Foundations of Ethics and Diversity submissions are open to essays completed for UF 200. Students are encouraged to submit an essay exploring civic, ethical, and/or diversity on a local, regional, national or international topic. If the essay is the product of a team project, all names must be submitted and all team members will share the award. Essays should not exceed 20 pages. Jaime Geary wrote the 1st place submission in the Foundations of Ethics and Diversity category for the 2024 President’s Writing Awards.
About Jaime
I’m a Boise-born writer and aspiring journalist, pursuing both a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities and Cultural Studies and a minor in Film and Television Arts. I love researching and writing about conflicting perspectives while drinking copious amounts of coffee.
Winning Manuscript – Ethics of the Equalizer
Abstract
The United States gun rights debate is divided among two polarizing mindsets – support for gun control legislation, or gun rights legislation. Two political action committees (PACs) lie on either side of this debate – Gun Owners of America (GOA), a nonprofit gun rights lobby that views all gun control laws as unconstitutional, and Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit super-PAC that seeks implementation of evidence-based gun control policy. The philosophy of two ethical paradigms, ethics of consequences and ethics of persons, are observed under the frameworks of rule utilitarianism and categorical imperatives respectively to examine Everytown and the GOA’s perceived solutions to contentious debates regarding background check requirements when purchasing a firearm and arming teachers in the context of school safety, then assess the scope of their policy objectives relative to diversity. Both groups are found to have ethical policy outcomes, but their combined neglect of diversity in the voices their platforms choose to express is unethical. On balance, to promote the passage of beneficial gun policies that address systemic concerns and account for marginalized identities, neither group’s agenda can be ethically supported.
Limitations
Because the subject of gun rights is a bitterly polarizing political and ideological discourse frequently and explicitly linked to my age demographic, I have often been challenged to engage in ethical thought regarding policies and personhood that surround the issue throughout my adolescent and adult life. These challenges have led me to construct incomplete, emotionally reasoned responses based on gut reaction and armchair research when confronted with horrific headlines announcing mass shootings and fall into resigned silence when faced with consistent familial pressure to share my immediate opinions on headlines in the public forum of the drive home from school. Ultimately, I am approaching an objective ethical analysis under the futile intended restraint of suppressing subjective ideological thoughts hidden within my true moral self; because my identity is a confounding combination of surface personas and values with attached opinions that mask an intentionally undiscovered and instinctual core set of values, keeping all my multiple layers of gun-control oriented bias from affecting all stages of research, articulation, and conclusion this essay requires is an improbable endeavor.
Influenced by a predetermined spectrum of support for gun control legislation, my lack of contemporary literacy in gun ownership and gun control politics and my extensive background with American education systems have likely affected my entire research process, from the selection of the groups I have analyzed to the emphasis on quantitative data in my research. Despite living with a family that owns a protective handgun, I have never held a loaded gun in my hands, giving me no lived experience of the firearm’s utility. The ghost of that handgun looms over all aspects of my family and my future; when the prospect of “arming teachers” became a popularized agenda in the gun debate, I began to fear for my schoolteacher mother’s safety and security, questioning my own future in English education. This fear, combined with terrifying experiences of false lockdowns during high school and armed counter-protestors walking past me on the Capitol steps have pushed me towards personal efforts to actively distance myself from the realities of gun violence and its associated policy debate, strong opinions notwithstanding.
I gravitated toward quantitative data in my research to distance myself from emotion clouding my ability to conduct accurate ethical tests; despite this paradigm, as I concluded gathering sources, I discovered ideological emotional rhetoric emphasized over factual analysis in much of my pro-gun sources, while the bulk of my pro-gun control sources maintained a consistently oppositional emphasis on quantitative data over emotional rhetoric.
Due to complications involving my background and identity, it is difficult to determine whether these research outcomes were a result of a subconscious internal desire to factually support a pro-gun control agenda or a product of an inherent difference between the rhetoric respectively employed by political organizations that advocate for and against gun control legislation. While my lived experience has directly influenced the targets of my study of this multi-faceted issue, the bulk of my data collection and application was contained within information directly connected to personal experiences and concerns, leading to a limited ethical scope warranting extension in future research.
Theoretical Frameworks
The forthcoming analysis will contextualize the positions of two interest groups in the complex gun rights debate through the frameworks of ethics of consequence via Richard Brandt’s consequentialist “rule utilitarianism” theory, and ethics of the person via Immanuel Kant’s non-consequentialist philosophy of “categorical imperatives”. In its “Ethics Defined” series, the University of Texas calls defines consequentialism as “an ethical theory that judges whether or not something is right by what its consequences are”, allowing for the justification of any action as ethical if a positive result is produced (“Consequentialism”). The selected frameworks adopt conflicting primary paradigms of consequentialism and non-consequentialism.
