|
Abstract
|
Ten days before a 21-year-old man used an assault weapon to murder 10 people in a Boulder, Colorado, supermarket in March 2021, a judge struck down Boulder's local prohibition on such weapons. The judge's grounds for doing so were not, as one might expect, the Second Amendment to the US Constitution but rather Colorado's "preemption" law--one of roughly 40 such laws throughout the country that restrict the power of local governments to enact tailored solutions to gun violence. 1
Boulder joins a long list of US cities whose names will now forever be linked with mass shootings: Columbine, Colorado; Aurora, Colorado; Parkland, Florida; San Bernardino, California; and many others. Those cities--and most others--have something else in common as well. As Pomeranz et al. demonstrate in their article "State Gun-Control, Gun-Right, and Preemptive Firearm-Related Laws Across 50 US States for 2009-2018" (p. 1273), they are also subject to preemption laws limiting their ability to regulate guns. Some "punitive" preemption laws go so far as to impose criminal or financial liability on local officials who fail to comply.
Although they are widespread today, firearm preemption laws are a relatively recent development. In 1979, just seven states fully or partially preempted local gun regulation. 2 But following a concerted campaign by the NRA (National Rifle Association of America) and other gun rights advocates, dozens of states adopted preemption laws relating to firearms throughout the ensuing decades, so that during the relevant study period--2009 through 2018--preemptive measures remained largely unchanged. Aside from becoming more punitive (which some did), there was little room to get any stricter.
The NRA argues that preemption laws are...
Language: en |