PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
Heather Yakin: In-depth research needed to figure out gun violence problem :: 09/23/2015
Most of us have opinions on gun rights, don’t we?
So did the New York State Bar Association, and so they recently put out a report called “Understanding the Second Amendment: Gun Regulation in America Today and Yesterday.”
The report outlines the issues of gun violence, the current state of the law in light of 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller and 2010’s McDonald v. City of Chicago, the history of the Second Amendment, and the significance of the gun-violence data we don’t have. There’s also analysis of New York’s SAFE Act.
(If you’re curious, the report is available at www.nysba.org/2ndamendment as a free digital download or as a printed book for $15. Free registration with the NYSBA website is required to order.)
The New York State Bar Association formed the Task Force on Gun Violence in 2013, following on the heels of the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 elementary school children and six adults were killed. The task force members include prosecutors, other lawyers, some of whom are also gun owners, and a current police officer, according to NYSBA’s State Bar News.
The short version of their conclusions is that while Heller established officially for the first time that federal and state governments are subject to Second Amendment restrictions in their attempts to regulate guns, they can, in fact, impose some regulations. For instance: Government can restrict possession of guns by people with criminal convictions or histories of mental illness, and can bar carrying guns in “sensitive areas” such as schools and government buildings.
And from there, as to what the courts might allow or not allow in terms of firearm regulations as they balance the rights of individuals against the duty of government to protect citizens? To quote the Magic 8-Ball, “reply hazy, try again.”
Historically, Congress has acted in the wake of violence: Prohibition Era gangland violence, assassinations or attempts, the latest drug scourge. Since Newtown and Gabby Giffords and the Aurora theater, and on and on, we’ve talked a lot, but mostly past each other.
The NYSBA report details how, in the past 20 years, congressional actions have pushed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention out of gun research and restricted how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms can disseminate its trace data on guns used in crime.
According to the CDC, in 2013 there were 33,636 gun fatalities in the U.S., of which 11,675 were homicides and 21,175 were suicides.
This shouldn't be about where we fall on the gun rights spectrum. But can we agree that this represents a serious problem, one we need actual research and data from public health and law enforcement to address?
