title: ILoveMakonnen

text: Makonnen also claimed "extra bullshit in the industry" stopped "Teach Me How To Whip It" and "No M'aam" from getting radio play. When asked if he still talked to Drake, Makonnen responded, "Here and there. By the time this comes out, I'll probably see him six more times or no more times. I don't know. I just wish everybody well in all that they do and I just go on and live my life and try to uplift motherfuckers. At the end of the day I'm tired of uplifting people. I just gotta uplift myself now because everything else is a waste of time."


title: ILoveMakonnen

text: Makonnen also described the music scene: "There's not even any money here anymore. It's all lies. The money's gone and everybody is now keeping up this front as if there's money there."


title: ILoveMakonnen

text: On February 8, 2016, it was announced that alongside Travis Scott and Vic Mensa, Makonnen would be part of the "WANGSQUAD", an Alexander Wang campaign.


title: ILoveMakonnen

text: On April 18, 2016, Makonnen parted ways with Drake's label OVO Sound, saying the "choice to be solely on Warner Bros. Records was the right thing for me and for my best interest." On May 7, 2016, Makonnen announced he would be retiring from music to focus on acting but released a new song shortly after, with confirmation of a new project.


title: ILoveMakonnen

text: In the late summer of 2017, Makonnen collaborated on an album with Lil Peep in London. The album was scrapped after Lil Peep's fans leaked it online in May 2020. On August 17, 2018, Makonnen announced a single he co-wrote titled "Falling Down", a reworking of "Sunlight On Your Skin" that he recorded with Peep during the sessions in London. The new version features since deceased rapper XXXTentacion, who recorded his verses following Peep's death. The single was officially released on September 19, 2018. The original "Sunlight On Your Skin" version was released on September 27, 2018.


title: Listerine

text: Listerine is an American brand of antiseptic mouthwash that is promoted with the slogan "Kills germs that cause bad breath", Named after Joseph Lister, who pioneered antiseptic surgery at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in Scotland, Listerine was developed in 1879 by Joseph Lawrence, a chemist in St. Louis, Missouri.


title: Listerine

text: Originally marketed by the Lambert Pharmacal Company (which later became Warner–Lambert), Listerine has been manufactured and distributed by Johnson & Johnson since that company's acquisition of Pfizer's consumer healthcare division on December 20, 2006.


title: Listerine

text: The Listerine brand name is also used in toothpaste, chewable tablets, and self-dissolving teeth-whitening strips.


title: Listerine

text: Inspired by Louis Pasteur's ideas on microbial infection, the English doctor Joseph Lister demonstrated in 1865 that use of carbolic acid on surgical dressings would significantly reduce rates of post-surgical infection. Lister's work in turn inspired St. Louis-based doctor Joseph Lawrence to develop an alcohol-based formula for a surgical antiseptic which included eucalyptol, menthol, methyl salicylate, and thymol (its exact composition was a trade secret). Lawrence named his antiseptic "Listerine" in honor of Lister.


title: Listerine

text: Lawrence hoped to promote Listerine's use as a general germicide as well as a surgical antiseptic, and licensed his formula to a local pharmacist named Jordan Wheat Lambert in 1881. Lambert subsequently started the Lambert Pharmacal Company, marketing Listerine. Listerine was promoted to dentists for oral care in 1895 and was the first over-the-counter mouthwash sold in the United States, in 1914.


title: Listerine

text: Lambert's licensing agreement with Lawrence required that he and his "heirs, executors and assigns" be paid royalties by Lambert or its successors for each bottle sold in perpetuity, until such time that Lambert or its successors ceases manufacturing Listerine. Most of these royalty shares are held by Lawrence's heirs. Real estate broker John Reynolds bought a roughly 50% stake in the royalties in the 1950's, which he then transferred to the Archdiocese of New York, and was later resold to other parties to help fund the diocese. The Salvation Army, American Bible Society, and Wellesley College also held shares in Listerine royalties.


title: Listerine

text: Listerine entered common household use after Jordan Wheat Lambert's son Gerard Lambert joined the company and promoted an aggressive marketing campaign. According to Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's book "Freakonomics":


title: Listerine

text: In 1955, Lambert Pharmacal merged with New York-based Warner-Hudnut and became Warner-Lambert Pharmaceutical Company, and incorporated in Delaware with its corporate headquarters in Morris Plains, New Jersey. Following the merger, Warner-Lambert attempted to back out of the aforementioned royalty agreements with Lawrence by filing a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The company cited that the payments were based upon Listerine's formula having initially been a trade secret, but that since the formula had been published in 1931, the property no longer had a value, and that the indefinite agreement was legally unreasonable. The court, however, ruled in favor of Lawrence and the defendants, citing that the conditions were plainly-worded, implicit, and could be waived by ending production of the product.


title: Listerine

text: In 2000, Pfizer acquired Warner-Lambert. Among Lambert's assets was the original land for Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.From 1921 until the mid-1970s, Listerine was also marketed as preventive and remedy for colds and sore throats. In 1976, the Federal Trade Commission ruled that these claims were misleading, and that Listerine had "no efficacy" at either preventing or alleviating the symptoms of sore throats and colds. Warner-Lambert was ordered to stop making the claims, and to include in the next $10.2 million worth of Listerine ads specific mention that "Listerine will not help prevent colds or sore throats or lessen their severity." The advertisement run by Listerine added the preamble "contrary to prior advertising".


title: Listerine

text: For a short time, beginning in 1927, the Lambert Pharmaceutical Company marketed Listerine Cigarettes.


title: Listerine

text: From the 1930s into the 1950s, advertisements claimed that applying Listerine to the scalp could prevent "infectious dandruff".


title: Listerine

text: Listerine was packaged in a glass bottle inside a corrugated cardboard tube for nearly 80 years before the first revamps were made to the brand: in 1992, Cool Mint Listerine was introduced in addition to the original Listerine Antiseptic formula and, in 1994, both brands were introduced in plastic bottles for the first time. In 1995, FreshBurst was added, then in 2003 Natural Citrus. In 2006 a new addition to the "less intense" variety, Vanilla Mint, was released. Nine different kinds of Listerine are on the market in the U.S. and elsewhere: Original, Cool Mint, FreshBurst, Natural Citrus, Naturals, Soft Mint (Vanilla Mint), UltraClean (formerly Advanced Listerine), Tooth Defense (mint shield), and Whitening pre-brush rinse (clean mint). In the United Kingdom, where in recent years the only option for most residents to obtain the original Listerine was to purchase from a dwindling number of larger branches of Boots the Chemist only the flavoured products are now obtainable as Boots has removed the Original from its selection. Original is not listed on the Listerine UK website as among the Listerine products available in the United Kingdom.


title: Listerine

text: According to the product overview, the ingredients are as following for Listerine Total Care. Similar distribution is contained in other varieties, which also list the essential oils as active ingredients.


title: Listerine

text: Distributions in case of Listerine Antiseptic Mouthwash, Original-05/22/2008 for essential oils are: menthol (mint) 0.042%, thymol (thyme) 0.064%, methyl salicylate (wintergreen) 0.06%, and eucalyptol (eucalyptus) 0.092%.


title: Listerine

text: In combination all have an antiseptic effect and there is some thought that methyl salicylate may have an anti inflammatory effect as well. Ethanol, which is toxic to bacteria at concentrations of 40%, is present in concentrations of 21.6% in the flavored product and 26.9% in the original gold Listerine Antiseptic. At this concentration, the ethanol serves to dissolve the active ingredients.


title: Listerine

text: Research indicates that Listerine can reduce dental plaque by 22.2% and gingivitis by 28.2% at 6 months. Dental plaque by 20.8% and gingivitis by 27.7% at 6 months, when compared with vehicle in test. Vehicle was 26.9% hydroalcoholic containing all ingredients in Listerine Antiseptic except its essential oils.


title: Listerine

text: Listerine also sell a formulation called Listerine Advanced Defence Gum Treatment containing a common food preservative, ethyl lauroyl arginate (LAE) at 0.147%.


title: Listerine

text: The addition of essential oils means the ethanol is considered to be undrinkable, known as denatured alcohol, and it is therefore not regulated as an alcoholic beverage in the United States. (Specially Denatured Alcohol Formula 38-B, specified in Title 27, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 21, Subpart D) However, consumption of mouthwash to obtain intoxication does occur, especially among alcoholics and underage drinkers.


title: Listerine

text: There has been concern that the use of alcohol-containing mouthwash such as Listerine may increase the risk of developing oral cancer. As of 2010, seven meta-analyses have found no connection between alcohol-containing mouthwashes and oral cancer, and three have found increased risk. In January 2009, Andrew Penman, chief executive of The Cancer Council New South Wales, called for further research on the matter. In a March 2009 brief, the American Dental Association said "the available evidence does not support a connection between oral cancer and alcohol-containing mouthrinse".


title: Listerine

text: In 2009, Johnson and Johnson launched a new alcohol-free version of the product called Listerine Zero.


