Gun Control
Guns were omnipresent in the American Colonies, first for hunting and general self-protection and later as weapons in the American Revolutionary War. Several colonies mandated that heads of households (including women) own guns and that all able-bodied men enroll in the militia and carry personal firearms. A 1643 law in Connecticut and at least five other colonies required “at least one adult man in every house to carry a gun to church or other public meetings” in order to protect against attacks by Native Americans. A 1743 law inSouth Carolina required guns to safeguard against “insurrections and other wicked attempts of Negroes and other Slaves.” Other laws required immigrants to own guns in order to immigrate or own land. [105]
Gun restrictions were just as common. They arose from a myriad of concerns tied to safety, crime, hunting, communal defense, and slavery. In fact, early American gun laws covered every imaginable type of regulation, from gun registration to outright gun bans. As Robert J. Spitzer of the State University of New York explained in an essay tellingly titled “Gun Laws Are as Old as Gun Ownership,” numerous groups were at one time or another banned from buying or possessing firearms, including:
Native Americans, slaves, indentured servants, vagrants, non-Protestants, those who refused to swear an oath of loyalty to the government, felons, foreigners. . . . Early laws also regulated the manufacture, inspection, and sale of firearms, as well as gun storage and discharge restrictions. Others prohibited not only the firing of firearms in or near towns, but firing after dark, on Sundays, in public places, near roads and bridges or while under the influence of alcohol.[246][1][2]
There were even regulations exempting members of certain professions (including doctors, teachers, clergy, and lawyers) from laws requiring gun ownership.[105]
The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified on December 15, 1791. The amendment promises that “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.” The notes from the Constitutional Convention do not specifically mention an individual right to a gun for self-defense. Some historians suggest that the idea of an individual versus a collective right would not have occurred to the Founding Fathers because the two were intertwined and inseparable: there was an individual right to a gun in order to fulfill the collective right of serving in the militia. [105][106]
A 1792 federal law required that every man eligible for militia service own a gun and ammunition suitable for military service, report for frequent inspection of their guns, and register his gun ownership on public records. Many Americans owned only hunting rifles or pistols instead of proper military guns, and though the fines were high for doing so (equivalent to thousands of dollars today), they were levied inconsistently and the public largely ignored the law. [101][105][106]
Slave Codes and the “Wild West”
From the 1700s through the 1800s, slave codes and, after slavery was abolished in 1865, “Black codes” (and, still later, Jim Crow laws) prohibited Blacks from owning guns, and laws allowing the ownership of guns frequently specified “free white men.” For example, an 1833 Georgia law stated, “it shall not be lawful for any free person of color in this state, to own, use, or carry fire arms of any description whatever … that the free person of color, so detected in owning, using, or carrying fire arms, shall receive upon his bare back, thirty-nine lashes, and that the fire arm so found in the possession of said free person of color, shall be exposed for public sale.” [98][107]
Contrary to images of the Wild West popularized in movies, cities on the frontier often required visitors to disarm and check their guns with the local sheriff or at a stable on the outskirts before entering the town. In October 1876, Deadwood, Dakota Territory passed a law stating that no one could fire a gun without the mayor’s consent. A sign in Dodge City, Kansas, in 1879 read, “The Carrying of Fire Arms Strictly Prohibited.” The first law passed in Dodge City was a gun control law that read “any person or persons found carrying concealed weapons in the city of Dodge or violating the laws of the State shall be dealt with according to law.” [108][109]
Federal Gun Laws in the 1900s
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago on February 14, 1929, which resulted in the death of seven associates of gangster “Bugs” Moran (an enemy of fellow gangster Al Capone), set off a series of debates about banning guns, especially machine guns, and led to the first major federal gun control law in the United States: the National Firearms Act of 1934, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s "New Deal for Crime.” Intended to deal with the rash of gangland crimes then common, it imposed a severe $200 tax and a registration requirement on the making and transfer of certain guns, including shotguns and (“short-barreled”) rifles with barrels shorter than 18 inches, machine guns, firearm mufflers and silencers, and specific firearms labeled as “any other weapons” by the NFA. Most guns are excluded from the Act. [110][111][112][113]
The Federal Firearms Act of 1938 made it illegal to sell guns to certain people (including convicted felons) and required federal firearms licensees (FFLs; people who are licensed by the federal government to sell firearms) to maintain customer records. This Act was overturned by the 1968 Gun Control Act. [114]
In 1968 the National Firearms Act was revised to address constitutionality concerns raised by Haynes v. United States (1968), namely that unregistered firearms already in possession of the owner do not have to be registered, and information obtained from NFA applications and registrations cannot be used as evidence in a criminal trial when the crime occurred before or during the filing of the paperwork. [112]
On October 22, 1968, in the wake of a series of high-profile shootings—including the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy (1963), Malcolm X (1965), Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968), and Robert F. Kennedy (1968), as well as the 1966 University of Texas mass killing—President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) into law. The GCA regulated interstate gun commerce, prohibiting interstate transfer unless completed among licensed manufacturers, importers, and dealers, and restricted gun ownership. [114][115]
