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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.


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TL;DR: The analysis identifies the crucial parameters that determine which policy reduces the death rates, providing guidance for future statistical studies that will be necessary for more refined quantitative predictions.
Abstract: Author(s): Wodarz, Dominik; Komarova, Natalia L | Abstract: Following recent shootings in the USA, a debate has erupted, one side favoring stricter gun control, the other promoting protection through more weapons. We provide a scientific foundation to inform this debate, based on mathematical, epidemiological models that quantify the dependence of firearm-related death rates of people on gun policies. We assume a shooter attacking a single individual or a crowd. Two strategies can minimize deaths in the model, depending on parameters: either a ban of private firearms possession, or a policy allowing the general population to carry guns. In particular, the outcome depends on the fraction of offenders that illegally possess a gun, on the degree of protection provided by gun ownership, and on the fraction of the population who take up their right to own a gun and carry it with them when attacked, parameters that can be estimated from statistical data. With the measured parameters, the model suggests that if the gun law is enforced at a level similar to that in the United Kingdom, gun-related deaths are minimized if private possession of firearms is banned. If such a policy is not practical or possible due to constitutional or cultural constraints, the model and parameter estimation indicate that a partial reduction in firearm availability can lead to a reduction in gun-induced death rates, even if they are not minimized. Most importantly, our analysis identifies the crucial parameters that determine which policy reduces the death rates, providing guidance for future statistical studies that will be necessary for more refined quantitative predictions.

3 citations

Book
30 Aug 1997

3 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: The Second Amendment right to carry a concealed firearm outside the home has been a hot topic in the post-Heller era as mentioned in this paper, with many legal scholars attacking the Heller decision for its revisionist rewriting of constitutional history.
Abstract: Introduction I. History and the Future of Gun Regulation: Heller's Legacy II. The Scope of the Right to Bear Arms in the Founding Era III. Gun Regulation in the Founding Era and Early Republic: Myths and Realities IV. The Pistol and the Lash: Slavery and the Permissive Right to Carry V. No Right to Carry: The Emergence and Spread of the Massachusetts Model Conclusion: The Past and Future of the Right to Carry Arms Outside the Home INTRODUCTION Emboldened by their victory in Heller, (1) gun rights advocates are waging a relentless campaign to strike down what little remains of the nation's relatively anemic gun control regime. (2) The Heller opinion itself is also partly responsible for generating a seemingly limitless parade of new lawsuits. (3) Legal scholars from across the ideological spectrum have attacked the controversial five-to-four decision, both for its revisionist rewriting of constitutional history and for its poor judicial craftsmanship. (4) The opinion raised more questions than it answered and left lower courts scrambling to decipher what was prohibited by Heller, if anything, short of a total ban on handguns. (5) The decision articulated no theory of judicial scrutiny, provided no black letter rules, and failed to create any categories of analysis to guide judges. Instead, it left the courts with an incomplete laundry list of presumptively lawful regulations to serve as a model of what remained legal. (6) In United States v. Masciandaro, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson aptly summarized the problems that Heller's poor judicial craftsmanship wrought: "This case underscores the dilemma faced by lower courts in the post-Heller world: how far to push Heller beyond its undisputed core holding." (7) The first section of this Article examines the continuing relevance of history in the post-Heller era. The second section focuses on conceptions of the right to bear arms and the right to carry in the Founding era. Apart from service in militia, there is little evidence of a broad constitutional consensus on a right to carry arms in public. The third section analyzes some of the myths and realities about early American gun regulation. The fourth section locates the legal ideal of traveling armed in public in a distinctively southern tradition that was a minority strain within Antebellum law. The final section of this Article explores the alternative theory of robust arms regulation that emerged by the era of the Fourteenth Amendment and became the dominant tradition in American law. The existence of this regulatory tradition has remained hidden from modern scholars and courts because support for high levels of gun regulation was so pervasive outside of the South that few of these laws were ever challenged in court. I. HISTORY AND THE FUTURE OF GUN REGULATION: HELLER'S LEGACY Rather than close the book on historical argument, Heller appears to have done the opposite. The court stated this point succinctly in United States v. Masciandaro: "[H]istorical meaning enjoys a privileged interpretative role in the Second Amendment context." (8) Unfortunately, judges are in the unenviable position of evaluating the complex and contradictory historical evidence paraded before them. Separating historical myths from historical realities, distinguishing historical fact from error, and disentangling law office history from rigorous historical scholarship are serious problems for the courts in this area of the law. (9) One of the most controversial issues to arise in the wake of Heller is the right to carry firearms outside of the home. This issue is currently being litigated in the Fourth Circuit and a decision may well be rendered by the time this Article is published. (10) Masciandaro reveals the problems that Heller has created. In Masciandaro, the defendant was arrested for possessing a loaded firearm in a national park. (11) The court applied an intermediate scrutiny test and found that the statute in question, which prohibited loaded firearms in national parks, easily passed constitutional muster. …

