Guns: killing or saving? America's gun problem

The mass shooting that left 17 dead at a high school in Parkland, Florida, has led to new calls for gun control legislation in the U.S. Polling indicates that public support for such a move is at its highest point in two decades – although Republican support is soft, making an act of Congress less likely. Here we assess the likelihood of federal action on five policies that have risen to the fore after Parkland. State action may also be possible. That’s significant, because gun laws in the United States vary dramatically from state to state, with respect to types of guns that are permitted, where they are permitted, how they can be purchased, how they may be used, how they must be registered and more. Ban bump stocks Donald Trump vowed to ban bump stocks – rifle accessories used to mimic automatic fire – telling a group of governors: “I am writing that out” and “I’m getting rid of them.” The Trump administration may be able to take unilateral action to d...

No other developed country in the world has anywhere near the same rate of gun violence as America. The US has nearly six times the gun homicide rate as Canada, more than seven times as Sweden, and nearly 16 times as Germany. The debate over gun regulation in the US seems intractable, but there is one fact that both sides can agree on: Mass shootings are just the tip of a very complicated problem. Links: https://youtu.be/bX4qUsgHa4Y https://www.vox.com/2015/10/3/9444417/gun-violence-united-states-america

It’s a long story that Americans need to understand before they can overcome the problem. Many European monar chs  dismantled the rival armies  i n their realms during the early modern period. Absolutists like Louis XIV also tried to stop haughty aristocrats from fighting duels. After the political union between England and Scotland in 1707, the British Crown dismantled Highland clans in the name of the law — that is, the unitary sovereignty of the state. This is not a history of freedom. But Europeans eventually embraced the rule of law as a kind of peace treaty in which everyone gave up the power to kill in return for shared safety. “There, perhaps, never was in government a revolution of greater importance than this,”  noted a British jurist in 1758.  A disarmed population was the foundation of civil society, a starting point for progress within constitutional monarchies like Britain and Denmark or republics like France and Italy. Slave-o...