In 1911, after an attempt to assassinate the mayor of New York City, the New York legislature passed the Sullivan Law, which required a police permit for both owning and carrying a pistol. Support for the law ranged from the New York Times and idealistic reformers to Tammany Hall political hacks like its author, Tim Sullivan. (He was trying to give police a way to frame his enemies. One political opponent had all his pockets sewn closed after three arrests for carrying guns without a permit.) Few states, however, followed New York's lead. In forty-five of them, unlicensed pistol ownership remains legal except for persons with criminal records or the insane.
Over the next thirty years most states adopted various forms of the National Revolver Act, a law largely drafted by the National Rifle Association. It established a permit system to regulate carrying concealed weapons. In some states, the law allowed the issuing authority to reject applications without a reason. Their guidelines were vague phrases such as "good character, public safety, or need." Elsewhere, license denial must be for clearly defined causes, such as a history of crime, alcoholism, insanity, or drug abuse.
In the late 1930s federal controls were imposed on machine guns, sawed-off guns, and other dangerous devices by the National Firearms acts. The Gun Control Act of 1968 forbade the sale of guns by mail or to out-of-state residents and placed restrictions on ammunition sales. The Firearms Owner's Protection Act of 1987 repealed federal restrictions on ammunition sales and out-of-state sales of rifles and shotguns because they had proven to have no crime reduction value. It also provided for the legal transportation by interstate travelers of "unloaded and inaccessible" guns regardless of local restrictions.