Prof. Robert J. Spitzer
Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, Political Science, SUNY Cortland and Adjunct Professor, College of William & Mary Law School. He is author of 16 books and over 700 articles and papers on many American politics subjects including Guns across America (2015, Oxford University Press), The Gun Dilemma (2023, Oxford University Press), and The Politics of Gun Control, 9th ed. (2024, Routledge).
Twitter: @spitzerb
Email: Robert.spitzer@cortland.edu
U.S. Election 2024
12. The campaigns’ pandemic memory hole (Prof Michael Serazio)
13. America’s kingdom of contempt (Prof Barry Richards)
14. Americanism, not globalism 2.0: Donald Trump and America’s role in the world (Prof Jason A. Edwards)
15. The politics of uncertainty: Mediated campaign narratives about Russia’s war on Ukraine (Dr Tetyana Lokot)
16. The U.S. elections and the future of European security: Continuity or disruption? (Dr Garret Martin)
17. Trump’s victory brings us closer to the new world disorder (Prof Roman Gerodimos)
18. Abortion: Less important to voters than anticipated (Dr Zoë Brigley Thompson)
19. Roe your vote? (Dr Lindsey Meeks)
20. Gender panics, far-right radicalization, and the effectiveness of anti-trans political ads (Dr Thomas J. Billard)
21. U.S. politics and planetary crisis in 2024 (Dr Reed Kurtz)
22. Trump and Musk for all mankind (Prof Einar Thorsen)
23. Guns and the 2024 election (Prof Robert J. Spitzer)
24. Echoes of Trump: Potential shifts in Congress’s communication culture (Dr Annelise Russell)
The presidential candidates found much to debate in the 2024 election cycle, but gun policy was not initially among the panoply of top tier issues dominating their agendas. Yet the reality of gun violence in America intruded.
On July 14th, 2024, a gunman carrying an AR-15 assault-style rifle clambered onto a nearby rooftop at an outdoor Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania where he fired multiple shots at the candidate, one of which grazed his ear (another shot killed a bystander). A law enforcement sniper shot and killed the man. Trump returned to the location later, having utilized the attempt against him as campaign fodder, and held another rally.
On September 4th a 14-year-old student brought an AR-15 rifle into his Georgia school where he shot and killed four people and wounded nine others. On September 15th a shooter armed with an SKS assault rifle positioned himself on the Trump golf course adjacent to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. While preparing to fire on the course’s namesake, who was playing a few holes away, a secret service agent spied the rifle muzzle in the undergrowth and fired at him, driving the assailant away. He was captured as he fled on the nearby interstate highway.
Two decades earlier, Donald Trump had endorsed restrictions on assault weapons, but since his 2016 presidential campaign Trump aligned himself with the National Rifle Association in opposing nearly all new gun measures, and they backed his campaigns enthusiastically. In the 2024 campaign the Republican nominee said nothing about assault weapons or gun violence, although he did vow to roll back what he called the Biden administration’s “attack on the Second Amendment.” In a departure from every Republican party platform dating back to the 1970s, the 2024 platform made no mention of the gun issue, except for the expression of support for Second Amendment rights. (This absence did not represent a retreat on the party’s or Trump’s support for gun rights, but rather reflected Trump’s wish that the platform omit mention of controversial subjects like gun control and abortion.) Still, Trump made clear that he opposed all of Biden’s gun safety initiatives, and would roll them back, and work to loosen concealed carry gun laws.
Departing briefly from his running mate’s relative silence on gun violence, Trump’s vice presidential pick, Ohio Republican Senator J.D. Vance, commented darkly on the Georgia school shooting by saying it was an unhappy “fact of life.”
President Joe Biden’s record on gun policy represented his continued commitment to stronger laws. In 2022, an unusual display of bipartisanship produced the first notable gun measure to pass Congress in nearly 30 years, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The new law provided funding to encourage states to adopt so-called “red flag laws,” strengthened background checks for gun buyers under 21, prohibited interstate gun trafficking and straw purchases (legal gun purchasers who buy guns for those could not do so legally), and funding for anti-violence programs. Ironically, the Senate passed the measure on the same day that the Supreme Court handed down its decision in NYSRPA v. Bruen, which struck down New York State’s century-old pistol permit law and expanded Second Amendment gun carrying rights to citizens in public places.
When Biden bowed out of the race on July 21st, handing the nomination mantle to Vice President Kamala Harris, she readily embraced his commitment to stronger gun laws. When Biden created a new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention in 2023, he appointed Harris to head it.
During the campaign Harris embraced a party platform that endorsed a variety of gun safety measures, including universal background checks for all gun purchases, reinstitution of a federal assault weapons ban, a mandatory safe gun storage law, a federal “red flag” law (allowing guns to be taken from those considered homicidal or suicidal), repeal of legal immunity for the gun industry, and increased funding for gun violence research and gun law enforcement. Harris is also a handgun owner. During the campaign she emphasized her support for stronger gun laws, but also touted her support for gun rights as an expression of “freedom.” In a September interview, she commented, “I’m in favor of the Second Amendment, an assault weapons ban, universal background checks, red flag laws” but added that “If somebody breaks in my house, they’re getting shot.” Running mate and Democratic Minesota Governor Tim Walz buttressed the gun laws and gun ownership message as a lifelong hunter and gun owner.
Trump’s decisive victory will mean that his second administration will follow through to dismantle Biden-era gun safety measures. For example, Trump will either abolish the White House Gun Violence office or appoint a gun rights person to head it and rebrand its mission to extol gun ownership. Biden’s appointed head of the ATF, Steven M. Dettelbach, will be fired, and the agency’s more aggressive effort to stem illicit gun sales and trafficking will be rolled back. And Congress will move to reduce the ATF budget, and advance a bill to make the least restrictive concealed gun carry state laws applicable to all of the states (called concealed gun carry reciprocity).