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This has been an emotional week. We greet tragedies like the school shooting in Florida with shock, sadness, mourning and grief that turns into indignation and rage. The anger inevitably gets directed at the N.R.A., those who support gun rights, and the politicians who refuse to do anything while children die.

Many of us walked this emotional path. But we may end up doing more harm than good. If there's one thing we've learned, it is that guns have become a cultural flash point in a nation that is unequal and divided. The people who defend gun rights believe that snobbish elites look down on their morals and want to destroy their culture. If we end up telling such people that they and their guns are despicable, they will just despise us back and dig in their heels.

So if you want to stop school shootings it's not enough just to vent and march. It's necessary to let people from Red America lead the way, and to show respect to gun owners at all points. There has to be trust and respect first. Then we can strike a compromise on guns as guns, and not some sacred cross in the culture war.

So I've been thinking about a group that's in the trust and respect business. Better Angels is a nonprofit led by David Lapp, David Blankenhorn and a prominent family therapist, Bill Doherty. The team members travel from town to town finding members of the Red and Blue Tribes and bringing them together for long, humbling conversations.

My Times colleague April Lawson has gotten involved with Better Angels and has been reporting back on its techniques.

One of the most successful parts of the structured conversations is built around stereotypes. Doherty, the head moderator, asks the people at each gathering to name five major stereotypes that the other side throws at them. The Republicans invariably list "racist" first, followed by, say, "uncaring," "uneducated," "misogynistic" and "science deniers."

In a session Lawson attended, a Trump supporter acknowledged that the G.O.P. has had a spotty record on racial matters, but it's important to him that Blues know that's not why he holds his opinions.

Doherty says that the Reds feel shamed by the Blues to a much greater degree than the Blues realize. Reds are very reluctant to enter into a conversation with Blues, for fear of further shaming, but they often come to the table when they are told that this will be a chance to "de-monsterize" themselves.

At that session one Blue said she was really grateful to hear a Red acknowledge the Republican history on race. When Blues are asked about the stereotypes thrown at them, they tend to list "against religion and morality," "unpatriotic" and "against personal responsibility" among their responses. They, too, relish the chance to clear the air.

After the stereotypes are discussed, the room feels different. As one Red in Ohio told Lawson, "I think we are all pretty clear on one thing: Don't tell us who we are and what we think." Another Red was moved almost to tears by the damage categories do. "We're not just cookie-cutter people; we're individuals. Just because you don't like something, you don't have to ridicule it - you probably don't understand it," she said. "When someone's heart is full up with something, and then you demean it without even listening to them - I hate that."

The discussions reveal other sensitivities. Some Blues didn't want to enter a venue that had a "Don't Tread on Me" flag on the wall. To Reds that was a neutral flag from American history, but to Blues it carried all sorts of nasty associations. Reds were offended by the lawn signs that said, "Hate Has No Home Here." The implication: Hate has no home in my house, but it does in yours.

In another exercise, Reds and Blues ask each other honest, nonleading questions. Blues may ask Reds, "Name a safety-net program you can support." Reds may ask Blues, "How do you balance having a heart with keeping health care costs under control?"

By the end of the conversations, the atmosphere has changed. Nearly always somebody will say that the discussion was easy because only moderates were in the room, not the people who post crazy stuff on Facebook. The staff tries not to smile, knowing that some of the people were selected precisely because of the intense stuff they posted on Facebook.

"This is not a civility organization," Blankenhorn told Lawson. Better Angels is aiming to build a group of people whose personal bonds with their fellow citizens redefine how they engage in the political system.

We don't really have policy debates anymore. We have one big tribal conflict, and policy fights are just proxy battles as each side tries to establish moral superiority. But just as the tribal mentality has been turned on, it can be turned off. Then and only then can we go back to normal politics and take reasonable measures to keep our children safe.

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Opinion | Respect First, Then Gun Control

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This has been an emotional week. We greet tragedies like the school shooting in Florida with shock, sadness, mourning and grief that turns into indignation and rage. The anger inevitably gets directed at the N.R.A., those who support gun rights, and the politicians who refuse to do anything while children die.

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President Trump and Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, a Republican, both declined invitations to participate in the town hall-style meeting.

The father of a 14-year-old girl who was killed at Stoneman Douglas angrily lectured Mr. Rubio for his refusal to support gun control legislation.

The father, Fred Guttenberg, demanded that Mr. Rubio explain his opposition to a ban on the kind of assault weapon that the gunman at the school used to shoot his daughter, Jaime.

"My daughter, running down the hallway, was shot in the back with an assault weapon, the weapon of choice," Mr. Guttenberg said during the forum as Mr. Rubio stood stone-faced. "It is too easy to get. It is a weapon of war. The fact that you can't stand with everybody else in this room and say that, I'm sorry."

The room erupted in applause for Mr. Guttenberg and repeatedly booed as Mr. Rubio sought to explain his opposition to a proposed assault weapons ban. The bill, he said, is riddled with loopholes that would make it easy for criminals to get around.

"First, you have to define what it is. It basically bans 220 specific models of gun," Mr. Rubio said, prompting applause from the audience.

