In brief, the positions of the conflicting sides are as follows. Supporters of loosening control declare that attempts by authorities to restrict the constitutional norm that allows US residents who own weapons to have and use them negatively affect all American legislation. Every small step in this direction leads to the most serious and long-term consequences. In their opinion, it is not weapons that kill, but people. Criminals will always find a way to get a pistol or submachine gun, while unarmed law-abiding citizens will be defenseless against criminals. They are confident that where more citizens are armed, the crime rate is lower and the degree of safety is higher. Criminals are afraid to attack people capable of fighting back.
Their opponents, in turn, argue that the Second Amendment to the Constitution does not guarantee the right of all Americans to own weapons; it applies only to members of the police and militia. In their view, weapons themselves are a risk factor: where there is a higher concentration in private hands, more injuries and deaths caused by pistols and rifles are recorded. Weapons in the home are especially dangerous for children and adolescents (annually about 5,000 young Americans die from gunshot wounds (in the UK, where there is a much stricter control system, this figure is 19 people).
In any case, American politicians are forced to deal with the existing reality. However, modern US history shows that any incursion into this field can bring unpleasant consequences for a politician. Whatever his position on the issue of gun control, he risks acquiring numerous and influential enemies.
A telling story occurred in 1994. At that time, the US Congress was controlled by the Democratic Party, which had a majority in both houses of the American parliament for 12 years. In 1993-1994, the Democratic Congress passed two laws aimed at fighting crime - they to a certain extent restricted Americans' rights to own weapons. The laws were signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, after which they came into force.
Retribution came very quickly - as a result of the elections, the Democrats lost their majority in Congress. But the negative consequences for the Democratic Party proved more long-term. After the adoption of 'anti-gun laws,' the states of Arkansas, New Hampshire, Tennessee, and West Virginia (where many supporters of free firearms ownership live), which had previously voted for Democrat Clinton, switched to the Republican camp and during the last three election cycles gave their votes to them. In the 2004 presidential election, Democratic candidate Al Gore missed victory, in part, because these states voted against his candidacy. And this despite the fact that Gore stated literally the following: 'None of my proposals will in the slightest affect the interests of hunters and gun owners.'
During the 2004 election, both main candidates - Republican George Bush and Democrat John Kerry - tried not to touch on this topic during the election campaign. Trying to gain more votes in his support, Kerry limited himself to a statement that he had never opposed the right of Americans to own weapons: 'I have always defended the Second Amendment to the Constitution.' In response, the National Rifle Association called on its members to vote against Kerry.
The current participants in the presidential race (the election will take place in 2008) are also not particularly inclined to propose any drastic measures to solve the gun problem. A striking example is Rudolph Giuliani, a Republican candidate who currently has the highest ratings among supporters of this party. As mayor of New York, Giuliani held a more 'Democratic' position - he advocated for stricter gun control. However, upon entering the race for the White House, he quickly changed his views, declaring that specific decisions on this matter should be made by individual states, listening to the will of the local population.
In part, the 'gun liberalism' of the titans of American politics is due to the influence that groups advocating for free gun ownership have in Washington (the most famous and powerful of which is the National Rifle Association). These structures spend significant amounts of money lobbying for their interests.
According to the Library of Congress, five bills are currently being discussed in the US Senate and 17 in the House of Representatives that in one way or another touch on the gun issue. The proposed laws address various aspects of this problem: from increasing penalties for arms smuggling and a total ban on semi-automatic weapons, to the complete abolition of all existing restrictions.
Public opinion polls on this topic, regularly conducted by Gallup, show that the number of supporters of stricter gun control has been steadily declining since 1990. At that time, 78% of Americans were in favor of stricter rules, 2% for loosening them, and 17% for keeping things as they are. In January 2007, for the first time in a decade and a half, supporters of stricter control accounted for less than half of those surveyed (49%). In turn, the number of those who advocate for relaxing the rules increased to 14%.
The process of declining popularity of anti-gun measures was uneven: it was influenced by many factors, primarily the crime rate in the US (which has been steadily declining since 1994) and, especially, crimes like the massacre at Virginia Tech. For example, in April 1999, two schoolchildren shot 13 people at Columbine High School. Before that, in the US there were 60% supporters of stricter gun control and 9% supporters of loosening it. After the crime, the former became 66%, the latter 7%.
A poll conducted at the end of 2006 showed that a majority of Americans believe that having a gun makes a home a safer place to live. 47% of respondents thought so, while 43% were convinced of the opposite. Supporters of domestic militarization are more often men living in rural areas, primarily in the South or West of the United States, sympathetic to conservative ideas, and for the most part already owning a rifle or pistol for personal use. 43% of surveyed Americans said they own firearms (in 1993 it was 51%). These are mostly elderly white people with high income levels, living in rural areas and voting for the Republican Party.