The Firearm Owners’ Protection Act of 1986 (FOPA) revised prior legislation once again, protecting and securing certain gun rights. The Act, among other revisions to prior laws, allowed gun dealers to sell guns away from the address listed on their license; limited the number of inspections the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (now the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) could perform without a warrant; prevented the federal government from maintaining a database of gun dealer records; and removed the requirement that gun dealers keep track of ammunition sales. [112][113][114]
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 (also called the Brady Act) was signed into law on November 30, 1993. It was named in honor of James Brady, the White House press secretary who was seriously injured in an attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and required a five-day waiting period for a licensed seller to hand over a gun to an unlicensed person in states without an alternate background check system. The five-day waiting period has since been replaced by an instant background check system that can take up to three days if there is an inconsistency or if more information is needed to complete the sale. Gun owners who have a federal firearms license or a state-issued permit are exempt from the waiting period. [114][116]
The Federal Assault Weapons Ban (Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act), part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994. The ban outlawed 19 models of semiautomatic assault weapons by name and others by “military features,” as well as large-capacity magazines manufactured after the law’s enactment. The ban expired on September 13, 2004, and was not renewed due in part to lobbying efforts by the National Rifle Association (NRA). [114][117]
Federal and State Gun Laws: 2000-2019
Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act and Child Safety Lock Act of 2005 was enacted on October 26 by President George W. Bush and gives broad civil liability immunity to firearms manufacturers so they cannot be sued by a gun death victim’s family. The Child Safety Lock Act requires that all handguns be sold with a “secure gun storage or safety device.” [114][118][119]
The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 was enacted as a condition of the Brady Act and provides incentives to states (including grants from the Attorney General) for them to provide information to NICS including information on people who are prohibited from purchasing firearms. The NICS was implemented on November 30, 1998, and later amended on January 8, 2008, in response to the April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech University shooting so that the Attorney General could more easily acquire information pertinent to background checks such as disqualifying mental conditions. [114][120]
On January 5, 2016, President Barack Obama announced new executive actions on gun control. His measures took effect immediately and included: an update and expansion of background checks (closing the “gun show loophole” that allowed private sellers to sell guns without performing background checks on the buyers); the addition of 200 ATF agents; increased mental health care funding; $4 million and personnel to enhance the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (used to link crimes in one jurisdiction to ballistics evidence in another); creating an Internet Investigations Center to track illegal online gun trafficking; a new Department of Health and Human Services rule saying that it is not a HIPAA violation to report mental health information to the background check system; a new requirement to report gun thefts; new research funding for gun safety technologies; and more funding to train law enforcement officers on preventing gun casualties in domestic violence cases. [142][143]
In addition to federal gun laws, each state has its own set of gun laws ranging from California with the most restrictive gun laws in the country to Wyoming with the most lenient, according to Giffords Law Center “Annual Gun Law Scorecard.” In fact, 43 of 50 states have a “right to bear arms” clause in their state constitutions. [101][121][226]
The most common state gun control laws include background checks, waiting periods, and registration requirements to purchase or sell guns. Most states prevent carrying guns, including people with a concealed carry permit, on K-12 school grounds, and many states prevent carrying on college campuses. Some states ban assault weapons. [121][122]
Gun rights laws include concealed and open carry permits, as well as allowing gun carry in usually restricted areas (such as bars, K-12 schools, state parks, and parking areas). Many states have “shoot first” (also called “stand your ground”) laws, which allow people to use deadly force when they believe their lives to be in danger. Open carry of handguns is generally allowed in most states (though a permit may be required). [121][122]
2020 COVID-19 Pandemic
The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic caused gun sales to rise and resulted in a conflict between the NRA and several states when gun and ammo shops were not included as essential businesses during stay-at-home orders. [166]
A significant portion of schools in the U.S. were temporarily closed in March 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19. That month was the first March to pass without a school shooting since 2002, the year most 2020 high school seniors were born. [167]
The FBI conducted over 3.7 million gun background checks in March 2020 for the sale of 1.9 million guns in the U.S., the second highest number of gun sales in one month after January 2013, which saw gun sales reach 2 million following President Obama’s reelection and the December 14, 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The FBI conducted over 2.9 million background checks in April 2020, over 3.1 million in May 2020, over 3.9 million in June 2020 (an all-time high), and over 3.6 million in July 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic continued. [169][170][174][175]
The FBI conducted more background checks in 2020 than in any other year since 1998 when the agency began collecting data. The FBI reported 39,695,315 background checks completed in 2020, up from 2019 in which 28,369,750 million checks were performed. [181]
Federal Actions: 2021 Forward
