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The debate over gun control

Your Kids and Gun Safety

Tragedy on the Firing Range

It was supposed to be a fun day out, a chance for father and son to bond. Dr. Charles Bizilj and his eight-year-old son, Christopher, visited a shooting range in western Massachusetts to test-fire automatic weapons under the supervision of trained instructors. But as Christopher fired an Uzi at stationary targets, the recoil was too strong for him to handle. The barrel of the gun swung upward, and before anybody could react, Christopher had fatally shot himself in the head. His father, standing only feet away, was helpless to do anything but watch.

Was it a freak accident? Or could Christopher's death have been prevented?

The Great Debate

There's no getting around it: Gun ownership and firearm safety is a divisive issue that inflames passions on both sides, particularly where children are involved. Gun owners point to statistics showing that it's more dangerous to own an in-ground swimming pool than a firearm. Gun control advocates argue that even one accidental gun death is too many, especially because they can be so easily prevented. The debate has played out in countless venues across the country: in elections, community meetings, and in legal battles that have reached all the way to the Supreme Court.

At the center of every argument is the intent of the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, which 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." To many Second Amendment loyalists, the meaning is clear: Individuals have the constitutional right to own guns. Even as weapon technology advances, and personal firearms become more lethal, they argue that this plain meaning has not changed. Furthermore, they claim, the Framers of the Constitution plainly intended personal gun ownership to be a check on government tyranny.

Critics of that interpretation point to the clause about a "well regulated Militia," which could mean that government regulation of firearms is welcome and necessary, and that gun ownership isn't intended to be unfettered for individuals. Critics also point out that the Bill of Rights was drafted in an era when the most powerful weapon a person could wield was a ball-and-powder musket, or a breech-loading rifle. Today's high-powered automatic weapons, they argue, are beyond the ken of the Framers and should be regulated as such.

The Supreme Court took the former view in hearing a case about a handgun ban in Washington, D.C., its first gun-rights case in 70 years. Although crime rates have been dropping steadily in Washington, D.C. for some time, the city still suffers from one of the worst crime rates in the nation - ranked 18th nationwide in 2006, according to F.B.I. statistics. The plaintiffs in the court case argued that keeping guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens robbed them of a necessary right to self-defense. Defendants pointed to the declining crime rate, and claimed that allowing more guns into the city could only reverse the progress. With a 5-4 majority, the Justices decided that the handgun ban was unconstitutional.

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Tragedy on the Firing Range It was supposed to be a fun day out, a chance for father and son to bond. Dr. Charles Bizilj and his eight-year-old son, Christopher, visited a shooting range in western Massachusetts to test-fire automatic weapons under the supervision of trained instructors.

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English Listening Practice: Gun Control in the United States

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My English listening practice videos are to encourage conceptual thought and to provoke conversation. Feel free to continue the conversation here, or in your classroom. Thank you for watching.

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london school of economics and political science

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London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

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The LSE Language Centre 'Current Affairs in Mandarin' is a video series in which LSE students are interviewed on current issues in Mandarin Chinese. It aims to teach students how to talk about current affairs in Mandarin Chinese. In each clip, the key vocabularies of the chosen topic are introduced in a meaningful context.

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This time, it may be different.

That seems to be the hope after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, that killed at least 17 people and injured at least 14 others. In the days after the shooting, students and activists have called on their peers around the country to demand action. This has so far culminated in two planned events: the National School Walkout on March 14 and the March for Our Lives on March 24.

The theme of both events: Enough is enough.

"Students and staff have the right to teach and learn in an environment free from the worry of being gunned down in their classrooms or on their way home from school," Women's March organizers, who are setting up the school walkout, said in a statement. "Parents have the right to send their kids to school in the mornings and see them home alive at the end of the day."

Alex Wind, one of the survivors of the Florida shooting, echoed the sentiment on NBC's Meet the Press: "We're marching because it's not just schools. It's movie theaters, it's concerts, it's nightclubs. This kind of stuff can't just happen. You know, we are marching for our lives, we're marching for the 17 lives we lost. And we're marching for our children's lives and our children's children and their children."

The students behind the march have also formed a group, #NeverAgain.

Both the events will focus on calling Congress to act on gun violence. They follow several days of fiery speeches by students who survived the shooting, including one by Emma Gonzalez at a gun control rally on Saturday that went viral.

"Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have ever been done to prevent this, we call BS," Gonzales said. "They say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars. We call BS. ... They say that no laws could have been able to prevent the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred. We call BS."

It's typical after mass shootings for there to be renewed calls for action around guns and gun violence - particularly with a push for Congress to enact gun control, which much of the research supports. It's just as typical, however, for these calls to go nowhere: Despite the research and outrage, the demands eventually subside and the public and lawmakers by and large move on.

This has happened dozens of times over the years. The December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in which a gunman killed 20 children, six adults, and himself, similarly led to calls for action. Since then, there have been more than 1,600 mass shootings, killing more than 1,800 people and wounding more than 6,400. Many of these events led to speeches and events, but Congress refused to budge every time.

The hope is that this time could be different.

What the protests hope to accomplish

Here are the event details so far:

The National School Walkout,planned by Women's March organizers, will be on March 14 at 10 am in each time zone. It calls for students, faculty, parents, and others to walk out of school for 17 minutes - one minute for each person who was killed in the Florida school shooting. For more, check out the official website and Facebook page.

The March for Our Lives is scheduled for March 24. The details are thin right now, but students and activists plan to march on Washington, DC, and other US cities. For updates, check out the event's official website.

The march in particular has drawn some big supporters, with Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, and other celebrities donating hundreds of thousands of dollar to the event.

For both events, the idea is to show lawmakers that many people are fed up with the current state of gun violence in the US. Much of the focus is on mass shootings - with widely reported tragedies in Las Vegas; Sutherland Springs, Texas; Marshall County, Kentucky; and Parkland, Florida, in just the past five months alone.

While gun violence and homicides have generally declined over the past couple of decades, America is still a big outlier among developed nations when it comes to both. The US has nearly six times the gun homicide rate of Canada, more than seven times that of Sweden, and nearly 16 times that of Germany, according to United Nations data compiled by the Guardian. (Gun deaths are a big reason that America has a much higher overall homicide rate than other developed nations.)

