The document summarizes gun laws in the United States. It discusses that the Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms. Federal laws regulate gun sales and ownership but states have additional laws. There are debates around expanding background checks, assault weapons bans, and minimum age requirements given events like school shootings in Parkland, Florida and Sutherland Springs, Texas. The March for Our Lives movement advocated for stricter gun control legislation.

1. Gun Laws in U.S.A
By: Prabhleen Arora

2. Introduction
The U.S. constitution has 7 articles and is the shortest and the oldest written
constitution in the world. Till now there had been total 27 amendments in
the U.S. constitution. The first 10 amendments of U.S. constitution proposed
by James Madison was ratified in 1791 and came to known as “American
Bill of Rights”.
The second amendment of this deals with the gun laws in U.S.
According to this amendment, “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.”
Gun laws of the United States are found in a number of federal statutes.
These laws regulate the manufacture, trade, possession, transfer, record
keeping, transport, and destruction of firearms, ammunition, and firearms
accessories. They are enforced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives (ATF). ATF also regulates the standards of issuing license to
gun vendors.

3. Gun laws in U.S.
In addition to federal gun laws, all of the individual U.S. states, as
well as some local governments, have their own laws that
regulate firearms. The right to keep and bear arms is protected by
the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.
According to Small Arms Survey done in 2011, 88 people out of
100 carries a gun. The only people that are not allowed to carry
guns are minor, mentally challenged, convicts and the criminals
who have been in jai for more than one year.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence estimates that
around 114,994 people are shot each year in the US. This
includes murders, assaults, accidents, police intervention, suicide
attempts and suicides.

4. Gun laws in U.S.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA), which regulates firearms at the federal level,
requires that citizens and legal residents must be at least 18 years of age to purchase
shotguns or rifles and ammunition. All other firearms — handguns, for example — can
only be sold to people 21 and older. Like handgun owners, dealers interested in
obtaining a Federal Firearms License (FFL) must be at least 21 years of age.
To obtain a Federal Firearms License (FFL) there is a background check for selling and
purchasing of weapon but not every individual providing the gun in a transfer requires
an FFL, which in turn means that not every buyer is legally subject to a background
check. This potentially enables guns to fall into the hands of users who might otherwise
not be allowed to own a firearm.
According to the ATF, anyone can sell a gun without an FFL from their home, online, at
a flea market or at a gun show as long as he or she is not conducting the sale as part of
regular business activity. One example would be someone who sells a firearm from his
or her personal collection. Others who are exempt include those giving guns as gifts.
Only individuals whose "principal motive" is to make a profit via sale must obtain an
FFL.

5. “Open Carry of Arms”
Some states have either prohibited or strongly regulated laws surrounding
"open carry" - the carrying around of guns in public - but most have weakened
their laws in recent years.
California, Florida, and Illinois and the District of Columbia generally prohibit
people from openly carrying firearms in public.
New York and South Carolina prohibit openly carrying handguns, but not long
guns, while Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New Jersey prohibit openly
carrying long guns, but not handguns.
Thirty-one states allow the open carrying of a handgun without any license or
permit, although in some cases the gun must be unloaded.
Fifteen states require some form of license or permit in order to openly carry a
handgun.

6. “Concealed Carry of Arms”
Concealed carry is carrying a weapon such as a handgun in a concealed
manner, either on one's person or nearby.
Most states banned it in the 19th century as the practice of criminals, whereas
open carrying was seen as legitimate for self-defense. A special permit was
required for concealed carry, with only certain qualified people granted a
license. The exception was Vermont, which never had any restriction.
Recently, other states such as Alaska, Arizona, Kansas, New Hampshire and
Maine have changed the law to allow unrestricted concealed carry by eligible
residents. Others states have partial restrictions or require a permit.
Some areas can be declared "gun free zones", allowing businesses put up a
sign that makes it is illegal to carry a concealed firearm on the premises.
As of 2017 there had been 16.3 million concealed weapon permits issued in
the United States.

7. Loopholes in Gun laws and gun as
assault weapons
Assault weapon ban is also unable to solve gun problem in America, because
gun like, handgun and pistol they don’t come under the assault weapon ban.
The assault weapons ban is one of the top policy proposals from March for
Our Lives and other gun control advocates. But it’s also one of the gun control
measures with the least supportive evidence behind it.
In 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, the gunman parked himself on the 32nd
floor of a hotel near a country music concert and fired indiscriminately into the
crowd with assault weapons — which were also retooled with bump stocks to
mimic the firepower of machine guns. He killed 58 people and injured
hundreds. The gun he used was an AR-15 (Armalite Rifle-15). But according
to The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) AR-15-style rifles are
NOT 'assault weapons' or 'assault rifles‘. According to them, "An assault rifle
is fully automatic — a machine gun. Automatic firearms have been severely
restricted from civilian ownership since 1934.” As AR-15-style rifles look like
military rifles, such as the M-16, but function like other semi-automatic
civilian sporting firearms, they are not considered assault weapons.

8. Parkland Florida: 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz went on a rampage at his former school
killing 14 pupils and three staff. Dozens more were wounded. He gunned down
students with an AR15 assault rifle as they evacuated Marjory Stoneman Douglas High
School in Parkland, Florida.
The suspect, who was expelled a year earlier, managed to conceal himself within the
crowds of terrified students fleeing the atrocity. But police were able to use CCTV to
identify the shooter and tracked him down to the nearby town of Coral Springs, where
he was pinned down and arrested before being taken into custody.
The teenager had been allowed to buy the powerful rifle despite his turbulent home life
and concerns raised with the FBI about his state of mind, including that he would go
on a school shooting.
Sutherland Springs: During a Sunday service on November 5 2017 a man burst into
the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
Devin Kelley, wearing a ballistic vest and skull face mask, gunned down worshippers
in the pews using a Ruger AR-556 semi-automatic rifle, killing 26 and wounding 20.
He was shot outside the church by a passerby and fled in his car which he later crashed.
Kelley should have been prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms after
a domestic violence conviction while serving in the United States Air Force.
But the Air Force failed to record his court martial conviction in the FBI database.

9. March for our Lives
March for Our Lives was a student-led demonstration in support of
tighter gun control that took place on March 24, 2018, in Washington,
D.C., with over 800 sibling events throughout the United States and
around the world. Student organizers from Never Again MSD planned
the march in collaboration with the nonprofit organization Everytown
for Gun Safety. The event followed the Stoneman Douglas High School
shooting, which was described by many media outlets as a possible
tipping point for gun control legislation.
Protesters urged for universal background checks on all gun sales,
raising the federal age of gun ownership and possession to 21, closing
of the gun show loophole, a restoration of the 1994 Federal Assault
Weapons Ban, and a ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines in the
United States. Turnout was estimated to be between 1.2 to 2 million
people in the United States, making it one of the largest protests in
American history.