Gun Laws

I chose to research what the requirements are to buy a gun in the US and I ended up finding out that in 36 states people don't need permits to buy guns. Since guns in these states are so easy to buy, a lot of them aren't registered. Huffington Post lists the states that it says are the easiest to buy a gun in, and one of them is Alabama. In Alabama, permits aren't required to buy a gun, but they are required to have a conceal carry weapon. This seems to be the trend with a lot of the states that made it onto this list. However, in a few states permits aren't required to purchase a gun or to carry a handgun. It shocks me that there is that little control over the purchasing and selling of guns in that much of the US. All thirty-six of the states that Huffington Post lists on its article do not require permits to buy a gun. Five of these thirty-six states don't require a license or permit for conceal carry handguns.
I then went on to look at the concealed weapon statistics for the US. According to gunstocarry.com, as of 2017 Florida has the most active conceal carry permits, but Alabama has the largest percent of the population who have permits. This site also had data on the amount of background checks that occur. From 2002 to 2016, the amount of background checks increased substantially, but then went down slightly form 2016 to 2017. Only eighteen states require checks on private gun sales, and a majority of states don't have any kind of checks on private gun sales. The cost to carry a handgun in a particular state varies anywhere from $30 to $550 all for varying amounts of times that the permit is valid.
Overall, I learned that most states don't require any kind of license to purchase to gun and that most states do require a permit to carry a concealed weapon. I also learned that most private gun sales don't involve background checks and that the cost to have a conceal carry weapon can vary depending on the state you are in.