “People living in homes with firearms have higher risks for dying by homicide” (Annals of Internal Medicine 2022)
  • “Leading cause of death for children,” passing car crashes in 2017 NE J. Med. 4.20.22
  • “Child Gun Deaths Spiked 87% in 10 Years” (Forbes 10.13.23)
  • 8 children a day are killed or injured unintentionally by unsecured guns in the home (BradyUnited.org)
  • 2023 was the worst year on record for unintentional shootings of kids and teens (Everytownresearch.org)
  • “Each year 19,000 kids & teens are killed or injured, 3M exposed to gun violence” (Everytownresearch.org)
  • Record accidental, negligent shootings, “an average of 3.75 per day” (@GunDeaths 4.23.24)
  • “A person is injured or killed nearly every day because a child has unintentionally fired a gun.” (@K12ssdb)
  • “Second accidental shooting by a police officer at a school this month” (@K12ssdb 9.23.24)
  • Record suicides from gun access, 69 deaths every day, over 25,000 last year (@Everytown 9.18.24)
  • 90% of attempts result in death vs. 4% of all others (Everytownresearch.org)
  • Access to a gun triples risk of death by suicide (Everytownresearch.org)
  • “One quarter of all gun suicide victims had been drinking” (Johns Hopkins Ctr. for Gun Violence 1.30.24)
  • Record school suicides in front of classmates (in classrooms, lunchrooms, bathrooms) (@K12ssdb 9.23.24)
  • Suicides among children aged 10 to 14 tripled 2007-2020 WSJ June 5, 2022
  • Rocketing shootings driven by “petty fights” and gun access (Wash. Post 1.1.22)
  • Record road rage shootings “surged more than 400%” between 2014 and 2023 (Trace 2.25.24)
  • Road rage shootings occur every 16 hrs (Everytown 3.20.23), doubling 2014-16, again 2017-21 (Trace 5.2.22)—even in response to flashed headlights (by domestic abuser now before Supreme Court in U.S. v. Rahimi)
  • Record armed carjackings, “rose for the sixth straight year in 2023” (Wash. Post 1.27.24)
  • “Alarming rise in carjackings” gives DoorDash, UberEats, Grubhub drivers trauma, anxiety (Wash. Post. 1.23.24)
  • Record fast-food shootings over botched orders or declined credit card (also in US v. Rahimi)
  • Record FBI background checks of 39 million firearms in 2020-2022
  • TSA gun seizures “soaring 6 times since 2008,” 93% found loaded Wash. Post 3.19.22, 10.12.23
A public living in fear
  • Devastated families and communities across the country
  • Domestic partners routinely threatened, stalked, injured, and killed despite protective orders
  • “A firearm is a tool of control,” “used to threaten, harass, intimidate—victims know it would take a second to make something happen” (Ruth Glenn, president of Survivor Justice Action, Mother Jones 11.9.23)
  • “Extreme stress of parenting” includes fear of school shootings (NYT 9.15.24)
  • US Surgeon General issues parental mental health advisory (8.28.24)
  • Nationwide student March for Our Lives following Parkland high school mass shooting (2.14.18)
  • Student active shooter drills at all levels, including kindergarten
  • Repeated school shootings leave dead and wounded students and communities “in fear” (Wash. Post 1.5.24)
  • “Every year, 3 million kids and teens witness an act of gun violence in America.” (X@StudentsDemand 6.22.24)
  • “Imagine the stress, trauma and anxiety that a second active shooter lockdown in 16 days caused our students, faculty and staff.” (UNC chancellor, Wash. Post 9.13.23)
  • “Gun-wary schools are mandating clear backpacks” (Wash. Post 8.27.23)
  • “One third of K-12 parents are very worried a shooting could happen at their child’s school” (Pew 10.18.22)
  • Parents don’t “feel comfortable” letting children go to high school football games (Wash. Post 10.21.23)
  • Children routinely shot by guns flooding homes, playgrounds, school buses, athletic fields, streets
  • Arming teachers, “expecting teachers to see being shot as part of the job” (Wash. Post 4.30.23)
  • Schools, churches, businesses hardened, screened, armed
  • Oxford, Mich.’s high school, where 4 students were killed, was fortified with 100 cameras and doors with bolts into the floor (Wash. Post 4/10/24)
  • “School Shootings Are Changing the Design of American Classrooms” (WSJ 6.7.24)
  • School lock-downs after real and imagined threats
  • schools routinely are vacated over “hoax” calls about a gun
