Why doesn’t the federal government set reasonable gun control laws for ALL states? Why do some states have no minimum age limit while others do? Why do some states have intensive background checks while others only have the bare minimum?
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It has to do with the Second Amendment giving ONLY the states and NOT the Federal Government the right to regulate a militia and to the extension of gun ownership.
Amendment II
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 main issue is that of state rights. The federal government has only the poweres granted to it in the US constitution and somewhat managed by the Bill of Rights.
States can set their own laws so far as it does not contravene the Federal contitution. The end arbiter of this is the US Supreme Court.
This is often a very sticky issue. The founding fathers intended that no citizens would be disallowed the use of firearms. This is made clear by their all their writings, Patrick Henry being one of the strongest proponents for an armed citizenry at the time. Many will argue that the second ammendment states that a militia is implied and we no longer need a militia, however, the militia clause, using English grammar rules, is subordinate and therefore dependant on the clause that grants the citizens the right to "keep and bear arms" not the other way around. (Additionally, the militia, as was defined at the time of the writing of the constitution was every able bodied man over the age of 17 and is still defined as such by Title 10: Section 311 of the United States code) This restricts the federal government from making laws concerning gun control. Many would also argue that given the other statements in the constitution, the states are also disallowed from making such laws. However, this does not stop the federal government from making laws prohibiting certain firearms. The Gun Control Act of 1938 introduced a tax form be required for anyone owning a fully automatic weapon or "Any Other Weapon" Things that fall in the AOW category are weapons such as pen guns, grenades, and other weapons. In the Gun Control Act of 1968, the manufacture of machine guns for civilian use was prohibited (among other things) thereby freezing the number of civilian owned fully automatic weapons. The federal government therefore is primarily prevented from passing laws concerning gun ownership by the constitution. On the subject of the background checks, all Federal Firearms Licensed dealers are required to run a standard NICS check, so there is a standardized background check. Some states require more, but no state can allow less. Another real problem is the idea of "reasonable." For example, some would recommend that "assault weapons" be banned. However, there is no such thing as an "assault weapon." The term assault rifle applies to a type of military rifle that is capable of fully automatic fire. An "assault weapon" commonly is used to refer to a semiautomatic rifle that looks similar to military assault rifles. Unfortunately, the idea that these should be banned is simply on the basis of appearance and not innate danger inherent in the weapon. Any semiautomatic hunting rifle with a sufficiently short barrel (for maneuverability) is the equal of an "assault weapon" in a tactical sense. In fact many hunting rifles are more effective than "assault weapons" as they fire rounds that are more likely to kill than the 5.56 NATO round used in most assault rifles and assault weapons. This is due to the fact that the US military has shifted it’s priorities in encounters to injuring enemies rather than killing them immediately. An injured enemy is going to use up 2 other healthy soldiers in most encounters, as it typically takes 2 soldiers to secure an injured man and administer first aid to him. Therefore, a wound is capable of taking three enemy targets in an engagement rather than just one, and once the engagement is over and US troops have control of the area, there are more soldiers captured which leads to better Intel. (Intelligence is the reason that the US military is one of the most, if not the most, effective military in the world) In fact, a guy in a friend’s unit did not care to go to Iraq at the end of basic, he thought to get himself disqualified from service and "accidentally)shot himself in the leg while cleaning his M16. He was patched up by army doctors and was fit to be shipped out 3 weeks later. The non lethality of military weapons is also supported by numerous conventions, which (among other things) disallow the use of "dum dums" or hollow point rounds for the signing nations on the grounds that these kind of ammunition are more lethal. All this to say, the public (and therefore the policy makers in this country) are woefully uninformed as to the capabilities of weapons to the point that they have no basis to argue the competence to make policy. Many weapons are banned because they are scary looking, not because of innate combat usefulness of the weapon. It is interesting to see the cultural divide in the US on this issue. Many people who live in urban environments are not exposed to guns nor are they exposed to safe gun handling techniques, and it is in these cities where there are gun problems. The people who tend to live in rural areas, by contrast, are often brought up around guns and are taught at a young age how to deal with firearms safely. Rural areas have much less difficulty with gun violence and accidents. The best thing this country could do to stem the tide of gun violence (and I believe violence in general) would be for honest, law abiding citizens to educate themselves concerning firearms, not to enact more gun control laws. We have thousands of gun control laws in the US, and very few of them actually result in any convictions much less an appreciable change in the crime of the nation. I believe that some regulation is necessary, I would not care to see nuclear weapons become a household item (they are actually easier to build than you might think, and the raw materials are avaliable to any resourceful person, a particularly resourceful person does not even have to buy anything illegal to construct everything they need for a nuclear weapon) nor would I like to see M2′s on ever corner, but the current level of gun control simply creates a bloated nearly useless bureaucracy. If anyone doubts the extreme to which we are currently committed, then I would suggest they review this letter in which as string has been classed as a "machine gun" the the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. It can be found here:
http://www.mp5.net/info/ATF_Ruling_2004-09-30_String_Trick.pdf
i always thought that gun control should be mandatory in all places’”"
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