Sasse: Gun Violence Hasn't Increased; "Lone Ranger" Shootings Have

Aug. 8, 2019, 4:49 p.m. ·

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Sen. Ben Sasse speaks Thursday in Ashland, Nebraska as other congressional delegation members look on. (Photo by Fred Knapp, NET News)

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Sen. Ben Sasse said gun violence in the United States is not worse than it was decades ago, and the country should be careful not to take guns away from people without due process.


Sasse talked about guns in a “legislative summit” sponsored by the state, Lincoln, and Greater Omaha chambers of commerce at the Strategic Air Command and Aerospace Museum near Ashland, Nebraska Thursday. He referred to the “horrific” tragedies the country has experienced in recent years, specifically mentioning last week’s shooting in El Paso that killed 22 people.

“There’s obviously a “Lone Ranger” shooter problem in the country. But I think we should distinguish between that and the larger debates that the way we consume media make people believe. And so one of the first things to say is there’s actually not more gun violence in the United States right now than 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago,” Sasse said.

A study published last year by the Pew Research Center found that counting murders and suicides, nearly 40,000 people died of gun-related violence the year before, the highest total in decades. But the same study said the rate of gun deaths had declined from 14.6 to 12 per 100,000 people since 1979.

For the complete study, click here.

Sasse described what he thinks is new about gun violence.

“What there is, is there’s an increase in my view (of) people committing suicide a certain way that batch an attempt to kill 5 or 20 innocents as these folks who’ve decided to commit suicide go and do it in a copycat way,” he said.

The accused gunman in El Paso did not commit suicide, but surrendered to police. In a racist manifesto posted online explaining his motives, he reportedly cited the gunman who killed 51 people at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, who in turn cited the gunman who killed 9 people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Discussing a possible legislative response, Sasse mentioned legislation being promoted by a fellow Republican senator.

“Lindsey Graham, who’s the chairman of the Judiciary Committee on which I serve has been working with the Democrats in the Senate about a potential so-called red flag piece of legislation, and most of the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, and I’m with them, have not been consulted on this. This has been Lindsey freelancing with Democrats. And I think it raises a whole bunch of issues,” Sasse said.

Graham, from South Carolina, has been working with Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on legislation. According to the Associated Press, it would create a federal grant program to encourage states to pass so-called red flag laws, also known as “extreme risk protection order” laws, which let courts issue temporary orders barring someone from possessing guns based on a showing of imminent danger or a risk of misuse.

Sasse warned that any legislation should safeguard people’s constitutional rights. “The guardrail that I would argue we all need to have in front of us through anything like this is being sure that the administrative state doesn’t run roughshod over the rights of Americans, but rather that the executive branch has to make a proactive case before a court, and then a court would have to adjudicate that in light of legislation that had been explicitly passed. So the default rights of law-abiding Americans are not abridged, but rather only in the cases of people who’ve been adjudicated mentally ill,” Sasse said.

For Sen. Lindsey Graham's full statement, click here.

A spokesman for Graham’s office did not respond directly to Sasse’s comments. However, he did forward a statement Graham made in connection with a hearing on red flag legislation in March, saying, “The burden of proof is placed on law enforcement to prove the person in question has become an imminent danger and there is a Due Process right for the individual to challenge the determination.” Red flag

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