GUN LAW IN THE UNITED STATES

In the United States, access to guns is controlled by law under a number of federal statutes. These laws regulate the manufacture, trade, possession, transfer, record keeping, transport, and destruction of firearms, ammunition, and firearms accessories.They are enforced by state agencies and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). In addition to federal gun laws, all state governments and some local governments have their own laws that regulate firearms.

The right to keep and bear arms is protected by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, although there was a lack of clear federal court rulings defining the right until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it protects any individual’s right to keep and bear arms unconnected with service in a militia for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). This was followed up by the Supreme Court affirming in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) that the Second Amendment is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and thereby applies to state and local.

Major federal gun laws

Most federal gun laws are found in the following acts:

• National Firearms Act (NFA) (1934): Taxes the manufacture and transfer of, and mandates the registration of Title II weapons such as machine guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, heavy weapons, explosive ordnance, suppressors, and disguised or improvised firearms.
• Federal Firearms Act of 1938 (FFA): Requires that gun manufacturers, importers, and those in the business of selling firearms have a Federal Firearms License (FFL). Prohibits the transfer of firearms to certain classes of people, such as convicted felons.
• Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (1968): Prohibited interstate trade in handguns, increased the minimum age to 21 for buying handguns.
• Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA): Focuses primarily on regulating interstate commerce in firearms by generally prohibiting interstate firearms transfers except among licensed manufacturers, dealers and importers.
• Firearm Owners Protection Act (FOPA) (1986): Revised and partially repealed the Gun Control Act of 1968. Prohibited the sale to civilians of automatic firearms manufactured after the date of the law’s passage. Required ATF approval of transfers of automatic firearms.
• Undetectable Firearms Act (1988): Effectively criminalizes, with a few exceptions, the manufacture, importation, sale, shipment, delivery, possession, transfer, or receipt of firearms with less than 3.7 oz of metal content.
• Gun-Free School Zones Act (1990): Prohibits unauthorized individuals from knowingly possessing a firearm at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone.
• Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (1993): Requires background checks on most firearm purchasers, depending on seller and venue.
• Federal Assault Weapons Ban (1994–2004): Banned semiautomatics that looked like assault weapons and large capacity ammunition feeding devices. The law expired in 2004.
• Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (2004): Granted law enforcement officers and former law enforcement officers the right to carry a concealed firearm in any jurisdiction in the United States, regardless of state or local laws, with certain exceptions.
• Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (2005): Prevents firearms manufacturers and licensed dealers from being held liable for negligence when crimes have been committed with their products.

Overview of current regulations

Fugitives, those convicted of a felony with a sentence exceeding 1 year, past or present, and those who were involuntarily admitted to a mental facility are prohibited from purchasing a firearm; unless rights restored. Forty-four states have a provision in their state constitutions similar to the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. The exceptions are California, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York. In New York, however, the statutory civil rights laws contain a provision virtually identical to the Second Amendment. Additionally, the U.S. Supreme Court held in McDonald v. Chicago (2010) that the protections of the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms for self-defense in one’s home apply against state governments and their political subdivisions.

History

See also: History of concealed carry in the U.S.

Important events regarding gun legislation occurred in the following years.

In 1791, the United States Bill of Rights were ratified, which included the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution which stated 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.”

In 1934, the National Firearms Act (NFA) was signed into law under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Administration in an effort to curb prohibition-era violence. Between 1920 and 1933 the homicide rate in the United States had been rising year-over-year as an example of the unintended consequences of passing Prohibition into law, and the concomitant violence associated with making illegal a widely in-demand product. The NFA is considered to be the first federal legislation to enforce gun control in the United States, imposing a $200 tax, equivalent to approximately $3,942 in 2022, on the manufacture and transfer of Title II weapons. It also mandated the registration of machine guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, heavy weapons, explosive ordnance, suppressors, and disguised or improvised firearms. When Prohibition was ultimately repealed in 1933, and the monopoly on alcohol maintained by organized crime was ended, there was a significant decline in the homicide rate. In fact, “…homicides continued to diminish each year for eleven years straight.

In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Firearms Act of 1938 (FFA) into law, requiring that all gun-related businesses must have a Federal Firearms License (FFL).

In 1939, through the court case United States v. Miller, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Congress could regulate interstate selling sawed-off shotguns through the National Firearms Act of 1934, deeming that such a weapon has no reasonable relationship with the efficiency of a well regulated militia.

In 1968, following the spree of political assassinations including: the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, President Lyndon B. Johnson, pushed Congress for the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA). It repealed and replaced the FFA, regulated “destructive devices” (such as bombs, mines, grenades, and other explosives), expanded the definition of machine gun, required the serialization of manufactured or imported guns, banned importing military-style weapons, and imposed a 21 age minimum on the purchasing of handguns from FFLs. The GCA also prohibited the selling of firearms to felons and the mentally ill.

In 1986, contrary to prior gun legislation, the Firearm Owners Protection Act (FOPA) (1986), passed under the Ronald Reagan administration, enacted protections for gun owners. It prohibited a national registry of dealer records, limited ATF inspections to conduct annual inspections (unless multiple infractions have been observed), allowed licensed dealers to sell firearms at “gun shows” in their state, and loosened regulations on the sale and transfer of ammunition. However, the FOPA also prohibited civilian ownership or transfer of machine guns made after May 19, 1986, and redefined “silencer” to include silencer parts.