The ethical framework of utilitarianism is traditionally rooted in a purely consequentialist mindset, requiring an alternative application of the framework to produce any ethically feasible assessment. According to Hank Green’s Crash Course Philosophy, the framework’s classical application involves “choos[ing] the action that produces the greatest good for the greatest number”, considering the net benefits of the action’s result rather than the action itself (Green 07:21-07:25). This traditional “act utilitarianism” directly disenfranchises any form of ethical thought not explicitly linked to an action’s outcome, crucially eliminating any evaluation of the methods by which a desired result is achieved from decision-making. To avoid the justification of wholly immoral activity as ethical and maintain focus on the consequentialist paradigm of achieving the greatest possible good, this analysis will employ Richard Brandt’s adapted framework of “rule utilitarianism”, described by Hank Green as “liv[ing] by rules that, in general, are likely to lead to the greatest good for the greatest number” (Green 08:33-08:39). This restructured framework molds utilitarian thought around a virtuous idealism, promoting coexistence of moral and consequentialist thought by considering an action’s motive when weighing the efficacy of its results.
By contrast, Kantian non-consequentialist ethics of the person are deeply concerned with the morality of means behind the accomplishment of ends. Under ethics of the person, defined by Hank Green as Kant’s theory of “categorical imperatives”, humanity is required to follow inherently knowable “moral obligations [] derived from pure reason” when taking any action, regardless of the result produced. This essay employs an interpretation of the categorical imperative known as the “formula of humanity” – “treat[ing] humanity… always as an end, and never as a mere means,” ultimately defining the morality of an action by its consideration of and impact on any individual or group (Green 06:30-06:38). Ethics of the person places emphasis on moral evaluation of the mindset behind an action rather than its result and consequences; through Kant’s “formula of humanity”, an action’s morality is strictly defined by its degree of detriment to any group, especially those potentially adversely affected.
Methodology
When restricted to a double analysis, the polarizing ideological nature of gun discourse requires objective sampling of opposing platforms to produce a full spectrum of opinion, allowing balanced, ethical conclusions to be drawn. Forming a panoramic perspective of the gun rights debate at large, the commonly discussed policy objectives of two influential political action committees on opposing sides of the United States’ gun rights discourse will be filtered through a pair of ethical frameworks stemming from ethics of consequences and persons using an “Ask, Determine, Solution” model to determine whether the platform of either group seeks the promotion of an ethically justifiable mindset towards the myriad of issues involving firearms in the modern American landscape. Under the framework of rule utilitarianism, a subsidiary of ethics of consequences, the outcome of each group’s stated beliefs towards a decidedly less controversial gun control regulation, the background check will be scrutinized to determine whether either group’s ideology intends to produce morally reasonable solutions that serve its own population in the short term, or the diverse population of the United States in the long term. Continuing analysis with the application of categorical imperatives, a function of ethics of persons, each organization’s interactions with the proposed solution to the school shooting epidemic of “arming teachers” will be weighed to examine whether either group humanizes all parties unwillingly entangled in acts of hate and horrific tragedy, rather than viewing them as a mere means to the “end” of passing a popular partisan policy. Finally, as the necessity for change in gun policy becomes increasingly apparent, the outcomes of both ethical analyses will be juxtaposed to understand whether the mindsets of each group address all voices affected by gun violence, working towards compromise and recognition of diversity in gun policy discourse.
Populations
Founded in 1976 by the late Californian senator H.L. Richardson and residing in Springfield, Virginia, Gun Owners of America proudly defines itself with a quote from former Texan Republican House member Ron Paul emblazoned on the front page of its website as “the only no-compromise gun lobby in Washington” (“About GOA”). A political action committee funded and supported by over 2 million paid memberships and multiple state-specific chapters across the country, Gun Owners of America’s primary agenda echoes Paul’s sentiment – the non-profit organization seeks to completely eradicate all state and federal forms of gun control in the United States, ensuring complete freedom to the unrestricted purchase and possession of firearms, by alerting its membership of state and federal legislation that may restrict 2nd amendment rights and encouraging individual contribution, through donations and letters to congresspeople, to negate the legislation’s passage. As a non-profit gun lobby, the “GOA” justifies the removal of gun control under the constitutional paradigm of the 2nd Amendment – because the amendment guarantees the right to bear arms, the group reasons, any restriction imposed upon the sale and/or possession of a firearm is inherently unconstitutional and immoral. While the GOA remains primarily concerned with the infringement of 2nd-amendment rights, it frequently speaks out against any discourse that paints firearms in a negative light via conservative news outlets and social media presence, engaging its members in the gun debate’s current events. Gun Owners of America is primarily directed by Senior Vice President Erich Pratt, who has served in the position since 1990; aside from a background of over two decades teaching high-school American Government, no further information is available regarding Pratt’s career (“About GOA”; “Erich Pratt”).
