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.

Heller's Future in the Lower Courts

Abstract: The Supreme Court has released its long-awaited opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, 1 and the buzz has been considerable. Though much has been made of the majority‘s historic ruling and of the narrowness of that majority, many commentators have missed an important point. What Heller is most notable for is its complete and unanimous rejection of the ―collective rights‖ interpretation that for nearly seventy years held sway with pundits, academics, and—most significantly—lower courts. The repudiation of this extensive body of case law 2 suggests that the real test of Heller will occur once the lower courts, traditionally hostile to an individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment, face the inevitable follow-up cases challenging other restrictive gun laws. Experience with other seemingly groundbreaking Supreme Court decisions in recent years, such as United States v. Lopez, suggests that lower-court footdragging may limit Heller‘s reach, though this time around there will likely be considerably more scrutiny and more vigorous litigation efforts. If the lower courts present a challenge to the implementation of Heller, they also provide litigants with an opportunity. Given the fact that the Heller majority declined to give a detailed accounting of the proper standard of review to be used in subsequent Second Amendment cases, litigants have a rare opportunity to write on a tabula much more rasa than is ordinarily the case in constitutional litigation, making use of recent scholarship on the crafting of constitutional decision rules that implement constitutional provisions. In the pages that follow, we take a look at these aspects of Heller. The triumph of the Standard Model of the Second Amendment is examined in Part I. Part II asks whether Heller is merely the opening volley in the coming judicialization of the gun control debate, or whether like the Court‘s at

On guns and suicide

Abstract: In a 1997 editorial in the Medical Journal of Australia, Robert Goldney and I reflected: 'since Friday the 10th May 1996, Australia has become a natural experiment in suicide prevention with the unified approach to State and Territory gun laws engineered by Prime Minister John Howard in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre' While Port Arthur was a devastating moment in Australia's history with 35 dead and 21 injured, pressure to better control gun availability had been growing from lobby groups since the 1987 Hoddle Street and Queen Street massacres, and the murders in Surry Hills (1990), Strathfield (1991) and Central Coast (1992) A balanced review of guns and violence in Australia, drawing in part on prior Canadian experience of reducing available weapons, concluded: 'Australia is poised on the brink of change with regard to its firearms policies Further debate on the most appropriate course of action will inevitably occur Existing evidence suggests that a national gun control strategy would lead to a significant reduction in the incidence of gun-related accidents, gun suicides, and some of the more deadly consequences of criminal activity The ultimate resolution of these issues rests with the elected representatives of the Australian people' (Chappell, Grabosky, Wilson, & Mukherjee, 1988)Despite ongoing unnecessary deaths, sporadic research and government reports, and press and public argument about the issue, it was Port Arthur (28th April, 1996) that galvanized public opinion, acting as a 'last straw' in the debates about civilian gun ownership and possible consequences in loss of innocent lives The number and nature of weapons owned by one young man was perplexing, the number of ordinary people murdered beyond comprehension, and the random nature of the event terrifying PM Howard acted quickly after Port Arthur to argue for a National Firearms Program Implementation Act 1996 (10th May), with an amnesty period of 17 months, a government buyback targeting semi-automatic rifles, and semiautomatic and pump-action shotguns, and uniform firearms licensing across all states and territoriesThere was division, of course; in parliament, in the Liberal cabinet, and across the country, but many lobby groups, such as the Australian Medical Association (1996) provided clear support for the government proposals Others who use firearms as part of their livelihood, rightly drew together to oppose the program, pointing out the myriad of underlying causes that can influence whether random violence occurs PM Howard acknowledged this complexity in his speech to the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia rally held in Sale on the 16th June 1996 (qv); problems in licensing laws, mental health laws, 'mind-numbing' television violence He also remained firm under strong criticism and persistent questioning, returning to the core values of a safer Australia, while supporting the rights of individuals to be supported in their daily work, and for sporting shooters to be allowed to continue with their recreationLeigh and Neill (2010) suggest Australia's gun buyback of more than 650,000 firearms reduced Australia's firearms stock by about one fifth overall So by 2001, for instance, the number of individual license owners was 764,518 (52% Australian adults), the number of registered firearms was 2,165,170, a rate of 3 per license owner (Mouzos, 2002) Of course, this does not help us to count unregistered owners or guns They note that the Australian gun buyback was across all states and territories, and large by international comparison with, for instance, five times as many guns as the United Kingdom buyback of the same year Despite the changes in firearm death rates from year to year, the sheer size of the buyback should have been large enough for us to reliably demonstrate an impact on both homicide and suicide, despite the plethora of other well known and multilevel risk factors for either (Leigh & Neill, 2010) …

