From: dickbash@combatarms.com (Dickbash) Subject: My masters thesis on gun control Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 23:26:05 GMT To: chan@shell.portal.com Dear Jeff: Below is a copy of my masters thesis on gun control I wrote at Cal State (Hayward) for my Masters in Public Administration degree in 1992. I am now a third year student in a Ph.D. program in Public Administration and Policy at Portland State University (Portland, OR). I'd appreciate it you'd put this thesis on your ftp server as BASH.DOC. Thanks and call the BBS sometime. I hope to return to the Bay area after completing this Ph.D. degree (which will be sometime between January and June of next year). You may recall I owned the Combat Arms gun shop in Castro Valley. I will probably open another shop after I get settled down there. Thanks for your assistance. Regards, Richard Bash +.........................................................+ . dickbash@combatarms.com Combat Arms BBS . . Voice: 1-503-223-3160 P.O. Box 913 . . BBS: 1-503-221-1777 Portland, OR 97201 . +.........................................................+ AMERICA'S GUN CONTROL POLICY: AN EXAMINATION OF INFLUENCING FACTORS 컴컴컴컴컴 A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of The Department of Public Administration at California State University, Hayward 컴컴컴컴컴 In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Public Administration 컴컴컴컴컴 by Richard Meek Bash June, 1992 Copyright � 1992 by Richard Meek Bash ABSTRACT This paper reviews the historical, constitutional and legal factors behind today's gun control policy. The historical review extends from the ninth century and emphasis is placed upon the time surrounding the few years before the American Revolution in the 1770s. Exploring the political environment in which the Second Amendment was written, the concept of the militia and its necessity are explained. All of the major U.S. Supreme Court cases that address the Second Amendment to Constitution are reviewed. The relationship (and relevance) between the 14th Amendment and the Second Amendment is examined. In California, the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 and the legal challenges to it are detailed, as well as a few of the important mass murders that precipitated the legislation. The aspects of the firearm being a part of the cultural struggle to define the kind of nation America should be are inspected. The argument is presented that the estimated 20,000 federal, state and local laws regulating firearms often overlap each other. Combining to become a general statement of governmental policy, namely that the possession and use of firearms is of such paramount importance in American society that government must respond and legislate this activity, the various regulations attempt to determine who may and may not possess firearms as well as what firearms are eligible for possession by the general population. But regulations and laws at every level have failed to stem the tide of the growing criminal misuse of firearms. This raises the questions of whether or not our efforts to regulate firearms have been successful, whether the various legislators, invested with the responsibility of providing reasonable and effective laws, can stop the criminal use of firearms and how we arrived at such a predicament in the first place. The paper investigates the relationship between gun control and homicide rates, with emphasis on acquaintance murders. The paper concludes that the formulation of the gun control policy in America has been less than successful. AMERICA'S GUN CONTROL POLICY: AN EXAMINATION OF INFLUENCING FACTORS by Richard Meek Bash Approved: Date: Dr. Jay Umeh June 10, 1992 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� Thesis advisor PREFACE A person interested in exploring the area of public policy relating to gun control should logically ask what are the indicators of governmental policy in that regard. My review indicates that one principal indicator is obviously the legislation created by federal, state and local governments. There is a plethora of legislation throughout the United States on firearms regulation. Several reports indicate that today over 20,000 separate laws are on the books of the various levels of government addressing the issue of gun control.[1] If we can agree that legislation/law is a major indicator of policy, then it follows that one must ask if the policy is, to any considerable degree, "successful." The print and electronic medias are alive with reports of crime and the illegal use of firearms throughout America. A casual observer, let alone an academic researcher, would have to surmise that whatever policy is in effect, it is a decided failure, since the issue of gun control continues to surface in the media as well as scholarly publications while the reports of misuse of firearms grows and the cries for still more control over firearms in the hands of the public mount. Amid this panoply of confusion comes the question of whether or not the growing number of control measures against firearms infringes upon the constitutional rights spelled out in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. This paper reviews the development of the Second Amendment, how it is spoken to by the Supreme Court and the practical relevance of their statements. This section of material is contrasted with the demands of pro-gun and anti-gun forces as well as applicable statistical data. Upon completing the reading of this paper, the reader is asked if he feels that the enumerated policy, whatever that policy might be, on firearms control is effective and reasonable. We suggest herewith that the answer on the reader's part (as it is on ours) will be a decided, "No." We live in an age where sexist barriers are being broken down. However, I personally find it difficult to write a lengthy and meaningful paper if I must continually dodge accusations of bias by using awkward phraseology. Accordingly, please note that all references to "he," "him," "himself," etc. are not intended to be gender specific unless required by the context in which they are used. All such references otherwise apply to feminine gender and have been used as an aid to alleviate the cumbersomeness of denoting the "he/she" sort of notation that has grown in popularity. Should the reader be sensitive to such matters, I reiterate that no predisposition was in any way implied during the writing of this document. In my view, the rights to life and liberty, and the responsibilities for maintaining such rights, apply equally to both sexes. Richard Bash Hayward, California June, 1992 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to the efforts of the National Rifle Association, their Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) and the Second Amendment Foundation for providing me with data for this publication. Additionally, I salute those unnamed visionaries at California State University (Hayward) who had the keen foresight to provide the student population with access to Lexis, regardless of the limitations of that provisioning. This publication would have been far different were it not for the kindnesses, help and assistance provided by my thesis chairman, Dr. Jay Umeh. The efforts and cooperation of Mark Goldberg and Ron Bingham in proofreading this material improved the grammar and sentence structure. Alex Riggs, a fellow BBS system operator, assisted by printing the master copy on his laser printer. Finally, I wish to thank my wife, Flora, for running our business singlehandedly while I put the finishing touches to this paper. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii PREFACE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii LIST OF FIGURES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x CHAPTER 1 - Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 RESEARCH FOCUS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 JUSTIFICATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 USE OF FIREARMS TO FILL NEEDS DURING GOVERNMENTAL INACTION. . . . . 6 LAW ENFORCEMENT VIEWS ON SELF-PROTECTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 HOMICIDE RATES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 INTRAFAMILY KILLINGS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 CHAPTER 2 - Literature Review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 HISTORICAL FACTORS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Early English Historical Foundations Prior to the Colonization of America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Events in Pre-Revolutionary War America. . . . . . . . . . . .17 Gun Control in 17th Century Virginia. . . . . . . . . . .17 The Taking Up of Arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 The Declaration of Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 CONSTITUTIONAL FACTORS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 The Difficulties of Ratification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 The Demand for a Bill of Rights. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 LEGAL FACTORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 U.S. Supreme Court Firearms Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 Barron v. Baltimore. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 Dred Scott v. Sandford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 U.S. v. Cruikshank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 Presser v. Illinois. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43 Miller v. Texas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 U.S. v. Miller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 The Government and the Militia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 Pivotal Firearms Crimes Since 1984. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 James Oliver Huberty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 Patrick Edward Purdy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989. . . . . . . . . .52 CHAPTER 3 - Biases and Assessment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 THE AUTHOR'S BIAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 BIAS IN OTHER RESEARCH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 WEIGHING THE FACTORS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63 CHAPTER 4 - Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72 REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 UNDERSTANDING LEGAL CASE CITATIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 ROBERTI-ROOS ASSAULT WEAPONS CONTROL ACT OF 1989. . . . . . . . . 