Gun Policy and Politics

Abstract

To most non-Americans, gun policy in America is all but incomprehensible. The United States leads developed nations in gun ownership and gun crime. Most Americans favor stronger gun laws, yet that obvious link between the public will and its government seems disrupted by the powerful gun lobby which has mostly stymied the enactment of stronger laws. This chapter examines this paradox in three parts. The first part examines the history of gun ownership and gun laws. Without question, gun ownership is as old as the nation, but so are gun laws. To further contradict myth, the Constitution’s Second Amendment (the ‘right to bear arms’) was written and interpreted to apply only to citizen service in a government-organized and regulated militia, not to protect private gun ownership or use. The second part considers modern gun policy and law in the light of the Supreme Court’s reinterpretation of the Second Amendment in its 2008 case of D.C. v. Heller. Even under the Court’s new individualist reading of the amendment, most existing and proposed laws to restrict gun ownership and use are constitutional. The third part examines recent gun politics, including the rise of the new gun safety movement during the last decade, the National Rifle Association’s contemporary woes, and the role of guns and gun politics in the 2020 election campaign and its aftermath.