Historically, the leadership of the NRA was more open-minded about gun control than someone familiar with the modern NRA might imagine, wrote Adam Winkler, a Second Amendment scholar at U.C.L.A. Law School, in his 2011 book, Gunfight: The Battle Over The Right To Bear Arms In America. The Second Amendment was not nearly as central to the NRAs identity for most of the organizations history.
Once Upon A Time
The NRA was founded in 1871 by two Yankee Civil War veterans, including an ex-New York Times reporter, who felt that war dragged on because more urban northerners could not shoot as well as rural southerners. Its motto and focus until 1977 was not fighting for constitutional rights to own and use guns, but Firearms Safety Education, Marksmanship Training, Shhoting for Recreation, which was displayed in its national headquarters.
The NRAs first president was a northern Army General, Ambrose Burnside. He was chosen to reflect this civilian-militia mission, as envisioned in the Second Amendment, which reads, A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The understanding of the Amendment at the time concerned having a prepared citizenry to assist in domestic military matters, such as repelling raids on federal arsenals like 1786s Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts or the British in the War of 1812. Its focus was not asserting individual gun rights as today, but a ready citizenry prepared by target shooting. The NRA accepted $25,000 from New York State to buy a firing range ($500,000 today). For decades, the U.S. military gave surplus guns to the NRA and sponsored shooting contests.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the NRAs leaders helped write and lobby for the first federal gun control lawsthe very kinds of laws that the modern NRA labels as the height of tryanny. The 17th Amendment outlawing alchohol became law in 1920 and was soon followed by the emergence of big city gangsters who outgunned the police by killing rivals with sawed-off shotguns and machine gunstoday called automatic weapons.
In the early 1920s, the National Revolver Associationthe NRAs handgun training counterpartproposed model legislation for states that included requiring a permit to carry a concealed weapon, adding five years to a prison sentence if a gun was used in a crime, and banning non-citizens from buying a handgun. They also proposed that gun dealers turn over sales records to police and created a one-day waiting period between buying a gun and getting ittwo provisions that the NRA opposes today.
Nine states adopted these laws: West Virginia, New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana, Oregon, California, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Connecticut. Meanwhile, the American Bar Association had been working to create uniform state laws, and built upon the proposal but made the waiting period two days. Nine more states adopted it: Alabama, Arkansas, Maryland, Montana, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
State gun control laws were not controversialthey were the norm. Within a generation of the countrys founding, many states passed laws banning any citizen from carrying a concealed gun. The cowboy towns that Hollywood lionized as the Wild West actually required all guns be turned in to sheriffs while people were within local city limits. In 1911, New York state required handgun owners to get a permit, following an attempted assassination on New York Citys mayor. (Between 1865 and 1901, three presidents had been killed by handguns: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley.) But these laws were not seen as effective against the Depressions most violent gangsters.
In 1929, Al Capones St. Valentines Day massacre saw men disguised as Chicago police kill 7 rivals with machine guns. Bonnie and Clydes crime-and-gun spree from 1932-34 was a national sensation. John Dellinger robbed 10 banks in 1933 and fired a machine gun as he sped away. A new president in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt, made fighting crime and gun control part of his New Deal. The NRA helped him draft the first federal gun controls: 1934s National Firearms Act and 1938s Gun Control Act.
The NRA President at the time, Karl T. Frederick, a 1920 Olympic gold-medal winner for marksmanship who became a lawyer, praised the new state gun controls in Congress. I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons, he testified before the 1938 law was passed. I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.
These federal firearms laws imposed high taxes and registration requirements on certain classes of weaponsthose used in gang violence like machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and silencersmaking it all-but impossible for average people to own them. Gun makers and sellers had to register with the federal government, and certain classes of peoplenotably convicted felonswere barred from gun ownership. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld these laws in 1939.
The legal doctrine of gun rights balanced by gun controls held for nearly a half-century.
In November 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy with an Italian military surplus rifle that Owsald bought from a mail-order ad in the NRAs American Rifleman magazine. In congressional hearings that soon followed, NRA Executive Vice-President Frankin Orth supported a ban in mail-order sales, saying, We do think that any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument which killed the president of the United States.