104 THE WAR INEVITABLE SPEECH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 THE NATIONAL FIREARMS ACT OF 1934 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 INDEX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 - Homicide Rates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 CHAPTER 1 - Introduction INTRODUCTION Today throughout the United States there are federal, state and local laws addressing the regulation of firearms. Every agency from the United States Congress to the smallest city council seems to have written laws on the subject. Such laws often overlap each other. These laws combine to become a general statement of governmental policy, namely that the possession and use of firearms is of such paramount importance in American society that government must respond and legislate this activity. The overall design of the various regulations attempts to determine who may and may not possess firearms as well as what firearms are eligible for possession by the general population. The thrust of these regulations is to penalize those in possession of firearms who are deemed ineligible to possess them, provide additional penalties for their misuse and make known to government who is in possession of such weapons. The United States appears unique among the family of nations when it comes to the issue of guns. America, unlike the countries of Europe, was founded after the development of firearms and firearms were an integral part of the founding of this country. They were used to "tame" the wilderness, to expand the geographical boundaries of the nation, as an implement to provide food for people, and to repel aggressors. America seems to stand out as a country more than a little infatuated with firearms. Firearms were so critical in the early days of the United States that the Founding Fathers even made provisions for them in the amendments to the Constitution: 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.[2] But firearms are not used in the United States solely to merely repel invaders, to gather food or to defend one's life and property. They are also used to settle disputes and that results in a death rate from firearms unlike any other country. Every year some 30,000 Americans die from firearm related injuries (about 16,000 suicides, 12,000 legal or illegal homicides and 2,000 accidents). Another 40,000 survive firearm-related injuries.[3] The criminal use of firearms is rampant in America, with criminals generally seeming to prefer the easy concealability of handguns to rifles or shotguns. There are an estimated 60,000,000 handguns in the United States in 1992.[4] But regulations and laws at every level have failed to stem the tide of the criminal misuse of firearms. Barely a day goes by that the television news does not tell us of yet another instance of death from a firearm. Police arrest wrongdoers who have used a firearm in the commission of a crime, courts sentence them and the ranks of the penal institutions swell to house the offenders. Taxes are raised. Bonds are issued. New correctional facilities are erected and rapidly fill. Proponents of both sides of the gun control argument have lobbied the nation's leaders with arguments both brilliant and asinine. Statistics, generated with the rapidity of stock market averages, are presented to validate both sides of the gun control argument. Editorials of newspapers and magazines discuss gun control, law school journal articles explore the legal and constitutional ramifications of gun control, scholarly research publications address the issue, unending surveys poll the citizenry about their attitudes regarding one gun control issue or another, and pamphlets from gun control advocates and their opponents are received weekly by their respective supporters. More laws get passed as the result of such efforts. Yet, the phenomena of the criminal use of firearms goes unabated. This raises the questions of whether or not our efforts to regulate firearms have been successful, whether the various legislators, invested with the responsibility of providing reasonable and effective laws, can stop the criminal use of firearms and how we arrived at such a predicament in the first place. America, compared to the vast majority of civilized nations throughout the world, is still in its infancy. The firearm is a "symbol of a much larger ongoing political, social, and cultural struggle -- kulturkampf -- to define the kind of nation America should be."[5] America stands alone as the sole industrial, first world country that maintains a gun culture.[6] This cultural struggle is one of fundamental interest to American citizens and public administrators alike. America's gun position is both a statement of the freedom her citizens enjoy and a testimonial to her inability to control the criminal misuse of firearms. RESEARCH FOCUS The purpose of this thesis is to review the gun control policy within the United States. We argue that the formulation of the gun control policy in America has been less than successful. It thus becomes a matter of importance to today's public administrator. It is the contention of this study that the difficulty in formulating a "good" policy of gun control is, to a large degree, a function of several factors: historical (such as the early English historical foundations prior to the colonization of America in the 1600s and specific events in America preceding the Revolutionary War), legal (e.g., certain legal cases of the 19th and 20th century Supreme Court that relate to firearms), and constitutional factors (i.e., the Second and Fourteenth Amendments). We are also in a different time frame, a turbulent time, and need to re-examine these factors to see if the present justifications for a gun control policy are at odds with the guarantees granted the American citizen through the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Although these factors may have been examined before,[7,8,9,10,11] we have been unable to locate a work that consolidated these factors under one roof. By discussing these factors together, a different view is presented; the material is examined through a different set of lenses. We believe that by making this consolidation, a better understanding of the relationship between these factors and policy formulation may be obtained. JUSTIFICATION This work will provide the interested reader and public administrator with additional insights into the imbroglio that resulted from what the author perceives as the failure of America's gun control policy. The issue of gun control is one of public policy. It is hoped that this study will enable the public administrator interested in public policy issues to gain a greater insight into some of the confusion in this area. The confused state of affairs resulting from the policy failure has polarized far too many people on both sides of the issue in America, including the advocates of a right to keep and bear arms by failing to recognize the critical importance of the private ownership of firearms, the proponents of gun control by failing to provide a uniformity of laws on the issue, the nation as a whole by both failing to provide a leader with sufficient courage to deal with the issue and failing to protect the general public from the criminal misuse of firearms and, finally, has cost untold lives and billions of dollars. By conducting a review of some of these historical, legal and constitutional issues, this paper serves to assist in explaining the nature of events shaping the gun control policy debate raging today. From this paper it is hoped that others will follow and explore to greater depth some of the areas discussed herein. We begin the task of our assessment by examining the current state of affairs and policy. On April 30, 1992, a riot broke out in the south- central part of Los Angeles, California. For nearly three days a multi-racial underclass[12] of people burned, looted and murdered in America's second largest city. The Los Angeles police were shown on news reports as standing about, far outnumbered, often with their arms folded, hoping that somehow the violence would end. And end it did. But it first necessitated that the Governor of California, Pete Wilson, call out the National Guard. Next, President of the United States George Bush sent in some 4,000 Marines and Army combat troops from California bases, 1,000 members of numerous federal law enforcement agencies, nationalized the California National Guard (to put it under the same command structure as the Marine and Army troops) and had other forces in reserve to assist in quelling the rioting. A total of 12,900 troops were committed to the area, all of this during a presidential election year. The media stated that this conflagration was in response to a verdict in a trial of four white Los Angeles police officers who were videotaped subduing a black parolee, Rodney King, who refused to submit to arrest for what the police officers perceived as felonies. The officers were charged with various degrees of assault and the use of excessive force. The prosecution failed to make its case and the jury in Simi Valley, where the trial was moved on a change of venue, generally acquitted the officers.[13] Alexander Hamilton foresaw such need to call in federal troops over two hundred years ago when he declared in Federalist Paper No. 28: "That there may happen cases in which the national government may be necessitated to resort to force, cannot be denied. Our own experience has corroborated the lessons taught by the examples of other nations; that emergencies of this sort will sometimes arise in all societies, however constituted; that seditions and insurrections are, unhappily, maladies as inseparable from the body politic as tumors and eruptions from the natural body; that the idea of governing at all times by the simple force of law (which we have been told is the only admissible principle of republican government), has no place but in the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity distains the admonitions of experimental instruction. Should such emergencies at any time happen under the national government, there could be no remedy but force. The means to be employed must be proportioned to the extent of the mischief. If there should be a slight commotion in a small part of a State, the militia of the residue would be adequate to its suppression; and the natural presumption is that they would be ready to do their duty. An insurrection, whatever may be its immediate cause, eventually endangers all government. Regard to the public peace, if not to the rights of the Union, would engage the citizens to whom the contagion had not communicated itself to oppose the insurgents; and if the general government should be found in practice conducive to the prosperity and felicity of the people, it would be irrational to believe that they would be disinclined to its support.[14] But before the arrival of such troops, chaos reigned. During the rioting, in which well over one-half billion dollars in damage was caused, nearly 60 people were brutally murdered by the rioters, at least 2,328 persons injured (226 critically), over 11,800 members of this underclass arrested, and not less than 5,273 buildings damaged or destroyed by fire. Many nonparticipants in the rioting defended their businesses, homes and lives with firearms.[15] USE OF FIREARMS TO FILL NEEDS DURING GOVERNMENTAL INACTION The tragedy of a moment which causes a person to resort to the use of firearms to defend himself cannot be disputed. However, there are times when reason is seemingly cast to the winds and, furthermore, that there exists such an underclass of persons within society who would do harm to a member of the law abiding community or would deprive such law abiding community member of his property or peace. Further, it must be noted that government is not, wishful thinking to the contrary, either able or obligated to defend or protect any specific member of society. The State of California has even enacted laws that specify that the state and local governments are not liable to provide police protection. Most other states (about 37) have similar statutes, while those that do not (about 13) have case law which is substantially similar. Thus, in all jurisdictions, the public authority is not liable for lack of protection.