Nick Wing takes note of all the federal laws that have been passed since the Sandy Hook massacre that took the lives of 20 children and six adults three years ago today. Here they are
The reason for those blanks is obvious. Advocates of the most favored new gun restriction—universal background checks—ran into a firestorm of opposition in 2013, even though that item typically garners support from 85 to 93 percent of respondents, including majorities of self-identified gun owners and National Rifle Association members. A revived version of that proposal was shot down in the Senate less than two weeks ago.
If you want to know who to blame for that, try these guys.
While the feds cannot get traction for even this most sensible of proposed gun restrictions, individual states have passed a lot of new laws in the past three years. The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence has just published its 2015 year-end review of new laws in its Gun Law Trendwatch. It shows that 39 states have passed 117 new restrictions on guns in the past three years. Some 75 laws loosened restrictions.
Starting in the 1980s, the NRA made a big push to get states to become more permissive in their issuing of concealed-carry permits. In 1986, all but a few states were quite strict about that. Now, the vast majority are so-called “shall issue” states, meaning that most non-felons who want a permit to carry a firearm face no obstacles in acquiring one
But, as usual, that’s not extreme enough for the NRA. Its latest big push is to turn all the “shall issue” states into jurisdictions that allow carrying concealed weapons without a permit. Thirty years ago, heavily rural Vermont was the only state with a no-permit system. Now, six other states—Maine, Arkansas, Nebraska, Alaska, Arizona and Wyoming—have followed suit. The gun lobby cajoled legislators in 21 states to introduce no-permit bills this year.
Anyone who thinks the NRA and even more extremist organizations like Gun Owners of America will stop devising additional laws to make guns easier to buy and carry are fooling themselves. Countering those organizations will require that advocates of more gun restrictions become more aggressive. The first step ought to be coming up with a campaign designed to convert the 90 or so percent of the population that favors universal background checks into actual legislation mandating them. Not an easy task.