But no new federal gun control laws came until 1968. The assassinations of civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were the tipping point, coming after several summers of race-related riots in American cities. The nations white political elite feared that violence was too prevalent and there were too many peopleespecially urban Black nationalistswith access to guns. In May 1967, two dozen Black Panther Party members walked into the California Statehouse carrying rifles to protest a gun-control bill, prompting then-Gov. Ronald Reagan to comment, Theres no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.
Kevyn wrote:
Historically, the leadership of the NRA was more open-minded about gun control than someone familiar with the modern NRA might imagine, wrote Adam Winkler, a Second Amendment scholar at U.C.L.A. Law School, in his 2011 book, Gunfight: The Battle Over The Right To Bear Arms In America. The Second Amendment was not nearly as central to the NRAs identity for most of the organizations history.
Once Upon A Time
The NRA was founded in 1871 by two Yankee Civil War veterans, including an ex-New York Times reporter, who felt that war dragged on because more urban northerners could not shoot as well as rural southerners. Its motto and focus until 1977 was not fighting for constitutional rights to own and use guns, but Firearms Safety Education, Marksmanship Training, Shhoting for Recreation, which was displayed in its national headquarters.
The NRAs first president was a northern Army General, Ambrose Burnside. He was chosen to reflect this civilian-militia mission, as envisioned in the Second Amendment, which reads, A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The understanding of the Amendment at the time concerned having a prepared citizenry to assist in domestic military matters, such as repelling raids on federal arsenals like 1786s Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts or the British in the War of 1812. Its focus was not asserting individual gun rights as today, but a ready citizenry prepared by target shooting. The NRA accepted $25,000 from New York State to buy a firing range ($500,000 today). For decades, the U.S. military gave surplus guns to the NRA and sponsored shooting contests.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the NRAs leaders helped write and lobby for the first federal gun control lawsthe very kinds of laws that the modern NRA labels as the height of tryanny. The 17th Amendment outlawing alchohol became law in 1920 and was soon followed by the emergence of big city gangsters who outgunned the police by killing rivals with sawed-off shotguns and machine gunstoday called automatic weapons.
In the early 1920s, the National Revolver Associationthe NRAs handgun training counterpartproposed model legislation for states that included requiring a permit to carry a concealed weapon, adding five years to a prison sentence if a gun was used in a crime, and banning non-citizens from buying a handgun. They also proposed that gun dealers turn over sales records to police and created a one-day waiting period between buying a gun and getting ittwo provisions that the NRA opposes today.
Nine states adopted these laws: West Virginia, New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana, Oregon, California, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Connecticut. Meanwhile, the American Bar Association had been working to create uniform state laws, and built upon the proposal but made the waiting period two days. Nine more states adopted it: Alabama, Arkansas, Maryland, Montana, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
State gun control laws were not controversialthey were the norm. Within a generation of the countrys founding, many states passed laws banning any citizen from carrying a concealed gun. The cowboy towns that Hollywood lionized as the Wild West actually required all guns be turned in to sheriffs while people were within local city limits. In 1911, New York state required handgun owners to get a permit, following an attempted assassination on New York Citys mayor. (Between 1865 and 1901, three presidents had been killed by handguns: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley.) But these laws were not seen as effective against the Depressions most violent gangsters.
In 1929, Al Capones St. Valentines Day massacre saw men disguised as Chicago police kill 7 rivals with machine guns. Bonnie and Clydes crime-and-gun spree from 1932-34 was a national sensation. John Dellinger robbed 10 banks in 1933 and fired a machine gun as he sped away. A new president in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt, made fighting crime and gun control part of his New Deal. The NRA helped him draft the first federal gun controls: 1934s National Firearms Act and 1938s Gun Control Act.
The NRA President at the time, Karl T. Frederick, a 1920 Olympic gold-medal winner for marksmanship who became a lawyer, praised the new state gun controls in Congress. I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons, he testified before the 1938 law was passed. I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.
These federal firearms laws imposed high taxes and registration requirements on certain classes of weaponsthose used in gang violence like machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and silencersmaking it all-but impossible for average people to own them. Gun makers and sellers had to register with the federal government, and certain classes of peoplenotably convicted felonswere barred from gun ownership. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld these laws in 1939.
The legal doctrine of gun rights balanced by gun controls held for nearly a half-century.
