History of Gun Control Laws in the United States
Gun laws are a very controversial topic. Supporters of gun laws believe that the passage of each gun law makes the country safer for law abiding citizens by decreasing the amount of guns circulating within the country. Proponents argue that if gun laws are not passed or are revoked the safety and well being of the entire country could be at risk. Opponents of gun laws object to this characterization. They believe many gun laws to be unconstitutional. Opponents to gun laws point to the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees the rights to bear arms, as the reason gun laws cannot and should not be passed by the government of the United States.
There have been six federal gun laws which have limited or adjusted who is allowed to obtain guns and who those gun may be exchanged between people. The first gun law was the National Firearms Act, passed in 1934. Then United States Attorney General Homer S. Cummings sought to regulate the weapons commonly used by gangster following the repeal of Prohibition. Recognizing the Second Amendment prevented passage of a gun law banning them, he sought to make the possession and used of them prohibitively expensive, which would effectively ban them from common use. This gun law regulated the use of silencers and suppressors, destructive devices such as grenades, bombs and chemical weapons, shotguns and rifles with shortened barrels, and any gun capable of fire more than one bullet per trigger pull.
The next two federal attempts to change gun law came in the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. In 1968 two different gun laws were passed. The first was the Omnibus Crime and Safe Streets Act of 1968, passed on June 19. This gun law prohibited the interstate trade in handguns. established a national gun licensing system, and restricted gun purchases from individuals under the age of twenty-one. The Gun Act of 1968 was a gun law which made gun possession illegal for certain individuals. This gun law affected anyone who has been sentenced in federal court to more than one year in jail or to two years in a state court, unless for violations of business law, any fugitive, any unlawful user of drugs or alcohol, anyone found to have a mental defect, any illegal alien or foreigner in the United States under a non-immigrant visa unless under a tourist or student visa and also in possession of a hunting license, anyone dishonorably discharged from the Armed Forces, or any person who has renounced United States citizenship. Amendments to this gun law passed in 1996 made it illegal for any person who is the subject of a restraining order or been convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor to possess a gun. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act passed in 1996 instituted federal background checks to ensure that no one was able to bypass any existing gun law. The availability of computer checks allows most checks to be down while the gun dealer is still on the phone with the FBI.
