# Firearms regulation

Firearms regulation is the set of laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms by civilians. Most countries have a restrictive firearm guiding policy, with only a few legislations being categorized as permissive. Jurisdictions that regulate access to firearms typically restrict access to only certain categories of firearms and then to restrict the categories of persons who will be granted a license to have access to a firearm. In some countries such as the United States, gun control may be legislated at either a federal level or a local state level.

## Quotes

(Sorted alphabetically by author/source)
* The buffalo hunters and range men have protested against the iron rule of Dodge's peace officers, and nearly every protest has cost human life. … Most cowboys think it's an infringement on their rights to give up shooting in town, and if it is, it stands, for your six-shooters are no match for Winchesters and buckshot; and Dodge's officers are as game a set of men as ever faced danger.
** Andy Adams, Log of a Cowboy, (1903); as qtd. in Matt Jancer, “Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West”, Smithsonian, (February 5, 2018).
* Teenage activists against gun violence... quickly grasped three crucial things. The first was that such violence can’t be dealt with by focusing on gun control alone. You also have to confront the other endemic problems exacerbating the gun violence epidemic, including inadequate mental health resources, systemic racism and police brutality, and the depth of economic inequality.... The second was that, no matter how much you shouted, you had to be aware of the privilege of being heard. In other words, when you shouted, you had to do so not just for yourself but for all those voices so regularly drowned out in this country. After all, black Americans represent the majority of gun homicide victims. Black children are 10 times as likely to die by gun and yet their activism on the subject has been largely demonized or overlooked... The third was that apathy is the enemy of progress, which means that to make change you have to give people a sense of engagement and empowerment. As one of the Parkland students, Emma Gonzalez, put it: “What matters is that the majority of American people have become complacent in a senseless injustice that occurs all around them.”
** CounterPunch: School Shooters and Drones: Linking Gun Violence to America’s Wars, Allegra Harpootlian, (14 March 2019)
* New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has vowed to change the country’s gun laws following the deadly Christchurch massacre Friday that left 50 people dead and millions around the globe mourning following the massacre... the deadliest shooting in the country’s modern history... Rebecca Peters, an international arms control advocate and member of the International Action Network on Small Arms... led the campaign to reform Australia’s gun laws after the 1996 Port Arthur (Australia) massacre. After the attack, Australia cracked down on gun violence, outlawing automatic and semiautomatic rifles. More than 640,000 weapons were turned in to authorities in a nationwide buyback.
** Democracy Now: After Deadly 1996 Massacre, Australia Overhauled Its Gun Laws. New Zealand Now Plans to Do the Same (18 March 2019)
* Rebecca Peters:...in Australia...We are an outdoor country. We’re a frontier country. We have a lot of people who like to use guns.. in 1996, we had a mass shooting at Port Arthur in Tasmania. Thirty-five people were killed... at the time, it was the largest tragedy of that type ever in the world.... the politicians had always been intimidated by the gun lobby and had been reluctant to do anything. But in '96... all the states together... came up with a scheme of—a list of points that all the states agreed to put into their laws as a minimum standard. And that included a ban on semiautomatic rifles and shotguns; a (gun) buyback...to get rid of them; registration of all guns in every state; a much higher standard of licensing, including the need to prove that you have a legitimate reason... a 28-day waiting period; and various other measures, which basically closed the loopholes and raised the standard. And we’ve been much safer ever since.
** Democracy Now: After Deadly 1996 Massacre, Australia Overhauled Its Gun Laws. New Zealand Now Plans to Do the Same (18 March 2019)
* Logistic regression results indicate that regular viewers of crime shows are more likely to oppose gun control and believe that firearms prevent crime. Respondents who receive their primary crime news from the print media are more likely to disagree with making it easier to conceal firearms.
** Dowler, K. (2002). “Media influence on attitudes toward guns and gun control”. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 26(2), 235-247.
* Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.