He continued, saying that the bill also allows for "2,000 other types" of guns that operate the same way but are not classified as assault weapons.

Ms. Loesch repeatedly deflected questions about restrictions on the availability of guns, insisting instead that keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill or people with criminal records would keep students safe.

"I don't believe that this insane monster should have ever been able to obtain a firearm, ever," Ms. Loesch told Emma González, a senior at the high school. "None of us support people who are crazy, who are a danger to themselves, who are a danger to others, getting their hands on a firearm."

But her answers prompted angry taunts from the audience. At times, Ms. Loesch struggled to answer, but she steadfastly refused to back down on the N.R.A.'s position opposing new gun restrictions.

She said the group opposed raising the legal age for purchasing an assault weapon to 21 from 18, an idea that Mr. Trump had earlier signaled support for. Students who are old enough to serve in the military should be allowed to own firearms, she said.

Diane Wolk Rogers, a history teacher at Stoneman Douglas, confronted Ms. Loesch by asking her to defend the idea that allowing the suspect in the shooting, a 19-year-old, to own an assault rifle represents "a well-regulated militia" as is written in the Second Amendment.

Ms. Loesch said the phrase was meant to protect the rights of anyone who "could operate and service their firearm," an answer that drew loud yelling and more boos from the audience.

Mr. Rubio, for his part, had offered opening remarks that he clearly hoped would deflect criticism during the event. He expressed grief for those who were affected by the shooting, but he said that people in the United States needed to find ways to disagree "without accusing one another of being evil people."

But the audience, including Mr. Guttenberg, did not hold back in criticizing Mr. Rubio's position on gun control. Mr. Guttenberg repeatedly asked whether Mr. Rubio believed that "guns were the factor in the hunting of our kids."

The senator said he agreed, but he insisted that other types of laws would better prevent such attacks. He said that he would support a bill to increase the minimum age for the purchase of an assault weapon to 21 from 18. And he said that he backed improvements to background checks and a ban on so-called bump stocks, which can convert semiautomatic weapons to fire automatically.

Students and teachers at the forum on Wednesday also had questions for Florida's other politicians, including two Democrats, Senator Bill Nelson and Representative Ted Deutch.

One young student talked about how her best friend was killed in front of her, and she asked Mr. Nelson about background checks, and how to improve them.

Another student, whose brother died in the shooting, bluntly said to Mr. Deutch that "my friends and I are worried that we are going to be murdered in our classrooms." He asked what Mr. Deutch was going to do about it.

"As a starter," the congressman said, "I'm going to introduce legislation to make sure that assault weapons are illegal in every part of this country."

The audience burst into applause.

But Mr. Rubio, who ran for president in 2016, was repeatedly challenged on his positions on gun control and his willingness to accept donations from the N.R.A.

The issue of donations was raised by a junior at Stoneman Douglas who stood just feet from the senator and asked him whether he would renounce money from the gun advocacy group in the future. When Mr. Rubio refused, the audience booed loudly.

"People buy into my agenda, and I do support the Second Amendment," Mr. Rubio said, repeatedly refusing to say he would stop accepting money from the group. "The influence of these groups comes not from money, the influence comes from the millions of people who support the agenda."

Mr. Deutch at one point engaged in a brief debate with Mr. Rubio, saying that a gun allowing someone to fire off 150 rounds in six to seven minutes "should be banned."

Later, Chris Grady, a student at the high school, thanked Mr. Rubio for appearing at the forum, unlike Mr. Trump and Mr. Scott.

"A lot more than can be said for our so-called president and governor," Mr. Grady told Mr. Rubio. "We need you and your colleagues on both sides to come together with us and find a compromise if we are ever to solve this epidemic."

Mr. Grady asked the senator whether he supported legislation to limit high-capacity magazines that allow weapons to fire many bullets quickly. Mr. Rubio said that he had long opposed such legislation, but was now reconsidering that position.

The senator said that there could be evidence from the Florida school shooting that suggested the gunman might have killed fewer people if he did not have high-capacity magazines.

"It wouldn't have prevented the attack, but it would have made it less lethal," Mr. Rubio said.

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Marco Rubio and an N.R.A. Official Were Jeered and Lectured on Gun Control

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President Trump and Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, a Republican, both declined invitations to participate in the town hall-style meeting. The father of a 14-year-old girl who was killed at Stoneman Douglas angrily lectured Mr. Rubio for his refusal to support gun control legislation.

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In February 2011, Swiss citizens voted in a referendum that called for a national gun registry and for firearms owned by members of the military to be stored in public arsenals.

"It is a question of trust between the state and the citizen. The citizen is not just a citizen, he is also a soldier," Hermann Suter, who at the time was vice president of the Swiss gun-rights group Pro Tell, told the BBC then. "The gun at home is the best way to avoid dictatorships-only dictators take arms away from the citizens."

Apparently many of his fellow Swiss agreed. The referendum was easily defeated. Gun ownership in the country has deep historic roots and it is tied to mandatory military service for Swiss men between the ages of 18 and 34. Traditionally, soldiers were allowed to keep their weapons at home in order to defend against conquering armies. These fears came close to being realized during the Franco-Prussian War on 1871; as well as World War I, when the Swiss border was threatened; and World War II, when the country feared a Nazi invasion.

