U.S. Demographics Favor Firearms Control

In the 20th century, the struggle to control private gun use has pitted rural America against urban America. The demographics of an increasingly urbanized nation caused this shift, but there is a long history of differences on how to control private firearms.

The conflict's roots go back to the first English communities where colonists kept firearms for defense and offense. They established controls aimed at keeping firearms out of the hands of the "wrong" people, usually slaves, Indians, and the poor. Gun owners accepted such regulations because they rarely impinged on the "right" people's free use of firearms in an overwhelmingly agrarian society.

Though scholars dispute the extent of private gun-keeping, rough statistics indicate that firearms in early America were fewer than legend claims. Even so, arms-keeping agrarians dominated the three branches of the federal government and most state governments.

In the post-Civil War years the nation's demography and character changed. The frontier passed, the rate of industrial and urban growth escalated, and millions of new immigrants flooded the East. Along with those who abandoned farmlands, these immigrants swelled the country's cities. At the same time, gun use expanded.

Alarmed by firearm violence in their streets, urbanites backed gun-control ordinances, as in New York in 1911, that went beyond restricting weapons to the right people. Citing the Second Amendment and alleged pioneer traditions, organized gun owners fought such legislation and, in most instances, won.

Census figures in 1920 showed clearly that urbanites outnumbered agrarians, but the representatives of rural America still held the reins in federal government. They continued to support what historians often call the gun culture.

Not until the Great Depression gave the Democratic Party control of the executive and legislative branches did the U.S. government deal seriously with gun control. For the first time urbanites, many of them the sons and daughters of new immigrants, supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and urged gun-control laws. In 1934 Congress passed the first federal firearms control law.

Although anemic, this legislation stimulated bitter opposition from a well-organized and politically connected gun lobby. Consequently, no additional federal controls were feasible for 34 yearsÑuntil the assassinations of Jack and Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. In their wake, Congress reluctantly enacted another gun-control law in 1968. Eighteen years later, Congress, with President Ronald Reagan's backing, eviscerated much of what constituted federal controls.

Meantime, control advocates had created a lobby with a largely urban constituency. It made no headway nationally until William J. Clinton assumed the presidency. He prodded Congress into passing in 1993 the strongest law yet, but it was still a halfway measure.

Through opinion polls, most Americans have consistently favored more comprehensive regulationÑa reflection of the reality of the United States being one of the world's most urbanized nations. Nonetheless, the gun lobby, working with legislators from largely rural states, has blocked more effective measures.

While the lobby has always drawn support across party lines, in the 1990s gun control became more partisan than in the past: Democrats called for tighter controls while Republicans opposed them. The 2000 presidential election mirrored this demographic split. Al Gore carried most of the urban areas and won a majority of the votes cast while George W. Bush carried the Western and Southern states, where gun-keepers had striking influence, and narrowly won the electoral vote.

Given the over-representation of rural states in the Senate, stringent national gun control appears unlikely in the short run. However, a trend of declining gun ownership and the continuing migration to the cities suggest that in the long run the American majority that desires solid control will prevail.

Alexander DeConde is a professor
emeritus in history and recently wrote
a book on controlling guns titled
"Gun Violence in America."