Amending such policies to include items like good cause requirements wouldn't violate the Second Amendment's protections, since the court's rulings limit the amendment's protections and establish standards that firearms must meet to be protected and exempt from regulatory oversight. Some might argue here that District's limitations apply only to the federal government, but a subsequent ruling in McDonald v. Chicago uses the 14th Amendment to apply District's decision to the states as well.
I Can Take My Rifle Where?
While the compulsory aspect of shall-issue provisions are troubling, a weapons permit is only as good as what types of weapons the state allows and where it allows a permit holder to carry them. States like Hawaii, Illinois and New Jersey pursue stringent regulations on firearms, but they're largely in the minority, with most states employing very relaxed (if any) controls. Here are a few common themes among states:
- Most do not require a state-issued weapons permit to actually purchase a firearm
Only four states require a permit to purchase a long-barrel shotgun or rifle. 14 states require a weapons permit to purchase handguns.
- Often, states do not require the owner to register the firearm(s) that they purchase
The District of Columbia and Hawaii require long gun owners to register their firearms. Those two, alongside California, Maryland, Michigan, New York, and Washington state mandate registration for handguns
- There are states that don't require a license to own a firearm
Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts and D.C. require a license to own long guns. Hawaii and Massachusetts are joined by New York with required licensing to own handguns.
- Some states allow firearms to be carried in the open, loaded with ammunition, even in federally prohibited areas
Twenty four states allow long barrel rifles and shotguns to be carried in the open. Of these 24, sixteen allow this without a license of any kind. Thirty five states allow handguns to be carried openly, and of those 35, eleven permit open carry of handguns without a permit. In light of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown CT, there are several counties where the school board permits teachers or staff with weapons permits to keep their weapons on school grounds.
- There are few bans on assault versions of permitted firearms
Outside of any federal statute, the states can adopt and enact restrictions on assault weapons. At present only eight states have enacted restrictions of some kind on assault rifles and assault-type shotguns and ten have regulations on assault-style handguns
- Many states do not offer further restrictions, or honor the federal government restrictions of firearms under the National Firearms Act (NFA)
Nineteen of 50 states follow the government's regulatory ban on NFA-restricted long barrel firearms and the same number commit to the NFA prohibitions on handguns.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Igor
No hunter needs more than 3 rounds in a clip. New York just passed a 7 round limit and IMO it's way more than any hunter needs. Unless, of course, you're one of those fat cats like Cheney who goes to a farm where they release a bird in front of your muzzle! They should just wring the poor birds neck and save everyone the trouble!
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2 - Alexander J Smith III
I was reading the story on New York's new law earlier today and I like definitely like the structure and scope. I do think the limitation on rounds in the magazine from 10 to 7 is excessive most of its other components are reasonable and allows for law abiding citizens to still exercise their 2nd Amend rights
3 - Doug Hunter
Government kill way more people with bombs and guns than citizens. Governments commit genocides, not private citizens. Governments fight wars, not private citizens. Governments imprison and torture and take on a whim. Perhaps they should take a gander at the plank in their own eye before picking in the speck in ours... of course, it's customary to deny arms to the slaves so I suppose there is precedent.
School shooting, while covered heavily by the media and beamed into everyone's home making them seem rampant, are exceptionally rare. There are a million more dangerous issues to be concerned with. (bathtubs drown 450 people per year, oh the horror. Perhaps we should ban them by executive order in favor of showers only!)
And Igor, hunting is not self defense or defense from a tyrannical government (in case you missed it, we have one). For those uses larger magazines would be preferable. I'm sure the masters would rather the sheep not have weapons at all.
4 - Igor
... (2nd part, to beat the censor!)
Is anyone here a hunter?
I've hunted many things: birds and big game like deer and elk.
With deer and elk you typically get one shot and then the animal disappears. You better make it count. Sometimes you get a second shot because the animal didn't react or because it was wounded and surprised, so you get a chance to finish it. That's it.
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5 - Igor
...(3rd part)
The easiest bird shooting is pheasants. If you have a good dog it's easy because the dog will hold the bird until you're ready then flush him. Better hit him with the first barrel because he'll be much further away for the second barrel. That's why your double barrel has an open choke on the first barrel and a tight choke on the second barrel. Pheasants are pretty easy because they're generally above the corn stalks. Even then you usually only get two shots before they duck back into the corn.
Grouse and quail are hard to kill because they live in the woods. First of all they give you a heart attack because they get up right underneath your feet! Or so it seems. You fumble your gun to the shoulder and try to get a sight in the instant you have before the barrel of your gun collides with a branch or sapling! Often, while untangling the gun you are treated to a view of the bird for a split second while it locks it's wings and glides to a landing somewhere in the leaves and disappears! If only! You couldn't even get one shot off, let alone 7, or whatever fantastic number the gun nuts want.