Mass shootings actually make up a small fraction of America's gun deaths, constituting less than 2 percent of such deaths in 2013. But these events are so horrific and affect so many people at once - in Las Vegas, the gunman killed 58 other people and wounded hundreds more - that they tend to get much more attention when they happen. And America sees a lot of these horrific events: According to CNN, "The US makes up less than 5% of the world's population, but holds 31% of global mass shooters."

This has been true for some time now, but after five months of particularly deadly mass shootings, it seems at least some activists are saying enough is enough.

Some of the response is also perhaps fueled by sentiment against President Donald Trump, who in his speech after the Florida shooting failed to mention gun control at all and tweeted over the weekend that Democrats are to blame for inaction on gun violence. (Although Trump has come around to some milder measures, which by and large improve enforcement of current law, over the past week.)

Just like they don't want to solve the DACA problem, why didn't the Democrats pass gun control legislation when they had both the House & Senate during the Obama Administration. Because they didn't want to, and now they just talk!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018

"You are in that exact position right now, and you want to look back on our history and blame the Democrats? That's disgusting," David Hogg, a survivor of the Florida school shooting, told NBC. "You're the president. You're supposed to bring this nation together, not divide us. How dare you? Children are dying, and their blood is on your hands because of that. Please take action. Stop going on vacation in Mar-a-Lago. Take action. Work with Congress."

Gun control is popular, but it's historically lacked sustained support

Congress's inaction on guns over the past few years is not due to the unpopularity of gun control measures. If you look at the polling, support for gun control, depending on which specific measure respondents are asked about, can be very high among both Democrats and Republicans.

Here, for example, are the results of surveys by the Pew Research Center, which found strong support for measures ranging from an assault weapons ban to universal background checks to restrictions on people with mental illness buying guns.

Issue intensity seems to be the key reason nothing happens anyway. As Republican strategist Grover Norquist said in 2000, "The question is intensity versus preference. You can always get a certain percentage to say they are in favor of some gun controls. But are they going to vote on their 'control' position?" Probably not, he suggested, "but for that 4-5 percent who care about guns, they will vote on this."

Other Pew surveys support Norquist's claim. Consider this first chart:

About 21 percent of gun owners have contacted a public official to express an opinion on gun policy, compared to just 12 percent of non-gun owners. And about 22 percent of people who want less strict gun laws have contacted a public official, while just 15 percent of people who support stricter laws have.

The differences are more pronounced if you look at contact in the previous 12 months. Gun owners are 80 percent more likely than non-gun owners to have contacted a public official about gun policy in the past year. And supporters of laxer gun laws are nearly 60 percent more likely than supporters of stricter gun laws to have contacted a public official over the issue in the same time span.

This difference in issue intensity also shows up in other areas. Take this second chart:

Again, the situation is skewed in favor of gun owners. About 28 percent of gun owners have contributed to an organization that takes a position on gun policy, while only 10 percent of non-gun owners have. That helps explain how a group like the National Rifle Association (NRA) has become so powerful, while there are no political equivalents - in terms of influence - on the other side.

One caveat to the charts: Based on Pew's surveys, there are way more adults in the US who believe that gun laws should be stricter (52 percent) than those who believe gun laws should be less strict (18 percent). So the side in favor of stricter gun laws can afford to have a lower percentage of its people contacting public officials.

It's demonstrative, though, to focus on the 12-month data for this. As it shows, gun owners and supporters of laxer gun laws are more likely to have recently engaged a public official or political organization on this issue. That matters: If a senator gets phone calls every few months from gun owners and opponents of stricter laws, that's going to make a bigger impression than calls from non-gun owners and supporters of stricter laws every year or so.

That's especially true if you consider political party. Republicans are much more likely to oppose stricter laws, based on Pew's data. So if a Republican senator mostly hears from GOP constituents, and these constituents are more likely to be really passionate about the issue since they are on the side that opposes stricter laws, that's going to give the senator a skewed perception of where voters are on this topic. As a result, Republican lawmakers are more resistant to calls for gun control - arguing against "politicizing" mass shootings and focusing on issues like mental health instead.

So why the difference in passion? Kristin Goss, a political scientist at Duke University and author of The Gun Debate: What Everyone Needs to Know, previously told me that it's a sense of tangible loss. Gun owners feel like the government is going to take their guns and rights.

This sentiment has been fueled by a decades-long public campaign by the NRA to convince the US public and politicians that, in fact, the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms, and that more guns will actually make people safer (by letting them protect themselves), despite what the research says.

Gun control advocates, meanwhile, are motivated by more abstract notions of reducing gun violence - although, Goss noted, the victims of mass shootings and their families have begun putting a face on these policies by engaging more actively in advocacy work, which could make the gun control movement feel more relatable. That's exactly what the current protests are doing, with student survivors from Florida in particular actively participating.

Will it work? That remains to be seen.

More guns, more gun deaths

Despite Congress's dawdling, there is little question that America's abundance of guns - the country has by far the highest rate of civilian gun ownership in the world - is driving its unique gun violence problem.

The research, compiled by the Harvard School of Public Health's Injury Control Research Center, is pretty clear: After controlling for variables such as socioeconomic factors and other crime, places with more guns have more gun deaths.

"Within the United States, a wide array of empirical evidence indicates that more guns in a community leads to more homicide," David Hemenway, the Injury Control Research Center's director, wrote in Private Guns, Public Health.

This is true when you look at state-by-state data within the United States, as this chart from Mother Jones demonstrates:

And it's true when you look at the data across developed nations, as this other chart from researcher Josh Tewksbury shows:

Experts widely believe this is the consequence of America's relaxed laws and culture surrounding guns: Making more guns more accessible means more guns, and more guns mean more deaths. Researchers have found this to be true not just with homicides, but also with suicides, domestic violence, and even violence against police.

As a breakthrough analysis by UC Berkeley's Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins in 1999 found, it's not even that the US has more crime than other developed countries. This chart, from Jeffrey Swanson at Duke University, shows that the US is not an outlier when it comes to overall crime:

Instead, the US appears to have more lethal violence - and that's driven in large part by the prevalence of guns.

"A series of specific comparisons of the death rates from property crime and assault in New York City and London show how enormous differences in death risk can be explained even while general patterns are similar," Zimring and Hawkins wrote. "A preference for crimes of personal force and the willingness and ability to use guns in robbery make similar levels of property crime 54 times as deadly in New York City as in London."

