In Connecticut, after the massive non-compliance, there is talk of the police confiscating ordinary, in common use, firearms from people who refused to register them. The media is saying such a crime “cannot go unenforced”. Some people are even saying these, estimated, 330,000 people should be “rounded up”. There are people who believe there might be “enough information on gun owners to start a confiscation effort, lets get started.”
Connecticut Carry Director Ed Peruta says:
From Governor Malloy, to Undersecretary Lawlor to DESPP, Commissioner Schriro, and Lieutenant Cooke of the firearms unit, and including Lt. Paul Vance, the state needs to shit, or get off the pot. The fact is, the state does not have the balls to enforce these laws. The laws would not survive the public outcry and resistance that would occur.
See also Says Uncle who says, “This will get out of hand.”
So with the politicians being encouraged to use somewhat nebulous lists of gun owners that might still have their evil black rifles Dutchman6 posted a precise list of the 131 politicians, and their home addresses, who voted for the repressive law.
Apparently some people are getting upset about this. I don’t see what the problem is. People wanted a list of people they thought were a problem and needed to be “dealt with”. We have a list. And our list is much shorter. If people need to be “rounded up” to get past this impasse isn’t it better to “round up” a relatively small of people rather than hundreds of thousands? This is especially true when the people on the large list are saying Molon labe and the people on the short list apparently don’t have any fight in them and want others to fight for them. It would seem that there would be far less bloodshed and disruption of society if Federal Marshals went door-to-door and arrested the people on the short list so they could be prosecuted.
I think the biggest issue is no one sees that list being used by the Federal Marshals despite that they should be.
What they see is the probable end result of “outlaw” or retaliatory justice after some group of Jack Boots break into the wrong damn rec-room.
But again, I’m with you Joe. I fail to really see a problem.
I see a problem with it. A couple of them, actually.
Why has it not been done sooner, and in every state, on every gun bill?
Why are no pols using these lists to have any AG, anywhere, bring conspiracy charges for infringing civil rights?
Because all the AGs are on the side of the politicians infringing our rights? That’s the problem with the existing statutes. Now, if ordinary citizens could file charges under those laws, we’d be getting somewhere. But so long as charges are at the discretion of the AG, and it’s the AG’s decision never to bring charges under those laws when it’s the 2nd amendment being infringed, those laws might as well not exist.
It’s the same with perjury law (for Federal officials, elected or otherwise, violating their oath) and impeachment: none of those mean anything when no one is willing to invoke them.
Where has any court anywhere ruled that this is an infringement of civil rights?
The Courts were kinda silent, or contradictory, or even in favor of, Slavery, and Jim Crow, and all sorts of other civil rights violations for quite some time.
If your ethics and morality are based on rulings from judges you have a real problem brewing.
And you hit the ball so hard on that one the guts just busted right out of it.
It disturbs me how many think “X” is ethical or morally acceptable just because there is a law that say’s it’s OK.
Barron,
Yet I see people here who advocate prosecuting people for things that aren’t against the law…. It’s as if they believe that their ethics and morality are the only things that matter.
Please note, I asked “ANY court ANYwhere.” Show me a court anywhere in the world that has ruled this is a violation of civil rights….
Ubu,
“Any court, anywhere” is still the same appeal to authority and still not a rational basis for moral or ethical choices.
A valid moral and ethical system can only be established, by a competent, autonomous human being, by starting with valid fundamental moral principles (which may be morally intuited but not simply taken from an authority) and reasoning from those principles, logically, to intellectually and morally consistent beliefs/positions.
In the case of the fundamental natural right of self-defense, not aggression or vengeance, to deny the choice of tool based on the needs of the individual defender is immoral and illogical. That some other individual may misuse that tool simply calls for punishment of that individual for their misuse, not a blanket restriction.
Matthew,
What are “civil rights”? We aren’t talking about prosecuting people for violating moral rights or ethical rights but for “civil rights.”
Civil rights are codifications of natural and moral rights in statute to provide for governmental formal recognition and enforcement. That a natural or moral right has not been codified, or has not been codified completely, or has its codified status changed, does not change its existence and nature.
In the case of what Connecticut authorities are attempting, with these laws passed arguably illegally given the rules of the Legislature, is the abrogation of a natural and civil right by statute. Just like Jim Crow. Just like “legal” slavery.