Protection Narratives and the Problem of Gun Suicide

Abstract: Abstract:Even though gun suicides account for well over half of all U.S. gun deaths each year, they largely are absent from collective attention, policy discussion, and rhetorical study. Using stories about gun suicide from Everytown for Gun Safety’s website, “Moments That Survive,” this essay examines how the authors depict gun suicide as a public problem and a gun problem rather than as a private problem limited only to the individual gun user. In so doing, these stories revise three of the gun debate’s key terms: collective grief, character, and agency. More than simply drawing attention to gun suicide, these stories critique the dominant narrative of protection (protection from “them”) and urge readers to reimagine suicide, protection, and gun violence.

Why indifference is the best reaction to President Obama’s executive actions on guns.

Abstract: The recent executive actions on gun control announced by President Obama have been met with both applause and criticism. Any response other than indifference is probably an overreaction, writes Matthew Lang. If the President’s actions are eventually carried out, background checks will rise as more private firearm sellers become legally viewed as dealers. The increase in background checks is unlikely to have any effect on gun-related deaths. Instead, he argues, President Obama’s announcement will most likely increase the number of firearms purchased by gun advocates, as is typically the case whenever gun owners perceive a possible threat to the Second Amendment. According to recent research, firearm-related deaths are unlikely to respond to an increase in the number of guns per household. Reducing gun violence will take more than redefining what it means to be a firearms dealer.

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Light of Thornton: The People and Essential Attributes of Sovereignty

Abstract: Few people think about gun control and term limits in the same way. They generally favor one or the other, but not both or neither. The thesis of this Article, however, is that the two concepts are connected - or at least that the Framers of the United States Constitution would have found a connection between the two - and that the connection between the two affects the way we should think about the subjects.This Article asserts that the two concepts are related because both gun control and term limits can infringe on the right of the people as ultimate sovereign to control the government entities created to carry out the sovereign will - term limits, by interfering with the people's right to choose their representatives in the national lawmaking process; gun control, by interfering with the people's right to use force, if necessary, to resist efforts to wrest control of sovereign authority from the people. This Article maintains that because the two concepts are thus related, the basic theories, principles, and reasoning used to determine the constitutional legitimacy of one should be relevant to the constitutionality of the other.Structural constitutional limitations that prevent state infringement on the sovereign right of the people to choose their representatives should also prevent infringement on the sovereign right of the people to use force to prevent tyrannical misuse of governmental authority. This Article attempts to demonstrate the validity and implication of this thesis by showing that the Supreme Court's decision in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton concerning the constitutionality of state-imposed term limitations for congressional elections provides some interesting insights into the scope of protection that should be given to the right of the people to keep and bear arms.Part I explains the reasoning of both the majority and dissent in Thornton and discusses how that reasoning is relevant to the debate concerning the right to keep and bear arms. Part II then explores how several key issues in the Second Amendment debate would be resolved if viewed in light of Thornton. Part II concludes that application of the majority's reasoning in Thornton supports the position that the Constitution protects the people's right to keep and bear arms from both federal and state infringement. Moreover, viewed in light of Thornton, the right to keep and bear arms is both a collective and an individual right--broader than most gun control advocates and many scholars contend, but narrower than those on the opposite end of the issue have argued. Finally, consideration of the right to keep and bear arms in light of Thornton suggests that more may be at stake in the recent discussion about the continued relevancy of this right in today's society than has been appreciated up until now. If, as this Article suggests, the right to keep and bear arms is an essential attribute of sovereignty, there are legal and policy arguments counseling against its wholesale abandonment that have yet to be addressed by those who advocate that position. Those arguments raise issues warranting extensive consideration and discussion in our modern society.