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.

The battle over gun control

Abstract: In April of this year, Congress passed the Firearms Owners Protection Act. This act, the first federal gun law to pass in eighteen years, actually reduces the restrictions of gun Control Act. The often fierce debate that accompanied the passage of this legislation, though, demonstrated once again the political struggle over gun control in this country. Most Americans think that controlling weapons is just plain sensible. Opinion polls show that most gun owners are actually of one mind with the general public in favoring it. For example, both gun owners and the public, by and large, favor such steps as the registration and licensing of guns and the banning of gun ownership to felons, juveniles, and the mentally impaired. Advocates of reasonable gun control approach guns pragmatically rather than ethically, viewing them as widely desired but nevertheless dangerous things which are sensible to control. Curtailing criminal misuse of guns is, of course, a prime concern of this pro-control thinking. But the cause of reasonable gun control has been hampered in recent years by the presence among gun control advocates of a vocal minority motivated not by pragmatic concerns -- that gun control will reduce crime, for example -- but by a moral vision that reviles guns and their owners. This antigun lobby sees the handgun simply as an abomination, and the desire to possess one for the protection of home and family, or for any other reason, as immoral, reactionary, and paranoid. It supports the banning not just controlling of handguns and, hence, has refused to support a loosening of even the most excessive handgun regulations. The reaction of gun owners to such opposition has been predictable. Feeling offended, and perhaps even threatened by antigun rhetoric, the gun lobby has opposed even the most moderate controls. To understand the difference this anti-gun position has made, as opposed to the reaction a merely "pro-control" view would elicit, it is useful to remember that gun owners have not always opposed gun control. Most of our present gun laws, in fact, come from the Uniform Revolver Act which the NRA drafted and promoted early in the 20th Century. As late as 1957, legislation to bar military surplus imports was sponsored in the Senate by NRA life member John F. Kennedy. In focusing on the baleful effect of antigun rhetoric, I am not denying that gun owners are often equally intemperate. But though their intemperance is notoriously counterproductive, it hurts the gun lobby far less than antigun vituperation hurts the cause of reasonable gun control. For the strident opposition to gun ownership that characterizes the antigun lobby foredooms the cooperation that is essential if better controls are to be enacted and obeyed. A situation has developed, then, in which no matter how reasonable in the abstract a gun control proposal might seem, gun owners think it will end up being administered from an antigun perspective.

Universal Background Checking - New York's SAFE Act

Abstract: When we passed the SAFE Act, just days after the tragedies in Newtown and Webster, New York proved to the nation that it is possible to enact sensible gun control that coexists with the Second Amendment. We showed that it can be done with bi-partisan support from both urban and rural communities. And we took a fundamental step forward to help end the stream of senseless killings by keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the dangerously mentally ill.... New York has set the example--and it's far past time for Washington to follow suit and pass a sensible national gun control policy. --Governor Andrew M. Cuomo (1) Numerous studies conducted by academic researchers and by the federal government have shown that criminals do not use legal markets to obtain guns.... They do not buy guns in gun stores. They do not get guns at gun shows. They do not buy them from Internet sources. The study even found that criminals only rarely steal guns. --National Rifle Association, Institute for Legislative Action (2) The December 14, 2012, Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newton, Connecticut ignited a new round of controversy over gun control. (3) At the federal level, a presidential inter-agency task force, headed by Vice President Joe Biden, recommended a number of familiar gun control strategies, including universal background checking for all firearms purchasers. (4) At the state level, New York State's Governor Andrew Cuomo, promised to pass the "toughest gun [control] laws in the nation." (5) To this end, on the evening of January 14, 2013, just one month after the Sandy Hook massacre, and well before federal legislation would be introduced into Congress, he submitted the Secure Ammunition & Firearms Enforcement Act (SAFE Act) into both houses of the state legislature. The bill was introduced under a message of necessity, thereby exempting it from the constitutionally mandated three-day period for considering a bill before voting on it. (6) The New York State Senate, despite being Republican-controlled, passed the SAFE Act that night; the Democrat-controlled Assembly followed suit the next day. (7) Governor Cuomo immediately signed the bill into law. (8) The SAFE Act is a comprehensive gun control law that includes universal background checking provisions; prohibition of new assault weapons and new assault weapon owners; prohibition of large capacity magazines; registration for grandfathered assault weapon owners; mandatory reporting obligation for health care professionals who determine, in the exercise of their reasonable professional judgment, that a patient is likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others; and new substantive firearm-related crimes. (9) This article focuses on the SAFE Act's requirement that all sellers, indeed all transferors, of firearms and ammunition initiate purchaser (transferee) background checks. These universal background checking provisions are important, not just for New York State, but for the whole country, because they provide an opportunity to examine gun control proponents' number one policy priority which, even after Sandy Hook, Congress did not pass. (10) This article demonstrates that while universal background checking for all firearms purchasers makes overwhelming sense in principle, numerous implementation and enforcement obstacles, even in a gun-control-friendly state such as New York, significantly limit its potential efficacy in keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous persons. Part I describes New York State's background checking laws prior to the SAFE Act's enactment. Part II explains the SAFE Act's universal background checking requirements. Part III examines problems in implementing universal firearms purchaser background checking. Part IV illuminates enforcement challenges. Part V assesses the SAFE Act's impact on firearms homicides, suicides and crimes. Part VI analyzes New York's pioneering effort to subject ammunition sales to universal background checking. …

Preventing school violence: a time for hard, solid thinking.

Abstract: On my office wall hang several quotes from the Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. That is probably not surprising, considering that much of my work involves youth violence prevention. No one in American history has spoken more passionately or eloquently than Dr King on the evils of violence. One of the quotes from Dr King on my wall, however, is not found in books of famous quotations, nor has it become part of the lexicon of American history as have so many of his words. Yet, as I work on youth violence prevention, this is often the quote I find most inspirational: “Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think”. At times of crises, it is especially important to listen to Dr King's message. For US schools, never had there been a crisis on the scale of what happened in Columbine High School last year. On 20 April 1999, two students at this high school in Colorado killed 12 students and one teacher and injured 21 others, before committing suicide. This followed several school shootings during the previous school year. After the tragedy at Columbine, parents, government officials, and the news media called for immediate solutions to school violence. Proposed solutions included restricting access to campuses so that students and others could not enter or leave during the school day, posting armed police officers in schools, increasing the use of metal detectors, tightening gun control legislation, and trying young perpetrators in adult courts. Loud cries were heard for the development of “warning signs” to identify students who might perpetrate such crimes in the future. Security companies began offering their …