title: Listerine

text: A 2020 systematic review investigated the controversial alcohol-oral cancer question (or oropharynx or other head and neck cancers), saying that for example "this risk from alcohol consumption increases ten times in heavy drinkers compared to abstainers or irregular drinkers" but there is no consensus whether it is a risk factor. The authors of the study conclude that "alcohol-based mouthwash consumption significantly increases salivary acetaldehyde levels in the first few minutes. However, no evidence exists if long-term salivary acetaldehyde levels may increase with a high frequency of mouthwash use. There is still insufficient evidence of whether the use of alcohol-based mouthwash is an independent risk factor for oral or oropharynx cancer. Nonetheless, it does increase the risk when it occurs concomitantly with other risk factors such as smoking or alcohol.


title: Listerine

text: On April 11, 2007, McNeil-PPC disclosed that there were potentially contaminants in all Listerine Agent Cool Blue products sold since its launch in 2006, and that all bottles were being recalled. The recall affected some 4,000,000 bottles sold since that time. According to the company, Listerine Agent Cool Blue is the only product affected by the contamination and no other products in the Listerine family were under recall.


title: The Path (TV series)

text: The Path is an American drama streaming television series created by Jessica Goldberg, and starring Aaron Paul, Michelle Monaghan, and Hugh Dancy. The show portrays members of a fictional religion known as Meyerism.


title: The Path (TV series)

text: The series was ordered by Hulu in March 2015, with a straight 10-episode order, and debuted on March 30, 2016. Its original title, "The Way", was changed to "The Path" in September 2015, due to its similarity to that of the real-life ministry and alleged cult, The Way International.


title: The Path (TV series)

text: On May 4, 2016, Hulu renewed the series for a second season, which premiered on January 25, 2017. On April 12, 2017, Hulu renewed the series for a 13-episode third season, which premiered on January 17, 2018. On April 23, 2018, Jessica Goldberg announced via Twitter that "The Path" would not be renewed for a fourth season.


title: The Path (TV series)

text: Eddie Lane lives in Upstate New York with his wife, Sarah, and their two children, Hawk and Summer. They are all members of the Meyerist Movement, which combines aspects of New Age philosophy, shamanism, Scientology, Christian mysticism, and Utopianism with a few elements from the Shakers, Sufism, Tibetan Buddhism, Jehovah's Witnesses and Freemasonry rituals.


title: The Path (TV series)

text: Eddie returns from Peru, where he had undergone a spiritual retreat designed to advance him further up Meyerism's spiritual ladder. Unbeknownst to his family, Eddie experienced a revelation while in Peru which causes him to question his faith in Meyerism. Meanwhile, Cal Roberts, a friend of Sarah's and one of Meyerism's top leaders, is looking to expand the group's influence and deal with the imminent death of their founder, Doctor Stephen Meyer.


title: The Path (TV series)

text: Meyerism is a fictional movement founded by Stephen Meyer. In the show's mythology, on October 28, 1974, Meyer literally climbed a ladder of burning light atop Huayna Picchu to receive the message of universal truth. He then gave to his followers the instructions for their spiritual development, written in the first book of Meyerism, "The Ladder".


title: The Path (TV series)

text: Meyerists believe that all people are damaged, which is the cause of the world's suffering. Through personal enlightenment, they seek to become aware of suffering in themselves and others, and to heal the world, caring deeply about family, humanity, and the environment. In this way and others, they create here on earth the heavenly Garden of Meyer's vision. However, "The Ladder" foretells that their efforts will be thwarted by non-believers or Ignorant Systemites (I.S.), whose selfish actions will result in an apocalypse; but those who ascend The Ladder of Enlightenment will live forever in The Garden.


title: The Path (TV series)

text: The Movement claims 6000 members and has facilities located in San Diego, California, and Parksdale, New York, and a retreat center located in Cusco, Peru. Throughout the series, particularly emphasized in season 3, the movement expands to additional cities and countries. Most members practice Meyerism in their everyday lives and live off-site, while others live in Meyerist compounds, have taken vows of service, and dedicate themselves to counseling, recruitment, and outreach programs. However, the founder, Stephen Meyer, warned against media attention and advised that the movement should remain small and publicity should be kept to a minimum.


title: The Path (TV series)

text: Spiritual progress is evaluated on an ascending series of rungs from 1R to 10R, and many decisions are made by the senior membership (i.e., Upper Rungs (U.R.'s)).


title: The Path (TV series)

text: Meyerists practice meditation, and use biofeedback devices and drugs—including ayahuasca and cannabis—to aid in reaching deeper levels of consciousness. They put considerable stock in visions and intuition, which are believed to be The Light communicating with them.


title: The Path (TV series)

text: A "Vanity Fair" analysis of the show's first episode describes Meyerism as "inspired by a grab bag of religious practices and cult beliefs". The show's creator, Jessica Goldberg, specifically refutes comparisons to Scientology.


title: The Path (TV series)

text: The Meyerist compound was shot on location in Nyack, New York, re-dressed with influences from kibbutz living, collective farming, and production designer Russell Barnes's experiences being raised on an island with limited resources. The two-story Lane home was built on a soundstage. Almost all of the Peru scenes were shot in the area, including a New York state park used for a mountaintop scene with subtropical plants concealing uncleared snow. The City Center is "played" by the Church House of the Flatbush Reformed Dutch Church Complex. The New Brunswick scenes in "Mercy" were filmed in Greenport, Long Island. Jean-Paul's palatial home and estate in "The Gardens of Giverny" were "played" by the Oheka Castle on Long Island.


title: The Path (TV series)

text: The Eye symbol, central to Meyerist branding and given dominance in many interiors, was based on tribal, Egyptian, and modern art, with a rising sun overlaid to show hopefulness for a new day. Series creator Jessica Goldberg describes the Eye's symbolism as a duality of enlightenment and paranoia, meaning on one hand "your eyes have been opened, and now you've seen the truth", and on the other, "you're always being watched". While preparing to shoot a scene in a Westchester County storefront dressed as a Meyerist recruitment office, passers-by would come in—curious about the Eye on posters, books, brochures, etc.—wondering what the movement was and how they could join.


title: The Path (TV series)

text: The first season of "The Path" has received positive reviews from critics. On the review aggregator, Metacritic, the first season scored 70 out of 100, based on 33 reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, season 1 has an approval rating of 78% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 7.26/10. The website's critical consensus is, "With strong performances, deep writing, and skilled direction, "The Path" offers an absorbing observation of the human condition, even if a rushed pace occasionally blunts the impact."


title: The Path (TV series)

text: The second season also received generally positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic, the season scored 64 out of 100, based on eight reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, season 2 has an approval rating of 75% based on 12 reviews, with an average rating of 7.22/10. The website's critical consensus is, ""The Path" struggles with occasionally logy pacing in its second season, but an expanded canvas and heightened stakes – along with overall solid performances – make the end results worth watching."


title: The Path (TV series)

text: Tim Goodman of "The Hollywood Reporter" reacted positively to the series, writing: "There's a lot to like about "The Path", from the strong visual sense of place that director Mike Cahill established in the first two episodes to its theoretical take on faith, and of course the exquisite acting and deft writing." Hank Stuever of the "Washington Post" wrote: ""The Path" works best as an intense psychological study of an extended family whose members equate faith and loyalty with happiness." Alan Sepinwall of HitFix had a more critical reaction to the series. He called the show a "dry, claustrophobic show, with not enough of a narrative hook to pull the viewer through hour after hour of it."


title: The Path (TV series)

text: Residents of Marysville, Washington called the show "insensitive" for "exploiting" the October 24, 2014 shooting at Marysville Pilchuck High School. Episode 2 referred to the shooting in order to develop Sean's backstory. The insult, they say, was that the show's writers changed the real events by giving the shooting a racial motive (the character stated that the shooting was due to "the color of their skin"). In reality, however the murder-suicide of the Tulalip Native American student Jaylen Fryberg was personally motivated and did not involve African Americans. , Hulu and the show's writers had not responded to this.


title: The Path (TV series)

text: In April 2017, following the announcement that Hulu had picked up the show for a third season, actor Rockmond Dunbar was abruptly told that his contract would not be renewed. Speaking about it with "The Hollywood Reporter", he called the decision "not a healthy way to do business".


title: Bel canto

text: Bel canto (Italian for "beautiful singing" or "beautiful song", )—with several similar constructions ("bellezze del canto", "bell'arte del canto")—is a term with several meanings that relate to Italian singing.


title: Bel canto

text: The phrase was not associated with a "school" of singing until the middle of the 19th century, when writers in the early 1860s used it nostalgically to describe a manner of singing that had begun to wane around 1830. Nonetheless, "neither musical nor general dictionaries saw fit to attempt [a] definition [of bel canto] until after 1900". The term remains vague and ambiguous in the 21st century and is often used to evoke a lost singing tradition.


title: Bel canto

text: As generally understood today, the term "bel canto" refers to the Italian-originated vocal style that prevailed throughout most of Europe during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Late 19th- and 20th-century sources "would lead us to believe that "bel canto" was restricted to beauty and evenness of tone, legato phrasing, and skill in executing highly florid passages, but contemporary documents [those of the late 18th and early 19th centuries] describe a multifaceted manner of performance far beyond these confines." The main features of the "bel canto" style were:


title: Bel canto

text: The "Harvard Dictionary of Music" by Willi Apel says that bel canto denotes "the Italian vocal technique of the 18th century, with its emphasis on beauty of sound and brilliance of performance rather than dramatic expression or romantic emotion. In spite of the repeated reactions against "bel canto" (or its abuses, such as display for its own sake; Gluck, Wagner) and the frequent exaggeration of its virtuoso element (coloratura), it must be considered as a highly artistic technique and the only proper one for Italian opera and for Mozart. Its early development is closely bound up with that of the Italian "opera seria" (A. Scarlatti, N. Porpora, J. A. Hasse, N. Jommelli, N. Piccinni)."


