Gun control

About: Gun control is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1211 publications have been published within this topic receiving 16516 citations. The topic is also known as: firearms control & gun law.

Guns and gender-based violence in South Africa

Abstract: Background. The criminal use of firearms in South Africa is widespread and a major factor in the country having the third-highest homicide rate in the world. Violence is a common feature of South African society. A firearm in the home is a risk factor in intimate partner violence, but this has not been readily demonstrated in South Africa because of a lack of data. Methods. We drew on several South African studies including national homicide studies, intimate partner studies, studies with male participants and studies from the justice sector, to discuss the role of gun ownership on gender-based violence. Conclusion. Guns play a significant role in violence against women in South Africa, most notably in the killing of intimate partners. Although the overall homicide data suggest that death by shooting is decreasing, data for intimate partner violence are not readily available. We have no idea if the overall decrease in gunshot homicides applies to women in relationships, and therefore gun control should remain high on the legislative agenda.

Dead or Alive: Originalism as Popular Constitutionalism in Heller

Abstract: We should find the lost Second Amendment, broaden its scope and determine that it affords the right to arm a state militia and also the right of the individual to keep and bear arms. --Robert Sprecher, ABA prize winner, 1965 (1) [T]he Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed. ... What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new "constitutional right" by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. --Justice Scalia, Lawrence v. Texas, 2003 (2) The Court's announcement in 2008 that the Second Amendment, (3) ratified in 1791, protects an individual's right to bear arms against federal gun control regulation was long awaited by many, long feared by others. What produced this ruling and what might it reveal about the character of our constitutional order? For many, constitutional law changed because the Court interpreted the Second Amendment in accordance with the understandings of the Americans who ratified it: Heller (4) marks the "Triumph of Originalism." (5) Others saw the case very differently, observing that the Court had interpreted the Second Amendment in accordance with the convictions of the twentieth-century gun-rights movement and so had demonstrated the ascendancy of the living Constitution. (6) The two accounts of the decision stand in some tension. One views Heller's authority as emanating from the deliberations of eighteenth-century Americans, while the other views the constitutional debates of twentieth-century Americans as decisive. What kind of authority did the Court exercise when it struck down the District of Columbia's handgun ban as violating the Second Amendment? On the originalism view, the Court is merely enforcing the judgments of eighteenth-century Americans, who, in an epochal act of constitutional lawmaking, ratified a Bill of Rights that forbids handgun bans such as the District of Columbia's. On the popular constitutionalism view, the Court itself is deciding whether handgun bans are consistent with the best understanding of our constitutional tradition; the determination is made in the present and responds to the beliefs and values of living Americans who identify with the commitments and traditions of their forbears. In the first case, the Court stands above the fray, disinterested, merely executing the commands of Americans long deceased. In the second case, the Court is normatively engaged in matters about which living Americans passionately disagree, enforcing its own convictions about the best understanding of a living constitutional tradition to which Heller contributes. On this account, Heller, through its originalism, participates in what Justice Scalia refers to in his Lawrence dissent as "the culture war." (7) Relating these two competing accounts of the opinion, this Comment shows how Heller's originalism enforces understandings of the Second Amendment that were forged in the late twentieth century through popular constitutionalism. It situates originalism's claim to ground judicial decisionmaking outside of politics in the constitutional politics of the late twentieth century, and demonstrates how Heller respects claims and compromises forged in social movement conflict over the right to bear arms in the decades after Brown v. Board of Education. (8) The Comment offers this reading of the opinion in two steps. Part I begins by examining the temporal locus of authority in the Heller opinion itself. In Heller, the dissenters insist the Second Amendment is concerned primarily with militia and military matters, whereas the majority reads the amendment as codifying an individual right of self-defense that enables citizens to protect themselves, their families, and their homes against crime. …

The impact of gun control (Bill C-51) on suicide in Canada.

Abstract: Suicide is a multiply determined behavior, calling for diverse prevention efforts. Gun control has been proposed as an important component of society's response, and an opportunity for studying the effects of legislative gun control laws on suicide rates was provided by Canada's Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1977 (Bill C-51). This article reviews previous studies of the impact of this act on the total population of Canada and subpopulations by age and gender and, in addition, presents the results of 2 new studies: a different method of analysis, an interrupted time-series analysis, and the results of a multiple regression analysis that controls for some social variables. It appears that Bill C-51 may have had an impact on suicide rates, even after controls for social variables.

Gun Control after Heller : Threats and Sideshows from a Social Welfare Perspective

Abstract: What will happen after Heller? We know that the Supreme Court will no longer tolerate comprehensive federal prohibitions on home handgun possession by some class of trustworthy homeowners for the purpose of, and perhaps only at the time of, self-defense. But the judiciary could push further, if nothing else by incorporating Heller's holding into the Fourteenth Amendment and enforcing it against states and municipalities. In fact, the majority opinion offered little guidance for future cases. It presented neither a purely originalist method of constitutional interpretation nor a constraining doctrinal framework for evaluating other regulation - even while it gratuitously suggested that much existing gun control is acceptable. In the absence of more information from the Court, we identify plausible legal arguments for the next few rounds of litigation and assess the stakes for social welfare. We conclude that some of the most salient legal arguments after Heller have little or no likely consequence for social welfare based on available data. For example, the looming fight over local handgun bans - an issue on which we present original empirical data - seems largely inconsequential. The same can be said for a right to carry a firearm in public with a permit. On the other hand, less prominent legal arguments could be quite threatening. Taxation and regulation targeted especially at firearms might be presumptively disfavored by judges in the future, along the lines of free speech doctrine. This could have serious consequences. In addition, Second Amendment doctrine might generally dampen enthusiasm for innovative regulatory responses to the problem of gun violence. The threat of litigation may inhibit policy experimentation ranging from micro-stamping on shell casings, to pre-market review of gun design, to so-called personalized firearms, and beyond.

Gun Control in the Crosshairs: Christian Nationalism and Opposition to Stricter Gun Laws:

Abstract: Despite increasingly frequent mass shootings and a growing dissatisfaction with current gun laws, American opposition to federal gun legislation remains strong. The authors show that opposition to stricter gun control is closely linked to Christian nationalism, a religious cultural framework that mandates a symbiotic relationship between Christianity and civil society. Using data from a national population-based survey, the authors show that Christian nationalism is an exceptionally strong predictor of opposition to the federal government’s enacting stricter gun laws. Of all the variables considered, only general political orientation has more predictive power than Christian nationalism. The authors propose that the gun control debate is complicated by deeply held moral and religious schemas that discussions focused solely on rational public safety calculations do not sufficiently address. For the substantial proportion of American society who are Christian nationalists, gun rights are God given and sacre...