Policy Brief: The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA68)

Policy Brief
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Policy Brief The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA or GCA68) is a policy by the United States that regulates firearm ownership and use. As a U.S. federal law, it enforces the regulation by curbing interstate commerce in prohibiting firearms exchange. Five decades later, the policy remains the center of gun control in America. This essay is a policy brief that analyzes the history and the current state of the policy. In 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, triggering a response from the United States Congress. The rifle used was purchased from a mail-order responding to an ad on the magazine American Rifleman. Consequently, mail order sales were banned, especially guns, with the law having to wait till 1968. Back-to-back assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr on April 4, 1968, and Robert F. Kennedy compounded the need to revisit gun laws in America (WAXMAN, 2018). Only months later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Gun Control Act into law on October 22. The different events over the decade had triggered shifting societal attitudes towards gun ownership culminating in the bill's passing. Consequently, it banned mail sales of rifles and prohibited individuals such as felons, drug users, and mentally incompetent from buying and owning guns. Over the years, attempts to modify the law passed in 1968, such as the 1986 attempt by the Firearms Owners Protection Act. The law managed to change the '68 direction by allowing the interstate sale of firearms and shotguns. This depends on the buyer and seller being from states that have legalized the transaction. Today, it is harder to pass federal gun-control legislation than it was in the 19^th century. Policies on gun control were less politicized, and the influence of bodies such as th...