The unanimous decision by the three-judge panel was regarded as a victory for the New York State law, the American constitution, and families throughout New York who are appropriately concerned regarding the plight of gun violence that is a major problem to all communities. There are various groups in the gun industry such as the Second Amendment Foundation and the National Rifle Association have been filing cases against cities and states throughout the country on the basis of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling re-affirming restrictive gun control laws has followed the significant increase in the number of the sale of guns.
Gun Control Laws in Other States:
Generally, crime rates associated with gun violence have increased unusually in the United States unlike other high-income countries. The significant increase in these rates is mainly attributed to the high rate of firearm homicide rate in America to an extent that it's twenty-times higher than those of other high-income nations. Furthermore, this problem is also attributed to the increased prevalence of gun ownership and less restrictive gun legislations (Webster, p.2).
With regards to gun control policies in other states, there has been an emergence of numerous debates that are always geared towards overall arguments regarding the probability of guns to make people safer or less safe. The current gun control laws in various states do not disarm law-abiding citizens aged 21 years but focus on other objectives. The current gun control laws are geared towards defining the conditions that ban individuals from firearm possession and implement laws to ban prohibited individuals from firearm possessions. The other objectives are limiting the carrying of concealed weapons in public and regulating the design of guns to improve personal and public safety.
This trend in gun control laws have also been fueled by the recent decisions by the Supreme Court to overturn laws that prohibit the possession of firearms in Chicago and the District of Columbia (Webster, p.2). In the District of Columbia, the United States Supreme Court made a groundbreaking ruling in the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller case. This ruling acted as a model for other courts of appeals in the Second Amendment challenges and lawsuits until the Supreme Court provides further directions.
In the lawsuit, the defendant, Heller, challenged the federal firearms regulations on the basis that the laws violate the Second Amendment. However, the defendant did not adopt a standard of evaluation or establish a mechanism for evaluating Second Amendment lawsuits. In its ruling, the Supreme Court stated that the Second Amendment protects a person's right to carry arms in home for self-protection (Zonar, p.1). Since the ruling overturned regulations that limit the carrying of firearms in public, the District of Columbia has similar gun control policies to the New York State.
The ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in McDonald v. Chicago case complicated the challenges experienced by the local governments in California in attempts to deal with the issue of gun violence in their communities. In this lawsuit, McDonald challenged the firearms registration regulation in Chicago on the grounds of the Second Amendment arguing that the regulation resulted in a total prohibition of firearm possession in the home for self-protection (Weaver, p.2). In its ruling, the court held that the Second Amendment safeguards the right for individuals to possess and carry firearms in the home for self-protection. Therefore, the court stated that a law that bans possession of firearms in the home violates this Second Amendment right (Weaver, p.1).
One of the states with stricter gun control laws is California that strengthened is assault weapons ban by including extra provisions that are stronger than federal legislations. There are other states with different gun control laws from those of the New York State such as Washington where handguns are prohibited. Virginia has enacted a law safeguarding several sales of handguns i.e. A person cannot buy more than a single handgun per month from licensed dealers ("Gun Control in the United States," p.5).
The other notable differences in gun control laws across states are the minimum age for purchase or possession of firearms. While the federal law states that the minimum age for possession of handguns is 18 years, New York State is among states with lower minimum age requirements. Similar to Georgia, Vermont, and Alaska, the minimum age for the possession of a handgun in this state is 16 years while Montana is age 14. On...
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