But guns are popular beyond the military, as well. Children as young as 12 are taught how to shoot as well as the rules of gun safety, and are encouraged to participate in highly popular target-shooting competitions. The country's cultural attachment to firearms resembles America's in some ways, though it has no constitutional right to bear arms-it has the third-highest rate of private gun ownership in the world, behind the United States and Yemen. Yet Switzerland has a low rate of gun crime, and hasn't seen a mass shooting since 2001, when a gunman opened fire in the legislative body in the Canton of Zug, killing 14 people, as well as himself.

So it's possible to have widespread gun ownership without so frequently seeing the kinds of incidents that the U.S. saw on Wednesday, when a gunman killed 17 people at a high school in Florida. But how?

For one thing, Switzerland's rate of gun ownership is still substantially lower than America's-in Switzerland the rate is roughly one gun per four people, whereas in the U.S. it's more than one per person, according to GunPolicy.org. The Swiss Defense Ministry estimates that there are 2 million privately owned weapons in the country of 8.3 million people. There are estimated to be 300 million guns in the U.S., but 130 million of them are owned by about 3 percent of the adult population.

Another way the two countries differ is in their rates of gun-related deaths. Swiss gun-related death rates are the highest in Europe. The figure for the U.S. is three times higher than that for Switzerland. Much of that is attributable in both countries to suicide. Mass shootings in Switzerland are relatively rare, though, with two in the past 20 years. By one estimate, there have been 30 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2018 alone, including Wednesday's in Florida-though the number of fatalities in these mass shootings is only a small proportion of the overall gun-related homicides in the U.S.

The Washington Post offers some reasons why mass shootings are more common in the U.S. than in Switzerland:

Swiss authorities have a list of about 2,000 individuals they suspect of being willing to commit shootings. All of them are frequently approached by authorities, along with psychologists, and are forced to hand over their weapons immediately or are barred from purchasing new ones.

Some sociologists say that Switzerland's military service comes close to an extended background check, too, and that the country's education system teaches children early on to search for compromises instead of risking open conflicts. Hence, while almost every home in Switzerland may have a weapon, access is still indirectly regulated and the use of weapons usually follows strict societal norms.

Then there's the question of what Swiss guns are meant to defend against. The Swiss trust their government more than citizens of other rich countries trust theirs. So the tradition of gun ownership arose more from the historic need to protect Switzerland from invaders than from the hypothetical need to overthrow a tyrannical government. And as Time pointed out in 2012, "the culture of responsibility and safety ... is anchored in society and passed from generation to generation."

The fundamental difference between Switzerland and the U.S. when it comes to buying guns is not the ease of purchase-it's easy in both countries-but the regulations that are associated with gun ownership in Switzerland. Most firearms, with the exception of fully automatic weapons, are legal. But background checks are mandated, which is not always the case in the U.S. Heavy machine guns and military weapons such as grenade launchers are banned in Switzerland; under some circumstances they can be purchased in the U.S. Public-carrying permits are issued rarely. Guns can be transported, but must remain unloaded at all times when they're not in use.

Hunting weapons must be registered with the local Canton. Pistols, rifles, and semiautomatic weapons require a license. The paperwork is relatively easy to obtain-and Cantons can make exceptions for individuals. (Citizens of Albania, Algeria, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Turkey who live in the country as permanent residents are forbidden from buying guns because of their nations' history of civil war.)

Switzerland's relatively liberal rules may soon face a challenge from outside the country's borders, however. The country is a member of the Schengen area, the group of 26 European countries that allows for the free movement of people. Some other members of the Schengen area are also members of the European Union (Switzerland is not). Last year the EU tightened the restrictions on gun ownership and Switzerland, as a member of the Schengen, must bring its laws in line with the new regulations by August of this year. Swiss gun-rights advocates are already planning a legal challenge because, among other things, it revisits the idea of a gun registry.

"When conflicts arise, Switzerland must put its sovereignty first," Christoph Blocher, the vice president of the SVP, the country's biggest party, told Reuters. "In an emergency, Switzerland should be ready to exit Schengen."

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In February 2011, Swiss citizens voted in a referendum that called for a national gun registry and for firearms owned by members of the military to be stored in public arsenals. "It is a question of trust between the state and the citizen.

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With Grief and Hope, Florida Students Take Gun Control To The Road

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With Grief and Hope, Florida Students Take Gun Control To The Road

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Many of the protests around the country have arrived semi-spontaneously, apparently ignited by the impassioned pleas of young Parkland survivors in the hours and days after the shooting last Wednesday. Facebook and Twitter have amplified attendance; Snapchat and Instagram have documented the marches, signs and chants.

Some on the left were hopeful that the unsullied voices of teenagers, cutting through the usual tussle over whether gun control advocates were politicizing a tragedy, would move previously unbudgeable lawmakers. Still, the students have faced questions from some conservatives over whether they are being exploited by the left. Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday asked on Twitter, "Should the media be promoting opinions by teenagers who are in an emotional state and facing extreme peer pressure in some cases?"

