Guns, Money, and Mass Shootings

0:00John Donohue:Now, every year, the industry wants to come up with new bells and whistles so people will buy new guns. And the fact that they're getting more lethal all the time contributes to the problem of mass shooting. So I do think at some point people will step in. Maybe now that there is this rise in political violence we've seen with legislatures attacked and killed in Minnesota, the attempt on President Trump's life and the killing of Charlie Kirk may focus people on this problem and push them to take some of the common sense measures that can reduce the level of gun violence in this arena.

0:47Eric Baldwin:This is Stanford Legal, where we look at the cases, questions, conflicts, and legal stories that affect us all every day. I'm Diego Zambrano, a professor at Stanford Law School. Please subscribe or follow this feed on your favorite podcast app. That way you have access to all new episodes. All right, so mass shootings are rare but highly visible events that shape our national conversation about guns and public safety. Every few weeks or months, news of another tragic shooting grabs our attention. And definitions vary. Policy responses differ across the states, but obviously the stakes of this conversation are extremely high.

1:26Eric Baldwin:Before we begin, a brief note. Yesterday, activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University. It was a horrific event. Our thoughts are with his family. Obviously, violence over political disagreement is unacceptable. Today, we're staying with our planned topic of mass shootings and how campaigns and interest groups respond. But we'll return to the broader question of political violence in a future episode. So today, we're examining how politics operates in these moments of heightened attention. What donors and interest groups actually do. How do they respond to mass shootings?

2:05Eric Baldwin:We're lucky to have one of the country's leading empirical researchers and my colleague here at Stanford, John Donahue, on the show today, joined by research fellow and co-author Eric Baldwin. John is an economist as well as a lawyer and is well known for using empirical analysis to determine the impact of law and public policy in a wide range of areas, including criminal justice, the death penalty, factors influencing crime, guns, incarceration, etc. Eric is a postdoctoral research fellow at Sanford Law School and an emerging voice in the fields of public policy, political science, empirical legal studies, and applied microeconomics.

2:44Eric Baldwin:So both of them, along with Takuma Iwasaki, co-authored a paper, another shooting, another contribution from the gun lobby that we're going to be discussing today, where they find that the gun lobby strategically responds to school shootings by flooding politicians in impacted districts with donations. All right. So welcome, John and Eric. And I want you to just give us a quick overview of how listeners should think about mass shootings within the broader landscape of gun violence. Yes.

3:15John Donohue:Well, good to be with you, Diego. Thanks for that introduction. And, you know, it's been interesting, differing trends in crime over time. So over the last 30 years, you definitely see a pretty sharp downturn in overall violent crime. And yet one area where things are definitely moving in the wrong direction has been the rise of mass shootings. And so, you know, everyone's familiar with the most egregious ones, going back to Sandy Hook in 2012, to more recent ones like Uvalde and the Parkland shooting. But the problem is, unfortunately, moving in the wrong direction from a public policy perspective.

4:01John Donohue:And there are things that we can do to address this issue. But what's been interesting to me over time is even though the public strongly supports some regulatory measures that could impact this problem, there has been virtual stasis at the federal level over the last 30 years.

4:22Eric Baldwin:And just to start with a comparative question, is the U.S. an actual outlier? Can you just give us an idea of the basic statistics there compared to other wealthy countries?

4:35John Donohue:Yes. And unfortunately, you do see these types of mass shootings everywhere. But first of all, other countries take measures to stop them when they happen and have been effective. So, for example, Australia actually had a worse mass shooting problem 40 years ago than we had on a per capita basis. But after a really horrendous mass shooting where I think 37 people were killed in Port Arthur, Australia, 12 days later, they enacted extremely stringent measures to address that problem. And it basically ended their mass shooting problem. And around the world, the affluent world, there have been much more restrictive measures taken than far beyond anything that's happened in the United States.

5:27John Donohue:So in general, the rest of the developed world has a much lower problem of this, but they also take much more stringent action to address the problem far beyond anything that's been done in the United States.

