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Thesis Statement on Gun Control

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How the Gun Control Act of 1968 Changed America’s Approach to Firearms—And What People Get Wrong About That History

T his week marks 50 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Gun Control Act of 1968 into law on Oct. 22 of that year. It was the first major gun control measure in the United States in 30 years, but its passage earned this dismissive take in the pages of TIME: “better than nothing.”

“Forget the democratic processes, the judicial system and the talent for organization that have long been the distinctive marks of the U.S. Forget, too, the affluence (vast, if still not general enough) and the fundamental respect for law by most Americans. Remember, instead, the Gun,” the magazine had noted earlier that year, in a cover story about the role of guns in the United States, which was prompted by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. “All too widely, the country is regarded as a blood-drenched, continent-wide shooting range where toddlers blast off with real rifles, housewives pack pearl-handled revolvers, and political assassins stalk their victims at will. The image, of course, is wildly overblown, but America’s own mythmakers are largely to blame. In U.S. folklore, nothing has been more romanticized than guns and the larger-than-life men who wielded them. From the nation’s beginnings, in fact and fiction, the gun has been provider and protector.”

Though the 1968 law was a victory of sorts for gun-control activists, many were disappointed it didn’t include a registry of firearms or federal licensing requirements for gun owners. TIME reported , “It may take another act of horror to push really effective gun curbs through Congress.”

Those dynamics — the disappointment of gun-control activists, particularly after moments of tragedy, running up against the very real place of guns in American society — may sound familiar. To mark the law’s anniversary, and as TIME once again examines the role of the gun in the nation’s culture , TIME spoke to historian Robert Spitzer, author of five books on gun policy including Guns Across America and The Politics of Gun Control , about that landmark law.

What was going on in the world and the country when the Gun Control Act of 1968 passed?

It had been floating around Congress for several years. [Discussion] really began after the JFK assassination; there was a strong sense that people shouldn’t buy guns through interstate mail, because Lee Harvey Oswald did through an ad that appeared in a NRA magazine. Congress held hearings, but it didn’t really go anywhere. Now in 1968, the country is facing rising urban rioting. In the mid-to-late ’60s, crime begins to increase. There’s greater concern about guns and easy accessibility to guns. Martin Luther King is assassinated in April. In June, Robert Kennedy was assassinated and that was really the final push that brought the law back and got it through Congress.

What are the most important things the law changed?

It banned interstate shipments of firearms and ammunition to private individuals [and] sales of guns to minors, drug addicts and “mental incompetents.” This is the first time you have in law that mentally unbalanced people ought not to be able to get guns — also convicted felons. It also strengthened the licensing and record-keeping requirements for gun dealers, and that was significant because gun dealers were subject to virtually no systematic scrutiny up until this time, although a 1938 federal law did establish a fee they paid to government to be a licensed dealer. It banned importation of foreign-made surplus firearms, except those appropriate for sporting purposes.

How did the NRA react to the law?

The President of the NRA, who had testified before Congress about the bill had said [paraphrasing], ‘We’re not thrilled with this, but we can live with it. I think it’s reasonable.’ The fact that he would concede there’s any such thing as a reasonable gun control legislation — that represented the prevailing point of view of NRA leadership at the time, from 1968 to the late 1970s.

A change of leadership occurred at the NRA’s annual convention in 1977 in Cincinnati. A group of dissidents within the NRA felt the leaders were out of touch, not political enough and that the NRA wasn’t stepping in to defend gun owners, This dissident faction took over, and since then, the NRA became more political. So the 1968 law was part of a larger political process that eventually led to a change of leadership within the NRA. It didn’t result in any political sea change — that doesn’t happen or another decade — but you could point to the law as one factor that eventually causes more dissident gun owners to say, ‘We’re getting beat up, our leaders aren’t doing the right kind of job, and we need a change.’

So how did that larger change eventually happen?

Portions of the ’68 law were modified by a law passed by Congress in 1986, the Firearms Owners Protections Act, which sought to repeal even more of the law. It didn’t succeed, but the 1986 law does repeal or modify or blunt some of the aspects of the ’68 law. [It does that] by amending the ’68 law to allow for the interstate sale of rifles and shotguns as long as it was legal in the states of the buyer and seller, eliminating certain record-keeping requirements for ammunition dealers, and making it easier for individuals selling guns to do so without a license. The 1986 federal law was the culmination of the effort to try to roll back the 1968 law. Reagan is the first president to speak at the NRA’s annual convention, and he was the first presidential candidate ever endorsed by the NRA, although past presidents were NRA members. The NRA didn’t endorse candidates before 1980.

