Gun ownership rates have been falling over the past few decades. Fewer and fewer people are choosing to risk keeping a firearm at home. In fact, America is losing about a million gun owners every three years. What has happened to the homicide rate during the same time period? Of course, gun ownership is not the only factor which affects homicide so you would not expect to see a perfect correlation between these two variables. Nevertheless, there has also been a significant decrease in the homicide rate as can be seen from the chart above.

President Obama has proposed that Congress close the private sale loophole, ban high capacity magazines, and ban military style assault weapons. The reasons for closing the private sale loophole seem obvious. Why make it easy for criminals to purchase a gun at a gun show or negotiate a gun sale online but make them pass a background check when buying from a licensed dealer? Why wouldn

The American people have chosen to reelect Obama. They have chosen to reelect someone who voiced support support for the assault weapons ban. They did not choose to elect the candidate who was endorsed by the National Rifle Association.

The constitutionality of a law which bans adults under twenty-one years of age from purchasing handguns from federally licensed dealers was recently challenged. A federal appeals court found that such a law is consistent with historically acceptable limitations on guns in the interest of public safety. Gun control has existed for over two hundred years in the United States. The Founding Fathers had little reservation about disarming groups of people who were unlikely to use gun responsibly or for the public good. Eighteenth century Americans in certain jurisdictions, for example, banned those who refused to swear an oath of loyalty to the state or nation from owning firearms. The court also concluded that strict scrutiny was unnecessary because the law does not burden the core of the right protected by the Second Amendment.