TexasCHLforum.com

I found the following very interesting.

"After three decades of quiescence in the arena of gun control politics, the turmoil of the 1960s unleashed a wave of demand for new gun control legislation. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, prompted the country to focus on the regulation of firearms. Then the urban riots beginning in 1964 and the 1968 assassinations of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy fueled an inferno of outrage that demanded congressional action. In the wake of these acts of violence the U.S. Congress enacted the Gun Control Act (P.L. 90-618, 82 Stat. 1213) which President Lyndon B. Johnson signed in 1968. Although the Gun Control Act did not contain the owner licensing and gun registration provisions that President Johnson desired, the act, along with the Safe Streets and Crime Control Act passed by Congress months earlier, contained the most significant restrictions on firearms since Congress enacted the National Firearms Act (NFA) in 1934."

The remainder of the article is here.
http://www.answers.com/topic/gun-control-act-of-1968" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've never liked LBJ, not because of the Civil Rights legislation he supported and signed into law, but because of how I perceived his handling of the Vietnam War. I never knew he wanted owner licensing and registration of guns. It has been 40 years and the forces that be still want owner licensing and registration.

I know that a lot of gun owners feel that we should not compromise and many opponents feel the same way. The gun owners fear is that any leeway given erodes our right to keep and bear arms eventually leading to confiscation. As long as we have the Second Amendment, and the Heller ruling stating that ownership of guns is an individual right, I think we are safe with our guns. We are not safe from licensing and registration though. We still have to keep vigilant but not paranoid.

If history repeats itself, the continued mass killings we have seen recently will fuel the outrage once again and there may be a turn around of public opinion and the demand for congressional action. I wish I had an answer on how to stop this, but I don't.

Anyway, the article was good reading.