This essay tracks one man’s unique journey that began with his terrifying fear of guns. He morphed into a gun owner, competitive shooter, NRA Life Member and, most recently, advocate for sensible gun laws. His search for gun violence accountability revealed some unwitting but defiant contributors to the apocalyptic death and mayhem of the last two decades. The essay concludes with several ways forward for fellow Americans who are not content with only thoughts and prayers.

I. Unlikely shooter

My journey began when a military instructor shouted at me, “Step back from the line!” I froze.

I had failed to follow his order to grasp, load, and fire the weapon that I was too frightened to touch. I had received no prior training with that or any other weapon. Nevertheless, I marched alone on that cold winter weekend, while my officer-candidate classmates were on liberty.

After arriving at my first duty station, I embraced the reality that, if I froze like that again, someone’s life could be in danger. A senior enlisted mentor patiently took me under his wing. Within a year of my pistol paralysis, I had acquired the confidence and skill to compete in NRA-sanctioned military shooter matches. Realizing that shots to the head or vital organs are generally more fatal than elsewhere, I grasped the option to wound rather than kill.

During the remainder of my lone enlistment I logged the three consecutive years of qualifying as an expert, which were necessary for the “Silver E” distinction for qualifying military experts. Moreover, I amassed a shoebox full of medals won at numerous shooting matches, and became an NRA Life Member.

II. NRA for life

Once I’d chosen the path of a civilian career and family life, I made no time for shooting. Then, two things resurrected my attention to gun lore: the arrival of our four children, and an enduring NRA announcement. Turned off by the NRA’s evolving political posture, I sold three of the four guns I used for my military-era competitions, blocked the monthly arrival of the organization’s magazine in my family mailbox, and repeatedly attempted to exit the NRA.

For some half-dozen years, I snail-mailed the same resignation letter to the NRA. No response. What I did receive was its politically sinister claim: if a Democratic president were elected, “they will take away your guns.” This representative admonition effectively threatened my cherished competition weapon. The NRA apparently hoped to avoid hemorrhaging more gun owners like me, and to buoy its sagging membership–and leadership–numbers.

III. Personal responsibility

After my official retirement, I made two gun-accountability decisions.

First, I resolved to revive my gun proficiency. I sensed that when one possesses a gun and a brain, neither should be a relic. Too many owners learn the hard way that withered proficiency leads to criminals using victims’ guns against them. A major study found that “individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 … times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession.” It concluded that “[o]n average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. … Such users should reconsider their possession of guns or, at least, understand that regular possession necessitates careful safety countermeasures.” I thus opted against obtaining a concealed weapons permit, notwithstanding the recent Supreme Court holding that the beyond-home “proper-cause requirement … prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms.”

Second, my writing career shifted to gun control advocacy. I penned a law journal article, magazine essays, op-eds and letters to the editor. One does not have to be a law professor to tread this path. One does have to be impassioned about the gun-violence crisis that impacts those who now stare at an empty chair—where their child, spouse, relative, or friend sat before committing suicide or being shot to death. Nearly 47,000 people died of gun-related injuries in the United States in 2023, according to the latest available statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number has remained among the highest of annual totals on record.

IV. Research revelations

The research I conducted in my post-retirement career revealed a connection I would not have otherwise recognized; namely, that all three branches of the federal government have played a prominent role on our nation’s gun violence stage.

Congress

I wrote comprehensively about the congressional role in the heartbreaking gun-violence deluge of the last two decades: “Congress enacted the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act [PLCAA]…. The gun industry dramatically increased its production, distribution, and marketing programs. … This uptick is especially evident in the U.S., during the last decade’s proliferation of assault rifles.” Furthermore, the international implications of America’s firearms industrial revolution are also striking.

Congress itself was affected by the post-2004 escalation of gun violence, including the attack on Congressman Steve Scalise. But no sitting member of Congress has personally endured the loss of a child, such as occurred at Sandy Hook, Uvalde, various universities and public spaces. Is that what it will take for Congress to revise the PLCAA? Today’s political polarization in Washington suggests that legislative repeal or compromise is not in our immediate future.

Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court also played a supporting role in the drama of contemporary gun carnage. Its 2022 Bruen ruling changed the landscape of the nation’s local, state, and federal gun control laws.

Previously, gun control litigation chose from among the following three options. Did the challenged gun restraint alternatively: (1) present a rational relationship between the applicable law and the alleged deprivation of gun rights (lowest level of scrutiny); or (2) survive intermediate scrutiny of the particular law in question; or (3) survive strict scrutiny of the constitutionality of the regulation in question?

But with the Court’s splintered, five-opinion, three-dissent decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Court upended the prior state and lower federal court tiered-scrutiny approach. The Court substituted a novel historical approach to assessing the nation’s gun and ammunition laws, opening the door to an extremist interpretation of the Second Amendment. That replacement sounded the death knell of the measured-level-of-scrutiny yardstick. As a result, “[t]he government must … [now] justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s [prosecutable] conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s [protection]” (italics added).

