Gun politics in the United States

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The political issues surrounding guns is an especially contentious topic in the United States. The degree to which firearms can or should be regulated has long been debated, and disagreements range from the practical —does gun ownership cause or prevent crime? —to the constitutional —how should one interpret the Second Amendment? —and the philosophical —which weapons, if any, does the government have the authority to control?

Contents

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The Gun Politics Debate

In recent decades, the gun politics debate in the United States has centered around the meaning of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, and also the right to bear arms clauses in individual State Constitutions.

The United States Second Amendment, as passed by the House and Senate and later ratified by the States, reads:

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

The hand-written copy of the Bill of Rights which hangs in the National Archives had slightly different capitalization and punctuation inserted by William Lambert, the scribe who prepared it. This copy reads:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."'

Both versions are commonly used by "official" Government publications.

The meaning of this text remains fiercely debated, with some saying that the amendment refers only to official federal entities, such as the Army or National Guard, while others say that the amendment always guarantees the right of individuals to own firearms. However, United States Code states precisely that the militia is all male citizens and resident aliens at least 17 up to 45 with or without military service experience, and including additionally those under 64 having former military service experience, as well as including female citizens who are officers of the National Guard. [1]. Some people even argue about the number of commas in the amendment. Also, there is considerable disageement about the organized militia and the unorganized militia and their relationship to the Second Amendment. Does the right pertain only to organized, well regulated militias or all citizens? [2]

There are a wide range of views regarding the Second Amendment. Some gun control advocates argue that the Second Amendment does not cover individual gun ownership; others argue that the right to own firearms rests on other grounds which render it subject to the full force of the state's police powers, while others argue for outright repeal of the Amendment. [3], [4]. Clearly, a wide range of views exist regarding the Second Amendment among gun control supporters.

While a range of views may also be found among proponents of gun rights most believe that the Second Amendment protects the right to own guns for individual self defense, hunting, target shooting and in some cases gun rights supporters believe this also includes a right of revolution. Gun rights supporters argue that the phrase "the people" applies to all individuals rather than an organized collective, and point out that the word 'people' means the same individuals in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 9th, and 10th Amendments.[5] They also cite the fact that the Second Amendment resides in the Bill of Rights, and argue that the Bill of Rights, by its very nature, defines individual rights of the citizenry.[6] Many proponents of gun rights also read the Second Amendment to state that because of the need of a formal military, the people have a right to "keep and bear arms" as a protection from the government.

For a more detailed discussion of the historical debates on the Second Amendment, see Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.
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Practical questions

Within the gun politics debate, gun control advocates and gun rights advocates disagree on more practical questions as well. There is an ongoing debate over the role that guns play in crime. Gun-rights groups say that a well-armed citizenry prevents crime and that making civilian ownership of firearms illegal would increase the crime rate by making law-abiding citizens vulnerable to those who choose to disregard the law, while gun control organizations claim that increased gun ownership leads to higher levels of crime, suicide, and other negative outcomes. Questions of regulatory policy include:

  • Types of firearm –Should some types of firearms be regulated differently than others?
  • Criteria of eligibility – Are there criteria that disqualify a person from owning firearms? (Possible criteria include age, mental competence, firearm training, and felony conviction)
  • Background checks – Should there be background checks made to verify eligibility to own a firearm? Who should make them, and should there be a waiting period before a firearm can be sold?
  • Registration – Should all firearms and firearm owners be registered? If so, how may the registration information be used, and who should have access to it?
  • Concealed weapons – Should carrying concealed weapons be regulated? If so, should concealed carry be regulated separately from ownership, and if so, how?
  • Enforcement – Can gun-control laws be feasibly enforced? Should executive policy be to strictly enforce gun laws?
  • Storing – Should there be any regulations on how guns are kept? Should the state mandate the dismantling, unloading or locking of guns in storage?

Advocates on both sides generally agree that the gun rights lobby is among the most effective and organized single-issue political groups in the United States, with the most prominent example being the National Rifle Association.