** Mahatma Gandhi, "An Autobiography OR The story of my experiments with truth", Chapter 27, Recruiting Campaign, from a leaflet urging Indians to serve with the British Army in World War II.
* Although there is a long empirical record exploring links between violent videogame play and aggression, little is known about how these games potentially affect players’ political attitudes. Specifically, with firearms frequently featured in videogames, including games where players are required to use firearms to succeed during gameplay, it is worth examining whether players’ experience with firearms relates to their attitudes toward guns and gun policy. Utilizing the General Learning Model, this survey explores whether public policy outcomes regarding gun control and public safety are related to exposure to violent video games, first-person shooter games, and realistic gun controllers. Results show that increased exposure to first-person shooter games was related to more negative attitudes concerning gun control. In addition, more experience using realistic gun controllers was associated with negative attitudes toward gun control and greater support for the idea that greater gun availability can help guarantee public safety. Thus, video game exposure may shape the gun attitudes of young people in small but important ways.
** Lapierre, M. A., & Farrar, K. M. (2018). “Learning to love guns? Gun-based gameplay’s links to gun attitudes”. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 7(3), p. 216.
* Let’s be clear: US gun culture is built on myths and lies; on propaganda pumped out by the NRA, Fox News and gun manufacturers. Here are the facts about the country’s fabled gun culture: almost four out of five American adults (78 per cent) do not own a firearm. In fact, just 3 per cent own half of all the guns in the US, with the other half held by only 19 per cent. The average American gun-owner has eight firearms; the average American owns none. Polls suggest three out of four Americans believe gun laws should be stricter than they are now, while nine out of ten support background checks for all gun-buyers. The truth is that a small fraction of Americans – aka gun-owners – are holding the vast majority – aka non-gun-owners – hostage. They neither know, nor care, that the rest of the industrialised world doesn’t live like this; they don’t live in fear of mass shootings... What kind of society is this? What kind of nation would rather scar an entire generation of innocent young children than regulate the sale and ownership of lethal firearms? What kind of people abdicate their responsibility to keep their kids safe?
** Mehdi Hasan: US gun owners are holding the country hostage – and I fear for my family’s safety, CounterPunch(12 September 2018)
* It is enough to ask somebody for his weapons without saying 'I want to kill you with them', because when you have his weapons in hand, you can satisfy your desire.
** Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, Book 1, Ch 44, c. 1517, (as translated by Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella)
* The media, the corporations, the politicians... have all done such a good job of scaring the American public, it's come to the point where they don't need to give any reason at all. I left the Heston estate atop Beverly Hills and walked back... to an America living and breathing in fear. Where gun sales are now at an all record high.
** Bowling for Columbine 2002 American documentary film about the roots of America's predilection for gun violence, by Michael Moore.'
* Canadian: If more guns made people safer, then America would be one of the safest countries in the world. It isn't. It's the opposite. Woman:Every time I turn on the TV in the States, it's always about a murder here, a gunfight, hostile position... I just think the States, their view of things is fighting. That's how they resolve everything. If there's... there's something going on in another country, they send people over to fight it and... They are the most powerful country in the world, though. Canada's more just, like, "Let's negotiate, let's work something out." Where the States is, "We'll kill you and that'll be the end of that." If guns were... If more guns made people safer, then America would be one of the safest countries in the world. It isn't. It's the opposite.
** Bowling for Columbine 2002 American documentary film about the roots of America's predilection for gun violence, by Michael Moore.'
* Sandy Hook happened 6 years ago and we can’t even get the Senate to hold a vote on universal background checks w/ #HR8. Christchurch happened, and within days New Zealand acted to get weapons of war out of the consumer market. This is what leadership looks like. (pointing to a tweet from New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden: Today I am announcing that New Zealand will ban all military-style semi-automatic weapons.)
** Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:Twitter Post (20 March 2019)
* As states have approved dozens of restrictive gun control measures..., efforts to resist such laws have gathered strength around the nation.... In November, nearly 60 percent of Washington State voters approved an initiative prohibiting anyone under 21 from purchasing a semiautomatic rifle and requiring buyers to undergo enhanced background checks... The law also mandated a 10-day waiting period and completion of a firearms training course. Already, though, more than a dozen sheriffs in Washington have said they will refuse to enforce the law. That has set up a showdown between them and Bob Ferguson, the attorney general... has warned the sheriffs that they have a legal responsibility to enforce the new law in the same manner they are sworn to uphold other laws prohibiting criminal activity...