title: Bel canto

text: Since the "bel canto" style flourished in the 18th and early 19th centuries, the music of Handel and his contemporaries, as well as that of Mozart and Rossini, benefits from an application of "bel canto" principles. Operas received the most dramatic use of the techniques, but the "bel canto" style applies equally to oratorio, though in a somewhat less flamboyant way. The da capo arias these works contained provided challenges for singers, as the repeat of the opening section prevented the story line from progressing. Nonetheless, singers needed to keep the emotional drama moving forward, and so they used the principles of "bel canto" to help them render the repeated material in a new emotional guise. They also incorporated embellishments of all sorts (Domenico Corri said da capo arias were invented for that purpose ["The Singer's Preceptor", vol. 1, p. 3]), but not every singer was equipped to do this, some writers, notably Domenico Corri himself, suggesting that singing without ornamentation was an acceptable practice (see "The Singer's Preceptor", vol. 1, p. 3). Singers regularly embellished both arias and recitatives, but did so by tailoring their embellishments to the prevailing sentiments of the piece.


title: Bel canto

text: Two famous 18th-century teachers of the style were Antonio Bernacchi (1685–1756) and Nicola Porpora (1686–1768), but many others existed. A number of these teachers were castrati. Singer/author John Potter declares in his book "Tenor: History of a Voice" that:


title: Bel canto

text: For much of the 18th century castrati defined the art of singing; it was the loss of their irrecoverable skills that in time created the myth of "bel canto", a way of singing and conceptualizing singing that was entirely different from anything that the world had heard before or would hear again.


title: Bel canto

text: In another application, the term "bel canto" is sometimes attached to Italian operas written by Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835) and Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848). These composers wrote bravura works for the stage during what musicologists sometimes call the "bel canto era". But the style of singing had started to change around 1830, Michael Balfe writing of the new method of teaching that was required for the music of Bellini and Donizetti ("A New Universal Method of Singing", 1857, p. iii), and so the operas of Bellini and Donizetti actually were the vehicles for a new era of singing. The last important opera role for a castrato was written in 1824 by Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864).


title: Bel canto

text: The phrase "bel canto" was not commonly used until the latter part of the 19th century, when it was set in opposition to the development of a weightier, more powerful style of speech-inflected singing associated with German opera and, above all, Richard Wagner's revolutionary music dramas. Wagner (1813–1883) decried the Italian singing model, alleging that it was concerned merely with "whether that G or A will come out roundly". He advocated a new, Germanic school of singing that would draw "the spiritually energetic and profoundly passionate into the orbit of its matchless Expression."


title: Bel canto

text: French musicians and composers never embraced the more florid extremes of the 18th-century Italian bel canto style. They disliked the castrato voice and because they placed a premium on the clear enunciation of the texts of their vocal music, they objected to the sung word being obscured by excessive fioritura.


title: Bel canto

text: The popularity of the bel canto style as espoused by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini faded in Italy during the mid-19th century. It was overtaken by a heavier, more ardent, less embroidered approach to singing that was necessary to perform the innovative works of Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) with maximum dramatic impact. Tenors, for instance, began to inflate their tone and deliver the high C (and even the high D) directly from the chest rather than resorting to a suave head voice/falsetto as they had done previously – sacrificing vocal agility in the process. Sopranos and baritones reacted in a similar fashion to their tenor colleagues when confronted with Verdi's drama-filled compositions. They subjected the mechanics of their voice production to greater pressures and cultivated the exciting upper part of their respective ranges at the expense of their mellow but less penetrant lower notes. Initially at least, the singing techniques of 19th-century contraltos and basses were less affected by the musical innovations of Verdi, which were built upon by his successors Amilcare Ponchielli (1834–1886), Arrigo Boito (1842–1918) and Alfredo Catalani (1854–1893).


title: Bel canto

text: One reason for the eclipse of the old Italian singing model was the growing influence within the music world of bel canto's detractors, who considered it to be outmoded and condemned it as vocalization devoid of content. To others, however, bel canto became the vanished art of elegant, refined, sweet-toned musical utterance. Rossini lamented in a conversation that took place in Paris in 1858 that: "Alas for us, we have lost our bel canto". Similarly, the so-called German style was as derided as much as it was heralded. In the introduction to a collection of songs by Italian masters published in 1887 in Berlin under the title "Il bel canto", Franz Sieber wrote: "In our time, when the most offensive shrieking under the extenuating device of 'dramatic singing' has spread everywhere, when the ignorant masses appear much more interested in how loud rather than how beautiful the singing is, a collection of songs will perhaps be welcome which – as the title purports – may assist in restoring bel canto to its rightful place."


title: Bel canto

text: In the late-19th century and early-20th century, the term "bel canto" was resurrected by singing teachers in Italy, among whom the retired Verdi baritone Antonio Cotogni (1831–1918) was a pre-eminent figure. Cotogni and his followers invoked it against an unprecedentedly vehement and vibrato-laden style of vocalism that singers increasingly used after around 1890 to meet the impassioned demands of verismo writing by composers such as Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924), Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857–1919), Pietro Mascagni (1863–1945), Francesco Cilea (1866–1950) and Umberto Giordano (1867–1948), as well as the auditory challenges posed by the non-Italianate stage works of Richard Strauss (1864–1949) and other late-romantic/early-modern era composers, with their strenuous and angular vocal lines and frequently dense orchestral textures.


title: Bel canto

text: During the 1890s, the directors of the Bayreuth Festival initiated a particularly forceful style of Wagnerian singing that was totally at odds with the Italian ideals of bel canto. Called "Sprechgesang" by its proponents (and dubbed the "Bayreuth bark" by some opponents), the new Wagnerian style prioritized articulation of the individual words of the composer's libretti over legato delivery. This text-based, anti-legato approach to vocalism spread across the German-speaking parts of Europe prior to World War I.


title: Bel canto

text: As a result of these many factors, the concept of bel canto became shrouded in mystique and confused by a plethora of individual notions and interpretations. To complicate matters further, German musicology in the early 20th century invented its own historical application for "bel canto", using the term to denote the simple lyricism that came to the fore in and the Roman cantata during the 1630s and '40s (the era of composers Antonio Cesti, Giacomo Carissimi and Luigi Rossi) as a reaction against the earlier, text-dominated stile rappresentativo. Unfortunately, this anachronistic use of the term bel canto was given wide circulation in Robert Haas's "Die Musik des Barocks" and, later, in Manfred Bukofzer's "Music in the Baroque Era". Since the singing style of later 17th-century Italy did not differ in any marked way from that of the 18th century and early 19th century, a connection can be drawn; but, according to Jander, most musicologists agree that the term is best limited to its mid-19th-century use, designating a style of singing that emphasized beauty of tone and technical expertise in the delivery of music that was either highly florid or featured long, flowing and difficult-to-sustain passages of .


title: Bel canto

text: In the 1950s, the phrase "bel canto revival" was coined to refer to a renewed interest in the operas of Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini. These composers had begun to go out of fashion during the latter years of the 19th century and their works, while never completely disappearing from the performance repertoire, were staged infrequently during the first half of the 20th century, when the operas of Wagner, Verdi and Puccini held sway. That situation changed significantly after World War II with the advent of a group of enterprising orchestral conductors and the emergence of a fresh generation of singers such as Montserrat Caballé, Maria Callas, Leyla Gencer, Joan Sutherland, Beverly Sills and Marilyn Horne, who had acquired bel canto techniques. These artists breathed new life into Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini's stage compositions, treating them seriously as music and re-popularizing them throughout Europe and America. Today, some of the world's most frequently performed operas, such as Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" and Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor", are from the bel canto era.


title: Bel canto

text: Many 18th-century operas that require adroit bel canto skills have also experienced post-war revivals, ranging from lesser-known Mozart and Haydn to extensive Baroque works by Handel, Vivaldi and others.


title: Bel canto

text: Musicologists occasionally apply the label "bel canto technique" to the arsenal of virtuosic vocal accomplishments and concepts imparted by singing teachers to their students during the late 18th century and the early 19th century. Many of these teachers were castrati.


title: Bel canto

text: "All [their] pedagogical works follow the same structure, beginning with exercises on single notes and eventually progressing to scales and improvised embellishments" writes Potter who continues, "The really creative ornamentation required for cadenzas, involving models and formulae that could generate newly improvised material, came towards the end of the process."


title: Bel canto

text: Today's pervasive idea that singers should refrain from improvising and always adhere strictly to the letter of a composer's published score is a comparatively recent phenomenon, promulgated during the first decades of the 20th century by dictatorial conductors such as Arturo Toscanini (1867–1957), who championed the dramatic operas of Verdi and Wagner and believed in keeping performers on a tight interpretive leash. This is noted by both Potter and Michael Scott.


title: Bel canto

text: The general tendency ... was for singers not to have been taught by castrati (there were few of them left) and for serious study to start later, often at one of the new conservatories rather than with a private teacher. The traditional techniques and pedagogy were still acknowledged, but the teaching was generally in the hands of tenors and baritones who were by then at least once removed from the tradition itself.


