Controlling Guns, Controlling People

reason.com ^ | January 2012 | Thaddeus Russell

[Macoozie]

I first learned about the contradictions of gun politics when I was about 10 years old, growing up in the radical milieu of 1970s Berkeley. My mother and stepfather were members of a revolutionary organization called the International Socialists. Although the group’s members were mostly bookish nerds with little taste for violence, their inspiration was Leon Trotsky, who led the Bolsheviks’ armed insurrection in 1917 and then headed up the Red Army, which killed hundreds of thousands of the Soviet regime’s opponents in the ensuing civil war. Because my parents’ politics were primarily an exercise in middle-class intellectual fantasy, I was never exposed to real violence or even violent rhetoric, and they never owned a gun.

[Macoozie]

Ronald Reagan signed the bill taking away gun rights in California? I am always amazed at how different the world looks when one looks around. Keep learning, investigate, clarify. This little gem of an article gave me indigestion after a really great dinner.

[hadaclueonce]

if one of the “goobers” decide they are so special that they want to go “third party,” .22 rim fire bullets will be worth more than gold.

[muir_redwoods]

Your best bet to protect the second amendment lies with libertarians not republicans and certainly not democrats. Reagan reacted to the threat of the Panthers failing to recognize that the loss of the second amendment was a much greater threat

[jdsteel]

Cool! How much will .50 cals be worth??? ; )

[elcid1970]

It’s coming, folks, CWII.

And if it’s not, a few cases of vodka half pints (we call em `batwings’ in South Carolina), a few bricks of .22LR, and some 6 oz sealed cans of Bugler don’t take up much space and could be worth their weight in gold.

Cases of vienna sausage won’t hurt, either.

[marktwain]

Ronald Reagan signed the bill taking away gun rights in California? I am always amazed at how different the world looks when one looks around. Keep learning, investigate, clarify. This little gem of an article gave me indigestion after a really great dinner.

Yes. It was one of the first successful ventures in "lawfare" by the Black Panthers. They pushed the right buttons and got the legislatures to take away rights for millions of regular citizens,

[dynachrome]

This is why obozo is the “Firearms Salesman of the Year” again.

[c-b 1]

Ronald Reagan was not a friend of gunowners, as President he also signed the law that ended importation of machine guns.

Not only that he was not a friend of those of us who live on the Mexican Border.

[marktwain]

Remember, c-b 1, that the machinegun ban was part of the 1986 Firearms Owners Protection Act, that reformed the worst abuses of the Gun Control Act of 1968, as I recall. It was a poison pill in an otherwise pretty good bill. Sort of like the end of the Parks gun ban by Obama.