The Anniversary of GCA68

David Codrea marked the 50th Anniversary of the Gun Control Act of 1968 back on October 22.  The date slipped by me, with other things going on.  David is of an age that he remembers, as I do, that legislation and notes the effects that it has had upon our liberties and freedoms.  Codrea's peace can be found at Ammoland.com entitled 50 Years of Infringement After GCA68 Shows Only Constant Is Obsession With Control.

 Codrea notes the many changes that have occurred as a result.  GCA68 doesn't actually prevent non prohibited individuals from obtaining a gun, but it does make them jump through more hoops, as well as making the process more expensive. And the number and expense of those hoops has only grown. That was deliberate by the way. The first goal of GCA68 was to set a precedent, to obtain a law that past muster with the Second Amendment, but would make owning a gun legally so expensive as to prohibit the poor and blacks from being able to afford a gun.  I can remember Senator Birch Bayh railing against the infamous "Saturday Night Specials," which were killing supposedly thousands of people. Actually, these small inexpensive handguns provided people with a last line of defense for those who had to go into dangerous neighborhoods to provide needed services. A New York Times article of the period shows New York Mayor Lindsay complaining even then that the problem was guns from outside the city.

Interestingly, the NRA lobbied in favor of GCA68, supposedly believing that we would have been stuck with even greater infringements if they had not participated.  It is the kind of thinking that has gotten us ever more and more egregious infringements of the Second Amendment, and has spurred the Left to never be satisfied.  Had they taken a "give no quarter" attitude from the start, we might well have been in a better position today vis a vis guns.  Instead of having each and every crime on the gun, we might have had to concentrate instead on the true problem, the criminals who commit the crimes.  While I am a member of the NRA, I have often thought that with friends like the NRA, who needs enemies?  For many years the NRA seemed to think the Second Amendment was written so we would be able to hunt.

Go read David's article from last month.