Quote:
Originally Posted by Guymullins
I have always be an admirer of the American Constitution and its treatment of Bearing Arms.
Here in South Africa, our alleged government is trying its hardest to strip all civilians of privately held arms.
We have, so far, been able to stave this off by fighting every attempt in court. Our constitution has no Right to Bear Arms claus or amendment, but it does have strong property rights, which include the possession of firearms.
The authorities have been making it increasingly difficult to obtain a Firearm License, but if you are willing to jump through all the hoops, you will eventually get your license.
What we do have is there are no restrictions on carry. If you have a license, you may carry the weapon openly or concealed. Rifles should be covered when carried in the street or in a vehicle and thats it.
It has therefore been a mystery to me that America, the Land of the Gun, seemed to make some distinction between Owning and Carrying either Concealed or Openly.
I Googled this and was very surprised to see that every state has its own rules, many of which, to my untutored eye, seem to go contrary to the Second Amendment.
Some states, that I would have expected to be much more liberal in outlook to weapon carry, were in fact quite restrictive.
How did this happen?
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It is against the 2nd Amendment.
But governments don't like being told what they can or can't do.
Fortunately, the citizens here also don't like being told what they can or can't do.
Technically, the national government is a creation of the states and isn't supposed to be superior to the states except for very narrow, enumerated powers.
But, power tends to centralize and the practice is different than the theory.
There is a complex relationship between national and state governments, each having their own sovereign powers and jurisdiction over differing functions.
There is also a complex relationship among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the national government.
Gun control, at the state level, has its roots in the 19th century with the purpose of oppressing various racial/ethnic groups.
This is where concealed carry restrictions started.
Gun control, at the national level, has its roots in countering organized crime which flourished as a consequence of national alcohol prohibition early in the 20th century.
This started with the National Firearms Act of 1934, which resulted in a transfer tax on machine guns, short-barreled guns, and suppressors.
1938 saw further restrictions at the national/interstate trade level.
1968 saw yet more national/interstate trade restrictions, the beginnings of de facto registration, and IIRC, one of the important legislators was fluent in German, and based the legislation on some of Hitler's gun restrictions/registration scheme.
1986 saw a compromise at the national level, loosening some things, but restricting any future machine guns from being introduced into private circulation.
By 1986, concealed carry restrictions were ubiquitous at the state level.
1986 is also when the concealed carry, and other gun control issues, started to reverse at the state level, starting with Florida.
This reversal has continued with most of the states.
1993-1994 saw a national restriction on the introduction of new military style rifles and higher capacity magazines into circulation and a requirement for background checks on handgun purchases.
The restriction on military style rifles was a profound political failure, and a provision in the law (called a "sunset" clause) resulted in the automatic repeal after 10 years.
An important court case in 1997, Printz v. US, clarified that the federal government could not force states (or their political subdivisions) to enforce federal laws (known as the anti-commandeering doctrine).
This was a consequence of the handgun background check requirement.
While most states were becoming more gun friendly over that decade, a few were becoming more restrictive.
Some of the other effects on gun control were due to "rules changes", which is something which falls somewhere between the legislature abdicating its authority and the executive usurping legislative and/or judicial functions.
In the cases of national parks within states and other "federally managed" land (much of the land in the western US is in this category), there are some places where the states have proprietary jurisdiction, some places where the states and national government have joint jurisdiction, and some places where the national government has exclusive jurisdiction.
"Rules" interpretations really start to matter there.
There are also Native American reservations which are technically sovereign nations, having authority over their own people, but are also subject to some national and/or state governments when dealing with those who are outside their tribe, but on their land.
Their gun laws apply, but for the most part, their primary power over those outside their tribe is to evict them from their land.
Some of the restrictions and exemptions in states and national parks have nothing to do with self-protection, they have to do with the taking of wild game and pest control.
State departments of Fish and Game can be quite powerful.
The judicial branch also has a long history of usurping legislative authority.
So, now we have a patchwork of national, state, and tribal laws, as well as some various other laws within some state political subdivisions, due to urban areas wanting different laws than the surrounding state (though this only happens with the permission of the state government).
We also various court cases and regulatory "rules" interpretations complicating matters.
In practice, gun control tends to be more imposed on the sub-populations who favor it.
It tends to be less imposed on the sub-populations who are against it.
Federalism is a wonderful thing.
Gun owners consistently respond to gun control, or threats of gun control, with increased purchases of guns and ammunition.
There are currently at least 310 million legally, privately owned firearms in the USA.
While gun confiscation might be a fantasy for those who would rule, it will never be fully imposed in practice.
The only people with the skill and the will to confiscate them are largely pro-gun.
Hope that helps.
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