Everytown for Gun Safety, a New York-based coalition formed from a 2013 merger between former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2006 PAC Mayors Against Illegal Guns and the 2012 fledgling organization Moms Demand Action created by Shannon Watts, is a super-PAC advocating for evidence-based gun control legislation, with a focus on state law due to its mayoral origins (“Our History”). According to the Washington Post, the group is intended to rival “the vast influence of the National Rifle Association” in the American gun policy discourse through campaigning and lobbying in support of gun control solutions justified by statistical data on gun violence, from background checks to restrictions on the sale of assault weapons to rejection of “open carry” (Blake 2021). Everytown’s policy objectives largely evolve alongside emerging gun rights controversies, balanced by both peer-reviewed sources and its own independent research center, Everytown Research & Policy (“About Us”). Claiming non-partisan bias, the group notably neglects to condemn gun ownership outright, taking no extreme, solidified ideological position; despite retaining the core lens of gun control to prevent death when gathering and presenting data, Everytown’s agenda is largely amorphous, attaching research outcomes to emergent and oscillating precedents in the relationship between Americans and gun violence. The group is quintuple the size of Gun Owners of America, with over 10 million registered members, whom it keeps engaged through a newsletter, detailed website, and calls to participate in protests across the country, combating its proportionately small social media presence. Since the super-PAC was officially organized, Everytown has been directed by President John Feinblatt, a former lawyer and chief policy advisor to Mike Bloomberg (during Bloomberg’s mayoral career).
Analysis
In recent decades, gun rights have evolved from a historically heated topic of political discourse to a polarizing ethical dilemma of life and death. Firearm murders are on the rise in the United States; a National Security Council study of gun death reveals that as of 2021, “assault [weapon] deaths have increased 80% since 2012”, contributing to roughly 21,000 homicides across the country (“Gun Deaths in America, 2021”). In addition to rising statistics, the nation is frequently terrorized by deadly mass shootings claiming innocent lives; as of April 21, of 2023, 168 mass shootings have occurred (“Gun Violence Archive”).
Despite an unspoken agreement in the public consciousness that gun policy action must be taken to disrupt further death, Gun Owners of America and Everytown for Gun Safety’s platforms represent a fundamental ideological fracture in perception of the optimal solution. The two groups fundamentally differ in their ultimate policy objective and mindset; Everytown concerns itself with progressive implementation and enforcement of gun control laws, an action viewed as completely immoral by the GOA, which rigidly seeks the repeal of any law restricting the sale and ownership of firearms. This significantly complicates a comparison under ethical frameworks; as Everytown’s agenda is progressive in nature, seeking continuous policy solutions, and GOA’s is conservative, preserving a specific right through the maintenance and repeal of policy, approaching either group’s entire platform with ethics of consequences or persons invites an examination of progressive and conservative policy’s general outcomes, a topic beyond the scope of this analysis. To avoid potential subjective evaluation of an abstract political ideology, rule utilitarianism and categorical imperatives will be objectively applied to the projected outcomes of Everytown and GOA’s unique solutions to specific gun policy controversies.
To prevent gun homicides, federal limitations on the purchase of a firearm based on criminal background checks have been passed, requiring licensed gun retailers to perform a background check and restrict the sale of weaponry to any customer found to be convicted of a felony or other major misdemeanor. The intended benefits of these background checks are largely subverted by a major policy loophole; American Academy of Pediatrics reveals that “only 40% of guns sold in the US are sold through a federally licensed dealer”, impacting that the majority of American gun sales occur privately or at gun show exhibitions (“Universal Background Checks for Gun Purchases”). Identifying this lack of background checks as a core issue that may give felons more unrequited access to firearms for nefarious purposes, especially assault weapons, Everytown for Gun Safety proposes implementation of a required “universal background check” behind every gun sale, a gun control policy that has resulted in “10 percent lower homicide rates” when enforced by states (“Update Background Check Laws”). From a rule utilitarian perspective, Everytown’s intentions appear ethical; on balance, they project a net positive outcome for the American population when a universal background check is enabled, preventing unregulated sale of a weapon taking lives on an exponential scale.