Ducks and geese always seem to be at the limits of your range, which means you get one, maybe two, shots. First of all, they get up off the water just before hunting opens at dawn. Maddening when you've been sitting in a cold wet blind for 3 hours waiting for opening, to watch your prey get up and fly away. Ducks and geese seem to have hunters calibrated. They know exactly what the season is and what lakes are protected, and what hunting hours are. Duck hunters are generally restricted to a 3 shot magazine and must have a wooden plug to occupy the extra space. You can get a steep fine for not having a plug.
Big game hunters I know who hunt for the family table go to Colorado for elk and have special guns and loads. They figure to make a kill on the first shot, with maybe a second for a put-away. Anything else is superfluous. The first and second loads may be different, there's no real plan for a third.
I know two guys who are Big Game hunters with special licenses. They are the guys who are called in by Fish and Game to kill a rogue bear or cougar, or thin out males in a Big Horn Sheep herd in remote areas. One or two shots, except in the rare case of shooting across a big valley in the Brooks Range, a long distance that may require 3 or 4 shots.
Nobody except an idiot would go out in the field and spray around 7 shots!
First of all, your hunting partners would never go out again with you. Second, the game warden would fine you.
6 - Igor
@3-Doug: the 2nd amendment clearly states that gun possession is for a militia, which is a government otganization.
7 - Igor
The only hunting scenario that requires a multi-load gun around here is boar hunting. And even then the guys carry a pistol because the boar may turn on you and then they're so close that a long gun is useless. But even the pistol may be useless: I know a guy who was almost gored to death after he emptied both guns into the animal.
8 - Doug Hunter
Not much of a quail hunter I gather. It's not uncommon to get three shots in and a bird on each one, although in order to facilitate you need to shoot the first one pretty early which can destroy the meat (absolutely delicious fresh from the field) I've never seen a hunting situation requiring more than 3 rounds though.
Frankly, I place little value on what the constitution says or what Obama says or legal scholars or the pope. I don't recognize that anyone or anything has authority over me, in my eye we're all equals. I find it rich that Obama, the man who loves to watch his shock troops assassinate enemies via live video feed while ordering drone murders on citizens and foreigners alike all the while surrounding himself with an mini army of snipers and highly armed guards (and sending his girls to school with the same), sees fit to tell me that I shouldn't seek my own protection in like kind... the political class has always been made up of hypocrites and frauds though... amazes me why people still worship them.
9 - Igor
Worshippers of the political class deserve whatever misfortune befalls them.
10 - Zingzing
So, Doug... The possibility of a future war against our tyrannical government means that you ignore the "exceptionally rare" school shootings which have been happening every two or three months on average over the last decade? Isn't there some reasonable middle ground where your fears of gov't takeover and the reality in which we all have to exist can meet and agree on a few things? (By the way, if the gov't wanted to do what you fear they want to, I doubt your guns would be much deterrent... You're too unorganized and you'd only think about yourself if push came to shove... They have a word for non-governmental improvised armed forces, but I'm struggling to figure out what it is.)
11 - Doug Hunter
Terrorists??? lol. I don't have guns except for the hunting type, it's nice to know better ones are around if I need to procure them though. There are literally hundreds of thousands of things more likely to kill me or my children than school shootings (Getting in the car and driving them there for starters) , I just don't get all frothy when the media rings it's bell. In a nation of 300,000,000 people there's always going to be one (or a handful) of bad apples spoiling our national barrel... that's the path to giving away all our rights... every freedom will be abused by at least 1 of 300 million.
The government has already taken over, they've shown they can do anything... execute citizens using drones with no trial or imminent threat... virtual strip searches in order to travel... real strip searches under suspicion of pretty much anything... unlimited detention without trial of citizens... torture... wiretaps, cameras, and soon black boxes on vehicles. With healthcare now the government essentially owns your body, anything you do that may damage their possession costs them money and is therefore regulated (large sodas anyone?). I could see a future where we all wear devices so the government could track us 24/7 (think of all the crimes it could solve!). Having guns is just a deterrent, like nations having nuclear weapons, just something to help at the bargaining table. The government isn't stupid, it's not going to risk a hot revolution, it has a longer timeframe. Just indoctrinate the future generation to accept authority using the 17+ years of schooling where the government is raising them. For example, schools are starting to use electronic monitoring devices on students. When those students grow up they will be trained to accept that, and while tracking every movement of every citizen seems a little out there today, future generations will already be accustomed to it. That's the 'progress' in progessive though, the government dictating, tracking, and monitoring every aspect of your life for maximum productivity to the greater good!
