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Abstract
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This note provides model firearm training provisions while discussing the policy reasons for implementing required firearm training, constitutional firearm regulations, and the need for firearm training.
"It does not matter whether we believe that guns kill people or that people kill people with guns--the result is the same: a public health crisis." 1 The public heavily focuses on serious issues of "mass shootings, murders and accidental gun deaths."2 Equally important, many people do not realize that most gun fatalities are suicides. 3
The number of firearm suicides rose from 19,392 in 2010, to 24,432 in 2018.4 Another point to consider: "stolen guns create a significant risk to public safety in American communities."5 Law enforcement virtually cannot trace stolen firearms. 6 Furthermore, stolen firearms are frequently used in fatal shootings--in 2019, five of the six Alabama law enforcement officers fatally shot in the line of duty were shot by firearms stolen from nearby homes.7 Whether an individual supports gun control or not, clear and valid needs exist for reasonable regulations to help support a safer gun culture in this country.
This note discusses the policy reasons for implementing one type of reasonable regulation: required firearm training. Part II of this note focuses on the firearm regulations that passed constitutional muster under Second Amendment jurisprudence. Part III discusses the safety need for firearm training, which includes raising suicide awareness and proper theft prevention.
Part IV proposes model firearm training provisions, based on a culmination of current state regulations that implement firearm safety courses. Additionally, Part IV provides an overview of how lower courts approached Second Amendment challenges after the landmark Heller and McDonald cases.8 The constitutionality of the proposed firearm safety training, however, rests upon the recent Supreme Court decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. 9
Copyright © 2022, Emily D. Asher
1 Darren B. Taichman & Christine Laine, Reducing Firearm-Related Harms: Time for Us to Study and Speak Out, ANNALS OF INTERNAL MED. (Apr. 7, 2015), https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M15-0428 [https://perma.cc/26ND-XWF3].
2 Roni Caryn Rabin, 'How Did We Not Know?' Gun Owners Confront a Suicide Epidemic, N.Y. TIMES (Nov. 18, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/health/suicide- guns-prevention.html [https://perma.cc/724X-4PGD].
3 Id.
4 Id.
5 Chelsea Parsons & Eugenio Weigand Vargas, Gun Theft in the United States: A State- by-State Analysis, CTR. FOR AM. PROGRESS (Mar. 4, 2020, 9:05 AM), https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/guns-crime/news/2020/03/04/481029/gun-theft- united-states-state-state-analysis/ [https://perma.cc/ZD6E-M3Y8].
6 Id
7 Id.
8 See generally District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008); McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010).
9 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022) (adopting a historical standard of review for Second Amendment challenges)
Language: en |