A little History Lesson courtesy of the History Channel
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GUNS AND GUN CONTROL

The right to keep and bear arms originated in the common law right of
self-defense. As Colin Greenwood has written, “The Common Law right to keep
arms and the tradition of owning arms for protection, was built up during a
period when there was no effective police, when the individual was compelled
to see to his own protection.”

Traditionally, Americans considered each person responsible both for
self-protection and for the defense of the state. Well into the nineteenth
century, people needed guns to protect themselves against hostile Indians.
In addition, hunting was a major source of food. People legally carried guns
as a matter of course, a practice accepted as both necessary and politically
desirable.

Alexander Hamilton, replying to accusations that the military power granted
to the federal government in the Constitution would lead to tyranny, pointed
to the armed citizen as a counterweight: “that army [the Regular Army] can
never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large
body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the
use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their
fellow citizens.” The private bearing of arms, then, was seen by the
Founding Fathers as a positive good. The new government could not oppress
the people because a citizenry “properly armed and equipped” would protect
their own rights. Citizens were even required to have guns. States enforced
ownership at yearly militia musters when all men were required to present
their guns and ammunition for inspection.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution – “A well regulated Militia, being
necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep
and bear Arms shall not be infringed” – simply asserts and protects this
right, and Americans have traditionally exercised the right with few
restrictions. Travelers in earlier years routinely went armed. Men’s pants
and women’s dresses were made with built-in holsters. At times, however, a
few trail towns in the West required that cowboys check their guns with the
sheriff before getting drunk, and most western states prohibited carrying
concealed weapons by 1850. But in the urban East there were few places where
even this restriction existed. In New Jersey, until 1927, the only gun law
was a prohibition on dueling.

Gun control, in the modern sense, was a fixture of the pre-Civil War Slave
Codes designed to prevent a rebellion. These laws restricted all blacks both
slave and free. Immediately after the war, laws were passed in the South to
prohibit freedmen from owning firearms. But in response, civil rights
legislation during Reconstruction made prohibition of black gun ownership
impossible, so southern laws were rewritten to restrict pistols to the
expensive “Army pistol.” The effect was similar to a poll tax – it
discriminated against both blacks and poor whites.

There are no reliable data on gun ownership or production in the nineteenth
century or even the first half of this century. Millions of guns were
manufactured, imported, or sold as surplus after wars, but no one kept track
until the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms was reorganized in 1968.

In 1911, after an attempt to assassinate the mayor of New York City, the New
York legislature passed the Sullivan Law, which required a police permit for
both owning and carrying a pistol. Support for the law ranged from the New
York Times and idealistic reformers to Tammany Hall political hacks like its
author, Tim Sullivan. (He was trying to give police a way to frame his
enemies. One political opponent had all his pockets sewn closed after three
arrests for carrying guns without a permit.) Few states, however, followed
New York’s lead. In forty-five of them, unlicensed pistol ownership remains
legal except for persons with criminal records or the insane.

Over the next thirty years most states adopted various forms of the National
Revolver Act, a law largely drafted by the National Rifle Association. It
established a permit system to regulate carrying concealed weapons. In some
states, the law allowed the issuing authority to reject applications without
a reason. Their guidelines were vague phrases such as “good character,
public safety, or need.” Elsewhere, license denial must be for clearly
defined causes, such as a history of crime, alcoholism, insanity, or drug
abuse.

In the late 1930s federal controls were imposed on machine guns, sawed-off
guns, and other dangerous devices by the National Firearms acts. The Gun
Control Act of 1968 forbade the sale of guns by mail or to out-of-state
residents and placed restrictions on ammunition sales. The Firearms Owner’s
Protection Act of 1987 repealed federal restrictions on ammunition sales and
out-of-state sales of rifles and shotguns because they had proven to have no
crime reduction value. It also provided for the legal transportation by
interstate travelers of “unloaded and inaccessible” guns regardless of local
restrictions.

Approximately half the families in the United States own a gun; estimates on
the number in the country range from 60 million up to 200 million. About one
American in twenty (7.5 million) carries a gun for self-protection. Fourteen
percent of the gun-owning households in the United States (about 14 million
people) report that they have used a gun for protection of person or
property exclusive of military or police work. In 60 percent of these cases,
the gun was not fired but was used as a threat, and in only 9 percent of the
instances was anyone injured or killed.

There is much debate between those who would ban guns as a danger to society
and those who regard them as a necessary protection for the citizen. The
major parties in the debate are the National Rifle Association and Handgun
Control Inc.

The National Rifle Association nra has 3 million members, and sponsors and
encourages target shooting, hunting, safety training, and shooting sports.
The nra has been active in lobbying on gun control issues since the 1930s.
Its lobbyists try to influence federal, state, and local legislators, and
its many members inundate legislators with mail. The nra asserts the right
of citizens to own and use guns and advocates strict penalties for the
criminal misuse of them. It supports carry permit laws that are clear in
their requirements and do not allow arbitrary denial.

(Personal note: I don’t like carry “permit” laws, anytime you have to ask “permission” to exercise a right, it turns that right into a priveledge….
I personally prefer Vermont style RIGHT to carry JMNSHO…- NH)

Handgun Control Inc. hci has about 150,000 members who lobby against gun
ownership. It focused originally on pistols but has recently lobbied against
ownership of semiautomatic guns of all types. The group asserts that guns
are a major cause of crime and accidents, and it aims ultimately at ending
gun ownership by anyone except police and the military. It has adopted a
step-by-step strategy of achieving gradually increasing restrictions. As
first steps, hci supports waiting periods and police background checks
before a gun can be purchased.

The United States contains millions of guns, so many, in fact, that it would
probably be impossible to collect them all. Whether one approves or
disapproves of them, guns seem to be a permanent part of the American scene.

Don B. Kates, Jr., ed., Restricting Handguns (1979); James D. Wright, Peter
H. Rossi, and Kathleen Daly, Under the Gun (1983).

Edward F. Leddy