Ubu,
“Against the law” and “so held by courts” are two entirely different things that often have no significant connection.
The meaning of the law is something any literate human with a functioning brain can ascertain. For example, the meaning of the 2nd Amendment, or of Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution, or of the laws making infringement on Constitutional rights a felony, are all obvious by inspection.
The fact that they are not obvious to judges, or at least that judges have violated their sworn duty by pretending otherwise, does not change the meaning of the law. For example, “Constitutional” is not synonymous with “Held to be Constitutional by the Supreme Court”.
Meanwhile, you said “show me a court… that has ruled this a violation of human rights”. Consider Cruickshank, in which the Supreme Court said “The right there specified is that of bearing arms for a lawful purpose. This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence”. There you have it in plain English: the right to bear arms is a human right.
For that matter, some centuries earlier Blackstone said the same, not in a court ruling but in a legal textbook that is still held as one of the fundamental textbooks on English law.
“I think the biggest issue is no one sees that list being used by the Federal Marshals despite that they should be.”
And right there you have identified a huge force fulcrum in the world; that of inaction. The more people capitulate, the more we sit back and do nothing, the more that those who’s responsibility is to enforce the constitution fail out of cowardice or self-interest to do so, the more we are doomed to far worse strife and violence in the future. We are condemning our kids to mass destruction, just as our parents and grandparents have condemned us to this sorry mess because they did not stand up and say “NO!” to Progressivism 50 and 100 years ago.
This is starting to unfold much like “Unintended Consequences”…
Seems to me that a great platform to run on was “elect me, and I’ll start bringing charges to these guys conspiring to infringe your rights under color of law!” You’d sure get a lot of free publicity as the media and other pols start freaking out.
This ^^^
The people in Connecticut need to chill out! The police can arrest those with unregistered weapons when they try to use them or when they find them during the ordinary course of events.
It doesn’t make any sense to go around and pick up unused guns from people who aren’t doing anything with them. Connecticut doesn’t have large enough jails to hold that many people.
So you are OK with ruining peoples lives, holding the threat of arbitrary and capricious prosecution over them if they don’t fall in line properly, because they choose to exercise a specifically enumerated right and practice civil disobedience? You find that sort of bullying acceptable?
Why do I say “arbitrary and capricious prosecution”? Because the politicians won’t prosecute their friends and supporters, only political enemies. Uneven and unequal enforcement means that we are not a nation of laws, and that leads directly to contempt for law in general, and that never ends well.
All Progressives/statists/authoritarians are OK with this sort of thing. It defines the ideology.
I know that. But they don’t like having to admit it, usually, because it bares their desire to use naked coercion to bend others to their will, or break them if they do not comply. When they are forced to confront that reality, there is the possibility of enlightenment.
By that logic it doesn’t make sense to register them in the first place, which is the pro-gun rights position.
Guns owned by people -who misuse them- can simply be seized in the course of normal investigations, as they are now. There’s no reason to require registration by the hundreds of thousands of people who will never “do anything” (criminal) with them.
I find it interesting you are telling the people who are being made into felons for merely owning property to chill the hell out while you said no such thing to the gun grabbers or legislators who passed this legislation in an emotional panic.
I guess being calm and chilling out only applies to the methods which you view the world. Which again makes sense because as Rolf and Lyle point out, this has everything thing to do with ruining the lives of your political enemies by the threat of arbitrary prosecution.
But you’re perfectly fine with the state abusing innocent people, it is the state after all. All those innocent people would have to do is blindly follow the Pied Piper off the cliff.
I interpreted ubu52 comment as being directed at the non-gun owners of Connecticut.
You conclusion might be correct but I don’t think this statement of hers is evidence of that.
It’s her admittal that rounding up all those firearms is pointless while at the same time supporting the law that has me doubly confused.
So are those guns so dangerous that honest law abiding citizens cannot have them? Or is it that law abiding citizens aren’t a problem and thus the question is raised, why have the law in the first place unless the purpose to to harass and intimidate your political opponents.
All that happens by not enforcing is creating another series of David Gregory type incidents.
While her statement could be referred to telling the anti-gunners to chill out, I read it as telling us to chill out because there’s no way they would actually enforce it evenly across everyone.
