Although the parliamentary wrangling over the measure was intense, it ultimately passed and was soon signed into law by Ronald Reagan. In , Congress banned the sale of cop-killer bullets composed solely of specific hard metals—tungsten alloys, steel, brass, bronze, iron, beryllium copper or depleted uranium—that could be used in a handgun. Alarmed by an increased use of plastics in firearms, Congress passed legislation in requiring that all new firearms be detectable by standard X-ray or metal-detector security devices.
Finally, in November , Congress passed the Brady bill, a national five- day handgun waiting period to allow local police time for a background check. Those who pass the check will take possession of the weapon at the time of purchase. The instant check will not, however, nullify state waiting periods. Yet as noted earlier, most gun deaths are not crime related. And as the NRA correctly notes, criminals will be the last to obey any gun-control law.
The limitations of such an approach are illustrated by the recently enacted Brady bill. Waiting periods create a cooling-off period between the time a customer buys a gun and the time it may be possessed. In theory, this delay helps stop crimes of passion, and although anecdotal evidence suggests this happens occasionally, most suicides and shootings between friends and family occur with weapons already available.
In theory, background checks increase the chance of identifying those in proscribed categories who attempt to purchase firearms through legal channels. Such laws define the proscribed group as those with a prior felony conviction or deemed mentally unfit, yet such individuals rarely even attempt to buy guns personally from retail outlets. Patrick Purdy, the Stockton schoolyard killer, had a nine-year criminal history replete with weapons violations but could legally purchase a handgun under California law.
Licensing does offer some benefits: The information is useful in tracing weapons; identification of those in proscribed categories attempting to purchase firearms through legal channels is increased; and the application process itself may discourage sales to casual buyers.
The limitations of licensing are that such systems are expensive to administer; it would have little effect on most gun violence, such as suicide or shootings between people who know each other; and anyone in a proscribed category desiring a gun could easily find one in the alternative, nonretail marketplace. It was not until changes were made to the product itself—such as seat belts, air bags and improved structural design—that the number of deaths began to decline. Click here for a full list of articles citing the VPC.
In response to rising gun violence by the end of the s, several Chicago aldermen began exploring the idea of a freeze on handgun registration. In the suburb of Morton Grove became the first municipality in the United States to ban the sale, transportation, and ownership of handguns.
When a federal judge upheld the ban, the village attracted national attention. The National Rifle Association began a campaign in many states to push for legislation that would preempt gun regulations by municipal governments.
The campaign was unsuccessful in Illinois. In , Mayor Jane Byrne and the city council began to hold hearings on an ordinance proposed by alderman Ed Burke banning the further sale and registration of handguns in Chicago. Receiving strong support from Byrne and her allies, and coming in the wake of the assassination attempts on President Reagan and Pope John Paul II, the ordinance passed. All residents who purchased and registered their handguns prior to January were allowed to keep their weapons.
Chicago became the first major city to enact a handgun freeze in United States history. Soon other suburbs began passing gun control legislation. Indisputably, for much of American history, gun-control measures, like many other laws, were used to oppress African Americans. The South had long prohibited blacks, both slave and free, from owning guns.
In the North, however, at the end of the Civil War, the Union army allowed soldiers of any color to take home their rifles. One common provision barred blacks from possessing firearms. To enforce the gun ban, white men riding in posses began terrorizing black communities.
The most infamous of these disarmament posses, of course, was the Ku Klux Klan. General Daniel E. Congress overrode the vetoes and eventually made Johnson the first president to be impeached. Among its provisions was a guarantee that all citizens would be secure in their fundamental rights:. The aggressive Southern effort to disarm the freedmen prompted a constitutional amendment to better protect their rights.
Then the pendulum swung back. The gun-control laws of the late s, designed to restrict the use of guns by urban black leftist radicals, fueled the rise of the present-day gun-rights movement—one that, in an ironic reversal, is predominantly white, rural, and politically conservative. Today, the NRA is the unquestioned leader in the fight against gun control. Wingate and Church had fought for the North in the Civil War and been shocked by the poor shooting skills of city-bred Union soldiers.
As a special consultant to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, Frederick helped draft the Uniform Firearms Act, a model of state-level gun-control legislation. Since the turn of the century, lawyers and public officials had increasingly sought to standardize the patchwork of state laws. The new measure imposed more order—and, in most cases, far more restrictions. The first required that no one carry a concealed handgun in public without a permit from the local police.
Second, the law required gun dealers to report to law enforcement every sale of a handgun, in essence creating a registry of small arms. Finally, the law imposed a two-day waiting period on handgun sales.
The NRA today condemns every one of these provisions as a burdensome and ineffective infringement on the right to bear arms. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses. Karl Frederick and the NRA did not blindly support gun control; indeed, they successfully pushed to have similar prohibitive taxes on handguns stripped from the final bill, arguing that people needed such weapons to protect their homes. It is not to be found in the Constitution.
In the s, the NRA once again supported the push for new federal gun laws. After the assassination of President John F. A growing group of rank-and-file NRA members disagreed. In an era of rising crime rates, fewer people were buying guns for hunting, and more were buying them for protection. In May , Carter and his allies staged a coup at the annual membership meeting. Elected the new executive vice president, Carter would transform the NRA into a lobbying powerhouse committed to a more aggressive view of what the Second Amendment promises to citizens.
Both groups valued guns primarily as a means of self-defense. Both thought people had a right to carry guns in public places, where a person was easily victimized, and not just in the privacy of the home. They also shared a profound mistrust of law enforcement. In , in a landmark ruling, the U.
0コメント