Gun politics in the United States
[10]: 9 Today, the figures of the settler colonist, hunter and outdoorsman survive as central to American gun culture, regardless of modern trends away from hunting and rural life.[10]: 10–11 Though it has not been a necessary part of daily survival for over a century, "generations of Americans continued to embrace and glorify it as a living inheritance – as a permanent ingredient of this nation's style and culture".[citation needed] In the years immediately following the Civil War, the question of the rights of freed slaves to carry arms and to belong to the militia came to the attention of the federal courts.Under the NFA, machine guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, and other weapons fall under the regulation and jurisdiction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) as described by Title II.[42] In an article supporting passage of such a law, retired chief justice Warren E. Burger wrote: Americans also have a right to defend their homes, and we need not challenge that."[44] According to journalist Chip Berlet, concerns about gun control laws along with outrage over two high-profile incidents involving the ATF (Ruby Ridge in 1992 and the Waco siege in 1993) mobilized the militia movement of citizens who feared that the federal government would begin to confiscate firearms.In particular, the NRA and other gun rights proponents objected to work supported by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, then run by Mark L. Rosenberg, including research authored by Arthur Kellermann.New groups have also arisen, such as the Students for Concealed Carry, which grew largely out of safety-issues resulting from the creation of gun-free zones that were legislatively mandated amidst a response to widely publicized school shootings.Heller ruled that Americans have an individual right to possess firearms, irrespective of membership in a militia, "for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.(In Miller, the Supreme Court unanimously held that a federal law requiring the registration of sawed-off shotguns did not violate the Second Amendment because such weapons did not have a "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.")In June 2022, the Supreme Court struck down the Sullivan Act's requirement for New York residents to show proper cause to obtain a license for concealed carry of handguns.[96] In August 2012, an open source group called Defense Distributed launched a project to design and release a blueprint for a handgun that could be downloaded from the Internet and manufactured using a 3D printer.Then in October a bipartisan group of 50 senators and 181 representatives released concurrent letters to President Barack Obama pledging their opposition to ratification of the ATT.Frank Jannuzi of Amnesty International USA states, "This treaty says that nations must not export arms and ammunition where there is an 'overriding risk' that they will be used to commit serious human rights violations.[125] On June 25, 2022, President Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law, which included expanded background checks for firearm purchasers under the age of 21, $15 billion in funding for mental health programs and school security upgrades, federal funding to encourage states to implement red flag laws, and gun ownership bans for individuals convicted of domestic abuse charges.[128] Meanwhile, the Huffington Post poll found that 40% of Americans believe stricter gun laws would prevent future mass shootings, while 52% said changing things would not make a difference.The states with weakest gun laws were ranked as follows: South Dakota, Arizona, Mississippi, Vermont, Louisiana, Montana, Wyoming, Kentucky, Kansas, and Oklahoma.Descriptions of age, mental illness, prior incarceration, and victim gender were less salient predictors of public support than those of race or incident type.In 1788, he wrote: "The political truths declared in that solemn manner acquire by degrees the character of fundamental maxims of free Government, and as they become incorporated with the national sentiment, counteract the impulses of interest and passion.[156]: 55–87 [157][158] Militia-movement groups cite the Battle of Athens (Tennessee, 1946) as an example of citizens who "[used] armed force to support the Rule of Law" in what they said was a rigged county election.[198] A U.S. male aged 15–24 is 70 times more likely to be killed with a gun than their counterpart in the eight (G-8) largest industrialized nations in the world (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy, Russia).[207] Studies using FBI data and Police Reports of the incidents, have found that there are approximately 1,500 verified instances of firearms used in self-defense annually in the United States.Recently, Colorado became the fifteenth state to pass the "Red Flag" bill which gives judges the authority to remove firearms from those believed to be a high risk of harming others or themselves.Such research is also subject to a more fundamental difficulty affecting all research in this field: the effectiveness of the Criminal Law in preventing crime in general or in specific cases is inherently and notoriously difficult to prove and measure, and thus issues in establishing a causal link between gun control or particular gun control policies and violent crime must be understood to be an aspect of a more general empirical difficulty, which pervades the fields of Criminology and Law at large.[222] Gary Kleck, a criminologist at Florida State University, and his colleague Marc Gertz, published a study in 1995 estimating that approximately 2.5 million American adults used their gun in self-defense annually.The NCVS survey differed from Kleck's study in that it only interviewed those who reported a threatened, attempted, or completed victimization for one of six crimes: rape, robbery, assault, burglary, non-business larceny, and motor vehicle theft.[236] A 2012 review by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that in the United States, the percent of suicide attempts that prove fatal is "strongly related to the availability of household firearms.[239] A 2022 correspondence between researchers at the University of Michigan and the New England Journal of Medicine states that "generational investments are being made in the prevention of firearm violence, including new funding opportunities from the CDC and the National Institutes of Health.This framing of the issue will move the debate from the extremes to the middle and, as such, is highly favorable to progress toward a new, sensible, national gun policy.Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe.The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.