This is in many ways intuitive: People of every country get into arguments and fights with friends, family, and peers. But in the US, it's much more likely that someone will get angry at an argument and be able to pull out a gun and kill someone.

Republican lawmakers tend to resist this research, instead focusing, particularly recently, on mental health as the key problem. But as Dylan Matthews explained for Vox, people with mental illnesses are more likely to be victims, not perpetrators, of violence. And Michael Stone, a psychiatrist at Columbia University who maintains a database of mass shooters, wrote in a 2015 analysis that only 52 out of the 235 killers in the database, or about 22 percent, had mental illnesses. "The mentally ill should not bear the burden of being regarded as the 'chief' perpetrators of mass murder," he concluded. Other research has backed this up.

Guns are not the only contributor to violence. (Other factors include, for example, poverty, urbanization, and alcohol consumption.) But when researchers control for other confounding variables, they have found time and time again that America's high levels of gun ownership are a major reason the US is so much worse in terms of gun violence than its developed peers.

To deal with its problem, America will have to not only make guns less accessible, but likely reduce the number of guns in the US as well.

The research also speaks to this point: A 2016 review of 130 studies in 10 countries, published in Epidemiologic Reviews, found that new legal restrictions on owning and purchasing guns tended to be followed by a drop in gun violence - a strong indicator that restricting access to guns can save lives.

The government can do something about this

Other wealthy countries have dealt with this problem, passing an array of gun control measures, from universal background checks to licensing requirements to outright bans and confiscation schemes.

In 1996, a 28-year-old man walked into a cafe in Port Arthur, Australia, ate lunch, pulled a semiautomatic rifle out of his bag, and opened fire on the crowd, killing 35 people and wounding 23 more. It was the worst mass shooting in Australia's history.

Australian lawmakers responded with legislation that, among other provisions, banned certain types of firearms, such as automatic and semiautomatic rifles and shotguns. The Australian government confiscated 650,000 of these guns through a gun buyback program, in which it purchased firearms from gun owners. It established a registry of all guns owned in the country and required a permit for all new firearm purchases. (This is much further than bills typically proposed in the US, which almost never make a serious attempt to immediately reduce the number of guns in the country.)

The result: Australia's firearm homicide rate dropped by about 42 percent in the seven years after the law passed, and its firearm suicide rate fell by 57 percent, according to a review of the evidence by Harvard researchers.

It's difficult to know for sure how much of the drop in homicides and suicides was caused specifically by the gun buyback program. Australia's gun deaths, for one, were already declining before the law passed. But researchers David Hemenway and Mary Vriniotis argue that the gun buyback program very likely played a role: "First, the drop in firearm deaths was largest among the type of firearms most affected by the buyback. Second, firearm deaths in states with higher buyback rates per capita fell proportionately more than in states with lower buyback rates."

One study of the program, by Australian researchers, found that buying back 3,500 guns per 100,000 people correlated with up to a 50 percent drop in firearm homicides and a 74 percent drop in gun suicides. As Matthews noted, the drop in homicides wasn't statistically significant because Australia already had a pretty low number of murders. But the drop in suicides most definitely was - and the results are striking.

One other fact, noted by Hemenway and Vriniotis in 2011: "While 13 gun massacres (the killing of 4 or more people at one time) occurred in Australia in the 18 years before the [Australia gun control law], resulting in more than one hundred deaths, in the 14 following years (and up to the present), there were no gun massacres."

This is the kind of action the US - and specifically Congress and President Trump - could take. But they have long gotten a pass on this issue. Will this time be different?

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Students are rising up against gun violence in the aftermath of the Florida shooting

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This time, it may be different. That seems to be the hope after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, that killed at least 17 people and injured at least 14 others. In the days after the shooting, students and activists have called on their peers around the country to demand action.

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BBC - 6 Minute English - Gun control without guns

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In this programme, Neil and Dan will be discussing alternative gun control, as well as teaching you 6 new items of vocabulary. Vocabulary to shoot off to leave somewhere in a hurry fire away an expression giving permission for someone to ask a question or speak.

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WASHINGTON - President Trump announced on Thursday that he would visit Parkland, Fla., where a gunman killed 17 people this week in the deadliest school shooting in years, and would work with state and local leaders "to help secure our schools, and tackle the difficult issue of mental health."

The president tweeted his condolences to the families of the victims in the hours after the shooting on Wednesday, and as images of terrified students sprinting frantically away from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School dominated the news, Mr. Trump's aides urged him to make a public statement. But he opted not to say anything more until Thursday, when he delivered a subdued seven-minute speech at the White House.

"We must also work together to create a culture in our country that embraces the dignity of life," Mr. Trump said, "that creates deep and meaningful human connections, and that turns classmates and colleagues into friends and neighbors."

He made no mention of guns.

Wednesday's incident was the deadliest school shooting since a gunman killed 20 first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012. It was the latest mass shooting to elicit a national mourning period and an outcry from Democratic lawmakers, who accused Mr. Trump and Republicans of not doing enough to curb gun violence.

Early in his presidency, Mr. Trump approved the removal of an Obama-era regulation intended to prevent people with mental disabilities from buying guns. But as he has done in the recent past, on Thursday Mr. Trump answered cries for tighter restrictions on guns by emphasizing the need for Americans to report the behavior of "mentally disturbed" people to the authorities.

"So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior," Mr. Trump said in a tweet hours before he addressed the public. "Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!"

He delivered similar remarks in November, after a gunman with a military-style rifle mowed down more than two dozen parishioners in a church in Sutherland Springs, Tex. Mr. Trump told reporters that the problem "isn't a guns situation" and that the shooting signified "a mental health problem at the highest level."

Other members of his party echoed Mr. Trump's sentiments. In a brief news conference, Speaker Paul D. Ryan said that "there may be some mental health issues with this shooting," adding that it was not the time to jump to conclusions about tightening gun laws. In an address to a conference in Washington, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said law enforcement officers should look for warning signs in their communities.

"You and I know we cannot arrest everybody that somebody thinks is dangerous," Mr. Sessions said. "But I think we can and we must do better. We owe it to every one of those kids crying outside their school yesterday and all those who never made it out of that school."

As a presidential candidate, Mr. Trump enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with the National Rifle Association. The organization provided at least $30 million in support during his campaign. Receiving a hero's welcome at the group's annual convention last April, Mr. Trump said he would return the favor.

