A Bit of History

Bang bang. You’re dead.

A Brief History of Guns, Politics and the NRA

“We’ve all seen how quickly and creatively Texas can act when it wants to protect the unborn embryo,” CNN Anchor Alisyn Camerota said on May 25, 2022. “Why not act with that alacrity to protect a living, breathing 10-year old child?” Camerota was referring to Uvalde’s Robb Elementary mass shooting. Nineteen school children and two teachers were killed; 17 others were wounded.

More than 311,000 students have experienced a school shooting since 1999. A mass shooting is de ned as “a gun crime in which four or more people excluding the shooter are killed.” Should returning students learn the particulars of school safety? Absolutely including vocabulary words like shots red, active shooter, dangerous someone; inform, counter, and evacuate.

On May 24, 2022, children were con ned to two Robb Elementary classrooms; held at gunpoint, either dead or pretending death while calling #911 for help. e deceased gunman, age 18, purchased his AR-15 assault style semiautomatic ri e, a ri e akin to the military’s automatic M-16, one day a er his May 17 birthday.

Texas makes it easy to buy and carry guns. Why, the gun lobby is famous for its generosity. “Gun rights groups including the National Ri e Association (NRA) and Gun Owners of America spent $15.8 million—a record amount—on lobbying in 2021,” Open Secrets explained. “Senator Ted Cruz [R-TX] has received more funding…than any other politician since 2012.”

“Have you ever wondered about real guns?” Rachel Schulson’s Guns What You Should Know asks. “A bullet shot from a gun can travel up to 5,000 feet per second. at means that if you and a bullet had a race, the bullet would get to the end of your block before you even took your rst step.”

According to the U.S. Gun Violence Archive the total number of U.S. gun violence deaths from January 1, 2022, to August 15, 2022, (all causes) was 27,514. Of those 45.7% were the result of homicide and murder, or unintentional. e number of children (ages 0-11) killed 213, teens (ages 12-17) killed 843; of mass shootings 411.

Today a grocery store (Walmart, Tops), shopping center (El Paso), movie theater (Aurora), night club (Chattanooga), parade (Highland Park) or hotel (Las Vegas); workplace (Annapolis, Virginia Beach), church (Charleston), synagogue (Pittsburgh), university (Virginia Tech) or school (Columbine and Marjory Stoneman High; Sandy Hook and Robb Elementary) is no longer assumed safe.

On June 1, 2022, four people including two doctors were killed inside a Tulsa, Oklahoma, medical center. On July 4th a 21-year old roo op ri eman killed seven people, injured 38 while watching a parade. Highland Park, Illinois, banned “the manufacturing, selling, giving, lending, acquiring, or possessing the most commonly owned ‘Assault Weapons,’ also Large Capacity Magazines” in 2013. Yet the assailant’s AR-15 assault style ri e was purchased legally— at age 20 with his father’s help.

Amendment 2 of the Constitution’s 1791 Bill of Rights: “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.” e NRA, created by a group of Union o cers in 1871, promotes only “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” e Matchlock Gun describes the muzzle-loading Musket in terms of the 1756 French and Indian War. “Edward watched intently as his father struggled into the blue uniform coat that he had had made when he was elected captain of the Guilderland [NY] militia,” Walter Edmonds wrote. “ e [1752] Spanish gun... hung over the replace…It was longer than a grown man…and more than twice the length of Edward, who was ten years old.”

“As I am convinced that no other Method can be used to raise 2000 Men, but by draughting; I hope to be excused, when I again repeat, how great Care should be observed in choosing active Marksmen,” provincial militiaman George Washington wrote Governor Robert Dinwiddie [VA] in 1756.

“George Washington’s understanding of what we now o en call ‘gun rights’ would not seem to readily square with the views of today’s contending factions,” Je rey L. Zvengrowski Assistant Editor of the Washington Papers con rmed. “He does not appear to have thought that every citizen possessed an unlimited individual right to bear arms.”

