Impact of the Gun Control on the States

¶ … United States, in accordance with crime and violence, has been having highest rates of crime and violence in the world, and largely most of them violence are related to gun. U.S. Department of Justice has indicated that in the United States, violence related to guns consists of the largest violence rate. For example, back in year 1995.

Homicides who were involved in gun violence were about 68% out of which 60% were the cases related to handguns. Another example is that more than 34 thousand peopled died due to the gunfire in 1996 out of which 41% were outcomes of homicide in the United States (Shay et al., 1999).

The first law on gun control came about in 1911 in the State of New York. However, the most significant law on gun control was the Brady bill which was passed in 1994. According to this law there is a restriction on carrying firearms and individuals who want to buy licensed guns have to go through a test of their previous data to check if they had criminal record or any psychological history. Therefore, the purpose of the bill is to limit the offenders.

In United States, different states are making serious attempts to restrict the purchasing of firearms, and thus there are 11 main federal laws attempting to limit the gun violence. Unfortunately, United States has been so far one of the largest weapons' consumer and that is the reason why most of the political debates in U.S. takes place are related to the gun violence. Firearms open carry where people owning guns carry them in their daily routine has been vastly seen in the recent decade in U.S.. A number of law and enforcement authorities has raised their concerned regarding this vast increase of open carry.

Although 43 states has legally allowed open carry of licensed guns, however the laws are very confusing such as a person might be legally carrying a gun, as he or she crosses the street, the result is changed into breaking the law.

"Coalition to Stop Gun" and "Brady Campaign" is groups who are strongly opposing the open carry of firearms while other groups are in the favor of open carry of licensed guns. It was the year 2002, when state and federal legislations launched safety locks on guns. Apparently, the laws in the past were passed in order to make it illegal to buy guns for minors and/or criminals, however, it is not possible at all the time to restrict the gun culture in the United States due to the different groups claiming the legitimacy of the constitution's second amendment and therefore are against the introduction of any new laws related to the restriction of the open carry of the weapons.

Like any other difficult and ill-controlled issue, the gun crime and violence is also a main challenge for the United States government. It was due to the improper control on gun crime that disastrous incident like campus-shooting took place on April 2007 the 16th, at Virginia Tech just after the 8 years of shooting at Columbine High School; this occurrence gave life to a strong gun-control debate. Debates are useful for the succession of security and peace however; there is also a risk of focusing on the wrong issues that can escort to the inhibition of symptoms more willingly than trying to reduce or control the crime.

A lot of people have a viewpoint that if there is more open carriage of guns, it might lead to serious violent gun crime. However, gun ownership has been made very difficult over the last 40 years by the federal ordinances for gun control. Acts of years such as 1968, 72, 86, 90 and 94 have made restrictions in owning a gun in several ways. Furthermore, other states along with cities of United States have brought in different rules in order to control firearms so that issues related to problems of crimes could be sorted out.[footnoteRef:1] [1: See State Laws and Published Ordinance, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, http://www.atf.gov/firearms/statelaws/25thedition / for different states' and cities' gun ordinances.]

In United States, through many years there have been strong debates regarding the problems associated with "violent crime" and "gun control." In view of many researchers, the availability of guns and its open carry helps in increase of gun violence levels (Newton and Zimring, 1969; Cook, 1979; McDowall, 1986; Duggan, 2001).

All these researchers have a viewpoint that open carry of guns possibly will escort to more violent crime. The most noteworthy research in regards to the issue related to gun control and crime relationship is the study of Deutsch and Alt (1976) where they evaluated the impact of gun control law of Massachusetts on gun associated crime in the Boston city. The authors in respect to the research found the result that the law of gun control actually proved to be very successful and helped in lessening armed robbery and intensified stabbing however not influencing the rate of the homicide.

Although after three years same issue was studied by Cook and Campbell (1979), who found out that the evaluation of Deutsch and Alt was doubtful and suggested that if they had recognized the right model with the help of steps of ARIMA model offered by Box and Jenkins (1976), then they might had found out that the effect of gun control or armed robbery was of no significance statistically.

RESEARCH

The solving of inter-reliant and compound policy problems requires the usage of different techniques and methods due to the fact that principles, judgments, values and inclinations can't be disjoint from the analysis of policy related to crime. A unique approach was attempted by Campbell et al. (2002) which are quasi-experimentation a substitute method of social life experimentations to prevail over issues related to gun control and present improved policies' interpretations.

