Posted on 06/06/2007 11:04:27 PM PDT by goldstategop
Philosopher George Santayana said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. It's true. One of the reasons to study history is to avoid repeating past mistakes. When it comes to freedom, we cannot afford to forget the lessons of the past. So you and I need to know the history of gun control, because history teaches us there is a terrible price to pay when we lose our right to keep and bear arms.
Over 200 years ago, when the Founding Fathers drafted the Second Amendment, no one questioned the need for private gun ownership. The Framers considered private firearms to be essential to protecting personal liberty, both as a means of opposing foreign threats and also as a check against excessive government power. The Framers were passionately devoted to the idea that a self-sufficient armed citizenry is the best means of preserving liberty.
But many on the left do not want you to know this. They keep the truth from being taught in public schools, and they even write books laden with falsehoods in a dishonest attempt to rewrite history.
Seven years ago, Emory University historian Michael Bellesiles published a book purportedly proving there were few guns and gun owners in early America. The book garnered Columbia University's coveted Bancroft Prize. Two years later, primarily due to the efforts of a brilliant young research historian, Clayton Cramer, who had studied that period in history extensively, the book was revealed to be a total fraud, full of lies and fabrications. Bellesiles was forced to resign from Emory University and, for the first time in history, Columbia University rescinded the Bancroft Prize.
Every American who values his or her constitutional rights should know something about these frauds that gun control advocates perpetrate so we can be watchful and teach the truth to our young ones.
Early Americans were gun owners. Private firearm ownership was widespread from the coasts to the frontier, in both the North and the South.
Our ancestors not only knew the value of gun rights, they actually practiced those rights. Many early Americans provided for their family through their skill with a firearm, and many more Americans had a gun hanging over the hearth or in the bedroom to protect the house and the children against wild animals or criminals. These firearms were also seen as an insurance policy against American Indians, the British or French, and even against our own central government.
This honored tradition went completely unchallenged until the 1900s. Then New York passed the Sullivan Act in 1911, one of the first gun control laws. This law required that firearms small enough to be concealed on a person be registered. This state law became a test measure for future gun control laws.
Opponents of the Second Amendment started to mobilize at the federal level in the 1930s. It came during the New Deal, when the federal government was growing rapidly. Two laws enacted during this period, the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, established the first federal gun controls. While most of these regulations were uncontroversial by current standards (such as licensing gun dealers and regulating possession of machine guns), they introduced the concept of national regulation of firearms.
It was also during this time President Franklin Roosevelt appointed a number of liberals to the United States Supreme Court. Starting in 1937, the high court began moving in a liberal direction, and by the 1960s had become a court favoring full judicial activism, a judicial philosophy that has threatened our Second Amendment rights ever since.
During this period, anti-Second Amendment politicians began testing the waters on gun control. The highest-ranking official to do this was FDR's anti-gun attorney general, Homer Cummings. Attorney General Cummings started planning for federal gun control measures such as a national registry in the hands of the central government for guns and gun owners.
But then World War II broke out, and Germany and Japan invaded their neighbors. The American people were reminded how important it is to have a firearm handy when you need one. Cummings' early attempts to regulate guns and gun owners suddenly became unpopular. Gun control advocates lowered their voices until a more opportune time.
Most American leaders in both political parties were pro-gun. In fact, Democratic presidents Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy were NRA members. Gun control advocates were always present in policy debates, but did not have much political clout.
In the 1960s, gun control came back with a vengeance. Modern liberalism became the dominant political philosophy in this country. And after the deaths of JFK, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., an all-out national push for gun control was launched.
This period in the late 1960s was the beginning of significant gun control in America. Liberal activist judges, led by the Warren Court, enacted a widespread liberal agenda. American society was being secularized. President Johnson was forcing a hard-left agenda through the Great Society. And the Vietnam War was becoming increasingly unpopular. It was against that backdrop the left finally launched an open, concerted effort to implement national gun control.
And that's what we'll talk about next week, remembering that if we ignore the lessons that history offers us, our children will pay the price with their freedom.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I can’t see the founding fathers ever wanting the American public to become defenseless. They wanted to maximize liberty, not diminish it. And liberals always try to rewrite the history books because that is a great source of power.
It’s not “gun control.” “Gun control” means each round you fire goes where you intend. What we have here is Victim Disarmament.
“Gun control” to a liberal means stripping you and me of the right to defend ourselves.
So WE need to start defining the terms of the debate, not let the gun-grabbers and statists of ANY sort be the ones who set the definitions. When we call it what it IS, it becomes apparent what the libs want to do.
***In the 1960s, gun control came back with a vengeance. Modern liberalism became the dominant political philosophy in this country. And after the deaths of JFK, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., an all-out national push for gun control was launched. ****
Ah yes. I remember it well.
1961. Thomas Dodd and Emanual Cellar said “We don’t want to take your guns away. We only want to register handguns! Long guns will not be affected.”
1963. All guns now must be registered and five shot bolt action Army surplus rifle imports banned.
1968. Today we make America safe by taking the guns out of the hands of criminals.... Syndon Johnson signing the 1968 Gun Control Act. (The Nazi weapons law rewritten).
1972 “All ‘Saturday Night Specials’ must be banned!”
1976 “All handguns must be banned!”
1981. “The NRA is a rifle organization! They should give up their handguns and they can keep their long guns.”...Actress Lee Grant on GMA.
1988. All military style Assault rifles ahd handguns must be banned!
2001. All >50 Cal rifles must be banned!
When they say they don’t want to take away your guns remember this.
They lied to us in 1961.
They lied to us iin1963.
They lied to us in 1968.
They lied to us in 1972, 76, 81 and they are lying to you now!
I couldn't agree more.
We’d be a better, more enlightened society if we had strict judge control laws.
Then let’s start NOW. It’s victim disarmament and the perps are GUN-GRABBING STATISTS... And the employees of the Bureau of Alcohol, tobacco and firearms are BATFags...
That's why I'll never vote for Giuliani or Romney. Gun grabbers, both of them.
Ms. Froman, I would like to see nothing more than the 1934 NFA and the 1968 GCA struck down.
There’s a reason JPFO, despite representing a pretty narrow segment of the population, is a prominent gun owners’ organization. Jews have a unique and specific perspective on ownership of firearms.
A few thousand rifles would have been a cool thing to have in the Warsaw ghetto, don’t ya think?
Ping to read later.
Unfortunately, most Jews are both liberal and anti-gun. The JPFO is a small (but vocal) minority of Jewish opinion. Given their racial history, they "oughta" know better, but most of them are Kool-Aid drinkers.
Background info for people on your list.
You got that right.
- But how can we have a proper gun grab thread without FR's resident supporters of a States power to prohibit our right to bear arms that offend community standards?
Where's Mojave and his merry band?
Thanks for the post.
We’d be a better, more enlightened society if we had strict judge control laws
May I add an amendment to include all politicians.
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