[16] Further, California, by way of example, has clearly explained its position in this context in its California Government Code, to wit: 845 Failure to provide police protection Neither a public entity nor a public employee is liable for failure to establish a police department or otherwise provide police protection service or, if police protection service is provided, for failure to provide sufficient police protection service. 846 Failure to make arrest or to retain person arrested in custody Neither a public entity nor a public employee is liable for injury caused by the failure to make an arrest or by the failure to retain an arrested person in custody.[17] Los Angeles city government not only demonstrated its inability to effectively deal with the insurrection within its jurisdiction, but its inability was legally supported by law which made that municipal government not liable for the failure to provide adequate services. This inadequacy is quite apparent to the citizenry, in that a significant proportion of any given segment of the American population possesses one or more firearms. Thus we arrive at the precipice of a dichotomy: local and state government, seemingly unable to provide for the defense and protection of its citizenry, confronts a group of subjects who seek to provide their own assurances of safety through the purchase of a firearm. This, in turn, has forced government to attempt to regulate this sphere of activity because the underclass, too, seeks to protect itself in its day to day dealings with the denizens of its environment and, accordingly, strives to obtain firearms. LAW ENFORCEMENT VIEWS ON SELF-PROTECTION This view of the inability of government to provide for the protection of those under its domain is readily verified by law enforcement: A poll taken for the National Association of Chiefs of Police surveyed heads of more than 15,400 U.S. law enforcement agencies and found that 87 percent think citizens "should take training in self-defense with firearms to protect their homes and property". The poll showed that 83.6 percent believe the criminal justice system has broken down to the point that its inability to prosecute and imprison criminals is the major cause of crime, and 95.1 percent said that courts are "too soft on criminals in general". Nearly 90 percent believed their own departments are understaffed and three out of four said that they cannot provide the same level of service as a decade ago, the survey said.[18] Is the ability of the gun owner to provide himself protection a mere myth? There is evidence strongly suggesting that is not the case: Ever since guns became the bete noire of those now mustered under the gun-control banderole, a number of myths about guns have shot their way into the lore about American crime and violence. While some anti-gun propagandists have portrayed gun enthusiasts as nativist vigilantes, others have been unloading bogus statistics on the public with the firing rate of a Gatling gun. ...the Pacific Institute for Public Policy released Don Kates' report exploding many myths the public has come to associate with guns in general and gun crime in particular. The gist of Mr. Kates' work, that gun-control laws inevitably fail, isn't new. What is new is the way he proves that point. Mr. Kates takes to task what he calls the anti-gun bigot, who fears guns and cannot understand "why anyone should own a weapon in a democracy." He pokes fun at Freudians who believe guns symbolize the male appendage. He even shoots down the gun-control lobby's statistics on gun crime and violence. For instance, gun-control groups frequently claim that increasing gun ownership during the 1960's boosted the nationwide murder rate, yet from 1968 to 1988, when the "handgun stock" in America shot up some 40 million guns, handgun homicides stabilized, then dropped dramatically. Gun-control advocates say guns don't provide protection for owners, yet in 83 percent of the cases in which armed victims confront criminals, the assailant surrenders or flees. 98% of gun- owners are law-abiding citizens. Mr. Kates rightly asks: Why should we confiscate their guns.[19] HOMICIDE RATES Is there any other statistical evidence available to support the proposition that firearms in the possession of the citizenry works in their defense? Look for a moment at the homicide rates for the period 1980-1990:[20] FIGURE 1 11� � � 10� 栢� � 栢� 複� � 栢� 栢� 9� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� � 栢� 栢� 栢� 複� 栢� � 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 複� 栢� 栢� 8� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� � 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� � 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 栢� 7읕컴쩡컴컫컴컴쩡컴컫컴컴쩡컴컫컴컴쩡컴컫컴컴쩡컴컫컴컴쩡컴 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 Homicide Rates per 100,000 Population 1980-1990 This convenient chart graphically illustrates that there has not been any "significant increase in homicides in the 1980s. The homicide rate for 1985 through 1990 is 12% below the homicide rate of 1980. If one were to take out the top ten American cities, which have all been controlled by the Democratic Party for years, the national homicide rates of the 1980s would decrease by 27%."[21] It is conceded that from 1985 to 1990 there has been an increase but the overall homicide rate for the 10 year period is decidedly down. Interestingly, the "assault rifle" homicide rate for all the 1980s was less than 1%.[22] INTRAFAMILY KILLINGS Another view pertains to the use of firearms in domestic and acquaintance murders.[23] There have been numerous arguments calling for a severe restriction on firearms or their ban altogether based on the belief that such restrictions or bans, particularly on handguns, would significantly reduce the killings of people known to the shooter. One organization, Handgun Control Inc., has repeatedly expressed that view in their literature. Since the growth of the women's movement in the past 30 years, more women are presenting that argument. Many studies in a variety of disciplines have been reported in the literature that women are often the targets of domestic and acquaintance violence. Such violence occasionally leads to death at the hands of the perpetrator. It would seem prudent to examine the charge that the possession of firearms by the general population is not primarily used for defense against intruders but against persons known to the assailant. ...The anti-gun crusaders claim most murders result from gun ownership among ordinary citizens: "That gun in the closet to protect against burglars will most likely be used to shoot a spouse in a moment of rage ... The problem is you and me--law-abiding folks."[24] If this latter charge is valid, the application of gun control restrictions should reduce the number of such killings. While it would not impact the murders by "hardened criminals, terrorists, and assassins,"[25] it would protect against spousal and acquaintance murders caused by inflamed passions and the ready availability of a firearm, according to Don Kates. If this portrayal of murderers were true, a gun ban might drastically reduce murder because the primary perpetrators (law-abiding citizens) might give up guns even though [criminals] would not. Unfortunately for this appealingly simple nostrum, every national and local study of homicide reveals that murderers are not ordinary citizens--nor are they people who are likely to comply with gun laws. Murderers (and fatal gun accident perpetrators) are atypical, highly aberrant individuals whose spectacular indifference to human life, including their own, is evidenced by life histories of substance abuse, automobile accident, felony [arrests], and attacks on relatives and acquaintances.[26] So, sadly, murderers and their ilk do indeed exist, and not in small, manageable numbers either. One special data collection computer analysis from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)[27] showed that 74.7% of the people arrested over a four year period nationwide for murder had prior arrest records for either burglary or one or more violent felonies. This finding suggests that, in order to prevent these elements from committing criminal homicide (all killings are legally considered homicide; some are legal and justified, such as self-defense, police shootings or court mandated executions), society must somehow reach these people during the early stages of their criminal careers and turn them around. Untold billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on such efforts with obvious failure. But if we were totally unable to prevent a murder by a hardened criminal, then is there hope that gun control or even a gun ban could reduce the number of spousal killings? That is an arguable proposition. The problem rests in the background data on prior instances of violence perpetrated by intrafamily murderers. Because attacks on spouses or other immediate family members are often not reported to law enforcement agencies, thus signifying that there may be no prior arrest records, such killings are often found to be the first recorded incident of crime by the assailant. However, many times there are records of police responding to domestic disputes involving that individual and no arrest was performed or warranted at that time. Intrafamily murderers are especially likely to have engaged in far more previous violent crimes than show up in their arrest records. But because these attacks were on spouses or other family members, they will rarely have resulted in an arrest. So domestic murderers' official records tend not to show their full prior violence, but only their adult arrests for attacking people outside their families. Therefore, only about "70 to 75 percent of domestic homicide offenders have been previously arrested and about half previously convicted." As to how many crimes they perpetrate within the family, even in a relatively short time, "review of police records in Detroit and Kansas City" shows that in 90 percent of the cases of domestic homicide, police had responded at least once to a disturbance call at the home during the two-year period prior to the fatal incident, and in over half (54 percent) of the cases, they had been called five or more times. In contrast to these evaluations, neither of the data sets, which are cited as supporting claims that murderers "are good citizens who kill each other," is persuasive. The National Coalition to Ban Handguns' assertion that "most murders are committed by a relative or close acquaintance of the victim" is conceptually unpersuasive because it is a non sequitur: it simply does not follow that because a murderer knows or is related to his victims, he must be an ordinary citizen rather than a long-time criminal. The conclusion would make sense only if ordinary citizens differed from criminals by neither knowing anyone nor being related to anyone.