In another sign of the deep entrenchment of guns, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that a state pension plan for Florida teachers held more than $500,000 in shares in the company that manufactured the semiautomatic AR-15 assault rifle that was used in the attack in Parkland.

For now, however, there is momentum. From South Florida to Bellingham, Wash., local walkouts were proliferating. A national event has been planned for March 14, the one-month anniversary of the Parkland shooting, when students and teachers plan to leave class for 17 minutes, one minute for each victim. On March 24, students will protest in Washington at an event organized by March for Our Lives, the group formed by Parkland survivors, which has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from celebrities. Another mass walkout is scheduled for April 20, when students will commemorate the 19th year since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999.

The organizers of last year's Women's March are directing the March 14 walkout. Mostly, though, the adults have gotten out of the way.

On Tuesday morning, hundreds of students from West Boca Raton High School in South Florida walked out of class and onto the roads, bound for Stoneman Douglas High, in a march that took Broward County officials by surprise. The authorities abruptly assembled a law enforcement escort for the students, said Todd DeAngelis, a city of Parkland spokesman. They also organized water stations along the way to help students, who walked nearly 11 miles, beat the heat.

"These kids may look like they're summer campers," said Paul Corin, whose daughter, Jaclyn, helped organize the Parkland caravan to Tallahassee. "But they are fierce warriors."

In Bakersfield, Calif., about a dozen students and 80 adults marched on Presidents' Day in support of stricter gun laws. The same day, more than 200 students in Iowa City marched out of school, walked to the Old Capitol downtown and gathered to read the names of the Parkland victims.

"The N.R.A. has got to go," they chanted. "Not one more," they chanted.

"At this point, you're either with us or against us," said Lujayn Hamad, a senior at West High School, according to The Iowa City Press-Citizen. "We are dying, and I'm not going to stand for it anymore."

Some of the students of Toms River, N.J., also spent part of Presidents' Day, a school holiday, massed on the steps of the squat, red brick public library. A young man who described himself as a 16-year-old junior led the crowd in chants of, "Enough is enough! Enough is enough!"

"This is what it's come to," he said. "In this country, kids are typically expected to take a back seat to what goes on in politics and policy, and what's going on right now - it can't happen like that any longer."

Accusing Congress and state legislators of inaction, he advocated stronger gun restrictions. The other option, he said, was turning schools into armed camps where "I have to be aware if there's a loud bang in the school, do I know where to go?"

The adults who "have the responsibility to take care of these things" have failed, he said. "It's our generation's responsibility."

On Tuesday, at least 20 students walked out of Harper Creek High School in Battle Creek, Mich. The principal stood with them, and the district's superintendent was on hand.

Students left class or held gatherings all over South Florida on Monday and Tuesday. There was American Heritage School in Plantation. Olympic Heights High School in suburban Boca Raton. Park Vista Community High School in Lake Worth. Fort Lauderdale High School in Fort Lauderdale. McArthur High School in Hollywood.

At South Broward High School, students aimed to participate in a protest almost every day to make their point.

They started with a protest at their school in Hollywood last Friday, and then rallied in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday and at Hollywood City Hall on Monday, said Rachel Donly, a 16-year-old sophomore.

"We don't think anyone is truly listening to us yet," said Ms. Donly, whose father is a teacher. "So we don't want to give up. We're just going to keep fighting."

On the Parkland buses, pillows and sleeping bags had been mushed into the seats. Candy and doughnuts were passed from row to row. Laughter occasionally poked through. But the people the students were traveling for - their fallen classmates, coaches, teachers - were never far from their minds.

Anthony Lopez, 16, a junior, was sitting alone in the back. He had scratched out a wish list he planned to deliver to lawmakers.

"Ban on military grade weapons (assault weapons, etc.)" he had written.

"Universal background check, stricter," he had added.

"Raise age for gun ownership (20+), unless for sport or hunting (16+)."

Then the news arrived that the Florida House had refused even to consider a ban on assault weapons. How could lawmakers ignore the activism that had lit up social media, the students wondered.

"They know that multiple kids, hundreds of kids, are coming up to the state Capitol, which by the way is extremely far, just to talk to them," Mr. Bishop said.

In the back, Mr. Lopez slammed his head back on the bus seat. He placed a hand on his forehead.

"That's infuriating," he said. "They're acting inhuman."

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With Grief and Hope, Florida Students Take Gun Control Fight On the Road

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Many of the protests around the country have arrived semi-spontaneously, apparently ignited by the impassioned pleas of young Parkland survivors in the hours and days after the shooting last Wednesday. Facebook and Twitter have amplified attendance; Snapchat and Instagram have documented the marches, signs and chants.

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History of Gun Control Laws
Gun control laws are just as old or older than the Second Amendment (ratified in 1791). Some examples of gun control throughout colonial America included criminalizing the transfer of guns to Catholics, enslaved people, indentured servants, and Native Americans; regulating the storage of gun powder in homes; banning loaded guns in Boston houses; and mandating participation in formal gathering of troops and door-to-door surveys about guns owned.

