Citation

Wilson DB. J. Firearms Public Policy 2006; 18(1).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Second Amendment Foundation)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

Senator John Corzine and Representative Patrick Kennedy have introduced legislation called the Firearms Safety and Consumer Protection Act. This article contracts the proposed Firearms Act with the current federal law covering consumer safety for other products. The article demonstrates that, in contrast to the Consumer Product Safety Act, the proposed Firearms Act has essentially no due process protections, and no guidelines to encourage government actions less drastic than prohibition and confiscation. The author suggests that the Firearms Act, although it uses some consumer safety language, is best understood as an effort to give the Attorney General the unlimited authority to ban any or all firearms.

This article is an abridged and edited version of the author’s longer article, "What You Can’t Have Won’t Hurt You! The Real Safety Objective of the Firearms Safety and Consumer Protection Act," 53 Cleveland State Law Review 225 (2005), and is reprinted with the author’s permission.