On April 8, 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland outlined five actions to be taken by the Biden Administration to curb gun violence:
- “Measure the problem of criminal gun trafficking in a data-driven way
- Close a regulatory loophole that has contributed to the proliferation of so-called ‘ghost guns’
- Make clear that statutory restrictions on short-barreled rifles apply when certain stabilizing braces are added to high-powered pistols
- Publish model ‘red flag’ legislation for states
- Empower communities to combat and prevent gun violence, making more than $1 billion in funding available through over a dozen grant programs.” [182]
The U.S. House and Senate compromised to pass the first major gun legislation package in almost three decades in 2022. The bill, signed by President Joe Biden on June 25, 2022, came together in the month after the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school mass shooting that left 19 children and two adults dead, just after a Buffalo, New York, grocery store shooting that left 10 adults dead. [188][189]
As explained by Emily Cochrane and Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times, “The gun legislation will expand the background check system for prospective gun buyers under the age of 21, giving authorities up to 10 business days to examine juvenile and mental health records. It sets aside millions of dollars so states can fund intervention programs, such as mental health and drug courts, and carry out so-called red flag laws that allow authorities to temporarily confiscate guns from any person found by a judge to be too dangerous to possess them. It pours more federal money into mental health resources in communities and schools across the country, and it sets aside millions for school safety. The legislation also toughens laws against the trafficking of guns and straw purchasing, the practice of buying a gun on behalf of someone barred from purchasing one. And for the first time, it includes serious or recent dating partners in a ban on domestic abusers buying firearms, tightening what is known as the boyfriend loophole.” [188]
On September 19, 2022, U.S. District Judge David Counts ruled that a federal law banning people under felony indictments from purchasing a firearm is unconstitutional based on the June 23, 2022, U.S. Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Counts noted “this case’s real-world consequences—certainly valid public policy and safety concerns exist,” but countered, “the Government must prove that laws regulating conduct covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text align with this Nation’s historical tradition. The Government does not meet that burden.” [190]
On March 14, 2023, President Joe Biden issued an executive order: “Executive Order on Reducing Gun Violence and Making Our Communities Safer.” Among other actions, the order directed U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland “to ensure that licensed gun dealers are aware and conduct the required background checks before purchases” in compliance with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (signed into law in June 2022). The Biden administration indicated that the new requirements would bring the U.S. as close to universal background checks as possible without congressional action. [192][193]
On June 25, 2024, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy declared gun violence a public health crisis. He recommended several preventative measures, mirroring past effort to reduce smoking and increase traffic safety, including safe storage, universal background checks, and assault weapon and high-capacity magazine bans. [199]
On February 7, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to
examine all orders, regulations, guidance, plans, international agreements, and other actions of executive departments and agencies (agencies) to assess any ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of our citizens, and present a proposed plan of action to the President, through the Domestic Policy Advisor, to protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans. [209]
The NRA and Gun Rights Lobby
The National Rifle Association calls itself “America’s longest-standing civil rights organization.” Granted charter on November 17, 1871, in New York, Civil War Union veterans Colonel William C. Church and General George Wingate founded the NRA to “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis” for improving the marksmanship of Union troops. General Ambrose Burnside, governor of Rhode Island (1866 to 1869) and U.S. Senator (March 4, 1875 to September 13, 1881), was its first president. [124][125][126]
Over 100 years later, in 1977, in what is known as the “Revolt at Cincinnati,” new leadership changed the bylaws to make the protection of the Second Amendment right to bear arms the organization’s primary focus (ousting its previous focus on sportsmanship). The group lobbied to disassemble the Gun Control Act of 1968 (the NRA alleged the Act gave power to the ATF that was abused), which they accomplished in 1986 with the Firearms Owners Protection Act. [127][128]
In 1993 the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) funded a study completed by Arthur Kellerman and colleagues, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, titled “Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor in the Home,” which found that keeping a gun at home increased the risk of homicide. The NRA accused the CDC of “promoting the idea that gun ownership was a disease that needed to be eradicated” and argued that government funding should not be available to politically motivated studies. The NRA notched a victory when the U.S. Congress passed the Dickey Amendment, which deducted $2.6 billion from the CDC’s budget, the exact amount of its gun research program, and restricted CDC (and, later, National Institutes of Health) gun research. The amendment stated that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” The admonition effectively stopped all federal gun research because, as Kellerman stated, “[p]recisely what was or was not permitted under the clause was unclear. But no federal employee was willing to risk his or her career or the agency’s funding to find out.” Representative Jay Dickey (R-AR), now retired from Congress, was the author of the Dickey Amendment and has since stated that he no longer supports the amendment: “I wish we had started the proper research and kept it going all this time…. I have regrets.” [129][130][131][144]
