The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent gun rights lobbying organization while continuing to teach firearm safety and competency. The organization also publishes several magazines and sponsors competitive marksmanship events. The group claimed nearly 5 million members as of December 2018, though that figure has not been independently confirmed.
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, often referred to as the Brady Act, the Brady Bill or the Brady Handgun Bill, is an Act of the United States Congress that mandated federal background checks on firearm purchasers in the United States. It also imposed a five-day waiting period on purchases until the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) was implemented in 1998. Introduced by U.S. representative Chuck Schumer of New York, the Brady Act was a landmark legislative enactment during the Clinton administration. The act was appended to the end of Section 922 of title 18, United States Code. The intention of the act was to prevent persons with previous serious convictions from purchasing firearms.
Gun politics in the United States is characterized by two primary opposing ideologies regarding private firearm ownership.
Brady: United Against Gun Violence is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control and against gun violence. It is named after former White House press secretary James "Jim" Brady, who was permanently disabled and later died in 2014 as a result of the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt of 1981, and his wife Sarah Brady, who was a chairwoman of the organization from 1989 until her death in 2015.
Gun laws in the United States regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition. State laws vary considerably, and are independent of existing federal firearms laws, although they are sometimes broader or more limited in scope than the federal laws.
The Violence Policy Center (VPC) is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control.
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) is a U.S law, passed in 2005, that protects firearms manufacturers and dealers from being held liable when crimes have been committed with their products. Both arms manufacturers and dealers can still be held liable for damages resulting from defective products, breach of contract, criminal misconduct, and other actions for which they are directly responsible. However, they may be held liable for negligent entrustment if it is found that they had reason to believe a firearm was intended for use in a crime.
Gabrielle Dee Giffords is an American retired politician and gun control activist. She served as a member of the United States House of Representatives representing Arizona's 8th congressional district from January 2007 until January 2012, when she resigned because of a severe brain injury suffered during an assassination attempt. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the third woman in Arizona's history to be elected to the U.S. Congress.
Proposition B in Missouri was a failed 1999 ballot measure that would have required local police authorities to issue concealed weapons permits to eligible citizens. It was a contentious issue and was narrowly rejected at the time by the electorate, but the legislature later approved similar legislation in 2003.
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. It ruled that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects an 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, and that the District of Columbia's handgun ban and requirement that lawfully owned rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock" violated this guarantee. It also stated that the right to bear arms is not unlimited and that certain restrictions on guns and gun ownership were permissible. It was the first Supreme Court case to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense or whether the right was only intended for state militias.
Everytown for Gun Safety is an American non-profit organization which advocates for gun control and against gun violence. Everytown was formed in 2013 due to a merger between Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that found that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms", as protected under the Second Amendment, is incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment and is thereby enforceable against the states. The decision cleared up the uncertainty left in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) as to the scope of gun rights in regard to the states.
GIFFORDS is an American advocacy and research organization focused on preventing gun violence. The organization draws its name from one of its co-founders, Gabby Giffords, a former Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Rep. Giffords was shot along with 18 others at a constituent meeting in Tucson in 2011. The organization has three parts: a 501(c)(4) lobbying arm, a 501(c)(3) research arm and law center, and a super PAC. It was previously known in a different configuration as Americans for Responsible Solutions.
Gun laws in Iowa regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the state of Iowa in the United States.
Gun laws in Pennsylvania regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States.
Americans for Responsible Solutions (ARS) was a United States non-profit organization and super PAC that supports gun control. The group's stated goal was "to encourage elected officials to stand up for solutions to prevent gun violence and protect responsible gun ownership." It typically supported Democratic politicians in elections. In 2016, the organization merged with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence to become Giffords.
The Trace is an American non-profit journalism outlet devoted to gun-related news in the United States. It was established in 2015 with seed money from the largest gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, which was founded by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, and went live on 19 June of that year. The site's editor in chief is Tali Woodward, and it shares its president, John Feinblatt, with Everytown for Gun Safety.
The Dickey Amendment is a provision first inserted as a rider into the 1997 omnibus spending bill of the United States federal government that mandated that "none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control." In the same spending bill, Congress earmarked $2.6 million from the CDC's budget, the exact amount that had previously been allocated to the agency for firearms research the previous year, for traumatic brain injury-related research.
Jesse Samuel Gabriel is an American constitutional rights attorney and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, Gabriel represents California's 46th State Assembly district, which includes much of the west San Fernando Valley, in the California State Assembly.
The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) is a gun rights organization in the United States, which aims to advance gun rights in the United States via legal action, in keeping with its stated goal to "restore the essential right to keep and bear arms in the United States." The FPC seeks to approach gun rights advocacy in a more targeted and effective way than the National Rifle Association of America (NRA), specifically by working with targeted legal teams to advance legislation in support of gun rights causes.
