I love history. I love American history. Have studied it, read it & have a nice library of books on the subject.
Recently- our old feckless ass President has made some remarks about the 2A, from “day one” restricting what weapons citizens could buy. Of course, we all here know this is made up bullshit. But to the point of this thread…There is NO WAY for me to have seen or know EVERYTHING about our history, so im asking the following questions:
Were there EVER, anywhere in the 13 colonies, any sort of “gun control” or weapons that couldnt be owned by regular citizens if they could afford them?
Of all the Founding Fathers…were there ANY that could be even remotely considered “anti-gun”…or did any EVER speak out against private ownership or the 2A?
When & where, in American history, were the first anti-gun ordinances enacted? I know in the old West some places banned handguns…one reason Im no fan of Wyatt Earp. Screw him. Was he one of the first?
When & who is responsible for changing the meaning of “well regulated” from being well equipped to legaly regulated…when did that happen?
Any other info on the subject greatly appreciated…and anyone else got questions similar…feel free to chime in and ask.
PLEASE, looking for factual, historical information…NOT personal feelings, ect.
Created the organized militia which became represented by the National Guard and the “unorganized” militia which is technically the militia referred to in the Constitution. The National Guard very much predated the Dick Act so there is no way it could have been the Constitutional militia and more importantly the criteria for the militia spoken of in the second amendment could not be any part of the standing military.
But with that Act, also known as the Militia Act, the rules were changed.
Gun control as we know it really began with the 1934 NFA. Prior to that, restriction was basically at the local level, as you mentioned (e.g. local western jurisdictions banning the carry of firearms within city limits).
Quakers were pacifists but other than that I’m not aware of an anti-2A attitude amongst any of the founders.
Bearing arms has a precedent in English Common Law which, of course, influenced the founders.
While obviously true, the 1934 NFA was very limited in scope.
Real gun control came in 1968. This is the legislation that created the FFL process which created a distinction between a licensed dealer selling firearms and a non licensed dealer selling firearms. Prior to that gun dealers were really no different than guys who ran a bicycle shop. If you were a stocking dealer you got dealer pricing that the average person didn’t get and that let you sell for a profit. There were additional benefits if you were a Winchester stocking dealer and that sort of thing.
The other critical component of the 1968 GCA was of course the “sporter clause” which gave ATF the ability to determine which firearms were suitable for import or domestic production based upon a sporting purposes qualification. As a result all foreign military firearms were deemed unsuitable for importation. This is when the first machine guns were banned and why the US didn’t get flooded with thousands of surplus stens, MP38s, MP40s and the like. Most of what came in the country were GI bring backs and even then you still had to satisfy NFA laws and pay NFA taxes which meant few were actually registered.
This is also why things like K98s, Moisin Nagants and Arisakas were rare collectors items. Most were vet bring backs and it was hard to duffel bag a rifle and once the 1968 law passed no more could be imported. But with surplus M1903s and M1917 Enfields flooding every department store few people at the time cared about buying Russian, German or Jap guns that used hard to source ammo. This is also why pre 68 “no import marking” variants typically cost twice as much (and in some cases three times as much) as the same rifles that were imported in the early 90s when Russia flooded the market with their WWII stockpiles.
The same sporter clause is why you still can’t buy a Walther PPK, all the examples in the country are PPK/S which are built on a larger Walther PP frame but with a K slide which made it large enough to not be considered a saturday night special, the only legal examples came into the country prior to the 1968 GCA. It is also why you can’t buy a Glock 25.
I have read about 18th and 19th century cities having anti-gun, or at least anti-ammo component ordinances due to the combo of black powder being an explosive and heating/cooking being open flame.
As far as state and local goes versus the BoR, Connecticut was officially Congregationalist until the 1820s.
Similarly, the 2nd Amendment(and other parts) really wouldn’t have applied state/local(only 9th and 10th sorta) until 1868 with the 14th Amendment so if things were how they should have been, we would know of the Earps and associates as the thugs who ended up being captured/convicted/killed for deprivation of rights under color of authority. Same goes for “Big Tim” Sullivan and crew a few decades later in New York that did the Sullivan Act at the behest of New York crime gangs who were having their profits and health negatively affected by armed private citizens.
The absence of punishments for violating the limitations of the US Constitution and BoR does point to not all founders being pro freedom. While it didn’t apply to the states, it was supposed to apply at the federal level and the sedition law aimed at keeping John Adams and other federalists in office was a clear 1st Amendment violation that got a thumbs up from sCOTUS.
Fear of Federal power wasn’t a concern for all(perhaps most) in the Federalist party who claimed the need to ditch the Articles of Confederation. They claimed the BoR was not needed and then fairly quickly violated the 1st Amendment with the Sedition Act. That kind of crap should have, and should be, treated as treason which did get mentioned in the Constitution.
The Bill of Rights didn’t apply to states/locals until after the 1860’s, although individual state founding documents are typically similar to the federal version.
Some good info here so far, thank you all.
SO- nothing so far on any of the Founders being “anti-gun”. Is there ANYTHING ever written or said by a Founding Father that the demonrat/leftist media has ever used to denote an anti-gun position?
There will always be those who argue the 2nd Ammendment refers to militias and not to individuals. If you read the Federalist papers, you’ll see that there was a lot written about the need for organized militias but Hamilton points out in #29 that maintaining a large militias force would be too costly and that rather “the people at large” should be “properly armed and equipped.”
I don’t know about the Founding Fathers, but there’s ample evidence at the states placed restrictions on the second amendment very early.
At the time the Constitution was signed, and even after, Massachusetts required a citizens to register their guns and to show up to muster, failure to comply would result in having your guns confiscated. North Carolina followed English common law which prohibited carrying guns in public.
We like to think that this is a relatively recent phenomenon, or at least in the 20th century, but this has gone back to the late 1700s.
So you are going to want to research the Federalist Papers. They are sort of a proto Constitution and are used as a “teachers edition” by SCOTUS to determine exactly the intent of the Constitution even if they have largely been ignored lately.
One thing about Wyatt Earp, it was actually Virgil who dragged the others kicking and screaming into enforcing the Tombstone town fathers’ unconstitutional law. Wyatt tried to talk him OUT of wading into that fight, but… well, there’s a reason Wyatt was known as “the brains of the outfit” and Virgil wasn’t. As an aside, had I been there I would have strongly urged it reworded to ban “Carry While Intoxicated”–basically if you’re gonna drink check your iron at the bar, pick it up when you’re sober.
Regarding the Federalist Papers, no library shelf is complete without a copy of the Anti-Federalist Papers. It was really the ideological clash between the two camps that gave us the Constitution we have. The Bill of Rights, in particular, was vehemently opposed by high Federalists such as Alexander Hamilton. The Anti-Federalist faction and men loosely tied to the Anti-Federalists such as Sam Adams and Thomas Jefferson et al are responsible for the presence of a Bill of Rights. It irks me that Hamilton and the Federalists seem to get all of the love today. Hamilton was a big government “monocrat”, to borrow from Thomas Jefferson.
One thing we need to keep in mind about Tombstone and other “frontier” towns is they really were the wild west. They existed beyond the enforcement of most laws. This is why you had law enforcement agencies at odds with one another and nobody seemed to have a monopoly on law or order.
There was more organization and cooperation in the NY mafia of the 1970s than there was in any of those towns.
If you’ve not read it, you should check out the book “Deinfringe: The Truth About Our Rights and Answers to the Myths That Have Been Spread About Them” by Joshua Baker (of Men Of Arms in Michigan). Lots of good historical info and background on the 2A and the precedents that were already in place well before 1791, as mentioned already, much of it in English common law.