Showing papers on "Gun control published in 1995"

The Politics of Gun Control

Abstract: This work offers wide-ranging coverage of the American gun culture, the history and meaning of Second Amendment, the criminological consequences of guns, the policy-making roles of Congress, the presidency, the bureaucracy, interest groups, public opinion and the political parties. New to this third edition of "The Politics of Gun Control" is coverage of the proliferation of concealed-carry laws in cities and counties. The book covers the debate and data on the effect of these laws on crime rates, homicide rates, gun-related violence and accidental deaths. Also included is coverage of guns and school violence, including the shooting at Columbine High (1999) and other schools around the country in 1997-98; the congressional response in the aftermath of these episodes; and the Senate's passing of a historic juvenile justice bill requiring background checks for gun show purchases, tougher penalties for sale to juveniles or to felons, mandatory gun locks on new handguns, and a ban on import of high-capacity ammunition clips.

Easing Concealed Firearms Laws: Effects on Homicide in Three States

Abstract: Restrictions on carrying concealed weapons are among the most common gun control policies.' These statutes limit who may have a deadly weapon-usually a handgun-hidden on their person when outside the home. By reducing access to guns in public, concealed weapons laws seek to make firearms less available for violence.2 Details of concealed weapons laws vary greatly among localities, but most approaches fall into two categories. One of these is a discretionary system, sometimes called "may issue" licensing.3 Under this policy, legal authorities grant licenses only to those citizens who can establish a compelling need for carrying a gun. The other approach is a non-discretionary, or "shall issue," system.4 Here the authorities must provide a license to any applicant who meets specified criteria. Because legal officials are often unwilling to allow concealed weapons, adopting a shall issue policy usually increases the number of persons with permits to carry guns.5 In 1985, the National Rifle Association announced that it would

The Racist Roots of Gun Control

Abstract: Racist arms laws predate the establishment of the United States. This is not surprising. Blacks in the New World were often slaves, and revolts against slave owners often degenerated into less selective forms of racial warfare. The perception that free blacks were sympathetic to the plight of their enslaved brothers and the "dangerous" example that blacks could actually handle freedom often led New World governments to disarm all blacks, both slave and free.

Keeping Guns out of the Wrong Hands: The Brady Law and the Limits of Regulation

Abstract: Keeping firearms out of the hands of dangerous and irresponsible persons is one of, if not the primary goal of United States gun control policy.' The logic of restricting gun ownership to responsible, law-abiding citizens is immediately apparent and relatively uncontroversial, even to the National Rifle Association.2 It reflects a widelyshared belief that members of certain social categories pose an unacceptably high risk of misusing firearms.3 As in the case of denying a driver's license to people who are legally blind, there is a strong consensus that people who have demonstrated certain kinds of irresponsible 'and unstable behavior should not possess weapons which are capable of injuring or killing the possessor or others.4 Federal gun

Gun Ownership and Counseling of Alabama Pediatricians

Abstract: Objective: To examine the personal behavior of primary care pediatricians in Alabama with respect to a gun control policy. The American Academy of Pediatrics supports removal of handguns from homes, safe gun storage in homes with guns, and counseling patients about gun safety practices. Design: Survey. Setting: Primary care pediatricians. Patients or Other Participants: Population-based sample. Interventions: None. Main Outcome Measures: The proportion of pediatricians who were gun and handgun owners was examined. In addition, the safety behaviors and counseling practices reported by pediatricians were examined. Results: The response rate for pediatricians was 67%. Fifty percent of pediatricians reported owning a gun. Thirty-four percent of pediatricians had a handgun in their household. Eleven percent of pediatricians had unsafe gun practices, where unsafe was defined as having a loaded gun in the home or car at least some of the time. The most common reason for owning a handgun or having a loaded gun in the home or car was personal protection. Only a third (33%) of pediatricians routinely counseled their patients about gun safety. Long gun owners were less likely to counsel patients about bike helmet safety and were less likely to use car seats and bike helmets for their own children. Conclusions: A large proportion of Alabama pediatricians are gun owners, but most store weapons safely. Although long gun owners were less likely to use car seats or bike helmets and less likely to counsel patients regarding bike helmet use, no effect of gun ownership on counseling about gun safety was identified. (Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1995;149:442-446)