5:44Eric Baldwin:And of course, this question of how countries react, how legislatures react is exactly the point of your paper that we're going to be discussing. There is some data showing that you do see more bills in state legislatures trying to do something about gun control. And so we're going to talk about that. But before we do, just two more preliminary questions. So on the comparative side, you mentioned the U.S. does look like an outlier, although other countries historically have had similar problems. Second, what about the power of lobbying generally? Again, before we get into the question of the gun lobby, what is your understanding of the current literature on how lobbying affects political voting, how legislatures behave, etc.?

6:30John Donohue:Let me turn to Eric on this because he's the political scientist. Yeah, so there's certainly been plenty of evidence in the political science literature showing that lobbying is alive and well in the United States and particularly in state legislatures. And what we see is, in fact, that after large scale mass shootings in states that have legislatures controlled by the Republicans, there's actually an influx of new bills to reduce gun regulation. And in states in which Democrats have control of the legislative chambers, we see a very modest increase in the introduction of bills, but a null effect in terms of the number that are enacted.

7:10John Donohue:So the Democratic-controlled states are not successful in implementing gun regulation, whereas conservative states are successful in implementing a reduction or bills that reduce gun regulation, which is kind of an ironic twist on the situation.

7:26Eric Baldwin:Okay, so the reaction differs markedly by whether a state is controlled by Democrats or Republicans in general. But your understanding, just zooming out, is that lobbying, meaning political donations by interest groups, is a very effective way to influence how legislators behave, right? That's generally your understanding. I think that's the common wisdom. But there are kind of national cases recently that have made people question this, right? We've seen the candidate that receives the most donation for the presidential election doesn't win, actually, right? We saw that in 2016. We saw that in some of the primaries.

8:06Eric Baldwin:And so some people are questioning the common wisdom, but you're reaffirming the common wisdom, right? Certainly.

8:12John Donohue:I would say that Trump and his successful campaigns in both 2016 and more recently are anomalies in the post-war period. Typically, whoever is receiving the most from various interest groups or spending the most, I should say, whichever candidates are spending the most, typically win. at any level, whether it be presidency, Senate, or the House. Yeah. Okay, great. And then finally, yeah, go ahead, John. Just jump in on that one point. There is also a tendency to front run. In other words, if people think you're going to win, they want to give you money with the idea that they'll get benefits as well.

8:50John Donohue:So causal relationships are tricky here, but the broader point I think is true.

8:56Eric Baldwin:Great. And then the final preliminary point before we get to the details of your paper is to just tell us a bit about the landscape of the gun lobby specifically. I think most people have heard of the NRA, right? And so give us your broad understanding for listeners about what the landscape of the gun lobby looks like.

9:14John Donohue:Yeah, so I'll start off and then turn to Eric. But, you know, in general, over a long period of time, people thought of the National Rifle Association as the single major player in this space. But over time, for a variety of reasons, the National Rifle Association has had their problems and their declining influence has been replaced by a large number of other entities trying to take over in this space, such as Gun Owners of America and other groups. But in general, in our work, we look at the full array of PACs that make contributions either for gun interests or for gun safety legislation. And Eric can speak to those.

10:05John Donohue:And to reinforce something that John just said, the NRA is typically the interest group that has the most cultural cachet, the one that we most identify with the gun lobby. But just like John was saying, they face so many aggressive legal problems in recent years that their spending ability in terms of campaign contributions has been significantly reduced, despite the fact that they are still kind of the ceremonial figurehead of the gun lobby. It's these other groups that are more opaque and less well-known to the American public, Gun Owners of America, the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

10:44John Donohue:Smith & Wesson has a PAC, a political action committee, and a variety of others, There's about 20 others that we see that dominate and that form the gun lobby. And they do the majority of the spending. The NRA kind of takes a back seat in terms of the spending right now. Not that they don't spend. They just spend less than they have historically.