In November 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy with an Italian military surplus rifle that Owsald bought from a mail-order ad in the NRAs American Rifleman magazine. In congressional hearings that soon followed, NRA Executive Vice-President Frankin Orth supported a ban in mail-order sales, saying, We do think that any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument which killed the president of the United States.
But no new federal gun control laws came until 1968. The assassinations of civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were the tipping point, coming after several summers of race-related riots in American cities. The nations white political elite feared that violence was too prevalent and there were too many peopleespecially urban Black nationalistswith access to guns. In May 1967, two dozen Black Panther Party members walked into the California Statehouse carrying rifles to protest a gun-control bill, prompting then-Gov. Ronald Reagan to comment, Theres no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.
Historically, the leadership of the NRA was more ... (
show quote)
:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:
Yes, a time when citizens felt they could trust politicians and fellow citizens to not use these control-principles as pretexts for complete bans and confiscations...
Low Information Voter Kevyn wrote:
Historically, the leadership of the NRA was more open-minded about gun control than someone familiar with the modern NRA might imagine, wrote Adam Winkler, a Second Amendment scholar at U.C.L.A. Law School, in his 2011 book, Gunfight: The Battle Over The Right To Bear Arms In America. The Second Amendment was not nearly as central to the NRAs identity for most of the organizations history.
Once Upon A Time
The NRA was founded in 1871 by two Yankee Civil War veterans, including an ex-New York Times reporter, who felt that war dragged on because more urban northerners could not shoot as well as rural southerners. Its motto and focus until 1977 was not fighting for constitutional rights to own and use guns, but Firearms Safety Education, Marksmanship Training, Shhoting for Recreation, which was displayed in its national headquarters.
The NRAs first president was a northern Army General, Ambrose Burnside. He was chosen to reflect this civilian-militia mission, as envisioned in the Second Amendment, which reads, A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The understanding of the Amendment at the time concerned having a prepared citizenry to assist in domestic military matters, such as repelling raids on federal arsenals like 1786s Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts or the British in the War of 1812. Its focus was not asserting individual gun rights as today, but a ready citizenry prepared by target shooting. The NRA accepted $25,000 from New York State to buy a firing range ($500,000 today). For decades, the U.S. military gave surplus guns to the NRA and sponsored shooting contests.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the NRAs leaders helped write and lobby for the first federal gun control lawsthe very kinds of laws that the modern NRA labels as the height of tryanny. The 17th Amendment outlawing alchohol became law in 1920 and was soon followed by the emergence of big city gangsters who outgunned the police by killing rivals with sawed-off shotguns and machine gunstoday called automatic weapons.
In the early 1920s, the National Revolver Associationthe NRAs handgun training counterpartproposed model legislation for states that included requiring a permit to carry a concealed weapon, adding five years to a prison sentence if a gun was used in a crime, and banning non-citizens from buying a handgun. They also proposed that gun dealers turn over sales records to police and created a one-day waiting period between buying a gun and getting ittwo provisions that the NRA opposes today.
Nine states adopted these laws: West Virginia, New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana, Oregon, California, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Connecticut. Meanwhile, the American Bar Association had been working to create uniform state laws, and built upon the proposal but made the waiting period two days. Nine more states adopted it: Alabama, Arkansas, Maryland, Montana, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
State gun control laws were not controversialthey were the norm. Within a generation of the countrys founding, many states passed laws banning any citizen from carrying a concealed gun. The cowboy towns that Hollywood lionized as the Wild West actually required all guns be turned in to sheriffs while people were within local city limits. In 1911, New York state required handgun owners to get a permit, following an attempted assassination on New York Citys mayor. (Between 1865 and 1901, three presidents had been killed by handguns: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley.) But these laws were not seen as effective against the Depressions most violent gangsters.
In 1929, Al Capones St. Valentines Day massacre saw men disguised as Chicago police kill 7 rivals with machine guns. Bonnie and Clydes crime-and-gun spree from 1932-34 was a national sensation. John Dellinger robbed 10 banks in 1933 and fired a machine gun as he sped away. A new president in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt, made fighting crime and gun control part of his New Deal. The NRA helped him draft the first federal gun controls: 1934s National Firearms Act and 1938s Gun Control Act.
