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September 2011 ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Article entitled "The Secret History of Guns"

DrTodd

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September 2011 ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Article entitled "The Secret History of Guns"

The September 2011 issue of Atlantic Magazine had an interesting article on the history of gun control in the US. Although I think some of the adjectives used suggests the writer is an anti, I think the article does a fair job of detailing some salient point of how we got to the point we now find ourselves. I also found particularly interesting some of the Reagan quotes from when he was governor of California.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...cret-history-of-guns/8608/3/?single_page=true
 

Michigander

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While the details on the panthers and other historical topics were pretty good, the defining of the second amendment was not. The author proved with so much of the article that he is smart enough to get details thoroughly correct, and with other parts wants reasonably knowledgeable people to think he's either inept, lazy, dishonest or stupid, essentially crushing any credibility level he could have had with people who understand these things.

What's worse is that he used his own ineptitude as a way to go after the NRA, when there are dozens of better ways to slander the NRA if you wish to. His definitions of the second amendment and militias struck me as utterly pathetic. The article was indeed otherwise good. I only wish the author would step up his integrity level when it comes to facts he's uncomfortable with.
 
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Venator

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From article:

In the 1920s and ’30s, the NRA was at the forefront of legislative efforts to enact gun control. The organization’s president at the time was Karl T. Frederick, a Princeton- and Harvard-educated lawyer known as “the best shot in America”—a title he earned by winning three gold medals in pistol-shooting at the 1920 Summer Olympic Games. As a special consultant to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, Frederick helped draft the Uniform Firearms Act, a model of state-level gun-control legislation. (Since the turn of the century, lawyers and public officials had increasingly sought to standardize the patchwork of state laws. The new measure imposed more order—and, in most cases, far more restrictions.)

Frederick’s model law had three basic elements. The first required that no one carry a concealed handgun in public without a permit from the local police. A permit would be granted only to a “suitable” person with a “proper reason for carrying” a firearm. Second, the law required gun dealers to report to law enforcement every sale of a handgun, in essence creating a registry of small arms. Finally, the law imposed a two-day waiting period on handgun sales.

....In the 1960s, the NRA once again supported the push for new federal gun laws. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald, who had bought his gun through a mail-order ad in the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine, Franklin Orth, then the NRA’s executive vice president, testified in favor of banning mail-order rifle sales. “We do not think that any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument which killed the president of the United States.” Orth and the NRA didn’t favor stricter proposals, like national gun registration, but when the final version of the Gun Control Act was adopted in 1968, Orth stood behind the legislation. While certain features of the law, he said, “appear unduly restrictive and unjustified in their application to law-abiding citizens, the measure as a whole appears to be one that the sportsmen of America can live with.”
 
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DrTodd

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From article:

In the 1920s and ’30s, the NRA was at the forefront of legislative efforts to enact gun control. The organization’s president at the time was Karl T. Frederick, a Princeton- and Harvard-educated lawyer known as “the best shot in America”—a title he earned by winning three gold medals in pistol-shooting at the 1920 Summer Olympic Games. As a special consultant to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, Frederick helped draft the Uniform Firearms Act, a model of state-level gun-control legislation. (Since the turn of the century, lawyers and public officials had increasingly sought to standardize the patchwork of state laws. The new measure imposed more order—and, in most cases, far more restrictions.)

Frederick’s model law had three basic elements. The first required that no one carry a concealed handgun in public without a permit from the local police. A permit would be granted only to a “suitable” person with a “proper reason for carrying” a firearm. Second, the law required gun dealers to report to law enforcement every sale of a handgun, in essence creating a registry of small arms. Finally, the law imposed a two-day waiting period on handgun sales.

....In the 1960s, the NRA once again supported the push for new federal gun laws. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald, who had bought his gun through a mail-order ad in the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine, Franklin Orth, then the NRA’s executive vice president, testified in favor of banning mail-order rifle sales. “We do not think that any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument which killed the president of the United States.” Orth and the NRA didn’t favor stricter proposals, like national gun registration, but when the final version of the Gun Control Act was adopted in 1968, Orth stood behind the legislation. While certain features of the law, he said, “appear unduly restrictive and unjustified in their application to law-abiding citizens, the measure as a whole appears to be one that the sportsmen of America can live with.”

This is what I found interesting too. Now I see why the NRA pushes for LICENSED concealed-carry and, in states that are discussing the liberalization of carry laws, often is very critical of ideas like constitutional carry.
 

TheQ

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NRA = for "sportsman"

Nothing wrong with that. But aside from their sportsman club which they subsidize with their CPL training -- they seem anti-handgun.
 

Shadow Bear

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NRA = for "sportsman"

Nothing wrong with that. But aside from their sportsman club which they subsidize with their CPL training -- they seem anti-handgun.

Well, it IS the National *Rifle* Association, not the National Republican Army.
 

sharkey

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I love the whole section regarding the encounter between police and Newton.

"Who in the hell do you think you are" Newton replied. LOL

That man uphelp his constitutional rights that day.
 
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