11:04Eric Baldwin:That's really interesting. So I just want to summarize those three preliminary points. Again, on the comparative point, the U.S. looks like an outlier. And most other wealthy countries, we see efforts are reducing mass shootings, and those succeed over time. Second, lobbying continues to be quite an effective way to influence both elections and the behavior of politicians. And again, we're going to talk more about that in a moment. And finally, it's not just the NRA, though the NRA continues to have the most cultural cachet, as Eric said. It's a bunch of other groups. So this is quite a diverse area of politically active organizations.

11:42Eric Baldwin:All right. So with that background in mind, let's talk about your paper and the findings. Kind of give us the headline, what you studied, what you found, and the key takeaways.

11:52John Donohue:Yes. Well, I do give all credit to Eric and Takuma for coming up with the idea of looking into this particular area to answer a question that I've long struggled with, which is why in the wake of so many horrific mass shootings has there been no effort to respond to them, even though the public overwhelmingly supports many gun safety regulatory measures. So that's the big challenge. Why in the wake of a presumably democratic nation has there been a failure to respond to overwhelming public support for certain regulatory measures? And what we see is that there are a number of steps that are taken by the gun lobby and their PACs.

12:47John Donohue:And what was interesting, I think, was to find out what were the types of events that they responded to. And one presumes that if they respond by contributing to various congressional candidates, it's a sign that they're nervous that their interests will be undermined if they don't engage in this spending. And what we found is that mass shootings in general did not stimulate spending. And even school shootings in general did not stimulate spending. But if a student died at a school shooting, that was enough to engage the interests of the gun lobby. And that's when they started to substantially increase their spending.

13:37John Donohue:And, of course, the spending was very targeted. They decided to focus on areas where these mass shootings occurred and only in competitive districts where there was really a risk that a candidate might act in a way that was counter to their interests.

13:54Eric Baldwin:So if I understand that you were motivated by this puzzle of there seems to be a lot of public support for some form of gun control or some reaction, some legislative reaction that will reduce the number of mass shootings. And yet we don't see at least effective regulation after mass shootings that actually help stop or reduce the number of mass shootings. Why is that? And your argument is that one of the key reasons that happens is that politically active groups that are in favor of gun rights respond to mass shootings by kind of flooding the zone with money, but only when students actually die, right?

14:35Eric Baldwin:And you were very surprised by that. So maybe give us an idea about, and I'll tell you the devil's advocate in a second, but tell us why that was so surprising.

14:45John Donohue:Well, there are a couple of dimensions there. You know, first of all, at one point in this country, we did have an assault weapons ban in the country from 1994 to 2004. When the law originally passed, the gun lobby was unsuccessful in stopping its adoption, but they were powerful enough that they could put a 10-year sunset provision on it. And when George W. Bush was running for president, he said he would support reenactment of the federal assault weapon ban. But the pressure from the gun lobby was enough to persuade him to allow it to lapse. So we've actually moved in the wrong direction from where we were.

15:28John Donohue:And my own work has interestingly shown that if you look at states that do have assault weapons bans and restrictions on high-capacity magazines, and also look at the period when we had it nationally, those were periods of reduced deaths from mass shootings and overall injuries as well. So we at least know that that measure is particularly helpful. But even broader, you know, something like 92 percent of Americans and, you know, 80 percent of NRA members support things like universal background checks to keep criminals and severely mentally ill individuals from purchasing guns. And yet Congress doesn't act.

16:12John Donohue:So for me, this really is a puzzle. What measures can you imagine that have upwards of 90 percent support and Congress is simply unable to act? So that was the real puzzle. And again, you know, this was Eric and Takuma's brainchild to look to see where the spending went. I was surprised and interested to see that overall mass shootings didn't bring out the gun lobby reaction as powerfully as deaths occurring in school shootings. So that seemed to at least suggest that in their mind, that was something that could motivate the American public.

16:54Eric Baldwin:Yeah, I do think the conversation on gun rights tends to be atrophied and painted as if it's, you know, you either have gun rights or you don't. But actually, as you mentioned, there's a spectrum of potential regulations, including universal background checks where you get a lot of support. But it depends how you break down the question, right? If you wanted more stringent regulations, you would find less support for that kind of thing. And so it would be less puzzling why you wouldn't see a legislative reaction that really puts a more intensive form of regulation. So maybe this is a naive view, but these are groups that are committed to gun rights.