Guns were common in the American Colonies, first for hunting and general self-protection and later as weapons in the American Revolutionary War. Several colonies' gun laws required that heads of households (including women) own guns and that all able-bodied men enroll in the militia and carry personal firearms. Read more history...

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1

The Second Amendment is not an unlimited or individual right to own guns.

Further, the Second Amendment was intended to protect the right of militias to own guns, not the right of individuals to own guns. Former Justice John Paul Stevens, in his dissenting opinion for District of Columbia et al. v. Heller, wrote, "the Framer's single-minded focus in crafting the constitutional guarantee 'to keep and bear arms' was on military use of firearms, which they viewed in the context of service in state militias," hence the inclusion of the phrase "well regulated militia."

Michael Waldman, President of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, stated there is nothing about an individual right to bear arms in the notes about the Second Amendment when it was being drafted, discussed, or ratified; the US Supreme Court declined to rule in favor of the individual right four times between 1876 and 1939; and all law articles on the Second Amendment from 1888 to 1959 stated that an individual right was not guaranteed.
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Pro 2

More gun control laws would reduce gun deaths.

Approximately 50% of unintentional fatal shootings were self-inflicted; and most unintentional firearm deaths were caused by friends or family members.

Five women are murdered with guns every day in the United States. A woman's risk of being murdered increases 500% if a gun is present during a domestic dispute. During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, 5,364 US soldiers were killed in action between Oct. 7, 2001 and Jan. 28, 2015; between 2001 and 2012 6,410 women were killed with a gun by an intimate partner in the United States.

Researchers found that a "general barrier to firearm access created through state regulation can have a significant deterrent effect on male suicide rates in the United States. Permit requirements and bans on sales to minors were the most effective of the regulations analyzed."

Gun licensing laws were associated with a 14% decrease in firearm homicides, while increases in firearm homicides were seen in places with right-to-carry and stand-your ground-laws.

More gun control leads to fewer suicides. When US gun ownership goes down, overall suicide rates drop; meanwhile, each 10 percentage-point increase in gun ownership is linked to a 26.9% increase in the youth suicide rate. In Indiana and Connecticut, after "red flag" laws to remove guns from people who may pose a threat were enacted, gun suicides decreased by 7.5% and 13.7% respectively, while suicides by other means did not decrease during the same time. A person who wants to kill him/herself is unlikely to commit suicide with poison or a knife when a gun is unavailable.

The US General Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that 31% of total accidental shooting deaths could have been prevented by installing safety devices on guns: 100% of deaths per year in which a child under 6 years old shoots and kills him/herself or another child could be prevented by automatic child-proof safety locks; and 23% of accidental shooting deaths by adolescents and adults per year could be prevented by loading indicators showing when a bullet was in the chamber ready to be fired.

Marjorie Sanfilippo, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Eckerd College who has researched children's behavior around guns, stated, "We put gates around swimming pools to keep children from drowning. We put safety caps on medications to keep children from poisoning themselves.... [B]ecause children are naturally curious and impulsive, and because we have shown time and again that we cannot 'gun-proof' them with education, we have a responsibility to keep guns out of the hands of children."
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Pro 3

The presence of a gun makes a conflict more likely to become violent.

The FBI found that arguments (such as romantic triangles, brawls fueled by alcohol or drugs, and arguments over money) resulted in 1,962 gun deaths (59.9% of the total).

An editorial published in the American Journal of Public Health noted, "gun-inflicted deaths [often] ensue from impromptu arguments and fights; in the US, two-thirds of the 7,900 deaths in 1981 involving arguments and brawls were caused by guns." A study published in the same journal found that "the weapons used [in altercations]... were those closest at hand." And thus, according to another study, "[r]ather than confer protection, guns kept in the home are associated with an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance."

Common sense gun control laws can decrease the likelihood of a violent situation turning deadly. President Ronald Reagan and others did not think the AR-15 military rifle (also called M16s by the Air Force) should be owned by civilians and, when the AR-15 was included in the assault weapons ban of 1994 (which expired on Sep. 13, 2004), the NRA supported the legislation. A Mother Jones investigation found that high-capacity magazines were used in at least 50% of the 62 mass shootings between 1982 and 2012.When high-capacity magazines were used in mass shootings, the death rate rose 63% and the injury rate rose 156%.
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Pro 4

A majority of adults, including gun owners, support common sense gun control such as background checks, bans on assault weapons, and bans on high-capacity magazines.

According to a Feb. 20, 2018 Quinnipiac Poll, 97% of American voters and 97% of gun owners support universal background checks. 67% support a nationwide ban on assault weapons, and 83% support mandatory waiting periods for gun purchases.

As much as 40% of all gun sales are undocumented private party gun sales that do not require a background check (aka the "gun show loophole").

53% of all adults surveyed approve of high-capacity magazine bans. 89% of adults with a gun in the home approve of laws to prevent the purchase of guns by the mentally ill, and 82% approve of banning gun sales to people on no-fly lists.

77% of Americans support requiring a license to purchase a gun.

Don Macalady, member of Hunters against Gun Violence, stated, "As a hunter and someone who has owned guns since I was a young boy, I believe that commonsense gun legislation makes us all safer. Background checks prevent criminals and other dangerous people from getting guns."

