Gun Laws

The gun laws which exist in the United States are notable for the controversy which has attended their creation and enforcement, and the complexity which has arisen in the system due to the latitude granted to states in the enforcement of law. The basic foundation for the existence of gun laws within the United States is formed by the existence of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which grants wide rights in regard to the exercise of gun ownership within the United States and links such rights to the maintenance of a secure citizenry and a functioning civil society, as had been seen in the recent gain of independence through armed action against the forces of the King of England.

The basis for the dispute over the passage of gun control laws, which have often aroused wide based opposition from the advocates of gun ownership rights, has been placed in the evolution of the United States from a primarily rural society to one largely based in its economic and social activities on urban and industrial modes of living, in which the ownership of firearms among people placed together in tightly cramped quarters can have different effects than it does in rural communities of homesteads often separated by distance. Arguments both for and against gun control laws have been based on this kind of lifestyle, with proponents for gun control laws often arguing that the wide availability of firearms or in some arguments the availability of firearms introduces a destabilizing and violent element into urban society, while arguments in favor of widely or totally permissive gun laws often base their approaches on the same basis of social observation by concluding that the violent, destabilizing element of social chaos is already present and inherent in American urban life and requires the passage of gun laws granting wide rights for firearm possession in order to provide a sufficient measure of safety for citizens.

In implementing the requirements of the Second Constitutional Amendment for the practical purposes of enforcing some variety of gun control laws in the United States, debate has often turned on two basic questions. One exists in regard to the context of the historical basis of gun laws as they existed in the epoch of America in which well-armed militias were considered essential aspects of the enforcement of law. This question concerns the extent to which the political and social considerations which gave rise to the conception of the Second Amendment can be plausibly said to exist in contemporary America, when then leads to a broader legal question, beyond the specific issue of gun laws, of the degree to which considerations are even applicable to the implementation of the Constitution, which some legal scholars and activists believe holds a sacrosanct place as a guarantee of political stability in the United States. Another issue exists in regard to the question of whether the Second Amendment is meant to specifically address militia gun ownership, potentially leaving some other gun control laws wide open.