President Donald Trump's apparent support for raising the minimum age to purchase a gun from 18 to 21 and a more rigorous system of background checks for all firearm purchases left many Republican lawmakers stunned, according to a Feb. 28 New York Times article. Gun control advocates say that these regulations are a first step in combating gun violence, while detractors allege they would fail to stop guns from getting in the hands of criminals. Are additional regulations the right step to take in order to reduce gun violence? 

Ben Siegel ’20
Additional regulations are absolutely necessary to corral gun violence. In no other modern nation is gun violence as rampant as it is in the United States. There is no reason to own any type of automatic or semi-automatic weapon. We need to redefine what types of guns are allowed to be owned, and the process used to obtain one. We need to have strong background checks, and necessary gun training, with accuracy tests. We need a mandatory waiting period to ensure that no one who plans to commit atrocities is given the chance to just buy a gun and commit said act. We need a ban on all semi-automatic weapons and bump stocks; there is no need for these monstrous weapons. Finally, we need an accurate and up-to-date gun owner database. I believe that these measures are the first steps to ending the cycle of gun violence in our country.
Ben Siegel ’20 is a Biology major. 

Zach Kasdin ’18
Under the Gun Control Act of 1968, only those who are 21 or older can purchase a handgun. This age requirement drops to 18 years old for “rifles and shotguns.” Presumably, this distinction traces the line between guns-for-protection and guns-for-sport. And yet, in the face of the recent Parkland, FloridA, school shooting, in which a high-powered rifle allowed the 19-year-old perpetrator to kill 17, any further restriction on the sale of such damage-inflicting weapons seems well-reasoned, to say the least. If federal law requires someone to be 21 or older to purchase a handgun, then any commonsense first-step toward decreased gun violence would naturally place a similar age restriction on the purchase of all weapons. Granted, any long-lasting plan to limit gun violence will need to move beyond this type of Band-Aid solution, and instead re-think the role that guns can and should play in our nation’s culture. But, in the meantime, the leveling of the age-requirement to 21 seems like a good place to start.    
Zach Kasdin ’18 is an Undergraduate Departmental Representative for the Politics Department, and the co-editor in chief of the Brandeis International Journal.  

Prof. Michael Strand (SOC)
The myth is that the market for guns that enables the extraordinary U.S. exceptionalism of mass shootings is not something already regulated into existence. The success of the gun lobby has been to label anything that detracts from the profitability of gun manufacture and sale as "regulation." What we are witnessing is a case of organized resistance to a market created to be eminently favorable to capital, but one which makes life increasingly precarious. Resistance invokes what should be an obvious point: the preservation of life is more important than profitability, with gun markets and healthcare being the most obvious examples of the contradiction, and climate change arguably the most consequential. The worry is that such  forms of resistance are increasingly subjugated as impossible, naïve, even "radical." Life itselfseems less sacred in comparison. Trump's proposals at least suggest that he recognizes the contradiction made vocal by mass sentiment. More consequential is the mobilization of students around the value of life (their lives) as a vital front in the battle of life versus capital.
Prof. Michael Strand (SOC) is an assistant professor of Sociology, specializing in social theory and historical methods. 

Prof. Keren McGinity (AMST)
Changing the minimum age to purchase a gun from 18 to 21 with a more rigorous system of background checks for all firearm purchases would be a positive step, but additional regulations are essential if the United States strives to reduce gun violence that results in the deaths of innocent children and adults. Age is not a sufficient predictor of premeditated murder and no database is foolproof. The gunman responsible for the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was 64 years old and his name did not raise any red flags. Perhaps the most important regulation is a ban on assault-style weapons that enable a lone operator to kill many people in a short amount of time. They are not necessary for self-protection by a civilian. Protecting the Second Amendment’s “right to keep and bear arms” does not require preserving the right to own weapons used by combat soldiers; such guns, conversion gadgets, and ammunition must be outlawed.
Prof. Keren McGinity (AMST) is an adjunct assistant professor of American Studies, specializing in women’s history and cultural studies. 

Sam Sano ’19
There is plenty of evidence that additional regulations would be the right way to reduce gun violence. It is a well-known fact that the United States has by far both the highest rate of gun ownership and of gun homicides by population in the world. Furthermore, there seems to be a pretty strong correlation between higher rates of gun ownership and of gun homicides in other countries as well. While this alone suggests that regulating who can get guns and what kinds of guns they can get will reduce gun violence, the results of regulation in other countries show this even more strongly. Countries like Norway take a different approach to gun ownership and regulation, which can be seen in their significantly lower levels of gun homicides and their lack of many mass shootings. There is little reason to believe that similar strategies could not work in the United States.
Sam Sano ‘19 is a Politics major and Legal Studies minor.