National Gun Registration - still at it after 40 years

[LaUser]

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.

[ForTehNguyen]

dont let a crisis go to waste

[longtooth]

Agree on not liking Johnson for VietNaim

Also did not remember him wanting liscensing. That means he was worse than I thought & I dislike him more than I did.

[ghostrider]

>The gun owners fear is that any leeway given erodes our right to keep and bear arms eventually
>leading to confiscation.

Its not a fear, so much as its history in other countries. Its the divide and conquer approach. First register the machine guns, then the evil looking semi-auto guns, then confiscate the machine guns or at least add more restrictions, then restrict the semi-autos more, then ban the 'saturday night specials', then ban standard magazines by calling them 'high capacity' and declaring that no one needs them. Follow that with more onerous licensing requirements, then make owners re-register firearms that have already been registered, then.......


Basically, the above is what has happened in Canada.

[Liberty]

>The gun owners fear is that any leeway given erodes our right to keep and bear arms eventually
>leading to confiscation.

Its not a fear, so much as its history in other countries. Its the divide and conquer approach. First register the machine guns, then the evil looking semi-auto guns, then confiscate the machine guns or at least add more restrictions, then restrict the semi-autos more, then ban the 'saturday night specials', then ban standard magazines by calling them 'high capacity' and declaring that no one needs them. Follow that with more onerous licensing requirements, then make owners re-register firearms that have already been registered, then.......


Basically, the above is what has happened in Canada.

I believe we are the only country in in history that has actually reversed a disarmament momentum without an actual overthrow of the government. It seems once the trend is started the endpoint is eventual. It only proves just how resilient our form of government is and how effective the NRA can be once it is woken up.

[ghostrider]

Actually, I believe the govt of Ireland just started returning handguns it had confiscated from the people over 30yrs ago, but that's a very unusual occurrence.