Donkey Work: Congressional Democrats in Conservative America, 1974-1994

Abstract

Furthermore, the enforcement of gun control laws is challenged by ideology and worldviews. Firearms owners reject state regulations of their firearms on principle-because they believe that their right to self-defense should not be subject to any state-imposed restrictions. Local law enforcement, especially outside major urban centers, share the same ideology and have refused to enforce many provisions of the SAFE Act. The list goes on, and it is not pretty outside of political pronouncements and press releases. Not only do we have an ineffective patchwork of laws, some of which are not enforceable, but it is all but impossible to assess the effectiveness of new regulations given the openness of the American marketplace. The book's "no-nonsense" cataloging of glaring problems with the country's gun regulation system opens up numerous questions of interest to political scientists. Through the lens of gun policy, we can discuss issues of state capacity, political values and culture, temporal political incentives, federalism, and the role of courts. Students of public policy have a great basis for theory development in this realistic portrayal of the major limitations of our gun regulatory system.