As of January 2013, the NRA had approximately 3 million members, though estimates have varied from 2.6 million to 5 million members. In 2013 the NRA spending budget was $290.6 million. The NRA-ILA actively lobbied against universal checks and registration, “large” magazine and “assault weapons” bans, requiring smart gun features, ballistic fingerprinting, firearm traces, and prohibiting people on the terrorist watchlist from owning guns; and in favor of self-defense (stand your ground) laws. In 2014 the NRA and NRA-ILA spent $3.36 million on lobbying activity aimed primarily at Congress but also the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Army Corps of Engineers, and the Forest Service. [132][133][134][135]
On August 6, 2020, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit arguing for the dissolution of the NRA and the removal of CEO Wayne LaPierre. James has jurisdiction over the NRA because the organization has been registered as a non-profit organization in New York for 148 years. The lawsuit argued that the NRA had displayed corruption, including ill-gotten funds and inflated salaries, and illegally diverted $64 million from the NRA’s charitable mission to fund extravagant lifestyles. James also requested that LaPierre and three top executives repay NRA members. The lawsuit accused LaPierre of arranging contracts for himself with the NRA worth $17 million without NRA board approval and of not reporting hundreds of thousands in income to the IRS. [177][178]
Also on August 6, 2020, D.C. District Attorney General Karl A. Racine filed a separate lawsuit against the NRA Foundation, alleging that it is not operating independently of the NRA as required by law, but instead the NRA Foundation regularly loaned money to the NRA to address deficits. The NRA stated it would counter-sue New York Attorney General James for “an unconstitutional, premeditated attack aiming to dismantle and destroy the NRA.” [177][178]
On January 15, 2021, the NRA filed for bankruptcy and announced plans to leave New York and move to Texas where the organization will reincorporate. New York Attorney General Letitia James called the move a “tactic to evade accountability and my office’s oversight.” NRA CEO and Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre stated, “The NRA is pursuing reincorporating in a state that values the contributions of the NRA, celebrates our law-abiding members, and will join us as a partner in upholding constitutional freedom.” On May 11, 2021, a federal judge dismissed the bankruptcy filing, allowing legal proceedings against the NRA to proceed in New York. [180][183]
Wayne LaPierre announced his resignation on January 5, 2024 (effective January 31, 2024). LaPierre stated his resignation was due to health issues. The civil trial in New York against LaPierre that alleged his misuse of funds began on January 8, 2024, and on February 23, 2024, LaPierre and the NRA were found guilty of using NRA funds for personal expenses, including vacations, flights, and yacht rides. LaPierre was ordered to repay $4.35 million. [195][196]
In addition to the NRA, major gun rights lobbying groups include Boone and Crockett Club, Citizens Committee for the Right Keep and Bear Arms, Dallas Safari Club, Firearms Policy Coalition, Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, Gun Owners of America, Hunter Nation, National Association for Gun Rights, National Shooting Sports Foundation, and Safari Club International. Collectively, these groups spent $12.9 million on lobbying efforts in 2024. [205]
The Gun Control Lobby
The start of the modern gun control movement is largely attributed to Mark Borinsky, who founded the National Center to Control Handguns (NCCH) in 1974. After being the victim of an armed robbery, Borinsky looked for a gun control group to join but found none, founded NCCH, and worked to grow the organization with Edward O. Welles, a retired CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) officer, and N.T. “Pete” Shields, a Du Pont executive whose son was shot and killed in 1975. [136]
In 2001, after a few name changes, the National Center to Control Handguns (NCCH) was renamed the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and its sister organization, the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, was renamed the Brady Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, though they are often referred to collectively as the Brady Campaign. [137]
The gun control lobby is now primarily composed of Everytown for Gun Safety, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Community Justice Action Fund, Giffords, March for Our Lives, Sandy Hook Promise, and the Violence Policy Center. Collectively, these groups spent $3.4 million on gun control lobbying in 2024. [204]
Public Opinion
According to a July 2024 Pew poll, 61 percent of American adults believe guns are too easy to legally obtain. [206]
Furthermore, 58 percent believe gun control laws should be stricter, with majorities agreeing on policies to prevent people with mental illnesses from buying guns (88 percent), increase the minimum legal purchase age to 21 (79 percent), ban high capacity magazines with more than 10 rounds (66 percent), and ban assault-style weapons (64 percent). [206]
There was less support for expanding gun rights, such as: allowing K-12 teachers to carry guns (50 percent), allowing concealed carry in more places (44 percent), shortening purchase waiting periods (30 percent), and allowing constitutional permitless carry (24 percent). [206]
Pros and Cons at a Glance
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Pro 1: Gun control laws are needed, because the Second Amendment is not an unlimited, individual right to own guns. Read More. | Con 1: The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects individual gun ownership. Read More. |
| Pro 2: More gun control laws would reduce gun deaths. Read More. | Con 2: Gun control laws are discriminatory and infringe on citizens’ rights. Read More. |
| Pro 3: The presence of a gun makes a conflict more likely to become violent. Read More. | Con 3: Gun control laws simply do not work. Read More. |
| Pro 4: A majority of adults, including gun owners, support commonsense gun control measures. Read More. | Con 4: Gun control laws give too much power to the government and may spur government tyranny. Read More. |
Pro Arguments
(Go to Con Arguments)Pro 1: Gun control laws are needed, because the Second Amendment is not an unlimited, individual right to own guns.
