Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
The most common gun law of late 1800s America was a ban on concealed firearms.
Those whose opposition to gun control laws is based on the language of the 2nd Amendment, often point to the English Common Law tradition as the basis of the individual right to own and use firearms, both for sustenance (hunting) and self-defense. Some, including those who are aligned with the National Rifle Associations’ post-1975 shift toward an inviolable right of self-preservation (the NRA used to support gun control), also insist that a primary reason for the “right to keep and bear arms” is to defend against government tyranny – “enemies foreign and domestic”.
Neither of those arguments for an unrestricted right to possess personal firearms hold up under scrutiny of historical analysis, even though the early states-rights and anti-federalist movements promulgated them at the founding of our nation, just as their ideological descendants – the far right – propagate them today as if they comprised a consensus of the Founders and Framers who, in fact, deliberately rejected such individualistic emphasis in favor of a collectivist one.
..............................................................................................................
The most common gun law of late 1800s America was a ban on concealed firearms. According to gun rights historian Clayton Cramer, concealed carry prohibitions were among the earliest types of gun control laws adopted in the years following the Revolution. The first such law was adopted in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813, Indiana banned concealed carry in 1820, Tennessee and Virginia in 1838, Alabama in 1839, and Ohio in 1859.
..............................................................................................................
“In late-eighteenth-century parlance, bearing arms was a term of art with an obvious military and legal connotation. … As a review of the Library of Congress’s data base of congressional proceedings in the revolutionary and early national periods reveals, the thirty uses of ‘bear arms’ and ‘bearing arms’ in bills, statutes, and debates of the Continental, Confederation, and United States’ Congresses between 1774 and 1821 invariably occur in a context exclusively focused on the army or the militia.” – H. Richard Uviller & William G. Merkel (2003), The Militia and the Right to Arms, Or, How the second Amendment Fell Silent
The term to “bear arms” comes from the Latin “arma ferre“, which means to carry military weapons into battle. To “keep arms” meant to stock them in armories. And “the people” referred to the collective population, not to individuals. The Framers clearly understood the use of these terms."
Neither of those arguments for an unrestricted right to possess personal firearms hold up under scrutiny of historical analysis, even though the early states-rights and anti-federalist movements promulgated them at the founding of our nation, just as their ideological descendants – the far right – propagate them today as if they comprised a consensus of the Founders and Framers who, in fact, deliberately rejected such individualistic emphasis in favor of a collectivist one.
..............................................................................................................
The most common gun law of late 1800s America was a ban on concealed firearms. According to gun rights historian Clayton Cramer, concealed carry prohibitions were among the earliest types of gun control laws adopted in the years following the Revolution. The first such law was adopted in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813, Indiana banned concealed carry in 1820, Tennessee and Virginia in 1838, Alabama in 1839, and Ohio in 1859.
..............................................................................................................
“In late-eighteenth-century parlance, bearing arms was a term of art with an obvious military and legal connotation. … As a review of the Library of Congress’s data base of congressional proceedings in the revolutionary and early national periods reveals, the thirty uses of ‘bear arms’ and ‘bearing arms’ in bills, statutes, and debates of the Continental, Confederation, and United States’ Congresses between 1774 and 1821 invariably occur in a context exclusively focused on the army or the militia.” – H. Richard Uviller & William G. Merkel (2003), The Militia and the Right to Arms, Or, How the second Amendment Fell Silent
The term to “bear arms” comes from the Latin “arma ferre“, which means to carry military weapons into battle. To “keep arms” meant to stock them in armories. And “the people” referred to the collective population, not to individuals. The Framers clearly understood the use of these terms."
https://riversong.wordpress.com/the-real-second-amendment/
5 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
