Handguns sales

According to the appeals court, The primary legal issue is whether the Legislature has completely preempted the field of regulation of handgun sales. In the absence of state preemption, every municipality is authorized by the California Constitution to exercise its police power to deal with local situations. The idea of preemption is that a lower jurisdiction (such as a city) cannot make a law that deals with a matter that a higher jurisdiction (such as the state) has already definitively covered. The lower court found that the local ordinance was not preempted. 

Starting February 28, 1994, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Law (the Brady Act) required a five-day waiting period for all handguns purchased from dealers (but not private sales). This resulted in waiting periods being enforced in 32 states that did not previously have them. The federal... 

The National Firearms Act of 1934 is passed. The law includes a variety of taxes on the manufacture, sale, and transfer of automatic weapons and certain short-barreled weapons, as well as requiring an FBI background check and the consent of local law enforcement officials for any purchase. The law does not apply to handguns. 

As crime rates continue to increase, the President s Commission on Law Enforcement includes among its recommendations national registration of handguns and the prohibition of interstate sales of handguns. 

Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana proposes a hill that would prohibit the manufacture and sale of nonsporting handguns. It passes in the Senate but dies in the House. A similar bill will be passed by the Senate in 1974. 

January Officials in the cities of San Francisco and Oakland, California, propose municipal ordinances that would ban the sale of so-called ultracompact handguns that can be easily carried in people s pockets. (Due to their good quality construction, such guns are not covered under existing legislation banning Saturday Night Specials. )... 

Montgomery, Jill. National Instant Criminal Bac%round Checks System. USA Bulletin, vol. 50, January 2002, pp. 50-51. Describes the national instant check system (NICS) developed to implement the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. Montgomery explains how the databases are searched and what efforts are being made to speed up the system and to deal with the fact that the databases remain incomplete. Between November 1998 and the end of 2001, NICS had processed more than 23 million transactions and denied more than 190,000 sales to felons or other ineligible persons. 

A) for failure to prevent the sale or transfer of a handgun to a person whose receipt or possession of the handgun is unlawful under this section or... 

B) for preventing such a sale or transfer to a person who may lawfully receive or possess a handgun. 

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