Many would like to see the U.S. enact more laws like other countries, citing the fact that countries with restrictive gun control laws have lower gun homicide and suicide rates than the United States. Both Switzerland and Finland require gun owners to acquire licenses and pass background checks that include mental and criminal records, among other restrictions and requirements. In 2007 Switzerland ranked number 3 in international gun ownership rates with 45.7 guns per 100 people (about 3,400,000 guns total). In 2009 Switzerland had 24 gun homicides (0.31 deaths per 100,000 people) and 253 gun suicides (3.29 deaths per 100,000 people). Finland ranked fourth in international gun ownership rates with 45.3 guns per 100 people (about 2,400,000 guns total). In 2007 Finland had 23 (0.43 deaths per 100,000 people) gun homicides and 172 gun suicides (4.19 deaths per 100,000 people).
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Con 1

The Second Amendment of the US Constitution protects individual gun ownership.

The Second Amendment of the US Constitution 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."

Lawrence Hunter, Chairman of Revolution PAC, stated, "The Founders understood that the right to own and bear laws is as fundamental and as essential to maintaining liberty as are the rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of religion and the other protections against government encroachments on liberty delineated in the Bill of Rights."
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Con 2

Gun control laws are discriminatory and infringe on citizens' rights

Current gun control laws are frequently aimed at inner city, poor, black communities who are perceived as more dangerous than white gun owners. Charles Gallagher, Chair of Sociology at LaSalle University, stated that some gun control laws are still founded on racial fears: "Whites walking down Main Street with an AK-47 are defenders of American values; a black man doing the same thing is Public Enemy No. 1."

Background checks and micro-stamping are an invasion of privacy. Background checks require government databases that keep personal individual information on gun owners, including name, addresses, mental health history, criminal records, and more. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) worried that Senator Harry Reid's 2013 proposed background check legislation (the bill failed 54-46) would have allowed the government to keep databases of gun purchases indefinitely, creating a "worry that you're going to see searches of the databases and an expansion for purposes that were not intended when the information was collected." Micro-stamping similarly requires a database of gun owners and the codes their personal guns would stamp on cartridge cases. Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ted Cruz (R-TX) wrote that they would oppose any legislation that infringes "on the American people's constitutional right to bear arms, or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to government surveillance."

Gun control laws infringe upon the right to self-defense and deny people a sense of safety. The police cannot protect everyone all of the time. 61% of men and 56% of women surveyed by Pew Research said that stricter gun laws would "make it more difficult for people to protect their homes and families." Nelson Lund, Professor at George Mason University School of Law, stated, "The right to self-defense and to the means of defending oneself is a basic natural right that grows out of the right to life" and "many [gun control laws] interfere with the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves against violent criminals." A Pew Foundation report found that 79% of male gun owners and 80% of female gun owners said owning a gun made them feel safer and 64% of people living in a home in which someone else owns a gun felt safer. Even Senator Dianne Feinstein, a gun control advocate, carried a concealed gun when her life was threatened and her home attacked by the New World Liberation Front in the 1970s.

Gun control laws, especially those that try to ban "assault weapons," infringe upon the right to own guns for hunting and sport. In 2011, there were 13.7 million hunters 16 years old or older in the United States, High-powered semiautomatic rifles and shotguns are used to hunt and in target shooting tournaments each year. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, "So-called 'Assault weapons' are more often than not less powerful than other hunting rifles. The term 'assault weapon' was conjured up by anti-gun legislators to scare voters into thinking these firearms are something out of a horror movie... [T]he Colt AR-15 and Springfield M1A, both labeled 'assault weapons,' are the rifles most used for marksmanship competitions in the United States. And their cartridges are standard hunting calibers, useful for game up to and including deer." According to a Feb. 2013 Pew Research report, 32% of gun owners owned guns for hunting and 7% owned guns for target or sport shooting.
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Con 3

Gun control laws simply do not work.

Gun control efforts have proved ineffective. According to David Lampo, Publications Director of the Cato Institute, "there is no correlation between waiting periods and murder or robbery rates." Banning high-capacity magazines will not necessarily deter crime because even small gun magazines can be changed in seconds.The "gun show loophole" is virtually nonexistent because commercial dealers, who sell the majority of guns at shows and elsewhere, are bound by strict federal laws. According to a Mar. 10, 2016 Lancet study, most state-level gun control laws do not reduce firearm death rates, and, of 25 state laws, nine were associated with higher gun death rates.

Mexico has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world and yet, in 2012, Mexico had 11,309 gun murders (9.97 gun homicides per 100,000 people) compared to the United States that had 9,146 gun homicides (2.97 per 100,000 people). The country has only one legal gun store (the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales), compared to at least 63,709 legal gun stores and pawn shops in the United States as of Feb. 10, 2014. Mexico's gun store is on a secure military base and customers must present a valid ID, go through a metal detector, and turn over cellphones and cameras to guards. To actually buy a gun, customers have to show proof of honest income, provide references, pass a criminal background check, prove any military duties were completed with honor, and be fingerprinted and photographed. If allowed to purchase a gun, the customer may buy only one gun (choosing from only .38 caliber pistols or lower) and one box of bullets. Between 2006 and 2010, Mexico's one gun shop sold 6,490 guns, yet as of 2012, Mexicans own about 15,000,000 guns, or about 13.5 guns per 100 people.

