Firearm Safety in a Country of Arms

In April 2018, a naked man with an AR-15 burst into a Waffle House restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee.¹ Firing at random, he murdered four people and gravely injured five more before escaping into the night.

The 27-year-old shooter was captured several days later, and it was quickly revealed that he displayed a years-long history of unstable behavior. His violent and potentially psychotic tendencies had grown abundantly clear to family members and police. Yet he was still able to buy and carry semiautomatic weapons, including the one he used in the mass shooting.

Surely it was time for Tennessee to pass firearm safety laws. Or so gun safety supporters contended in the aftermath of the tragedy. Democratic politicians, gun-safety experts and activists, and survivors and family members of the victims took to the airwaves and to the floor of the Tennessee statehouse demanding change. Their claims were bolstered by research showing that effective gun laws save lives.² Harm reduction strategies like Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs), safe storage guidelines, or background checks conceivably could have stopped this shooting and so many others.^{3, 4} Like most US red states, Tennessee had few such laws on the books.

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