[28] The Bureau of Justice Statistics, a division of the National Institute of Justice (itself a department within the federal Department of Justice) refutes the presumption that homicide is caused wholly or in substantial part because of the handiness of the firearm. It is commonly hypothesized that much criminal violence, especially homicide, occurs simply because the means of lethal violence (firearms) are readily at hand and, thus, that much homicide would not occur were firearms generally less available. There is no persuasive evidence that supports this view.[29] But does the possession of firearms by the civilian population deter crime at all? In Kennesaw, Georgia the city council passed an ordinance that required every citizen to possess a firearm. What were the results of that move? Kennesaw, Georgia gained national attention in 1982 when it passed a law requiring every homeowner to own a gun and has some interesting statistics to revel. Since passage of the law, reports Mark Curriden in The Dallas Morning News, the community north of Atlanta has experienced a single, non-gun homicide and a reduction in home burglaries from 11 per 1,000 residents to 3 per 1,000 during a period when the town population has nearly doubled to 9,000 residents.[30] Thus far we have seen that laws in and of themselves do not reduce firearms violence, with the possible exception of the Kennesaw ordinance. The reader is implored to understand that criminals are quite literally in the "business" of crime and, by definition, are not expected to follow the prose of the penal code. Were they to do so, they would not be criminals. Compounding law on top of law will never impact those who break the law routinely. And so it is that the solution cannot be found in yet more laws or regulations. These laws are, on the face of them, written as punishments for those who violate them and as guidelines for social behavior for those who would not break them in any event. America cannot depend upon lawmakers to solve a problem that is sociological in nature. Nor can we expect to remedy the problem by pouring yet more money into the construction of penal institutions and incarcerating violators. Eventually the violator will be released, having successfully completed what amounts to graduate school for criminals. Rehabilitation efforts thus far have been futile. If there is a possibility that a form of rehabilitation will consistently work, it has yet to be tried. Next we will explore the literature reviewed and its relationship to the gun control debate. CHAPTER 2 - Literature Review INTRODUCTION We turn now to an examination of some of the historical foundations of firearms in the American culture and body politic. Like segments of a mandarin orange, these elements are individually unique and serve to comprise the basis for our present legal dilemma: to what extent are "reasonable" restrictions on access to firearms possible when viewed against the historical, constitutional, and legal framework of the United States? Can the general public accept a uniform policy of gun control restrictions commensurate with the freedoms they currently enjoy in this country? We explore this area next. HISTORICAL FACTORS Early English Historical Foundations Prior to the Colonization of America Nearly 1,100 years ago in ancient England, the laws of King Alfred (871-899) laid out the first arms controls: The laws...prohibited fighting or drawing a weapon in the king's hall, lending a weapon with evil intent to another for purposes of murder, the use by a sword polisher of another's weapon to commit a crime, and disturbing a public meeting by drawing a weapon.[31] A bit more than one hundred years later came the Laws of Cnut (1020-1023). Here was added a law that specified that to illegally disarm a man required the payment of a fine as restitution.[32] With the passage of another century and a half came the Assize of Arms of 1181. This laid the foundation for arming specified people in the realm to act in defense of King Henry II. Interestingly, the Assize of Arms also denoted that such arms be passed to the holder's heirs in the event of the holder's death.[33] But the restrictions on arms grew and this was the first act that specified who could not bear arms. The Assize of Arms also discriminated against Jews living in England with the prohibition: 7. Item, let no Jew keep in his possession a hauberk or an aubergel, but let him sell or give them away or otherwise dispose of them that they may remain in the king's service.[34] Note that a hauberk is a jacket made of chain mail and that an aubergel is a breast plate. These were not even weapons but what we today would call body armor (the 12th century version of the bullet proof vest, if you will). Thus, this proscription took from the Jews of that era defensive armor. While not totally disarming the Jews, it certainly changed the balance of warfare, for in 1189 the entirety of the Jewish population of York was exterminated at the hands of a riotous mob.[35] Deja vu? The Assize of Arms of 1189 ultimately placed upon the subjects of King Henry II the obligation, with certain exceptions, to individually possess arms for the defense of the monarch. This was tantamount to forming a militia. King Henry II eventually died, to be replaced by King John. John's reign was oppressive and in 1215 an insurrection occurred. After the rebellion, the king's barons demanded and received a list of rights. These were known collectively as the Magna Carta ("Great Charter"). Among the rights specified was the right of the barons to correct the king, by force if necessary. We will later see parallels to this in America's Bill of Rights. Firearms were introduced into England in the late 1400s.[36] Prior to that the crossbow was considered the ultimate weapon, and dreaded as today's media fears the infamous "assault rifle." The English kings had serious penalties for the unauthorized use of the crossbow. But the coming of firearms assigned the bow and arrow a second class status. Fearful that such weaponry as firearms in the hands of unhappy peasants could signal the demise of his reign, the ever conservative and infamous King Henry VIII required that firearms be restricted to the nobility (circa 1524).[37] Slowly this hold was relaxed and, by 1541, King Henry VIII permitted all of his subjects to have firearms, merely restricting them to minimum lengths. As today, handguns were a concern to King Henry VIII as well and he prohibited the lower classes (those persons not owning property valued at �100 or more) from carrying handguns on their persons. This distinction seems to make King Henry VIII the forerunner of handgun regulation. Here was one of the most despotic of history's monarchs but in the face of the commoners' interest in firearms, no regulations seemed to control them and, after 35 years of such failed regulatory efforts, the citizens of England, realizing that such laws were not enforceable, effectively ignored them.[38] England experienced its first revolution during 1642- 1660 but that did not result in equal rights for the commoners. Following this initial English Revolution, King Charles II came to power with his notorious prime minister, Oliver Cromwell. ...in 1662 Charles II passed a militia bill which empowered certain officials "to search for and seize all arms in the custody or possession of any person or persons whom the said lieutenant or any two or more of their deputies shall judge dangerous to the peace of the kingdom..." In 1670, for the first time in English history, Charles II sought to deprive all commoners of all firearms by legislation.[39] Needless to say, Charles' reign was not destined to last and the Catholic James II replaced him in 1685. King James II naturally targeted Protestants as the object of disarmament, in addition to all commoners (while protecting Catholics). Further, the size's of the monarch's standing army continued to grow during the disarmament. Three years after James II assumed the throne, the English had their Glorious Revolution in 1688, forced King James II to abdicate and replaced him with King William and Queen Mary. The House of Commons debate of January 28, 1689 discussed the grievous attempts by James II to disarm the English people and prepared a declaration of the rights of the English people.[40] Later the House of Lords amended the declarations passed in Commons, with the net result being the English Bill of Rights. William and Mary had to sign an agreement to the Bill of Rights for the people before they were allowed the throne. The English Bill of Rights would later find its way into America's Bill of Rights. Central to the interest of this paper, the English Bill of Rights included text which would later become elements of our Constitution and Bill of Rights as well: 6. That the raising or keeping of a standing Army within the Kingdom in Time of Peace, unless it be with the Consent of Parliament, is against Law. 7. That the Subjects which are Protestants, may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their condition, and as are allowed by Law.[41] Over the next decade, several attempts were made by the monarchy to create a standing army. The English Parliament repeatedly defeated these attempts. Furthermore, Parliament left the English people with an individual right to have and bear arms. Later English courts examined cases, reviewed these rights and established the English common law right of the private individual to keep and bear arms. This section has illustrated the beginnings of the growth of legislation designed to disenfranchise the common people from accessing arms and how it has been used to selectively deprive targeted groups of these implements of defense. We have seen the foundations of the resistance to a standing army and the implementations of declared rights to arms for the general population. Events in Pre-Revolutionary War America Gun Control in 17th Century Virginia English colonies were being established in America during the reign of Charles II. When, in 1671, his government passed legislation to disarm the subjects in England, a similar effort was advanced by his governing party in the Virginia colony, headed by Sir William Berkeley, to disarm the native American Indians. English colonists in Virginia were permitted to carry arms but selling arms to Indians was a capital crime. Berkeley's governorship must have been very repressing to the commoners among the Virginia colonists, for in 1676 a revolt led by a colonist named Bacon (Bacon's Rebellion) challenged Berkeley's authority. Berkeley won the contest. His gun control act of 1677 limited the gathering of armed persons to five; more than that was considered to be a group plotting riot.[42] The next probable instance of gun control in the United States also occurred in Virginia. The Virginia Act of 1680 "prohibited slaves from carrying any staff, gun, sword, or other weapon, offensive or defensive. These prohibitions were later extended to all negroes, mulattoes and Indians whomsoever, with a few exceptions in favor of housekeepers, residents on a frontier plantation, and such as were enlisted in the militia."