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Self-defense and gun violence

Both sides actively debate the relevance of self-defense in modern society, and the effects of violence involving guns. Some scholars, such as John Lott, author of More Guns, Less Crime, say they have discovered a positive correlation between gun control legislation and crimes in which criminals victimize law-abiding citizens. Lott asserts that criminals ignore gun control laws, and are effectively deterred only by armed intended victims, just as higher penalties deter crime. Lott's work has been challenged by a number of scholars, and some hold that concealed carry laws do not reduce crime. His work involved comparison and analysis from data collected from all the counties in the United States. [7]

Also, Dr. Gary Kleck, a criminologist at Florida State University, did research regarding this topic. His results showed that possibly as many as 2.5 million people used their gun in self-defence or to prevent a crime each year, if not more. It is important to note that in most instances the firearm was not fired. A further breakdown showed that as many as 1.9 million of those instances involved a handgun. Kleck's research has been challenged by David Hemenway. The number of defensive gun uses is hotly contested. [8]

The National Rifle Association regularly reprints locally-published stories of ordinary citizens whose lives were saved by their guns. A sample can be seen here:[9].

Homicide rates as a whole, especially homicides as a result of firearms use, are not always significantly lower in many other developed countries. This is apparent in the UK and Japan, which have very strict gun control, while Israel and Switzerland, at the same time, have low homicide rates and high rates of gun distribution.

Dr Kleck has stated fully, "...cross-national comparisons do not provide a sound basis for assessing the impact of gun ownership levels on crime rates." (Kleck, Point Blank, 191)

Non-defensive uses of guns, such as hunting, vermin control, and recreational target shooting, often receive little attention despite arguably being the most common reasons for private gun ownership. This is perhaps because focusing on defense allows for the broadest coverage of firearms, and some say this view is the one that is the most in tune with the original intent of the Second Amendment. Of course, the notion that the Second Amendment concerns individual self defense and not collective self defense is itself a contentious issue.

The numbers of lives saved or lost by gun ownership are hotly debated. Problems include the difficulty of accounting accurately for confrontations in which no shots are fired, and jurisdictional differences in the definition of "crime". For example, some have argued that American statistics tend to overcount violent crimes, while British statistics tend to undercount them.

Proponents of gun control frequently argue that carrying a concealed pistol would be of no practical use for personal self-defense, and gun rights advocates answer that if that were true, law enforcement would have no use for guns. Few serious scholars on the gun control side of this debate accept the 2.5 million number that gun rights advocates cite for defensive gun use. Gun control supporters generally cite the figure of about 100,000 defensive gun uses a year. In the New England Journal of Medicine article "Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home" by authors Arthur L. Kellermann, Frederick P. Rivara, Norman B. Rushforth, Joyce G. Banton, Donald T. Reay, Jerry T. Francisco, Ana B. Locci, Janice Prodzinski, Bela B. Hackman, and Grant Somes, the conclusions of the published article are
"The use of illicit drugs and a history of physical fights in the home are important risk factors for homicide in the home. Rather than confer protection, guns kept in the home are associated with an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance." [10]
As noted in this research paper, "Shelby County, Tennessee; King County, Washington; and Cuyahoga County, Ohio, are the most populous counties in their respective states"[11] and were the dense urban locations studied, in the Memphis, TN, Seattle, WA, and Cleveland, OH areas, respectively. The following additional points for these densely urban studied areas were noted:
  • For every time a gun is used in a "home" in a legally-justifiable shooting [note that every self-defense is legally justifiable] there are 22 criminal, unintentional, and suicide-related shootings. [Kellermann AL, Somes G, Rivara FP, et al. "Injuries and deaths due to firearms in the home." The Journal of Trauma. 1998;45:263-267]
  • The presence of a gun in the "home" triples the risk of homicide in the "home". [Kellermann, AL, Rivara, FP, Rushforth NB, et al. "Gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home." N Engl J Med. 1993;329:1084-1091.]
  • The presence of a gun in the "home" increases the risk of suicide fivefold.[Kellermann, AL Rivara FP, Somes G, et al. "Suicide in the home in relation to gun ownership." N Engl J Med. 1992;327:467-472.]

"The great majority of the victims (76.7 percent) were killed by a relative or someone known to them. Homicides by a stranger accounted for only 15 cases (3.6 percent). The identity of the offender could not be established in 73 cases (17.4 percent). The remaining cases involved other offenders or police acting in the line of duty."[Kellermann, AL, Rivara, FP, Rushforth NB, et al. "Gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home." N Engl J Med. 1993;329:1084-1091.]