The NRA President at the time, Karl T. Frederick, a 1920 Olympic gold-medal winner for marksmanship who became a lawyer, praised the new state gun controls in Congress. I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons, he testified before the 1938 law was passed. I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.
These federal firearms laws imposed high taxes and registration requirements on certain classes of weaponsthose used in gang violence like machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and silencersmaking it all-but impossible for average people to own them. Gun makers and sellers had to register with the federal government, and certain classes of peoplenotably convicted felonswere barred from gun ownership. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld these laws in 1939.
The legal doctrine of gun rights balanced by gun controls held for nearly a half-century.
In November 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy with an Italian military surplus rifle that Owsald bought from a mail-order ad in the NRAs American Rifleman magazine. In congressional hearings that soon followed, NRA Executive Vice-President Frankin Orth supported a ban in mail-order sales, saying, We do think that any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument which killed the president of the United States.
But no new federal gun control laws came until 1968. The assassinations of civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were the tipping point, coming after several summers of race-related riots in American cities. The nations white political elite feared that violence was too prevalent and there were too many peopleespecially urban Black nationalistswith access to guns. In May 1967, two dozen Black Panther Party members walked into the California Statehouse carrying rifles to protest a gun-control bill, prompting then-Gov. Ronald Reagan to comment, Theres no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.
Historically, the leadership of the NRA was more ... (
show quote)
So???? This doesn't prove anything. Like Charlton Heston famously said "from my cold dead hands!"
SchoonerPete wrote:
So???? This doesn't prove anything. Like Charlton Heston famously said "from my cold dead hands!"
It dosn't prove anything it just points out facts about the history of the NRA and Reagan's position on gun control that many people are not aware of, as they say knowledge is power.
Kevyn wrote:
It dosn't prove anything it just points out facts about the history of the NRA and Reagan's position on gun control that many people are not aware of, as they say knowledge is power.
Well since knowledge is power that would explain why the tea bagging cons and other assorted right wing idiots on this board are so DUMB. :thumbup: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Kevyn wrote:
Historically, the leadership of the NRA was more open-minded about gun control than someone familiar with the modern NRA might imagine, wrote Adam Winkler, a Second Amendment scholar at U.C.L.A. Law School, in his 2011 book, Gunfight: The Battle Over The Right To Bear Arms In America. The Second Amendment was not nearly as central to the NRAs identity for most of the organizations history.
Once Upon A Time
The NRA was founded in 1871 by two Yankee Civil War veterans, including an ex-New York Times reporter, who felt that war dragged on because more urban northerners could not shoot as well as rural southerners. Its motto and focus until 1977 was not fighting for constitutional rights to own and use guns, but Firearms Safety Education, Marksmanship Training, Shhoting for Recreation, which was displayed in its national headquarters.
The NRAs first president was a northern Army General, Ambrose Burnside. He was chosen to reflect this civilian-militia mission, as envisioned in the Second Amendment, which reads, A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The understanding of the Amendment at the time concerned having a prepared citizenry to assist in domestic military matters, such as repelling raids on federal arsenals like 1786s Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts or the British in the War of 1812. Its focus was not asserting individual gun rights as today, but a ready citizenry prepared by target shooting. The NRA accepted $25,000 from New York State to buy a firing range ($500,000 today). For decades, the U.S. military gave surplus guns to the NRA and sponsored shooting contests.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the NRAs leaders helped write and lobby for the first federal gun control lawsthe very kinds of laws that the modern NRA labels as the height of tryanny. The 17th Amendment outlawing alchohol became law in 1920 and was soon followed by the emergence of big city gangsters who outgunned the police by killing rivals with sawed-off shotguns and machine gunstoday called automatic weapons.
In the early 1920s, the National Revolver Associationthe NRAs handgun training counterpartproposed model legislation for states that included requiring a permit to carry a concealed weapon, adding five years to a prison sentence if a gun was used in a crime, and banning non-citizens from buying a handgun. They also proposed that gun dealers turn over sales records to police and created a one-day waiting period between buying a gun and getting ittwo provisions that the NRA opposes today.
