There is a fallacy in comparing the US before 1934 with the US now that diminishes the force of this argument: we do not "[punish] the destructive efforts of predators" as we once did. Our "criminal justice" system is no longer just; it is just criminal. We fill the prisons with victimless crimes, and set free (after a few years in prison) those who have polluted the land with the blood of their victims. In truth, we no longer have "the rule of law" here. "Fast and furious" is proof enough of that. Who has been punished for this? Benghazi? Who has been held accountable? (Dare I mention Waco, or Ruby Ridge?) I'm not saying this to justify NFA '34. I'm just pointing out that the premise tat "we have a greater collective freedom to pursue our happiness because the destructive efforts of predators are punished" seems a bit flawed to me.
Why should I oppose the '68 GCA?
- Thread starter monotonous_iterancy
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The New Jersey Connection.
Not many are aware that the 1968 GCA and other gun laws actually have roots in New Jersey. The New Jersey FID (Firearm Purchasers ID) card scheme predates the 1968 GCA by two years. This made people in NJ have to get permission from the police in order to buy long guns. (A separate permit to purchase for each pistol was already in place since 1954).
This FID law required that applicants get 2 references, get fingerprinted , get mental health checks and a police background criminal check plus fees for fingerprinting and the fee for the card.
The person mainly responsible for this law was the Attorney General of New Jersey , Arthur Sills. Some people to this day refer to it as the "Sills Act". Later there was the famous "Burton vs. Sills" challenge to this law.
Sills was also helping Dodd with a national firearms bill. Three years before the 1968 GCA...In 1965 Arthur Sills testified in the "Dodd hearings". (Remember that the talk of national firearms legislation pre-dates 1968 by several years there was concern about 'mail order' guns in 1961.)
So the draconian 1966 New Jersey FID legislation was signed into law. There was a series of challenges to this law including one by the ACLU (believe it or not) , another one and the more famous "Burton vs. Sills". Illinois saw what New Jersey did and started their own firearms card ID system called the FOID (Firearms Owner ID) card requirement in 1968.
I'm assuming that the Illinois FOID law was signed BEFORE the 1968 GCA. I don't know know the exact date in 1968, but Im willing to bet it was before the 1968 GCA. Another state, Massachusetts...came up with their own FID (firearms ID) card. I believe it was after the 1968 GCA, I don't know the exact date although it might have been in the early 1970's.
New Jersey politicians have had input into national gun legislation for a long time. With in the case of NJ attorney general Arthur Sills in 1966 with the FID law which inspired IL and MA to start their own (as well as helping Dodd with the Gun Control Act).
New Jersey Rep. William Hughes who came up with the Hughes Amendment in FOPA 1986 which closed the machine gun registry and explains why a machine gun is $10,000 or more when they should be $1000 or less.
And of course probably the most famous New Jersey anti-gunner of all, NJ senator Frank Lautenberg with the nefarious "Lautenberg Amendment" which needs no explaining.
While it is easy to point fingers and blame this one or that one. Some have felt over the years that the NRA threw NJ gun owners under the bus to focus on other and easier wins in other states. Some contend that NJ is hopeless for gun rights and the easiest answer is to leave the state. That also could be a part of the problem today. With less gun owners, there is less of a voice. Also there are less people educating others there on gun rights. And lastly, the anti-gun politicians keep getting voted in time after time.
Some might argue that if more national effort was put to helping NJ gun owners 25 years ago (as well as today) and help elect pro-gun politicians and improve gun rights there. Perhaps we might not have had a Hughes Amendment or Lautenberg Amendment. Maybe if Sills wasn't attorney general in the 1960's...maybe the 1968 GCA would have turned out differently? Or may not have passed.
Not many are aware that the 1968 GCA and other gun laws actually have roots in New Jersey. The New Jersey FID (Firearm Purchasers ID) card scheme predates the 1968 GCA by two years. This made people in NJ have to get permission from the police in order to buy long guns. (A separate permit to purchase for each pistol was already in place since 1954).
This FID law required that applicants get 2 references, get fingerprinted , get mental health checks and a police background criminal check plus fees for fingerprinting and the fee for the card.
The person mainly responsible for this law was the Attorney General of New Jersey , Arthur Sills. Some people to this day refer to it as the "Sills Act". Later there was the famous "Burton vs. Sills" challenge to this law.
Sills was also helping Dodd with a national firearms bill. Three years before the 1968 GCA...In 1965 Arthur Sills testified in the "Dodd hearings". (Remember that the talk of national firearms legislation pre-dates 1968 by several years there was concern about 'mail order' guns in 1961.)
So the draconian 1966 New Jersey FID legislation was signed into law. There was a series of challenges to this law including one by the ACLU (believe it or not) , another one and the more famous "Burton vs. Sills". Illinois saw what New Jersey did and started their own firearms card ID system called the FOID (Firearms Owner ID) card requirement in 1968.
I'm assuming that the Illinois FOID law was signed BEFORE the 1968 GCA. I don't know know the exact date in 1968, but Im willing to bet it was before the 1968 GCA. Another state, Massachusetts...came up with their own FID (firearms ID) card. I believe it was after the 1968 GCA, I don't know the exact date although it might have been in the early 1970's.
New Jersey politicians have had input into national gun legislation for a long time. With in the case of NJ attorney general Arthur Sills in 1966 with the FID law which inspired IL and MA to start their own (as well as helping Dodd with the Gun Control Act).
New Jersey Rep. William Hughes who came up with the Hughes Amendment in FOPA 1986 which closed the machine gun registry and explains why a machine gun is $10,000 or more when they should be $1000 or less.
And of course probably the most famous New Jersey anti-gunner of all, NJ senator Frank Lautenberg with the nefarious "Lautenberg Amendment" which needs no explaining.
While it is easy to point fingers and blame this one or that one. Some have felt over the years that the NRA threw NJ gun owners under the bus to focus on other and easier wins in other states. Some contend that NJ is hopeless for gun rights and the easiest answer is to leave the state. That also could be a part of the problem today. With less gun owners, there is less of a voice. Also there are less people educating others there on gun rights. And lastly, the anti-gun politicians keep getting voted in time after time.
Some might argue that if more national effort was put to helping NJ gun owners 25 years ago (as well as today) and help elect pro-gun politicians and improve gun rights there. Perhaps we might not have had a Hughes Amendment or Lautenberg Amendment. Maybe if Sills wasn't attorney general in the 1960's...maybe the 1968 GCA would have turned out differently? Or may not have passed.
CoRoMo
Member
Another non-sequitur. The quote of mine that you posted was pointing out to you that deregulation is not congruent with the committing of crimes. I wrote that because you made the claim that lack of regulation was 'kinda like' committing a couple specific crimes. The claim doesn't bear the appropriate logical association and you don't demonstrate the capability to illustrate such a connection without emotionalism.
The non-sequitur that you've posted here isn't even an effective attempt to go back and explain the prior one either. If we filter the sarcasm from your post, what you are saying is that lenient access per se is in fact an active, independent force that causes men to inflict evil upon one another; that the access is the cause, and the violence is the effect. This is where you are wrong this time around. If we are to believe that lenient access itself, CAUSES the violence to increase, then placing a firearm on a table where it can be easily acquired would directly result in a violent act. You are not saying that such violence is caused by societal affairs or individual deficiencies, no. You are now making the claim that less structured access itself, the access or lack of -in and of itself- compels people to administer violence upon one another; people who would have done otherwise had the access been more limited.
That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Reality contradicts your theory especially. This country already has exceptionally open access to firearms. The American society might have the greatest open access to weapons of this nature of any modern society on the planet. Yet, we have an ever dwindling rate of violent crime. If your theory were true, American society would be a very violent society simply due to the access itself, and that removing an amount of access to these objects would produce an exponential and demonstrable decrease in violent crime rates relative to the rate of access removed. You cannot demonstrate that to be true. In fact, we have examples of modern societies like England where access has been limited almost entirely and there is no illustrative reduction in their violent crime rate.