"Similar percentages of case and control households reported using deadbolt locks, window bars, or metal security doors. The case subjects were slightly less likely than the controls to have lived in a home with a burglar alarm, but they were slightly more likely to have controlled security access. Almost identical percentages of case and control households reported owning a dog."[Kellermann, AL, Rivara, FP, Rushforth NB, et al. "Gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home." N Engl J Med. 1993;329:1084-1091.]

No home-security measures retained significance in the final model. After matching for four characteristics and controlling for the effects of five more, we found that the presence of one or more firearms in the home was strongly associated with an increased risk of homicide in the home (adjusted odds ratio, 2.7; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.6 to 4.4).."[Kellermann, AL, Rivara, FP, Rushforth NB, et al. "Gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home." N Engl J Med. 1993;329:1084-1091.]

"Florida State University professor Gary Kleck ... terms these ratios "nonsensical"" [12], for, as noted by Dr. Kleck,
"the authors presented no evidence that any of the home homicides they studied were actually committed with guns kept in the victim's home. Of the 1860 total homicides committed in the 3 study counties, 444 were committed in the victim's home, and 221 of these were committed with a gun. However, reanalysis of these data indicates that of these 221 homicides, only 88 (4.7% of the total 1860) involved a suspect whose relationship to the victim was that of spouse, lover, sibling, parent, child, or roommate (including 4 spouse or lover cases committed outside the home but in an adjacent building or yard). Thus, even among the relatively rare home-gun homicides, most of the killings were committed by nonresident killers who presumably used guns brought in from the outside. This raises the question of how victim household gun ownership could substantially increase a person's risk of homicide victimization, given that so small a share of homicide victims are killed with a gun kept in the victim's home." [What Are the Risks and Benefits of Keeping a Gun in the Home?, Gary Kleck, Ph.D., JAMA. 1998;280:473-475, [13].]
Similarly, Dave Kopel, writing in the National Review in an article entitled An Army of Gun Lies, April 17, 2000, wrote of these Kellermann studies that,
"Emory University medical professor Arthur Kellermann is a one-man factory of this type of misleading data. One of his most famous studies purported to show that owning a gun is associated with a 2.7 times greater risk of being murdered. Kellermann compared murder victims in several cities with sociologically similar people a few blocks away in those cities, who had not been murdered. The 2.7 factoid was trumpeted all over the country; but the study is patently illogical. First of all, Kellermann’s own data show that owning a security system, or renting a home rather than owning it, are also associated with equally large increased risks of death. Yet newspapers did not start running dire stories warning people to rip out their burglar alarms or to start lobbying their condo association to dissolve. The 2.7 factoid also overlooks the obvious fact that one reason people choose to own guns, or to install burglar alarms, is that they are already at higher risk of being victimized by crime. As Yale law professor John Lott points out, Kellermann’s methodology is like comparing 100 people who went to a hospital in a given year with 100 similar people who did not, finding that more of the hospital patients died, and then announcing that hospitals increase the risk of death. Kellermann’s method would also prove that possession of insulin increases the risk of diabetes." [14]

Currently, 30,000 plus people in the USA are killed each year by guns and some multiple of this number are injured by guns. [WISQARS, Injury Mortality Reports, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control] Yet, as pointed out by gun rights advocates, "While 69 men per 100,000 die of gun shots in DC every year, the number of female fatalities is so small that it's not even listed in the latest Kaiser health statistics report. Obviously, something more than guns are involved in these deaths."[15]

As of 1997, 35 +/- 1.3% of households in the USA owned guns according to Government statistics.[16] Hence, a majority of American households do not own guns according to Government-published statistics. However, according to conventional national poll surveys conducted since 1959, Americans have consistently indicated that they believe that approximately 50% of households own guns.[17] The reason for this difference is not known.