Look what happened with the Thompson submachine gun. How many criminals have them today? How many criminals had them back in the 1920s? I believe this is a legitimate way to keep weapons favored by criminals out of their hands. Granted, it will take a long time this way, but it’s a much better way than anything else I’ve heard of.
The Thompson’s, BAR’s and other automatic weapons used by criminals were in many cases stolen from poorly guarded police and National Guard armories, not purchased over the counter.
Even so, that someone -might- misuse any particular thing does not justify denying it to all, particularly when those so inclined can still get them should they desire. In the case of the Thompson, the criminals who wanted full-auto weapons changed their brand of choice over the decades, not their criminal misuse.
You might as well point to the drop in buggy whip assaults today compared to 1899.
Matthew,
You better go back and relearn your history. In the 1920s, criminals PURCHASED these guns. http://www.auto-ordnance.com/ao-thompson-submachine-gun.asp
They were not stolen from police and armories.
Oh ubu, you need to learn before you leap. The below is from just a quick google.
From a sub-link on your own cite:
http://www.auto-ordnance.com/ao-history.asp#history2
“The Barrow gang preferred 1918 BARs looted from National Guard armories, which they used to hose down pursuing police cars.”
“Thompsons, generally looted from small town police stations, along with early-day body armor were a favorite item for Public Enemy No.1, John Dillinger.”
Bonnie and Clyde http://www.sl-prokeys.com/thompson/bonnieandclyde.htm
“June 25, 1933: Clyde and W.D. Jones stole car, Enid, OK, and robbed National Guard Armory of automatic weapons and ammunition.”
Dillinger
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19340502&id=fLAhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=s5oFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4944,205930
http://www.jcs-group.com/oldwest/peoples/dillinger1.html
“Law enforcement officers got their Thompsons and BARs through regular supply channels. Dillinger and his men got theirs by robbing police stations and National Guard armories.”
I don’t know how old you are but I’ve been interested in this stuff since I was in grade school coming on 40 years ago. The “need for study” has consistently been shown to be on your end.
Because the Thompson is still the best choice for crime today? There are numerous issues with attempting to just draw that line straight across. The biggest of which is the private pool is so limited now and costs so high, more than a house, you cannot get a reliable comparison because it’s merely cheaper to steal a semi-automatic firearm.
Tell me, would full auto become prevalent in crimes if the Hughes amendment disappeared? That’s the main cause of the limited supply and inflated prices.
Now let me give you a hint before you put your foot in your mouth, suppressors do not suffer from that limitation and are rarely if ever used in crimes. So while you may be able to argue that the tax stamp limits it to those who really want it, and in so doing will be more responsible than most, you cannot claim a ban or further infringement is an aid to lowering crime.
Secondly again, the assumption you make is that restricting the rights of the law abiding to influence crime is some how acceptable. What you really do is merely shift the tools, ultimately creating a might makes right scenario. Instead of a weaker individual being able to defend himself from a criminal the bigger criminal can win.
Oh but you can go get fancy training to solve that. Except it still requires contact distance, getting lucky, and doesn’t help those with physical disabilities.
The AR-15 is the best rifle I’ve ever used for educating new shooters and is by far the most comfortable for my disabled wife to shoot. But by your grasping at the Thompson machine gun you’re attempting to draw a similar conclusion that if we ban “assault rifles”.
Except crime hasn’t gone up since the AWB expired, the opposite actually. Maybe inanimate objects don’t shoot people or cause crime.
Tell me, out of all those Thompsons sold, how many were lawfully used vs in crimes, stats please?
But again, I don’t care if every last gun owner in the country went out and murdered someone last night, I didn’t, so piss off. You seem to think rights are morally contingent on approval from the state. And you have no problem telling someone how to live their life or infringe their rights if you know better.
I have a right to defend myself, my family, and my property with whatever tool I see fit. It is NONE of your business what tool I choose, if you’re so concerned about it, don’t break into my house and this won’t be your problem in any way.
Barron,
I don’t make the laws, you know? If you don’t want to follow them, suit yourself. It’s not my problem — it’s YOUR problem.
Ubu — you had better study yours in better depth, before spouting off half-cocked.
Yes, the Thompson was WIDELY marketed to civilians in 1921. And Auto-Ordnance STOPPED selling to civilians in about 1924, due to fears of criminal use.
The widespread use of the Thompson really only occurred in the later half of the 1920’s and during the early 1930s (mostly during the period known as “the Great Depression”) when the criminals who were famous for extreme violence towards innocents were barely earning a living at bank robbery — look up the haul numbers.