title: Bel canto

text: Early 19th-century teachers described the voice as being made up of three registers. The chest register was the lowest of the three and the head register the highest, with the passaggio in between. These registers needed to be smoothly blended and fully equalized before a trainee singer could acquire total command of his or her natural instrument, and the surest way to achieve this outcome was for the trainee to practise vocal exercises assiduously. Bel canto–era teachers were great believers in the benefits of vocalise and solfeggio. They strove to strengthen the respiratory muscles of their pupils and equip them with such time-honoured vocal attributes as "purity of tone, perfection of legato, phrasing informed by eloquent portamento, and exquisitely turned ornaments", as noted in the introduction to Volume 2 of Scott's "The Record of Singing".


title: Bel canto

text: Major refinements occurred to the existing system of voice classification during the 19th century as the international operatic repertoire diversified, split into distinctive nationalist schools and expanded in size. Whole new categories of singers such as mezzo-soprano and Wagnerian bass-baritone arose towards the end of the 19th century, as did such new sub-categories as lyric coloratura soprano, dramatic soprano and spinto soprano, and various grades of tenor, stretching from lyric through spinto to heroic. These classificatory changes have had a lasting effect on how singing teachers designate voices and opera house managements cast productions.


title: Bel canto

text: There was, however, no across-the-board uniformity among 19th-century bel canto adherents in passing on their knowledge and instructing students. Each had their own training regimes and pet notions. Fundamentally, though, they all subscribed to the same set of bel canto precepts, and the exercises that they devised to enhance breath support, dexterity, range, and technical control remain valuable and, indeed, some teachers still use them.


title: Bel canto

text: Manuel García (1805–1906), author of the influential treatise "L'Art du chant", was the most prominent of the group of pedagogues that perpetuated bel-canto principles in teachings and writings during the second half of the 19th century. His like-minded younger sister, Pauline Viardot (1821–1910), was also an important teacher of voice, as were Viardot's contemporaries Mathilde Marchesi, Camille Everardi, Julius Stockhausen, Carlo Pedrotti, Venceslao Persichini, Giovanni Sbriglia, Melchiorre Vidal and Francesco Lamperti (together with Francesco's son Giovanni Battista Lamperti). The voices of a number of their former students can be heard on acoustic recordings made in the first two decades of the 20th century and re-issued since on LP and CD. Some examples on disc of historically and artistically significant 19th-century singers whose vocal styles and techniques exemplify bel canto ideals include the following:


title: Bel canto

text: Sir Charles Santley (born 1834), Gustav Walter (born 1834), Adelina Patti (born 1843), Marianne Brandt (born 1842), Lilli Lehmann (born 1848), Jean Lassalle (born 1847), Victor Maurel (born 1848), Marcella Sembrich (born 1858), Lillian Nordica (born 1857), Emma Calvé (born 1858), Nellie Melba (born 1861), Francesco Tamagno (born 1850), Francesco Marconi (born 1853), Léon Escalais (born 1859), Mattia Battistini (born 1856), Mario Ancona (born 1860), Pol Plançon (born 1851), and Antonio Magini-Coletti and Francesco Navarini (both born 1855).


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: Minkah Annane Fitzpatrick Jr. (born November 17, 1996) is an American football free safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Alabama, and was drafted by the Miami Dolphins in the first round of the 2018 NFL Draft before being traded to the Steelers during the 2019 season.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: Fitzpatrick attended St. Peter's Preparatory School in Jersey City, New Jersey, where he played high school football for the Marauders. He was a wide receiver on offense and a defensive back on defense. In 2014, he caught 45 passes for 1,111 yards and 12 touchdowns, while recording 70 tackles and three interceptions on defense. He also ran track. He placed first at the Hudson County Championships with times of 10.86 seconds and 21.66 seconds in the 100 and 200 meters, respectively.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: Considered a five-star recruit by ESPN.com, Fitzpatrick was listed as the No. 4 cornerback in the nation in 2015.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: Fitzpatrick signed with Alabama at the 2015 National Signing Day, after being verbally committed for almost a year.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: As a true freshman in 2015, Fitzpatrick started 10 of 14 games, missing one game due to injury. He recorded 45 total tackles, with three for a loss, two sacks, two interceptions (both returned for scores), 11 pass breakups, one quarterback hurry, and one punt return for a touchdown. He was part of the Alabama team that won the National Championship over Clemson. He was named a Freshman All-American by "The Sporting News" after Alabama's championship season.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: In his sophomore season in 2016, Fitzpatrick returned an interception 100 yards in a 49–30 win over then-16th ranked Arkansas. The interception broke the Alabama Crimson Tide record for longest interception returned for a touchdown. In that same game, he tied the Alabama records for most interceptions in a game (3), and career interceptions returned for a touchdown (4). In the 2016 SEC Championship Game against Florida, Fitzpatrick broke the Alabama all-time record for career interceptions returned for a touchdown (4).


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: In his junior season in 2017, Fitzpatrick recorded 60 total tackles, 1.5 sacks, one interception, one forced fumble, and seven passes defensed. He won his second National Championship as the Crimson Tide defeated Georgia 26–23 in overtime.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: On January 11, 2018, Fitzpatrick announced his decision to forgo his remaining eligibility and enter the 2018 NFL Draft. Fitzpatrick attended the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis and completed the majority of combine drills, but opted to skip the short shuttle and three-cone drill. On March 7, 2018, Fitzpatrick participated at Alabama's pro day, but opted to stand on his combine numbers and only performed the short shuttle, three-cone drill, and positional drills.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: Fitzpatrick attended pre-draft visits with the Chicago Bears, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and San Francisco 49ers. His versatility allowed him to possibly play safety or cornerback as a professional, but Fitzpatrick expressed his desire to primarily play cornerback to multiple teams. NFL analyst Mel Kiper Jr. stated Fitzpatrick may experience a slide in the draft due to not having a defined role. At the conclusion of the pre-draft process, Fitzpatrick was projected to be a first round pick by NFL draft experts and scouts. He was expected to be drafted within the top 15 selections. Fitzpatrick was ranked as the top cornerback prospect in the draft by DraftScout.com and was ranked as the top safety prospect by Sports Illustrated and NFL analyst Mike Mayock.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: The Miami Dolphins selected Fitzpatrick in the first round with the 11th overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. Fitzpatrick was the first safety drafted in 2018.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: On June 1, 2018, the Miami Dolphins signed Fitzpatrick to a fully guaranteed four-year, $16.4 million contract that includes a signing bonus of $10.04 million.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: During training camp, Fitzpatrick competed against T. J. McDonald to be the starting free safety. He learned both safety positions and primarily ran with the second team. Head coach Adam Gase named Fitzpatrick the primary backup safety to begin the regular season, behind starters McDonald and Reshad Jones.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: He made his professional regular season debut in the Dolphins’ season-opener against the Tennessee Titans and recorded six combined tackles and broke up a pass in their 27–20 victory. On September 23, 2018, Fitzpatrick earned his first career start after Jones was declared inactive due to a shoulder injury. He recorded ten combined tackles (two solo) during their 28–20 victory against the Oakland Raiders in Week 3. The following week, he collected ten combined tackles (four solo), two pass deflections, and made his first career interception in the Dolphins’ 38–7 loss at the New England Patriots. Fitzpatrick made his first career interception off Tom Brady in the fourth quarter on a pass intended for Phillip Dorsett, and returned it for a 14-yard gain. During a Week 15 matchup with the Minnesota Vikings, Fitzpatrick intercepted a Kirk Cousins pass, returning it 50 yards for a touchdown. It was his second interception and first pick-six of his career.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: In Week 1 against the Baltimore Ravens, Fitzpatrick made six tackles as the Dolphins lost 59–10. After the game, Fitzpatrick reportedly requested to be traded because he felt like he was playing out of position and he did not like the direction the franchise was going.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: In Week 2 against the New England Patriots, Fitzpatrick made six tackles and recovered a fumble by running back Sony Michel in the 43–0 loss.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: On September 16, 2019, the Dolphins traded Fitzpatrick along with their 2020 fourth round and 2021 seventh round draft picks to the Pittsburgh Steelers for their 2020 first round (Austin Jackson), 2020 fifth round, and 2021 sixth round draft picks.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: Fitzpatrick made his debut with the Steelers in Week 3 against the San Francisco 49ers. In the game, Fitzpatrick intercepted a pass from Jimmy Garoppolo and forced a fumble off Raheem Mostert in the 24–20 loss.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: In Week 8 against his former team, the Miami Dolphins, Fitzpatrick intercepted former teammate Ryan Fitzpatrick twice in the 27–14 win. In Week 9 against the Indianapolis Colts, Fitzpatrick intercepted a pass thrown by Brian Hoyer and returned it for a 96-yard touchdown in the 26–24 win. Fitzpatrick's pick six was the third longest interception return for a touchdown in team history, the second longest in the regular season. In Week 10 against the Los Angeles Rams, Fitzpatrick recovered a strip sack forced by teammate Javon Hargrave on Jared Goff which he returned for a 43-yard touchdown and later intercepted a pass thrown by Goff with under a minute in the game, sealing a 17–12 Steelers win.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: In Week 12 against the Cincinnati Bengals, Fitzpatrick recorded six tackles and recovered a fumble forced by teammate Devin Bush on Tyler Boyd and returned the ball for 36 yards in the 16–10 win.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: In Week 6 against the Cleveland Browns, Fitzpatrick recorded his first interception of the season off a pass thrown by Baker Mayfield and returned it 33 yards for a touchdown during the 38–7 win.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: In Week 8 against the Baltimore Ravens, Fitzpatrick forced a fumble on quarterback Lamar Jackson which was recovered by teammate Robert Spillane and later broke up a pass thrown by Jackson in the endzone with no time left on the clock to secure a 28–24 Steelers' victory.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: In Week 9 against the Dallas Cowboys, Fitzpatrick recovered a fumble forced by teammate Cameron Sutton on CeeDee Lamb, intercepted a pass thrown by Garrett Gilbert and broke up another Hail Mary pass thrown by Gilbert late in the fourth quarter to secure a 24–19 Steelers’ win.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: On April 27, 2021, the Steelers picked up the fifth-year option on Fitzpatrick's contract, worth a guaranteed $10.612 million for the 2022 season. On November 15, 2021, Fitzpatrick tested positive for COVID-19 and was put on the Steelers' Reserve-COVID list.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: On June 16, 2022, the Steelers signed Fitzpatrick to a four-year $73.6 million contract extension, including $36 million in guaranteed money. With an annual salary of $18.4 million, he became the highest paid safety in the NFL at the time, later being surpassed by Derwin James of the Los Angeles Chargers.


