The regulation of fire-arms is one of the most controversial and contentious issues in American politics. Several models are proposed for how to best minimise violent crime while maintaing the foundational liberty of the American citizen. This paper concerns whether or not the gun laws of the State of New York should be adopted as the model for Federal Laws. It will argue that the laws for gun control in New York should not be roled out across the country. In order to make this argument, it will first of all consider these laws themselves and will then consider possible problems and criticisms. The central issue which must be considered when deciding this question is the effect which these laws can be seen to have on conceptions of liberty in relation in arms and gun control. A New York Times editorial from 2013 summarises the law, stating that gun licenses will need to be renewed every fie years, background checks will be required at all gun sales and that these will be accompanied by the introduction of a new electronic database for gun permits and a new registry for the ammunition sales with the purpose of allowing authorities to track anyone who is buying shells or ammo in large quantities. (NYT, 2013.)
The measures are criticised for their opacity over issues of gun seizure and for the fact that they restrict public access to gun license records as well as for being unclear about the nature of the ‘safe storage’ elements which are taken to be a key part of its structure. The rest of the paper demonstrate why New York’s should not serve as a nationwide model. It will do this by focusing on the idea of background checks and how they are likely to function in the different in which they would need to be applied.
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"Should the State of New York’s weapon laws be a model for Federal Laws?".
Throughout the history of gun control laws it has generally been accepted that the purpose of such control is to minimise instances of social violence while at the same time doing as much as possible to ensure personal liberty when it comes to bearing fire arms. When speaking of the nature of gun control, Douglas Murray writes that it occupies a specific place in the understanding of crime prevention. He claims that most ‘observers hypothesise that restrictions placed on how readily individuals may acquire firearms or on their use may contribute to a lessening of acts of violence.’ (85) He goes onto claim that fire-arms legislation is orientated towards this purpose under the assumption that ‘if those people who are mentally incompetent, convicted felons, or in a murderous rage are slowed in the acquisition of guns, then the probability of commission of a violent act might be lowered significantly.’ (81) This is to say that gun control legislation assumes that it is possible to understand whether or not an individual is likely to commit a violent crime and is capable of restricting that individual’s access to weapons which would allow them to do so. This desire explains the logic of back-ground checks in the New York State Legislation. It is believed that they will minimise crime by pointing the individuals most likely to commit and stopping them having access to fire arms. Therefore, it could easily be argued that New York’s laws should be adopted as universal as they prioritise such checks and make them a vital part of how availible fire-arms are for certain individuals. It is assumed that for such checks to be an effective way of determining whether or not someone is likely to commit a crime, then they must be consistent and easily performed.
However, while it may appear that these proceedures are obvious beneficial, it has been argued that the nature of gun crime and of violent crime in general is that it varies greatly across different areas and demographics and these crimes can often be seen to have a large racial and economic correlate. In other areas, background checks have been shown to be inherently racist and to lead to an overdue assumption of criminality. President Obama, himself largely a supporter of wider gun control measures, has recently claimed this very thing in relation to employment checks. (Miller, 2013) The fact that the vast majority of those with criminal records in the USA are non-white, is likely to lead to discrimination in terms of fire-arms ownership just they can be seen to have done in relation to employment and other cases involving such checks. New York’s laws have been criticised for their lack of transparency (NYT, 2013) and a result of this it is likely that inherent racist tendency of back ground checks may come into play when considering how they can be implemented.
The laws also assume that those who are most likely to commit violent crimes are those who have committed them in the past. Once again, there is evidence suggesting that this is not the case. While things such as a gang war fare and other instances of organised crime do involve repeat offences, it has been recently shown that the majority of those who commit violent crimes involving fire arms are doing so for the first time and do not posses any previous convictions. William Kraus makes this point clear in the Congressional Research Station document ‘Gun Control Legislation’ from 2012. He writes: ‘There is little evidence to suggest that, outside of obviously criminalised populations, it is possible to predict the exact nature and perpetrators of violent crime.’ (172) While this does not rule out the use of back ground checks as a part of effective gun control legislation, and does not suggest that legislation should not be implemented it speaks to a need to be sensitive to each individual States specific populations and histories of violence. In a city such as New York it is highly likely that extensive back ground checks on gun buyers would lead to an increase in racial discrimination, at the same time that they would most likely fail to ensure that there was a real decrease in rates of violent crime involving fire-arms. This fact means that, rather than facilitating equality before the law, New York’s background checks are much more likely to lead to inconsistant practice were they to be taken as a model for practices which could be applied nation wide. Therefore, they should not be taken a good universal model for gun control.
In conclusion, it is necessary to think each State’s gun control legislation according to its specific needs and populations. In order for an effective mode of gun control to be introduced such variety would have to be taken into account, and would need to pay attention to varying populations and economic groups. While New York’s gun legislation may be effective in its own circumstances, this should be taken an example of the necessity for individual laws, rather than as a simple example to be copied. Therefore, this paper has argued that New York’s gun control laws should not be adopted as a nation wide model for Federal Laws.
- ‘New York Leads on Gun Control.’ New York Times. 16th January, 2013.,
- Krouse, William. J. Gun Control Legislation. Congressional Research Service: 2014.
- Miller, Emily. ‘Obama Calls Racism on Criminal Background Checks.’ The Washington Times. 2nd
- July, 2013. Retrieved from: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/2/now-its-racist-to-pass-on-hiring-ex-cons/?page=all
- Murray, Douglas R. ‘Handguns, Gun Control Laws and Firearm Violence.’ Social Problems. 23. (1) , 1975. pp. 81-93.