Gun Owners of America’s contextualization of background checks through the lens of the disenfranchised gun owner reveals an uneven temporal relationship between perceived individual gain’s outcomes and their benefit to the majority. In succinct fact sheets and infographics on the outcomes of gun registry requirements, the GOA and Vice President Erich Pratt himself call background check policies historically defective deterrents that keep guns out of the hands of “law-abiding citizens” instead of the criminals they target; those who would be banned from firearm purchase can use counterfeit IDs or buy through another person to bypass background checks, the gun registry is an illegal profiling of identity and gun ownership that may lead to targeted unlawful confiscation, and the gun registry in general is an alleged potential pipeline towards requiring “’permission’ to exercise a constitutionally-protected right”, endangering other constitutional precedents (“Problems with Background Checks”; Pratt 2021). Pratt’s and the GOA’s rebuttal of background checks as a concept argues their short-term effects directly harm the gun owner and pose a long-term threat to the constitutional rights of all Americans; rule utilitarianism dictates these consequences as immediately inconsequential to the majority, but existentially harmful to the safety and freedom of American citizens from unwanted federal seizure of information, and ultimately inalienable rights. GOA’s position therefore produces an ethical result in the long-term under rule utilitarianism; while its desire to repeal background checks immediately enfranchises the gun owner’s freedom to unrestricted weapon ownership, the overarching mindset behind the group’s assertion creates a protective barrier from precedent for federal regulation and repeal of ethical constitutional rights on a national scale, like the rights to free speech, property, and protection.
Though acknowledgement of the potential outcomes of gun restriction legislation illuminates that ends justifiable under paradigms of domestic protection exhibited by both groups, a focus on means must also be retained to ethically address solutions towards controversies involving guns less explicitly tied to the variable of legislation. Gun deaths frequently occur in children’s places of learning – according to a continuously updated Washington Post statistic, 377 school shootings and instances of gun violence have occurred since 1999’s devastating Columbine High School attack, placing approximately 349,000 students, from teens to toddlers, in traumatic, life-threatening scenarios (Cox, Rich 2023). These statistics impact dire need for policy protecting the nation’s school-aged youth. The proposition of “arming teachers”, which would allow parents and personnel on a public-school premises to carry firearms as a potential deterrent to shooters, is a commonly discussed and controversial protective policy; in an article for Justice Quarterly, Andrew Baranauskas reveals 55% of respondents in a 2018 survey opposed the proposition of arming teachers – dividing the country by a slim majority resembling Democratic and Republican party lines (Baranauskas 1344). Many states have adopted policies that enable arming teachers, pending approval by the school district – Idaho law allows schoolteachers to openly carry firearms, provided approval from a district’s school board is obtained (“Section 18-3302D”).
Everytown for Gun Safety’s complete rejection of the notion of arming teachers and parents on campus, which places emphasis on broad implementation of gun control and school safety policies projected to both naturally mitigate misuse of assault weapons and guard schools from targeted violence, treats policy as a means to the end of protecting children. In its extensive fact sheet on potential risks generated by the pairing of teachers and guns, Everytown notes that placing guns into the hands of teachers leads to increased student accessibility to the firearms when unattended – automatically increasing risks of homicide and suicide, while possibly holding teachers liable for accidents out of their control (“Arming Teachers Introduces New Risks Into Schools”). These reasonings communicate that arming teachers will harm the individual; Everytown stresses the general presence of guns statistically poses a greater threat to human life. Everytown continues by promoting alternative solutions to arming teachers, reiterating a need for greater regulation surrounding the purchase and sale of firearms to keep them from being misused in the wrong hands and advocating for increased security, equality, and emergency programs in school settings to prevent potential shootings and/or minimize their impacts (“Arming Teachers Introduces New Risks Into Schools”). Everytown approaches the controversy of teachers and firearms on school campuses with gun control and school safety proposals that seek to keep human lives out of the line of fire. The framework of categorical imperatives determines this policy-focused approach to be ethical; structural and restrictive laws are employed as a means to the end of preservation of human life.