In the June 26, 2008, District of Columbia v. Heller U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited … nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” [3]
On June 9, 2016, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 7-4 that “[t]he right of the general public to carry a concealed firearm in public is not, and never has been, protected by the Second Amendment,” thus upholding a law requiring a permitting process and “good cause” for concealed carry licenses in California. [145][146]
A 2018 study found that 91 percent of the 1,153 court cases with claims stating a government action or law violated the Second Amendment between the 2008 Hellerdecision and February 1, 2016, failed. [157]
Further, the Second Amendment was intended to protect the right of militias to own guns, not the right of individuals to own guns. As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his dissenting opinion in Heller, “the Framer’s single-minded focus in crafting the constitutional guarantee ‘to keep and bear arms’ was on military use of firearms, which they viewed in the context of service in state militias,” hence the inclusion of the phrase “well regulated militia.” [3]
Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, stated there is nothing about an individual right to bear arms in the notes about the Second Amendment when it was being drafted, discussed, or ratified; the U.S. Supreme Court declined to rule in favor of the individual right four times between 1876 and 1939; and that all law articles on the Second Amendment from 1888 to 1959 stated that an individual right was not guaranteed. [47]
Pro 2: More gun control laws would reduce gun deaths.
There were 823,204 total gun deaths between 2001 and 2023: 480,573 suicides, 312,380 homicides, 13,268 unintentional deaths, 10,182 legal intervention deaths, and 6,801 gun deaths of undetermined intent. Guns were the leading cause of death by homicide (71.5 percent of all homicides) and by suicide (51.8 percent of all suicides). Firearms were the third leading cause of deaths (17 percent) for children aged 5-9, behind drug poisoning (25 percent) and motor vehicle deaths (19 percent).[30][162][211]
Female first-time firearm owners were 35 times more likely to commit suicide within 12 years of buying the gun compared to women who did not own guns; male first-time firearm owners were about eight times more likely to do so. [171][172]
Approximately 50 percent of unintentional fatal shootings were self-inflicted, and most unintentional firearm deaths were caused by friends or family members. [4][18]
About 76 women are murdered with a gun every month in the United States, according to a 2024 Everytown for Gun Safety report. A woman’s risk of being murdered increases 500 percent if a gun is present during a domestic dispute. During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, 5,364 U.S. soldiers were killed in action between October 7, 2001, and January 28, 2015; between 2001 and 2012 6,410 women were killed with a gun by an intimate partner in the United States. Furthermore, a 2025 study found that states with more lenient gun control laws had higher rates of pregnancy-related firearm homicide. [10][11][12][207][239]
A study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that “legal purchase of a handgun appears to be associated with a long-lasting increased risk of violent death.” [6]
Researchers found that a “general barrier to firearm access created through state regulation can have a significant deterrent effect on male suicide rates in the United States. Permit requirements and bans on sales to minors were the most effective of the regulations analyzed.” [32]
According to a March 10, 2016, Lancet study, implementing federal universal background checks could reduce firearm deaths by a projected 56.9 percent; background checks for ammunition purchases could reduce deaths by a projected 80.7 percent; and gun identification requirements could reduce deaths by a projected 82.5 percent. [148]
Gun licensing laws were associated with a 14 percent decrease in firearm homicides, while increases in firearm homicides were seen in places with right-to-carry and stand-your-ground laws. [158][160]
More gun control leads to fewer suicides. When U.S. gun ownership goes down, overall suicide rates drop; meanwhile, each 10 percentage-point increase in gun ownership is linked to a 26.9 percent increase in the youth suicide rate. In Indiana and Connecticut, after “red flag” laws to remove guns from people who may pose a threat were enacted, gun suicides decreased by 7.5 percent and 13.7 percent respectively, while suicides by other means did not decrease during the same time. A person who wants to kill themselves is unlikely to commit suicide with poison or a knife when a gun is unavailable. [31][33][158][159][164]
The U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that 31 percent of total accidental shooting deaths could have been prevented by installing safety devices on guns: 100 percent of deaths per year in which children under six years of age shoot and kill themselves or another child could be prevented by automatic child-proof safety locks, and 23 percent of accidental shooting deaths by adolescents and adults per year could be prevented by loading indicators showing when a bullet was in the chamber ready to be fired. [35]
Marjorie Sanfilippo, professor of psychology at Eckerd College who has researched children’s behavior around guns, stated, “We put gates around swimming pools to keep children from drowning. We put safety caps on medications to keep children from poisoning themselves…. [B]ecause children are naturally curious and impulsive, and because we have shown time and again that we cannot ‘gun-proof’ them with education, we have a responsibility to keep guns out of the hands of children.” [36]
Pro 3: The presence of a gun makes a conflict more likely to become violent.
