When did the Anti-gun movement start?

[WillyKern69]

Being a young buck of 43, I always remeber there being anti-gunners. I see post where guns were in TV commercials (thinking of the Roy Rogers concealed hat gun) and you could order anything in the back of a magazine. So where did this start? I hoping those with a few more grey hairs and expirence could shed some light on this. How did we get here? My father said it came the Hippy Anti-war crowd during Veitnam era. Any thoughts?

WK

[JWT]

I attribute a significant push to two ladies. Sarah Brady really got it going after her husband was shot in the attemp to assassinate Reagan. Then Carolyn McCarthy accellerated the anti gun movement significantly after her spouse was gunned down in 1993.

[SPEMack618]

Well, the Sullivan Act which was pretty much straightfoward racism, passed in 1911.

And the NFA passed in 1934, which was both a balant gun grab, originally seeking pistols in addition to machine guns, and a ploy by FDR to keep a bunch of out work Revenue Men employed after the repeal of Prohibition. If only John Lee Pettimore had been more succesful....

[pax]

A lot of anti-gun legislation came into being just after the Civil War, and was designed to keep guns out of the hands of recently freed slaves.

See http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/cramer.racism.html for details.

pax

[SPEMack618]

Pax makes a good point as well, too.

My county (rural GA) had an ordinance on the books that prevents the owning of any revovler other than those made by Colt or Remington.

Those firearms being very high priced and therefore un-avialable to recent Freedmen and share-croppers.

[eldermike]

1968 gun control act. It was part of the great society proposals of (JBJ) Lyndon Johnson. It was made possible by a crisis which puts it in line with rules for radicals type thinking that comes from the 1940's. But that's a whole nuther subject.

There were four assassinations that pushed this gun control act to passage in 1968. These were John F Kennedy, Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy, Dr Martin King.

[BigD_in_FL]

A lot of anti-gun legislation came into being just after the Civil War, and was designed to keep guns out of the hands of recently freed slaves.

See http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/cramer.racism.html for details.

pax

Bingo........There has always been an anti gun movement, even in the "wild West" days where restrictions and even bans were instituted in many towns and territories
It has only gotten worse since the explosion of instant media notification. LBJ's tenure saw the explosion of the Great Society where the education system was overtaken by many leftists and socialists who have succeeded in the ensuing generations of fostering a mindset that we see today

Remember, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world

[Spats McGee]

Anti-gunners arrived when guns arrived. There has always been a push on the part of someone (usually those in power, who wanted to retain power) to keep weapons of all sorts out of the hands of "undesirables."

[pax]

My county (rural GA) had an ordinance on the books that prevents the owning of any revovler other than those made by Colt or Remington.

Those firearms being very high priced and therefore un-avialable to recent Freedmen and share-croppers.

SPEMack618,

Not so different from current proposals to "keep guns out of our cities" (read: where poor people live) or to require gun owners to buy massive amounts of insurance (which poor people can't afford) or pay huge licensing fees (that poor people can't pay).

Racist and classist in effect even when not in intent. But I think a lot of times it's the intent as well as the effect.

pax

[SPEMack618]

Originally Posted by Pax

Racist and classist in effect even when not in intent. But I think a lot of times it's the intent as well as the effect.

The NFA did this as well, a $200 dollar tax on an item that cost $2-$3 dollars at the local hard ward store was impossible for a fellow making $.50 a day in wages.

[Dwight55]

I don't have a link, . . . but I read somewhere, . . . years ago, . . . that there was a move afoot in Europe to ban the cross bow.

It was such a savage weapon, . . . no sporting purpose, . . . designed only to kill.

Actually what it did was put the foot soldier with it on an equal footing as the knight in his armor on his horse. There were even some "home made" versions that allowed the peasant to hold his own against the lords.

In that article, it sighted the true long bow as pretty much bringing an end to the "knights in shining armor" but the cross bow was the exclamation point.

Our AR's, AK's and M's of different flavors are the direct descendants of the cross bow, . . . and still stand needed to keep the elite from riding rough shod over the masses.

May God bless,
Dwight

[WillyKern69]

I had no idea it went so far back. Interesting stuff Pax.
Thanks

[ltc444]

Weapons control has been around for centuries. In Elizabethan England London had rules governing the length of swords. They had rules that only "gentlemen" (nobles)could carry swords and a variety of other regulations regarding dirks, pikes and other weapons.

Some religious groups have actively worked for gun control since they first settled in the mid Atlantic region prior to the Revolutionary War.

This is not a recent phenomena,

[carguychris]

Originally Posted by eldermike

1968 gun control act. It was part of the great society proposals of ([L]BJ) Lyndon Johnson. It was made possible by a crisis which puts it in line with rules for radicals type thinking that comes from the 1940's... There were four assassinations that pushed this gun control act to passage in 1968. These were John F Kennedy, Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy, Dr Martin King.

Originally Posted by BigDinFL

LBJ's tenure saw the explosion of the Great Society where the education system was overtaken by many leftists and socialists...

IMHO that's true about the assassinations, but before jumping to the conclusion that gun control was an entirely leftist idea, let's not forget that the 1968 GCA would not have passed without the cooperation of the following groups:

• Southern pro-segregation conservatives upset at the ease with which increasingly mobile and prosperous blacks were able to buy firearms via mail-order and by visiting retailers in increasingly friendly Northern states. It's very difficult to lynch people when they can shoot back.
• Northeastern and Midwestern law-and-order conservatives who were scared of radical racial groups like the Black Panthers and by the urban race riots of the mid 1960s. There was a palpable fear at the time that the chaotic mobs of young hoodlums looting their own inner-city neighborhoods would morph into organized gangs of young hoodlums with firearms raiding the white suburbs.

As several other posters have pointed out, there has always been a strong racial component to gun control, and I would argue that this thinking continues today.

Also, another strong component of gun control in the immediate post-WWI era was powerful pro-business groups that wanted to keep firearms out of the hands of organized labor, or at least keep union members from displaying them openly to intimidate strikebreakers. This is the origin of numerous state laws prohibiting groups (read: labor unions) from parading with guns.

[SPEMack618]

Also, post WWI, thier was talk of nationalizing the ammunition industry, obstensibly to prevent war profiteering, but somehow I doubt General Butler had that in mind when he testified before Congress.

[Skans]

I suspect it goes back to before the Revolutionary War. Our founding fathers put the 2nd Amendment in the constitution as a result of how the British treated them. They didn't like the antis back then either.

My first memory of modern gun banner propaganda was the push in the '70's to eliminate the "Saturday Night Specials". Even Lynyrd Skynyrd got in on the gun ban propaganda weapon:

Hand guns are made for killin'
Ain't no good for nothin' else
And if you like your whiskey
You might even shoot yourself
So why don't we dump 'em people
To the bottom of the sea
Before some fool come around here
Wanna shoot either you or me

When I was old enough to understand what that song was all about, I got rid of some old Skynyrd records I bought at the used record store - tossed them to the bottom of the sea (well, more than likely traded them for some other crappy records)

[skimbell]

Seems to me that the modern A-G movement got a good start in November of '63(JFK). It sort of died down a bit after that, but that's where I think it started.
It picked back up in April of '68 (MLK) and really got up a head of steam in June of '68 (RFK).
The everyday gun owner has been paying the price for the whack-job "shooters" ever since.
It's still happening. Everytime one of these morons goes off, the anti gun crowd/government decides it's time to jack around with the lawful gun owners.
You know the rest.

[USMCGrunt]

I always like to say that in our country, gun control began on April 19, 1775 at a place called Lexington and Concord! So Piers, old bean, how well did that work out for your forefathers?

[KyJim]

As others have noted, attempts at gun control goes back a long time. However, I think we can mark the 1968 Gun Control Act as the start of the serious, "modern" attempts at gun control. It went through following political assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Before the act you could simply order a gun through the Sears Roebuck catalog and many others and have the gun mailed directly to your residence. Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK with a rifle he ordered through the mail, using an alias. Attempts to limit interstate sales began. The 1968 bill was stalled in Congress but went through following the assassinations of RFK and MLK. It prohibited interstate transfers of firearms except through FFLs.

Attempts to further regulate guns have been subsequently made at the federal level, some successful and some not.