"Only one candidate in the general election came to speak to you, and that candidate is now the president of the United States, standing before you," Mr. Trump said at the time. "You came through for me, and I am going to come through for you."

But as with many issues, the president has had a complicated relationship with - and history of comments about - gun control.

Mr. Trump had a concealed weapon permit in New York when Rudolph W. Giuliani was mayor. It is not clear whether he maintained it. He also has spoken favorably about gun rights over the years. However, he has made clear that he is not a game hunter, as his two older sons are.

In 2000, as he considered running for president, he wrote in his book, "The America We Deserve," that "I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I also support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun."

He added, "With today's internet technology we should be able to tell within 72 hours if a potential gun owner has a record."

Mr. Trump's decision to remain focused on mental illness as president incensed several Democratic lawmakers, including Representative Joseph Crowley of New York.

"The onus is not on children to #EndGunViolence," Mr. Crowley wrote on Twitter. "When will you lead, Mr. President?"

In an appearance on CNN, another Democrat, Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, disputed Mr. Trump's focus on mental health, and pointed out the high rates of gun violence in the United States compared with other countries. Mr. Blumenthal said that after the Sandy Hook shooting, Connecticut worked to reduce gun violence by passing measures to ban assault weapons and increase background checks.

But "we are at the mercy of the weakest states," Mr. Blumenthal said, "even when we have the strongest gun laws."

Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, said in an appearance on CNN that "we've been through this a lot, and each time we say enough is enough and then of course it isn't enough."

Mr. Trump called for the American flag to fly at half-staff at the White House and other public buildings and grounds as a sign of respect for the shooting victims. About halfway through his short address, the president said he wanted to speak directly to America's children.

"I want you to know that you are never alone and you never will be. You have people who care about you, who love you and who will do anything at all to protect you," Mr. Trump said. "If you need help, turn to a teacher, a family member, a local police officer or a faith leader. Answer hate with love, answer cruelty with kindness."

Mr. Trump said he would meet later this month with a group of state governors and attorneys general to make school safety a "top priority."

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said details were still being finalized for his visit to Parkland, but on Friday, he is scheduled to travel to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, which sits about 40 miles north of there. Mr. Trump originally was scheduled to visit the Orlando area on his way, but White House officials said shortly after his speech that the Orlando stop had been canceled.

Maggie Haberman and Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: After Tragedy, the President Again Focuses on Mental Health. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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After Florida Shooting, Trump Focuses on Mental Health Over Guns

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WASHINGTON - President Trump announced on Thursday that he would visit Parkland, Fla., where a gunman killed 17 people this week in the deadliest school shooting in years, and would work with state and local leaders "to help secure our schools, and tackle the difficult issue of mental health."

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In the week since a gunman murdered 17 in Parkland, Fla., Marjory Stoneman Douglas students have organized a national campaign against school violence with a forceful, simple message for the country: Never Again. They say, in order to prevent the next school shooting, America needs stricter gun laws, safer schools and for the National Rifle Association to get out of politics.

And their message is being heard - on TV and across social media. "Everyone's listening, everyone cares. Change is going to be seen everywhere," junior Cameron Kasky said.

But there is one place where the Parkland students and their campaign have fallen flat: conservative media.

Most conservative media reject the idea that shootings like the one in Parkland are a gun issue. The real concern isn't that semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 are widely available and can be purchased for less than you would spend on a good bicycle. Instead, they argue that the real crisis involves a breakdown in the fabric of American society, disintegrating families, and a lack of Christian values.

And it's a message Republican politicians in particular hear a lot in the media they follow most closely. It was echoed in President Trump's speech to the nation right after the Parkland shooting. "We must also work together to create a culture in our country that embraces the dignity of life," Trump argued.

On the TV, websites and talk radio favored by tens of millions of Americans, the student activists are either invisible or they face fierce criticism. During an appearance on "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace, radio host Rush Limbaugh described the student survivors as articulate and angry, but he also said they're being used by the left and by Democrats in a bid to take away people's gun rights.

The real answer, Limbaugh said, is more guns in schools: "The solution, to me and I know this is going to cause all kinds of angst, the solution is we need concealed carry in these schools." He went on to argue that rallies and marches and attacks on the NRA won't make kids or teachers safer.

"Every thoughtful person knows something horrible is going on in American society," said Tucker Carlson, founder a popular conservative website called Daily Caller. He spoke on his show on Fox News. "Tragedies like this happen for a reason, and it probably doesn't have a lot to do with guns."

A lot of Americans agree that guns aren't the problem. "Unfortunately, there's evil in the world," said Mimi Garcia from North Carolina who was visiting the Parkland area this week, donating blood after the shooting. "You know, people are just going for that instead of, you know, [choosing] peace, love and God," she argued.

Her husband Manuel Garcia said he feels the same way. "I believe that a lot of things are happening because we took God out of the school system. We took prayer out of the school system. And this is why all this is happening."

If you believe that society is breaking down, then more guns might seem like a reasonable response, a last-ditch way to keep teachers and students safe. "I feel like they should put guns in the classrooms now with the teachers," said Sabrina Belony, a stay-at-home mom in Fort Lauderdale.

"I feel like teachers should be trained to be armed for something because teachers lost their lives trying to protect his class."

The kids who formed the Never Again movement have no patience for this idea that culture is to blame for Wednesday's massacre. They say Parkland is already a great town, a tight-knit community with strong values. They say the real problem is that weak gun laws allowed one deeply troubled teen to buy a semi-automatic rifle legally.

So far, the students seem to be holding their own against the conservative media's very different narrative about Parkland. At an anti-gun rally over the weekend, Emma Gonzalez, a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School senior, criticized "every politician who is taking donations from the NRA, shame on you."

That line sparked a roar of applause from the crowd and was followed by chants of "Shame on you! Shame on you!" Video of Gonzalez's speech went viral on social media. The students have scheduled a town hall-style meeting Wednesday that will air on CNN. Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, an outspoken ally of the NRA, is scheduled to be there.

"Thanks for invitation," Rubio tweeted. "Look forward to participating in this important forum. I want action too. Action that will make a difference."

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After Parkland Shooting, Conservative Media Criticize Calls For Stricter Gun Laws

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In the week since a gunman murdered 17 in Parkland, Fla., Marjory Stoneman Douglas students have organized a national campaign against school violence with a forceful, simple message for the country: Never Again. They say, in order to prevent the next school shooting, America needs stricter gun laws, safer schools and for the National Rifle Association to get out of politics.