The FBI found that arguments (such as romantic triangles, brawls fueled by alcohol or drugs, and arguments over money) resulted in 1,962 gun deaths (59.9 percent of the total). [37]
As an editorial in the American Journal of Public Health noted, “gun-inflicted deaths [often] ensue from impromptu arguments and fights; in the U.S., two-thirds of the 7,900 deaths in 1981 involving arguments and brawls were caused by guns.” A study published in the same journal found that “the weapons used [in altercations] … were those closest at hand.” According to another study, “[r]ather than confer protection, guns kept in the home are associated with an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance.” [38][39][40]
Statistics show that guns are rarely used in self-defense. Of the 29,618,300 violent crimes committed between 2007 and 2011, 0.79 percent of victims (235,700) protected themselves with a threat of use or use of a firearm, the least-employed protective behavior. In 2010 there were 230 “justifiable homicides” in which a private citizen used a firearm to kill a felon, compared to 8,275 criminal gun homicides (or, 36 criminal homicides for every “justifiable homicide”). Of the 84,495,500 property crimes committed between 2007 and 2011, 0.12 percent of victims (103,000) protected themselves with a threat of use or use of a firearm. [16][17]
Further, armed civilians are unlikely to stop crimes and are more likely to make dangerous situations, including mass shootings, more deadly. None of the 62 mass shootings between 1982 and 2012 were stopped by an armed civilian. As Jeffrey Voccola of Kutztown University notes, “The average gun owner, no matter how responsible, is not trained in law enforcement or on how to handle life-threatening situations, so in most cases, if a threat occurs, increasing the number of guns only creates a more volatile and dangerous situation.” [41][43]
Common sense gun control laws can decrease the likelihood of a violent situation turning deadly. President Ronald Reagan and others did not think the AR-15 military rifle (also called M16s by the Air Force) should be owned by civilians and, when the AR-15 was included in the assault weapons ban of 1994 (which expired on September 13, 2004), the NRA supported the legislation. A Mother Jones investigation found that high-capacity magazines were used in at least 50 percent of the 62 mass shootings between 1982 and 2012. When high-capacity magazines were used in mass shootings, the death rate rose 63 percent and the injury rate rose 156 percent. [7][8][48]
The Second Amendment was written at a time when the most common arms were long rifles that had to be reloaded after every shot. Civilians today have access to folding, detaching, or telescoping stocks that make the guns more easily concealed and carried; silencers to muffle gunshot sounds; flash suppressors to fire in low-light conditions without being blinded by the flash and to conceal the shooter’s location; or grenade launcher attachments. Jonathan Lowy, director of legal action project at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, states, “These are weapons that will shred your venison before you eat it, or go through the walls of your apartment when you’re trying to defend yourself … [they are] made for mass killing, but not useful for law-abiding citizens.” [49][50]
Pro 4: A majority of adults, including gun owners, support commonsense gun control measures.
According to a March 2025 poll, 85 percent of American gun owners support universal background checks and disallowing violent criminals from owning guns. Most gun owners also support banning guns in sensitive locations such as schools (70 percent), standardizing serial numbers for gun kits and parts (63 percent), state-level permits (62 percent), red flag laws (59 percent), and facial ID or fingerprint recognition technology on guns or safes (54 percent). [212]
As much as 40 percent of all gun sales are undocumented private party gun sales that do not require a background check (a.k.a., the “gun show loophole”). [28]
Of adults surveyed, 53 percent approve of high-capacity magazine bans; 89 percent of adults with a gun in the home approve of laws to prevent the purchase of guns by the mentally ill; and 82 percent approve of banning gun sales to people on no-fly lists. Some 77 percent of Americans support requiring a license to purchase a gun. [165]
Don Macalady, a member of Hunters against Gun Violence, stated, “As a hunter and someone who has owned guns since I was a young boy, I believe that commonsense gun legislation makes us all safer. Background checks prevent criminals and other dangerous people from getting guns.” [29]
Many would like to see the U.S. enact more laws like other countries, citing the fact that countries with restrictive gun control laws have lower gun homicide and suicide rates than the United States. Both Switzerland and Finland require gun owners to acquire licenses and pass background checks that include mental and criminal records, among other restrictions and requirements. In 2017 (the most recent data), Switzerland ranked number 34 in international gun ownership rates with 27.6 guns per 100 people (about 2.3 million guns total). In 2023 Switzerland had 8 gun homicides (0.09 deaths per 100,000 people). Finland ranked 42 in international gun ownership rates with 32.4 guns per 100 people (about 1.8 million guns total). In 2023 Finland had 5 (0.09 deaths per 100,000 people) gun homicides. [44][45][200][213]
Pro Quotes
Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy group:
Gun laws work.
When we compare the states head-to-head on the top 50 gun safety policies, a clear pattern emerges. States with strong laws see less gun violence. Indeed, the states that have failed to put basic protections into place—’national failures’ on our scale—have a rate of gun deaths two and a half times higher than the states that are national gun safety leaders.
The top 50 laws we focus on represent a wide range of interventions. Some block gun access by people who pose a threat with a firearm while others focus on limiting gun violence in public. Some seek to increase police accountability and protect civil rights, while another set targets bad actors in the gun industry.
All states should start with a core group of five foundational laws—passing background checks and/or purchase permitting, along with Extreme Risk laws and secure gun storage requirements; and rejecting Shoot First (also known as Stand Your Ground) and permitless carry laws. While each of the top 16 states in the gun law rankings has all five of these policies in place, only one of the bottom 18 states has even one of these critical protections. [240]
The Editors of Scientific American:
“The science is abundantly clear: More guns do not stop crime. Guns kill more children each year than auto accidents. More children die by gunfire in a year than on-duty police officers and active military members. Guns are a public health crisis, just like COVID, and in this, we are failing our children, over and over again….