How does the Gun Control Act of 1968 relate to the political debate in recent years, in particular the conversation about mass shootings?

It doesn’t connect up with that phenomenon, which started in 1989 when a gunman shot up an elementary school. [The law] had nothing to say about assault weapons; sales were tiny until the mid 1980s, when the Chinese dumped cheap assault weapons on the American market and sales began to take off.

It seems harder to pass federal gun-control legislation now than it was back then. If that’s the case, why do you think that’s so?

The gun issue hadn’t been politicized in the ’60s the way it has been in the last few decades, where it has become even more angry and strident; 1968 was a year of political assassinations that shocked the nation.

What do people get wrong about the history of gun control? Are there any myths you find yourself debunking?

One of the great myths is the idea that gun-control laws are an artifact of the modern era, the 20th century. Gun laws are as old as America, literally to the very early colonial beginnings of the nation. From the beginning of the late 1600s to the end of the 1800s, gun laws were everywhere, thousands of gun laws of every imaginable variety. You find virtually every state in the union enacting laws that bar people from carrying concealed weapons. That’s something people don’t realize.

When we were all colonies, there were laws in the 1600s making it illegal to discharge a weapon near a road, near buildings, populated areas or on Sundays, and that barred discharge of a gun during social occasions. In New Jersey there was a law that said you weren’t allowed to discharge a weapon when you were drunk and the two exceptions were at weddings and funerals. In the old ‘Wild West,’ they took people’s guns away when they were in a populated area, only to be retrieved when they left. That exemplifies how laws were much tougher 150 years ago than in the last 30 years.

Correction: Oct. 30, 2018

The original version of this story misstated the availability of assault weapons for civilian use by the late ’60s. At least one model was available earlier.

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The fight for the gun control act of 1968.

This guest blog post is by Gabrielle Westcott, doctoral student in the Department of History at the University of Connecticut. Ms. Westcott received her B.A. in History from Whitman College and her M.A. in History from the University of Connecticut in 2015.  Her research examines the influence of emotions and personality on twentieth-century U.S. foreign policy.  As a 2016 graduate intern, she spent the summer learning about archival work and exploring the many political collections held at Archives and Special Collections .

In August 1963, after two years of investigation by the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency and three months before President Kennedy’s assassination, Senator Thomas J. Dodd introduced legislation to amend the Federal Firearms Act of 1938. The bill, S. 1975, addressed the ease with which juveniles and criminals could anonymously purchase mail-order guns and thus circumvent state laws regarding the sale of firearms. As it was first proposed, the bill sought to require individuals who wished to purchase a handgun to submit an affidavit, testifying to their eligibility to purchase a weapon in their home state. The seller would then send a copy of this affidavit to local law enforcement, who would have to authenticate the affidavit before the weapon could be sold. This was later amended so that the seller would simply provide notification of the intended delivery of the firearm to local law enforcement, without having to get police approval of the sale. After the death of President Kennedy, who was shot with a mail-order rifle purchased under a false name, Dodd amended the bill to require an affidavit for both handguns and long guns.

Two months later, on March 8, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke to Congress and proposed a program to wage a war on crime that included controls on mail-order weapons. Seizing the opportunity for a stronger gun control bill provided by the president’s speech, Dodd introduced two bills on behalf of the administration, which Dodd noted, “call[ed] for controls more comprehensive and stringent than I dared to hope for.” [4] The proposed legislation prohibited mail-order sales to individuals, such that persons wishing to purchase a mail-order firearm would have to place their order through a licensed dealer. Furthermore, federally licensed importers, manufacturers, and dealers were prohibited from selling firearms, with the exception of rifles and shotguns, to anyone who was not a resident or businessman of the state in which the seller was located. Finally, federally licensed importers, manufacturers, and dealers were prohibited from selling any type of firearm to an individual under 21 years of age, although rifles and shotguns could be sold to individuals over the age of 18.