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Today, June 21, is National Ask Day, designated to encourage parents to ask whether a gun is present in a place their child will be and, if so, whether it is unloaded and locked up where no child can access it. The goal isn't to shame other parents who own guns or demand some special standard of parenting. It's to prevent deaths and injuries.

It's based on a truth shown in research that many parents have difficulty believing: Children who encounter a gun cannot be trusted to leave it alone and tell an adult, no matter how often they've been told or how many gun safety courses they've gone through--including the National Rifle Association's Eddie Eagle program. (In fact, especially Eddie Eagle, as discussed below.)

That doesn't mean talking to kids about guns or enrolling them in Eddie Eagle or a similar program is pointless. It's very important to tell children repeatedly never to touch a gun they may find and to notify an adult, and some kids will do exactly that if they come across a gun. The problem is, we don't know who. Even the child themselves do not know what they will do until they're in the situation, and their actions may vary by time and place.

Most children, like their parents, likely believe they would do as they've been taught and immediately notify an adult if they found a gun. But firearms hold an allure that is hard to resist that isn't fully understood, and despite kids' and parents' best intentions, most children will pick up the gun. A third or so will pull the trigger.

Whether the kids are interested in guns or not, have or haven't gone through a gun safety program or live in a home with or without guns are all irrelevant to what they'll do in a real life situation with a gun. Children's prefrontal cortex -- the part of the brain governing inhibition, planning, understanding consequences and executive function skills -- isn't developed enough yet.

Yet many parents genuinely believe their child won't touch a gun. And most are wrong. That is why asking about guns is so essential. It's not about whether someone is a gun owner or not. It's about whether the children, or their playmates, can find or access any firearms.
No Evidence Supports Eddie Eagle's Effectiveness
Perhaps the most popular of gun safety training program for kids is the Eddie Eagle GunSafe program sponsored by the NRA, yet no evidence shows that it will prevent kids from touching or picking up a found gun. The FAQ page for the program mentions a 2001 study that named the program the best of 80 gun accident prevention programs. But "best" is meaningless if it doesn't refer to effectiveness, and it doesn't.

That 2001 article, authored by Patricia K. Howard, PhD, RN, does conclude that the Eddie Eagle program contains the most elements of a successful educational program in general, but it's all theoretical, as Dr. Howard points out multiple times.

"Outcome measures on the effectiveness of the Eddie Eagle program are limited to anecdotal testimonials provided by adults who have reportedly witnessed a change in children's behavior after completing the program and internal data collection," Dr. Howard wrote. Everyone familiar with the scientific method knows that anecdotes are not data.

"We really do not know if current gun safety programs make a difference and what that difference might be because, unfortunately, we do not have measurable outcome criteria," Dr. Howard wrote. None of the programs had been evaluated at the time of her article. "Gun safety programs need to be followed up with some evaluation of a child's knowledge of the critical safety components," she wrote. "Some observational criteria need to be established to help determine whether the programs actually change the child's behavior."

It's worth noting that Dr. Howard also, in a different paper, reported that 85% of gun-owning parents did not practice safe gun storage and that "the only predictor of parents' incorrect perceptions about firearm safety training was the item â€˜children will be safe if taught.' This parental misperception provides further evidence that parents have unrealistic attitudes about children and guns." That's not exactly a ringing endorsement for NRA programs.

The other evidence the NRA offers to support the quality of its Eddie Eagle program falls short as well. They note that "fatal firearms accidents in the Eddie Eagle age group have been reduced by more than 80 percent since the program's nationwide launch." But firearm injuries in children are notoriously difficult to accurately track, as an extensive New York Times investigation documented. Fatalities alone also isn't the best measure because emergency medicine advances have led to better survival rates in those who are shot. Those shot who would previously have died are now likely to live with serious lifetime disabilities. Further, household ownership of firearms has steadily declined about 30% over the past several decades. (Number of guns owned has increased, but they are concentrated in fewer households, which means lower overall likelihoods of children encountering guns.)

The NRA says they "often receive letters from parents whose children have encountered guns in unsupervised situations and avoided an accident by doing exactly what Eddie Eagle had taught them: 'STOP! Don't touch. Run away. Tell a grown-up.'" Again, anecdotes are not data. In addition, children who go through the program are more likely to encounter a gun because their parents are more likely to own one, so there's a higher likelihood of having these anecdotes. Third, we have no idea how many injuries did occur that weren't reported.

The NRA offers two more pieces of support: the program has been honored or endorsed by a variety of organizations, including the U.S. Department of Justice, and by various state governors and legislatures, and "the fact that 26,000 school teachers and law enforcement officers have taught the Program to over 28 million children verifies the popularity of the Program with those who deal with child safety issues every day." But endorsements are worthless without data, and popularity or frequency of the class doesn't translate to data either.

As Jerry Maguire might say, show me the data. Since the NRA doesn't offer any data in its FAQ, does that mean that a program implemented nearly three decades ago has never been studied for its effectiveness -- ever? No.
Gun Safety Programs In General Aren't Very Effective
At least two other studies have evaluated the effectiveness of the Eddie Eagle program, and another may have. Neither offered good news. An effective gun-accident prevention program must actually prevent children from picking up guns they find, prevent them from pulling the trigger and prevent subsequent gun injuries and deaths.

Also in 2001, a study observed 64 boys between ages 8 and 12, all split by twos and threes into 29 groups of friends and/or siblings, who played in a room for 15 minutes. The room had a one-way mirror, two water pistols in a drawer and, in another drawer, a real .38 caliber handgun with a radio transmitter that tracked when the trigger was pressed hard enough to have fired the gun.

Twenty-one of the groups -- nearly three quarters -- found the handgun. Of 48 boys who found it, another three quarters (30 boys) picked it up, and 16 of those boys (half of those who picked it up) pulled the trigger. About half the boys who found the gun either thought it was a toy or didn't know if it was real. Parents had been asked beforehand about how interested their boys were in guns, but the kids who were supposedly less interested in guns were just as likely as the other boys to pick up the gun or pull the trigger.

Then the kicker: "90% of the boys who handled the gun or pulled the trigger reported that they had previously received some sort of gun safety instruction." The authors still conclude that children should be taught not to touch a gun and to get an adult if they find a gun, but "if gun safety education gives parents a sense of complacency without fundamentally altering child behavior, then it might do more harm than good," they add.

