Topic
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.
Papers published on a yearly basis
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TL;DR: Heller v. Washington, D.C. as discussed by the authors was the first case in which the U.S. Supreme Court recognized an individual right to keep and bear arms and applied it to the states.
Abstract: INTRODUCTION A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.1 Debate over the meaning of these twenty-seven words has run rampant for centuries. The conflict has revolved around the basic meaning of the Second Amendment: does it protect an individual's right to own a gun, or does it merely extend as far as was necessary to maintain the state militias in 179 1?2 In June 2008 the Supreme Court directly addressed the individual versus collective right question in District of Columbia v. Heller.3 The case involved gun laws in Washington, D. C. that made it a crime to carry any unregistered firearm, but prohibited the registration of handguns.4 The D. C. laws also required all lawfully owned firearms in the home to be unloaded and disassembled.5 The plaintiff, Dick Heller, a special police officer at the Federal Judicial Center, was "authorized to carry a handgun while on duty," but was denied a permit to have his handgun in his home.6 He challenged the laws as an unconstitutional restraint on his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.7 Speaking to the actual meaning of the Second Amendment for the first time in history,8 the Court ruled that "[t]here seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms."9 This seemingly clear determination, however, left open many questions about the extent of this newly-recognized individual right.10 Federal, state, and local laws regulating gun ownership abound in this country. 1 1 While the Court proclaimed that the Heller decision does nothing to undermine regulations prohibiting "the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms,"12 the establishment of an individual right to own a gun opens the door for gun rights advocates to challenge the constitutionality of state regulations that limit that right. This Note will examine a few areas of state firearm laws that are likely to be addressed in the cases following Heller. Part I of this Note will briefly discuss the nature of the right established by Heller and the likelihood that the Court will incorporate the Second Amendment, applying it to the states. It will argue that under Court precedent, the Second Amendment qualifies as a fundamental right that should apply to the states as well as the federal government. Part II will argue that the acknowledgment of an individual right to gun ownership, and the language used in Heller, indicate the Court's intent to adopt a standard of strict scrutiny when evaluating future challenges to gun regulations. Part III will examine the areas of gun regulation that are most vulnerable to constitutional challenges under strict scrutiny, including discretionary permitting systems for the concealed carrying of weapons, and laws that designate public colleges and universities as gun-free zones. I. INCORPORATION While the Court's decision in Heller recognized an individual right to bear arms,13 the scope of the case limited the Court's opinion to the Second Amendment's applicability to action by the federal government.14 Because Washington, D. C. is under federal jurisdiction, the Court was not ruling on state action.15 In 1937, in Palko v. Connecticut,16 the Court blazed a new trail in constitutional law by establishing that, under certain circumstances, the rights protected under the Bill of Rights would also apply to the states.17 However, without this "incorporation," the text of the Bill of Rights limits its protection to actions by the federal government.18 The Court has never taken explicit steps to incorporate the Second Amendment against the states.19 In fact, past Supreme Court cases have explicitly limited the Second Amendment's reach to the federal government. …
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the scholarship on gun control by examining public opinion polls in the U.S., the ideological divide between advocates for gun control and gun rights, race and racial attitudes, self-interest theory, contemporary mass shootings and the future of gun control.
Abstract: Guns in the United States are viewed as a sacred emblem to its independence from Great Britain. Recent mass shootings have reignited the gun-control/rights debate in the US. Gun violence can be described as the use of firearms to cause terror through harm or death to an individual or groups of people. It has claimed many innocent peoples’ lives thus resulting in national tragedies in the U.S. The main issue lies in the ownership and issuances of unlicensed guns. Some argue that in order for the crime rates due to gun violence to decline, the U.S. government needs to directly control the distribution of guns. The 2nd amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that,“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” (U.S. Const. Am. 2). Those who read the Constitution with a loose interpretation believe that gun control is not unconstitutional, however, those who read the Constitution with a strict interpretation believe that gun control would prohibit people from excercising their 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms. The purpose of this literature review is to explore the scholarship on gun control by examining public opinion polls in the U.S., the ideological divide between advocates for gun control and gun rights, race and racial attitudes, self-interest theory, contemporary mass shootings and the future of gun control.
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TL;DR: The panel's one-sided "costs only" approach to firearms is seriously flawed as public health policy and yet another example of the fact that a medical degree does not a criminologist or policy analyst make.
Abstract: To the Editor. —The Commentary by the New York Academy of Medicine panel1is seriously flawed as public health policy and yet another example of the fact that a medical degree does not a criminologist or policy analyst make. The article completely ignored the vast criminological research literature on the subject, which generally concludes that the gun control measures proposed by the panel have failed and, even worse, may actually have led to more innocent victims.2 Rational public policy balances benefits and costs. In ignoring or dismissing the extensive criminological literature on the subject, the panel failed to explicitly consider the benefits conferred by private firearms ownership, which are potentially large. For example, research during the past decade suggests that between 30 and 75 lives may be saved with privately owned guns for each life taken with one.3,4Instead, the panel's one-sided "costs only" approach to firearms
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TL;DR: The authors summarizes the treatment of the Second Amendment in law journals in the last decade and offers the author's analysis of the merits of some of the more important articles, concluding that "the individual right literature so completely dominates the scholarship in this field that even vehemently anti-gun academics now recognize the individual right view as the standard model" among scholars writing on the Amendment.
Abstract: This article summarizes the treatment of the Second Amendment in law journals in the last decade and offers the author’s analysis of the merits of some of the more important articles. Of the more than sixty law review articles treating the Second Amendment that have appeared since 1980, only a handful argue that the Amendment is a right pertaining to state militias rather than to individuals. The individual right literature so completely dominates the scholarship in this field that even vehemently anti-gun academics now recognize the individual right view as the “standard model” among scholars writing on the Amendment. Unlike articles promoting the states’ right view, articles endorsing the standard model are authored by preeminent constitutional scholars, regardless of their attitude toward firearms, and appear in top journals. Opponents of the individual right view tend to see the Amendment’s purpose as allowing the armed people to overthrow a tyrannical government. Also, the literature is broadly divisible into historical versus philosophical versus legal treatments (though many articles reach all three categories).
1 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide context in which to consider both the pros and cons of increased firearm regulation and a review of the effects certain regulations have had on firearm-related violence thus far.
Abstract: Firearm-related violence within the USA occurs at a much higher rate than other developed countries. While this rate is likely multifactorial in nature, a common debate within households and governments alike involves increased regulation of firearms in hopes of curtailing this violence. This article provides context in which to consider both the pros and cons of increased firearm regulation and a review of the effects certain regulations have had on firearm-related violence thus far.
1 citations