12 - Igor
@11-Doug: I think we already have iPhones on our bodies that tell the government and dozens of malevolent businesses all they need to know.
"I could see a future where we all wear devices so the government could track us 24/7 (think of all the crimes it could solve!)."
13 - Alexander J Smith III
-Igor:
I agree with you for the most part, though the Supreme Court has ruled that individuals have the right to keep and bear arms unconnected with service in a militia.
-Doug:
While you're claims of the "tyranny" of the Federal Government are tenuous at best, I don't really see what that has to do with the topic at hand, since it's the policies of the individual states that are in the spotlight, which the "tyrannical" government can't really touch.
14 - clav
the 2nd amendment clearly states that gun possession is for a militia, which is a government otganization.
Millions of citizens, including a majority of the SCOTUS, disagree with that interpretation.
15 - El Bicho
Millions of people thought Lance Armstrong was clean. Doesn't mean they are right.
16 - troll
...seems illegitimate to introduce the idea of a "revised Federal Permit System" and then dismiss Doug's concerns as irrelevant to your topic
17 - Doug Hunter
"While you're claims of the 'tyranny' of the Federal Government are tenuous at best,"
It's well documented that they can kill, torture, or imprison you without trial or legal recourse.... these things have all happened 'legally' to US citizens. They lied about WMD's to get us into Iraq and they lied openly and repeatedly regarding the Libya conflict saying we were only protecting civilians when we were providing close air support for rebel offensives. The closest thing we have to representation is the congress, but when the president wants to go to war (ahem, conflict) he doesn't need them, if they don't act fast enough (see gun control) the president can simply dictate his wishes via almost unlimited authority of executive orders. The government can do (and has done) almost everything, I suppose it must be a matter of scale to you.... as long as they only lie on little wars and kill, torture, and imprison a few enough people (and ones you don't personally know) it's really not that big a deal.
Unfortunately, their success in these abuses has only emboldened them to try more. They can lie to our face and we do nothing, they can kill, torture, and imprison us and we do nothing... limitless power is a very tempting thing to those of a certain mindset, drawn like vultures to the stinking corpse of our republic.
18 - Alexander J Smith III
-Troll
I see what you mean, but I assumed that people already knew (either from their own research or my previous piece) that the Federal Government already issues Federal Firearms Licenses which allow individuals or corporations to engage in either the manufacture, sale, or distribution of firearms. I probably should have explained that better in the article but those permits I was thinking could be revised to include more features.
19 - Igor
@14-clav: it's not an interpretation, it's the plain English language of the 2nd amendment.
I notice that gun nuts persistently ignore the premise of the 2nd, but their neglect will not erase those words from the Constitution.
They should be ashamed. Doubly so because so many of them proclaim themselves "strict constructionists" or "originalists", etc.
They're like the little kid with crumbs all over his face who insists he's not the one that emptied the cookie jar.
20 - Dr Dreadful
I think we should be wary of laws requiring applicants for firearms permits to explain what they want a gun for, since to my mind that comes close to infringing one's First Amendment right to privacy, not to mention that it throws the presumption of innocence right out the window.
After all, you don't, when reviewing a citizen's application for a driver's license, expect him to prove that he's not going to ram-raid his local Best Buy.
And besides, if some berk wants a gun so he can shoot up a school he's hardly going to tell the state licensing authority that.
Pursuing my analogy further, there are still a number of legitimate reasons why a state might refuse to issue a driver's license, for example if the applicant were clinically blind, were under the legal driving age or were a persistent DUI offender.
Similarly, you'd certainly want the authorities to think very hard about issuing a gun permit if the applicant had a mental health diagnosis that had in the past or potentially could manifest itself in violence, or if he'd ever used a gun in the commission of a crime.
I'm confident that guns can be safely regulated without infringing the basic right to keep and bear arms, but getting there takes a bit of common sense, which sadly seems to be in short supply when it comes to this particular topic.
21 - Igor
@17-doug: if the feds are that powerful then resistance is futile.
22 - clav
Millions of people thought Lance Armstrong was clean. Doesn't mean they are right.
True, but I don't remember SCOTUS' stand on Armstrong, do you?
23 - clav
@14-clav: it's not an interpretation, it's the plain English language of the 2nd amendment.
It is unless it has the force of constitutional authority behind it, and SCOTUS trumps you on that.
24 - Igor
Didn't I just read a dissertation by clav that was against the argument from authority?
25 - clav
Not recently, Igor.