US v. UK: Gun Laws

Gun Laws and Terror

by Trinity Tedtsen

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Background

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1996 and 2012

On March 13, 1996, in Dunblane, Scottland a 43-year-old man with four handguns stormed into the local primary school killing 16 children and one teacher before killing himself.

On December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut a 20-year-old man shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School with a semi-automatic rifle, fatally shooting 20 children and six adults before killing himself.

The response following these two very similar events could not have been more different. The public outcry from the community in Dunblane spurred political action to ban the private ownership of automatic weapons and handguns on Britain's mainland.The community in Newtown, agreeing in their grief, could not come to a consensus on what to do about it. There has been no rewriting of gun control laws in the United States. Some ideas involved adding more guns to school in the hands of law enforcement or registered teachers. The second amendment of the United States Constitution has created a gun culture in the United States that is absent in other Western societies.

Gun Culture

US Federal Gun Laws

National Firearms Act
The NFA was enacted in 1934 as part of the Internal Revenue Code. The Act regulated a federal tax on the manufacture, sale, and transfer of certain classes of firearms. Currently, the Act imposes an excise tax and registration requirements on narrow categories of firearms including machine guns, short-barreled shotguns or rifles, silencers, mufflers, and certain firearms described as "any other weapons". The law also required the registration of all NFA firearms with the Secretary of the Treasury. The NFA was enacted by Congress as an exercise of its authority to tax, its underlying purpose was to curtail transactions in NFA firearms. The making and transfer tax was set at $200 and has not changed since 1934.

Federal Firearms Act
The FFA imposed a federal license requirement on gun manufacturers, importers, and anyone selling firearms. It also required licensees to maintain customer records and made the transfer of firearms to certain classes of persons, i.e. felons, illegal. The FFA was repealed by Gun Control Act of 1968 and has been partially reenacted by subsequent acts.

Gun Control Act of 1968
The GCA reenacted and expanded upon prior acts and repealed the FFA. The legislation imposed stricter licensing and regulation on the firearms industry and established new categories of firearms offenses. The Act included the provision of prohibiting the sale of firearms and ammunition to felons and certain other prohibited persons from the FFA. It also established minimum ages for firearms purchasers and a requirement that all firearms have a serial number on them.

Firearms Owners' Protection Act
FOPA, enacted in 1986, amended the NFA definition of silencer by adding combinations of parts for silencers and any part intended for use in the assembly or fabrication of a silencer. The legislation added provisions that legalized sales by licensed dealers away from the location shown on the dealer's license if at a "gun show" within the same state. FOPA limited the number of inspections of dealers' premises which could be conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms without a search warrant and prevented the federal government from maintaining a central database of firearms dealer records. IThe act also loosened the requirement for what constitutes "engaging in the business" of firearms sales for purposes of a federal license and revpaled several key Public Safety provisions originally enacted by the GCA. It eliminated the requirements that dealers keep sale records of ammunition transfers and that sellers of ammunition be licensed and lifted the ban on interstate transfers of ammunition to unlicensed purchasers.

Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act
The Brady Act was established on November 30, 1993. The Act affected amendments to the GCA originally imposing a five-day waiting period for law-enforcement to review the background of a prospective handgun purchaser before a licensed dealer was entitled to complete the sale of a handgun to that person. The waiting period only applied to states without an acceptable alternative system of conducting background checks on handgun purchasers. The purpose of the check is to allow law enforcement time to confirm that the prospective buyer is not a prohibited purchaser before the sale is completed. The five-day waiting period has now been replaced with an instant check system which can be extended to three days if the results of the check are not clear. People who have a federal firearms license or a state issued permit to possess or acquire a firearm are not subject to the waiting period requirement. As more states enact "shall issue" concealed carry permit laws, the category of persons exempt from the Brady Act increases. In 1998 the Act became applicable to shotguns and rifles.

Federal Assault Weapons Ban
The first AWB was a subtitle of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The legislation formally codified 1) the manufacture, transfer, or possession of semi-automatic assault weapons and 2) the transfer and possession of large capacity ammunition feeding devices. It banned 19 types, models, and series of assault weapons by name and any semi-automatic firearm with at least two specified military features coupled with the ability to accept a detachable magazine. However, it only banned the transfer and possession of assault weapons and large capacity feeding devices manufactured after the date of the ban's enactment. The AWB contained a sunset provision declaring that it would expire 10 years from attachment. Congress allowed the ban to expire on September 13, 2004.

Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act and Child Safety Lock Act
The PLCAA and CSLA provided the gun industry with immunity from most tort liability. The PlCAA also prohibited a "qualified civil liability action" from being brought in any state or federal court and required immediate dismissal of any such action upon the date the PLCAA was enacted. A "qualified civil liability action" is a civil or administrative action or proceeding brought against a manufacturer or seller of firearms or ammunition, or a trade association that has two or more members who are manufacturers or sellers of firearms or ammunition for relief, if the action resulted from the criminal or unlawful misuse* of a qualified product by the person or third party with certain exceptions.
The CSLA, adopted as part of the PLCAA, made it unlawful for any licensed importer, manufacturer, or dealer to sell or transfer any handgun unless the transferee is provided with a secure gun storage safety device. It also immunized any person who possesses or controls a handgun from a "qualified civil liability action." The CSLA defines a "qualified civil liberty action" as a civil action for damages resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse* of a handgun by a third party is: 1) the handgun was accessed by another person who did not have the authorization of the lawful possessor; and 2) at the time the handgun was accessed it had been made inoperable by the use of a secure gun storage or safety device.

• *Unlawful misuse is defined as conduct that violates a statute ordinance or regulation.
  

National Instant Criminal Background Check System Improvement Amendments Act The NICS Improvements Act provided financial incentives for states to provide to the National Instant Background Check System information relevant to whether a person is prohibited from possessing firearms, including the names and other relevant identifying information of people adjudicated as a mental defective or those committed to a mental institution. The NICS Act also change the standard for people deemed to be "adjudicated as a mental defective" or "committed to a mental institution" by a federal agency or department. The act authorized the attorney general to make grants to states for use in establishing and upgrading their states' ability to report information, including mental health information. In order to be eligible for the grants, the state must implement a "relief from disabilities" program that meets the Act requirements.

Gun Control

...and so on and so forth...

Section 2: Deliverable

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Subsection 1

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Subsection 2

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