On August 1, 1966, a student at the University of Texas in Austin climbed to the top of the University of Texas Tower and opened fire, leaving 14 people dead and 31 people injured. It was the first mass campus shooting in the United States. The following day, Dodd urged Congress to take action on his firearms legislation, noting, “It is tragic indeed that those of us who call for stronger firearms control laws must rest our case on such headlines as these. How many times will we stand witness to such atrocities before we act? How many more people must die before the American public, the Federal Government and the Congress call in unison for effective firearms legislation?” [5] When two mass shootings occurred in New Haven in that same month, Dodd once again appealed to Congress. “It happened last week. It happened this week. It will happen next week. And it will continue to happen until there are stricter gun laws.” [6] 50 years later, in the wake of Aurora, Sandy Hook, Charleston, Orlando, and countless others, Dodd’s words should haunt us.

While much of the debate surrounding gun control focused on preventing “criminals, drug addicts, mental defectives, and irresponsible juveniles” from purchasing firearms, racial tension undoubtedly played a role in who was deemed fit to own a gun. In 1966, a group in California calling themselves the Black Panther Party for Self Defense began openly carrying firearms to protect African American communities against police brutality. At the time, there was no law prohibiting the open carry of a weapon in a public space. Responding to the actions of the Black Panthers, the California legislature proposed the Mulford Act, which would make it illegal to openly carry loaded weapons. The NRA, it should be noted, supported the legislation. On May 2, 1967, a group of armed Black Panthers entered the chamber of the California State Assembly and interrupted a legislative session to protest the Mulford Act. Speaking to the Senate, Dodd called the incident “a striking example of the need for effective gun control legislation. . . . These armed men serve as a chilling reminder that legislation should be passed swiftly to keep firearms out of such irresponsible hands.” [7] That same month, the NRA encouraged their members to arm themselves to act as “a potential community stabilizer” in the case of urban rioting. [8]

On June 6, 1968, the day after Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson signed into law the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. Title IV of the Act prohibited the interstate mail-order sale of handguns; however, the amendment to prohibit the mail-order sale of rifles and shotguns was defeated. In the wake of Kennedy’s death, and with the support of the Johnson administration, Dodd introduced four new firearms control bills, calling for the inclusion of rifles and shotguns in the Omnibus Crime Control Bill, strict control over the sale of ammunition, the registration of all firearms, and the licensing of all firearms owners. Despite widespread public support for licensing and registration, opponents of gun control managed to remove those provisions from the final legislation. Signed into law on October 22, the Gun Control Act of 1968 was the culmination of five years of legislative effort and seven years of investigation on the part of Senator Dodd and the Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency.

-Gabrielle Westcott, August 2016

[1] “Press Release Concerning Interstate Weapons Traffic,” August 6, 1964, Thomas J. Dodd Papers, Box 200:5080, Archives and Special Collections, University of Connecticut.

[2] Interstate Shipment of Firearms: Hearings Before the Committee on Commerce, United States Senate , 88 th Cong. 194 (1964), ProQuest  Congressional Publications  (Permalink: http://congressional.proquest.com:80/congressional/docview/t29.d30.hrg-1963-com-0043?accountid=14518) (accessed August 3, 2016).

[3] “Statement of Senator Thomas J. Dodd Before the Senate Committee on Commerce,” March 4, 1964, Thomas J. Dodd Papers, Box 198:5002, Archives and Special Collections, University of Connecticut.

[4] “Press Release Concerning Amendments to Federal Firearms Act,” March 22, 1965, Thomas J. Dodd Papers, Box 201:5180, Archives and Special Collections, University of Connecticut.

[5] “Press Release Concerning Need for Stronger Gun Control Legislation,” August 2, 1966, Thomas J. Dodd Papers, Box 204:5363, Archives and Special Collections, University of Connecticut.

[6] “Press Release Concerning a Shooting in New Haven, CT,” August 26, 1966, Thomas J. Dodd Papers, Box 204:5370, Archives and Special Collections, University of Connecticut.

[7] “Stronger Gun Laws Needed,” May 31, 1967, Congressional Record , Thomas J. Dodd Papers, Box 207:5550, Archives and Special Collections, University of Connecticut.

[8] “No Vigilantes, Please,” May 31, 1967, Congressional Record , Thomas J. Dodd Papers, Box 207:5501, Archives and Special Collections, University of Connecticut.

4 thoughts on “ The Fight for the Gun Control Act of 1968 ”

What isn’t stated here is that Sen. Dodd likely based the Gun Control Act of 1968 on the Nazis’ Weapons Law (18 March 1938). That law specifically prohibited Jews – by name – from being involved in any firearms business (§3[5]).

For the original German text of this law see: Reichsgesetzblatt,1938, Teil I, pp. 265-269, available at: http://alex.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/alex?aid=dra&datum=1938&size=45&page=443 .