The Impact of Agenda Conflict on Policy Formulation and Implementation: The Case of Gun Control

Abstract: With passage of the Brady Bill and subsequent focus on assault weapons, the issue of gun control has returned to the public spotlight Both opponents and advocates of gun control have used the heightened interest and increased media attention to advance their cases For those familiar with the history of gun control in the United States, the current process invokes a certain sense of deja vu In addition to having the most lenient, but complex, firearms laws in the industrialized world, the United States has been unique in the level and duration of controversy over gun policy (Zimring and Hawkins, 1987; Kopel, 1992) Some have viewed this as resulting from the role that guns played in American history (Hofstadter, 1970) An examination of the policy history reveals more about the American political process than about our romance with guns It is a history that confirms our deep commitment to pluralism and incrementalism, while raising questions regarding their utility Rather than a politics-administration dichotomy, one discovers complex entanglements of policy formulation and implementation and a conflict over symbols and language that has produced a stalemate resembling an iron triangle in effect if not design History The history of gun control can be divided into at least five distinct eras beginning with the passage of the Sullivan Law in New York in 1909 and ending with the passage of the Brady Bill in 1993 A sixth era is added by some researchers to cover the efforts of southern states to deny firearms to blacks after the Civil War (Kates, 1979) Gun control, as a policy applicable to the general population, began in 1909 with New York State's Sullivan Law, which mandated permits for the possession of handguns Passed in an era when the prohibition of drugs and alcoholic beverages was being widely advocated, the law was a result of these influences, as well as fear of crime and the increased population of new immigrants (Sugarmann, 1992; 171-179) New York police have used the law to deny handgun access to all but the most influential citizens, particularly in New York City This highly restrictive approach to implementation has provided a model for control advocates and a rallying point for opponents (Vizzard, 1993; 134) Federal Government Enters the Field After a 1927 effort to control interstate shipment of handguns by prohibiting their shipment by mail, but not common carrier, Congress first addressed the gun issue more seriously in 1934 Attorney General Homer Cummings proposed a bill that would control all firearms, other than sporting rifles and shotguns, through a transfer tax and registration scheme modeled after the Harrison Narcotics Act In both House and Senate hearings on the bill, it was opposed by the NRA, numerous sportsmen's associations, and the firearms industry (Leff and Leff, 1981) A compromise was reached that excluded handguns and semi-automatic rifles from the bill (Sugarmann, 1992; 33) The National Firearms Act (NFA) was enacted in 1934 and required registration and a transfer tax only on so-called gangster-type weapons, including machine guns, silencers, and sawed-off rifles and shotguns Although the bill had the backing of the administration and a few powerful members of Congress, southern and western lawmakers generally opposed controls and little national attention appears to have been focused on the issue (Vizzard, 1993; 174-176) The administration continued to pursue more restrictive legislation under the interstate commerce authority In 1938, Congress finally passed the Federal Firearms Act (FFA), which required licensing of gun dealers and their maintenance of sales records but lacked mechanics for enforcement Hearing records indicate that the bill was primarily drafted by the NRA as an effort to prevent more restrictive legislation (Kennett and Anderson, 1975; 192-193; Sugarmann, 1992; 30) Crime rates began a decline in 1934 that would continue for almost three decades, and the limited public and congressional interest in gun control abated …

The ideology of gun ownership and gun control in the united states

Abstract: In the United States, serious discussion of gun control has taken two primary approaches: the criminological and the legal. Criminologists have asked whether various gun controls would reduce gun crime and other gun misuse, or whether restrictive gun control laws would deprive innocent victims of an efficacious means of self-defense. Legal scholars of gun control have studied whether the right to arms guarantees in the federal constitution and most state constitutions pose legal barriers to restrictions or gun confiscation. This essay has an entirely different purpose: to examine the ideological frameworks of the American gun control debate.