title: Minkah Fitzpatrick

text: In week 1 against the Cincinnati Bengals, Fitzpatrick recorded a pick-six off of Joe Burrow and blocked a game-winning extra point off of Evan McPherson as the Steelers would go on to win 23–20 in overtime. His performance earned him AFC Defensive Player Of The Week.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Gun politics within American politics is defined by two primary opposing ideologies about civilian gun ownership. Those who advocate for gun control support increased regulation of gun ownership; those who advocate for gun rights oppose increased restriction of gun ownership. These groups often disagree on the interpretation of laws and court cases related to firearms and of the effectiveness of firearms regulation on crime and public safety. It is estimated that U.S. civilians own 393 million firearms, and that 40% to 42% of the households in the country have at least one gun. The U.S. has by far the highest estimated number of guns per capita in the world, at 120.5 guns for every 100 people.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Debates regarding firearm availability and gun violence in the United States have been characterized by concerns about the right to bear arms, such as found in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the responsibility of the United States government to serve the needs of its citizens and to prevent crime and deaths. Firearms regulation supporters say that indiscriminate or unrestricted gun rights inhibit the government from fulfilling that responsibility, and causes a safety concern. Gun rights supporters promote firearms for self-defense – including security against tyranny, as well as hunting and sporting activities. Firearms regulation advocates state that restricting and tracking gun access would result in safer communities, while gun rights advocates state that increased firearm ownership by law-abiding citizens reduces crime and assert that criminals have always had easy access to firearms.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Gun legislation in the United States is augmented by judicial interpretations of the Constitution. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." In 1791, the United States adopted the Second Amendment, and in 1868 adopted the Fourteenth Amendment. The effect of those two amendments on gun politics was the subject of landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions in "District of Columbia v. Heller" (2008), where the Court affirmed for the first time that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess firearms independent of service in a state militia and to use them for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense within the home, and in "McDonald v. City of Chicago" (2010), where the Court ruled that the Second Amendment is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and thereby applies to both state and federal law. In so doing, it endorsed the "individual-right" theory of the Second Amendment's meaning and rejected a rival interpretation, the "collective-right" theory, according to which the amendment protects a collective right of states to maintain militias or an individual right to keep and bear arms in connection with service in a militia.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The American hunting tradition comes from a time when the United States was an agrarian, subsistence nation where hunting was a profession for some, an auxiliary source of food for some settlers, and also a deterrence to animal predators. A connection between shooting skills and survival among rural American men was in many cases a necessity and a 'rite of passage' for those entering manhood. Today, hunting survives as a central sentimental component of gun culture as a way to control animal populations across the country, regardless of modern trends away from subsistence hunting and rural living.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Prior to the American Revolution, there was neither budget nor manpower nor government desire to maintain a full-time army. Therefore, the armed citizen-soldier carried responsibility. Service in militia, including providing one's own ammunition and weapons, was mandatory for all men. Yet, as early as the 1790s, the mandatory universal militia duty evolved gradually to voluntary militia units and a reliance on a regular army. Throughout the 19th century the institution of the organized civilian militia began to decline. The unorganized civilian militia, however, still remains even in current U.S. law, consisting of essentially everyone from age 17 to 45, while also including former military officers up to age 64, as codified in .


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Closely related to the militia tradition is the frontier tradition, with the need for self-protection pursuant to westward expansion and the extension of the American frontier. Though it has not been a necessary part of daily survival for over a century, "generations of Americans continued to embrace and glorify it as a living inheritanceas a permanent ingredient of this nation's style and culture".


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In the years prior to the American Revolution, the British, in response to the colonists' unhappiness over increasingly direct control and taxation of the colonies, imposed a gunpowder embargo on the colonies in an attempt to lessen the ability of the colonists to resist British encroachments into what the colonies regarded as local matters. Two direct attempts to disarm the colonial militias fanned what had been a smoldering resentment of British interference into the fires of war.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: These two incidents were the attempt to confiscate the cannon of the Concord and Lexington militias, leading to the Battles of Lexington and Concord of April 19, 1775, and the attempt, on April 20, to confiscate militia powder stores in the armory of Williamsburg, Virginia, which led to the Gunpowder Incident and a face-off between Patrick Henry and hundreds of militia members on one side and the Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, and British seamen on the other. The Gunpowder Incident was eventually settled by paying the colonists for the powder.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: According to historian Saul Cornell, states passed some of the first gun control laws, beginning with Kentucky's law to "curb the practice of carrying concealed weapons in 1813." There was opposition and, as a result, the individual right interpretation of the Second Amendment began and grew in direct response to these early gun control laws, in keeping with this new "pervasive spirit of individualism." As noted by Cornell, "Ironically, the first gun control movement helped give birth to the first self-conscious gun rights ideology built around a constitutional right of individual self-defense."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The individual right interpretation of the Second Amendment first arose in "Bliss v. Commonwealth" (1822), which evaluated the right to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state pursuant to Section 28 of the Second Constitution of Kentucky (1799). The right to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state was interpreted as an individual right, for the case of a concealed sword cane. This case has been described as about "a statute prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons [that] was violative of the Second Amendment".


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The first state court decision relevant to the "right to bear arms" issue was "Bliss v. Commonwealth". The Kentucky court held that "the right of citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State must be preserved entire..."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Also during the Jacksonian Era, the first collective right (or group right) interpretation of the Second Amendment arose. In "State v. Buzzard" (1842), the Arkansas high court adopted a militia-based, political right, reading of the right to bear arms under state law, and upheld the 21st section of the second article of the Arkansas Constitution that declared, "that the free white men of this State shall have a right to keep and bear arms for their common defense", while rejecting a challenge to a statute prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The Arkansas high court declared "That the words 'a well-regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free State', and the words 'common defense' clearly show the true intent and meaning of these Constitutions [i.e., Arkansas and the U.S.] and prove that it is a political and not an individual right, and, of course, that the State, in her legislative capacity, has the right to regulate and control it: This being the case, then the people, neither individually nor collectively, have the right to keep and bear arms." Joel Prentiss Bishop's influential "Commentaries on the Law of Statutory Crimes" (1873) took Buzzard's militia-based interpretation, a view that Bishop characterized as the "Arkansas doctrine," as the orthodox view of the right to bear arms in American law.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The two early state court cases, "Bliss" and "Buzzard", set the fundamental dichotomy in interpreting the Second Amendment, i.e., whether it secured an individual right versus a collective right.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In the years immediately following the Civil War, the question of the rights of freed slaves to carry arms and to belong to the militia came to the attention of the federal courts. In response to the problems freed slaves faced in the Southern states, the Fourteenth Amendment was drafted.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: When the Fourteenth Amendment was drafted, Representative John A. Bingham of Ohio used the Court's own phrase "privileges and immunities of citizens" to include the first Eight Amendments of the Bill of Rights under its protection and guard these rights against state legislation.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The debate in Congress on the Fourteenth Amendment after the Civil War also concentrated on what the Southern States were doing to harm the newly freed slaves. One particular concern was the disarming of former slaves.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The Second Amendment attracted serious judicial attention with the Reconstruction era case of "United States v. Cruikshank" which ruled that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not cause the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, to limit the powers of the State governments, stating that the Second Amendment "has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Akhil Reed Amar notes in the "Yale Law Journal", the basis of Common Law for the first ten amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which would include the Second Amendment, "following John Randolph Tucker's famous oral argument in the 1887 Chicago anarchist Haymarket Riot case, "Spies v. Illinois"":