In the record of hearings held by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency pursuant to Sen. Res. 240 (26-28 June and 8-10 July 1968),there’s a letter to Sen. Dodd from Lewis C. Coffin, Law Librarian, Library of Congress, dated 16 July 1968.

Coffin began by stating that he had sent to Dodd, in an enclosure with a letter of 12 July 1968, a translation of the Weapons Law (18 March 1938). Coffin enclosed translations of other German laws relating to firearms. Coffin closed by stating, “We are returning the Xerox copies of the original German text which you supplied.”

Note that Dodd had the German original text of the Nazis’ Weapons Law. He may have seen it while he was a top prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals.

While the Nazis’ Weapons Law law was not introduced in evidence during the trial of Nazi Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, other laws – that bore Frick’s signature – were introduced in evidence.

Absent his service as a prosecutor at Nuremberg, it is most unlikely that Dodd would have known of the Nazis’ Weapons Law.

In the Gun Control Act of 1968 (82 Stat. 1213-2) – codified as 18 U.S. Code§§921-927 – the term “sporting purpose” appears. It is nowhere defined therein. In the Nazis’ Weapons Law’s regulations (§32, Reichsgesetzblatt 1938, Teil I, p. 274) there’s a definition. “Hunting weapons … are firearms designed for – and usually used for – the hunting of fair game.”

This differentiation of hunting and other firearms has no roots in U.S. jurisprudence. In the closing months of World War I, the Germans – via the Swiss (neutrals) – protested against American front-line war-fighters’ use of shotguns.

The Germans considered shotguns to be “hunting” firearms and threatened to execute any U.S. combatant found with a shotgun or shotgun ammunition. The U.S. rejected the protest: U.S. military forces had always used shotguns as a combat weapon. See: U.S. Department of State, “Foreign Relations of the United States – 1918”, Supplement 2, pp. 785-786.

In short, the Gun Control Act of 1968 very likely has Nazi roots. As the Nazis murdered some 13,000,000 – including more than a million children – it is very sad that the U.S. applies to law-abiding citizens a law with Nazi roots.

My apologies. I omitted the specific source citation for Library of Congress Law Librarian Lewis Coffin’s 16 July 1968 letter to Sen. Dodd. That letter can be found in the source cited. It is Exhibit 64, on page 496. Note that this is a printed version – not an actual photocopy – of the letter. Nonetheless, it is likely a faithful reproduction of the original.

What was the second shooting during 1966? I wanted to reference the second shooting directly.

I found the second mass shooting mentioned. Here’s a link for those who want to reference: https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DS19660826.2.8&e=——-en–20–1–txt-txIN——–1

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Thomas J. Dodd and the Gun Control Act of 1968

"Dodd Gun Bill Becomes Law, First in 30 Years," press release, June 20, 1968 - Archives & Special Collections of the University of Connecticut Libraries

Written in December 1791, the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution 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.” Since its authoring, this amendment has been the subject of frequent interpretation and argument. For some, gun ownership is central to the rights and responsibilities of US citizenship; for others it is an anachronism dangerously out of step with current social and technological realities. This controversial and divisive topic assumed a new and tragic place in Connecticut history after the horrific mass shooting of 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown on December 14, 2012. A longer look at state history shows us that Connecticut has other connections to the gun debate, particularly in the formation of The Gun Control Act of 1968.

From Norwich to Yale to Washington, DC

Thomas. J. Dodd – United States Congress

Thomas J. Dodd placed himself in the forefront of the debate when he represented Connecticut in the United States Senate in the 1960s. Born in Norwich in 1907, Dodd graduated from Providence College in 1930 and earned his law degree from Yale Law School in 1933. He worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Youth Administration in the 1930s and was an assistant to the United States Attorneys General from 1938 to 1945. One of Dodd’s most notable accomplishments was serving as Executive Trial Counsel in 1945 and 1946 for the United States’ prosecutorial team at the Nuremberg trials , which held Nazi war criminals accountable after World War II.

Dodd served in the US House of Representatives, representing Connecticut’s first district, from 1953 to 1957 and in the US Senate from 1959 to 1971. As a senator, one of his signature causes for which he relentlessly fought was that of gun control. As early as 1961, as Chairman of the Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee, Dodd was speaking out about the need for greater regulation, citing the problem of violence on television and rising levels of gun violence, particularly as it affected young people.