The Thommygun’s evil reputation during the Twenties was blown out of proportion by a HANDFUL of really well publicized incidents. . . most of which occurred after the gun was pulled from the primary civilian market. Most of its USE in crime was actually in the Thirties. (Heck, the St. Valentine’s Massacre, which involved two Thompsons and two shotguns, was in 1929.)
The Thompson cost (civilian market – the price was MUCH lower for approved export sales and even lower for sales to US police or military) was approximately 10 ounces of gold — i.e., roughly $13,000 in today’s dollars. Not a whole lot were sold (it took almost 20 years for most of the initial production run of M1921 Thompsons to be sold), EXCEPT to police and military users. The few legally purchased by mobsters were more like the gold plated AKs and HKs dictators and major drug lords buy now — conspicuous consumption items, rarely fired.
Best estimates are that HOLLYWOOD purchased more Thompsons than criminals, during the “Roaring Twenties”. The most common “gangster” guns were sawed off double barrel shotguns, .32 and .380 pocket pistols, and .32 and .38 pocket revolvers. (Shotguns were cheap and powerful, whilst small caliber pistols were easily hidden in an overcoat pocket.)
BARs (almost NONE of which were sold on the “civilian” market at the time) were almost as common as Thompsons in criminal shootings.
Think about it — for the cost of 5 Thompsons, legally purchased (but potentially leaving a papertrail), it would be EASY to bribe some police or NG armorer to let you know when the arms room will be unguarded and where the guns are, and you could grab a dozen. ($1000, with gold a skosh over $20 and ounce, is a LOT of money.) (And that isn;t at all difficult to imagine — you’d be surprised at how often identical methods have been used, all the way until now, to get military grade weapons from police and military inventories — Hell, the IRA used to specialize in finding _US_ military armorers who could “lose” machineguns, and the IRA didn’t have anywhere near the money or intimidation capability of a Prohibition gangster boss.)
Back to the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre — of the two Thommyguns used, one had been sold to a dirty cop who sold it to the Mob, and BOTH of the guns had been used in several of the “prominent” Thommygun shootings. A VERY limited number of “mob” guns were used in quite a few hits, with the guns being “timeshared” within gangster alliances (one of the guns used in the Valentines Massacre had been used to take out a mob boss in New York, earlier), with the same guns moving around in a circuit.
Hell, the US Government killed more civilians during Prohibition by _deliberately_poisoning_ them (_knowing_ that the risk of getting poisoned licquor wasn’t actually an effective deterrent) that the gangsters killed (including ALL gangster victims, including other gangsters. . . and in fact, MOST gangland slayings involved gangsters battling over turf — the way the Mob worked, killing innocent civilians or even police was something they generally avoided at all costs, because if their CUSTOMERS decided to turn against them, they were through. . . )
Yeah, about 10,000 (yup, ten THOUSAND) US ciitizens were killed becaase the government ordered liquor poisoned. Al Capone was only responsible for less than 230 killings (that’s ALL killings carried out by teh Capone gang). Heck, if Chicago was as “dangerous” TODAY as it was during the height of the mob wars (late 1920’s), it would be far safer to live there than it currently is.
http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Lets-Make-Chicago-As-Safe-As-It-Was-During-Prohibition-163189636.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/opinion/sunday/the-not-so-roaring-20s.html?_r=0
And of course, by the time the 1934 NFA was passed, applying federal rules to the sale of machineguns (among other things; it really was the first federal gun control law of any sort that wasn’t limited to “don’t sell guns to the Indians”), Prohibition (and the violence it created) was over.
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Thompson submachineguns were legal to buy until 1934, when they became class-3 item with stricter licensing required to own them.
But more to the point: fully-automatic weapons have been legal to own since they were invented. You can own them today if you obtain the license.
And since 1934 there have been exactly 2 people murdered with legally-owned automatic weapons. One of those murders was committed by an active-duty policeman who used his issued submachinegun to kill a witness who was going to testify against him.
Legally-owned weapons and their owners are not the problem, and never have been the problem.
Lock up the crazies first, before you try and infringe on my rights.
Before Thompson submachine guns were registered, how many murders were committed using them?
(By the way, I think that “2” that is frequently quoted may be higher now. I seem to recall another death in the last few years. I dunno. I’d have to research it.)