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Since the late 19th century, with three key cases from the pre-incorporation era, the U.S. Supreme Court consistently ruled that the Second Amendment (and the Bill of Rights) restricted only Congress, and not the States, in the regulation of guns. Scholars predicted that the Court's incorporation of other rights suggested that they may incorporate the Second, should a suitable case come before them.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The first major federal firearms law passed in the 20th century was the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934. It was passed after Prohibition-era gangsterism peaked with the Saint Valentine's Day massacre of 1929. The era was famous for criminal use of firearms such as the Thompson submachine gun (Tommy gun) and sawed-off shotgun. Under the NFA, machine guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, and other weapons fall under the regulation and jurisdiction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) as described by Title II.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In "United States v. Miller" (1939) the Court did not address incorporation, but whether a sawn-off shotgun "has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia." In overturning the indictment against Miller, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas stated that the National Firearms Act of 1934, "offend[ed] the inhibition of the Second Amendment to the Constitution." The federal government then appealed directly to the Supreme Court. On appeal the federal government did not object to Miller's release since he had died by then, seeking only to have the trial judge's ruling on the unconstitutionality of the federal law overturned. Under these circumstances, neither Miller nor his attorney appeared before the Court to argue the case. The Court only heard argument from the federal prosecutor. In its ruling, the Court overturned the trial court and upheld the NFA.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) was passed after the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy, and African-American activists Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s. The GCA focuses on regulating interstate commerce in firearms by generally prohibiting interstate firearms transfers except among licensed manufacturers, dealers, and importers. It also prohibits selling firearms to certain categories of individuals defined as "prohibited persons."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In 1986, Congress passed the Firearm Owners Protection Act. It was supported by the National Rifle Association because it reversed many of the provisions of the GCA. It also banned ownership of unregistered fully automatic rifles and civilian purchase or sale of any such firearm made from that date forward.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981 led to enactment of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady Law) in 1993 which established the national background check system to prevent certain restricted individuals from owning, purchasing, or transporting firearms. In an article supporting passage of such a law, retired chief justice Warren E. Burger wrote:


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Americans also have a right to defend their homes, and we need not challenge that. Nor does anyone seriously question that the Constitution protects the right of hunters to own and keep sporting guns for hunting game any more than anyone would challenge the right to own and keep fishing rods and other equipment for fishingor to own automobiles. To 'keep and bear arms' for hunting today is essentially a recreational activity and not an imperative of survival, as it was 200 years ago. 'Saturday night specials' and machine guns are not recreational weapons and surely are as much in need of regulation as motor vehicles.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: A Stockton, California, schoolyard shooting in 1989 led to passage of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 (AWB or AWB 1994), which defined and banned the manufacture and transfer of "semiautomatic assault weapons" and "large capacity ammunition feeding devices."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: According to journalist Chip Berlet, concerns about gun control laws along with outrage over two high-profile incidents involving the ATF (Ruby Ridge in 1992 and the Waco siege in 1993) mobilized the militia movement of citizens who feared that the federal government would begin to confiscate firearms.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Though gun control is not strictly a partisan issue, there is generally more support for gun control legislation in the Democratic Party than in the Republican Party. The Libertarian Party, whose campaign platforms favor limited government regulation, is outspokenly against gun control.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The National Rifle Association (NRA) was founded to promote firearm competency in 1871. The NRA supported the NFA and, ultimately, the GCA. After the GCA, more strident groups, such as the Gun Owners of America (GOA), began to advocate for gun rights. According to the GOA, it was founded in 1975 when "the radical left introduced legislation to ban all handguns in California." The GOA and other national groups like the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO), and the Second Amendment Sisters (SAS), often take stronger stances than the NRA and criticize its history of support for some firearms legislation, such as GCA. The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) has been an outspoken critic of the NRA for a number of years. According to the Huffington Post, "NAGR is the much leaner, more pugnacious version of the NRA. Where the NRA has looked to find some common ground with gun reform advocates and at least appear to be reasonable, NAGR has been the unapologetic champion of opening up gun laws even more." These groups believe any compromise leads to greater restrictions.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: According to the authors of "The Changing Politics of Gun Control" (1998), in the late 1970s, the NRA changed its activities to incorporate political advocacy. Despite the impact on the volatility of membership, the politicization of the NRA has been consistent and the NRA-Political Victory Fund ranked as "one of the biggest spenders in congressional elections" as of 1998. According to the authors of "The Gun Debate" (2014), the NRA taking the lead on politics serves the gun industry's profitability. In particular when gun owners respond to fears of gun confiscation with increased purchases and by helping to isolate the industry from the misuse of its products used in shooting incidents.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence began in 1974 as Handgun Control Inc. (HCI). Soon after, it formed a partnership with another fledgling group called the National Coalition to Ban Handguns (NCBH) – later known as the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV). The partnership did not last, as NCBH generally took a tougher stand on gun regulation than HCI. In the wake of the 1980 murder of John Lennon, HCI saw an increase of interest and fundraising and contributed $75,000 to congressional campaigns. Following the Reagan assassination attempt and the resultant injury of James Brady, Sarah Brady joined the board of HCI in 1985. HCI was renamed in 2001 to Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In 1996, Congress added language to the relevant appropriations bill which required "none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control." This language was added to prevent the funding of research by the CDC that gun rights supporters considered politically motivated and intended to bring about further gun control legislation. In particular, the NRA and other gun rights proponents objected to work supported by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, then run by Mark L. Rosenberg, including research authored by Arthur Kellermann.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In October 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report on the effectiveness of gun violence prevention strategies that concluded "Evidence was insufficient to determine the effectiveness of any of these laws." A similar survey of firearms research by the National Academy of Sciences arrived at nearly identical conclusions in 2004. In September of that year, the Assault Weapons Ban expired due to a sunset provision. Efforts by gun control advocates to renew the ban failed, as did attempts to replace it after it became defunct.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The NRA opposed bans on handguns in Chicago, Washington D.C., and San Francisco while supporting the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 (also known as the School Safety And Law Enforcement Improvement Act), which strengthened requirements for background checks for firearm purchases. The GOA took issue with a portion of the bill, which they termed the "Veterans' Disarmament Act."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Besides the GOA, other national gun rights groups continue to take a stronger stance than the NRA. These groups include the Second Amendment Sisters, Second Amendment Foundation, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, and the Pink Pistols. New groups have also arisen, such as the Students for Concealed Carry, which grew largely out of safety-issues resulting from the creation of gun-free zones that were legislatively mandated amidst a response to widely publicized school shootings.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In 2001, in "United States v. Emerson", the Fifth Circuit became the first federal appeals court to recognize an individual's right to own guns. In 2007, in "Parker v. District of Columbia", the D.C. Circuit became the first federal appeals court to strike down a gun control law on Second Amendment grounds.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Smart guns only fire when in the hands of the owner, a feature gun control advocates say eliminates accidental firings by children, and the risk of hostile persons (such as prisoners, criminal suspects, an opponent in a fight, or an enemy soldier) grabbing the gun and using it against the owner. Gun rights advocates fear mandatory smart gun technology will make it more difficult to fire a gun when needed.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Smith & Wesson reached a settlement in 2000 with the administration of President Bill Clinton, which included a provision for the company to develop a smart gun. A consumer boycott organized by the NRA and NSSF nearly drove the company out of business and forced it to drop its smart gun plans.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The New Jersey Childproof Handgun Law of 2002 requires that 30 months after "personalized handguns are available" anywhere in the United States, only smart guns may be sold in the state. Some gun safety advocates worry that by raising the stakes of introducing the technology, this law contributes to the opposition that has prevented smart guns from being sold anywhere in the United States despite availability in other countries.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In 2014, a Maryland gun dealer dropped plans to sell the first smart gun in the United States after receiving complaints.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In June 2008, in "District of Columbia v. Heller", the Supreme Court upheld by a 5–4 vote the "Parker" decision striking down the D.C. gun law. "Heller" ruled that Americans have an individual right to possess firearms, irrespective of membership in a militia, "for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home." However, in delivering the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the operative clause of the amendment, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed," codifies an individual right derived from English common law and codified in the English Bill of Rights (1689). The majority held that the Second Amendment's preamble, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," is consistent with this interpretation when understood in light of the framers' belief that the most effective way to destroy a citizens' militia was to disarm the citizens. The majority also found that "United States v. Miller" supported an individual-right rather than a collective-right view, contrary to the dominant 20th-century interpretation of that decision. (In Miller, the Supreme Court unanimously held that a federal law requiring the registration of sawed-off shotguns did not violate the Second Amendment because such weapons did not have a "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.") Finally, the court held that, because the framers understood the right of self-defense to be "the central component" of the right to keep and bear arms, the Second Amendment implicitly protects the right "to use arms in defense of hearth and home."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The four dissenting justices said that the majority had broken established precedent on the Second Amendment, and took the position that the Amendment refers to an individual right, but in the context of militia service.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In June 2010, a Chicago law that banned handguns was struck down. The 5–4 ruling incorporated the Second Amendment, stating that "The Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms fully applicable to the States." Justice Samuel Alito's plurality opinion attributed incorporation to the Amendment's Due Process Clause.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In June 2022, the Supreme Court struck down the Sullivan Act's requirement for New York residents to show proper cause to obtain a license for concealed carry of handguns. The Supreme Court's 6-3 majority opinion authored by Justice Clarence Thomas rejected a two-part test previously used by federal courts to review challenges to gun-control measures. It found that carrying a handgun in public for self-defense is protected under the Second Amendment, while still allowing for restrictions on carrying handguns in "sensitive places."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: One way advocacy groups influence politics is through "outside spending," using political action committees (PACs) and 501(c)(4) organizations. PACs and 501(c)(4)s raise and spend money to affect elections. PACs pool campaign contributions from members and donate those funds to candidates for political office. Super PACs, created in 2010, are prohibited from making direct contributions to candidates or parties, but influence races by running ads for or against specific candidates. Both gun control and gun rights advocates use these types of organizations.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The NRA's Political Victory Fund super PAC spent $11.2 million in the 2012 election cycle, and as of April 2014, it had raised $13.7 million for 2014 elections. Michael Bloomberg's gun-control super PAC, Independence USA, spent $8.3 million in 2012 and $6.3 million in 2013. Americans for Responsible Solutions, another gun-control super PAC started by retired Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, raised $12 million in 2013, and planned to raise $16 to $20 million by the 2014 elections. The group's treasurer said that the funds would be enough to compete with the NRA "on an even-keel basis."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Another way advocacy groups influence politics is through lobbying; some groups use lobbying firms, while others employ in-house lobbyists. According to OpenSecrets, gun politics groups with the most lobbyists in 2013 were: the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA); Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG); the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF); and the Brady Campaign. Gun rights groups spent over $15.1 million lobbying in Washington D.C. in 2013, with the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) spending $6.7 million, and the NRA spending $3.4 million. Gun control groups spent $2.2 million, with MAIG spending $1.7 million, and the Brady Campaign spending $250,000 in the same period.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In August 2012, an open source group called Defense Distributed launched a project to design and release a blueprint for a handgun that could be downloaded from the Internet and manufactured using a 3D printer. In May 2013, the group made public the STL files for the world's first fully 3D printable gun, the Liberator .380 single shot pistol.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: On January 16, 2013, in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and other mass shootings, President Barack Obama announced a plan for reducing gun violence in four parts: closing background check loopholes; banning assault weapons and large capacity magazines; making schools safer; and increasing access to mental health services. The plan included proposals for new laws to be passed by Congress, and a series of executive actions not requiring Congressional approval. No new federal gun control legislation was passed as a result of these proposals. President Obama later stated in a 2015 interview with the BBC that gun control:


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: has been the one area where I feel that I've been most frustrated and most stymied, it is the fact that the United States of America is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense, gun-safety laws. Even in the face of repeated mass killings. And you know, if you look at the number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism, it's less than 100. If you look at the number that have been killed by gun violence, it's in the tens of thousands. And for us not to be able to resolve that issue has been something that is distressing. But it is not something that I intend to stop working on in the remaining 18 months.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is a multilateral treaty that regulates the international trade in conventional weapons, which entered into force on December 24, 2014. Work on the treaty commenced in 2006 with negotiations for its content conducted at a global conference under the auspices of the United Nations from July 2–27, 2012, in New York. As it was not possible to reach an agreement on a final text at that time, a new meeting for the conference was scheduled for March 18–28, 2013. On April 2, 2013, the UN General Assembly adopted the ATT. The treaty was opened for signing on June 3, 2013, and by August 15, 2015, it had been signed by 130 states and ratified or acceded to by 72. It entered into force on December 24, 2014, after it was ratified and acceded to by 50 states.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: On September 25, 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry signed the ATT on behalf of the Obama administration. This was a reversal of the position of the Bush administration which had chosen not to participate in the treaty negotiations. Then in October a bipartisan group of 50 senators and 181 representatives released concurrent letters to President Barack Obama pledging their opposition to ratification of the ATT. The group was led by Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) and Representatives Mike Kelly (R-Pennsylvania) and Collin Peterson (D-Minnesota). Following these two letters, four Democratic senators sent a separate letter to the President stating that "because of unaddressed concerns that this Treaty's obligations could undermine our nation's sovereignty and the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans [they] would oppose the Treaty if it were to come before the U.S. Senate." The four Senators are Jon Tester (D-Montana), Max Baucus (D-Montana), Heidi Heitkamp (D-North Dakota), and Joe Donnelly (D-Indiana).


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Supporters of the treaty claim that the treaty is needed to help protect millions around the globe in danger of human rights abuses. Frank Jannuzi of Amnesty International USA states, "This treaty says that nations must not export arms and ammunition where there is an 'overriding risk' that they will be used to commit serious human rights violations. It will help keep arms out of the hands of the wrong people: those responsible for upwards of 1,500 deaths worldwide every day." Secretary Kerry was quoted as saying that his signature would "help deter the transfer of conventional weapons used to carry out the world's worst crimes." As of December 2013, the U.S. has not ratified or acceded to the treaty.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Following the Las Vegas shooting in October 2017 and the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in February 2018, President Donald Trump and the Department of Justice (DOJ) sought ways to ban bump stocks, devices that can be used to make semi-automatic weapons fire as fully automatic ones as used in both shootings. Initially, the DOJ believed it had to wait for Congress to pass the appropriate legislation to ban the sale and possession of bump stocks. However, by March 2018, the DOJ introduced proposed revised regulations on gun control that incorporated bump stocks under the definition of machine guns, which would make them banned devices, as Congress had not yet taken any action. After a period of public review, the DOJ implemented the proposed ban starting on December 18, 2018, giving owners of bump stocks the option to either destroy them or turn them into authorities within 90 days, after which the ban would be in full effect (on March 26, 2019). Pro-gun groups immediately sought to challenge the order, but could not get the Supreme Court to put the ban on hold while the litigation was ongoing. In the following week, the Supreme Court refused to exempt the litigants in the legal challenge from the DOJ's order after this was raised as a separate challenge.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In April 2022, President Joe Biden announced plans to crack down on "ghost guns", claiming that they have become "weapons of choice for many criminals." Biden also urged Congress to pass a ban on assault rifles and other measures.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: On June 25, 2022, President Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law, which included strengthened background checks for firearm purchasers under the age of 21, $15 billion in funding for mental health programs and school security upgrades, federal funding to encourage states to implement red flag laws, and gun ownership bans for individuals convicted of domestic abuse charges.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: "Huffington Post" reported in September 2013 that 48% of Americans said gun laws should be made more strict, while 16% said they should be made less strict and 29% said there should be no change. Similarly, a Gallup poll found that support for stricter gun laws has fallen from 58% after the Newtown shooting, to 49% in September 2013. Both the Huffington Post poll and the Gallup poll were conducted after the Washington Navy Yard shooting. Meanwhile, the Huffington Post poll found that 40% of Americans believe stricter gun laws would prevent future mass shootings, while 52% said changing things would not make a difference. The same poll also found that 57% of Americans think better mental health care is more likely to prevent future mass shootings than stricter gun laws, while 29% said the opposite. 74% of those who incorrectly believed that the USA has universal background checks supported stricter gun laws, but 89% of those who thought that such checks were not universally required supported stricter laws.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In a 2015 study conducted by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, state gun laws were examined based on various policy approaches, and were scored on grade-based and ranked scales. States were rated positively for having passed stricter measures and stronger gun laws. Positive points were also given for states that required background checks on all sales of firearms and that limited bulk firearms purchases, and that prohibited sales of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, and that carried out stricter evaluations of applications for handgun concealed-carry licenses, especially in the context of prohibited domestic-violence offenders. Meanwhile, points were deducted from states with laws that expanded access to guns, or that allowed concealed carry in public areas (particularly schools and bars) without a permit, or that passed "Stand Your Ground Laws" – which remove the duty to retreat and instead allow people to shoot potential assailants. Eventually, states were graded indicating the overall strengths or weakness of their gun laws. The ten states with the strongest gun laws ranked from strongest starting with California, then New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Hawaii, New York, Maryland, Illinois, Rhode Island and finally Michigan. The states with weakest gun laws were ranked as follows: South Dakota, Arizona, Mississippi, Vermont, Louisiana, Montana, Wyoming, Kentucky, Kansas, and Oklahoma. A comparable study of state laws was also conducted in 2016. Based on these findings, The Law Center concluded that comprehensive gun laws reduce gun violence deaths, whereas weaker guns laws increase gun-related deaths. Furthermore, among different kinds of legislation, universal background checks were the most effective at reducing gun-related deaths.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: A study conducted by Berryessa et al. in 2020 with 3410 qualifying respondents investigated how characteristics of victims and types of incidents described in a media report would affect respondents' support towards gun regulations. They found that mentions of victim race, particularly those of Black victims, was a strong predictor of lowered support for all categories of firearm regulation. Furthermore, regulations designed to address gun deaths from suicide and accidents were less likely to garner support compared to those addressing mass shootings or street-level gun homicide. Descriptions of age, mental illness, prior incarceration, and victim gender were less salient predictors of public support than those of race or incident type.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Rights-based arguments involve the most fundamental question about gun control: to what degree the government has the authority to regulate guns.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The primary author of the United States Bill of Rights, James Madison, considered them – including a right to keep and bear arms – to be fundamental. In 1788, he wrote: "The political truths declared in that solemn manner acquire by degrees the character of fundamental maxims of free Government, and as they become incorporated with the national sentiment, counteract the impulses of interest and passion."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The view that gun ownership is a fundamental right was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in "District of Columbia v. Heller" (2008). The Court stated: "By the time of the founding, the right to have arms had become fundamental for English subjects." The Court observed that the English Bill of Rights of 1689 had listed a right to arms as one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: When the Court interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment in "McDonald v. City of Chicago" (2010), it looked to the year 1868, when the amendment was ratified and said that most states had provisions in their constitutions explicitly protecting this right. The Court concluded: "It is clear that the Framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Prior to "District of Columbia v. Heller", in the absence of a clear court ruling, there was a debate about whether or not the Second Amendment included an individual right. In "Heller", the Court concluded that there is indeed such a right, but not an unlimited one. Although the decision was not unanimous, all justices endorsed an individual right viewpoint but differed on the scope of that right.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Before "Heller" gun rights advocates argued that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own guns. They stated that the phrase "the people" in that amendment applies to individuals rather than an organized collective and that the phrase "the people" means the same thing in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 9th, and 10th Amendments. They also said the Second's placement in the Bill of Rights defines it as an individual right. As part of the "Heller" decision, the majority endorsed the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual, not unlimited, right to own guns. Political scientist Robert Spitzer and Supreme Court law clerk Gregory P. Magarian argued that this final decision by the Supreme Court was a misinterpretation of the U.S. Constitution.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: After the "Heller" decision there was an increased amount of attention on whether or not the Second Amendment applies to the states. In 2010 in the case of "McDonald v. City Chicago", the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment's provisions do apply to the states as a result of the Fourteenth Amendment.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The eighteenth-century English jurist William Blackstone (b. 1723), whose writings influenced the drafters of the U.S. Constitution, called self-defense "the primary law of nature" which (he said) man-made law cannot take away. Following Blackstone, the American jurist St. George Tucker (b. 1752) wrote that "the right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments, it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In both "Heller" (2008) and "McDonald" (2010) the Supreme Court deemed that the right of self-defense is at least partly protected by the United States Constitution. The court left details of that protection to be worked out in future court cases.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The two primary interest groups regarding this issue are the Brady Campaign and the National Rifle Association. They have clashed, for example, regarding stand-your-ground laws which give individuals a legal right to use guns for defending themselves without any duty to retreat from a dangerous situation. After the Supreme Court's 2008 decision in "Heller", the Brady Campaign indicated that it would seek gun laws "without infringing on the right of law-abiding persons to possess guns for self-defense."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Left-wing and far-left advocates for gun rights argue that gun ownership is necessary for protecting marginalized communities, such as African Americans and the working class, from state repression. Far-left advocates argue that gun control laws mostly benefit white people and harm people of color.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Another fundamental political argument associated with the right to keep and bear arms is that banning or even regulating gun ownership makes government tyranny more likely. A January 2013 Rasmussen Reports poll indicated that 65 percent of Americans believe the purpose of the Second Amendment is to "ensure that people are able to protect themselves from tyranny." A Gallup poll in October 2013 showed that 60 percent of American gun owners mention "personal safety/protection" as a reason for owning them, and 5 percent mention a "Second Amendment right," among other reasons. The anti-tyranny argument extends back to the days of colonial America and earlier in Great Britain.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Various gun rights advocates and organizations, such as former governor Mike Huckabee, former Congressman Ron Paul, and Gun Owners of America, say that an armed citizenry is the population's last line of defense against tyranny by their own government. This belief was also familiar at the time the Constitution was written. The Declaration of Independence mentions "the Right of the People to alter or to abolish" the government, and Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address reiterated the "revolutionary right" of the people. A right of revolution was not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution; instead, the Constitution was designed to ensure a government deriving its power from the consent of the governed. Historian Don Higginbotham wrote that the well-regulated militia protected by the Second Amendment was more likely to put down rebellions than participate in them.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Gun rights advocates such as Stephen Halbrook and Wayne LaPierre support the "Nazi gun control" theory. The theory states that gun regulations enforced by the Third Reich rendered victims of the Holocaust weak, and that more effective resistance to oppression would have been possible if they had been better armed. Other gun laws of authoritarian regimes have also been brought up. This counterfactual history theory is not supported by mainstream scholarship, though it is an element of a "security against tyranny" argument in U.S. politics."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: American gun rights activist Larry Pratt says that the anti-tyranny argument for gun rights is supported by successful efforts in Guatemala and the Philippines to arm ordinary citizens against communist insurgency in the 1980s. Gun-rights advocacy groups argue that the only way to enforce democracy is through having the means of resistance. Militia-movement groups cite the Battle of Athens (Tennessee, 1946) as an example of citizens who "[used] armed force to support the Rule of Law" in what they said was a rigged county election. Then-senator John F. Kennedy wrote in 1960 that, "it is extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny which gave rise to the Second Amendment will ever be a major danger to our nation..."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: In 1957, the legal scholar Roscoe Pound expressed a different view: He stated, "A legal right of the citizen to wage war on the government is something that cannot be admitted. ... In the urban industrial society of today, a general right to bear efficient arms so as to be enabled to resist oppression by the government would mean that gangs could exercise an extra-legal rule which would defeat the whole Bill of Rights."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Public policy arguments are based on the idea that the central purpose of government is to establish and maintain order. This is done through public policy, which Blackstone defined as "the due regulation and domestic order of the kingdom, whereby the inhabitants of the State, like members of a well-governed family, are bound to conform their general behavior to the rules of propriety, good neighborhood, and good manners, and to be decent, industrious, and inoffensive in their respective stations."


