Disarm Hate: the Deadly Intersection of Guns and Hate-Motivated Violence

The shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue underscores the devastating impact of arming hate. Easy access to firearms gives a single, hate-filled individual the means to shatter numerous lives and whole communities including the June 2015 shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC, when a white supremacist opened fire in a church, killing nine Black worshippers,¹Jason Horowitz, Nick Corasaniti, and Ashley Southall, “Nine Killed in Shooting at Black Church in Charleston,” New York Times, June 17, 2015, https://nyti.ms/2uGcqDb. the May 2022 shooting at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, NY, when another white supremacist killed 10 Black people and wounded three more,²Mary B. Pasciak, “Tops Markets Shooter Chose AR-15 to Stoke Controversy,” Buffalo News, July 14, 2022, https://bit.ly/3PNO9DC; Craig Whitlock, David Willman, and Alex Horton, “Massacre Suspect Said He Modified Bushmaster Rifle to Hold More Ammunition,“ Washington Post, May 15, 2022, https://wapo.st/3SkEe8N. and the November 2022 shooting at Club Q, a LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, CO, when a gunman shot at least 22 people, five fatally, many of whom identified as LGBTQ+.³Colorado Springs Police Department, “Update to Shooting at Club Q – Victim Update,” November 28, 2022, https://bit.ly/3WfKP7u; Debbie Kelley, “5 Victims in Club Q Mass Shooting Identified, as Mourning Continues Around Colorado Springs,” The Gazette, January 24, 2023, https://bit.ly/3MP058B.

Key Findings

The vast majority of reported hate crimes are directed against communities of color, religious minorities, and LGBTQ+ people.⁴Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Crime Data Explorer: Hate Crime in the United States,” accessed January 13, 2022, https://bit.ly/3Gsb3v1. It is important to note that the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) data on hate crimes is likely an undercount because the vast majority of participating law enforcement agencies do not report these data to the FBI. The FBI UCR data were used to understand the proportion of bias motivations because it contains a breakdown for single bias incidents unlike the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data, which for all other purposes, is a more complete source of data for hate crime victimizations. Hate crimes are driven by prejudice against race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, gender or gender identity, or other core parts of a person’s identity. A 2021 analysis of National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data found that 60 percent of hate crime victimizations were motivated against race, ethnicity, or national origin. Twenty percent involved bias against sexual orientation, and 9 percent involved religious bias.⁵Grace Kena and Alexandra Thompson, “Hate Crime Victimization, 2005–2019,” 2021, https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/document/hcv0519_1.pdf. Incidents can have more than one bias, so total proportions do not add up to 100%.

The US faces a dangerous threat from people motivated by hate. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the current political climate has emboldened individuals to commit hate-motivated violence and also contributed to the formation of hate groups across the country. In fact, while hate group membership has been on the decline in recent years, this suggests that extremist ideas are now more politically mainstream.⁶Southern Poverty Law Center, “The Year in Hate  & Extremism, 2021,” 2022, https://www.splcenter.org/resources/year-hate-extremism-2021. In recent years, white supremacist movements have seen a resurgence, anti-government militias have become more active, and the United States has seen multiple shootings motivated by hate, including by racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and anti-LGBTQ+ bias.

Hate-motivated violence has a devastating impact on individual victims, and the reverberating effects are experienced by entire groups and communities. For individuals struggling against bias, news of a violent hate crime targeting members of a shared identity group can feel like a personal attack. Research has found that individuals across the country have reported experiencing higher levels of emotional distress and stated they would be less likely to attend safe spaces, like LGBTQ+ nightclubs, after mass shootings that have victimized people of their shared identities.⁷Skyler D. Jackson. “Connection Is The Antidote”: Psychological Distress, Emotional Processing, and Virtual Community Building Among LGBTQ Students After the Orlando Shooting,” Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity 4, no. 2 (2017): 160–68, https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000229; Julie M. Croff et al., “Hidden Rainbows: Gay Bars as Safe Havens in a Socially Conservative Area Since the Pulse Nightclub Massacre,” Sexuality Research and Social Policy 14, no. 2 (2017): 233–40, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-017-0273-1. When safe spaces no longer feel safe, entire communities suffer.