“ e Founders never intended to create an unregulated individual right to a gun,” Michael Waldman President of the Brennan Center for Justice wrote in 2014. “ ere is not a single word about an individual’s right to a gun for self-defense or recreation in (James) Madison’s notes from the Constitutional Convention. Nor was it mentioned,

Top 15 career grossing U.S. Senators receiving contributions from the NRA (in descending order): 1. Mitt Romney (R-UT) 2. Richard Burr (R-NC) 3. Roy Blunt (R-MO) 4. Thom Tillis (R-NC) 5. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 6. Joni Ernst (R-IA) 7. Rob Portman (R-OH) 8. Todd Young (R-IN) 9. Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) 10. Tom Cotton (R-AR) 11. Pat Toomey (R-PA) 12. Josh Hawley (R-MO) 13. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) 14. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 15. Ron Johnson (R-WI)

Source: BradyUnited.org

A BIT OF HISTORY > PAGE 9

with a few scattered exceptions, in the rati cation debates in the states. Nor did the U.S. House of Representatives discuss the topic as it marked up the Bill of Rights.”

Four times between 1876 and 1939, the U.S. Supreme Court “declined to rule that the Second Amendment protected gun ownership outside the context of a militia.” As the Tennessee Supreme Court put it in 1840—Aymette v. State, Aymette v. State, 21 Tenn.—“ e words ‘to bear arms’ have —“ e words ‘to bear arms’ have reference to their military use, and were not employed to mean wearing them about the person as part of the dress. To bear arms in defense of the state is to employ them in war.”

“To hold that the Legislature could pass no law…by which to preserve the public peace, and protect our citizens from the terror which a wanton and from the terror which a wanton and unusual exhibition of arms might unusual exhibition of arms might produce…would be to pervert a great produce…would be to pervert a great political right to the worst of purposes,” political right to the worst of purposes,” the Tennessee Supreme Court the Tennessee Supreme Court continued.

“Suppose it were to suit the whim Suppose it were to suit the whim of a set of ru ans to enter the theatre of a set of ru ans to enter the theatre in the midst of the performance, with in the midst of the performance, with drawn swords, guns, and xed bayonets, or to enter the church in the same manner, during service, to the terror of the audience, and this were to become habitual; can it be that it would be beyond the power of the Legislature to pass laws to remedy such an evil?” the Tennessee Supreme Court asked. “Surely not.” (Italics Added) e New York State legislature responded quickly to Bu alo’s May 14, 2022, mass shooting. e June 6 legislative package included June 6 legislative package included “bills to prohibit semiautomatic ri e “bills to prohibit semiautomatic ri e sales to people under 21; ban body armor sales to people under 21; ban body armor sales outside of select professions, and sales outside of select professions, and strengthen the Red Flag Law.” Days later strengthen the Red Flag Law.” Days later the U.S. Supreme Court overturned New the U.S. Supreme Court overturned New York’s restricted gun carry law (NYSRPA York’s restricted gun carry law (NYSRPA v. Bruen). e U.S. Supreme Court did not grant e U.S. Supreme Court did not grant individuals the right to own guns until individuals the right to own guns until 2008 (District of Columbia v. Heller). District of Columbia v. Heller). “ e Court’s opinion should not be “ e Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of prohibitions on the possession of rearms…,” the Justices decided, “or rearms…,” the Justices decided, “or laws forbidding the carrying of rearms in sensitive places…, or laws imposing conditions and quali cations on the commercial sale of arms…U.S. v. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those ‘in common use at the time’ nds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.”

According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation “the U.S. has over 20 million AR-15 assault style ri es legally in circulation.” Yet nine categories of semi-automatic weapons were federally banned starting in 1994. e ban expired in 2004 and the result—a 135% increase in ow. e newly developed Sig Sauer MCX-spear ri e was designed “with direct input from U.S. war ghters.” Commercially available it “delivers improved power, accuracy, and long-range capability.” Bullets when red “travel with twice the kinetic energy” of the traditional AR-15. e Johns Hopkins University Center for Gun Policy and Research 2019 survey discovered “support among gun owners and non-gun owners for more than twenty gun violence prevention

AMERICANS KILL EACH OTHER WITH GUNS 25X THE RATE OF OTHER HIGH-INCOME COUNTRIES EVERY 16 HOURS A WOMAN IS SHOT DEAD BY HER CURRENT OR FORMER PARTNER EVERY DAY 8 CHILDREN AND TEENS ARE SHOT UNINTENTIONALLY BY FAMILY FIRE Source: BradyUnited.org

A BIT OF HISTORY > PAGE 37

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