The Court did not categorize the various types of chargeable criminal conduct that previously triggered the various levels of scrutiny. It did not define “Nation.” What is unlawful in one state, might not be so in another. Nor did the Court specify any relevant historical period. As acknowledged in Justice Barrett’s concurring opinion, there is “ongoing scholarly debate on whether courts should primarily rely on the prevailing understanding of an individual right when the … [applicable] Amendment was ratified in 1868 or when the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791.” Erratic judges could, alternatively, opt for either of the post-World War I or II historical periods. Or the two decades since passage of the PLCAA, which triggered the 21st century’s frightening proliferation of guns and ammunition technology.

Executive Branch

This branch also shares accountability for the uniquely American scenario in which the gun homicide rate is 26 times that of other high-income countries and gun violence is the leading cause of child death. The children of an entire generation have now grown up with, and spent time cowering in, active shooter drills.

The federal government has unwittingly placed a bullseye on gun law enforcement and research. Under the current presidential administration:

• The 2023 White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention was shuttered.
• The prior Surgeon General’s advisory on gun violence and public healthwas taken down.
• Entire teams at the CDC’s Injury Center recently vanished. They collected data on violent death and injuries, such as suicides, domestic violence, firearm suicides and unintentional shootings. They studied gun deaths and injuries. That Center lost three-quarters of its staff.
• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives budget was cut by 29%.
• Over $150 million in gun-relevant Justice Department grants were canceled. These grants were managed by the department’s Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative. The government’s pennywise-but-pound-foolish cancellation impacts at least 65 community-based programs across 25 states.
• The Department of Education cut $1 billion in Safer Communities Act funding for school violence and student mental health.

The Trump administration has targeted those and other efforts to prevent gun violence in the U.S.

Altogether now…

Every day in the U.S., 327 people are shot; 117 will die. Every day in the U.S., 23 minors are shot. Now, federal cutbacks have “dramatically undermined the federal government’s capacity for an evidence-based approach, unwinding recent progress. … [Federal agencies have] also fired experts who were actively researching gun violence, which removed critical knowledge and experience and jeopardized important data collection systems that inform policymaking. And … they are trying to solidify the degradation of knowledge on gun violence by proposing … cuts [of] all funding for firearm injury and mortality prevention research and the national violent death reporting system.”

Unfortunately, states like California are already facing huge budget deficits, for years to come. Cash-strapped states will have to determine whether to allocate or divert funding to address not only the contemporary gun crisis, but also federal budget gaps that defy common sense.

V. Going beyond thoughts and prayers?

Many state and federal legislative bodies will remain Red, as a result of both the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election. That prospect may doom any progress we could hope for, to confront the above-described federal cohort.

But you can take aim at all the smoking guns and scorched-earth body counts the nation bemoans each day. You don’t have to “do it all.” But doing nothing is not an option. British philosopher Edmund Burke said it best: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men … do nothing.” Are you content with only thoughts and prayers as a response to today’s extraordinary uptick in gun violence?

I joined San Diegans for Gun Violence Prevention (SD4GVP) this year. It is a coalition of some twenty local, regional, and national groups. Its raison d’être is simple: to end gun violence. Specifically, “SD4GVP is a coalition of concerned citizens united to end gun violence in America. Our coalition includes representatives from many … organizations and individual citizens, just like you and me, who are stepping up to change our laws and prevent gun violence once and for all, through advocacy and education.” SD4GVP’s incredibly dedicated members include and invite local, regional, and national advocates from other prominent groups like Giffords and Brady.

I am not advocating that everyone follow the path I’ve chosen. Nor that other lawyer readers similarly resign their membership in the Supreme Court Bar. Forge your own path. We all have to pitch in, to find ways to actively address the gun violence of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Here’s what you can do: contact your legislative representatives; vote for candidates with a record of gun violence prevention measures; and embrace the advocacy of your preferred gun violence prevention organization.

The various GVP entities typically provide convenient and doable action roadmaps. They encourage you to become active in GVP but do not require that you do so. You can commit to the extent that you feel comfortable, knowing that however you decide to get involved, you will be demonstrating that preventing gun violence is important to YOU.

Bill Slomanson is Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Thomas Jefferson School of Law.

photo credit: Everytown for Gun Safety

At a press conference following the mass shooting in Annunciation Church in Minneapolis, a reporter asked the Chief of Police, “What can we do to stop this from happening again?” Reminiscent of the adage that fools give you reasons, wise men never try, the chief wisely responded, “I don’t know how to answer that.”

