What Are The Gun Laws In America?
Canada and the United States have many differences in culture.
Americans tend to be a bit more rigidly individualistic than Canadians. They tend to be much more family-oriented rather than community-oriented, and they don't tend to be as openly sociable with strangers– at least in my experience.
Small town U.S.A. is a little closer to our culture up here, so I suspect the difference comes down to the number of people they're surrounded by.
We have fewer people here, so that 'everyone knows everyone' feeling is way more widespread in Canada than in the U.S.
But one of the biggest ways our cultures differ comes down to one big, all-encompassing trait: Canadians can be patriotic, but Americans are raised and conditioned to be downright nationalistic.
Americans love the symbolism of the United States.
One of the things they have a feverish degree of adoration for is the Constitution of the United States. And this is understandable; it is the basis for law, freedom and democracy in the country. I have a similar respect for our Charter rights here in Canada.
The problem is, the people who crow the loudest about the Constitution are usually not the people who have actually read the damn thing. They love it as a symbol, not as the document as it stands.
How does this relate to gun laws and violence in America? Why, through the beloved Second Amendment!
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The Second Amendment 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. – U.S. Constitution
I often see American gun owners citing the second part of this amendment.
Most people completely ignore the first part.
A well regulated militia was a necessity back in the day. The reason this amendment exists is because of how America was founded; the country achieved its independence from England through a revolution via strength of arms.
It was the every day citizen who took up arms to fight for their freedom that led to the establishment of their nation. This is the great mythology of the United States, and there's truth to it.
Given this history, and the fact that the Founding Fathers understood what it took to maintan that independence, it's no surprise that they wanted the American people to have the right to defend themselves against a tyrannical government should the need arise.
This amendment was written in direct response to the laws that allowed the federal government to arm and mobilize its own militia. Giving the same power to the people functioned as a check to prevent an abuse of that law.
If a tyrant at the head of the country decided to send soldiers to attack American citizens, the citizens would be backed by local fighters with training and armaments who could defend them.
But here's the thing; an organized and regulated militia was the intent. A group of armed, trained, disciplined defenders. The idea of individual, unrestricted gun ownership was likely not what the original authors had in mind.
This was also written at the time when war looked like people wielding muskets and black powder rifles, firing at the opposite side from well-ordered lines across an open field.
In other words, it is hilariously outdated and has not kept pace with today's technology.
Guns are useful tools in some situations, don't get me wrong. People hunt, people take part in shooting competitions, people use guns for self defense when out on a hike.
Trust me, if I get charged by a bear or a moose, I'm going to wish I had a gun in my hands; I completely get that.
But let's not lose sight of what a gun exists to do. A gun is a tool to kill something.
That is all it exists to do. It kills.
American gun culture, in many respects, does not treat guns like what they are. Rather, they have become a symbol of nationalism and Conservative thinking.
When I see family Christmas pictures where everyone – including the children– are holding guns, I feel a pit in my stomach. There is nothing wholesome about those smiling faces, because there's nothing wholesome about putting weapons of war in the hands of little kids.
Weapons of mass death should not be so normalized. In my opinion, this is the hallmark of an unhealthy society.
In Canada, we have restrictions on who can own guns, how to get them, and we emphasize the safety and protection of our citizenry. We don't keep people from owning guns, but we do expect basic responsibility from you if you want that privilege.
In America, those restrictions are either nonexistant or a whole lot looser. That's the "shall not be infringed" part of the Second Amendment.
Most of the gun laws in America are on the State level, since the country acts more like a group of 50 small nations connected by an overarching government. They have a relatively high degree of independence from one another when it comes to enacting laws.
As a result of loose restrictions and the Constitutional right to bear arms, about one third of American adults own at least one registered firearm. Most of them, as I hinted above, are Republicans. The majority of them cite personal protection as the reason for owning firearms.
Not a great thing to hear when you realize how much of the rhetoric on the Republican political spectrum is centered on how dangerous black and brown immigrants are.
