Gun Issues: Statistics Reference and Debate

Text of Chapter 44--Firearms of the United States Code, Title 18 - Crimes and Criminal Procedure.

In response to violent organized crime, Congress passes this act to tax the sale of certain weapons. These weapons included handguns, short-barreled rifles and automatic weapons.

This act banned the sale of firearms to convicted felons and fugitives. Also, it barred unlicensed dealers from selling guns across state lines.

The act was a response to violent urban upset and political assassinations. This act created the Bureau of Alchol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ( ATF )

This act banned the sale of armor-piercing ammunition except for government use.

The act required a waiting period to purchase guns from licensed gun dealers. This act expired in 1998. However, the FBI set up a background check system. (H.R.1025 — 103rd Congress (1993-1994) )

In response to the school shooting at Columbine, this act banned the sale of assault weapons. However, this ban expired in 2004.

This encyclopedia contains informative essays on topics, people and theories pertaining to the Constitution and Constitutional law. This is a great "first stop" to research a concept or constitutional amendment. The encyclopedia also contains entries on court cases.

This collection features research reports and other publications on a wide range of legal topics prepared by the Law Library of Congress in response to requests or recurring interest from Congress and other federal government entities on issues concerning foreign, comparative, and international law (FCIL).

A listing of databases that deal with criminal justice oriented statistics. If you are accessing them from home, you will need a username and password.

A listing of all general statistics databases. If you are accessing them from home, you will need a username and password.

Provides government statistics, business, trade and research information, and private and international statistical information. U.S. governmnet statistics go back to 1973 and private and state sources go back to 1980.

Provides statistics about crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government in the United States.

The FBI's compendium of crime statistics. It includes volumes from 1995 to the present.

A branch of the Justice Department, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is responsible for the investigation and prevention of federal offenses involving guns, arson, and illegal alcohol and tobacco. This site lists ATF statistics.

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution) was adopted, having been ratified by three-fourths of the states."

This was an important United States Supreme Court decision in United States constitutional law, one of the earliest to deal with the application of the Bill of Rights to state governments following the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. This case ruled that the Second Amendment did not oblige the state of Louisiana to allow lynching victims to defend themselves with guns. Although significant portions of Cruikshank have been overturned (either explicitly or by implication) by later decisions, most notably the 5–4 District of Columbia v. Heller ruling in 2008, it is still relied upon with some authority in other portions.

Only weapons that have a reasonable relationship to the effectiveness of a well-regulated militia under the Second Amendment are free from government regulation. The court ruled that a short-barreled shotgun was of no military use and that the government could therefore legally ban such a weapon.

The court ruled that private individuals have the right to keep and bear arms.

Supreme court held that individuals have a right under the Second Amendment to own handguns for their own personal protection and keep them in their home without placing a trigger lock on them. This is the first decision since the Supreme Court decided Miller in which a federal court overturned a law regulating firearms based on the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment extends the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms to the states, at least for traditional, lawful purposes such as self-defense.

The Second Amendment extends to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding, and this Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the states.

When the Second Amendment's plain text covers an individual's conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. To justify a firearm regulation, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation.

A bump stock—an accessory for a semiautomatic rifle that allows the shooter to rapidly reengage the trigger (and therefore achieve a high rate of fire)—does not convert the rifle into a “machine gun” for the purposes of federal gun control laws.

An individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another person may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment.