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State Handgun Laws
Keeping up 50 states plus Territories, DC, NYC, Links to Mexico and Canada firearms laws is a big task. I have been doing it for over 12 years now and it can be a nightmare. Packing.org was needed. When it started info was hard to find and cut and pasting it into every state page was the only way to do it. Now info is available from state sources. That makes it much easier and less time consuming.
When Steve talked me into doing handgun law my first statement was there would not be a forum. 98% of the people use common sense when posting but those 2% who don't can ruin it. Case in point. How many times have you seen info posted on a gun site that was totally incorrect? Many times is what everyone will answer. It is a headache just watching forums and keeping the garbage out that can lead to someone getting arrested and thrown in jail. Plus you have that 2% that post foul language and do nothing but troll for someone to argue with.
We are in the process of changing Handgunlaw.us over and making state page for each state. the info for the state will be on one page with links to most of the information people need. It takes time to do that. Steve and I both do it as a part time job. But I have been doing it so long it is much easier for me. I know where most of the info is.
I am laying out all the state pages the same but over time they will change slightly. Maryland for instance does not let you link directly to most of their pages with their gun info. I am not a computer expert by a long way and so I have to go with what I got. Some states supply tons of info while others don't. But it is getting much better. Some state laws are a bear to look through while others are laid out great.
As for starting a data base here and just linking to each state is fine but I will tell you that in a short period of time it will be out of date. Things change and unless someone is dedicated to it it falls into disrepair.
When I was taking care of Packing.org and now Handgunlaw.us the thing people like about the sites better than anything else is that they were up to date. That is the most important thing. It was 8 weeks ago I went through over 1000 links on handgunlaw.us to make sure they all worked. 60 to 70 of them didn't. As I redo the site again I am finding links that don't work. If the site is not up to date then it is not worth having. So someone has to do it and I am the idiot who they found to do it.
Steve and I are both NRA Firearms Instructors. We know just how bad the info is needed. That is the biggest reason we do it. But going back the info has to be up to date. I have seen website come and go that try to do the same thing Steve and I are doing at Handgunlaw.us. I prayed that one of them would take off and I could retire. Trying to keep all the states straight takes time and that is what most people don't have.
What every web site needs that is trying to supply data is feedback. It is OK to send an email saying you are doing a good job. It is also very good to send an email and say you are screwing up or most importantly that there is an error and point it out. The one thing I know for sure is we will not make everyone happy. That comes with the territory.
But when you see a link that is not working. See even a little spelling error let us know. People want info that is correct and up to date. If we are going to try and supply them that info we should try our hardest to make sure it is correct and up to date. If we don't we are not doing them a service but a disservice.
We want people to use our site. We want to have a good reputation. The one thing we are not doing is making money on the site. We have no ads though we do link to Amazon.com with the books we recommend but we do that only as a service to our readers so they can find the book easy. We don't get anything for linking to them. We don't want to turn it into a money making site. We want to have a data base that supplies the correct and most up to date info available.
It is easy to ask for things like how about starting a listing to all the states. I am not slamming anyone for suggesting that. In fact that is how I got started in this. But before you do think about the work it takes to keep it up to date. The web is full of out of date information. Handgunlaw.us doesn't want to add to that list of outdated material and neither should anyone else.
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