[Clinging Bitterly]

As a part of sentencing for specific crimes, I agree.

But GCA just said here’s a new penalty - it’s a giant blanket and we’re going to throw it over everybody, past and future.

IIRC (it was a long time ago and I was just a kid then) the whole thing was a reaction to the RFK (and perhaps MLK) killing, and it was marketed as a ban on mail order gun sales.

[neverdem]

But GCA just said here’s a new penalty - it’s a giant blanket and we’re going to throw it over everybody, past and future.

The Lautenberg Amendment had this ex post facto feature, not the GCA of 1968.

IIRC (it was a long time ago and I was just a kid then) the whole thing was a reaction to the RFK (and perhaps MLK) killing, and it was marketed as a ban on mail order gun sales.

The gun control impulse started with JFK's assassination. Lee Harvey Oswald used a mail order rifle. NYC required registration of long guns in 64 or 65. Growing crime and urban riots in the 60s also fed it.