3 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: In the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut that left twenty children and seven adults dead as mentioned in this paper, the "school-to-prison pipeline" emerged as an issue ripe for policy action after more than a decade of research and advocacy efforts.
Abstract: I. INTRODUCTIONIn 2012, the "school-to-prison pipeline"1 emerged as an issue ripe for policy action after more than a decade of research and advocacy efforts. In March 2012, prominent education and judicial leaders from almost every state in the country met at a conference focused on ending the pipeline.2 Papers and presentations by leading researchers, advocates, and policy makers discussed plans for replacing punitive school discipline measures with therapeutic, developmentally appropriate, and evidence-based responses to student misbehavior.3 The conference coincided with the release of the United States Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection.4 This immense and groundbreaking data set consists of national school discipline data and promises a better understanding of the school-to-prison pipeline.5 In 2012, states such as Delaware6, California7, and Colorado8 also considered legislation reversing zero tolerance policies9 in their schools, which are an essential feature of the school-to-prison pipeline. In December 2012, the Senate held its first hearing on the school-to-prison pipeline, hearing testimony from students, teachers, judges, and others directly involved in and affected by this issue.10 Significant policy changes aimed at dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline seemed to be underway.However, in December 2012, America was stunned by the horrific mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut that left twenty children and seven adults dead.11 Like the mass shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado and at Virginia Tech, this event shocked the nation and led many to call for a wide array of policy changes, including gun control measures and mental health reform.12 In response to the proposals for gun control, the National Rifle Association ("NRA") countered with calls for changes to security at schools,13 specifically calling for armed guards at every school in the country.14 The National Association of School Resource Officers ("NASRO") echoed the NRA's position but predictably noted that the armed personnel should be school resource officers specifically trained to operate in the school environment.15 Ahead of federal action, school districts responded to the shooting in Newtown by reassessing their existing security policies and by adopting new policies, such as increasing police presence and making school entrances more secure.16 Finally, President Obama unveiled his proposed policy responses to the Newtown shooting, which included increased funding and support for school districts that wish to bring school resource officers into their schools, along with other school safety and security, gun control, and mental health initiatives.17 Just as momentum was building to make significant policy changes to the current school security and discipline policies that gave rise to the school-to-prison pipeline,18 the mass shooting in Newtown revived the desire for increased police presence and other security measures in schools.When faced with horrifying events such as the Newtown shooting that spur visceral policy reactions,19 it is imperative that policy makers test these reactions against more rational measures of whether the contemplated policy changes are appropriate. A growing, but still developing,20 body of academic research is beginning to demonstrate that heightened security and disciplinary policies intended to make schools safer actually have adverse impacts on students. In particular, these policies result in higher rates of suspensions, expulsions, and arrests in schools, thereby feeding more and more students into the pipeline.21This article adds compelling evidence to this conversation by analyzing school arrests to obtain a better understanding of what occurs when school discipline and criminal justice become too closely intertwined. To date, research has not sufficiently examined the characteristics of students who are arrested or the nature of the misconduct that leads to these arrests. …

3 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the issue of gun control through the lens of the "comprehensive rationality" and "incrementalism" models of policymaking and argue that incremental policymaking has been one of the major impediments to progress toward more effective regulation of guns.
Abstract: This article examines the issue of gun control through the lens of the 'comprehensive rationality' and 'incrementalism' models of policymaking and argues that incremental policymaking has been one of the major impediments to progress toward more effective regulation of guns. Gun laws are often an incoherent patch-work of provisions as new restrictions are piled atop old ones in response to particular tragedies or narrow concerns, instead of crafting bills to achieve an optimal approach to the entire problem. Political science and other social sciences literature has closely examined the 'incrementalism' and 'comprehensive rationality' models of policymaking over the past several decades, but legal scholars discuss the models much less frequently. This article describes how political scientists have identified a few exceptional types of policy problems that are particularly unsuited for an incrementalist approach. Incremental policymaking poses a special risk for firearm regulation because of the uniquely prominent role that 'slippery slope' fears play in the opposition to any new measures concerning guns. This article contends that a more comprehensive approach is vital both to achieve more effective policies and to quell gun owners' concerns that moderate gun control measures will eventually lead to gun bans and confiscation. The top policy priority should be expanding background check regulations to form a more complete and coherent system limiting access to guns.

3 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202356
202294
202139
202043
201950
201860