** New York Times: When Sheriffs Say No: Disputes Erupt Over Enforcing New Gun Laws, Simon Romero and Timothy Williams, (11 March 2019)
* Bob Songer, the sheriff of Klickitat County (Washington State)... said.... “There is no way in hell I’m going to be going after their guns if they are honest citizens... What I’ve told people is: I’m not giving up my guns, and I don’t expect them to give up theirs.” The sheriff dismissed the pressure from the state’s attorney general to abide by the law. “They are not the boss of the sheriff... The only bosses I have are the voters of Klickitat County.”
** New York Times: When Sheriffs Say No: Disputes Erupt Over Enforcing New Gun Laws, Simon Romero and Timothy Williams, (11 March 2019)
* 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 Second Amendment (1791) ] of the United States Constitution
* For mass media, insurance companies, Big Pharma, advocacy groups, lawyers, politicians and so many more, your fear is worth billions. And fortunately for them, your fear is also very easy to manipulate. We’re wired to respond to it above everything else. If we miss an opportunity for abundance, life goes on; if we miss an important fear cue, it doesn’t... Add to this media landscape channels like Investigation Discovery, with its 24/7 stream of true-crime shows, and the spate of CSI and Law & Order-type police procedural dramas, and it’s easy to understand why, after voting, the next most prevalent ways Americans respond to fear, according to the Chapman study, are getting a home alarm and buying a gun.
** Neil Strauss: Why We’re Living in the Age of Fear. This is the safest time in human history. So why are we all so afraid? Rolling Stone, (6 October 2016)
* “People were allowed to own guns, and everyone did own guns [in the West], for the most part,” says Winkler. “Having a firearm to protect yourself in the lawless wilderness from wild animals, hostile native tribes, and outlaws was a wise idea. But when you came into town, you had to either check your guns if you were a visitor or keep your guns at home if you were a resident.”
* Frontier towns with and without gun legislation were violent places, more violent than family-friendly farming communities and Eastern cities of the time, but those without restrictions tended to have worse violence. “I've never seen any rhetoric from that time period saying that the only thing that's going to reduce violence is more people with guns,” says Winkler. “It seems to be much more of a 20th-century attitude than one associated with the Wild West.”
** Adam Winkler; as qtd. in Matt Jancer, “Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West”, Smithsonian, (February 5, 2018).
* The self-interest perspective, which posits that gun owners will oppose any policies that might threaten their ability to own firearms, has been extensively tested. Gun ownership and/or presence of a gun in the home are among the strongest and most consistent predictors of people's opposition to various gun control policies, especially any type of gun ownership ban (Brennan et al., 1993; Celinska, 2007; Dowler, 2002; Kleck, 1996; Kleck, Gertz, & Bratton, 2009; Semet & Ansolabehere, 2011; Wolpert & Gimpel, 1998). The self-protection/crime control perspective argues that people will support gun control if they believe that gun control policies will reduce crime, and they will oppose gun control if they perceive those policies to be ineffective or believe that widespread private ownership of firearms is a more effective way to fight crime (Robbers, 2005; Semet & Ansolabehere, 2011; Spitzer, 2011; Tyler & Lavrakas, 1983; Wolpert & Gimpel, 1998).
** Kevin H. Wozniak, “Public Opinion About Gun Control Post-Sandy Hook”,, “Criminal Justice Policy Review”, 28(3), (March 2015).
* Pratt, who declined to be interviewed for this piece, holds the power to derail and delay gun legislation enjoying broad public support, and quickly inject falsehoods and amplify paranoia among a growing network of gun activists. With the rise of the Tea Party scene, Pratt has discovered new constituencies and new platforms for spreading his message of a Biblically mandated rollback of all gun regulation.
** Alexander Zaitchik: The Zealot: Larry Pratt Is the Gun Lobby’s Secret Weapon, How the fear-mongering, paranoia-stoking executive director of the Gun Owners of America remade the modern gun movement, Rolling Stone, (14 July 2014)
* It is very difficult for the labouring people, who have been deceived and intimidated by the reactionary ruling classes for thousands of years, to awaken to the importance of having guns in their own hands... Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
** Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976),  Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. II, pp. 224-225

## See also

* Gun violence
* Rule of law

## External links

Encyclopedic article on Firearms regulation on Wikipedia