Guns : who should have them?

Abstract: Going beyond the emotional appeals and stilted rhetoric on gun control, this book tackles the problems in a straight-forward, intelligent manner. Each chapter in this powerful volume, written by leading experts in law, criminology, medicine, psychiatry, and feminist studies, addresses a major issue in the gun-control debate. The conclusions of this carefully detailed and superbly argued study are difficult to deny: "gun control" is a red herring that has been deflecting attention from the true causes of crime, namely, the breakdown of the family; failed social welfare programs; and increasing hopelessness among male youths, especially in our troubled inner cities.

Gun crazy - constitutional false consciousness and dereliction of dialogic responsibility

Abstract: This is an article about the causes and costs of false consciousness -- false consciousness regarding the constitutional concept of the "right to bear arms." This is an article about the deceit, misperception, and dereliction of responsibility that have characterized America's dysfunctional gun control debate. My focus is on the claim that every proposed regulation of firearms necessarily implicates the Second Amendment. The gun lobby has successfully spun a mythical broad individual right to bear arms for all legal private purposes. Yet the courts have consistently found that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to bear arms only for those individuals who are part of the "well regulated Militia" -- today's stateside National Guard. Despite widespread belief to the contrary, the courts have clearly held that there is no right to bear arms for self-defense, hunting, or shooting competitions, much less arsenal-building in preparation for resistance of potential domestic tyranny. Those with the greatest ability and responsibility to challenge this constitutional myth -- politicians, journalists, and legal scholars -- have failed to do so. The body politic's widespread, and virtually unchallenged, belief in this vast right to bear arms has significantly undermined reform efforts to limit and regulate access to firearms. A constitutional false consciousness has perpetuated a system that provides notoriously easy access to all types of high-powered weapons. As a result, America has become the runaway world leader in gun violence.

Firearm homicide in New Zealand: Victims, perpetrators and their weapons 1992-94

Abstract: Aim: To determine the firearms licensing status and mental and criminal history of perpetrators in firearm homicide, plus the legal status of the firearms used. The location of the shooting, its motivation and the relationship between perpetrator and victim were determined, as well as the type, ownership, origin and security storage of the firearms involved. Method: All New Zealand firearm homicides in the three-year period 1992-1994 were identified. Case summaries were obtained from the New Zealand Police under the provisions of the Official Information Act. A standardised questionnaire was then used to obtain additional data from the case file. All the questionnaires were completed. Results: Most victims were killed by a licensed gunowner, while 62.5% (and ten out of eleven female victims) were killed with a legal firearm from the collection of a licensed gun-owner. Almost all victims (95%) were killed by a familiar person. Half were shot by their partner, an estranged partner or a member of their own family. Of all the dead, 63% were shot during family violence, 91% of these with a legal firearm. Of the perpetrators, 82% had no predictive history of violent crime, while none had a history of mental illness. Conclusion: These results contradict the suggestion that efforts to reduce firearm violence should be directed only at “criminals and the mentally ill”, rather than “law-abiding gun-owners”.

Guns and violence: an interpretive review of the field

Abstract: In 1991, about 38,000 people in the U.S. were killed with guns and another 130,000 suffered nonfatal gunshot wounds. The prospects of reducing violence by restricting gun ownership and usage depends on how many guns there are, how people get them, why they own them, and how strongly they would resist gun control measures to keep them. Some of the issues addressed here include the prevalence of various types of guns in the U.S., the defensive use of guns by crime victims, the risks of prohibitionist measures, the effects of guns on different stages of assaultive violence, the impact of gun ownership levels on violent crime rates, and the effects of guns on suicide. The article also discusses types of gun controls, public opinion and support for gun laws, and the impact of gun control laws on violence rates. The author points to the empirical support for a few moderate gun controls and recommends a national instant records check to screen for high-risk gun buyers, tighter licensing of gun dealers, and increased enforcement of carry laws.

Gun Control: Threat to Liberty or Defense Against Anarchy?