The main reason gun control doesn't work is because laws will not prevent criminals from obtaining guns or breaking laws. Of 62 mass shootings in the United States between 1982 and 2012, 49 of the shooters used legally obtained guns. Collectively, 143 guns were possessed by the killers with about 75% obtained legally. A Secret Service analysis found that of 24 mass shootings in 2019 at least 10 (42%) involved illegally possessed guns.

The logical conclusion is that gun control laws do not deter crime; gun ownership deters crime. A study in Applied Economics Letters found that "assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level" and "states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murders." While gun ownership doubled in the twentieth century, the murder rate decreased. Journalist John Stossel explained, "Criminals don't obey the law... Without the fear of retaliation from victims who might be packing heat, criminals in possession of these [illegal] weapons now have a much easier job... As the saying goes, 'If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.'"

More gun control is not needed; education about guns and gun safety is needed to prevent accidental gun deaths. 95% of all US gun owners believe that children should learn about gun safety. The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute, Inc (SAAMI), stated, "Whether in the field, at the range or in the home, a responsible and knowledgeable gun owner is rarely involved in a firearms accident of any kind." According to Kyle Wintersteen, Managing Editor of Guns and Ammo, studies show that "children taught about firearms and their legitimate uses by family members have much lower rates of delinquency than children in households without guns" and "children introduced to guns associate them with freedom, security, and recreation-not violence." [82] [85] [154]
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Con 4

Gun control laws give too much power to the government and may result in government tyranny and the government taking away all guns from citizens.

57% of people surveyed by Pew Research in Feb. 2013 said that gun control laws would "give too much power to the government over the people."

The NRA's Wayne LaPierre stated, "if you look at why our Founding Fathers put it [the Second Amendment] there, they had lived under the tyranny of King George and they wanted to make sure that these free people in this new country would never be subjugated again and have to live under tyranny."

Concurring, Alex Jones, radio host, stated, "The Second Amendment isn't there for duck hunting, it's there to protect us from tyrannical government and street thugs... 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms!"

Marco Rubio (R-FL), US Senator, speaking about gun control laws during his 2016 presidential campaign, stated, "If God forbid, ISIS visits our life, our neighborhood, our school, any part of us, the last thing standing, the last line of defense could very well be our ability to protect ourselves."
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Did You Know?

1. A Pew Foundation report found that 79% of male gun owners and 80% of female gun owners said owning a gun made them feel safer, and 64% of people living in a home in which someone else owns a gun felt safer.

2. The US General Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that 100% of deaths per year in which a child under 6 years old shoots and kills him/herself or another child could be prevented by automatic child-proof safety locks.

3. The Centers for Disease Control listed firearms as the #12 cause of all deaths between 1999 and 2015, representing 1.3% of total deaths. They were also the #1 method of death by homicide (67.3% of all homicides) and by suicide (51.9% of all suicides).

4. Mexico has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world and yet, in 2012, Mexico had 11,309 gun murders (9.97 gun homicides per 100,000 people) compared to the United States that had 9,146 gun homicides (2.97 per 100,000 people).

5. Carrying a concealed handgun in public has been permitted in all 50 states since 2013, when Illinois became the last state to enact concealed carry legislation.

6. Five women a day are killed by guns in America. A woman's risk of being murdered increases 500% if a gun is present during a domestic dispute.

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Proponents say the Second Amendment is not an unlimited right to own guns. Opponents say the amendment protects individual gun ownership.

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There is no doubt that there are limits to state and local gun laws. Cities like Chicago and Baltimore, with rigorous gun laws, also have two of the highest murder rates in the country. The black market for illegal guns has thrived in those cities, with gang members and criminals turning to the streets to get firearms.

And the drop in fatal shootings in Connecticut has occurred in the context of a broad, long-term decline in violent crime across the country. Citing F.B.I. statistics, the Pew Research Center reports that violent crime fell 48 percent from 1993 to 2016.

Gun-rights groups say the problem is not the guns, but the individuals using them. They argue that laws alone are no panacea, and that social issues like mental illness and unemployment must be addressed to help curb gun violence. Some gun advocates have also called for more training and security for those who legally and responsibly maintain guns.

Still, with little appetite in Congress to take on gun control, the debate is playing out at the state level, with Connecticut seen as a model for gun-control advocates.

"Connecticut's laws are among the nation's toughest and homicides are down," Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said. "Obviously the link is a circumstantial one; cause and effect can't be proven conclusively. But the numbers are all in the right direction. States like Connecticut can help shame Congress into adopting common-sense measures that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people."

State officials say Connecticut has experienced the fastest drop in violent crime of any state over the last four years. Gun-control advocates say the suspect in Florida, Nikolas Cruz, could not have bought the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle believed used in the attack, or the high-capacity magazines, in Connecticut.

