Com a carnificina em Uvalde, Texas, e Buffalo, Nova York, em maio de 2022, começaram novamente os apelos ao Congresso para aprovar o controle de armas. Desde o massacre de 20 crianças e quatro funcionários da Sandy Hook Elementary School em Newtown, Connecticut, em 2012, a legislação apresentada em resposta aos assassinatos em massa tem falhado consistentemente no Senado. Pedimos aos cientistas políticos Monika McDermott e David Jones que ajudassem os leitores a entender por que mais restrições nunca são aprovadas, apesar da maioria dos americanos apoiar leis mais rígidas de controle de armas.
Assassinatos em massa estão se tornando mais frequentes. No entanto, não houve legislação significativa sobre armas aprovada em resposta a esses e outros tiroteios em massa. Por quê?

Monika McDermott:Embora haja consistentemente uma maioria a favor de restringir o acesso a armas um pouco mais do que o governo atualmente faz, geralmente é uma pequena maioria – embora esse apoio tenda a aumentar no curto prazo após eventos como os recentes tiroteios em massa.

Costumamos descobrir que até mesmo os proprietários de armas apoiam restrições como verificações de antecedentes para todas as vendas de armas, inclusive em shows de armas. Então esse é um que todo mundo fica para trás. A outra que as famílias que possuem armas apoiam é que elas não se importam com a aplicação da lei em tirar armas de pessoas que foram legalmente julgadas como instáveis ​​ou perigosas. Essas são duas restrições nas quais você pode obter apoio virtual unânime do público americano. Mas o acordo sobre elementos específicos não é tudo.

Isso não é algo que as pessoas estão clamando, e há tantas outras coisas na mistura com as quais as pessoas estão muito mais preocupadas agora, como a economia. Além disso, as pessoas estão inseguras quanto ao déficit orçamentário federal, e a saúde ainda é um problema perene neste país. Então, esse tipo de coisa é a legislação de controle de armas em termos de prioridades para o público.

Portanto, você não pode pensar apenas no apoio da maioria à legislação; você tem que pensar em prioridades. As pessoas no escritório se preocupam com quais são as prioridades. Se alguém não vai votar neles por causa de um problema, então eles não vão fazer isso.

A outra questão é que você tem essa visão diferente da situação das armas em famílias com e sem armas. Quase metade do público vive em uma casa com uma arma. E essas pessoas tendem a ficar significativamente menos preocupadas do que aquelas em lares sem armas de que um tiroteio em massa possa acontecer em sua comunidade. Também é improvável que digam que leis mais rígidas sobre armas reduziriam o perigo de tiroteios em massa.

As pessoas que não possuem armas pensam o contrário. Eles acham que as armas são perigosas. Eles acham que se restringíssemos o acesso, os tiroteios em massa seriam reduzidos. Então você tem essa bifurcação no público americano. E isso também contribui para que o Congresso não possa ou não tenha feito nada sobre o controle de armas.

Como a opinião pública se relaciona com o que o Congresso faz ou deixa de fazer?

David Jones:People would, ideally, like to think that members of Congress are responding to public opinion. I think that is their main consideration when they're making decisions about how to prioritize issues and how to vote on issues.

But we also have to consider:What is the meaning of a member's "constituency"? We can talk about their geographic constituency—everyone living in their district, if they're a House member, or in their state, if they're a senator. But we could also talk about their electoral constituency, and that is all of the people who contributed the votes that put them into office.

And so if a congressmember's motive is reelection, they want to hold on to the votes of that electoral constituency. It may be more important to them than representing everyone in their district equally.

In 2020, the most recent congressional election, among citizens who voted for a Republican House member, only 24% of those voters wanted to make it more difficult to buy a gun.

So if you're looking at the opinions of your voters versus those of your entire geographic constituency, it's your voters that matter most to you. And a party primary constituency may be even narrower and even less in favor of gun control. A member may have to run in a party primary first before they even get to the general election. Now what would be the most generous support for gun control right now in the U.S.? A bit above 60% of Americans. But not every member of Congress has that high a proportion of support for gun control in their district. Local lawmakers are not necessarily focused on national polling numbers.

You could probably get a majority now in the Senate of 50 Democrats plus, say, Susan Collins and some other Republican or two to support some form of gun control. But it wouldn't pass the Senate. Why isn't a majority enough to pass? The Senate filibuster—a tradition allowing a small group of Senators to hold up a final vote on a bill unless a three-fifths majority of Senators vote to stop them.

Monika McDermott:This is a very hot political topic these days. But people have to remember, that's the way our system was designed.

David Jones:Protecting rights against the overbearing will of the majority is built into our constitutional system.

Do legislators also worry that sticking their neck out to vote for gun legislation might be for nothing if the Supreme Court is likely to strike down the law?

David Jones:The last time gun control passed in Congress was the 1994 assault weapons ban. Many of the legislators who voted for that bill ended up losing their seats in the election that year. Some Republicans who voted for it are on record saying that they were receiving threats of violence. So it's not trivial, when considering legislation, to be weighing, "Yeah, we can pass this, but was it worth it to me if it gets overturned by the Supreme Court?"

Going back to the 1994 assault weapons ban:How did that manage to pass and how did it avoid a filibuster?

David Jones:It got rolled into a larger omnibus bill that was an anti-crime bill. And that managed to garner the support of some Republicans. There are creative ways of rolling together things that one party likes with things that the other party likes. Isso ainda é possível? Não tenho certeza.

It sounds like what you are saying is that lawmakers are not necessarily driven by higher principle or a sense of humanitarianism, but rather cold, hard numbers and the idea of maintaining or getting power.

Monika McDermott:There are obvious trade-offs there. You can have high principles, but if your high principles serve only to make you a one-term officeholder, what good are you doing for the people who believe in those principles? At some point, you have to have a reality check that says if I can't get reelected, then I can't do anything to promote the things I really care about. You have to find a balance.

Wouldn't that matter more to someone in the House, with a two-year horizon, than to someone in the Senate, with a six-year term?

David Jones:Absolutely. If you're five years out from an election and people are mad at you now, some other issue will come up and you might be able to calm the tempers. But if you're two years out, that reelection is definitely more of a pressing concern.

Some people are blaming the National Rifle Association for these killings. What do you see as the organization's role in blocking gun restrictions by Congress?

Monika McDermott:From the public's side, one of the important things the NRA does is speak directly to voters. The NRA publishes for their members ratings of congressional officeholders based on how much they do or do not support policies the NRA favors. These kinds of things can be used by voters as easy information shortcuts that help them navigate where a candidate stands on the issue when it's time to vote. This gives them some credibility when they talk to lawmakers.

David Jones:The NRA as a lobby is an explanation that's out there. But I'd caution that it's a little too simplistic to say interest groups control everything in our society. I think it's an intermingling of the factors that we've been talking about, plus interest groups.

So why does the NRA have power? I would argue:Much of their power is going to the member of Congress and showing them a chart and saying, "Look at the voters in your district. Most of them own guns. Most of them don't want you to do this." It's not that their donations or their threatening looks or phone calls are doing it, it's the fact that they have the membership and they can do this research and show the legislator what electoral danger they'll be in if they cast this vote, because of the opinions of that legislator's core constituents.

Interest groups can help to pump up enthusiasm and make their issue the most important one among members of their group. They're not necessarily changing overall public support for an issue, but they're making their most persuasive case to a legislator, given the opinions of crucial voters that live in a district, and that can sometimes tip an already delicate balance.