The Republican party was formed when anti-slavery Whigs had begun meeting in the upper midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party. At one of these meetings, the party was finally formed in Ripon, Wisconsin. Overall, Republicans are strong advocates for gun rights. They believe that American citizens have the right to own, carry, and use guns. This is mostly based on interpretation of the Constitution along with the basic philosophy of the party. They believe that governmental regulation of firearms is largely unconstitutional, therefore most gun laws are an infringement on the individual’s rights to bear arms. Republicans do not feel that every citizen in America has the right to own a gun, such as the mentally ill. The party tends to believe that protecting gun ownership rights is something that is better left to states to decide. In 1998, Congress, and eventually the President, passed the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988. This law “Explicitly prohibits the possession or manufacturing of firearms undetectable by X-ray machines and metal detectors at security checkpoints around the country”. More recently in December, 2013, the law got a 10-year extension, approved by the House, after it was getting set to expire. The relevance of the matter of undetectable plastic guns as a law-and-order issue helped people vote in favor of the extension.