First Efforts to Regulate Firearm Sales Meet with Defeat

Dodd broadened his focus to encompass all gun violence and, in 1963, crafted Senate Bill 1975, a “Bill to Regulate the Interstate Shipment of Firearms.” This bill promoted the need for regulation of interstate sales of long guns, dealt with issues of juvenile delinquency and accessibility to firearms, and barred criminals and the mentally impaired from owning guns. Dodd contended that this bill would not render an undue burden to lawful gun owners; in a statement he made to the Senate’s Commerce Committee on December 13, 1963, he said it “ involves no real obstacle to any law-abiding citizen who wishes to purchase a weapon, no more an obstacle than that to operate a bicycle, far less than that required to operate an automobile.” The bill, which Dodd described in a speech given on August 12, 1964, as “unreasonably and unjustly opposed by a loud and well organized hard-core minority,” faced resistance, and it died in the Commerce Committee without a vote ever being taken on it.

The defeat of S. 1975 did not deter Dodd’s quest for gun control legislation, and he pressed ahead with other bills. Senate Bill 1592, “A Bill to Amend the Federal Firearms Act of 1938,” which Dodd submitted in May 1965 at the request of President Lyndon B. Johnson, sought to control the illicit sale of guns “to known criminals, mental patients, narcotic addicts and others to which local law prohibits the ownership of firearms.” With the encouragement of the National Rifle Association thousands of hunters across the country sent Dodd letters stating their opposition to the bill. Like Dodd’s previous bill, this one died in committee.

Gun Control Act of 1968 Passes into Law

Dodd pressed on. In January 1967 he introduced a similar bill, designed to increase fees and the regulation of firearms dealers and impose a federal minimum age requirement for handguns and long guns. Better known as the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1968, it passed in the Senate in May 1968 and by the House of Representatives on June 6, the day after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

Speech by Senator Thomas J. Dodd in the Senate, as recorded in the Congressional Record , on the Amendment to Federal Firearms Act, October 15, 1965 – Archives & Special Collections of the University of Connecticut Libraries

Other firearms measures were introduced, including the proposal to ban interstate sales of long guns, affixing a serial number on all firearms, and establishing a national gun licensing system, and on October 22, 1968, President Johnson signed the Gun Control Act of 1968. The main objectives of this Act were to eliminate interstate traffic in firearms and ammunition; deny access to firearms to minors, convicted felons, and persons who had been committed to mental institutions; and enact prohibitions on the importation of firearms “with no sporting purpose.”

Dodd’s Congressional papers, held in Archives & Special Collections of the University of Connecticut Libraries, are replete with the many speeches, press releases, passages from the Congressional Record, and memoranda where he spoke out for the need for gun control. The records show he repeatedly spoke to Congress on this issue, citing statistics and examples of the rise in crimes involving firearms in localities across the United States. His passion on the topic shows in every document and aptly illustrates his relentless fight against overwhelming opposition. In October 1968, following the passage of the bill, he wrote “No one can predict how many lives will be spared because of this bill, but, if the bloody record of our yesterdays is any measure, millions of future Americans will live to enjoy the promise of many peaceful tomorrows. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to play a part in this great moment in our time.”

Contributed by Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad, and Labor Collections, Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Libraries.

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This Legislation regulated interstate and foreign commerce in firearms, including importation, "prohibited persons", and licensing provisions. 

Assassinations and Gun Control

After the assassinations of President John Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Gun Control Act is passed and imposes stricter licensing and regulation on the firearms industry, establishes new categories of firearms offenses, and prohibits the sale of firearms and ammunition to felons and certain other prohibited persons. It also imposes the first Federal jurisdiction over "destructive devices," including bombs, mines, grenades and other similar devices. Congress reorganizes ATU into the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division (ATTD) and delegates to them the enforcement of the Gun Control Act.

Incorporated Acts of the GCA

• Firearms Owners' Protection Act of 1986
• Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993
• NICS Improvement Act of 2008
• Bipartisan Safer Communities Act

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Ronald Reagan

Statement on amendments to the gun control act of 1968.

Since its inception, this administration has been committed to removing unnecessary and burdensome Federal red tape. We are also committed to the idea that it is the criminal who is responsible for violence and crime, not the law-abiding firearms owner. Accordingly, my administration has sought to remove those restrictions that operate only to burden the law-abiding and to concentrate law enforcement resources upon criminals.