[43] Nearly 100 years later Boston citizens were complaining about, among other issues, the presence of a British standing army. When the number of British troops increased, Boston called for its population to arm itself. A riot ensued in 1770 (Boston Massacre) and the British fired upon the colonists. In the process of the riot, the British killed the first black patriot, Crispus Attucks. The soldier who shot Attucks was tried for manslaughter and convicted. Cousins John and Samuel Adams worked as defense and prosecution. In speaking of Crispus Attucks, defense counsel Samuel Adams said: [Mr. Attucks] was leaning upon his stick when he fell, which certainly was not a threatening posture; It may be supposed that he had as good right, by the law of the land, to carry a stick for his own and his neighbor's defence, in a time of such danger, as the soldier who shot him had, to be arm'd with musket and ball, for the defence of himself and his friend the Centinel: And if he at any time, lifted up his weapon of defence, it was surely, not more than a Soldiers levelling his gun charg'd with death at the multitude: If he had killed a Soldier, he might have been hanged for it, and as a traitor too; for even to attack a Soldier on his post, was pronouc'd treason: The Soldier shot Attucks, who was at a distance from him, and killed him,--and he was convicted of Manslaughter.[44] Conditions calmed in the colonies after the Boston incident and remained relatively quiet through 1773. The rebellious and vocal Samuel Adams engaged Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson in a debate regarding the nature of the British Empire (initiated by Hutchinson). The argument centered on whether Parliament had authority over the colonies or whether the colonies were autonomous.[45] But the end of 1773 witnessed the rise of rebellion again as the colonists fought against the passage of the Stamp Act by staging the Boston Tea Party in December. The British retaliated in 1774 by passing the Boston Port Act (March 31, 1774) and closing Boston's harbor. Additional British troops arrived on scene and the Quartering Act of June 2, 1774 permitted British royal troops to be housed by the citizens whenever it was deemed necessary. These acts and others that year precipitated the formation of the First Continental Congress in September, 1774, which assembled together in Philadelphia the likes of Roger Sherman (Connecticut), Samuel and John Adams (Massachusetts), John Jay and Philip Livingston (New York), John Dickinson and Joseph Galloway (Pennsylvania), Stephen Hopkins (Rhode Island), John Rutledge (South Carolina), and George Washington, Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry (Virginia).[46] It is interesting to note that during this period King George III reigned in England and, when advised that the colonists had guns, asked his ministers to determine where they had obtained them. Told that the guns were ordered from England, King George III, in 1774, ordered that the import of the weapons to the colonies be prohibited[47] (as a footnote on history, another George--George Bush--ordered the importation of assault rifles into the United States banned in March, 1989[48]). With the shortage of arms rearing its head, independent militias throughout the colonies began to form. By 1775 the military occupation of Boston was so complete that in order for a resident to leave the city, he had to surrender his arms. Thousands of people, fearing for their lives, applied for exit passes. Each pass granted to leave Boston was annotated with British General Thomas Gage's order that "No arms nor ammunition is allowed to pass."[49] Gage's seizure of the privately owned arms was so offensive to the senses that, later, Colonel John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson included reference to the incident in the document they jointly prepared to list their reasons for taking up arms against the British (the Declaration of Causes of Taking up Arms of July 6, 1775. The first attempt at drafting such a declaration was by Thomas Jefferson, but was ruled far too militant. A second attempt was made by Colonel Dickinson, known for earlier pamphlets in which he called himself "The Farmer." The final result was apparently a combination of both writers.). The inhabitants of Boston being confined within that town by the general their governor, and having, in order to procure their dismission, entered into a treaty with him, it was stipulated that the said inhabitants having deposited their arms with their own magistrate, should have liberty to depart, taking with them their other effects. They accordingly delivered up their arms, but in open violation of honour, in defiance of the obligation of treaties, which even savage nations esteemed sacred, the governor ordered the arms deposited as aforesaid, that they might be preserved for their owners, to be seized by a body of soldiers; detained the greatest part of the inhabitants in the town, and compelled the few who were permitted to retire, to leave their most valuable effects behind.[50] Meanwhile, George Mason of Virginia began writing his plan for the Fairfax County Militia. It was he who penned those words that would, when modified by James Madison, later evolve into the wording of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. It was in Mason's works that the "well regulated militia" appeared. It was in Mason that we discover the verbiage and thought necessitating the armed citizenry on the eve of revolution.[51] The equally eloquent Samuel Adams, about the same time, wrote the Mohawk Indians that guns would soon be manufactured domestically and supplied to them, in an attempt to enlist their aid.[52] Patrick Henry (1736-1799) gave his famous "give me liberty or give me death" speech (actually entitled "The War Inevitable") a month prior to that incident in March, 1775, to the Virginia convention; he specifically and directly addressed the issue of the efforts by the British to disarm the colonists (the complete text of the speech is in Appendix C): There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free - if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending - if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained - we must fight! - I repeat, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak - unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? ... Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave....There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable - and let it come! I repeat, sir, let it come! It is in vain, sir to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace - but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it the gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. Forbid it, Almighty God - I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death![53] How critical this matter of arms was to both the colonists and to their British masters was readily witnessed on April 19, 1775, on which day the British marched to confiscate the arms and munitions of the rebellious faction in Massachusetts. On that day the British advanced on Lexington and Concord, initiating the "shot heard round the world." Immortalized in the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), "Paul Revere's Ride" told of the warning given to the colonists by Paul Revere in his famous ride on the night of April 18, 1775 and into the wee hours of the morning of the 19th that the British were coming. Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, on the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; hardly a man is now alive who remembers that famous day and year. ... It was two by the village clock, when he came to the bridge in Concord town. He heard the bleating of the flock, and the twitter of birds among the trees, and felt the breath of the morning breeze blowing over the meadow brown. And one was safe and asleep in his bed who at the bridge would be first to fall, who that day would be lying dead, pierced by a British musket ball. You know the rest. In the books you have read how the British regulars fired and fled,-- how the farmers gave them ball for ball, from behind each fence and farmyard wall, chasing the redcoats down the lane, then crossing the fields to emerge again under the trees at the turn of the road, and only pausing to fire and load.[54] Thomas Paine, in a 1775 article attempting to persuade the religious pacifists to join their cause, wrote specifically about the need for arms and the possible results of being deprived of them. The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms.... Horrid mischief would ensue were one half of the world deprived of the use of them;...the weak will become a prey to the strong.[55] Paine's eloquent words inspired many during the Revolution, such as the following: These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.[56] The Taking Up of Arms In July, 1775, the Second Continental Congress, having previously met in May, issued the "Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms." Written by Thomas Jefferson and Colonel John Dickinson, this document called upon the British to cease its unacceptable rule of the colonies. No mention was made of seeking independence from Britain at that particular time. The document merely pledged to continued armed resistance until accords could be reached between the colonies and the mother country. By 1776, the colonists had gone too far to turn back. The writings of Thomas Paine in his pamphlet "Common Sense," issued in January, 1776, denigrated the British and called for independence. "The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, 'tis time to part."[57] The Declaration of Independence On July 4, 1776, the document known as the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the fledgling Congress. Written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, with suggestions from John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, the document was in five parts: the introductory paragraph that explained why such a declaration was made to the world at large, three paragraphs explaining the belief in natural law and the political philosophy of the time, the list of grievances against King George III, the last paragraph specifying the Congress' July 2, 1776, call for independence, and the signatures.[58] The Declaration of Independence explained why the colonists acted as they did. Treason is at best an ominous business, and the Congress was determined that Great Britain and not the revolting colonies should stand condemned before the bar of the world public opinion.... There are four fundamental political ideas here: the doctrine of natural law and natural rights, the compact theory of the state, the doctrine of natural sovereignty, and the right of revolution. These conceptions were common to nearly all seventeenth- and eighteenth-century natural-law theorists, but Jefferson's phraseology was closely modeled on John Locke's "Second Treatise." Several of Jefferson's most telling phrases were borrowed directly from Locke's essay. Jefferson had in fact succeeded admirably in condensing Locke's fundamental argument into a few hundred words.[59] The words of the second, third and fourth paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence that clearly delineate these natural law and compact theory ideas are: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness...[60] In this chapter we illustrated the attempted disarming of the American colonists by the British, the Americans' resistance to that tyrannical act, the creation of the American militia, and the espousing of the American belief in arms for the common man. These considerations developed in the minds of the Founding Fathers a belief that further association with their British masters bore no bright hope and, rather reluctantly, they took up arms to overthrow their oppressor. Without the arms and the right to revolution, the American colonists would have continued to feel the heel of the British boot on their necks. CONSTITUTIONAL FACTORS The Revolutionary War ensued and, after it was over, the task at hand became to compose a constitution. The Articles of Confederation were created a year later and the weakness of those articles became known throughout the new states. Culminating with (Daniel) Shay's Rebellion, in which armed groups of farmers closed down the courts in the interior of Massachusetts and threatened to even lay siege upon Boston itself because of quarrels over currency and credit, the Constitution of 1787, which remains to this day, was formulated. The Difficulties of Ratification The new constitution was only ratified in several of the states because a series of constitutional amendments were promised that would spell out the rights of the people.[61] Within the ranks of the population of the new United States were two major factions: the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. It is important to note that the term "Federalist," as used in this paper and in the time frame under discussion, bears no relation to the political party later to adopt that name. The Federalists (such as George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay) held great hope and promise in a strongly constituted federal government. They supported the 1787 Constitution. The Anti-Federalists (such as Patrick Henry, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and John Clinton) wanted a weaker form of central government and trusted the states over the central authority and questioned the actions of the Federalist group. It was the Anti-Federalists who argued for, and got, a Bill of Rights. ...Long ago O.G. Libby, a student of the Constitution, observed that if a line were drawn along the coastal plain from Maine to Georgia, parallel to the sea and fifty miles inland, it would separate "pretty accurately" the Federalist tidewater area from the Anti-Federalist interior. Broadly speaking, the statement is true, although there were several important exceptions. Certainly the tidewater, with the exception of North Carolina and Rhode Island, were generally heavily Federalist. But, although the interior was for the most part strongly opposed to the Constitution, the presence of sizable Federalist groups in the back country ... was of great importance. Without the support of these areas the Constitution probably would have failed adoption. The sectional division between tidewater and backcountry was related closely to the economic and class differences which marked the two parties. The merchants, the larger planters, the land speculators, the men of wealth who held the bonds of the Confederation, groups dwelling in the cities or plantations on the seaboard, were generally in favor of a government which would protect commerce and remove the burdens of interstate tariffs. They were enemies of the paper money experiments then prevalent in most of the states.[62] In today's terms, one may see the parallel in urban, liberal Democratic Party strongholds (the modern day Federalists), especially along the eastern seaboard, diverging from the rural, conservative Republican areas (the Anti-Federalist example). While there is some fragility to this parallel argument, the reader will soon see how the Democratic Party has been the initiator of the vast majority of gun control measures during recent times. In the days of the formation of the Bill of Rights, the Federalists were generally against such a document, arguing that it was unnecessary. While there was opposition to many of the proposed amendments to the Constitution, research for this paper found no opposition, however, to the Second Amendment as it was being constructed. The Demand for a Bill of Rights The Anti-Federalists continued to demand for a strongly worded Bill of Rights. Remember that these men had just thrown out the world's most powerful government, Britain, and the last thing many of the states wanted was to subject themselves to a central government that the people might again have to remove. It was with this in mind that James Madison re-wrote the words of George Mason, and the Second Amendment, along with the others, was ratified by the Senate on September 25, 1789.[63] They were ratified by the necessary number of states in November, 1791, and "worked no real alteration in federal power. They gave formal recognition to certain traditionally accepted `natural rights,' hitherto incorporated in the great English charters, colonial grants, and state bills of rights....Only gradually did there emerge the now almost universal conception of the first ten amendments as a great Bill of Rights."[64] The Resentment of the Second Amendment Today the media has elected to examine the issue of the Second Amendment. One of the present media giants, George Will, carefully reviewed the material, much as I have, and proposed the following: Two staggering facts about today's America are the carnage that is a consequence of virtually uncontrolled private ownership of guns, and Americans' toleration of that carnage. Class, not racial, bias explains toleration of scandals such as these: More teenage males die from gunfire than from all natural causes combined, and a black male teenager is 11 times more likely than a white counterpart to be killed by a bullet. If sons of the confident, assertive, articulate middle class, regardless of race, were dying in such epidemic numbers, gun control would be considered a national imperative. But another reason Americans live with a gun policy that is demonstrably disastrous is that the subject was constitutionalized 200 years ago this year in the Second Amendment: "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." Many gun-control advocates argue that the unique 13-word preamble stipulates the amendment's purpose in a way that severely narrows constitutional protection of gun ownership. They say the amendment obviously provides no protection of individuals' gun ownership for private purposes. However, Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas Law School says that is far from obvious. In a Yale Law Journal article, "The Embarrassing Second Amendment," he makes an argument that is dismaying to those, like me, who favor both strict gun control and strict construction of the Constitution. He begins with some historical philology showing that the 18th century meaning of "militia" makes even the amendment's preamble problematic. He notes that if the Founders wanted only to protect states' right to maintain militias, they could have said simply, "Congress shall have no power to prohibit state militias." The Second Amendment is second only to the First Amendment's protections of free speech, religion and assembly because, Levinson argues, the Second Amendment is integral to America's anti-statist theory of republican government. That theory says that free individuals must be independent from coercion, and such independence depends in part on freedom from the menace of standing armies and government monopoly on the means of force. In the most important Supreme Court case concerning Congress' right to regulate private gun ownership, the court, upholding the conviction of a man who failed to register his sawed-off shotgun, stressed the irrelevance of that weapon to a well-regulated militia. Gun-control advocates argue that this lends no support to a constitutional right to ownership for private purposes. But Levinson notes that the court's ruling, far from weakening the Second Amendment as a control on Congress, can be read as supporting extreme anti-gun control arguments defending the right to own weapons, such as assault rifles, that are relevant to modern warfare. The foremost founder, James Madison, stressed "the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation." So central was the Second Amendment to the understanding of America's political order, Justice Taney in the Dred Scott decision said: Proof that black people could not be citizens is the fact that surely the Founders did not imagine them having the right to possess arms. The subject of gun control reveals role reversal between liberals and conservatives that makes both sides seem tendentious. Liberals, who usually argue that constitutional rights must be respected regardless of inconvenient social consequences say the Second Amendment right is too costly to honor. Conservatives who frequently favor applying cost-benefit analyses to constitutional construction advocate an absolutist construction of the Second Amendment. Whatever right the Second Amendment protects is not as important as it was 200 years ago, when the requirements of self-defense and food- gathering made gun ownership almost universal. But whatever the right is, there it is. The National Rifle Association is perhaps correct and certainly plausible in its "strong" reading of the Second Amendment protection of private gun ownership. Therefore, gun-control advocates who want to square their policy preferences with the Constitution should squarely face the need to deconstitutionalize the subject by repealing the embarrassing amendment.[65] As if in response to George Will's March, 1991, editorial, an answer finally emerged from Congressman Major R. Owens (D-New York). On March 11, 1992, black Congressman Owens introduced a House Joint Resolution calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.