gun control

Terminology and context

Gun control refers to domestic and international attempts to regulate and harmonize the regulation of, the private and industrial manufacture, trade, possession, use, and transport of a class of weapons typically identified as small arms. This class of arms commonly includes revolvers, self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, assault rifles, and some categories of machine gun.

In the United States, the term gun control itself is considered polarizing and politicized. Many gun control advocates prefer the use of terms like "gun-violence prevention", "gun safety", or "common-sense regulation" to describe their objectives. While gun-rights advocates refer to gun control as "disarmament and "gun confiscation." Discussions on the topics of gun control and gun rights are more prevalent in the United States than other countries, although these topics are also debated in countries such as Canada.

Regulation of civilian firearms

With few exceptions, most countries in the world allow some form of civilian firearm ownership. A 2011 survey of 28 countries over five continents found that a major distinction between different national gun control regimes is whether civilian gun ownership is seen as a right or a privilege.

The study concluded that both the United States and Yemen were distinct from the other countries surveyed in that they viewed gun ownership as a basic right of citizenship, and therefore their gun control policies are more permissive. In the remaining countries sampled, civilian gun ownership is considered a privilege and their corresponding gun control policies are more restrictive. For many countries that view gun ownership as a privilege, gun rights, such as those in the United States, may be seen as too permissive.

Some countries like in East Asia can be particularly strict. East Asian countries are usually more indifferent to gun control and gun rights debate. Countries like Japan and China enact strict controls on gun ownership. Other East Asian countries or South East Asian countries can be especially strict, a few with more extreme punishments then typically imposed by most countries for the same crime. Illegal gun ownership in Indonesia can be punished with a maximum of 20 years in prison, life in prison, or the death penalty.

For almost all of Europe, gun ownership extends to hunting and sport, and require licensure with backgrounds checks.

International and regional gun control

At the international and regional level, diplomatic attention has tended to focus on the cross-border illegal trade in small arms as an area of particular concern rather than the regulation of civilian-held firearms. During the mid-1990s, however, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted a series of resolutions relating to the civilian ownership of small arms. These called for the exchange of data on national systems of firearm regulation and for the initiation of an international study of the issue. In July 1997, ECOSOC issued a resolution that underlined the responsibility of UN member states to competently regulate civilian ownership of small arms and urged them to ensure that their regulatory frameworks encompassed the following aspects: firearm safety and storage; penalties for the unlawful possession and misuse of firearms; a licensing system to prevent undesirable persons from owning firearms; exemption from criminal liability to promote the surrender of illegal, unsafe or unwanted guns by citizens; and a record-keeping system to track civilian firearms.

In 1997, the UN published a study based on member state survey data titled the United Nations International Study on Firearm Regulation, which was updated in 1999. This study was meant to initiate the establishment of a database on civilian firearm regulations which would be run by the Centre for International Crime Prevention, located in Vienna, which was to report on national systems of civilian firearm regulation every two years. These plans never reached fruition and further UN-led efforts to establish international norms for the regulation of civilian-held firearms were stymied. Responding to pressure from the U.S. government, any mention of the regulation of civilian ownership of small arms was removed from the draft proposals for the 2001 UN Programme of Action on Small Arms.

Although the issue is no longer part of the UN policy debate, there have been eight regional agreements since 1991 involving 110 countries concerning aspects of civilian firearm possession. The Bamako Declaration was adopted in Bamako, Mali on 1 December 2000 by the representatives of the member states of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The provisions of this declaration recommend that the signatories would establish the illegal possession of small arms and light weapons as a criminal offence under national law in their respective countries. The UN conducted another study in 2011 and, after identifying a number of methodological problems in studies, stated "Notwithstanding such challenges, a significant body of literature tends to suggest that firearm availability predominantly represents a risk factor rather than a protective factor for homicide. In particular, a number of quantitative studies tend towards demonstrating a firearm prevalence–homicide association."

Historical context

16th century

Debates over gun control emerged in the early 16th century, particularly in response to the spread of the wheellock mechanism, which made guns smaller and easier to conceal than earlier matchlocks. In 1518, wheellock firearms were prohibited in Habsburg territories, and a similar ban followed in the Duchy of Ferrara in 1522. By the mid-16th century, similar bans had spread across much of the Italian peninsula, and some states briefly restricted the manufacture of small wheellocks.