Science points to laws that would work to reduce shootings, to lower death. Among the simplest would be better permitting laws with fewer loopholes. When Missouri repealed its permit law, gun-related killings increased by 25 percent. Another would be to ban people who are convicted of violent crime from buying a gun. In California, before the state passed such a law, people convicted of crimes were almost 30 percent more likely to be arrested again for a gun or violent crime than those who, after the law, couldn’t buy a gun.
Such laws, plus red flag laws and those taking guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and people who abuse alcohol, would lower our gun violence rate as a nation. [241]
Jacqui Lewis and Sharon Brous, Senior Minister of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City and Senior Rabbi of IKAR in Los Angeles respectively:
“We are clergy members. Our work is to comfort the bereaved. It’s also to fight for a more just and loving society in which human beings are not cruelly killed by the tens of thousands every year because the gun lobby has a stranglehold on Congress.
It’s been 25 years since the federal government enacted any gun safety law. That’s 25 years of grief and devastation that could have been prevented.
Our faiths teach us that every person is created in God’s own image and endowed with inestimable worth by virtue of being human. Every life is precious and a gift from God, and guns destroy that Divine presence 100 times every day on the streets of this country. That is an affront we simply cannot abide.
Members of Congress: We beseech you to listen to your constituents.
We will never accept gun massacres, gun murders and gun suicides as inevitable or acceptable. Now is the time to find your moral courage. It is that simple; you must stand on the side of what is safe, just and right.” [242]
Con Arguments
(Go to Pro Arguments)Con 1: The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects individual gun ownership.
The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution reads, “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.”
Gun ownership is an American tradition older than the country itself and is protected by the Second Amendment; more gun control laws would infringe upon the right to bear arms. Justice Antonin Scalia in the June 26, 2008, District of Columbia v. Heller U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion stated, “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.” [3]
The McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) ruling also stated that the Second Amendment is an individual right. [51]
Lawrence Hunter, chairman of Revolution PAC, stated, “The Founders understood that the right to own and bear laws is as fundamental and as essential to maintaining liberty as are the rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of religion and the other protections against government encroachments on liberty delineated in the Bill of Rights.” [52]
The Second Amendment was intended to protect gun ownership of all able-bodied men so that they could participate in the militia to keep the peace and defend the country if needed. According to the United States Code, a “militia” is composed of all “able-bodied males at least 17 years of age … under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.” Therefore, the militia mentioned in the Second Amendment would have been composed of almost all adult men and, in turn, that most adult men should not have their right to own firearms infringed. [99][100]
Con 2: Gun control laws are discriminatory and infringe on citizens’ rights.
Current gun control laws are frequently aimed at inner city, poor, black communities who are perceived as more dangerous than white gun owners. Charles Gallagher, chair of sociology at LaSalle University, stated that some gun control laws are still founded on racial fears: “Whites walking down Main Street with an AK-47 are defenders of American values; a black man doing the same thing is Public Enemy No. 1.” [94][95][96]
In the late 1960s, gun control laws were enacted in reaction to the militant, gun-carrying Black Panthers. According to Adam Winkler, constitutional law professor at UCLA, “The KKK began as a gun-control organization. Before the Civil War, blacks were never allowed to own guns,” so after the Civil War, there was “constant pressure among white racists to keep guns out of the hands of African Americans because they would rise up and revolt.” For example, in Virginia, in response to Nat Turner’s 1831 Rebellion (also called the Southampton Rebellion, in which at least 55 white people were killed in the most fatal slave uprising in the U.S. history), a law was passed that prohibited free black people “to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, any military weapon, or any powder or lead,” and all laws allowing free black people to possess firearms were repealed. [97][98]
Background checks and micro-stamping are an invasion of privacy. Background checks require government databases that keep personal individual information on gun owners, including name, addresses, mental health history, criminal records, and more. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) worried that Senator Harry Reid’s 2013 proposed background check legislation (the bill failed 54-46) would have allowed the government to keep databases of gun purchases indefinitely, creating a “worry that you’re going to see searches of the databases and an expansion for purposes that were not intended when the information was collected.” Micro-stamping similarly requires a database of gun owners and the codes their personal guns would stamp on cartridge cases. Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ted Cruz (R-TX) wrote that they would oppose any legislation that infringes “on the American people’s constitutional right to bear arms, or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to government surveillance.” [77][78][79][80]
Gun control laws infringe upon the right to self-defense and deny people a sense of safety. The police cannot protect everyone all of the time. In fact, 61 percent of men and 56 percent of women surveyed by Pew Research said that stricter gun laws would “make it more difficult for people to protect their homes and families.” According to Nelson Lund, professor at George Mason University School of Law, “The right to self-defense and to the means of defending oneself is a basic natural right that grows out of the right to life,” and “many [gun control laws] interfere with the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves against violent criminals.” A Pew Foundation report found that 79 percent of male gun owners and 80 percent of female gun owners said owning a gun made them feel safer, and 64 percent of people living in a home in which someone else owns a gun felt safer. Even the late Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), a gun control advocate, carried a concealed gun when her life was threatened and her home attacked by the New World Liberation Front in the 1970s. [58][59][64]
Gun control laws, especially those that try to ban “assault weapons,” infringe upon the right to own guns for hunting and sport. In 2022, there were 14.4 million hunters 16 years old or older in the United States. High-powered semiautomatic rifles and shotguns are used to hunt and in target shooting tournaments each year. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, “So-called ‘Assault weapons’ are more often than not less powerful than other hunting rifles. The term ‘assault weapon’ was conjured up by anti-gun legislators to scare voters into thinking these firearms are something out of a horror movie.… [T]he Colt AR-15 and Springfield M1A, both labeled ‘assault weapons,’ are the rifles most used for marksmanship competitions in the United States. And their cartridges are standard hunting calibers, useful for game up to and including deer.” According to a February 2013 Pew Research report, 32 percent of gun owners owned guns for hunting and 7 percent owned guns for target or sport shooting. [55][65][66][67][68][214]
Con 3: Gun control laws simply do not work.
