Word: bans
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...passage of the Brady Law and assault-weapons ban made 1994 a banner year for the forces of gun control, 1995 is quickly shaping up as the year of the Great Rollback. With one eye cocked at next year's presidential race, Senate majority leader Robert Dole pledged last week to undo the assault-weapons ban by this summer. So far this year, three states (Virginia, Arkansas and Utah) have joined the four states that loosened restrictions on CCW (carrying concealed weapons) permits last year. Legislation is pending or awaiting gubernatorial signature in 16 states. In Texas last Wednesday...
Nomenclature can obscure the magnitude of this change. When people talk of allowing concealed weapons, there is a tendency to imagine legions of citizens who had previously carried their Smith & Wessons on their hips gratefully slipping them into a coat pocket. But since half the states flatly ban carrying an exposed weapon (and the practice attracts unwanted attention everywhere), restrictions on concealment are effectively restrictions on almost any carrying of handguns outside the home. As the states change their CCW laws, citizens may have to endure background checks and waiting periods to procure their handguns, but most will also...
...fueled by the same dread that has stoked the success of death-penalty campaigns and "Three strikes and you're in." The desire for self-preservation in the face of an increase in random violence and understaffed police forces can express itself, without paradox, in both an assault-weapons ban and in the desire to pack one's own handgun. Says Gary Huttenhoff, a real estate appraiser who has just picked up his laminated wallet-size permit from Sheriff Anderson's office in El Paso County: "The police take care of the public, not the individual. This is a great...
...current trend toward relaxation of concealed-weapons laws continues, soon the most important gun restrictions may involve destinations: the states will probably allow various venues--public gathering places, offices, stores--to ban firearms on the premises. The only problem will be how to know who is packing heat...
...Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens today issued a highly unusual essay asking judges across the country to study whether executing prisoners who have spent long periods on death row violates the Constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Stevens made the request in a two-page supplement to the court's unanimous rejection of Texas killer Clarence Allen Lackey's death penalty appeal. Lackey's attorney argued that executing him after 17 years on death row amounted tocruel and unusual punishment, in part because his prolonged imprisonment had eliminated the possibility that executing him would accomplish retribution or serve...