Abstract: Introduction Our European Heritage Guns and the Constitution The Militia--Then and Now Guns and the Law What the Courts Have Said What the American Public Thinks The Practice in Other Countries The Propaganda Campaign, Pro and Con: Phase 1 Propaganda: Phase 2 What Are the Alternatives? Notes Bibliography Index

The Battle Over the Brady Bill and the Future of Gun Control Advocacy

Abstract: No matter how effective a legislative scheme is, legislation alone will not eradicate the deeply rooted culture of gun violence that exists in this country. Accordingly, Handgun Control divides its efforts between legislative and non-legislative efforts. In this regard, the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence carries out the non-legislative interventions of Handgun Control. These efforts include working with elementary, secondary and high schools to promote a gun violence reduction curriculum; litigating on behalf of gun victims; defending gun control legislation in the courts; working with the entertainment industry concerning the messages in popular entertainment about gun violence; and working with the public health profession both to research the causes of and the most effective solutions to gun violence, and to disseminate the message that guns do not make us safer. It is our belief that only through such a comprehensive, multifaceted approach, can America hope to reduce the gun violence that affects us all.

Are School Vouchers Constitutional

Abstract: The authors identify emerging judicial perspectives regarding the constitutionality of school vouchers under both federal and state laws and discuss the factors that predispose a court to look with favor on a voucher program. "I'd rather go to jail!" cries Joanne Curran, a divorced mother of four. "This is the Armageddon!" shouts another angry advocate.(1) Is this impassioned rhetoric about the latest controversy surrounding abortion or gun control? No, these are battle cries over school vouchers, funded by the state, that parents may "cash in" at public or private schools of their choice. Growing popular support for the use of school vouchers has polarized views about whether such programs are valid policy options and hardened the lines on both sides of the debate. The clamor peaked last August when the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction against the expansion to religious schools of the only public voucher program that has come into full operation. It was that court's action that triggered the angry outcry of parents favoring vouchers in Milwaukee. Voucher initiatives have been proposed in the District of Columbia and in such states as California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Measures have been passed in Wisconsin, Puerto Rico, and Ohio. In March 1995, Sens. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) introduced the Low-Income School Choice Demonstration Act (S. 618), which would allocate $30 million in federal funding to pay for 10 to 20 voucher projects enabling low-income families in inner-city school districts to send their children to private schools, including those that are sectarian. Proponents believe that, if parents are free to choose the schools their children attend, then schools will be more competitive, students' academic capabilities will increase, and parents will be more active in their children's development. Critics question whether parent involvement or student achievement will increase and contend that a market-based education system will undermine the public schools, promote social stratification, and violate the separation of church and state. Regardless of the merits of publicly funded vouchers, the constitutionality of such a system is a central concern, because approximately 85% of private schools are religiously affiliated. In this article we will identify emerging judicial perspectives regarding the constitutionality of school vouchers under both federal and state laws and discuss the factors that predispose a court to look with favor on a voucher program.(2) The controversy over voucher programs is more complicated than the question of governmental establishment of religion. It involves many other issues that we hold dear - parental rights, freedom of religious exercise, and the role of the state in fostering an educated citizenry. Constitutionality Under Federal Law In 1925 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that parents have the right to send their children to a private school in lieu of a public school.(3) The Court did not, however, address the issue - which has been a problem ever since - of whether public funding could be used to help parents exercise that right. Without the funding to pay tuition at private schools, which are becoming increasingly expensive, the right to send one's children to them is really an empty promise for many parents. Tension over how to balance the private rights of religious freedom and educational choice without at the same time establishing religion is really nothing new.(4) The issue first surfaced for the Supreme Court as it considered a state program that allowed school districts to reimburse parents whose children rode public transportation to religious schools. The 5-to-4 Everson v. Board of Education decision (1947) held that New Jersey could expend the funds because the program also reimbursed pupils attending public school and thus was really a neutral state effort to enable students to get to and from schools safely. …

The Second Amendment and States' Rights: A Thought Experiment

Abstract: Gun control advocates frequently attempt to deflect the Second Amendment by claiming that the Amendment merely guarantees a "state's right." But gun control advocates never explain what they mean when they claim that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to state governments, rather than a right of the people. In this article, the authors attempt to flesh out exactly what a "state's right" interpretation of the Second Amendment would mean. They conclude that taking the Second Amendment seriously as a state’s right has enormous implications, which have not been addressed by anti-gun advocates.