As a random aside, after Trump's recent debate against Kamala Harris and his ludicrously racist statements about Haitian immigrants in Springfield eating their neighbor's pets, the town has recieved no less than 33 bomb threats.
Stochastic terrorism is a real thing.
As I said, gun laws are usually set on a state-by-state level in America.
California currently stands at the top of the list for gun safety because of their regulations on ownership, while states like Arkansas and Mississippi rank very low.
This is because those states do not require a permit for concealed and open carry. They are just 2 out of the 26 states where you don't require any legal permit to carry a gun on your person in public spaces.
If you own a gun, you can just have it with you at the grocery store.
As as Canadian, the idea that at any moment, any of the strangers I pass in the street might be carrying a lethal weapon is terrifying. I don't know these people. I don't know if they handle guns responsibly. I don't know if they have mental health issues, or if they might be suicidal, or have road rage.
Automatically, I feel unsafe in public. Because if somebody pulls a gun on me there isn't much that I can do to defend myself.
Proponents of open carry would respond to my fear with, "Well if you were armed, you wouldn't be scared. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun!"
Yeah? Did that help the children in Uvalde, Texas? The entire police force was in that school, a whole force of armed, trained, and supposedly 'good guys', and they didn't do jack shit to help those kids.
Because they froze, because they were scared of being shot.
Having more guns in a situation doesn't make anybody safer. Those kids wouldn't have been killed if their murderer hadn't been surrounded by easily-acquired and unsecured weapons of mass death.
Their killer was 18-years-old. He purchased his gun legally, just days after his birthday. He used it to end the lives of 19 little children, and 2 adults.
Nobody stopped him.
And yeah, I said he bought it legally. You can buy a fucking AR-15 at 18 in Texas, so long as you aren't drunk and haven't been convicted of a felony. You need to be 21 to carry it around, except no you don't, because it's against the law to prosecute somebody for open carry based on their age alone.
In practice, if you own a gun legally, you can carry it around Texas freely. Note– Texas is not the lowest ranked state for gun safety. It's number 32 out of 50 on the above index.
It is aggressively middle-of-the-pack.
I'm not going to go through every single state and their gun laws. There are 50 of them, and this email would be far too long to read. And besides, I would walk away from my computer with one hell of a migraine if I had to try and decipher that much legalese.
I love y'all, but I'm not Superwoman.
But even with this bare-bones dissection, you can see how different the safety regulations are between America and Canada. We might as well be on different planets, and you can see how our gun cultures evolved into such radically different beasts.
Because of how complex and diverse the gun regulations are in the States, this is a situation where you really should decide what you need to know based on why you need to know it.
If you're not American and you're just curious, then you're in for a long ride. There's a lot to go over and there's a very long history of changes made over time.
If you are American, I suggest looking at the federal laws first, then checking your own state laws. I would also suggest looking at the states that share a border with yours, as even in states with gun restrictions, firearms are often purchased and brought in from neighboring regions.
If you've ever heard a Republican pull the whole, "Democrat run states have lots of gun violence and their safety laws don't help!" line, here's your rebuttal: "The guns used by the criminals were often purchased in the Red states next door."
If all states had robust safety laws, the entire country's gun crime rate would drop like a stone. If only a few have those laws, there's only so much those states can do.
The federal gun laws for the United States can be found here, provided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Your state's official government pages likely have resources and information about their gun regulations. I linked the Texas site above when I was talking about open carry there, just as one example.
Before I sign off today, I want to leave you with a short poem written by Brian Bilston that captures the essence of today's discussion:
“America Is A Gun
England is a cup of tea.
France, a wheel of ripened brie.
Greece, a short, squat olive tree.
America is a gun.
Brazil is football on the sand.
Argentina, Maradona's hand.
Germany, an oompah band.
America is a gun.
Holland is a wooden shoe.
Hungary, a goulash stew.
Australia, a kangaroo.
America is a gun.
Japan is a thermal spring.
Scotland is a highland fling.
Oh, better to be anything
than America as a gun.”
Solidarity wins.
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