  • college locks down after AI technology mistakes theater prop guns for real firearms (Pittsford, NY 6.18.24)
  • Colleges wall off campuses, add security and guard booths (Wash. Post 10.12.23)
  • Medical facilities rattled by “violence uptick,” add campus police (WSJ 5.8.23)
  • Government offices add drills, text alerts, responder blueprints (Wash. Post 10.5.23)
  • “Voting offices, fearing worst” get ready with tourniquets, live shooter drills (Wash. Post 2.11.24)
  • Public spaces, neighborhoods, stores, restaurants, workplaces increasingly dangerous
  • In some neighborhoods, “‘everyone has a gun. Every weekend you hear gunshots. People shoot in their backyards, after they drink alcohol, men take out guns at house parties and shoot the ground’” (Wash. Post 4.30.23). “When the sun begins to set and liquor bottles begin to empty, ‘it sounds like a war zone—it’s that intense. You hear boom boom boom every night.’” (“Gunfire ubiquitous in Texas town,” Wash. Post 5.8.23)
  • With permitless carry, “‘It’s like walking on eggshells every day.’” (“Gunfire ubiquitous in Texas town,” Wash. Post 5.8.23)
  • Cities cancel public events: Akron, Ohio cancels Juneteenth weekend events following recent mass shooting (Cleveland19.com 6.14.24)
  • Restaurants shut down, citing safety concerns (Fox.Baltimore.com 6.17.24)
  • Public transit shootings “rising across the country” Wash. Post 4.17.22
  • Many riders “rarely take the subway nowadays. ‘I don’t want to be killed by some 15-year-old with a gun’” (Wash. Post 5.18.24)
  • Bystander and accidental shootings becoming routine
  • “Fear of increasing crime a factor in shooting of strangers” (Wash. Post 5.1.23)
  • In nation’s capital, 3 in 10 residents do not feel safe Wash. Post 2.27.22
  • “Fatal shootings surge in D.C, frightening residents” (Wash. Post 8.7.23)
  • Driving public fears is a pernicious mix of widespread gun ownership, misconceptions about stand-your-ground laws, marketing of guns for self-defense, and growing sense of deteriorating safety (M.L. Paul, Wash. Post 5.8.23)
Destabilizing, costly, embarrassing effects
  • Pseudo-militia doubled post-2008, threatening governments, officials, elections
  • “Far-right radicalism is the nation’s top domestic threat” per FBI (Wash. Post 8.26.23)
  • Shootings target power grid: 2023 plot uncovered to shoot up Baltimore substations to sow societal chaos via white supremacist “accelerationism” ideology (Wash. Post 9.26.24)
  • “Gunshots at NC substations cut electricity to 45,000” (Wash. Post 12.5.22)
  • Rising armed resistance to police, traffic stops, 911 calls
  • “4 officers fatally shot, 4 injured while serving warrant in Charlotte” (Wash. Post 4.30.24)
  • “Surging political threats menace US democracy” through violent tactics and swatting (Wash. Post 2.9.24)
  • “House proposal plans for possible ‘mass casualty’ event (Wash. Post 9.20.24)
  • “a tidal wave of menacing behavior in recent years has rattled the offices of public servants” (CNN 12.7.23)
  • “Threats of violence can taint politicians’ decision-making process, experts say (Wash. Post 1.10.24)
  • DOJ Election Threats Task Force formed in 2021 to combat rising threats towards election workers after onslaught related to the 2020 election
  • Attorney General Merrick Garland deplores “deeply disturbing spike” of threats against government workers and public servants (1.9.24)
  • Election offices add panic buttons, bulletproof glass (NBCNEWS 10.2.24)
  • Increasing “toxic mix of partisanship and guns,” with angry citizens “standing face-to-face with weapons, often with police appearing to be little more than observers (Wash. Post 8.28.20)
  • Armed threats against FEMA workers delivering hurricane relief (Wash. Post 10.15.24)
  • Threats to judges quadrupled 2015-2021, sometimes deadly (U.S. Marshals Service)
  • Chief Justice Robert’s 2024 Year-End Report addresses threats to judges’ safety
  • In 2024, a Supreme Court Police force was created to address heightened threats
  • “Alaska man charged with threatening six Supreme Court justices” and their relatives (Wash. Post 9.20.24)
  • Security measures are “night and day” compared to the 1990s. “It’s a huge adjustment for your family. You pray there’s not a long-term impact” (Kavanaugh, J., 5.10.24). In 2022, an armed man at the justice’s home, upset by the Uvalde school shooting, was charged with attempted murder.
