Gun laws and policies regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification and use of small arms by civilians.
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the individual right to keep and bear arms. It was ratified on December 15, 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court affirmed for the first time that the right belongs to individuals, for self-defense in the home, while also including, as dicta, that the right is not unlimited and does not preclude the existence of certain long-standing prohibitions such as those forbidding "the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill" or restrictions on "the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons". State and local governments are limited to the same extent as the federal government from infringing upon this right.
Gun control is the set of laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms by civilians.
The right to keep and bear arms is a right for people to possess weapons (arms) for their own defense. Only a few countries support the idea that their people have a right to keep and bear arms and protect it on a statutory level, and even fewer protect such a right on a constitutional level.
The Royal Armouries is the United Kingdom's National Museum of Arms and Armour. It is the United Kingdom's oldest museum, originally housed in the Tower of London from the 15th century, and one of the oldest museums in the world. It is also one of the oldest and largest collections of arms and armour in the world, comprising the UK's National Collection of Arms and Armour, National Artillery Collection, and National Firearms Collection. Its historic base is in the Tower of London, but today the collection is split across three sites:
The .50 Browning Machine Gun is a cartridge developed for the Browning .50 caliber machine gun in the late 1910s, entering official service in 1921. Under STANAG 4383, it is a standard cartridge for NATO forces as well as many non-NATO countries. The cartridge itself has been made in many variants: multiple generations of regular ball, tracer, armor-piercing (AP), incendiary, and saboted sub-caliber rounds. The rounds intended for machine guns are made into a continuous belt using metallic links.
In the United Kingdom, access by the general public to firearms is subject to some of the strictest control measures in the world. Laws differ and are generally less restrictive in Northern Ireland. Concerns have been raised over the availability of illegal firearms.
Gun politics is an area of American politics defined by two primary opposing ideologies about civilian gun ownership. People who advocate for gun control support increasing regulations related to gun ownership; people who advocate for gun rights support decreasing regulations related to gun ownership. These groups often disagree on the interpretation of laws and court cases related to firearms as well as about the effects of firearms regulation on crime and public safety. It is estimated that U.S. civilians own 393 million firearms, and that 35% to 42% of the households in the country have at least one gun. The U.S. has the highest estimated number of guns per capita, at 120.5 guns for every 100 people.
SIG Sauer[ɛs iː ɡeː ˈzaʊ̯ɐ] is the brand name used by two sister companies involved in the design and manufacture of firearms. The original company, SIG Sauer GmbH, is a German company, formed in 1976 as a partnership between Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft (SIG) of Switzerland and J.P. Sauer & Sohn of Germany.
The SIG Sauer P226 is a full-sized, service-type pistol made by SIG Sauer. This model is sold with a choice of four chambers to choose from: the 9×19mm Parabellum, .40 S&W, .357 SIG, or .22 Long Rifle. It has essentially the same basic design as the SIG Sauer P220, but is developed to use higher capacity, double stack magazines in place of the single stack magazines of the P220.
The SPP-1 underwater pistol was made in the Soviet Union for use underwater by Soviet frogmen as an underwater firearm. It was developed in the late 1960s and accepted for use in 1975. Under water, ordinary-shaped bullets are inaccurate and very short-range. As a result, this pistol fires a round-based 4.5 millimetres (0.18 in) caliber steel dart about 115 millimetres (4.5 in) long, weighing 12.8 grams (0.45 oz), which has longer range and more penetrating power than speargun spears. The complete cartridge is 145 millimetres (5.7 in) long and weighs 17.5 grams (0.62 oz).
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.
United States Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company, Inc. was a privately held firearms-manufacturing firm based in Hartford, Connecticut. Until 2011, it was known for producing single action revolvers, which were clones of the Colt Single Action Army revolver. The factory was located "Under the Blue Dome," in the East Armory building of the former Colt Armory complex, where Colt's Manufacturing Company produced many of their classic firearms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This is a list of countries by estimated number of privately-owned guns per 100 persons. The Small Arms Survey 2017 provides estimates of the total number of civilian-owned guns in a country. It then calculates the number per 100 persons. This number for a country does not indicate the percentage of the population that owns guns.
The United Kingdom is made up of four constituent countries: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland, all police officers carry firearms. In the rest of the United Kingdom, only some police officers carry firearms; that duty is instead carried out by specially-trained firearms officers. This originates from the formation of the Metropolitan Police Service in the 19th century, when police were not armed, partly to counter public fears and objections over armed enforcers as this had been previously seen due to the British Army maintaining order when needed. The arming of police in Great Britain is a perennial topic of debate.
Gun ownership is the act of owning a gun. In 2018, Small Arms Survey reported that there are over one billion small arms distributed globally, of which 857 million are in civilian hands. The Small Arms Survey stated that U.S. civilians alone account for 393 million of the worldwide total of civilian held firearms. This amounts to "120.5 firearms for every 100 residents."
An AR-15 style rifle is a lightweight semi-automatic rifle based on the ArmaLite AR-15 design, which is itself a scaled-down derivative of Eugene Stoner's AR-10 design. ArmaLite sold the patent and trademarks to Colt's Manufacturing Company in 1959. After Colt's patents expired in 1977, Colt retained the trademark and is the exclusive owner of "AR-15" designation. The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act restricted the Colt AR-15 and some derivatives from 1994 to 2004, although it did not affect rifles with fewer features.