Nine states adopted these laws: West Virginia, New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana, Oregon, California, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Connecticut. Meanwhile, the American Bar Association had been working to create uniform state laws, and built upon the proposal but made the waiting period two days. Nine more states adopted it: Alabama, Arkansas, Maryland, Montana, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
State gun control laws were not controversialthey were the norm. Within a generation of the countrys founding, many states passed laws banning any citizen from carrying a concealed gun. The cowboy towns that Hollywood lionized as the Wild West actually required all guns be turned in to sheriffs while people were within local city limits. In 1911, New York state required handgun owners to get a permit, following an attempted assassination on New York Citys mayor. (Between 1865 and 1901, three presidents had been killed by handguns: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley.) But these laws were not seen as effective against the Depressions most violent gangsters.
In 1929, Al Capones St. Valentines Day massacre saw men disguised as Chicago police kill 7 rivals with machine guns. Bonnie and Clydes crime-and-gun spree from 1932-34 was a national sensation. John Dellinger robbed 10 banks in 1933 and fired a machine gun as he sped away. A new president in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt, made fighting crime and gun control part of his New Deal. The NRA helped him draft the first federal gun controls: 1934s National Firearms Act and 1938s Gun Control Act.
The NRA President at the time, Karl T. Frederick, a 1920 Olympic gold-medal winner for marksmanship who became a lawyer, praised the new state gun controls in Congress. I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons, he testified before the 1938 law was passed. I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.
These federal firearms laws imposed high taxes and registration requirements on certain classes of weaponsthose used in gang violence like machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and silencersmaking it all-but impossible for average people to own them. Gun makers and sellers had to register with the federal government, and certain classes of peoplenotably convicted felonswere barred from gun ownership. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld these laws in 1939.
The legal doctrine of gun rights balanced by gun controls held for nearly a half-century.
In November 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy with an Italian military surplus rifle that Owsald bought from a mail-order ad in the NRAs American Rifleman magazine. In congressional hearings that soon followed, NRA Executive Vice-President Frankin Orth supported a ban in mail-order sales, saying, We do think that any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument which killed the president of the United States.
But no new federal gun control laws came until 1968. The assassinations of civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were the tipping point, coming after several summers of race-related riots in American cities. The nations white political elite feared that violence was too prevalent and there were too many peopleespecially urban Black nationalistswith access to guns. In May 1967, two dozen Black Panther Party members walked into the California Statehouse carrying rifles to protest a gun-control bill, prompting then-Gov. Ronald Reagan to comment, Theres no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.
Historically, the leadership of the NRA was more ... (
show quote)
Reagan said that in 1967. We are now in 2014. Different time, different society.
AuntiE
Loc: 45th Least Free State
archie bunker wrote:
Reagan said that in 1967. We are now in 2014. Different time, different society.
Time only matters if it suits the narrative.
archie bunker wrote:
Reagan said that in 1967. We are now in 2014. Different time, different society.
You bet we are, Reagan is dead.
Kevyn wrote:
Historically, the leadership of the NRA was more open-minded about gun control than someone familiar with the modern NRA might imagine, wrote Adam Winkler, a Second Amendment scholar at U.C.L.A. Law School, in his 2011 book, Gunfight: The Battle Over The Right To Bear Arms In America. The Second Amendment was not nearly as central to the NRAs identity for most of the organizations history.
Once Upon A Time
The NRA was founded in 1871 by two Yankee Civil War veterans, including an ex-New York Times reporter, who felt that war dragged on because more urban northerners could not shoot as well as rural southerners. Its motto and focus until 1977 was not fighting for constitutional rights to own and use guns, but Firearms Safety Education, Marksmanship Training, Shhoting for Recreation, which was displayed in its national headquarters.
The NRAs first president was a northern Army General, Ambrose Burnside. He was chosen to reflect this civilian-militia mission, as envisioned in the Second Amendment, which reads, A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The understanding of the Amendment at the time concerned having a prepared citizenry to assist in domestic military matters, such as repelling raids on federal arsenals like 1786s Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts or the British in the War of 1812. Its focus was not asserting individual gun rights as today, but a ready citizenry prepared by target shooting. The NRA accepted $25,000 from New York State to buy a firing range ($500,000 today). For decades, the U.S. military gave surplus guns to the NRA and sponsored shooting contests.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the NRAs leaders helped write and lobby for the first federal gun control lawsthe very kinds of laws that the modern NRA labels as the height of tryanny. The 17th Amendment outlawing alchohol became law in 1920 and was soon followed by the emergence of big city gangsters who outgunned the police by killing rivals with sawed-off shotguns and machine gunstoday called automatic weapons.