[Gaerek]

Anti-gunners arrived when guns arrived. There has always been a push on the part of someone (usually those in power, who wanted to retain power) to keep weapons of all sorts out of the hands of "undesirables."

I was going to say, as far as US history is concerned:

July 4, 1776 (to answer the OPs question)

There have always been people who thought that only some people should be armed. I'm sure, though there seems to be little evidence of it, that there were people who thought more restrictions were needed on firearms from a very early time.

[dajowi]

Some might say it started 12/14/12.

[gunloony]

Weapon control goes back to well before the advent of firearms. A couple of posters mentioned the early prohibitions against crossbows in the Middle ages and Elizabethan English rules about swords and other edged weapons. If I remember correctly Karate and Ju-Jitsu and several other Oriental martial arts came about because of legal restrictions on weapons. I think we can reasonably say that the anti-gun movement goes back as far as firearms, and that the "weapon-control" movement goes back as far as weapons. It is always about control, and people without weapons, or with less effective weapons, are easier to control. It is the people in power, or who want to be in power, who seek to control access to weapons by the "wrong people" - who are any people who threaten or could potentially threaten the people in power.

[mack59]

Weapons control - swords, bows and arrows is about as old as recorded history. Typically imposed by rulers on their subjects.

The ironic thing that is never mentioned in the current debate is that all of the primary organizations in the gun control movement are funded by politicians and pacs and not for profits run mostly by boards dominated by politicians, CEO's, and a few academics. Organizations that would cease to function without the continual infusions of cash from their rich donors, creators. None have any real dues or paid membership numbers. They are totally dependent on the powerful few who fund and run them.

Contrast this with the principle Second Amendment groups and organizations which all have large grass roots of dues paying members and which receive the bulk of their finances from their members and are huge long term sustained grass roots organizations.

This is never reported or discussed in the MSM, which is overwhelmingly supportive of gun control, which is itself dominated, owned, and run top down, by corporations and CEO's.

Kind of an important story that goes forever unreported. Gun control advocates are afraid of such a story catching hold in the MSM, which is why the NRA and such are continually defamed as a tools of the gun manufacturers and as either representing a minority extremist view or that the leadership of the NRA doesn't represent the true views of the bulk of its members.

This is also why they focus so much on snapshot polls after a tragedy has whipped up emotions as they want to portray their organizations as having massive public support. But the truth is they never have enough support to financially sustain their organizations from grassroots supporters.

Superficially they may sometimes be ahead in public polls of support for nebulous gun control proposals, but when people are informed of the specifics of an issue their support always falls. A good example of this is the support for a so called AWB, the polls done by reputable organizations are close, but when you realize that polling has also showed more than 20 percent of those polled who support and AWB think that they are talking about machine guns not semi-automatic firearms then that shows the true depth or lack of depth of their movement.

The old saying is true - support for gun control at times may be a mile wide, but it is an inch deep. While support for the RKBA is a mile wide and a mile deep. There are many in the RKBA movement who volunteer not only their money but their time and effort. And many more are single issue voters or weigh the issue as much more important when voting.

It is often said in the press and claimed by gun control advocates that the RKBA movement is based on fear. Yet the truth is that the gun control movement depends on the ignorance and fear of the bulk of those members of the public they hope to persuade - many RKBA advocates have won over rank and file gun control advocates with trips to the range and facts. The opposite is almost never true.

[Frank Ettin]

Weapons control indeed has a very long, if not glorious, history.

For hundreds of years before the birth of our Republic it was in general widely understood and accepted English tradition that ordinary, honest people have arms to be used for, at various times and under various conditions, self defense, defense of their communities, prevention of crime and apprehension criminals, assisting in maintaining public order, defense of the nation, and (yes) hunting. But at various times times some rights were circumscribed, often for one group or another, depending on who was in power. For example, sometimes arms were forbidden to Catholics, and at other times to Protestants.

The foregoing is covered in great detail in Joyce Lee Malcolm's excellent book, Guns and Violence, the English Experience (Harvard University Press, 2002).

[Pilot]

Since there was a ruling class or a group of people that wanted to be the ruling class.