The authors didn't determine whether any of those children had taken the Eddie Eagle class, but a study two years later did. Researchers divided 31 children, ages 4 and 5, into three groups: one receiving no instruction, one participating in Eddie Eagle and one participating in a behavioral skills training program with modeling, rehearsal and feedback of the instruction. Children were evaluated on being able to repeat the message of the program and correctly demonstrate gun safety skills in a classroom and in a real-life simulation. Kids from both programs could repeat the gun safety message, but only children in the behavioral skills program correctly used safety skills during supervised role playing. Neither program led kids to show those skills in a real-life situation.

Another more promising study by the same group repeated the study above with 6- and 7-year-old children. Again, kids from both programs could repeat the safety message, but children in the behavioral program were more likely to demonstrate safety skills during role playing--and during a simulation--than those in the Eddie Eagle program. Teaching either program in a real-life simulation, however, was effective in improving children's safety skills.

In the Pediatrics study that came out a few days ago, the authors wrote, "Our findings indicate that most children who died of unintentional firearm injuries were shot by another child in their own age range and most often in the context of playing with a gun or showing it to others. Previous research shows that children are curious about firearms and will touch a firearm even when instructed not to do so."

The last study offered some good news, and perhaps one day a more effective program can be developed based on all these findings. Until then, you have to assume your child will pick up and possibly pull the trigger on a gun they find, so it's parents' responsibility to ask whether they're in a place where one could be accessible.

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Gun Safety Programs Won't Save Your Child, But This Question Might

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Today, June 21, is National Ask Day, designated to encourage parents to ask whether a gun is present in a place their child will be and, if so, whether it is unloaded and locked up where no child can access it. The goal isn't to shame other parents who own guns or demand some special standard of parenting.

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PARKLAND, Fla. (Reuters) - Stunned by the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history, students mobilized across the country on Sunday to organize rallies and a national walkout in support of stronger gun laws, challenging politicians they say have failed to protect them.

Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a former student is accused of murdering 17 people on Wednesday using an assault-style rifle, joined others on social media to plan the events, including a Washington march.

"I felt like it was our time to take a stand," said Lane Murdock, 15, of Connecticut. "We're the ones in these schools, we're the ones who are having shooters come into our classrooms and our spaces."

Murdock, who lives 20 miles (32 km) from Sandy Hook Elementary School where 20 children and six adults were shot to death five years ago, drew more than 50,000 signatures on an online petition on Sunday calling on students to walk out of their high schools on April 20.

GRAPHIC: tmsnrt.rs/2nX8ECo

Instead of going to classes, she urged her fellow students to stage protests on the 19th anniversary of an earlier mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado.

Students from the Florida high school are planning a "March for Our Lives" in Washington on March 24 to call attention to school safety and ask lawmakers to enact gun control.

They also plan to rally for gun control, mental health issues and school safety on Wednesday in Tallahassee, the state capital. The students were expected to meet with a lawmaker who is seeking to ban the sale of assault-style weapons like the AR-15 allegedly used in the school shooting.

The demands for change by many still too young to vote has inflamed the country's long-simmering debate between advocates for gun control and gun ownership.

Students from the Florida school have lashed out at political leaders, including Republican President Donald Trump, for inaction on the issue. Many criticized Trump for insensitivity after he said in a weekend Twitter post that the FBI may have been too distracted with a Russia probe to follow leads that could have prevented the massacre.

"You can't blame the bureaucracy for this when it's you, Mr. President, who's overall responsible," David Hogg, an 18-year-old Douglas senior, said in a phone interview.

'LISTENING SESSION'

The White House said Trump planned to host "a listening session" with high school students and teachers on Wednesday, but did not specify which students or school would be involved.

Democratic leaders vowed to redouble efforts to fight the nation's powerful gun lobby to reduce violence from firearms.

"We're the adults. We're the leaders in this country who are supposed to keep our children safe - and again and again, our country has let them down," Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said on Twitter.

The suspect in the Parkland shooting, Nikolas Cruz, 19, faces multiple murder charges in the deaths of 14 students and three staff members, and the wounding of more than a dozen others in a rampage that eclipsed Columbine as the country's worst mass shooting at a high school.

Cruz was reported to have been investigated by police and state officials as far back as 2016 after slashing his arm in a social media video, and saying he wanted to buy a gun. Authorities determined, however, he was receiving sufficient support, newspapers said on Saturday.

In addition, the Federal Bureau of Investigation admitted on Friday that it failed to investigate a warning that Cruz possessed a gun and the desire to kill.

A couple who opened their home to Cruz after his mother's recent death saw no signs he was planning a rampage, according to the Sun Sentinel in south Florida.

Kimberly and James Snead told the newspaper they knew Cruz had guns, and that they made him lock them in a safe. They thought they had the only key, they said.

Cruz faces charges that could bring the death penalty. Prosecutors have not yet said if they will seek capital punishment.

Four people still hospitalized with wounds from the shooting were in fair condition on Sunday, a spokeswoman for the Broward Health system said.

School officials in Broward County said on Sunday they were aiming to have staff return to the high school campus by the end of the week. They did not say when classes would resume.

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judicial process / court cases / court decisions

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Students plan protests, Washington march, to demand gun control...

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PARKLAND, Fla. (Reuters) - Stunned by the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history, students mobilized across the country on Sunday to organize rallies and a national walkout in support of stronger gun laws, challenging politicians they say have failed to protect them.

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It may be the only issue people on both sides of the gun control debate can agree on.

Proponents and foes of gun control say they want gun education and avoidance programs taught in public schools from kindergarten through middle school or even high school.

And activists aren't the only ones supporting gun education. Spurred by the series of school shootings in recent years, school districts and state legislatures across the country are pushing for gun education in the classroom.

Three weeks after a first grade boy brought to school a gun he found at home and shot his 6-year-old classmate in Mount Morris Township, Mich., the state Legislature passed a gun safety education provision with strong bipartisan support.

But the political compromise tends to end there. It's much harder to agree on just what kids should be taught about gun safety or whether gun education programs have any affect at all, said Heidi Cifelli, manager of the National Rifle Association's Eddie Eagle Gun Safe Program, which is now taught in Michigan elementary schools.

While fewer kids are bringing guns to school, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the rate of firearms death among children younger than 13 remains 25 times that of the other top 25 industrialized nations combined.

