gun laws ...
state regulations ...
federal regulations ...
new or existing laws ...
This cause célèbre, which has become, if you will, a "cause ad nauseam" or even a legislative "cause mortis", has been a cause of concern and divisiveness for some time now. Most people might say that the big gun debate gained its first major push following the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981. In that attempt, Reagan's Press Secretary James Brady was seriously injured by the gunfire, leaving him paralyzed and in a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. (Reagan also suffered a punctured lung in the attempt.) It resulted in the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Action, or simply "the Brady bill", which went into effect in 1994 and established the national background check system. You would be correct about the big gun debate getting its first big push, in terms of gaining massive public and legislative attention.
Perhaps you would only go back to the 1990's in this country, when debates heated up following the Ruby Ridge and Waco (Branch Davidian) sieges in 1992 and 1993, respectively. A shooting at an elementary school schoolyard in California in early 1989, led to the passage of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994.
Or maybe you would say that it has been only as of late that the threat of the government coming for your guns has been at its most precarious and is as its highest level this year. Groups like the National Rifle Association certainly push that idea ... every single year they push that idea, that is.
Let us look back even further than the Reagan assassination attempt. The Gun Control Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson almost fifty years ago this month, following the assassinations of his predecessor President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in the five years prior. This law dealt with regulating the interstate commerce of firearms and who were prohibited from getting firearms. Even further back, following the mob killing in Chicago known as The St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, the National Firearms Act was enacted in 1934 during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first term in office, and it put the regulation of machine guns, rifles, and sawed-off shotguns under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco (ATF).
So, that's going back almost eighty-five years, a long time in this country for gun legislation. Now, here is an easy question: Is the presence of a government or legislation absolutely necessary for the sentiment of the government is coming for your guns to exist? Of course not. In fact, THEY'RE COMING FOR YOUR GUNS! goes all the way back to the eighteenth century, during the very beginnings of this nation.
It began, not with weapons themselves, but with gun powder. King George III imposed a gun powder embargo on the colonies in order to lessen their defensive abilities. The colonists only had what they brought over with them plus small amounts being made here. If you have the weapon and you even have the ammunition, but do not have sufficient firepower, then you will be easier to defeat.
It was the state of Kentucky that can be placed at the beginning of interpreting the Second Amendment as simply an individual's right to bear arms when it passed laws to restrain carrying concealed weapons in the late 1700's. The Bluegrass State's legislative body's desire for public safety led, ironically, to the first movement in this country of interpreting the Second Amendment in a solely personal manner.
The case of Bliss v. Commonwealth gave fuel to that interpretation's fire nearly 200 years ago. Ethan Aubrey Bliss was charged and convicted in 1822 of having violated the state's concealed weapon law by carrying a sword cane (a cane with a sword inside of it). Kentucky's own State Constitution stated that "the right of the citizens to bear arms in [defense] of themselves and the state, shall not be questioned". (Notice the inclusion of the phrase "and the state" in the wording.) Bliss' conviction was overturned in the state's High Court and the concealed weapon law was ruled unconstitutional and, thus, invalid.
The National Rifle Association would not be formed for nearly another half-century after this decision, and even then, it was for the sole purpose increased rifle marksmanship ... a far cry from today.
Beginning on the second of this month, one day after the Las Vegas massacre, I posed the following question: Do [politicians] have a magic number (of deaths and injuries), whether the most at one shooting or a grand total, that needs to be met for [them] to protect us? Allow me to pose a similar question to all those who bang the war drums of THEY'RE COMING FOR YOUR GUNS! ...
WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY'RE WAITING FOR?
No, seriously, what do you think they're waiting for? This nation has been around for more than 240 years and guns have been with us the entire time. Native Americans, British soldiers, and our fellow citizens (during the Civil War) can all vouch for the second part. States have had their own governing bodies and courts, the nation has had a Congress and a Supreme Court, and laws have been made since the late 1700's. While King George III might have preferred disarming the entire nation, our government, in all its forms, did not come for people's guns in the 1700's, the 1800's, the 1900's, or in the 2000's.
This fervor is nothing more than fear-based, the flames of which are fanned by vociferous profiteers. If the National Rifle Association, and others to be sure, say "they're coming for our guns", then they must be coming for our guns. If a politician does not stand firmly with the NRA or other death-for-profit groups, then that politician must be coming for our guns. Mention the term "gun control" and all hell breaks loose. Controlling something means to influence or to determine. Somehow, the image of an evil villain or overlord is instantly invoked.
If gun control means that weapons of war are kept out of regular citizens' hands and that all firearms are kept out of the hands of the mentally challenged, then the "coming for" argument is rendered null and void. The ideas of "kept out of" (denied access) and "coming for" (seizing what you own) are not the same thing.
No one likes to admit to being duped. I don't .. you don't ... no one does. However, all of those who have bought any firearms because they believe that the government is coming for them have been, very sad to say, duped, and will continue to be duped. The truth is that gun control is not gun seizure. The lie is THEY'RE COMING FOR YOUR GUNS!
Terry
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