Gun Owners of America adopts the opposing position to Everytown’s, promoting the prospect of arming teachers and asserting the extension of second amendment rights to parents and active educators, whom the group views as responsible for accomplishing the end of protecting schoolchildren. Through a fact sheet on attitudes and motivations necessitating armed response by teachers on campus, Gun Owners of America details the limited ability of school security measures like SROs (armed “school resource officers”) to protect student bodies due to massive student populations and campus sizes increasing travel time to stop threats, communicating that pre-existing protection measures in schools are limited, disadvantageous, and require a more immediate response from teachers and parents to prevent further loss of life in a shooting scenario (“Our Children Need Protection – The Real Solution is to Arm Teachers”). The GOA also emphasizes the inherent deterrence posed by armed teachers, stressing the fact “no school that has armed teachers or staff has ever experienced a mass shooting” as evidence that knowledge of the threat of retaliation from educators will demotivate shooters that fear for their lives (“Our Children Need Protection – The Real Solution is to Arm Teachers”). While Gun Owners of America’s reasonings for increased response coverage and deterrence may lead to a decrease in overall shootings, the group relies on the willingness of gun owners – and teachers who are required to defend their students – to achieve safety from lethal force through use of the same lethal force. The GOA therefore implicitly and unethically advocates for the prevention of school shootings through obligatory individual heroism and self-sacrifice of adults; Kantian “categorical imperatives” dictates this approach devalues human life as a mere means to preserve other lives and promotes increased deterrent gun ownership.
Everytown and GOA’s platforms largely spotlight recent events of mass and school shootings to illustrate the urgency of the passage or repeal of gun control laws, revealing a mutual lack of focus on the diversity of the gun debate. The voices of students, teachers, and parents are addressed in the discourse surrounding school shootings, and the voices of gun owners and retailers are touched upon in politically entangled discussions of background checks, but these voices represent socially constructed demographics, rather than those predicated on race and sexual identity. Opting for an established ideological link between gun policy and political identities supported by their respective progressive and conservative agendas, Everytown and the GOA’s attitudes and opinions rarely factor in the viewpoints of minorities that exist outside the gun debate’s traditional conventions. A 2021 article by Joe Anderson examining gun ownership among transgender persons lamented that many gendered, racial, and sexual minorities feel unsafe and vulnerable without unbridled access to firearms, desiring weaponry for security in a world increasingly gripped with polarization and acts of hate (Anderson 3). Anderson’s research reveals a mirror of GOA’s individualist mindset, suggesting the group may be appropriating historically discriminated groups like the Black Panther party, through a misguided continuation of resisting discrimination from “state-sanctioned violence” – while Gun Owners of America might interpret this violence as the forceful confiscation of guns and eventually one’s core rights, the Black Panther party may view it as a forceful separation from one’s bodily autonomy and life by law enforcement that remains a constant, existential threat (Anderson 1). By molding the voice of the disenfranchised minority around its agenda, the GOA is committing an action unethical under rule utilitarianism and categorical imperatives; the group is using minorities as means to an end and producing an outcome that may lead to a downward spiral of injustice and marginalization in the long term.
Largely refraining from the concerns and identities of minorities who feel the need to openly carry weaponry to stay alive, Everytown for Gun Safety’s primary paradigm of cost-benefit analysis based on statistical evidence places emphasis on the outcomes of citizens’ degree of access to firearms, while refraining from focusing on the demographics of those citizens with respect to the impact of gun violence from the state on their own communities. In his study on the conditions that produce support for arming teachers, Andrew Baranauskas reveals that “African Americans are significantly less likely than whites to support arming teachers,” indicating a deeply held cultural anxiety for both firearms and gun-mediated enforcement of laws that may require attention in spheres of domestic culture and systemic policy (Baranauskas 1353). When considering the voices of disenfranchised communities implicitly communicating the necessity of systemic change, Everytown for Gun Safety’s data-based approach emphasizing the individual gun owner and state-level policies is unethical from perspectives of categorical imperatives and rule utilitarianism; in their attempts to reduce gun violence, the group has refused to embrace any policy objective that would enfranchise those disenfranchised by the state, meaning their minority supporters who seek change under the federal system are a means to the end of a perceived bipartisan progressive neutrality targeting state legislatures that may lead to the outcome of increased demographic polarization and marginalization.