"Gun education is not mandatory in any state as far as we know, but of course we think all schools should have it," said Cifelli. "Gun education is the best way to save young lives."

The NRA Approach

Cifelli says the NRA would like more schools to use its program, called "Eddie Eagle," which teaches kids in grades K-6 to "Stop. Don't Touch. Leave the Area. Tell an Adult," when they see a gun. The program uses the character of an American Bald Eagle, sometimes in the form of a live mascot, throughout its lessons for children.

In the past two years Wisconsin, Oregon, and New York state Legislatures have tried to pass bills that would have made Eddie Eagle a mandatory part of the school curriculum. None of the bills were successful.

So far the week-long Eddie Eagle program, which includes coloring books, a video and often a visit from a local police officer dressed in an Eddie Eagle costume, has reached 13 million kids since 1988, said Cifelli. Eddie Eagle is usually taught as a special program by local police departments. But some schools have incorporated it into their regular health curriculums along with drug and alcohol education and sex education - depending on the grade level.

Opponents Have Different Approach

"Eddie Eagle is often referred to as Joe Camel dressed up in feathers. The Eddie Eagle program tends to glamorize guns by making them seem like something you can only do when you're an adult - just like drinking and smoking. You know what happens when you tell a child something like that. They want to do it more than ever," said Nancy Hwa, a spokesperson for the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, which offers its own gun safety education program called STAR.

STAR, or Straight Talk About Risks, is a K-12 program designed to be incorporated into school curriculums. It includes video and role playing activities to teach kids about anger management, conflict resolution and the possible consequences of handling a gun or using a firearm to resolve a conflict. Since its creation in 1992 it has been used in 80 school districts, which means more than 1000 schools nationwide.

The NRA in turn has criticized STAR by saying it teaches children that guns and gun owners are bad.

But critics of Eddie Eagle, STAR and the handful of lesser-known gun education programs for kids in school say there is no evidence that gun education alone reduces gun violence or gun-related injuries.

Critics Doubt Any Program Will Work

"The fact is that neither of these educational programs have ever been thoroughly evaluated and we don't really know if they work or not. But there is a need to do something and an education program is a more direct and less controversial way to address handgun violence and injuries," said Dr. Stephen Hargarten, chairman of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Despite the criticism, officials in Carroll County school district, Md., will be among the most recent to experiment with a gun-avoidance program in grades K-12, starting this fall. Their program is based on both Eddie Eagle and STAR, but has been "tailored to fit our community," said William Piercy, assistant supervisor of staff development and health for the district.

If the pilot program goes well, the school board plans to approve an official gun education program in the health curriculum by fall 2001.

"We think the best way to prevent accidents with guns and gun violence is through education. We live in a community where people do keep guns in their homes, people still hunt and there is still a farming community," Piercy said.

"Teachers and parents can't be with a child all the time so we need to educate them about the dangers of guns," he added. "We teach kids about bicycle safety and about alcohol and drugs and sex education so they will have a foundation they can take with them in all situations."

A few teachers were concerned the program may call for unloaded guns in the school for demonstrations. But there will be no guns in the classroom, Piercy said.

"It's amazing how people in the community on both sides of the political spectrum have supported this. Most people agree it's better to tackle the issue up front than try to avoid it," Piercy said.

However, Hargarten and his colleague at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Richard Withers, co-director of the college's Firearms Injury Center say they worry schools and parents will come to rely on education too much.

"I think education programs aren't harmful, but whether it's good for us to rely on them entirely is another question," said Withers, who supports federal and private research dollars going to develop safe gun technology rather evaluation of gun education programs.

Daniel Webster, a health policy researcher at The Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health said most child psychologists and pediatricians agree kids will be kids to a large extent. Often children don't hear what they don't want to hear.

"Guns still appear glamorous to them in films and television and among their peers," he said. "Education alone won't do it and it can sometimes make parents and teachers somewhat complacent," he said.

The Department of Education agrees that relying solely on education is not the answer.

"In schools the only thing that works to stop gun violence is some education combined with intervention, counselors in every school, parents getting involved, teachers being trained and involved and so on. Education is no silver bullet. It's not really proven to work at all," said Melinda Maliko, a department spokesperson.

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To Teach or Not Teach Gun Safety in School

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It may be the only issue people on both sides of the gun control debate can agree on. Proponents and foes of gun control say they want gun education and avoidance programs taught in public schools from kindergarten through middle school or even high school. And activists aren't the only...

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Read the latest stories about Gun Control on Time

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A Teacher of the Year at a Florida middle school posted a Facebook message that has since gone viral saying parents need to "step up" when it comes to their kids' behavior.

"Okay, I'll be the bad guy and say what no one else is brave enough to say, but wants to say," Kelly Guthrie Raley, who was named Eustis Middle School Teacher of the Year 2017-2018 last month, said in a now-viral Facebook post following the mass shooting that killed 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Raley said she'll "take all the criticism and attacks" for her opinion because, as a teacher with two decades of experience, she has to worry about an active-shooter situation on a daily basis.

The middle school teacher said over her almost two decades as an educator that she's seen an increase in violence and a lack of compassion among students.

"Until we, as a country, are willing to get serious and talk about mental health issues, lack of available care for the mental health issues, lack of discipline in the home, horrendous lack of parental support when the schools are trying to control horrible behavior at school (oh no! Not MY KID. What did YOU do to cause my kid to react that way?), lack of moral values, and yes, I'll say it - violent video games that take away all sensitivity to ANY compassion for others' lives - as well as reality TV that makes it commonplace for people to constantly scream up in each others' faces and not value any other person but themselves, we will have a gun problem in school," the sixth-grade language arts teacher wrote.

Raley, who loves hunting and four-wheeling in her spare time, added that she grew up with guns in her home.

"But you know what? My parents NEVER supported any bad behavior from me," Raley said.

She said when she began teaching 20 years ago, she never had to worry about calling a student's parents and getting cussed out, told to go to hell, or threatened with a public shaming all because she was calling out their child's behavior. Something, she said, has got to change.

"Parents, it's time to step up!" Raley urges. "Be the parent that actually gives a crap! Be the annoying mom that pries and knows what your kid is doing. STOP being their friend. They have enough 'friends' at school. Be their parent. Being the 'cool mom' means not a damn thing when either your kid is dead or your kid kills other people because they were allowed to have their space and privacy in YOUR HOME."