Gun control efforts have proved ineffective. According to David Lampo of the Cato Institute, “there is no correlation between waiting periods and murder or robbery rates.” Banning high-capacity magazines will not necessarily deter crime because even small gun magazines can be changed in seconds. The “gun show loophole” is virtually nonexistent because commercial dealers, who sell the majority of guns at shows and elsewhere, are bound by strict federal laws. According to a March 10, 2016, Lancet study, most state-level gun control laws do not reduce firearm death rates, and, of 25 state laws, nine were associated with higher gun death rates. [102][148]
Mexico has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, and yet, in 2012, Mexico had 11,309 gun murders (9.97 gun homicides per 100,000 people) compared to the United States that had 9,146 gun homicides (2.97 per 100,000 people). The country has only one legal gun store (the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales), compared to at least 63,709 legal gun stores and pawn shops in the United States as of February 10, 2014. Mexico’s gun store, the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales (DCAM), is on a secure military base, and customers must present a valid ID, go through a metal detector, and turn over cellphones and cameras to guards. To actually buy a gun, customers are required to show proof of honest income, provide references, pass a criminal background check, prove any military duties were completed with honor, and be fingerprinted and photographed. If allowed to purchase a gun, the customer may buy only one gun (choosing from only .38 caliber pistols or lower) and one box of bullets. Between 2009 and 2014, Mexico’s one gun shop sold 52,147 guns, yet as of 2017, Mexicans own about 16.8 million guns, or about 12.9 guns per 100 people. [44][88][89][90][91][92][93][200][215]
The main reason gun control doesn’t work is because laws will not prevent criminals from obtaining guns or breaking laws. Of 167 mass shootings in the United States between 1966 and 2019, 77 percent of the shooters used legally obtained guns. Over 80 percent of school shooters used guns purchased legally by family members. [216]
The logical conclusion is that gun control laws do not deter crime; gun ownership deters crime. A study in Applied Economics Letters found that “assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level,” and “states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murders.” While gun ownership doubled in the 20th century, the murder rate decreased. Journalist John Stossel explains, “Criminals don’t obey the law.…Without the fear of retaliation from victims who might be packing heat, criminals in possession of these [illegal] weapons now have a much easier job.… As the saying goes, ‘If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.’” [53][56][103]
More gun control is not needed; education about guns and gun safety is needed to prevent accidental gun deaths. Some 95 percent of all U.S. gun owners believe that children should learn about gun safety. The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute stated, “Whether in the field, at the range or in the home, a responsible and knowledgeable gun owner is rarely involved in a firearms accident of any kind.” According to Kyle Wintersteen, managing editor of Guns and Ammo, studies show that “children taught about firearms and their legitimate uses by family members have much lower rates of delinquency than children in households without guns,” and “children introduced to guns associate them with freedom, security, and recreation—not violence.” [82] [85] [154][82] [85] [154][82][85][82][85][154]
Con 4: Gun control laws give too much power to the government and may spur government tyranny.
The NRA’s Wayne LaPierre stated, “if you look at why our Founding Fathers put it [the Second Amendment] there, they had lived under the tyranny of King George and they wanted to make sure that these free people in this new country would never be subjugated again and have to live under tyranny.” [75]
Concurring, radio host Alex Jones stated, “The Second Amendment isn’t there for duck hunting, it’s there to protect us from tyrannical government and street thugs.… 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms!” [76]
As the Libertarian Party argued, “A responsible, well-armed and trained citizenry is the best protection against domestic crime and the threat of foreign invasion.” Counsel for the NRA explains, “It is evident that the framers of the Constitution did not intend to limit the right to keep and bear arms to a formal military body or organized militia, but intended to provide for an ‘unorganized’ armed citizenry prepared to assist in the common defense against a foreign invader or a domestic tyrant.” [86][87]
As then-U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) explained about gun control laws during his 2016 presidential campaign, “If God forbid, ISIS visits our life, our neighborhood, our school, any part of us, the last thing standing, the last line of defense could very well be our ability to protect ourselves.” [149]