Gun ownership is "highest among middle-aged, college-educated people of rural small-town America."[18] Yet, the 2004 FBI Uniform Crime Report (the most recently released report) states, "The UCR Program aggregates crime data into three community types: Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), cities outside metropolitan statistical areas, and nonmetropolitan counties. ... Nearly 83 percent (82.9) of the Nation’s population lived in MSAs in 2004. Residents of cities outside MSAs accounted for 6.8 percent of the country’s population, and 10.4 percent of the Nation’s population lived in nonmetropolitan counties. ...A look at the volume of violent crime by community type showed that an estimated 90.0 percent of violent crime occurred in the Nation’s MSAs, 5.5 percent of violent crime occurred in cities outside MSAs, and 4.5 percent of violent crime occurred in the Nation’s nonmetropolitan counties." This apparent higher rate of crime against the more unarmed is not unique to the United States; in South Africa, the organization Victims Against Crimes equates a similar statistical difference simply to criminals preferring unarmed victims. [19]

Gun control advocates say that reasonable gun control will reduce the violence of suicide and murder in America; lesson plans for high school teachers to use when teaching this line of thought have even been published on-line.[20] Yet, South Africa, Russia, and several other countries, which forbid almost all individual firearms, have much higher murder rates than the US, usually committed with simple knives, explosives, or improvised blunt-force weapons.[21]

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Non-crime related use

Gun control advocates argue that high levels of gun ownership lead to higher levels of suicide and accidental deaths. Gun rights advocates dispute these claims, saying that so few accidental deaths and suicides are gun-related that banning guns would have little impact on the overall statistics. They also argue that suicidal people would simply find other ways to end their lives.

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Security against tyranny and invasion arguments

A position taken by some personal gun rights advocates is that an armed citizenry is the population's last line of defense against tyranny by their own government, as some believe was one of the main intents of the Second Amendment. Then Sen. John F. Kennedy stated, in Know Your Lawmakers, Guns, April 1960, p. 4 (1960),
"By calling attention to 'a well regulated militia,' the 'security' of the nation, and the right of each citizen 'to keep and bear arms,' our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny which gave rise to the Second Amendment will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the Second Amendment will always be important."[22]

An analogous popular saying of less eloquent modern day gun rights advocates is that the amendment is "the government's reset button". [23], [24]

A contrary position is that the intent of the Second Amendment was the need to avoid a standing army by ensuring the viability of people's militias, and that the concept of rebellious private citizens, or rogue militias, as a check on governmental tyranny was clearly not part of the Second Amendment.Template:Fact In other words, the Second Amendment requires that all militias be loyal to the military chain of command, and that rogue, unlawful and/or rebellious use of firearms is not a protected right, and that "the government's reset button" provided by the Constitution is the ballot box not armed rebellion.Template:Fact

Personal gun right advocates argue that it is not unrealistic to postulate that private citizens could successfully oppose a government which controls the full power of the US Armed Forces, were it to become tyrannical, as the ability of the Afghanistani Mujahideen in countering similarly-equipped Soviet Armed Forces assault rifles with ancient bolt action rifles accurate at longer distances speaks to a possibility that a guerilla action with older main battle rifles would not entirely be in vain. As noted by Major Keith J. Stalder, USMC, in 1985, "... the Lee Enfield-armed Afghans can often hit at 800 meters or longer range while the Kalashnikov-armed motorized riflemen are ineffective beyond 300 meters...". [25] As Boston T. Party has phrased it, 60,000 dead Soviets cannot all be wrong. Ultimately, the Soviets left in defeat, losing against mostly WW I and WW II bolt action rifles, while they themselves were armed with the latest weapons. Of course, the Mujahideen did have significant support from the West with Stinger missiles, but their bolt-action weapons were still essentially indigenous. The contrary claim is that the people's power to replace elected officials by voting is sufficient to keep the government in check. However, personal gun right advocates put forward the Battle of Athens in August 2, 1946 as an example of citizens in desperate circumstances using firearms where all other democratic options have failed.

A contrary argument to the validity of the militia to counter governmental tyranny is pointed out per the United States Military Code, in that the Commander in Chief has the authority to call up the militia to help suppress insurrections, which would create the ironic situation that any militia opposing governmental tyranny could be enlisted to suppress itself.

Invasion by hostile outside forces is a reason gun rights advocates oppose registration. If captured, the associated records would provide invaders with a means of locating and eliminating patriotic resistance fighters. Location and capture of such records is a standard doctrine taught to military intelligence officers. The risk of the capture of such records is recognized as legitimate; federal firearms licensed dealers are required to destroy their records if an invasion is declared to be underway.

A contrary position is that joining the military is a more viable method to resist hostile invasions, and that the registration of firearms is valid tool of the military to allow commandering of private weapons as needed for the common defense during wartime and that access to weapons if needed during a wartime crisis should not be denied to the government. Also, the government has a duty to regulate rogue militias and rebellious or criminal use of firearms and firearm registration is a legitimate approriate tool for this purpose.

Registration aside, personal gun rights advocates claim that an armed citizenry is a strong deterrent against a foreign invasion. They frequently cite tyrants who claimed to fear invading countries where the citizenry was heavily armed, or that they needed to disarm their own populace to be effective.

Those contrary dispute these ideas, arguing that the US's two neighbors, Mexico and Canada, are unlikely ever to invade, although recent incursions across the border by Mexican troops protecting drug traffickers weaken this argument significantly [26]. During the Pacific War, Japan rejected the idea of invading the West Coast of the United States, and one reason was the presence of millions of armed civilians who regularly competed in state markmenship matches. As noted after the war by one Japanese Admiral, "We knew that your country actually had state championships for private citizens shooting military rifles. We were not fools to set foot in such quicksand." [27] In the 2003 documentary Innocents Betrayed, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership advanced the claim that gun control laws have been a critical part of all genocides in the twentieth century. The documentary referred to laws restricting gun ownership to government officials passed in Nazi Germany, the USSR, and elsewhere. It is observed that in many cases, a leader with plans of dictatorship will often ban guns from the area he wishes to control, thus preventing any uprising that could ever threaten his reign (examples include Hitler and Stalin). The evidence for this claim has also been challenged by scholars who have pointed out that Nazi gun laws were less restrictive than those of the democratic Weimar government (albeit not for Jews), and that the gun laws in Iraq under Saddam Hussein were extremely permissive. However this argument is weakened by the fact that it does not take into account the cultural-conditioning of both of these societies, neither which had lengthy traditions of freedom or self-determination. By contrast, guns in the hands of groups that fit a militia model have been quite effective against much larger and better organized forces.

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Political battle

Originally formed in 1871, after the American Civil War, to promote marksmanship skills among the general population, the NRA was mainly a shooting-sports association that rose to prominence from its nationwide promotion of firearms safety, training courses and certifications it offered local shooting clubs and their members. It became a powerful lobbying force after the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which made gun control a national issue. Virtually all pro-gun-control groups see the NRA's positions as extremist, especially since Harlon Carter became the de facto policy maker at the NRA, bringing with him a more hard-line stance towards gun rights than the NRA had held in the past.[28]

In contrast, the other national gun rights groups generally take a much harder line than the NRA. These groups criticize the NRA's history of support for various gun control legislation such as the Gun Control Act of 1968, the ban on armor-piercing projectiles and the point-of-purchase background checks (NICS). The Second Amendment Sisters, Second Amendment Foundation, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, The Pink Pistols and Gun Owners of America are among the groups in this category.

An example of differing stances; the NRA says "no new gun laws are needed;enforce the 20,000+ gun laws on the books".The GOA then says we don't want unconstitutional gun laws enforced,we want them repealed."

While gun control is not strictly a partisan issue, there is more support for gun control in the Democratic Party than the Republican Party. The only political party which completely supports gun rights is the United States Libertarian Party. Traditionally, regional differences are greater than partisan ones on this issue. Southern and Western states are predominantly pro-gun while coastal states like California, Massachusetts, and New York favor gun control. Other areas, including the Midwest, are mixed, and two, Vermont and Alaska, have absolutely no CCW (Carrying a Concealed Weapon) licensing requirements, gun registrations, or bans, and disallow local government pre-emption.

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Notable individuals

The field of political research regarding firearms suffers from the same contention as the issue of firearms itself. Almost every prominent researcher has seen their works attacked by those uncomfortable with their conclusions, and some have had their work investigated as academic fraud. Nonetheless, some influential individuals include (in alphabetical order):

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Gun control laws

Throughout the history of the country, the Supreme Court of the United States has effectively allowed and let stand a very broad range of gun control laws and regulations that have been enacted by State and local jurisdictions.