Household Firearm Ownership Rate by U.S. state in 2016
Gun violence in the United StatesGun law in the United StatesAmendment IIAssault weaponAssault weapons legislationBipartisan Safer Communities ActBump stocksBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)Brady Handgun Violence Prevention ActCampus carry in the U.S.Concealed carry in the U.S.Connecticut Children's Safety ActConstitutional carryDomestic Violence Offender Gun BanFederal Assault Weapons BanFederal Firearms Act of 1938Federal firearms licenseFirearm case lawFirearm Owners Protection ActGun Control Act of 1968Gun-Free School Zones Act (GFSZA)Gun law in the U.S.Gun laws in the U.S. by stateGun politics in the U.S.Gun show loopholeHigh-capacity magazine banHistory of concealed carry in the U.S.Homemade firearmNational Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934NY SAFE ActOpen carry in the U.S.Right to keep and bear arms in the U.S.Second Amendment sanctuarySullivan Act (New York)Tiahrt AmendmentViolent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Actfirearm ownershipUnited Statesgun controlgun rightsSecond Amendment to the United States ConstitutionCalamity Janerite of passageAmerican RevolutionGlorious Revolutionstanding armyregular army10 U.S.C.American frontierright to bear armsSecond Amendment to the U.S. ConstitutionUnited States governmentcrime and deathssporting activitiesFourteenth AmendmentU.S. Supreme CourtDistrict of Columbia v. HellerMcDonald v. City of ChicagoincorporatedDue Process ClauseNYSRPA v. BruenU.S. civilians own 393 million firearmsJamestown, VirginiaJohn ParkerHenry Hudson KitsonLexington, MassachusettsBattles of Lexington and ConcordGunpowder IncidentPatrick HenrySaul Cornellindividual rightKentuckycollective rightState v. BuzzardJoel Prentiss BishopReconstruction eraFrederick Burr Opperassassination of James A. GarfieldCivil WarJohn A. BinghamUnited States v. CruikshankPrivileges or Immunities ClauseThe Yale Law JournalJohn Randolph TuckerHaymarket affairpre-incorporation eraNational Firearms ActProhibitionSaint Valentine's Day massacreThompson submachine gunsawed-off shotgunBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and FirearmsTitle IIUnited States v. MillerLyndon B. JohnsonJohn F. KennedyRobert KennedyMalcolm XMartin Luther King Jr.assassination attempt on President Ronald ReaganWarren E. BurgerSaturday night specialsStockton, California, schoolyard shooting"semiautomatic assault weapons"large capacity ammunition feeding devices.Chip BerletRuby RidgeWaco siegemilitia movementDemocratic PartyRepublican PartyLibertarian PartyNational Rifle AssociationGun Owners of AmericaSecond Amendment FoundationFirearms Policy CoalitionJews for the Preservation of Firearms OwnershipSecond Amendment SistersNational Association for Gun RightsBrady Campaign to Prevent Gun ViolenceCoalition to Stop Gun Violencemurder of John LennonJames BradySarah BradyCenters for Disease Control and Prevention