At Vegas Gun Forum, Democrat Presidential Candidates Agree on Universal Background Checks, Spar Over Mandatory Assault Weapon Buyback

But none seem curious about how America gun homicide rates fell nearly in half from 1990s to early 2010s.

Ten Democratic presidential candidates gathered today in Las Vegas, under the auspices of Giffords and March for Our Lives, to talk for a half-hour each at the "2020 Gun Safety Forum." They were questioned individually and sequentially by MSNBC anchor Craig Melvin and audience members; most, if not all of them, connected to some anti-gun-violence group.

Collectively, the first five candidates—South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), and former Vice President Joe Biden—supported a set of initiatives they insist have mass popular support, including from gun owners. They argued that these "common sense gun safety" proposals are stymied by a combination of President Trump (who, they stated or implied, must be unseated before anything "sensible" can happen regarding new restrictions on gun owners) and a Congress in the thrall of the gun industry and the National Rifle Association (NRA), with the latter merely standing for the former, not for civil rights or the interests of their gun-owning members.

Audience questions often steered them toward the question of the disproportionate impact of gun violence on black and brown urban communities. (While the candidates didn't run with it, David Hogg, the student activist who was present at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018, linked the issue of gun ownership with "white supremacy" without explanation.) None of the candidates mentioned or alluded to the idea that the illegal drug trade plays a large role in that violence, and that liberalizing federal drug laws might help stem gun violence. Biden, in a complete gun law proposal issued today, does mention specific targeted interventions in affected communities, an idea that National Review's Robert VerBruggen praises due to "good evidence showing that they work, and they focus on specific individuals at severe risk of committing gun violence—not everyday people who own guns legally."

Warren was the only candidate savvy and wonky enough to point out something that analysts from the gun-rights side often point out: that the colorful public tragedies that fuel the political demand for action on gun rights would in most cases not have been affected by most of the proposed "common sense" policies that would merely complicate the lives and actions of the overwhelming number of innocent gun owners.