Another US election, another impassioned debate about gun ownership.
Americans own more guns than anybody else on earth, even adjusted for population. Outbreaks of gun-related crimes inspire some Americans to seek limits on firearm ownership and others to cherish the right to have a gun for self-defence.
The National Rifle Association, the leading pro-gun group, has been on a decades-long winning streak convincing courts and politicians to loosen gun restrictions and to prevent the passage of new ones. The constitutional right of Americans to bear arms has become a flash point in the presidential contest between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.
1 What's the Second Amendment?
The first 10 amendments to the US Constitution, adopted in 1791, are collectively known as the Bill of Rights and were intended to address concerns that the new nation needed more explicit guarantees of personal freedoms. The Second Amendment 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." What precisely that right includes is still debated, 225 years later. The Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the amendment protects the gun rights of individuals, not just militias.