Indeed, almost without exception, the Supreme Court's multiple rulings, most notably with:

  • Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886)[30])
  • United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) [31];
  • Burton v. Sills, 394 U.S. 812 (1969) [32]); and
  • Lewis v. United States, 445 US 55 (1980) [33]

do not support the argument that the Second Amendment provides protection of a personal right to firearms beyond the context of personal firearms for individuals keeping and bearing arms for the viability of lawful State militias.

Several notable observations by the high court are worth noting. First, as to militias, the high court ruled in Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886)[34]), that the State could regulate militias, with no violation of the Second Amendment, for

"To deny the power would be to deny the right of the State to disperse assemblages organized for sedition and treason, and the right to suppress armed mobs bent on riot and rapine."

Second, although Lewis primarily addressed just federal law banning felons from possessing guns, it did allow even a felon to restore his individual right to keep and bear arms since "the disability may be removed by a qualifying pardon".[35]

Otherwise, the modern Supreme Court has largely left gun control to State and local jurisdictions. Some juridictions have elected to provide very broad rights to personal firearms, whereas other jurisdictions have chosen to regulate strictly, or even to ban certain types of firearms.

Likewise, certain other rulings by the Supreme Court (e.g., Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965))[36], have made a slightly stronger case that an individual, unenumerated, right to firearms likely is protected by the Ninth Amendment's protection of pre-existing rights. The issue of whether the personal right to firearms is protected for "the people" at the State level by incorporation through the Fourteenth Amendment is not clearly established, although, in the decision for Griswold, Justice Goldberg wrote a concurring opinion that,
"While the Ninth Amendment - and indeed the entire Bill of Rights - originally concerned restrictions upon federal power, the subsequently enacted Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the States as well from abridging fundamental personal liberties. And, the Ninth Amendment, in indicating that not all such liberties are specifically mentioned in the first eight amendments, is surely relevant in showing the existence of other fundamental personal rights, now protected from state, as well as federal, infringement."

Gun rights activists and others in recent decades have often taken this opinion to mean that the fundamental right to firearms predates the U.S. Constitution and is due solely to the Ninth Amendment; the Constitution protects a pre-existing right to arms. [37] For example, the late and former Libertarian Presidential Candidate Harry Browne stated "the Second Amendment is only an additional safeguard. Beyond the Second Amendment, "the Ninth Amendment would clearly protect an individual's right to defend himself -- because nothing in the Constitution has taken that right away."[38]

Fully automatic weapons have been restricted in the United States since the National Firearms Act of 1934. The only automatic firearms available to civilians are those manufactured before May 19, 1986. Private owners must obtain permission from both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATF) and the local county sheriff or local chief of police, pass an extensive background check to include submitting a photograph and finger prints, fully register the firearm, continually update the owner's address and location of the firearm, receive ATF written permission before moving the firearm across state lines, and pay a $200 transfer tax. This process takes approximately 6 months to complete. Additionally, the firearm can never be handled or transported by any other private individual unless the firearm's registered owner is present. Some states require state permission as well, and some states prohibit any sort of possession under any terms. Otherwise, automatic firearms are available only to police or military personnel.

The Clinton administration BATF study of illegal firearms in the black market estimated that as many as 4 million illegal fully automatic firearms had either been illegally smuggled into the USA or illegally constructed within the USA. No new legal full-autos have been manufactured for the civilian population since 1986, causing the economic rules of supply and demand to drive the prices of existing automatic weapons well above the cost of manufacturing and distributing them, making it impractical for most Americans to afford a legal automatic firearm even if they do legally qualify for it.

In the U.S., the major federal gun control legislation is the 1968 Gun Control Act, passed shortly after the assassinations of Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King. The act required that guns carry serial numbers and implemented a tracking system to determine the purchaser of a gun whose make, model, and serial number are known. It also prohibited gun ownership by convicted felons and certain other individuals. The Act was updated in the 1990s, mainly to add a mechanism for the criminal history of gun purchasers to be checked at the point of sale, and in 1996 with the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban to prohibit ownership and use of guns by individuals convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence.

A patchwork of laws exists at state and local levels, with the state of Illinois, Washington, DC, and the city of New York having among the more restrictive limits; New York's Sullivan Act was passed in 1911. Many states implemented criminal background checks or "waiting periods" for handgun (pistol and revolver) purchasers in response to the gun control lobby in the 1980s. More recent lobbying efforts have resulted in the passage of laws making it a crime to leave guns in locations accessible to children. See also: Gun Control (in USA by state).