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: The public policy debates about gun violence include discussions about firearms deaths – including homicide, suicide, and unintentional deaths – as well as the impact of gun ownership, criminal and legal, on gun violence outcomes. After the Sandy Hook shooting, the majority of people, including gun owners and non-gun owners, wanted the government to spend more money in order to improve mental health screening and treatment, to deter gun violence in America. In the United States in 2009 there were 3.0 recorded intentional homicides committed with a firearm per 100,000 inhabitants. The U.S. ranks 28 in the world for gun homicides per capita. A U.S. male aged 15–24 is 70 times more likely to be killed with a gun than their counterpart in the eight (G-8) largest industrialized nations in the world (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy, Russia). In 2013, there were 33,636 gun-related deaths, in the United States. Meanwhile, in the same year of Japan, there were only 13 deaths that were involved with guns. In incidents concerning gun homicide or accidents, a person in America is about 300 times more likely to die than a Japanese person. In 2015, there were 36,252 deaths due to firearms, and some claim as many as 372 mass shootings, in the U.S, while guns were used to kill about 50 people in the U.K. However, using the FBI definition of a "mass shooting" there were only 4 in the U.S. in 2015. More people are typically killed with guns in the U.S. in a day (about 85) than in the U.K. in a year.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Within the gun politics debate, gun control and gun rights advocates disagree over the role that guns play in crime. Gun control advocates concerned about high levels of gun violence in the United States look to restrictions on gun ownership as a way to stem the violence and say that increased gun ownership leads to higher levels of crime, suicide and other negative outcomes. Gun rights groups say that a well-armed civilian populace prevents crime and that making civilian ownership of firearms illegal would increase the crime rate by making civilians vulnerable to criminal activity. They say that more civilians defend themselves with a gun every year than the law enforcement arrest for violent crimes and burglary and that civilians legally shoot almost as many criminals as law enforcement officers do.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Studies using FBI data and Police Reports of the incidents, have found that there are approximately 1,500 verified instances of firearms used in self-defense annually in the United States. Survey-based research derived from data gathered by the National Crime Victimization Survey has generated estimates that, out of roughly 5.5 million violent crime victims in the U.S. annually approximately 1.1 percent, or 55,000 used a firearm in self-defense (175,000 for the 3-year period.) When including property crimes, of the 15.5 million victims of property crimes annually found in the survey (46.5 million for 2013–2015), the NCV survey data yielded estimates that around 0.2 percent of property crime victims, or 36,000 annually (109,000 for the 3-year period) used a firearm in self-defense from the loss of property. Researchers working from the most recent NCVS data sets have found approximately 95,000 uses of a firearm in self-defense in the U.S. each year (284,000 for the years 2013–2015). In addition, the United States has a higher rate of firearm ownership than any other nation. The United States' gun homicide rate, while high compared to other developed nations, has been declining since the 1990s.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: Gun Control has limited the availability of firearms to many individuals. Some of the limitations include any persons who have been dishonorably discharged from the military, any person that has renounced their United States citizenship, has been declared mentally ill or committed to a mental institution, is a fugitive, is a user or addicted to a controlled substance, and anyone illegally in the country. Still, in 2016, according to the Center for Disease Control, there were 19,362 homicides in the United States. Firearms were used in 14,415 or a little over 74% of all homicides. There were also 22,938 suicides that were performed with the assistance of a firearm. In total, in 2016, firearms were involved in the deaths of 38,658 Americans. According to Rifat Darina Kamal and Charles Burton, in 2016, study data, presented by Priedt (2016), showed that just the homicide rate, by itself, was 18 times greater than the rates of Australia, Sweden, and France. Due to the increase in mass shootings, in the United States, new laws are being passed. Recently, Colorado became the fifteenth state to pass the "Red Flag" bill which gives judges the authority to remove firearms from those believed to be a high risk of harming others or themselves. This "Red Flag" law has now been proposed in twenty-three states.


title: Gun politics in the United States

text: There is an open debate regarding a causal connection (or the lack of one) between gun control and its effect on gun violence and other crimes. The numbers of lives saved or lost by gun ownership are debated by criminologists. Research difficulties include the difficulty of accounting accurately for confrontations in which no shots are fired and jurisdictional differences in the definition of "crime."