Hate-motivated violence involving firearms were the catalyst for hate crime laws in the United States. The first major federal protections against hate crimes were enacted in the wake of the shooting of Martin Luther King, Jr. And the most recent enhancement of federal hate crimes laws—the 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009—came after the death of Matthew Shepard.⁸18 U.S.C. § 249, “The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009,” https://bit.ly/2gjhAga. Shepard’s killers, who targeted him because he was gay, beat him with a firearm and left him to die.⁹Jude Sheerin, “Matthew Shepard: The Murder That Changed America,” BBC News, October 26, 2018. https://bbc.in/2O7XR2r.

Policy Recommendations

Current federal and state gun laws do not adequately address the problem. While all felonies are prohibiting offenses under federal law, most misdemeanors, including hate crime misdemeanors, are not. Hate crime misdemeanors can be serious, violent acts, but under federal law, a violent or threatening hate crime misdemeanor conviction does not prohibit someone from buying or having a gun. While some states and Washington, DC, have laws closing this gap, many states have not taken action.¹⁰For the most up-to-date list of states with these laws visit: https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/law/hate-crime-prohibitor/. This means that in parts of the country a person convicted of a violent hate crime could legally pass a background check and purchase and possess a firearm.

Passage of the federal Disarm Hate Act can close this dangerous gap. This bill would amend federal law to prohibit firearm sale or transfer to and receipt or possession by any individual who was convicted of violent or threatening misdemeanor crimes committed against someone based on their perceived or actual race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

States should pass laws to prohibit people convicted of hate crimes from buying or having a gun and should take additional steps to keep guns out of the hands of all people convicted of violent crimes. States should pass laws prohibiting people convicted of hate crimes from having guns. At a minimum, these laws should prohibit anyone convicted of a violent hate crime, like assault or battery, from having guns. States should also protect public safety by ensuring that all people convicted of recent violent misdemeanor crimes are prohibited from having guns. A 2019 study found that violent misdemeanor laws were associated with a nearly 27 percent reduction in firearm homicide rates.¹¹Michael Siegel and Claire Boine, What are the Most Effective Policies in Reducing Gun Homicides?” (Rockefeller Institute of Government, March 29, 2019), https://bit.ly/2YPAz7P.

States can also pass Extreme Risk laws to help prevent access to guns by people who have exhibited serious warning signs that they are a threat to others, including those who are motivated by bias. Extreme Risk laws give family members and law enforcement a way to intervene before warning signs escalate into tragedies. Under these laws, a petitioner can obtain a court order—often known as an extreme risk protection order (ERPO)—to temporarily remove guns from a dangerous situation.

An Everytown original analysis of mass shootings from 2015 to 2022 revealed that in nearly a third of incidents the shooter exhibited warning signs that they posed a risk to themselves or others before the shooting, and the bias-motivated shooters at the church in Charleston, the supermarket in Buffalo, and the club in Colorado Springs were no exception.¹²Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Mass Shootings in the United States,” March 4, 2021, https://everytownresearch.org/mass-shooting-report. The Charleston church shooter told a friend about his violent plans,¹³Associated Press, “Friend of Accused Charleston, SC, Church Shooter Pleads Guilty to Lying,” Los Angeles Times, April 29, 2016, https://lat.ms/2JsChqD. was known to abuse drugs,¹⁴Eugene Volokh, “Dylann Roof Apparently Had Not Been Arrested for a Felony a Month Before He Went Through a Gun Purchase Background Check,” Washington Post, July 11, 2015, https://wapo.st/3rzMtmV; Police report on drug charges against Charleston shooting suspect Dylann Roof, https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2106863/case-15-5592-d-roof-redacted.pdf. and posted a document online indicating that he had plans to commit violence.¹⁵“Dylann Roof’s Manifesto,” New York Times, December 13, 2016, https://nyti.ms/2VqmBey. Similarly, the Buffalo supermarket shooter had been planning his attack for years online, and had previously been taken into custody for stating he wanted to commit a murder-suicide.¹⁶Ashley Southall, Chelsia Rose Marcius, and Andy Newman. “Before the Massacre, Erratic Behavior and a Chilling Threat.” New York Times, May 15, 2022. https://nyti.ms/3D96qqk. And the Colorado Springs club shooter had previously threatened to harm his mother and grandparents, had spoken of plans to become the next mass killer, and had engaged in an armed standoff with SWAT teams.¹⁷Associated Press, “A Judge Had Warned That the Club Q Mass Shooting Suspect Posed a Potential Threat,” NPR, December 17, 2022, https://n.pr/3BAHmXT. The fact that these mass shooters displayed warning signs prior to their acts of hate violence highlights the opportunities to intervene and prevent these tragedies.