Gun laws in Idaho are on the open end of the spectrum when compared with gun laws in other parts of the United States.
To give you some idea just how popular guns are in Idaho,
The Christian Science Monitor reported that 87,000 Idaho residents possess conceal-and-carry permits.
Idaho's approach to gun laws lines up with the way most Americans think, according to data from a 2014 Pew survey,
according to a report in The Christian Science Monitor.
The poll showed that 57 percent of Americans think guns are more helpful with regards to self-defense than they are risky. That number was a significant increase from a comparative survey conducted in 2012, when only 48 percent of Americans told Pew that guns do more to protect people than place them at risk.
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Even so, the issue of gun laws and gun control has come up in Idaho in a major way as recently as the end of 2014, when a 2-year-old shot and killed his mother, Veronica Rutledge, after taking her gun out of her purse at Wal-Mart in Hayden.
Rutledge, a chemist, “had extensive experience with handguns,” according to The Christian Science Monitor. Both she and her husbands had legal permits to conceal and carry guns.
So what are the alternatives to Idaho’s approach?
The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence would point to states like California, New York, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, and Connecticut as states worth emulating. Several of these states have recently passed strong gun-control legislation.
The Law Center claims that, “states with stronger gun regulation have lower gun death rates, and the states with weaker regulation have higher gun death rates.”
Of course, it’s hard not to notice that Connecticut is among that list, given that it played host to the shooting tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, one of the worst gun massacres in recent United States history.
This article does not constitute legal advice. Check the current gun laws before purchasing or traveling with a firearm.
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