  • “I believe people when they say they want to hurt or kill us.” (Wisc. Justice Karofsky, Wash. Post 2.9.24)
  • “Deeply disturbing spike” in threats against federal and state officials, including judges and legislators (AG Garland 1.5.24), and shooting at Colo. Sup. Ct (1.2.24)
  • Record hate shootings and threats over race, gender, faith, politics
  • “More than 28 hate crimes involving a firearm occur daily in the US.” (X@Giffords 6.17.24)
  • Shootings over petty crime: “Shoplifter gets shot stealing candy at Walgreens” (WSJ 9.25.24)
  • Stand Your Ground rights “cannot be nullified by a jury or prosecutor” (Tex. Gov. Abbott, pardoning man who killed BLM protester, 5.16.24)
  • Bills allow teachers to carry firearms, as in Tennessee after 6 students were shot at Nashville school (Wash. Post 4.24.24)
  • Calls for police in elementary schools as well as middle and high schools (Wash. Post 5.7.24)
  • “Schools with armed guards had 3x more fatalities with no significant reduction in injuries” (txgunsense 9.23.24)
  • Parents now prosecuted for child’s misuse of guns (Wash. Post 2.9.24)
  • Police now prosecuted for slow shooting response
  • School police chief indicted for role in response to Uvalde shooting that left 19 students and 2 teachers dead (WSJ 8.28.24)
  • “Exacting a mental toll,” mass killings “leave Americans numb and fearful,” “many wondering: Am I next?” (Wash. Post 5.14.23)
  • “Across the country, more and more people are affected by multiple mass killings over the course of their lifetimes” (Wash. Post 4.3.23)
  • Record shooting injuries, requiring hospitalization, therapy, trauma care
  • “Shooting is a massive risk to hearing,” hearing loss from recreational guns is “epidemic” (Wash. Post 2.20.24)
  • Lax gun laws spark violent protests: “Perhaps this is the impact for change.” (Louisville mass shooter in killing 5, injuring 8, Wash. Post 1.23.24)
  • $557 billion in annual medical, insurance and government costs, or 2.6% of GDP (JAMA 2022)
  • Nation’s capital pays $1.5mm per fatal shooting, $1 billion in 2021  Wash. Post 4.22.22
  • “It takes more than 100 people to save a gunshot victim’s life” BuzzFeed 4.29.22
  • School closures due to threats and fears of shootings
  • “As school threats proliferate, more than 700 students are arrested” in 3 weeks following Georgia school shooting, with schools across country forced to cancel homecoming parades, school dances, and football games due to shooting threats (NYT 9.25.24)
  • Middle school closed and police added at others, in latest of wave of Connecticut school threats (Courant.com 9.17.24)
  • Demolished schools and other mass shooting sites
  • Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT, after shooting of 26 first graders and teachers in 2012, was torn down and replaced
  • Robb Elementary in Uvalde, TX, where 21 students and teachers were killed and 17 injured in 2022, is closed for demolition
  • Parkland high school building where 17 students died is demolished (6.14.24)
  • Business closures due to gun violence
  • Restaurants in Baltimore’s historic district close pending plan to address gun violence (Fells Point, MD 6.18.24)
  • “As longevity declines U.S. short on answers,” gun violence a “major factor” (Wash. Post 12.28.23, 1.14.24)
  • Wasteful litigation and legal confusion: 2,000+ cases applying Heller, not real 2nd Amendment
  • “Why America’s Gun Laws Are in Chaos” (WSJ 8.2.23)
  • Legislative and electoral gridlock over the most marginal reforms
  • Grim parodies: “‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” (The Onion 5.25.22)
  • Highway sign image: WELCOME TO UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: “O” DAYS SINCE A MASS SHOOTING (X@0DSLMS)
  • Graduation meme “When you graduate from high school in the USA” of students tossing Kevlar vests instead of mortarboards
  • “Thoughts & Prayers: The Game” (2024)
  • Foreign travel advisories issued for U.S. by other countries
  • Foreign media deplore America’s “shameful” gun violence (Great Britain), and “extensively cover U.S. mass shootings, police violence, polarization, and public security problems” (China, Wash. Post 5.28.24)
  • Foreign governments sue U.S. manufacturers and dealers for exporting gun violence (New Yorker 1.31.24)
  • “American guns and extremism fuel global violence” (Trace 9.21.23)

