http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_2232 ... rss_viewed
My wife showed me this article from the Pasadena Star News, in Pasadena California. It is a review of an editorial in the paper from 1912 which argued for gun control. The precipitating event back then was the 1912 assassination attempt on Teddy Roosevelt. The shooter shot Roosevelt at close range in the chest with a .38 caliber revolver, as TR exited his hotel on his way to give a speech. TR's 50 page speech was folded up in his jacket breast pocket along with his spectacles case. The bullet went through those items, entered TR's chest wall, and stopped against one of TR's ribs. Roosevelt was rumored to have exclaimed at the time: "My good friends. I'm not hurt. I am going on to the hall to speak. Good luck." Whereupon, he got in car and was driven to the hall where he delivered an hour long speech. It was observed at the time that when he withdrew his speech from his jacket pocket, there was blood on it.
Anyway, the original October 14, 1912 editorial was titled "Indiscriminate Sale of Deadly Weapons Tends to Assaults Like That on Roosevelt" and it said:
........100 years and 3 months later.......and the news media is still roasting those tired old chestnuts."In commenting upon the murderous assault upon Colonel Roosevelt, President Taft makes a very timely and pertinent observation that the laws against carrying concealed weapons should be made more rigorous, as a preventive of such crimes. Not only this, but the indiscriminate sale of deadly weapons to persons for whose sanity and responsibility and good intentions there is no avouchment, should be prohibited by law."
{.......SNIP........}
"The high-tempered and the weak-minded have a standing temptation to take human life when they have a pistol or other deadly weapon in their possession. It should be possible to stamp out much crime by striking at the root - by making it practically impossible for the dangerous person to have and hold a deadly weapon."
