stevie_d_64 wrote:I can dig it...But why did we lose the right to keep and bear arms in the first place??? So that we could, years later, politically revive our original right to keep and bear arms, just because we wanted too???
I'm not denegrating the effort to get back this capability, I have always had that nagging little voice in the back of my head telling me "why did we lose it in the first place", and why a successful fight to fend off such an un-Constitutional effort not made???
You should google the "racist roots of gun control" and spend some time reading.
The first gun control laws were all aimed at disarming minority segments. In parts of the South, the portion of the population with the mentality that had "colored-only" and "whites-only" lunch counters also didn't want to be repressing a population who happened to be armed. In the north, for example, the Sullivan Law in NYC was aimed at the Jewish and Italian immigrants by the existing thugs in office who were predominantly Irish. Prior to 1960, most convictions for carrying illegal weapons were blacks, while ordinary law-abiding white citizens were virtually
never charged (unless they were also committing other illegal acts at the same time, like robbery).
When the gun control movement gained steam in the 1960's, that is when all these existing laws started getting applied to a wider audience. Now you could be that middle-aged white barbershop owner who played poker with the local JP, yet still find yourself facing a weapons charge.
It was no different than now in this sense. The Ruling Class now certainly isn't going to charge that TV guy Gregory for the illegal magazine in Washington DC, or charge other members of the Ruling Class. These laws as aimed at controlling the masses. When the original gun control laws were passed, they were also passed with the intention of the Ruling Class exerting control over the "unwashed masses".