A Real Solution

Galvanizing reform initiatives are not “winning,” except at the margins. Avoiding Heller and defeatist hand-wringing have not worked. Guns keep surging and shootings pile up. Legislative, community, and research efforts focused on gun safety are important, but modest measures cannot reverse a growing crisis or cure the real problem: too many guns in the hands of impulsive human beings.

“A society saturated with guns is a society living in fear of itself.” (X@EschewObtuse)

“The display of a gun instills fear in the average citizen [and] creates an immediate danger [of] a violent response.” (McLaughlin v. US (1986)).

We need a direct response and paradigm change. Heller—creating a dystopia where all citizens are armed—must be understood, challenged, and undone. It is time to see Heller as the series of glaring errors, omissions, and guesswork it is—a house of cards that cannot stand, even in this Court.

We can no longer accept the decision that gave us a gun crisis. Americans deserve to grow up and be safe from the threat of guns, like prior generations, not pay with their lives for constitutional guesswork.


Thoughts, prayers, and social media posts aren’t going to solve the problem: we need action.” (Parkland survivor Sari Kaufman).

“If they continue to pursue a pathway of inaction, more people are going to die.”

(Parkland survivor Jaclyn Corin)
Help us overturn these flawed and dangerous decisions and re-empower legislatures to end this needless crisis.

The Necessary Action

Heller and its progeny are egregiously wrong and must be overturned. 

American Enlightenment Project is the one organization dedicated to undoing Heller and educating the country in the lost meaning of the 2nd Amendment. After years of persistent effort, AEP is the one that can explain it. To learn more, visit About AEP, 2nd Amendment Explained, and Heller’s 2nd Amendment.

Will you join us? We need your help to bring court challenges to undo Heller and its epidemic.

Increased Urgency

The Court is poised to allow AR-15s on every street corner in America, whose ballistic impact one police chief described as “sickening and unacceptable.” Last term, the Court paused review of assault-rifle bans pending further lower court development. Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch argued it was “difficult to see” how the states could ban AR-15s, the most popular rifle in America, under Heller’s common-use test. Justice Kavanaugh, who reached that conclusion in a prior case, expects the issue will be taken up “soon.”

The increasingly perilous issues stemming from Heller—which got almost everything wrong about the Second Amendment—demand a course change, not only by the Court but both sides of the gun debate.

Join Us in our Fight

At a time when America is desperate for solutions to gun violence, AEP offers a strategic challenge to the flawed reasoning that has led to our current gun crisis.

Will you join us? We need your help to mount court challenges that will undo Heller and end the gun epidemic.

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the American Enlightenment Project are tax-deductible.

1 – The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/there-are-more-guns-than-people-in-the-united-states-according-to-a-new-study-of-global-firearm-ownership/

2 – John Hopkins: Bloomberg School of Public Health https://americanhealth.jhu.edu/article/how-do-gun-laws-affect-suicide-rates

3 – Gifford Law Centre https://lawcenter.giffords.org/facts/gun-violence-statistics/

4 – P. Krishnakumar,“Since Sandy Hook, a gun has been fired on school grounds nearly once a week,”Los Angeles Times (updated through Mar. 22, 2018). https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-school-shootings-since-newtown/

5 – K-12 School Shooting Database, “All Shootings at Schools From 1966-Present.” https://k12ssdb.org/all-shootings

6 – Everytown for Gun Safety, “Road Rage Shootings Are Continuing to Surge” (3.20.23) https://everytownresearch.org/reports-of-road-rage-shootings-are-on-the-rise/?