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Concealed carry, licenses, and open carry

Recent changes in the political landscape have brought about legislative initiatives to make it legal for citizens to carry concealed guns with them for defense. Most states have various requirements for training and licensing for concealed carry. The notable exceptions are Vermont, which has never had any such restrictions in its history, and Alaska. Several other states have liberalized concealed carry regulations, allowing almost all law-abiding adult citizens with appropriate training to obtain carry permits. The trend toward liberalizing concealed carry regulations, however, did not begin in earnest until 1987. In that year, Florida became the first major state to liberalize its concealed carry regulation. Many other states have followed, for a total of 37 states having such laws on the books as of April 2004. Notably, no state that has passed a shall-issue law has yet repealed it legislatively. However, Minnesota's shall-issue law was invalidated by a state appeals court in 2005 on grounds that the law was passed in violation of a provision in the state constitution that prohibited multi-issue legislation. The ruling was on appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court but became moot in May of that year when a new standalone shall-issue bill, virtually identical to the invalidated legislation, was passed by the legislature and signed into law. The lack of a unified system of gun control laws among federal, state, and local governments actually contributes to, rather than deters, the rate of gun violence.

Like Vermont, Alaska has no requirement for a license or permit for any lawful gun owner to carry concealed handguns in public. However, unlike Vermont, Alaska has issued such permits to its residents in the past, and continues to issue new permits. There are three main reasons for this policy. First, several other states honor Alaska's permits, while no state (apart from Vermont and now Alaska) recognizes the concealed carry rights of non-residents without permits, even if carrying without a permit is allowed in the person's home state. Second, all concealed carry permits in the United States, as long as they require a criminal background check, make their holders exempt from most prosecutions under the much disputed federal Gun Free School Zones Act. Finally, Alaska's permit is one of a small number of state permits that meet the federal criteria to exempt their holders from federal background checks to purchase firearms.

A state's laws regarding open carry cannot generally be inferred from its laws regarding concealed carry. Some states, for instance Arizona and Virginia, allow unlicensed open carry of handguns. Others, for instance Utah and Georgia, allow open carry only with a license; their licenses allow both concealed and open carry. Still other states, for instance Texas and Florida, categorically forbid open carry of handguns, even though they allow licensed concealed carry.

A license to carry a concealed weapon is not necessarily a license to carry one anywhere. As an example, in Montana, even holders of concealed weapon licenses cannot carry firearms into banks, schools, Federal government buildings, or any establishment that sells alcoholic beverages. Because many criminals are able to obtain both legal and illegal weapons without a license, laws that entirely ban any type of gun may halt the use of guns only as a means of self-defense while criminals continue to ignore the laws and abuse the guns. However, it has been suggested by many gun control supporters than laws be enacted that allow background checks to be performed on those wishing to sell or prchase a gun. Because this method still allows law-abiding citizens to own and carry a gun, it has been accepted by many as a constitutional and possibly effective method of gun control. This method of gun control has also been widely accepted by citizens who share the belief that people and not guns kill people. Beliefs such as this often call for restrictions to be made on people, rather than the guns themselves.

The status of concealed carry laws in the USA has changed dramatically since 1986, as seen below:

  • 1986 - 8 shall-issue states, 20 may-issue, 21 no-issue, 1 unrestricted.
  • 2006 - 35 shall-issue states, 12 may-issue, 2 no-issue, 2 unrestricted. (Alaska falls into both the shall-issue and unrestricted categories.)
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Concealed carry laws (state by state)

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Unrestricted

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Shall Issue

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May Issue

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No-issue

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Definitions:

  • Unrestricted—No permit required for concealed carry.
  • Shall issue—Authorities are required to issue permits to all individuals who meet the state's issuance criteria. This category is also generally interpreted to include states where authorities have very limited discretion in permit issuance.
  • May issue—Authorities have broad discretion as to whether to issue a permit to a given individual. Most of these may-issue states issue permits only sparingly often only to the rich, famous, or well connected. In the case of Hawaii only one (1) permit has been issued. However, the policies of Alabama and Connecticut are effectively shall-issue.
  • No-issue—Concealed carry is prohibited to the general public.
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See also

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External links

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Organizations

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