Friday, January 29, 2010

History of Gun Control

How old are legislative gun control abuses?


Sure sure, the NFA is from the 30s. A high water decade of Progressive busy-bodyism. Then the war came and grown ups took over. Or people became grown ups very fast. Organized crime wasn't flourishing in the same way it had in the 20's under Prohibition, and the NFA is more a reaction to the increases in crime from that era, even though it was passed after Prohibition was repealed. The roots of the legislation lies in the era of bootlegging.

Reading 50 year old copies of Guns Magazine, it sound like there are serious rumblings in the 50's. But no national legislation was passed until 1968 (GCA), after 3 major domestic assassinations and a spike in crime.

My question is, why did it take until 1968 if there was so much chatter by the hoplophobes to "do something!" and restrict folks rights? Was there lots of rumblings in the 1940s for gun control legislation? Was there lots of local ordinances passed in the 40s 50s and 60s, and just no Federal attempts? Did people respect the 2nd Amendment more before 1968 and thought the 1934 law was enough of a trangression on the right, for good or ill and were reluctant to go further than that?

Though I can understand the reasons for a final tipping point by the hoplophobes in 1968 with all the event occurring at time in our history.

Who was alive back then among my readers and remembers what was going on, on this front?

(pre-1934 there was plenty of almost overtly racist gun control measures targeted at African Americans. post 1934 there is still racist roots, but it is more covert.)

Update: After I composed this post a bit of 70's history DID show up on Dave Hardy's (h/t Snowflake) site.

4 comments:

Crucis said...

I wrote a post a little over a year ago about the purpose of Gun Control---it wasn't to reduce crime. No, it was to remove weapons from the enemies of the local "Powers that be." Here's a link to it where you can find a bit more into.

http://crucis-court.blogspot.com/2008/12/purposes-of-gun-contol.html

Jim said...

'My question is, why did it take until 1968 if there was so much chatter by the hoplophobes to "do something!" '

The short answer is that
laws imposing large changes occur only after the political climate changes, and that can be a slow process.

The feminization of American men began in earnest in the 1950s when the television-cosmetics complex discovered huge riches in the Aqua-Velva and Brylcreem class of consumables.

"McCalls" magazine circulated hugely as it promoted "togetherness" -- Mommy is the heart of the family, and Daddy, when not at work, stays home and devotes himself to being the Assistant Cuddler.

Ozzie would never go hunting; neither would Ward.

Then came the assassinations of the 1960s, and the anti-gun left had constituency well conditioned to accept its views.

Uhhh, that may over-simplified, but it is a piece of the truth.

Travis Gosselin said...

There's no state coordinator for DC...hmmm...sounds like a jaerb aerpening.

Travis Gosselin said...

http://www.secondamendmentmarch.com/coordinators

Woops.

I was talking about this link btw.