Citation

Goss KA. Am. J. Orthopsychiatry 2015; 85(3): 203-210.

Affiliation

Duke University.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, American Orthopsychiatric Association, Publisher Wiley Blackwell)

DOI

10.1037/ort0000068

PMID

25985105

Abstract

This article documents an important exception to the conventional wisdom that politicians just will not tighten gun laws. Over the past decade, and mostly under the radar, both state and federal legislators have enacted more than 80 laws designed to regulate access to guns by people with mental illness and to support programs to reduce gun violence within that population. This study begins with a brief overview and evaluation of the barriers to enacting firearms regulations (of all sorts) in America. The author next reviews lawmaking at the nexus of mental health and firearms over the past decade. The author provides an overview of the types of laws that have been enacted and the political circumstances that have facilitated their passage. The author concludes with some thoughts about whether these cases provide any generalizable lessons for consensus-based policymaking on guns. (PsycINFO Database Record

Language: en