[66] Though the House Joint Resolution means nothing, and was effectively killed by referring it to the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Owens earned the distinction of being the first American federal legislator try call for the repeal of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Retired Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Warren Burger clearly summed up the views of the gun control coalition on the constitutional aspects when he stated: The Constitution of the United States, in its Second Amendment, guarantees a "right of the people to keep and bear arms." However, the meaning of this clause cannot be understood except by looking to their purpose, the setting and the objectives of the draftsmen. The first 10 amendments - the Bill of Rights - were not drafted at Philadelphia in 1787; that document came two years later than the Constitution. Most of the states already had bills of rights, but the Constitution might not have been ratified in 1788 if the states had not had assurances that a national Bill of Rights would soon be added. People of that day were apprehensive about the new "monster" national government presented to them, and this helps explain the language and purpose of the First Amendment. A few lines after the First Amendment's guarantees - against "establishment of religion," "free exercise" of religion, free speech and free press - came a guarantee that grew out of the deep-seated fear of a "national" or "standing" army. The same First Congress that approved the right to keep and bear arms also limited the national army to 840 men; Congress in the Second Amendment then provided: "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." We see that the need for a state militia was the predicate of the "right" guaranteed; in short, it was declared "necessary" in order to have a state military force to protect the security of the state. That Second Amendment clause must be read as though the word "because" was the opening word of the guarantee. Today, of course, the "state militia" serves a very different purpose. A huge national defense establishment has taken over the role of the militia of 200 years ago. Some have exploited these ancient concerns, blurring sporting guns - rifles, shotguns and even machine pistols - with all firearms, including what are now called "Saturday night specials." There is, of course, a great difference between sporting guns and handguns. Some regulation of handguns has long been accepted as imperative; laws relating to "concealed weapons" are common. That we may be "over-regulated" in some of life has never held us back from more regulation of automobiles, airplanes, motorboats and "concealed weapons." Let's look at history. First, many of the 3.5 million people living in the 13 original Colonies depended on wild game for food, and a good many of them required firearms for their defense from marauding Indians - and later from the French and English. Underlying all these needs was an important concept that each able-bodied man in each of the 13 independent states had to help or defend his state. The early opposition to the idea of national or standing armies was maintained in the Articles of Confederation; that confederation had no standing army and wanted none. The state militia - essentially a part-time citizen army, as in Switzerland today - was the only kind of "army" they wanted. From the time of the Declaration of Independence through the victory at Yorktown in 1781, George Washington, as the commander-in-chief of these volunteer-militia armies, had to depend upon the states to send those volunteers. When a company of New Jersey militia volunteers reported for duty to Washington at Valley Forge, the men initially declined to take an oath to "the United States," maintaining, "Our Country is New Jersey." Massachusetts Bay men, Virginians and others felt the same way. To the American of the 18th century, his state was his country, and his freedom was defended by his militia. The victory at Yorktown - and the ratification of the Bill of Rights a decade later - did not change people's attitudes about a national army. They had lived for years under the notion that each state would maintain its own military establishment, and the seaboard states had their own navies as well. These people and their fathers and grandfathers before them, remembered how monarchs had used standing armies to oppress their ancestors in Europe. Americans wanted no part of this. A state militia, like a rifle and powder horn, was as much a part of life as the automobile is today; pistols were largely for officers, aristocrats - and dueling. Against this background, it was not surprising that provision concerning firearms emerged in very simple terms with the significant predicate - basing the right on the necessity for a "well regulated militia," a state army. In the two centuries since then - with two world wars and some lesser ones - it has become clear, sadly, that we have no choice but to maintain a standing national army while still maintaining a "militia" by way of the National Guard, which can be swiftly integrated into the national defense forces. Americans also have a right to defend their homes, and we need not challenge that. Nor does anyone seriously question that the Constitution protects the right of hunters to own and keep sporting guns for hunting game any more than anyone would challenge the right to own and keep fishing rods and other equipment for fishing - or to own automobiles. To "keep and bear arms" for hunting today is essentially a recreational activity and not an imperative of survival, as it was 200 years ago; however, "Saturday Night Specials" and machine guns are not recreational weapons and surely are as much in need of regulation as motor vehicles. Americans should ask themselves a few questions. The Constitution does not mention automobiles or motorboats, but the right to keep and own an automobile is beyond question; equally beyond question is the power of the state to regulate the purchase or the transfer of such a vehicle and the right to license the vehicle and the driver with reasonable standards. In some places, even a bicycle must be registered, as must some household dogs. If we are to stop this homicidal carnage, is it unreasonable: 1) to provide that, to acquire a firearm, an application be made reciting age, residence, employment and any prior criminal convictions? 2) to require that this application lie on the table for 10 days (absent a showing for urgent need) before the license would be issued? 3) that the transfer be made essentially as with that of a motor vehicle? 4) to have a "ballistic fingerprint" of the firearm made by the manufacturer and filed with the license record so that if a bullet is found in a victim's body, law enforcement might be helped in finding the culprit?[67] Justice Burger is no longer on the Court and his admittedly liberal style of interpretation of the Constitution has been replaced by a more conservative view, a stricter reading of the Constitution and its Amendments. Moreover, this author finds much of Justice Burger's proposal factually incorrect. Why must employment be a criteria for possessing a firearm? Do we disenfranchise the elderly retired? What constitutes a "showing of urgent need?" When a firearm is needed, it is needed immediately. If the transfer of a firearm is to "be made essentially as with that of a motor vehicle," then one is reminded that registration of a motor vehicle and the licensing of its owner is o-n-l-y required if said vehicle is taken upon the public roads. If the vehicle remains within the confines of private property, it never need be so registered nor does the owner need a driver's license. The Justice's suggestion that a "ballistic fingerprint of the firearm made by the manufacturer and filed with the license record so that if a bullet is found in a victim's body..." overlooks certain important technical facts. A ballistician or criminologist would advise that such a "fingerprint" would only tell them the manufacturer of the barrel of the firearm and the caliber. Furthermore it would not tell them the manufacturer if it was a custom designed barrel. Finally, with a disintegrating bullet, there would be little to deduce. Today, any crime lab can tell you the type of handgun or rifle (but not a shotgun) a bullet was fired from if it is an intact bullet. A cost-benefit analysis would show that the cost of implementing such a system, as proposed by the decidedly non-technical Justice, would far outweigh its benefits, since that information is immediately available to a crime lab if the major part of the bullet is undamaged. Proposals such as these from learned jurists repeatedly overlook the engineering aspects, both mechanical and social, of the realities. When one as erudite as the former Chief Justice makes such proposals, is it any wonder that the constitutional factor is unresolved even today? The formation of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights were the results of hard fought battles, battles between men of two visions: a strong, centralized government on the one hand and on the other a weaker central government with powerful states. This section has shown that the Founding Fathers strongly supported the Second Amendment and that today the Amendment is found in less favor. The passing of time seems to have lessened the importance of the Second Amendment in the minds of many in America, including jurists such as Warren Burger and journalists such as George Will. But that in no way changes the original intent of the Founding Fathers. That intent has been shown to be that the people, the general population, were to be trusted with arms. LEGAL FACTORS The Libraries of the Giants To understand how the legal framework surrounding the firearms issue in America came into being requires that you understand something of the men who put the legal framework in place. The Founding Fathers of the United States were generally well read men (as a sidebar, serious research is needed into the wives of the Founding Fathers, for each was nothing without the other; there have been suggestions that many of these wives were equally well read and exerted great influence upon their husbands' thinking; it is a topic deserving further review). But well read of just what? What were the works that influenced them, shaped their thinking, cultivated their arguments, developed their repartee? If we could visit the home of Thomas Jefferson in Monticello, we would be able to glimpse at those titles and perhaps gain a better understanding of Jefferson and his colleagues. On those library shelves, and those of such men as George Mason, you would find the works and words of Aristotle, Cicero, John Locke, Algernon Sidney, Plato, Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, Niccol� Machiavelli, James Herrington, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Charles Montesquieu, Cesare Beccaria, Adam Smith, Hugo Grotius and John Trenchard.[68] These authors and their teachings presented paradigms that excited people yearning for freedom. These authors provided a different set of lenses with which to view the world. From these authors came forth a view of government, a government where the people were represented by their chosen leaders, where the sovereignty resided in the people; a republic. Such an idea was inflammatory in that period, for the American colonies were hard under the rule of the English monarchy. To suggest a republican form of government instead of a monarchy bordered on treason most high. It is important to note that many of those same authors also spoke of arms, the citizens' access to them, the necessity to take up arms against oppressive government and, especially in the case of Machiavelli, the regular arming of the inhabitants of the republic. That was unheard of in a monarchy, where only the monarch's appointed few and the monarch's army were expected to possess arms. And with those arms the monarchs of that day and the days before did sometimes subject their people to near enslavement. Imagine, if you will, the quiet of country life and the reading of such ideas by candlelight. Imagine what went through the minds of the readers of those times as those words and ideas were transported from book to brain. The Founding Fathers of America were not impoverished men by any means, but imagine the riches they reaped as concepts of individualism, democracy and the like flowed through their minds. This subsection explained the relevance of the libraries in the homes of the Founding Fathers. Our attention will next turn to the U.S. Supreme Court cases of consequence to the gun control issue. U.S. Supreme Court Firearms Cases The period prior to the American Civil War, known as the antebellum period, was marked by two U.S. Supreme Court cases of note, Barron v. Baltimore and Dred Scott v. Sandford, and several state cases. (Please note that the legal case notation of ABC v. XYZ means that ABC is the plaintiff, the "v." means "versus" and that XYZ is the defendant in the case; see the material in Appendix A for further elucidation.) These latter state cases were punctuated by the recognition that state prohibitions against the carrying of concealed firearms (handguns) were not in conflict with the Second Amendment.