He did say his officers were traumatized by what they saw at the church, where so many elementary school children were killed or wounded during their first week in school. Parents of deceased and wounded youngsters, and the entire community of Minneapolis, instantly became mass victims of this senseless act. As Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis, pleaded with viewers, “. . . what if it was our own [child]?”

Politicians often remark that our national espirit de corps is aptly characterized via monikers like “American exceptionalism.” Perhaps one example would be the fifth-grader’s courageous friend who saved him by jumping on top of him to take a bullet. The USA is exceptional, but not in ways we always like to admit. One such way is that the number-one cause of childhood death in this country is gun violence.

Congress is part of the problem . . .

There must be better answers to the perennial question about stopping gun violence. Arming teachers, active shooter drills, more good guys with guns, and countless other “answers” are the proverbial band-aid solutions to the gun-violence epidemic with which we are becoming anesthetized.

There is no single answer. But there is a proximate cause. As that concept is legally defined, “A substantial factor in causing harm is a factor that … contributed to the harm. It must be more than a remote or trivial factor. It does not have to be the only cause of the harm.” Congress fell silent when the national assault weapons ban expired in 2004. But its members spoke volumes when they enacted the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (hereafter Arms Act). Pursuant to its introductory findings: “Lawsuits have been [wrongly] commenced against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and importers of firearms that operate as designed and intended, which seek money damages and other relief for the harm caused by the misuse of firearms by third parties, including criminals” (italics added).

. . . and the courts take it from the unfortunate . . .

This statute insulates the gun industry from most lawsuits alleging that its products, advertising and distribution practices contribute to the scourge of gun violence we’ve all witnessed in the interim decades. The Arms Act shot down industry responsibility for its acts that are predictable, not remote nor trivial factors, including downstream sales practices the industry allegedly promotes. As exemplified in Soto v. Bushmaster Firearms Int’l, LLC (2019), the defendants “promoted use of the XM15-E2S [assault rifle] for offensive, assaultive purposes‒specifically, for ‘waging war and killing human beings’‒and not solely for self-defense, hunting, target practice, collection, or other legitimate civilian firearm uses … extolled the militaristic qualities of the [rifle; and] . . . advertised the [rifle] as a weapon that allows a single individual to force his multiple opponents to ‘bow down.’”

The routine charging allegations include straw purchases, hundreds of thousands of illegal gun transfers each year and other predictable bad-apple behavior. The quintessential case that charges the industry with such conduct is Estados Unidos Mexicanos v. Smith & Wesson (2025). The U.S. Supreme Court, by reversing and remanding Mexico’s pleadings for any further proceedings, held that “Mexico’s plausible allegations are of ‘indifferen[ce],’ rather than assistance. They are of the manufacturers’ merely allowing some unidentified ‘bad actors’ to make illegal use of their wares.” … [Thus,] “a ‘failure to stop’ independent retailers downstream from making unlawful sales…[i.e.,] ‘omissions’ and ‘inactions,’ … are rarely the stuff of aiding-and-abetting liability. Finally, … the failure to improve gun design … cannot in the end show that the manufacturers have ‘join[ed] both mind and hand’ with lawbreakers in the way needed to aid and abet.” The Court had no other option, given the congressional bullseye on industry accountability.

There is a much litigated “predicate exception” to the Arms Act. A complaint can trigger an exception-violation “when a plaintiff makes a plausible allegation that a gun manufacturer ‘participate[d] in’ a firearms violation ‘as in something that [it] wishe[d] to bring about’ and sought to make succeed. Because Mexico’s complaint fails to do so, the defendant manufacturers retain their PLCAA-granted immunity.” But see Slomanson, Iron River Case: Blueprint for Gun Trafficking Analytics (2023).

. . . to the depressing

As of this writing, Mexico has not refiled an amended complaint. But it has sued some downstream gun industry members in other courts. See, e.g., Estados Unidos Mexicanos v. Diamondback Shooting Sports Incorporated (D. AZ, 2024). The plaintiff therein alleged negligence, public nuisance, negligent entrustment, negligence per se, gross negligence, unjust enrichment, violation of Arizona’s Consumer Fraud Act, and violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. As of this writing, three of Mexico’s counts were dismissed, with nine surviving the defense motion to dismiss the complaint.

One could knock out your child’s eye with a Nerf play gun. The deep-pocket manufacturer could be a co-defendant, via a personal injury products liability suit. If the same person shot your child with an assault rifle, however, it would be nearly impossible to sue the gun manufacturer for a product defect, or for nefarious advertising and distribution practices resulting in such serious harm. Antidotes for such immunization should not be injected into this political shootout in terms of gun rights versus gun control, right versus left, or competing political persuasions. We all bleed red, white and blue.

Congress, nobody else can do this but you.