17:32Eric Baldwin:Why shouldn't I expect them to behave like this strategically? Meaning they know that the media is going to cover mass shootings that result in deaths. The media doesn't really or doesn't seem to pay attention to mass shootings that don't result in deaths. And they know that they should only donate to help their politicians when there is actually a mass shooting that results in deaths. Why shouldn't we expect that?

18:02John Donohue:You know, one of the things that we have found in recent months as part of our research has evolved is that in part they're responding to other interest groups. The other side of the debate, the gun control lobby or gun safety PACs, as they are sometimes referred to, who are also in recent years stepping up their spending, especially after the Parkland shooting in 2018. we see a variety of groups on the opposite side of the debate, including Everytown, Giffords, Brady United, who are significantly increasing their spending in those same competitive districts. And so, as you said, the pro-gun groups feel that this is an important constitutional issue, that citizens have a right to bear arms, and that it is their duty to protect people's right to exercise their constitutional right.

18:52John Donohue:And so they want to counteract any effect that the gun control lobby is having in these districts to convince people to push their representatives to enact gun regulation or to even vote for people who might support that down the road. And one of the interesting things that we found in the data is that this huge surge of money that is flooding these districts from both sides, where both sides are trying to get the upper hand, the money actually cancels out. They cancel each other out and it has no effect, no material impact on the outcome of the election more so than what it would have been under normal circumstances if that makes sense but then interestingly enough in non-competitive districts if one side or the other increases their contributions which is rare it's pretty rare for them to do that but if they do they can change the outcome of the election but in the most competitive where they feel well on the one hand the pro-gun groups feel that their agenda is vulnerable and the gun safety groups feel that there is a window of opportunity to enact gun regulation, they actually are kind of just reaching a stalemate in the end.

20:02Eric Baldwin:Yeah, that's really interesting. That's exactly what I was going to ask you. Now that you have active groups on both sides, are they canceling each other out? And so they're reacting to each other's moves on donations. Is it also true then that the pro-gun control groups also engage in this kind of flooding the zone? Yes, absolutely.

20:20John Donohue:So we find that since 2018, so to back up a moment, prior to 2018, we find that the gun safety PACs are far less active. It was a very one-sided topic, the issue of gun rights in the country, in which the gun lobby basically dominated in terms of spending, but also culturally. But since the very end, or since 2018, excuse me, the gun control side has dramatically increased their spending by roughly 20 percent on average after school shootings in competitive districts. But when those school shootings happen within two months of a congressional election, they increase the spending by nearly 4 ,000 percent.

21:00Eric Baldwin:Got it. So I want to talk a bit about kind of an alternative explanation for the puzzle that John observes, right? Why don't legislators react and actually pass common sense reforms after a mass shooting. And the alternative explanation to money is just kind of ideological commitment, right? You have a really committed minority of voters, perhaps a small minority, who really vote on just this issue of gun rights. And they will punish with their vote the legislators who attempt to pass gun control. So it's not about the money necessarily, but about this ideological zeal. And the vast majority of voters are not actually voting.

21:43Eric Baldwin:Although they wish they would support right common sense gun control reforms, they don't vote on that question. Is that a better explanation or is that just consistent? They're both important, the money and the ideological zeal.

21:59John Donohue:Yeah, I think both are operating at the same time. Although, again, And I would note that, you know, no one really thinks that a universal background check would violate the Second Amendment except, you know, perhaps the most extreme zealots. And such a high percentage of even NRA members support adoption of universal background checks that it shows you it's not simply a zealous belief in a constitutional amendment. There's something else driving it. And I would suggest that it almost certainly is the economic interest of gun sellers and manufacturers, because the one thing that you can count on is if the NRA membership wants something and gun sellers think it's going to reduce gun sales, we see the gun sellers win out and not the NRA membership win out.