The main theme of quasi-experimentation method is "counter-productive initiation which comprises an investigation for proof either supporting an opponent hypothesis, or deteriorating to support the opponent hypothesis which is afterwards eliminated" (Dunn, 1998; p. 67).

Homicides that are related to firearms consist of major element of the homicides occurring in the United States. There are different studies that show that gun homicide rate is on the highest level in the United States as compared to rest of the world (See Table 1).

Table: 1

A lot of researches stresses that the lethality of weapon might influence the association between homicides and guns in the United States. Researchers believe that the process of killing is made easier by guns with little efforts needed as compared to the knives and bodily strength. Cook suggests, "The probability of victim killing is higher by gun attacks as compared to knife attacks in or else same situation" (Cook, 1983; p. 249).

There have been various cases with regard to gun control laws; such as, Supreme Court in U.S. v. Miller, 207 U.S. 174 (1939) sustained a federal law which criminalized the sawed-off shotgun shipment in throughway trade. Moreover, The Supreme Court in Lewis v. U.S.. 445 U.S. 55 (1980), ruled that the limitations contained in the Act of 1968 Gun Control disallowing criminals as of owning guns were legitimate by a "rational basis" standard. Although these instances of cases shows a positive approach of the Supreme Court in regards to gun control, however there are number of cases in the court of state as well which affirms the legality of laws of gun control.

There are other cases of Supreme Court which responds to this matter. For instance, in the case of Alkinson, 291 N.W.2d 396 (Minn, 1980) The Supreme Court detained whatsoever the extent of any common law or legal right to accept arms, it is not necessary and does not warrants to people the authority to take weapons that are loaded abroad at continually and in any situation. In another case of Arnold v. Cleveland 616 NE 2d 163 (1993) the judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Douglas apprehended that the ordinance of municipal disallowing sale and owning of "assault weapons" was legitimate and rational implementation of police power and authority.

The federal firearms regulations started to emerge in 1915, on the instance of banning bill for interstate trade of handguns was putted forward. The bill itself was not a law of gun control in true meaning. It was then in year 1919, when a 10% excise manufacturing tax federal act was passed which is regarded as the beginning of the law for gun control and thus after that there was more upcoming efforts in order to control the ownership and open carry of guns.

The first federal law ever to cope with guns was the "The Gun Control Act" of 1968. This act has chief objective of law such as:

1. Restricting the interstate trading of guns, especially focusing the various gun control restrictions of other states

2. Describing different types of classes of unconstitutional and ineligible in society as of purchasing of illegal firearms for example criminals

3. Restricting the import of all spare firearms of military and various other weapons with the exception of sport purposes

Therefore the main law in The Gun Control Act of 1968 obliges the licensing of all the guns related to manufacturers, dealers, importers, collectors or common citizens. There are various limitations with The Gun Control Act of 1968. Firstly, the public dealings between the buyer and the firearms dealer are the sole individuals on whom this act applies. The further issue with this law is one of implementation. There is a huge number of firearms dealer in the United States and therefore a countless number of gun trading takes place on everyday basis. Hence, the federal authorities of enforcement allocated for these trading and carrying out investigation is relatively very small. Therefore, The Gun Control Act of 1968 is not much effectual given that since the vast number of gun dealings and enforcement agencies assigned are uneven.

In 1993 there is another federal law which was passed, namely Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. Bill Clinton was the President at that time who signed this federal law. The purpose of this federal law was a time of waiting of five working days in order to check the background and other necessary information regarding the buying and delivering of a handgun. Though, this federal law only applies on the federally authorized dealers (interstate dealings is the main focus) and therefore covering handguns in the states devoid of same background and information checking of the requirements under their laws of state.

There were also limitations associated with Brady Act of 1993, such as; it doesn't applies on non-dealer trading and the possible criminals can break the law by means of handguns purchase with the help of unauthorized handguns sellers. Though, Kleck stresses that there is still many positivity associated with the Brady Law on gun control even though these positivity by far hasn't matched the probabilities of numerous scholars (Kleck, 1991, p.378).