Motivational speakers often ask: Where do you see yourself in ten years? George Eliot’s 1848 adage cautions that “history, we know, is apt to repeat itself.” We must vote for inspirational leadership that offers more than thoughts and prayers in response to the disgraceful carnage in Minneapolis. The President cannot bring about a significant change in gun violence with an executive order. But Congress has the bipartisan ability to spectacularly reduce today’s level of gun violence.

• Congress must first scale down the chorus that meekly chants only “thoughts and prayers.” A more thoughtful approach would trump those political leaders who invoke hackneyed responses like “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
• Congress must revisit and revise the Arms Act to limit its oceanic protection of the gun industry. It is arguably the largest of the stumbling blocks to protecting our churches, schools, neighborhoods, and business venues from the continuing assaults that will otherwise usher in a hail of bullets during these next ten years.
• S. Representatives and Senators, whose children have not yet been murdered or wounded, should listen to their constituents and learn a few facts about gun violence in America. About six in ten U.S. adults (58%) favor stricter gun laws. The majority of Americans (61%) say it is too easy to legally obtain a gun in this country. There is broad partisan agreement on some gun policy proposals, but most are politically divisive. More than half of U.S. adults say an increase in the number of guns in the country is bad for society.

Members of Congress: Your constituents deal daily with the fallout triggered by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. They want common-sense answers to the national gun-violence nightmare that demands more than just thoughts and prayers. President Harry Truman’s buck stops with you, on Capitol Hill, where a sizeable slice of accountability lies for the gun-violence venom that has poisoned America’s streets for the last two decades.

Bill Slomanson is Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Thomas Jefferson School of Law. This article first appeared in the Los Angeles & San Francisco Daily Journal, September 5, 2025, p.4, and is reprinted here with permission.

Photo credit: Chad Davis, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

“Nearly 150 community members gathered for a panel discussion at the University of San Diego’s Warren Hall to raise awareness about preventing gun violence. The conference included a film screening of ‘Run, Hide, Fight; Growing Up Under the Gun’ along with a panel discussion on statistics, stories and solutions.

“The discussion was moderated by state Sen. Catherine Blakespear. Panelists included San Diego Police Capt. Bernie Colon, San Diego City Attorney Heather Ferbert, USD Professor Topher McDougal, and film producer and journalist Sarah Youssef. The event was hosted by Blakespear, USD and members of 19 gun-violence prevention groups. A local umbrella coalition, San Diegans for Gun Violence Prevention, was one of the hosts.

“Pictured are Blakespear, center, with representatives from local gun-violence prevention groups.”

From the San Diego Union-Tribune, August 31, 2025.

Starting high school was a big deal for 14-year-old Mason Shermerhorn. He was in his first month at Apalachee High School when his dreams—and his life—were cut short by a mass shooting. His friends and family will never see him graduate, chase his ambitions, or simply come home after class.

This tragedy is a reminder that while gun violence takes many forms, some of the most preventable deaths happen far from the headlines—inside our own homes. And one of the simplest, most effective ways to save lives is also one of the least discussed: safe gun storage.

Backpacks, lunchboxes… and a gun safe?
As families gear up for the school year, most back-to-school checklists look the same—pencils, folders, new sneakers. But for millions of households with firearms, there’s one safety item that should be as essential as a bike helmet or seatbelt: a secure way to store your gun.

The Numbers Tell the Story—and the Faces Behind Them
Over 50 million children live in homes with firearms, and 4.6 million live in households where guns are both unlocked and loaded.

According to CDC data, unintentional firearm deaths among children most often happen at home, during play—in 67% of cases, the gun was being shown to or handled by another child.

Laws help—but culture does, too.
States with Child Access Prevention (CAP) and safe-storage laws see results:

• 13% fewer unintentional youth firearm deaths
• 15% fewer firearm homicides among youth
• 12% fewer firearm suicides among youth

CAP laws hold adults accountable for leaving guns where kids can access them. Normalizing the question—“Is there an unlocked gun in your home?”—before a playdate is part of that culture shift.

Why It Matters Now
Back-to-school season is when parents double-check car seats, talk about stranger danger, and update emergency contacts. But for families with guns at home, the most effective safety step—safe storage—is often missing from the list.

Kids don’t just visit their own homes. They go to friends’ houses, ride in carpools, and have sleepovers. Every unsecured gun is a risk, no matter whose it is.

The Action Plan: Lock, Unload, Separate
The safest storage method combines three steps:

• Lock firearms in a cabinet, safe, or lockbox
• Keep them unloaded when not in use
• Store ammunition separately

This isn’t just theory—CDC research shows that storing guns locked, unloaded, and with ammunition stored separately saves lives. Access to safe-storage tools is easier than ever: Project Childsafe offers free cable locks through local law enforcement, and many hospitals now provide them to families, no questions asked.

The Bottom Line
This August, alongside notebooks and sneakers, add a safe-storage device to the cart. Because the safest school year starts at home.

Angela Passalacqua is an intern with San Diegans for Gun Violence Prevention.