Throughout the 16th century, many European cities enacted restrictions on carrying firearms in urban areas. Larger guns usually continued to be allowed in the countryside, especially for hunting. Rules on gun ownership gradually reverted to older patterns that limited the bearing of arms to the upper class and their servants.

The expansion of town militias during the 16th century increased routine civilian access to firearms. By mid-century, a view had developed in parts of Europe that carrying firearms for self-defense should be allowed. A Venetian official in the same period linked wider gun ownership in Brescia (a center of gun manufacturing) to a decline in homicides within the city. At the same time, an anonymous treatise from the 1570s questioned the practical value of firearms for self-defense.

17th century

In 1638, citing the "many inconveniences that arise daily from the carrying of arms", Cardinal Francesco Barberini issued a public ban prohibiting the carrying of firearms within the Papal States. The ban forbade any person, regardless of rank, from carrying arquebuses or terzaroli (short firearms), whether in cities or in the countryside, unless specifically permitted. Penalties ranged from fines for carrying long guns in the countryside to five years' galley service in towns. Short firearms were punished more severely, including confiscation of property, and in certain cases, capital punishment. Later popes, including Innocent XIII and Benedict XIV, attempted to extend the enforcement of such edicts into baronial jurisdictions, though with limited success.

2000s statistics

In more recent years, calls for gun control have grown as the number of school shootings has risen. High rates of gun mortality and injury are often cited as a primary impetus for gun control policies.

In 2007, a global supply of 875 million small arms were estimated to be in the hands of civilians, law enforcement agencies, and national armed forces. Of these firearms, 650 million, or 75%, were estimated to be held by civilians. U.S. civilians account for 270 million of this total. A further 200 million are controlled by national military forces. Law enforcement agencies may have some 26 million small arms. Non-state armed groups have about 1.4 million firearms. Finally, gang members hold between 2 and 10 million small arms. Together, the small arms arsenals of non-state armed groups and gangs have been estimated to account for, at most, 1.4% of the global total.

United States

The United States has more guns per citizen than any other western country. In the United States, gun rights activists argue that gun laws are too restrictive or should not be altered, and gun control activists argue that gun laws are too permissive. Both camps center their arguments upon the legal and traditional interpretations of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Gun control measures include the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 that prohibited manufacturing certain semi-automatic firearms that were defined as assault weapons for civilian use. The act expired ten years after its effective date in 2004. Attempted measures included the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013 bill, which was not passed into law.

Canada

In Canada, The Canadian Criminal Code, enacted in 1892, required individuals to have a permit to carry a pistol unless the owner had cause to fear assault or injury. Handgun registration became law in 1934, and automatic firearms registration was added in 1951, then the Criminal Law Amendment Act, Then In 1977, Bill C-51 required firearms acquisition certificates (FACs) to purchase any firearm.

On May 1, 2020, after deadly shootings in Nova Scotia, Justin Trudeau's Liberal government banned 1,500 kinds of military-style semi-automatic rifles, including the popular AR-15 and its variants. The ban was enacted via an Order In Council.

Then on October 21, 2022, under Justin Trudeau's government, Bill C-21 came into effect, aiming to address gun violence and strengthen gun control. The legislation introduced a national freeze on the sale, purchase, or transfer of handguns by individuals within Canada. It also established new "red flag" and "yellow flag" laws, allowing courts and Chief Firearms Officers (CFOs) to issue emergency weapons prohibition orders and temporarily suspend licenses, respectively. Moreover, the bill increased maximum penalties for firearms-related offenses, including gun smuggling and gun trafficking, from 10 to 14 years imprisonment. Additionally, Bill C-21 prohibited mid-velocity 'replica' airguns that closely resemble real firearms and discharge projectiles at a velocity between 366 and 500 feet per second.

Australia

In Australia, gun control laws were enacted in the state of Victoria in 1988 with the Opinel shooting lead to a big change in gun ownership legislation and 1996 following the Port Arthur massacre. The Port Arthur massacre led to the National Firearms Agreement (NFA), 12 days after the killing. John Howard, the Prime Minister at the time, said in proposing it: "We need to achieve a total prohibition on the ownership, possession, sale and importation of all automatic and semi-automatic weapons. That will be the essence of the proposal... ". The National Firearms Agreement was agreed upon on the 10th of May 1996.

