Gun control, or firearms regulation, is the set of laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms by civilians.
More Guns, Less Crime is a book by John R. Lott Jr. that says violent crime rates go down when states pass "shall issue" concealed carry laws. He presents the results of his statistical analysis of crime data for every county in the United States during 29 years from 1977 to 2005. Each edition of the book was refereed by the University of Chicago Press. As of 2019, the book is no longer published by the University of Chicago Press. The book examines city, county and state level data from the entire United States and measures the impact of 13 different types of gun control laws on crime rates. The book expands on an earlier study published in 1997 by Lott and his co-author David Mustard in The Journal of Legal Studies and by Lott and his co-author John Whitley in The Journal of Law and Economics, October 2001.
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.
The right to keep and bear arms is a legal right for people to possess weapons (arms) for the preservation of life, liberty, and property. The purpose of gun rights is for self-defense, as well as hunting and sporting activities. Countries that guarantee a right to keep and bear arms include Albania, Czech Republic, Guatemala, Ukraine, Mexico, the United States, Yemen, and Switzerland.
Firearms in Canada are federally regulated through the Firearms Act, the Criminal Code, and the Canadian Firearms Program, a program operated within the RCMP. Regulation is largely about licensing and registration of firearms, including air guns with a muzzle velocity of more than 500 ft/s or 150 m/s and muzzle energy greater than 4.2 ft⋅lb or 5.7 J.
Gun laws in Australia are predominantly within the jurisdiction of Australian states and territories, with the importation of guns regulated by the federal government. In the last two decades of the 20th century, following several high-profile killing sprees, the federal government coordinated more restrictive firearms legislation with all state governments.
Gun politics in the United States is characterized by two primary opposing ideologies regarding private firearm ownership.
Concealed carry, or carrying a concealed weapon (CCW), is the practice of carrying a weapon in public in a concealed manner, either on one's person or in close proximity. CCW is often practiced as a means of self-defense. Following the Supreme Court's NYSRPA v. Bruen (2022) decision, all states in the United States were required to allow for concealed carry of a handgun either permitlessly or with a permit, although the difficulty in obtaining a permit varies per jurisdiction.
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.
Gun violence is a term of political, economic and sociological interest referring to the tens of thousands of annual firearms-related deaths and injuries occurring in the United States.
Gun-related violence is violence against a person committed with the use of a firearm to inflict a gunshot wound. Gun violence may or may not be considered criminal. Criminal violence includes homicide and assault with a deadly weapon. Depending on the jurisdiction, suicide or attempted suicide may also be considered a crime. Non-criminal violence includes accidental or unintentional injury and death. Also generally included in gun violence statistics are military or para-military activities.
In 2018, the Small Arms Survey reported that there are over one billion small arms distributed globally, of which 857 million are in civilian hands. The survey stated that American civilians account for an estimated 393 million of the worldwide total of civilian held firearms, or about 120.5 firearms for every 100 American residents.
Gun laws in Florida regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the state of Florida in the United States.
The State of Texas is considered to have some of the most relaxed gun laws in the United States. Public concerns over gun control in Texas have increased in recent years as Mexican drug cartels continue to commit violent crimes closer to Texas' stretch of the Mexico–United States border. They have also increased due to the number of incidents, including misuse of firearms stolen from other sources.
A universal background check for guns is a policy that requires a background check for all gun sales or transfers, regardless of where they occur or who is involved. This includes sales at gun shows, private sales between individuals, and sales made online. The idea is to close loopholes in existing laws that currently allow some gun purchases to occur without background checks.
The National Firearms Agreement (NFA), also sometimes called the National Agreement on Firearms, the National Firearms Agreement and Buyback Program, or the Nationwide Agreement on Firearms, was an agreement concerning firearm control made by Australasian Police Ministers' Council (APMC) in 1996, in response to the Port Arthur massacre that killed 35 people. Four days after the killings, Australian Prime Minister John Howard told Parliament “We need to achieve a total prohibition on the ownership, possession, sale and importation of all automatic and semi-automatic weapons. That will be the essence of the proposal that will be put by the Commonwealth government at the meeting on Friday...". The APMC would agree to and form the NFA 12 days after the massacre on the 10th of May 1996.
Michael David Anestis is an American clinical psychologist and associate professor in the Department of Urban-Global Public Health in the Rutgers School of Public Health, as well as the executive director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center. Before joining the faculty of Rutgers in 2020, he taught at the University of Southern Mississippi, where he first joined the faculty in 2012.
Mass shootings are incidents involving multiple victims of firearm related violence. Definitions vary, with no single, broadly accepted definition. One definition is an act of public firearm violence—excluding gang killings, domestic violence, or terrorist acts sponsored by an organization—in which a shooter kills at least four victims.
Alyssa Black is an American politician serving as a member of the Vermont House of Representatives for the Chittenden-24 district. Elected in November 2020, she assumed office on January 6, 2021.