She doubles down that she had guns in her home.

"But you know what? I never dreamed of shooting anyone with his guns. I never dreamed of taking one! I was taught respect for human life, compassion, rules, common decency, and most of all, I was taught that until I moved out, my life and bedroom wasn't mine...it was theirs. And they were going to know what was happening because they loved me and wanted the best for me."

Raley concludes her post by adding that she never brought up gun control.

"This post wasn't about gun control," she said. "This was me, loving the crap out of people and wanting the best for them. This was about my school babies and knowing that God created each one for greatness, and just wanting them to reach their futures."

Raley said the only thing she holds dearer than teaching students is her faith and family, and that her father, a military hero, and her mother, a retired school teacher, inspired her to be who she is today.

Caleb Parke is an associate editor for FoxNews.com. You can follow him on Twitter @calebparke

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Florida Teacher of the Year's gun violence post goes viral after school shooting

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A Teacher of the Year at a Florida middle school posted a Facebook message that has since gone viral saying parents need to "step up" when it comes to their kids' behavior.

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LUTV's Taylor Gorton reports on gun control and 3D printing

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Teens solving the problem of gun control

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Teens solving the problem of gun control

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Read an article about the National School Walkout and use the related teaching resources.

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Introduction
Gun control involves laws that restrict access to arms, particularly firearms. It also includes the enforcement of such laws. Gun control deals with issues such as who is allowed to buy guns and other arms. Laws may limit the types of arms that people can buy. Laws may also state where and how arms should be stored or carried.

Every country has the authority to regulate firearms within its borders. The vast majority of industrialized countries have strict gun-control regulations. Even so, gun control is a controversial and emotional issue in many countries.

The gun-control debate often centers on two issues. The first issue is whether regulations of an individual's right to arms restrict liberty. The second issue is whether there is a connection between guns and crime. People arguing for gun control contend that strict gun-control laws save lives and reduce crime. Opponents of gun control state that individuals are better able to practice self-defense when there are fewer restrictions on guns. They also assert that a wider distribution of firearms results in safer communities.

United Kingdom
In England Parliament and the kings and queens always controlled arms. Arms were primarily seen as tools for the common defense of the realm. They were entrusted to economically prosperous subjects. The government strictly regulated arms to ensure that they were readily available for defense purposes. At the same time, the government wanted to keep arms out of the hands of dangerous people. For example, King Henry VIII, who reigned from 1509 to 1547, enacted various gun-control restrictions. They defined who was qualified to have guns and when and where guns might be fired. Other restrictions concerned the length of guns.

From the mid-17th to the late 18th century, members of Parliament periodically proposed laws that would remove gun restrictions. The laws would have allowed the general public to have guns for the defense of the kingdom. Such proposals failed, however, because leaders thought that arming too many people would be unsafe. In particular, they feared that armed mobs might try to overthrow the government. Therefore, the gun restrictions in England continued.

Naturally, the safety of the government was not the only reason that England imposed restrictions on guns. Gun-control restrictions sometimes supported the hunting of game or the access of hunters to game preserves. They were also used to prevent crime and murders.

Modern gun-control legislation in the United Kingdom began in earnest in the early 20th century. At the end of World War I there were excess weapons in the public's hands from the war. That led to the establishment of the Firearms Act of 1920. It required gun owners to have licenses from the police. It also prohibited certain groups, such as children, criminals, and the insane, from having firearms. The act of 1920 was later repealed, but new acts were adopted. Today the United Kingdom has some of the toughest gun-control regulations in the world. Handguns are banned, but some rifles and shotguns are allowed. Owners have to be licensed. They also have to limit their use of firearms to activities such as hunting, target shooting, and pest control.

United States
Gun control in the United States has been in place since the formation of the colonies. The American colonies had numerous gun-control laws concerning safety, crime, hunting, and the common defense. Slaves were not allowed to have guns. For free men, however, there were no gun restrictions by class. The rich and poor alike could own firearms. This policy was different from England's.

In the American colonies, men of all classes were required to maintain guns for the safety and defense of the state. In this philosophy of an armed citizenry, every citizen was considered a soldier and every soldier a citizen. The philosophy was later written in the U.S. Constitution 's Second Amendment (1791). It states, "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 precise meaning of the Second Amendment has been subject to intense debate, particularly in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. In general, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Second Amendment only prohibits gun-control laws that would completely deprive citizens of certain rights. These are the right to defend their homes and the right to serve in a national militia. In addition, state governments cannot pass gun-control laws that conflict with their state constitutions.

Both federal and state courts have permitted under the Constitution a number of gun-control measures. They have included restrictions on the time, place, or manner of gun use outside the home. They have included restrictions on the types of firearms that individuals can own. For example, laws have banned certain semiautomatic assault weapons. Other laws have limited who can own and use guns. Laws have placed limits on gun use by age and by alien status. Laws also have mandated background checks to keep guns out of the hands of people with criminal records or with serious mental health problems.

Modern Gun Control in Other Countries
Most other countries have some gun-control regulations. They range from strict to relatively lax. More-restrictive countries may ban certain firearms. They may impose age requirements for owning or using firearms or require firearm training. They may require background checks of individuals before they buy guns or any number of other procedures. The most-restrictive countries usually have a combination of regulations. Many countries enacted stricter gun-control laws in the late 20th or early 21st century in reaction to mass shootings. The connection between citizen safety and gun control continues to be debated in political, social, and cultural discussions.

Examples of how countries handle gun-control issues are numerous. For instance, Japan places restrictions on the possession and use of all firearms except in limited instances. These instances include hunting, athletic events, and research. The Australian government enacted gun-reform legislation in the mid-1990s. It introduced a licensing and registration system at the state and territory level. At the same time the country also began a program to buy (and destroy) from consumers all firearms on a prohibited list. Canada permits the possession and use of many rifles and shotguns. However, it restricts or forbids the possession of handguns in most cases. Germany permits the ownership of certain firearms so long as an individual meets the requirements for a firearms ownership license. To do so, applicants must be age 18 or older and pass a background check. Applicants must have expert knowledge in the handling of firearms. They must also prove they need to have such firearms (for purposes other than self defense).

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Gun control involves laws that restrict access to arms, particularly firearms. It also includes the enforcement of such laws. Gun control deals with issues such as who is...