Controversial Measures for Control

Numerous laws and regulations have been passed in an effort to control guns. In June 1999, Connecticut legislators passed a bill that allows police to seize the weapons of anyone whom they believe presents a threat to him- or herself and others. The law went into effect October 1, and on November 1, police in Greenwich, Connecticut, made the first seizure under the new law, raising a house and taking 11 guns--six handguns, two rifles, a shotgun, an assault rifle, and a submachine gun--from a 45-year-old man. The man, Thompson Bosee, told the Hartford Courant newspaper that he would challenge the seizure and the law's constitutionality. Part of controlling where guns go is controlling the people who sell them. Massachusetts recently enacted a law that requires gun dealers to maintain their businesses in separate buildings from their homes--no longer allowing "kitchen table" gun sales.