Gun Control Changing the Gun

Gun Control

Changing the Gun Laws: Literature Review and Recommendations

Recent events have highlighted the fact that the United States has a serious and unchecked gun violence problem. In December of 2012, Adam Lanza, a 20-year-old man with mental illness and a stockpile of automatic and semi-automatic weapons, entered the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Square, opening fire on students and teachers. The shooter killed 20 young students and 6 faculty members before turning the gun on himself. The event would highlight the degree to which lax gun laws have allowed individuals like Lanza to access his implements of murder. It would also hasten a vote in Congress by April of the following year aimed at expanding background checks for prospective gun owners. Driven by a strong effort on the part of President Obama, the rational gun control standards were nonetheless defeated by the entrenched Republican and Tea Party elements of Congress. This defeat would demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt the intense difficulty of serving in a leadership capacity over controversial public administration issues. The literature review and recommendations here below demonstrate that in spite of the obvious need for and public support of reasonable gun control laws, the process of public administration is inherently beset with ideological and political obstacles.

Leadership Theory and Public Administration Literature Review:

According to Barrett & Cohen (2013), in spite of clear public support in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting, politically powerful lobby groups would stand in the way even of modest strengthening of gun laws. The article reports that "fierce opposition by the powerful National Rifle Association led a backlash by conservative Republicans and a few Democrats from pro-gun states that doomed key proposals in the gun package, even after they had been watered down to try to satisfy opponents." (Barrett & Cohen, p. 1)

This article contributes the finding to our discussion that public administration often has less to do with serving the public will than navigating the various institutional forces designed to obstruct change. The article by Barrett & Cohen highlights the divided nature of America's political vanguard, demonstrating that the thrust toward public administrative change must clear a number of pronounced hurdles. This is why, the text by Rainey (2009) will ultimately show, public administration is typically seen as a process of maintenance and stability rather than change and progress.

Indeed, to an extent, the executive government is incapable of making any type of rapid or radical change. Even the most progressive legislation such as that which President Obama attempted to pass into action with regard to expanded background checks, would be tempered by the demands, expectations and pressures of countless public officials, agencies, lobby groups and corporations which have been long-entrenched in the affairs of our government. This is to say that incremental decision-making is the only feasible way to approach this entrenchment and bring about some meaningful elements of change. As the text by Rainey denotes, "incrementalism in decision making means concentrating on increments to existing circumstances, or relatively limited changes from existing conditions." (Rainey, 184)

Though it would seem inherent that rational decision-making might more sensibly address the needs of a governed system such as our nation's healthcare, the number of stakeholders and the entrenched nature of the system mean that wholesale change cannot be had immediately without serious and destructive consequences. Instead, we must take steady and intuitively sequential steps toward improvement. While sweeping gun laws are required to improve America's issue of gun violence, evidence from Obama's attempts suggest that only gradual and small degrees of regulatory change will be capable of passing through a divided legislative branch.

This literature demonstrates that even a public administrative force such as the executive branch must face power limitations. The very premise of the United States government is that the three branches work in coordination with one another to ensure to no singular ideological vision comes to dominate a nation founded on plurality. Accordingly, the text by Denhardt & Grubbs indicates that public administration must demonstrate the capacity for compromise, for accommodation and for recognition of a wide cross-section of interests (Denhardt & Grubbs, 422)

Moreover, this cross-section is always shifting, changing and demanding engagement by its leadership. Accordingly, in many locales, rising populations in immigrant communities, various shifts in settling patterns related to socio-economic demographics and a whole host of population make-up characteristics require a public administrator to remain in intimate awareness of the census trends. (Denhardt & Grubbs, 432) on matters such as gun control, these patterns shape both the nature of the problem and the shared public opinion on how best to contend with said problem.

To this point, Denhardt & Grubbs argue, leadership in public administration is an orientation in need of constant revision and refinement. Indeed, the demands placed upon public service at the federal, state and local levels will vary significantly based on the duration of an economic phase, the occurrence of some major civic event or the incursion of a dynamic period of crisis. The issue of gun legislation is especially demonstrative of this, with incidences of great public visibility and visceral emotional effect having a more direct bearing on public impression than actually statistical realities. For the relative decline in gun violence across the last several decades, those incidences which have drawn the public's attention have been particularly grotesque and disturbing. With incidences such as the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the massacre in an Aurora, Colorado movie theatre and the assassination attempt of Congresswoman Giffords, the matter of gun control has become especially salient even if such events don't necessarily comport with a statistical trend. With this increasing visibility has emerged both a more vocally stated desire for gun control by the public and a more defensive and hostile stance by those in support of 2nd Amendment Freedoms.