"We really need to do a better job at making sure we have strong gun laws in every state in the country, because we are losing our most valuable resource, which is our children," said Jeremy I. Stein, the executive director of CT Against Gun Violence, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Even in Connecticut, where parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook met with lawmakers as they debated the legislation, the measures fell short of what gun-control advocates wanted. For example, the laws did not force residents to relinquish existing assault weapons and high-capacity magazines or limit the number of firearms people could own.

At a hearing a month after the Newtown shooting, some speakers talked of the need to hold people accountable. "The problem is not gun laws. The problem is a lack of civility," said Mark Mattioli, whose son James, 6, was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary.

The Giffords Center, which keeps a state-by-state report card, gave Connecticut an A-minus for its gun laws - the same grade given to New York, which moved even more swiftly after Sandy Hook to pass stricter laws. The center ranked Connecticut 46th and New York 48th for their gun death rates, among the five lowest in the United States.

In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed a law a month after the massacre at Sandy Hook that is, in some respects, stricter than the one in Connecticut. The New York law not only bans the sale of assault weapons and imposes universal background checks, it also prohibits both the sale - and possession - of magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds. And it requires mental health professionals to alert the authorities about at-risk patients who should not be allowed to buy a firearm. As of Feb. 8, 77,447 people deemed to be dangerously mentally ill had been added to the database.

Avery W. Gardiner, a president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said that generally, blue states are, not surprisingly, more likely to regulate guns and require background checks and licensing. Conservative red states either lack gun-safety laws or fail to enforce the ones they have. Her group's strategy includes filing lawsuits to enforce existing safety laws and countering the gun lobby, which uses its muscle in statehouses as well as Congress.

The lobbying has been hard on both sides. According to the nonpartisan National Institute on Money in State Politics, in the past three election cycles the National Rifle Association, the nation's leading gun lobby, spent a total of $10.6 million to support candidates for state office in 25 states. Between 2009 and 2016, at least two-thirds of that spending went to state contests in which the group's chosen candidate won.

"Florida has gone the wrong way since Sandy Hook for sensible laws," Ms. Gardiner said, citing a Florida law that would have restricted doctors from even asking patients about gun safety. The Brady Center sued Florida on the grounds that the law violated the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, and a year ago a panel of federal judges ruled in the center's favor.

In Connecticut, the question of magazine capacity became emotionally charged as the stricter gun laws were being debated. That is because the Sandy Hook attacker, Adam Lanza, like other mass gunmen, used high-capacity magazines that allowed him to rapidly fire 30 rounds. A group of first graders at Sandy Hook ran past Mr. Lanza, escaping from the hail of bullets when he had to stop and reload.

At a news conference in April 2013, on the day lawmakers announced an agreement on gun control, Nicole Hockley, whose son, Dylan, died at Sandy Hook, said: "We ask ourselves every day - every minute - if those magazines had held 10 rounds, forcing the shooter to reload at least six more times, would our children be alive today?"

Connecticut's sweeping gun laws did, however, require residents who already owned high-capacity magazines and assault rifles to register them with the State Police. Today, the registry lists 52,648 assault weapons. A single resident registered 179 assault weapons, while another registered more than 500,000 magazines exceeding the 10-round limit. Between 2013 and 2017, 248 people were charged with illegally possessing an assault weapon because they either failed to register an existing weapon or had bought a weapon after the law went into effect.

The state also requires that individuals admitted to psychiatric hospitals relinquish their guns, at least temporarily. The State Police is notified of such patients by the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, which maintains a database, and ensures that upon discharge, the gun owner turns in the weapon or transfers it to someone eligible for a gun permit. In addition, people who were previously treated in a mental hospital cannot get a permit for up to two years afterward.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a lobby group in Newtown, Conn., declined to comment on the impact of Connecticut's gun laws "out of respect for the families, the community and the ongoing law enforcement investigation" in Parkland, Fla. The National Rifle Association did not respond to a request to comment.

Connecticut is also one of a few states with another gun law with some teeth - an "extreme risk protection order." Akin to a restraining order for domestic violence victims, the protection order, which predates Sandy Hook, gives the police the power to temporarily take away an individual's guns if a person makes threats, acts violently, abuses drugs or commits animal cruelty.

In the Florida massacre, the authorities believe that the gunman may have made threatening comments on social media, including one last September - "I'm going to be a professional school shooter" - and had also posted a photo of a bloodied frog.

A study that examined Connecticut's risk protection order found that, from 1999 to 2013, 99 percent of warrants led to the confiscation of at least one gun. In nearly half the cases, the gun owner wound up receiving psychiatric treatment.

Mike Lawlor, the criminal justice adviser to Governor Malloy, said that the law arose from two high-profile shootings in the 1990s by people with severe mental health issues. "When there's no law that's actually been broken, but when there is real evidence that the person is a danger to others, the police need to have an option," he said. "Step one is to get the guns."

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sandy hook elementary school (newtown  conn)

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In Wake of Florida Massacre, Gun Control Advocates Look to Connecticut

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There is no doubt that there are limits to state and local gun laws. Cities like Chicago and Baltimore, with rigorous gun laws, also have two of the highest murder rates in the country.