Thread: Firearms: The Common Person & the Criminal

Here in the USA they actually do have some pretty stringent gun laws. There are the federal statutes and each state has their own regulations as well. These regulations vary from state to state but are consistent in every state in certain things. In every state an individual who has been convicted of a felony or suffers from mental illness is prohibited from possessing a firearm. Most states have a waiting period of a few days from the time you pay for the firearm to the time you can take possession. They also have back round checks.

All this is if you are buying the weapon in a store or a gun show. Private sales between individuals are not regulated, at least not in the state that I live in. There are plenty enough laws on the books and in states such as NY, NJ and Mass. they are quite severe but apparently only effective in controlling people who respect and abide by the law. The problem isn't a shortage of laws, rather a shortage of enforcement.