The Second Amendment:
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.
Legislation Background and Usurpations:
Militia Act of 1792
Describes in detail the weapon and supplies every militia aged man should own. Basically a
description of the "modern" infantryman. Shows the sense of Congress that the 2nd Amendment
should at least be interpreted to understand the people should be armed in a like-manner of
what today we have as our standing armed forces infantryman. The current version of the Militia
Act provides for two classifications of militia - organized (National Guard) and unorganized (Non-National Guard). In no way does it make distinction as to which firearms should be carried between the various types.
The Freedman's Bureau Act of 1866
Reinforced that all freemen have "full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty, personal security, and the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal, including the constitutional right to bear arms, shall be secured to and enjoyed by all the citizens of such State or district without respect to race or color, or previous condition of slavery"
1927
18 USC 1715 The first federal firearms law bans ordering a gun through the mail.
Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act of 1986
This law bans the sale and ownership of armor piercing bullets.
National Firearms Act of 1934 & 1938
Hoover pushed Congress for the 1934 act to harshly tax the sale of sawed-off shotguns and machine guns, so much so that to this day the original tax has not been raised. This technic has been repeated many times by Congress. You might recall that is how the Affordable Care Act was written..as a tax under the Commerce Clause. It also requires a federal registry of these weapons. In 1938, Roosevelt adds licensing interstate gun dealers, who must record sales, and prohibits sales to individuals under indictment or convicted of violent crimes.
The government assassination of President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., spurred the communist Lyndon Johnson to prohibit all convicted felons, drug users and the mentally ill from buying guns. The GCA also raised the age to purchase handguns to the age of 21. Also the burden of record keeping expanded for shop owners.
Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986
A heavy push against constitutional intrusions by the government let to the passing of the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986. The law limits the BATFE from inspecting gun dealers more than once a year, with follow-up inspections only in cases of multiple violations. An amendment is also passed banning civilian ownership of machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986. Weapons made and registered before that date are not affected. The law specifically forbids the government from creating a national registry of gun ownership.
Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993
The Brady Act mandates background checks of gun buyers in order to prevent sales to people prohibited under the 1968 legislation. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), is maintained by the FBI. Records of such checks cannot be preserved because federal law prohibits the creation of a national registry of gun ownership. Sales by unlicensed private sellers who are not engaged in gun dealing as a business are not subject to the checks under federal law, though they are required by some states.
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994
The Assault Weapons Ban produces a 10-year federal ban on the manufacture of new semi-automatic assault weapons. The law specifies 19 weapons that have the evil look of technology, including the AR-15, certain versions of the AK-47, the TEC-9, the MAC-10 and the Uzi, several of which had become the preferred weapon of violent drug gangs. The act also bans large-capacity ammunition magazines, limiting them to 10 rounds. The law does not apply to weapons that were already in legal possession, and there are easy ways to adapt new weapons to avoid the prohibitions.
Tiahrt Amendment of 2003
The Tiahrt Amendment to a federal spending bill. The amendment, proposed by Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), prohibits law enforcement from publicly releasing data showing where criminals bought their firearms.
The Liberal Question:
Why do right-wing nutjobs need firearms people just shoot each other and I hate senseless death?
Joseph Story, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States spoke to this in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States in 1833.
"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offence to keep arms, and by substituting a regular army in the stead of a resort to the militia. The friends of a free government cannot be too watchful, to overcome the dangerous tendency of the public mind to sacrifice, for the sake of mere private convenience, this powerful check upon the designs of ambitious men"
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