Gun Control

Essay #3
For/Against Gun Control


Have you ever wondered how gun control could affect our life and lives around the world? United States’ first major gun law was the Gun Control Act of 1968. The 1968 Gun Control Act (ATF - The Gun Control Act of 1968, Public Law 90-618) established categories of prohibited purchasers and possessors including convicted felons, fugitives from justice, minors, individuals with a history of mental illness, anyone dishonorably discharged from the military and illegal aliens. The law also banned the mail-order sales of all firearms and ammunition, such as the rifle used by Lee Harvey Oswald to shoot President John F. Kennedy. (The Lee Harvey Oswald Research Page-Index) The law also set standards for gun dealers and age guidelines for gun purchasers and prohibited the sale and manufacture of new fully automatic civilian machine guns. When this law passed on gun control, it received a wide range of responses. Since this first law, those increased m...