Conclusion
This brief overview of Everytown and Gun Owners of America’s mindsets, introduced by each group’s opinions on specific policies in the gun debate, led to a damning deconstruction of both the individualism surrounding gun ownership and its proposed policy solutions; Everytown’s policy proposals initially passed both analyses under ethics of consequences and persons, while Gun Owners of America’s policies passed analysis under ethics of consequences and failed an examination under ethics of persons, but both groups nosedived into ethical failure when confronted with the realities of marginalization and discrimination in America. Gun Owners of America’s policy promotes a degree of reactionary individualist thought that condemns compromise, preventing progress if any new research directly contradicts their abject refusal to yield gun rights in any scenario, while Everytown for Gun Safety produces cleanly researched, progressive policies, but discards demographic concerns by refusing to spotlight or directly address the voices of disenfranchised individuals in its state-focused policies.
After the extensive research and application afforded by this essay, I can no longer foresee an effective compromise between the platforms of Everytown and Gun Owners of America, due to each group’s opposed, localized core mindsets; Everytown is fundamentally dedicated to exploring state-level policy solutions in an evolving gun climate, and Gun Owners of America is resigned to a protective platform defined by an immovable constitutional right. The positions of each group, mired in their focus on demographics based purely on weapon ownership and political paradigm, must fundamentally change to accommodate the voices of all Americans, especially those directly affected by targeted gun violence’s terror, whether the violence originates from hate criminals or police. There is potential for each group to make positive changes regarding gun rights; the GOA’s desire to preserve the 2nd-amendment ability to form militias may provide protection for minorities from state-based violence, and Everytown’s organized approach to researched policy objectives may cause systemic change if applied to a context of systemic federal law. Ultimately, on balance, Everytown passes more ethical analyses and is, therefore, more likely to produce moral solutions to the problem of gun violence in the United States, but I cannot ethically support either Everytown or the GOA due to each group’s lack of focus on federal progressive policy that may unite the polarized gun debate by systemically, ethically, and protectively acknowledging all voices.
Works Cited
“About GOA.” GOA, https://www.gunowners.org/about-goa/.
“About Us.” Everytown Research & Policy, 3 June 2022, https://everytownresearch.org/about-us/.
Anderson, Joe. “The Extraordinary Ethics of Self-Defence: Embodied Vulnerability and Gun Rights among Transgender Shooters in the United States.” Ethnos, 2021, pp. 1–18., https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2021.2013281.
“Arming Teachers Introduces New Risks into Schools.” Everytown Research & Policy, 1 May 2019, https://everytownresearch.org/report/arming-teachers-introduces-new-risks-into-schools/?_gl=1%2A10j5pde%2A_ga%2Amjewody1mdq1ny4xnjgwmte0mtyz%2A_ga_lt0fwv3ek3%2Amty4mje0mze1ns4xos4xlje2odixndmxotqumc4wlja.#key-findings.
Baranauskas, Andrew J. “Public Opinion on Support for Arming Teachers with Guns in the United States.” Justice Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 7, 2020, pp. 1342–1362., https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2020.1849360.
Blake, Aaron. “Bloomberg Launches New $50 Million Gun Control Effort.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 26 Nov. 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2014/04/16/bloomberg-aims-to-spend-50-million-on-gun-control/.
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Green, Hank. “Kant & Categorical Imperatives: Crash Course Philosophy #35.” YouTube, 14 Nov. 2016, https://youtu.be/8bIys6JoEDw. Accessed 12 Apr. 2023.
“Gun Deaths in America, 2021.” National Security Council, 14 Feb. 2023, https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/guns/.
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“Our History.” Everytown, 27 June 2022, https://www.everytown.org/about-everytown/history/.
“Our Children Need Protection-the Real Solution Is to Arm Teachers.” GOA, 30 Mar. 2023, https://www.gunowners.org/our-children-need-protection-the-real-solution-is-to-arm-teachers/.
Pratt, Erich. “Background Checks: Ineffective, Unconstitutional and Dangerous.” Gun Owners of America, 30 May 2021, https://www.gunowners.org/fs08112016/.
“Problems with Background Checks.” GOA, 22 May 2011, https://www.gunowners.org/fs2011b/.
Rich, Steven, and John Woodrow Cox. “There Have Been 377 School Shootings since Columbine.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 3 Apr. 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/school-shootings-database/.
“Section 18-3302D.” Idaho State Legislature, 1 July 2022, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/title18/t18ch33/sect18-3302d/.
“Universal Background Checks for Gun Purchases.” Home, https://www.aap.org/en/advocacy/state-advocacy/universal-background-checks-for-gun-purchases/.
“Update Background Check Laws.” Everytown Research & Policy, 10 June 2020, https://everytownresearch.org/report/update-background-check-laws/.