Jacob is a J.D. Candidate, Class of 2027, at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
This post is part of a series written by students in the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School’s The Second Amendment – A Modern and Historical Perspective class. The posts were written by students as an assignment for the class and edited by their professor, Jonathan Goldstein, in preparation for publication.
In what was a requested moment of silence for Charlie Kirk on the house floor, one representative took the opportunity to demand that her colleagues “pass some gun laws!” And this representative was not alone. In the hours, days, and weeks that have followed Charlie Kirk’s assassination, gun control advocates from the halls of Congress to Xto our nation’s largest television stations have used the incident to pressure gun advocates to pass gun control laws—either stating or implying that Kirk may still be alive today with such laws. Yet a closer look at gun crime statistics in the United States suggests that banning or restricting access to the assassin’s weapon—an old bolt-action rifle—would have had little to no effect on overall gun violence, absent a nationwide confiscation program. Such data may indicate that those pushing for these more restrictive gun-control measures for these rifles may be doing more to harm Americans than help.
The gun used by the Kirk assassin was his grandfather’s Mauser model 98—a bolt-action rifle originally manufactured in Germany for their military in both World Wars. This type of weapon is used in a tiny number of murders in the US. In 2019, according to the FBI, rifles, encompassing all types of rifles such as semi-automatic, lever, bolt action, etc., made up 364 of the 13927 murders in the US. Now, it is a fair assumption that bolt-action rifles, given their slow rate of fire, difficult-to-conceal nature, and relatively awkward handling compared to semi-automatic rifles, comprise only a fraction of the 364 murders from rifles.
To put the danger posed by bolt-action rifles in perspective, it is useful to compare them with other tools commonly used in homicides. According to FBI data from 2019, murderers used “knives or other cutting instruments” to kill 1,476 people, “other weapons” to kill 1,593, and “hands, fists, feet, etc.” to kill 600.
Contextualized in data, it is clear that rifles do not pose a substantial risk to the average citizen. Indeed, rifles are much more often a great asset in the lives of many citizens, allowing them to hunt, sport shoot, or defend their properties and themselves. Their low risk and high utility likely explain why the federal government and most states permit licensed dealers to sell rifles to individuals over 18, while requiring buyers to be 21 for handguns. This reasoning may also account for why most European countries impose stricter regulations on handguns than on rifles. For example, in Switzerland, bolt-action rifles are readily accessible with minimal permits, while handgun regulations require very extensive permitting. And in the UK, handguns are largely banned for civilians, while rifles can be obtained with the proper licensing.
Focusing on the availability of bolt-action rifles for purchase, however, overlooks a key fact present in the Kirk shooting and many other shootings: the firearm used by the Kirk assassin was an old weapon passed down through his family. As a result, banning or imposing background check requirements on such rifles would not have prevented the attack. Empirical data underscores this point more broadly. Firearms used in crimes are approximately 2.5 times more likely to be obtained through family members or acquaintances than through legal purchases, and roughly six times more likely to be acquired through theft, street transactions, or other illicit sources.
Moreover, law-abiding citizens are also not the ones killing, as “90% of all ‘adult murders have adult records, with an average adult criminal career . . . of six or more years, including four major adult felony arrests.’” These figures underscore that ordinary, law-abiding gun owners are not the primary drivers of gun violence; regulations aimed at them do little to enhance public safety while imposing broad costs and risks on many Americans.
Of course, gun control advocates may also be seeking to advance other regulatory measures, such as restrictions on open carry or the adoption of safe storage laws. While mandatory storage requirements can reduce youth access and associated harms, preventing a 22-year-old—who has grown up safely handling firearms with their family—from accessing a bolt-action rifle is not the type of misuse these laws are primarily intended to address. Likewise, permit-to-carry regimes typically focus on handguns, both because bolt-action rifles pose comparatively low risks and because extending such requirements to long guns would impose significant burdens on hunters and farmers who may live far from permitting centers.
When these facts are viewed together, a different picture emerges than the one painted in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s assassination. Far from revealing a regulatory gap that may have saved Kirk’s life, the data shows that further restrictions on bolt-action rifles would do little to prevent violence while imposing real, significant costs on law-abiding Americans. And, it is this balance we must remember and remind our fellow citizens of when an incident, like the assassination of Charlie Kirk, shocks our national conscience and stirs our emotions towards banning or restricting weapons like these.
One final and critical point must be noted, though. As Justice Thomas stated in Bruen: “The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not ‘a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.’” Rifles have been a staple of American life since the founding. Thus, we must remember and remind all those around us that their accessibility to law-abiding Americans is not a privilege justified by a balancing test—it is an inalienable right.