Do we really want enforcement of current laws?

[Frank Ettin]

...Georgia passed a law in 1837 banning the sale of pistols small enough to be carried in a pocket or otherwise were concealable. The Georgia Supreme Court overturned it in 1846....

Well, in Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243 (1846) the Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a law banning carrying a concealed gun (while overturning a ban on open carry). So you might have your facts a bit garbled.

 

[44 AMP]

I actually think that vigorous enforcement of existing firearms laws would be a good thing.

The base problem is that gun banner types see that current laws "do not work" (and what law CAN work if it is not enforced?), and so constantly call for new more restrictive laws.

Personally, since we always have had laws that say you cannot shoot people for fun and profit, why do we need ANY gun control law?

Sadly, some people just cannot understand that people who break a high moral law will not obey any other law they consider inconvienient, either.

 

[Old Grump]

Well, in Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243 (1846) the Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a law banning carrying a concealed gun (while overturning a ban on open carry). So you might have your facts a bit garbled.

Nope, just looking at the law from another angle. The law forbid the sale of small cheap guns and only allowed what was commonly called horse pistols. Something a law officer or military man might carry on his horse, not something you would ordinarily walk around doing your daily routine with. Guess who could afford the small pistols but not the big ones. Think of it as their version of the Saturday Night Special Law.

 

[Frank Ettin]

...Nope, just looking at the law from another angle...

Nope, the point is that the Georgia Supreme Court upheld gun control -- a ban on concealed carry. Nunn was cited in Heller. You've cited nothing.

 

[Old Grump]

The Nation’s First Gun Ban

Georgia’s state legislature passed a law in 1837 that banned the sale of knives “used for offensive or defensive purposes” and all pistols except “horseman’s pistols.” Possession of those weapons was also prohibited, unless the weapons were worn in plain sight.

History did not well record the reasoning behind the legislature’s vote. What we do know is that the legislation stood as the law of the land in Georgia for eight years before the state’s supreme court declared it unconstitutional and voided it from the books.

The court ruled that the Second Amendment guaranteed “the right of the whole people, old and young, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not merely such as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in on, in the slightest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying of a well regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free state.”

The court went on to ask, since when does “any legislative body in the Union have the right to deny to its citizens the privilege of keeping and bearing arms in defense of themselves and their country.”

http://civilliberty.about.com/od/guncontrol/a/Gun-Control-History-Georgia-Ban-1837.htm

Don't know what you are looking at but I found several writeups on the 1837 law and this was the end result.

Freed slaves still weren't free to own guns though because in 1877 The Georgia state legislature passed their version of the 2nd amendment and freed slaves were still denied the right to own guns. Gun laws are racist in their origin and that includes the anti-gun laws passed in California when Ronald Reagan was governor. All of them inspired by Bobby Seales and the Black Panthers open display of guns at the capitol.

This is when the NRA got motivated to join in the pro-gun side and fight the anti-gun laws. Besides disarming blacks they would disarm the rest of us too and suddenly the abuses of the state and federal agencies became a big deal to conservatives. There is more to it than that but the point is gun control legislation has been with us for 200 years and it's base is racism.

 

[Come and take it.]

I have yet to see confirmed, fact or otherwise a scientific law which would attest that any gun laws )in this case we are discussing gun restriction laws and not laws which protect freedoms ) have ever prevented crime.

This does not include various peer reviewed articles supporting various hypothesis on the correlation of gun laws and lessoned crime.

Right now we see adults between 18 and 21 denied a right to protect themselves by claiming they have no right to own a handgun at that age. So basically a young lady by herself out in public can easily be checked off by a predator as being someone that at best is armed by pepper spray or a stun gun.

That is sad really. Growing up in the 80s I had in my possession a marlin model 60, a 20 gauge shotgun and a marlin 22 magnum bolt action all at the tender age of 16. At 15 I owned my first gun, a springfield single shot rifle. I stored them in MY room, unsecured in a gun rack. I had my first handgun by my late teens. Was it illegal? I don't know and at the time I frankly didn't care because no one was peeking over my shoulder or taking a 500 dollar payment to turn me in.

Today's societal culture is surreal to a person like me. I have to struggle through culture shock every day. Stuff goes on the likes my generation would have never imagined.

A convicted felon who has done his time has to find a way to protect his family the same as anyone else. Unless of course he is no longer one of the "people". To deny him and his family one of the most basic rights ( a right to life)i.e. a way to protect that life) is a horrible act in my opinion.

Most gun laws do nothing to reduce crime... and we all know it.

Bad guys will get guns even if they have to manufacture a 12 gauge zip gun from a piece of pipe. They will steal if they have to or kill to get one.

 

[Frank Ettin]

Don't know what you are looking at but I found several writeups on the 1837 law and this was the end result.

What you need to read are the actual court opinions. I provided the citation to Nunn, 1 Ga. 243 (1846), and the Georgia Supreme in Nunn upheld the Georgia law banning concealed carry. And in Nunn, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled specifically (at pg 251, emphasis in original):

...We are of the opinion, then, that so far as the act of 1837 seeks to suppress the practice of carrying certain weapons secretly, that it is valid,...

 

[sigcurious]

Right now we see adults between 18 and 21 denied a right to protect themselves by claiming they have no right to own a handgun at that age.

Except that they can own a handgun, and even carry it local laws permitting...

 

[Webleymkv]

A convicted felon who has done his time has to find a way to protect his family the same as anyone else. Unless of course he is no longer one of the "people". To deny him and his family one of the most basic rights ( a right to life)i.e. a way to protect that life) is a horrible act in my opinion.

While I do think that, by virtue of being felonies, some crimes are punished disproportionately, in the case of violent crime I would contend that the felon should have thought about the consequences of his actions before he decided to committ the crime. While I don't think it's right to forever ban an income tax evader from owning a gun, I have absolutely zero problem with doing so to a murderer or rapist (of course, it wouldn't be a problem to begin with if we simply stopped turning the murderers and rapists loose).

 

[Old Grump]

What you need to read are the actual court opinions. I provided the citation to Nunn, 1 Ga. 243 (1846), and the Georgia Supreme in Nunn upheld the Georgia law banning concealed carry. And in Nunn, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled specifically (at pg 251, emphasis in original):

I concur but the point of my post was to show that gun control has been with us for 200 years and Georgia's fix of 1877 still left part of the public in the cold. I was pointing out that certain guns could not be sold and that was overturned. You are concentrating on the concealed carry portion. I admit you are right on that and it is just one of many reasons why I say there are no good gun control laws because they will always be discriminatory and only inconvenience the good people not the criminals.

Shall we discuss the Kentucky law now?

 

[Frank Ettin]

...Shall we discuss the Kentucky law now?...

Nah. My real point was that then, as now, it was something of a mixed bag.

 

[KyJim]

Kentucky case -- that's Bliss v. Commonwealth, 12 Ky. 90, 92 (1822). Under a previous constitution (the state's second), the Court of Appeals (then the state's highest) struck down a statute that prohibited concealed carry while still allowing open carry. The state's third constitution of 1850 retained the right to bear arms subject to the right of the legislature to ban or regulate concealed carry (which is still the same in the current constitution).

While Kentucky was a slave state, there is no indication that the prohibition struck down in 1822 was racially motivated. You're mostly thinking of laws passed in some states post-Civil War. In Kentucky, concealed carry was thought to be cowardly. It may have also contributed to the proliferation of dueling, a historical problem in the state. To this day, the constitutional oath of office includes affirmation that one has not fought a duel nor been a second in one.

I'll just conclude that the state constitutional protections, which the courts enforced in 1822, are part of what makes this a gun friendly state.