I was pleased, therefore, to sign into law two amendments to the Gun Control Act of 1968 which remove the record-keeping requirement on sales of .22 rimfire ammunition. Prior to this, dealers were required to verify and record the identity, birthdate, and ammunition type for most retail ammunition sales. Since several billion rounds of ammunition are sold to sportsmen and sportswomen each year, a tremendous amount of time and paperwork was involved in recording these sales. Yet there was little evidence that these record-keeping requirements were of significant use in solving crimes.

These amendments will remove needless record-keeping requirements for the most popular sporting ammunition, the .22 rimfire, and thus eliminate the paperwork on over a billion rounds annually.

Note: The amendments are contained in H.J. Res. 631, which provided for continuing appropriations for fiscal year 1983. As enacted, H.J. Res. 631 is Public Law 97-377, approved December 21, 1982.

Ronald Reagan, Statement on Amendments to the Gun Control Act of 1968 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/244590

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The Gun Control Act of 1968

• Author: arsalan
• Posted on: 31 Oct 2018
• Paper Type: Free Essay
• Subject: English
• Wordcount: 1378 words
• Published: 31st Oct 2018

Thesis Statement: The paper will discuss the Gun Control Act of 1968 that restricted people from obtaining a gun through the mail and interstate trade of guns because it was necessary to keep the guns away from the hands of criminals and it shows the role of states in controlling the guns in America.

The Gun control Act of 1968 and its significance:

The Act of 1968: It restricts gun purchase via email and requires the dealers to have a proper license when selling the arms to other states or arms dealers. It also requires the age to buy a gun to be 21 years.

Significance: It initiated check and balances of gun purchase. It necessitated the licensing of gun dealing to ensure the safety of the public.

Role of policymaking:

• Divided public
• Constitutional barriers to gun control
• Public involvement in the gun control
• The interest of the policymakers

There should be proper gun control to ensure safety and reduce gun-related violence.

Gun violence is one of the major issues of American society today. Thousands of people are killed due to the mass shooting and one of the reasons for the abundance of the occurrence of gun violence is the availability of guns. Although the US government has tried to regulate guns with several policies and laws, the gun violence is still prevalent. The paper will discuss the Gun Control Act of 1968 that restricted people from obtaining a gun through the mail and interstate trade of guns because it was necessary to keep the guns away from the hands of criminals and it shows the role of states in controlling the guns in America.

The Gun Control Act of 1968 was significant because it restricted people from buying guns through the mail. It initiated check and balances of gun purchase raising the age buying guns to 21 and encouraging record keeping (Spitzer, 2015). It necessitated the licensing of gun dealing to ensure the safety of the public. It was initiated due to the increased number of gun violence and especially the gun violence perpetrated on the public figures such as President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King (Zimring, 1975). It was a response to the public outrage. However, not all the people agree guns are the cause of violence. They blame mental illness for the gun control although the research shows that many people with mental illness are not violent nor they are involved in many of the cases of gun violence in the United States (McGinty, Webster, & Barry, 2013).

Hence, the public, as well as policymakers, seem to confront a dilemma regarding gun control. Many of the people perceive that regardless of gun control policies, gun violence will persist making the gun control laws useless. However, gun violence occurs due to the presence of guns and easy access to guns and the gun control policies can play a role in controlling them (Erikson & Tedin, 2015). Nonetheless, policymaking is complex as it is influenced by many factors. The Gun lawmakers are reluctant to come up with policies to band the gun violence as it is against the constitutional rights of people as well as the interests of politicians. And the Gun Control Act of 1968 shows the complexity and reluctance to control the guns unless the public demands for it as they did in 1968.

To conclude, the Gun Control Act of 1968 is significant in initiating the gun control laws in America and restricting dealers and underage people from obtaining guns. It is also significant in highlighting the need for gun control to reduce violence. Moreover, it points out the gun policymaking is a complex issue that needs the involvement of states as well as the people.

Erikson, R. S., & Tedin, K. L. (2015). American public opinion: Its origins, content and impact . Routledge.

McGinty, E. E., Webster, D. W., & Barry, C. L. (2013). Effects of news media messages about mass shootings on attitudes toward persons with serious mental illness and public support for gun control policies. American Journal of Psychiatry , 170 (5), 494–501.

Spitzer, R. J. (2015). Checks and Balances Will Directly Come Into Play Politics of Gun Control. In Politics of gun control . Routledge.

Zimring, F. E. (1975). Firearms and federal law: the Gun Control Act of 1968. The Journal of Legal Studies , 4 (1), 133–198.

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