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86 Ky. L.J. 197 (1997-1998)
Taking a Second Look at the Second Amendment and Modern Gun Control Laws

handle is hein.journals/kentlj86 and id is 207 raw text is: Taking a Second Look at the Second Amendment and Modem Gun Control Laws BY DAVID E. JOHNSON* INTRODUCrION T he Great American Gun War1 rages hotter than ever. Advocates of gun control decry the excesses of the gun culture, which is thought to be unique to the United States,2 and regularly cite high rates of violent crime that they say are directly attributable to the widespread sale and ownership of firearms Oppo- nents of efforts to regulate gun ownership, represented mainly by the National Rifle Association, point to the Second Amendment4 as a source * J.D. expected 1998, Umversity of Kentucky. B. Bruce-Bnggs, The Great American Gun War, PUB. INTEREST 37 (1976), noted in Don B. Kates, Jr., Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment, 82 MICH. L. REV 204, 206 (1983). 2 In Great Britain, for example, where 3500 gun-related crimes in one year (as compared to over a million such crimes annually in the United States) are considered to constitute a crime wave, many view the American gun culture as an anomaly, rather than the norm. The British Parliament recently took steps toward a very broad ban on private possession of any kind of handguns, by passing a law which requires handgun owners to participate m a government buy- back program. See Otis Pike, Targeting Guns, THE TIMEs-PIcAYuNE (New Orleans), June 16, 1997, at B5; John Deane, Handgun Ban Outlined in New Bill, PREss AssOcIATION NEwSFLE, May 22, 1997, available in LEXIS, News Library, CURNWS file. ' See, e.g., Government Policies Associated with the Second Amendment: Hearings Before the Subcomm. on Crime of the House of Representatives, 103d Cong., 1st Sess., at 1 (1993) (statement of Edward E. Kallgren), cited in Brannon P Denning, Can the Simple Cite Be Trusted? Lower Court Interpretations of United States v. Miller and the SecondAmendment, 26 CUMB. L. REv 961, 964 (1996). 4 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. U.S. CONST. amend. II.

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