Studies for legislature effectiveness

A 1998 review found that suicide rates generally declined after gun control laws were enacted, and concluded, "The findings support gun control measures as a strategy for reducing suicide rates." A 2016 review found that laws banning people under restraining orders due to domestic violence convictions from accessing guns were associated with "reductions in intimate partner homicide". Another 2016 review identified 130 studies regarding restrictive gun laws and found that the implementation of multiple such laws simultaneously was associated with a decrease in gun-related deaths. According to Vox, "The authors are careful to note that their findings do not conclusively prove that gun restrictions reduce gun deaths. However, they did find a compelling trend whereby new restrictions on gun purchasing and ownership tended to be followed by a decline in gun deaths."

According to a 2011 UN study, after identifying a number of methodological problems, it stated "not withstanding such challenges, a significant body of literature tends to suggest that firearm availability predominantly represents a risk factor rather than a protective factor for homicide. In particular, a number of quantitative studies tend towards demonstrating a firearm prevalence–homicide association."

United States

A National Research Council critical review in 2004 found that while some strong conclusions are warranted from current research, the state of our knowledge is generally poor. The scarcity of relevant data has made gun control one of the most contentious topics in American politics, and scholars remain deadlocked on a variety of issues. Notably, since 1996, when the Dickey Amendment was first inserted into the federal spending bill, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been prohibited from using its federal funding "to advocate or promote gun control", thwarting gun violence research at the agency at the time. The funding provision's author has said that this was an over-interpretation, but the amendment still had an effect effectively halting federally funded firearm-related research. Since the amendment, the CDC has continued to research gun violence and publish studies about it, although their funding for such research has fallen by 96% since 1996, according to Mayors Against Illegal Guns. According to a spokesman, the CDC has limited funding and has not produced any comprehensive study aimed at reducing gun violence since 2001.

In 2007, a global supply of 875 million small arms were estimated to be in the hands of civilians, law enforcement agencies, and national armed forces. Of these firearms, 650 million, or 75%, were estimated to be held by civilians. U.S. civilians account for 270 million of this total. A further 200 million are controlled by national military forces. Law enforcement agencies may have some 26 million small arms. Non-state armed groups have about 1.4 million firearms. Finally, gang members hold between 2 and 10 million small arms. Together, the small arms arsenals of non-state armed groups and gangs have been estimated to account for, at most, 1.4% of the global total.

A later study from 2017 shows the United States has 393 million privately owned firearms at a per-capita rate of 120.5 per 100 residents.

In 1983, a cross-sectional study of all 50 U.S. states found that the six states with the strictest gun laws (according to the National Rifle Association of America) had suicide rates that were lower than in other states by approximately 3 in 100,000 people, and that these states' suicide rates were lower than those of states with the least restrictive gun laws by 4 in 100,000 people.

A 2003 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine looked at the restrictiveness of gun laws and suicide rates in men and women in all 50 U.S. states and found that states whose gun laws were more restrictive had lower suicide rates among both sexes. In 2004, from the National Research Council, commissioned by the National Academy of sciences found that the effect of state gun laws on gun-related homicides was "limited" and had no measurable effect on violent crime.

Canada

With respect to the Criminal Law Amendment Act, a gun control law passed in Canada in 1977, some studies have found that it was ineffective at reducing homicide or robbery rates, with one study finding that the law may have actually increased robberies involving firearms.

A 1993 study found that after 1977 law was passed, gun suicides decreased significantly, as did the proportion of suicides committed in the country with guns, with a 2003 study finding that the law "may have had an impact on suicide rates, even after controls for social variables," and a 2001 study by the same research team concluding that the law "may have had an impact on homicide rates, at least for older victims."

A 1994 study found that after this law came into force in 1978, suicide rates decreased over time in Ontario, and that there was no evidence of method substitution. The same study found that "These decreases may be only partly due to the legislation."

In 1991, Canada implemented the gun control law Bill C-17. According to a 2004 study, after this law was passed, firearm-related suicides and homicides, as well as the percentage of suicides involving firearms, declined significantly in that country. A 2010 study found that after this law was passed, firearm suicides declined in Quebec among men, but acknowledged that this may not represent a causal relationship. In 1992, Canada promulgated the Canadian Firearms Act, which aimed at ensuring that guns were stored safely.

A 2004 study found that although firearm suicide rates declined in the Quebec region Abitibi-Témiscamingue after the law was passed, overall suicide rates did not. A study in 2005 also found that overall suicide rates did not change after passage of Bill C-17.