The federal factoid factory on firearms and violence: A review of CDC research and politics

Abstract: Since the late 1980s, proponents of severe gun laws have made the argument that gun control is a "public health" issue, and that medical research demonstrates the need for stringent gun controls. The chief proponent of the view that gun control is a public health necessity has been the federal Centers for Disease Control. In this article, the author examines the various "factoids" that have been produced by CDC research. (This article was originally presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in Chicago, Illinois, in March 1994.)

It Isn't About Duck Hunting: The British Origins of The Right to Arms

Abstract: pp. 1-3). As detailed by Malcolm, the duty evolved into a formal legal right in 1689, in reaction against oppressive weapons laws imposed by absolutist monarchs (pp. 113-19). The right thrived with little controversy for the next one and a half centuries. After the Peterloo Massacre in 1819, Parliament passed the Six Acts to disarm rebels in particular areas. The Six Acts met with furious opposition, though they were limited in geographical scope, and expired in two years. For the rest of the nineteenth century, Britain had no laws at all regarding the peaceful possession or carrying of firearms.[84] The Whig historian Thomas Macaulay reflected the consensus opinion when he observed that the right of English subjects to arms was "the security without which every other is insufficient."[85] As the twentieth century opened, Britain had essentially no gun laws and no gun crime. The national crime rate was lower than during any period before or since. World War I changed this situation. As Malcolm explains, the British government in the years immediately following World War I no longer trusted the British people. The Cabinet feared, in the words of one member, "Red revolution and blood and war at home and abroad!"[86] Parliament (p.1359)introduced a licensing system for handguns and rifles, and made knowingly false claims about a gun crime wave. Parliament overwhelmingly enacted the Firearms Act of 1920,[87] with little objection from a public that, after the carnage of World War I, had apparently grown weary of firearms and all they had now come to symbolize (p. 172). Parliament adopted shotgun licensing in 1967 and made the entire gun control system significantly more restrictive in 1989.[88] The story of the twentieth-century devolution of the British right to own guns to overthrow the government into a mere privilege to possess "sporting" guns under highly restrictive government controls has been told elsewhere, [89] and Malcolm wisely does not choose to repeat it. The gun-owning public in Britain--about four percent of households legally own guns, and about an equally large number may own unregistered guns[90] --has become almost irrelevant to the gun control debate. With the exception of some writers for British gun magazines, few Britons will assert that they have a right to own firearms as an insurance policy against oppressive government. Few will even assert that they have a right to own guns to protect themselves against criminal attack.

Book Review: Robert J. Cottrol, Ed., Gun Control and the Constitution: Sources and Explorations on the Second Amendment (1993)

Abstract: This article reviews Robert J. Cottrol, ed., Gun Control and the Constitution: Sources and Explorations on the Second Amendment (1993).

American National Election Studies on CD-ROM

Abstract: ward social and political issues that were prominent features of public life over the past five decades. Among the issues covered across this time are arms control and disarmament; national defense and the likelihood of war; opinions about the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf wars; crime, the death penalty, and gun control; civil rights, integration, government aid to minorities, and affirmative action; prayer in schools, protest, and urban unrest; medical care and health insurance; inflation and unemployment; the federal budget deficit; government efforts to guarantee jobs and standards of living; and abortion.

A Consumer-Behavior Approach to Handgun Legislation and Regulation

Abstract: This paper examines gun-control from a consumer-behavior perspective. To this end, the history of gun control legislation in the United States is provided with a focus on handguns. The contribution of handguns to crime versus their deterrent effects are then discussed. Next is an exploration of the close ties between guns and America as a nation. The paper closes with public policy recommendations that are explicitly consumer-based and attempt to balance the needs of gun owners with the interests of society.