Saturday Night Special - History of Regulation Attempts

History of Regulation Attempts

The earliest law prohibiting inexpensive handguns was enacted in Tennessee, in the form of the "Army and Navy" law, passed in 1879, shortly after the 14th amendment and Civil Rights Act of 1875; previous laws invalidated by the constitutional amendment had stated that black freedmen could not own or carry any manner of firearm. The Army and Navy law prohibited the sale of "belt or pocket pistols, or revolvers, or any other kind of pistols, except army or navy pistols," which were prohibitively expensive for black freedmen and poor whites to purchase. These were large pistols in .36 caliber ("Navy") or .44 caliber ("Army"), and were the military issue cap and ball blackpowder revolvers used during the Civil War by both Union and Confederate ground troops. The effect of the Army and Navy law was to restrict handgun possession to the upper economic classes.

The next major attempt to regulate inexpensive firearms was the Gun Control Act of 1968, which used the "sporting purposes" test and a points system to exclude many small, inexpensive handguns which had been imported from European makers such as Röhm (RG). The Act also had the effect of banning the import of high quality pocket pistols such as the Browning 1910 and the Walther PPK, which were very popular among police officers as backup guns, since police use was not a "sporting purpose" and the backup guns failed the points system on basis of size.

The Gun Control Act had other unintended consequences. The original Glock models imported from Austria, and used by many U.S. police departments, had to be equipped with fragile adjustable sights to gain enough points to be imported as "target pistols"; these were replaced by Glock in the U.S. with the original rugged fixed sight, thus creating the original, non-importable configuration desired for police service use. All compact models have "target grips" in the form of finger grooves molded into the plastic, and Glock's .380 ACP model is still not available in the US due to its inability to make the required number of points for import.

Most manufacturers in the US were not directly impacted by the Gun Control Act, as they were not subject to the import restrictions, and for the most part they did not manufacture compact, inexpensive handguns that competed with the banned imports. However, demand for quality compact handguns or police service pistols beyond the capacity of domestic manufacture led either to domestic manufacture of guns banned from import (Smith and Wesson began making the Walther PPK) or to establishment of U.S. factories by foreign makers such as Beretta.

The demand for inexpensive handguns still existed and a number of new companies were formed to fill that gap. In an effort to cut costs, many of these guns were made with cast zinc components, rather than the more typical machined or cast steel. While zinc is far less strong and durable than steel, it is strong and durable enough for the small-caliber defensive handguns in question. It is also rust-proof, which is an advantage for defensive users who often invest less effort in maintaining their weapons than sporting enthusiasts.

More recent legislation against "junk guns" has targeted the zinc frames used in construction by specifying a melting point; however, this backfired when police departments began adopting polymer framed guns such as those made by every major firearms manufacturer (with the exception of Colt), which will burn at temperatures much lower than the commonly specified 800 °F. Legislators then changed the definitions to target size (barrel lengths under 3 inches), materials (such as zinc), low-cost manufacturing techniques (e.g., density requirements that specifically ban inexpensive powder cast metals), redundant safety requirements (trigger and/or main-spring locks, sizes too large for a child to use, drop tests), and "quality", "reliability", and "accuracy" (which are often left undefined). The only apparent impact of such legislation is to force the manufacturers to either lose market share in some states (since such laws have only been instituted on a state-by-state basis) or to increase the cost of manufacture and thus increase the market price of the firearm. Some of these legal restrictions are based on product liability law; a gun should not discharge when dropped. Others, such as requiring loaded chamber indicators, are controversial.

No police departments are known to require officers to carry guns with locking devices installed (although some do require rifles and shotguns that are stored unattended in police cruisers as backup weapons to have locking devices to prevent unauthorised access). Law enforcement is also specifically exempted from these bans and regulations.