GUN CONTROL SERIES

However, in a 2008 decision ( District of Columbia v. Constitution states: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Supreme Court rulings, citing this amendment, have upheld the right of states to regulate firearms.

GUN CONTROL SERIES

In January 2016, President Obama took a series of executive actions intended to curb gun violence, including measures to expand federal background checks to most gun buyers.

These advocates often highlight the stricter gun laws and lower incidence of gun violence in several other democracies, like Japan and Australia, but many others say this correlation proves little and note that rates of gun crime in the United States have plunged over the last two decades. Gun-control advocates sought to rekindle the debate following another string of deadly mass shootings in 2015, including the killing of nine people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, and 14 at a community center in San Bernardino, California. However, compromise legislation that would have banned semiautomatic assault weapons and expanded background checks was defeated in the Senate in 2013, despite extensive public support. In particular, the killing of 20 schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012 fueled a national discussion over gun laws and calls by the Obama administration to limit the availability of military-style weapons. The debate over gun control in the United States has waxed and waned over the years, stirred by a series of mass killings by gunmen in civilian settings.

Gun control