What consumer product safety guidelines are there in the handgun industry and why?
Wintemute: One of the truly remarkable facts about this whole story is that there are almost no standards regarding the design, the performance, the safety, the reliability of handguns made here in the United States. Although, there are literally dozens of those standards for handguns that are made in other countries and imported here. There are a couple of exceptions and they’re fairly recent. These days you can no longer make a handgun that has an ammunition capacity of more than ten rounds. That ammunition limit was set as part of the 1994 crime bill. But the basic consumer protection framework that people have come to know and rely upon for everything from motor vehicles to teddy bears simply does not exist. And it does not exist as a result of conscious and deliberate action taken by Congress in the 1960’s. Q: What did Congress do? Wintemute: Let me sketch a bigger picture here. In the 1960’s two things were happening. Motor vehicle fatality rates were very high and climbing. Our
Related Questions
- Does the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) have injury data on particular consumer products that I can see?
- When did the Consumer Product Safety Commissions 16 CFR Part 1633 become effective for the industry?
- What consumer product safety guidelines are there in the handgun industry and why?