Please validate this for us though. Explain how it is the access that produces the crime. Except do it without the hyperbole and emotionalism, if you can.
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... I don't have to. If you feel we all would be safer & better off if we were allowed to own fully-automatic rifles/pistols with zero regulation... that's your right.
However (and that might come as a sad surprise) it's not going to happen in our lifetime or our children lifetime
.... maybe down the right one day they have laser-beam guns or something....
However (and that might come as a sad surprise) it's not going to happen in our lifetime or our children lifetime
.... maybe down the right one day they have laser-beam guns or something....GoWolfpack
Member
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I come here for the intelligent discourse.
Laws restricting free exercise of the second amendment not only violate the constitution, but don't provide the benefit (lower crime) which they claim as their justificiation for the violation. Even if restricting access to firearms would lower crime, I still wouldn't support it because it violates the constitution.
We could lower crime drastically if we ignored the fourth amendment. At the very least we could put many times more people in jail. I would not support laws violating the fourth amendment either.
Vern Humphrey
Member
Yes, you do.
And while you're at it, explain how 21 people were shot yesterday in Chicago, which has close to total "gun control."
Ingsoc75
Member
Why did Rep. William Hughes enact the 1986 machine gun ban?
Perhaps he, anti-gun congressman from NJ, used the increasing drug related homicide rates of the early to mid 1980s as a justification for it?
Certainly the statistics of homicides by NFA registered machine guns wouldn't of helped.
Maybe he was just pissed that FOPA was going to pass and decided to add his "poison pill" at the last minute?
He certainly looked fired up in the CSPAN coverage of the amendment.
Perhaps he, anti-gun congressman from NJ, used the increasing drug related homicide rates of the early to mid 1980s as a justification for it?
Certainly the statistics of homicides by NFA registered machine guns wouldn't of helped.
Maybe he was just pissed that FOPA was going to pass and decided to add his "poison pill" at the last minute?
He certainly looked fired up in the CSPAN coverage of the amendment.
Bruno2
Member
Here is a link to the CSPAN congressional vote on the Hughes Amendment:http://www.northwestfirearms.com/ge...pan-video-archive-hughes-amendment-votes.html
Take notice of the vote hen tallied by electronic device. The Hughes Amendment failed miserably. Charlie Rangel tried to force it on us by claiming that the verbal ayes outnumbered the nays. However, when the vote was actually submitted via electronic device the truth came out. Then the amendment was attached to the FOPA and it passed.
William Hughes was using the sporting purpose argument. I believe looking back at this in 1986 I believe Hughes may have pioneered the "sporting purpose" argument.
Take notice of the vote hen tallied by electronic device. The Hughes Amendment failed miserably. Charlie Rangel tried to force it on us by claiming that the verbal ayes outnumbered the nays. However, when the vote was actually submitted via electronic device the truth came out. Then the amendment was attached to the FOPA and it passed.
William Hughes was using the sporting purpose argument. I believe looking back at this in 1986 I believe Hughes may have pioneered the "sporting purpose" argument.
yokel
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- Apr 29, 2007
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Words of wisdom from George Sutherland, who served as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court between 1922 and 1938. Writing in his dissent in Home Bldg. & Loan v. Blaisdell (1934) that "whether the legislation under review is wise or unwise is a matter with which we have nothing to do. Whether it is likely to work well or work ill presents a question entirely irrelevant to the issue. The only legitimate inquiry we can make is whether it is constitutional. If it is not, its virtues, if it have any, cannot save it; if it is, its faults cannot be invoked to accomplish its destruction. If the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned."
spearpoint
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- Dec 27, 2010
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Go on the offensive, and let the poor sot explain the applicability of the commerce clause... Then present the relevant contradictions. It is your opponent who must rationalize the infringement...
The GCA is a house of cards.
The GCA is a house of cards.
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