In the early 1920s, the National Revolver Associationthe NRAs handgun training counterpartproposed model legislation for states that included requiring a permit to carry a concealed weapon, adding five years to a prison sentence if a gun was used in a crime, and banning non-citizens from buying a handgun. They also proposed that gun dealers turn over sales records to police and created a one-day waiting period between buying a gun and getting ittwo provisions that the NRA opposes today.
Nine states adopted these laws: West Virginia, New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana, Oregon, California, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Connecticut. Meanwhile, the American Bar Association had been working to create uniform state laws, and built upon the proposal but made the waiting period two days. Nine more states adopted it: Alabama, Arkansas, Maryland, Montana, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
State gun control laws were not controversialthey were the norm. Within a generation of the countrys founding, many states passed laws banning any citizen from carrying a concealed gun. The cowboy towns that Hollywood lionized as the Wild West actually required all guns be turned in to sheriffs while people were within local city limits. In 1911, New York state required handgun owners to get a permit, following an attempted assassination on New York Citys mayor. (Between 1865 and 1901, three presidents had been killed by handguns: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley.) But these laws were not seen as effective against the Depressions most violent gangsters.
In 1929, Al Capones St. Valentines Day massacre saw men disguised as Chicago police kill 7 rivals with machine guns. Bonnie and Clydes crime-and-gun spree from 1932-34 was a national sensation. John Dellinger robbed 10 banks in 1933 and fired a machine gun as he sped away. A new president in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt, made fighting crime and gun control part of his New Deal. The NRA helped him draft the first federal gun controls: 1934s National Firearms Act and 1938s Gun Control Act.
The NRA President at the time, Karl T. Frederick, a 1920 Olympic gold-medal winner for marksmanship who became a lawyer, praised the new state gun controls in Congress. I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons, he testified before the 1938 law was passed. I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.
These federal firearms laws imposed high taxes and registration requirements on certain classes of weaponsthose used in gang violence like machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and silencersmaking it all-but impossible for average people to own them. Gun makers and sellers had to register with the federal government, and certain classes of peoplenotably convicted felonswere barred from gun ownership. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld these laws in 1939.
The legal doctrine of gun rights balanced by gun controls held for nearly a half-century.
In November 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy with an Italian military surplus rifle that Owsald bought from a mail-order ad in the NRAs American Rifleman magazine. In congressional hearings that soon followed, NRA Executive Vice-President Frankin Orth supported a ban in mail-order sales, saying, We do think that any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument which killed the president of the United States.
But no new federal gun control laws came until 1968. The assassinations of civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were the tipping point, coming after several summers of race-related riots in American cities. The nations white political elite feared that violence was too prevalent and there were too many peopleespecially urban Black nationalistswith access to guns. In May 1967, two dozen Black Panther Party members walked into the California Statehouse carrying rifles to protest a gun-control bill, prompting then-Gov. Ronald Reagan to comment, Theres no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.
Historically, the leadership of the NRA was more ... (
show quote)
bullshit your only thaught is gun confiscation so quit mouthing off.
Kevyn wrote:
You bet we are, Reagan is dead.
But the constitution isn't no thanks to idiots like you.
Kevyn wrote:
You bet we are, Reagan is dead.
Yep, Reagan is dead. We agree there. So..why, or how is a comment he made in 1967 relavent to now??
vernon wrote:
bullshit your only thaught is gun confiscation so quit mouthing off.
Guns scare his skirt off.
Retired669 wrote:
Well since knowledge is power that would explain why the tea bagging cons and other assorted right wing idiots on this board are so DUMB. :thumbup: :lol: :lol: :lol:
A vulgarity followed with a sandbox putdown; can you identify the non-sequitur?
AuntiE
Loc: 45th Least Free State
archie bunker wrote:
Yep, Reagan is dead. We agree there. So..why, or how is a comment he made in 1967 relavent to now??
It starts with a "d", distraction.
I bet you thought you knew what I was going to say. :lol: :-)
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