These days, the extent and the limitations of gun control have increased very much. A simple overview has been offered by Wright et al., (1983) regarding the gun control laws of state, separating these gun control laws in various parts such as; dealer controls associated with transfer and acquisitions controls, possession controls which are related to carriage means and provisions for place, penalties associated with the usage of guns in felony, and lastly restrictions of various guns.

Controlling of dealers comprises the recording and licensing along with exposure of sales related to firearm. The dealers of firearms are obliged to show any information related to sales along with the complete details of the guns, information of purchaser and serial number.

Transfer and acquisition controls comprise the permits and/or license for purchasing as well as application associated with gun purchasing. The purchase permit or license is considered s a very restraining law, in which the purchaser is required to ask for a license or permit at a police department near him or her, putting information in form regarding their address and any records related to crime along with the pictures and thumbs expression of the applicant. A background investigation is carried out by the police frequently in order to verify the application form information. In a number of cities there is also a requirement of mentioning a valid reason for buying the gun. All these checks on the background and information verification requires a waiting time prior to the issuance of permit.

Controls of possession comprises of license and registration to carry the firearm. Registration is utilized in terms of screening the weapon at the time when the police officer checks the background of the gun owner. Possession license denotes the license requirement or I.D Card given to the owners of the firearms.

Regulation of handguns carrying takes an effect with the help of provisions related to the manner and place of weapon carriage. A lot of states have these restrictions; however restrictions like these vastly vary throughout jurisdictions.

Penalties associated with the utilization of the guns in crime situations refer to sentences that are enhanced convicted felons for carrying or using firearms during the crime committing. The severity of the rulings boost with these rules given to the criminals in order to decrease the crime related to gun violence.

Restrictions on different guns can be seen in a number of states such as; Connecticut, California, New York, New Jersey where there is total ban on "assault weapons." California for instance limits the selling of any handgun that is unsafe; assault pistols are restricted in Hawaii; a number of low-level, inexpensive and small handguns along with assault pistols are banned in Minnesota.

Given below is a summary related to guns control laws of state-level in the 50 states of United States and the District of Columbia as of the year 2000: [footnoteRef:2] [2: See for example, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics available in Maguire et al., 2001. http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/.]

1. About all state has NICS check of instant background, laws related to hunter protection and gun carrying.

2. There is a range protection laws associated with almost all the states.[footnoteRef:3] [3: Range protection law protect gun range as of disturbance and action related to noise control aimed to restrict an operation related to range.]

3. There is a requirement for 26 states to show sale record by sending it to police department. All these 26 stats comprise about 40% of population of United States.

4. There is a waiting period of 5 to 7 working days for the sales of firearms in 12 states of the United States. These states comprise approximately 36% of the overall United States population.

5. States that are obliged to attain permit or license for purchasing handgun are about 13 and comprise about 53% of the United States population

6. Only Michigan, Hawaii, District of Columbia and New York require registration of handgun.

7. States such as New Jersey, Massachusetts, District of Columbia and New York require identification card and license for carrying handguns.

8. Ten other states, which contain about 57% of the U.S. population, restrict various guns.

There has been enormous spread in the gun control laws throughout the states in accordance to the preceding estimations of Cook (1979; 1980). Furthermore, the current spread of gun control law is conservative due to the fact that it is focused only on state-level as compared to data of city level. In a number of states the cities have obliged their own gun control restrictions when there is no law for gun control in order to lessen the open carry of firearms so that the restrictions data in the population of the United States is more than the estimated data provided.

After the implementation of 1982 gun control law, there was an evident decreased in violence crimes and homicides. The ordinance explained this decline of homicide and gun violence as a result of banning the ownership of handgun. Although, the impact of this policy is suspicious after a close look at the trends of crime over a period of line time. In the later years of 1980s, there was a gradual increase in the number of homicides and gun violence in the city. And it didn't stopped here, as in the year 1992, there was much more increase in the crime and murders which passed the preceding level seen before this gun control law.

The governments of state regulate the firearms trading for the purpose of protection and safety of the U.S. citizens. But unfortunately, the interstate trading of firearms is easily done with any difficulty. If at all possible, the lethal products such as firearms should be regulated uniformly throughout the country in order to assure the safety and security of the U.S. citizens. Law enforcement agencies are required to bring up a firm method that gives solid tracking whether verifying the background of the applicant or tracing the gun that was seen at a crime scene.