When i look under "gun legislation in the US" on Wikipedia, it says that the legislation vary from state to state and is independent of the federal laws, but what is the point of the federal laws if the states have their own laws anyway? and what effect do the federal laws have if any?
Thanks for your help!
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The individual states can have stronger, less liberal laws than the federal government places on the entire country. Federal laws also control the interstate trade of firearms and license the dealers. In general most of the federal laws are limits on dealers and full auto and other weapons that have been deemed especially dangerous.
Federal law says we are allowed to bear arms. It is up to the state to mandate how it is controlled. Anyone can own firearms excluding felons within their home. But, some cities like Chicago do not allow for any person other than law enforcement to carry pistols whether concealed or not. So the constitution allows us to own and posses firearms within our homes but the city or township decides whether or not we can carry into the general public. In my state of N.C, we are not allowed to carry into any establishment that sells alcohol ( which is fucking gay ) and we are not allowed to carry into any place in which charges admission ie: Movie theaters, amusement parks etc… We cant even carry a weapon during a parade or any type of protest.
State laws have to be to the MINIMUM of the Federal laws, the States can set HIGHER laws. Federal law supersedes all State laws.
The US is a Federal country. That mean that the authority of the Federal government is restricted to ONLY those powers that the separate States have chosen to delegate to it through the Constitution.
The "police power" of government – which would include things like gun laws – has not been so delegated, and is therefore outside the authority of Congress.
Now, there are exceptions to that rule. While the Federal government would have no power to pass a law saying, for example, "You must be 21 years old to buy a shotgun", they do have the power to regulate the "Interstate commerce" of firearms. They have used this power in shall we say "imaginative" ways. What is, in effect, a Federal ban on machine guns was made possible by the interstate commerce clause. The Feds passed a law requiring a special Federal license to make or offer for sale to the public a machine gun. (And then basically refused to ever grant such licenses)
Now, at first glance, a reading of the Constitution would appear to indicate that the Feds would have no power to forbid a gun maker in California making machine guns and selling them to citizens of California. So what the Congress argued was that offering machine guns for sale even in their State of manufacture would, of necessity, increase the supply of machine guns on the market, thus lowering the price of used guns being sold in interstate commerce.
Not, by a LONG way, what the founders had in mind when they wrote the Interstate Commerce clause – but it was enough for the Supreme Court to rule the law to be legal.
Richard
You can find federal gun laws at the ATF website.