Ahhh… Looking at Google, the sources are quoting “at least two,” not “exactly two.”
I have been looking for these cases for about 20 years, as have a number of legal scholars.
The only violent crimes committed with machineguns legally possessed and registered under the NFA to individuals (as opposed to guns registered to police departments, stolen from manufacturers, unregistered guns, or guns stolen from the US Government which is exempt from registration) that ANYONE has been able to find are TWO:
1. One cop, who used his PERSONAL (not a police department gun) MAC10 to murder a drug dealer/informer he was trying to rob.
2. One neurologist who used his MAC10 (and tehre is some question as to whether it was actually legally registered, but he had had it for years beforehand) to commit a murder (I forget the details of the shooting).
In both cases, the end result would have likely been the same had they involved $3000 over-under skeet shotguns with birdshot.
You are seriously asking how many murders were committed with Thompsons prior to registration?
I ask in return, by whom? People who stole them from the police and National Guard? Career criminals who also used every other type of gun to murder?
The favored weapon for criminals, then as now, are handguns, yet no handgun registry, in Canada, the UK, or the states in the US that have them, has been shown to significantly contribute to the discovery of a perpetrator or solving of a crime. Registries have been tried and fail at anything but confiscation.
You focus on the tool instead of the crime and the criminal and discard logic in that pursuit.
Actually, not a lot. For instance, out of the 227 murders committed by Al Capone’s gang (one of the BLOODIEST gang leaders, operating in the most violent major city), only a handful were committed by Thompsons. Cheap, easily hidden pistols (usually pocket pistols like .32s), and cheap, easily shortened and moderately easily hidden sawed off shotguns were the primary weapons. Because they were cheap. And easily hidden.
Almost ALL of the bank-robbing gangsters used machineguns stolen from police and military armories for the simple fact that THEY DIDN’T HAVE THE MONEY TO BUY THOMPSON MACHINEGUNS (which cost approximately $13,000 in 2014 dollars). . . that’s why they were bank robbers! (That’s also where the popularity of the 1911 pistol and police model .38 revolvers by the bank robbing gangs came from — they were in the same armories as the Thommyguns and BARs they were stealing.)
***ubu52 on March 4, 2014 at 12:50 pm said:
Where has any court anywhere ruled that this is an infringement of civil rights?***
“Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them.”
-Miranda Vs. Arizona 384 US 436
” An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed.”
-Norton Vs. Shelby County 118 US 425
“The court then held that the Second Amendment “protects an individual right to keep and bear arms”, saying that the right was “premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, [i]the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness [b]or the depredations of a tyrannical government[/b][/i] (or a threat from abroad).” They also noted that though the right to bear arms also helped preserve the citizen militia, “the activities [the Amendment] protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.” The court determined that handguns are “Arms” and concluded that thus they may not be banned by the District of Columbia. ”
-U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (emphasis mine if the tags work)
“None of the Court’s precedents forecloses the Court’s interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542 , nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252 , refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174 , does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes.”
-SCOTUS, Heller v. D.C.
By your own admission, those Thompson guns qualified as ‘in common use’ at the time insomuch as “A Thompson submachine gun could be purchased either by mail order, or from the local hardware or sporting goods store.” (a direct quote from the link *you* provided) As such, those AR-15’s which have now been ‘banned’ with a wave of a hand are just as ‘in common use’, and are just as protected.
Continuing:
“If courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature, the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply…The question whether an act repugnant to the Constitution can become the law of the land is a question deeply interesting to the United States, but, happily, not of an intricacy proportioned to its interest. It seems only necessary to recognise certain principles, supposed to have been long and well established, to decide it…It is a proposition too plain to be contested that the Constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it, or that the Legislature may alter the Constitution by an ordinary act…Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The Constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it…If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law; if the latter part be true, then written Constitutions are absurd attempts on the part of the people to limit a power in its own nature illimitable….If, then, the Courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the Legislature, the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply…Those, then, who controvert the principle that the Constitution is to be considered in court as a paramount law are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the Constitution, and see only the law…. This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written Constitutions. It would declare that an act which, according to the principles and theory of our government, is entirely void, is yet, in practice, completely obligatory. It would declare that, if the Legislature shall do what is expressly forbidden, such act, notwithstanding the express prohibition, is in reality effectual. It would be giving to the Legislature a practical and real omnipotence with the same breath which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits. It is prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may be passed at pleasure. ”
-SCOTUS, Marbury v. Madison
“When a federal and state law are in conflict, the federal law is supreme.”
-Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824
While it would be a true statement of fact to say that no court has ruled directly on the question of the Connecticut ‘laws’, there is no need; The Connecticut ‘laws’ in question are null and void as they are in direct conflict with the U.S. Constitution’s second amendment, as the affected items are ‘in common use’.
(I apologize, Joe, for the wall-o-text)
Where has gun registration been ruled illegal because it is an infringement of civil rights? None of the things you’ve posted have anything to do with gun registration.
So how exactly are you defining “civil rights” as being different from “rights”? A distinction w/o a difference near as I can see.
There are all kinds of rights. This essay explains some types of rights pretty well: http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v3n1/homepage.html
That explains what it calls “moral rights”. The description it gives suffers from standard left wing relativism. But the general description given of “rights” is reasonable enough. “civil”, “human”, “natural” — those qualifiers don’t really mean anything. Certainly not to the Constitution, which makes that pretty clear in the 9th Amendment.
Paul,
I particularly like the paint company example of conflicting rights in the first paragraph. It’s easy to understand, yet it doesn’t concern any rights that are currently controversial (like gay rights, etc.)
“Where has gun registration been ruled illegal because of civil rights?”
It hasn’t. But I think you are smart enough to recognize that the law doesn’t “give” us our rights – we already have them. So you’ll forgive me, and others, if we don’t necessarily fall into lockstep waiting around for the law to substantiate a right that we already have and don’t need the law to double check to make sure that we have.
If you want to talk about “rights” then let’s analyze how “right” it is that the people with power over us should walk around with guns unfettered, while we continue to have our ability to bear and keep guns eroded piece by piece and step by step?
how smart is that, given that person-to-person violence in the 20th century has resulted in a couple hundred thousand deaths, while government-to-person violence has resulted in a few hundred MILLION deaths?
Why, again, do you want to “ask” them for permission to own a gun, and make sure you’re on a list telling them where you are and what guns you have? Doesn’t that seems a little naive, given the history of the whole bloody mess?
The only reason there has ever been “gun control” laws anywhere is because the corrupt, both inside and outside of government, have more to fear from honest, peace-loving citizens than anyone else.
Any other arguments are pure distraction, and lots of people fall for distractions of all kinds. Be careful that you don’t.
Ubu; Before you make a fool of yourself any further by commenting on things of which you know too little, the Thompson is a very large, very heavy and very expensive weapon. It was adopted by the U.S. Military for use in close combat during W.W. II, but it’s intricate milled receiver was so expensive and so heavy that the M3 “Grease Gun” (which is little more than a heavy bolt reciprocating inside a steel pipe) soon began to overtake it in war production. The British Sten is another example, and there are many others. The Thompson, while iconic and fun to play with, is technically far outdated and has been for many, many years. Criminals have had cheaper, smaller, lighter and more effective weapons to choose from for a certain long time. When Eric Holder wanted to arm Mexican narco-gangs and then blame their violence on people like me (which you don’t seem to have opposed) he didn’t send them Thompsons. Get it?
The crime never had anything to do with the NFA anyway. That was just cover. As I will never tire of saying, it’s always been about protecting the corrupt (Progressives in this case, under FDR) from good, honest citizens. If FDR had truly cared about crime reduction (scaling back the process of rights violation) he’d have gotten himself and all his closest and most ardent supporters together and put on a mass suicide. That would have taken out one of the largest ever crime syndicates to date.
Hell, the NFA was really nothing more than a jobs program for all the alcohol enforcement agents who were out of a job because of the ending of Prohibition.
Remember, when Prohibition ended and before the NFA had passed, the era of “mass mayhem” by bootleggers, mob wars, and Midwestern bank robbery gangs had been ENDED. Nor was the violence NEARLY as severe as the hysterical press made it out to be.
Chicago in 1929 was a pacifist paradice of perfect safety compared to Chicago of the last twenty years.
“pacifist”, darnit.
Fixed.
This is the part where I quote myself being quoted by the host:
https://blog.joehuffman.org/2007/12/04/quote-of-the-day-the-everlasting-phelps/
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