A 2008 study reached similar conclusions with regard to the entire Quebec province; this study also found that C-17 did not seem to increase the rate at which the firearm suicide rate was declining. Other researchers have criticized this 2008 study for looking at too short a time period and not taking account of the fact that the regulations in C-17 were implemented gradually.

A 1990 study compared suicide rates in the Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada metropolitan area (where gun control laws were more restrictive) with those in the Seattle, Washington area in the United States. The overall suicide rate was essentially the same in the two locations, but the suicide rate among 15 to 24 year olds was about 40 percent higher in Seattle than in Vancouver. The authors concluded that "restricting access to handguns might be expected to reduce the suicide rate in persons 15 to 24 years old, but ... it probably would not reduce the overall suicide rate." A study that looked at provincial gun ownership rates, and associated suicide rates found no significant correlations with overall suicide rates.

Australia

A 2006 study by gun lobby-affiliated researchers Jeanine Baker and Samara McPhedran found that after Australia enacted the National Firearms Agreement (NFA), a gun control law, in 1996, gun-related suicides may have been affected, but no other parameter appeared to have been.

Another 2006 study, led by Simon Chapman, found that after this law was enacted in 1996 in Australia, the country went more than a decade without any mass shootings, and gun-related deaths (especially suicides) declined dramatically. The study looking at firearm deaths before and after the implication of the 1996 gun control reforms in the affects on control on mass shootings, homicides, and suicides found "an accelerated decline in firearm deaths, particularly suicides. The study further found that removing "rapid firing firearms may be an effective way of reducing mass shootings, firearm homicides and firearm suicides." The latter of these studies also criticized the former for using a time-series analysis despite the fact that, according to Chapman et al., "calculating mortality rates and then treating them as a number in a time series ignores the natural variability inherent in the counts that make up the numerator of the rate." Chapman et al. also said that Baker and McPhedran used the Box–Jenkins model inappropriately.

In 1988 and 1996, gun control laws were enacted in the Australian state of Victoria, both times following mass shootings. A 2004 study found that in the context of these laws, overall firearm-related deaths, especially suicides, declined dramatically. A 1995 study found preliminary evidence that gun control legislation enacted in Queensland, Australia, reduced suicide rates there.

A 2010 study looking at the effect of the NFA on gun-related deaths found that the law "did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates," although David Hemenway has criticized this study for using a structural break test despite the fact that such tests can miss the effects of policies in the presence of lags, or when the effect occurs over several years.

Another study, published the same year, found that Australia's gun buyback program reduced gun-related suicide rates by almost 80%, while non-gun death rates were not significantly affected.

Other research has argued that although gun suicide rates fell after the NFA was enacted, the NFA may not have been responsible for this decrease and "a change in social and cultural attitudes" may have instead been at least partly responsible.

Other countries

2007 study found evidence that gun control laws passed in Austria in 1997 reduced the rates of firearm suicide and homicide in that country.

In Brazil, after disarmament laws were passed in 2003, gun-related mortality declined by 8% in 2004 relative to the previous year, the first decline observed in a decade. Gun-related hospitalizations also reversed their previous trend by decreasing 4.6% from 2003 to 2004.

2006 study found that after gun control laws were passed in New Zealand in 1992, suicides committed with guns declined significantly, especially among youth. This study however found that overall suicide rates did not change significantly. A case-control study conducted in New Zealand found that gun ownership was significantly associated with a greater risk of gun suicides, but not suicides overall.

A 2010 study looked at the effect of a policy adopted by the Israel Defense Forces that restricted access to guns among adolescents on suicide rates, and found that "Following the policy change, suicide rates decreased significantly by 40%." The authors concluded that "The results of this study illustrate the ability of a relatively simple change in policy to have a major impact on suicide rates."

A 2013 study showed that after the Military of Switzerland adopted the Army XXI reform, which restricted gun availability, in 2003, suicide rates – both overall and firearm-related – decreased.

Another 2013 study looking at four restrictive gun laws passed in Norway found that two of them may have reduced firearm mortality among men, but that the evidence was more inconclusive with respect to all of the laws they studied.

A 2014 study found that after South Africa's Firearm Control Act was passed in 2000, homicide rates in the country declined, and concluded that "stricter gun control mediated by the FCA accounted for a significant decrease in homicide overall, and firearm homicide in particular, during the study period [2001–2005]."

A 2000 study found that a ban on carrying guns in Colombia was associated with reductions in homicide rates in two cities in the country, namely, Cali and Bogotá.