[69] There were also several cases involving Negroes in possession of firearms in southern states. As one might suspect, the southern states' courts ruled against the Negroes in every instance.[70] Barron v. Baltimore The Barron v. Baltimore case is of importance to students of the gun control issue. It clearly shows the Supreme Court's view at that time that the many Amendments to the Constitution were designed to be limitations upon the federal government and not upon the governments of the individual States. The constitution was ordained and established by the people of the United States for themselves; for their own government; and not for the government of individual states. Each state established a constitution for itself, and in that constitution provided such limitations and restrictions on the powers of its particular government as its judgment dictated. The people of the United States framed such a government for the United States as they supposed best adapted to their situation, and best calculated to promote their interests. The powers they conferred on this government were to be exercised by itself; and the limitations on power, if expressed in general terms, are naturally and necessarily applicable to the government created by the instrument. They are limitations of power granted in the instrument itself; not of distinct governments framed by different persons and for different purposes.[71] This view has since slowly been modified by the Court and all but three of the first ten Amendments (2nd, 3rd and 9th) have now been held to be applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment (a post-Civil War Amendment which came into being July 28, 1868). Many lower federal courts (federal District Courts and federal Courts of Appeal) have maintained, as recently as 1992, the view that the Second Amendment binds the federal government only and does not apply to the individual States. This is "old thinking" and this author continues to believe (and hope) that ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court will be forced to rule that the Second Amendment applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. Dred Scott v. Sandford The Dred Scott decision basically involved a Negro slave named Dred Scott. In 1834 he was taken from Missouri by his owner (a military surgeon) to a military post in Illinois. From there Scott was taken by the same owner to Fort Snelling in the territory known as Upper Louisiana, north of the State of Missouri. There the owner bought another slave who eventually became Scott's wife. Later the owner took Scott and his family back to Missouri and sold them to a new owner. This latter man, Sandford, cruelly mistreated Scott and his family. Scott sued for his freedom based upon a ruling that said if a slave were ever taken to an area where slavery did not exist, the slave gained his freedom and became a citizen. He sued in a federal court and, as part of the procedure there (required of all plaintiffs), had to state that he was a citizen, which he did. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled: 4. A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a "citizen" within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States. 5. When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and were not numbered among its "people or citizens." Consequently, the special rights and immunities guarantied to citizens do not apply to them. And not being "citizens" within the meaning of the Constitution, they are not entitled to sue in that character in a court of the United States, and the Circuit Court has no jurisdiction in such a suit. 6. The only two clauses in the Constitution which point to this race, treat them as persons whom it was morally lawful to deal in as articles of property and to hold as slaves. 7. Since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, no State can by any subsequent law make a foreigner or any other description of persons citizens of the United States, nor entitle them to the rights and privileges secured to citizens by that instrument. 8. A State, by its laws passed since the adoption of the Constitution, may put a foreigner or any other description of persons upon a footing with its own citizens, as to all the rights and privileges enjoyed by them within its dominion and by its laws. But that will not make him a citizen of the United States, nor entitle him to sue in its courts, nor to any of the privileges and immunities of a citizen in another State. 9. The change in public opinion and feeling in relation to the African race, which has taken place since the adoption of the Constitution, cannot change its construction and meaning, and it must be construed and administered now according to its true meaning and intention when it was formed and adopted. ...More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.[72] Thus, Scott was not a citizen of the United States and not entitled to sue in a federal court. Had he been a citizen, he would have been able to "keep and carry arms wherever" he went. A reading of the entirety of the Supreme Court case clearly shows that Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney was not at all comfortable in making his decision that slaves were not citizens. What is of importance to this paper, however, is that the Supreme Court clearly stated that citizens of the United States could "keep and carry arms wherever they went." The current literature of gun control advocates that this author reviewed made no mentioned of this consideration. But following the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified on July 28, 1868 and nullified the decision made against Sandford. The Fourteenth Amendment opens with the words: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.[73] This corrected the lack of citizenship problem. In 1862 Congress abolished slavery in the District of Columbia and the territories, the Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves on January 1, 1863, and the Thirteenth Amendment (prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crimes) was adopted on December 18, 1865.[74] Those events closed the ugly chapter of the Dred Scott decision. But it is important that the reader understand that the value to the gun control issue is that the Dred Scott decision specified that deprivation of arms was tantamount to slavery and that citizens of the United States were entitled to arms by virtue of the Second Amendment. U.S. v. Cruikshank On March 27, 1876, the Supreme Court decided on the case of the United States v. William J. Cruikshank. The defendant ("more than one hundred persons were jointly indicted at...the Circuit Court [in the state of Louisiana] charged with violations of the provisions of the Enforcement Act" of 1870; presumably they were all Caucasian) was charged with 32 counts of violating the rights of two deceased Negroes, Levi Nelson and Alexander Tillman. These violated civil rights were designated as rights under the Enforcement Act. Nelson and Tillman held a meeting of some sort. That meeting was disrupted by the arrival of the group of defendants. Several of the defendants then left the scene while other of the defendants remained behind and killed Nelson and Tillman. The Supreme Court received the case from the federal District Court in Louisiana because they were deadlocked on one issue of the case and needed guidance. The Supreme Court reviewed the indictments charged and found, as is so often the case even today, that the prosecutor's indictments were faultily and poorly worded. Accordingly, the Court dismissed the charges against Cruikshank because "vague and indefinite allegations of the kind are not sufficient to inform the accused in a criminal prosecution of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution." This author seeks to clarify this point because the Cruikshank case is repeatedly labelled as an instance of racism. Having read the entirety of the Court's opinion, that cannot be construed to have been the situation at all. Had the prosecution properly prepared the indictments, the guilty verdicts would have stood. The regrettable modern-day parallel is in the trial of the four Los Angeles police officers who beat Rodney King. Had those defendants been found guilty of the charges levied against them, they too would have appealed and a higher court would have undoubtedly ruled similarly. Relevant to the gun control issue, the Court stated, in referring to the charges filed against Cruikshank by the prosecution: The second and tenth counts are equally defective. The right there specified is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependant upon that instrument [the Constitution] for its existence. The Second Amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the National Government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called, in the City of N.Y. v. Miln, 11 Pet. 139, the "powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was, perhaps, more properly called internal police," "not surrendered or restrained" by the Constitution of the United States.[75] The relevance and significance of the above makes no sense, or else can be all too easily misinterpreted, unless the reviewer understands that all this means is that the Court elected not to apply the Second Amendment binding upon the States through the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Again, the problem here is the poor work done by the Louisiana federal prosecution team in making up the original indictments. Throughout the Court's ruling, the Chief Justice repeatedly upbraided the prosecution for creating "defective" counts in the indictment. The following example illustrates the Court's rebuttal to the charge that arms can only be borne for a lawful purpose: 6. The right of bearing arms for a lawful purpose is not a right granted by the Constitution...[76] Due to the ineptness of the prosecution, the Supreme Court had to rule as it did. This caused the Court to be the target of charges of being racist. In this particular case, such charges were undeserved. Presser v. Illinois About a decade after the Cruikshank decision, the Supreme Court presented the nation with Presser versus Illinois. Herman Presser was indicted on September 24, 1879, in the Criminal Court of Cook County, Illinois, for a violation of the Military Code of that State, in which he and a group of German-Americans paraded and drilled in Chicago, and that Presser marched at the head of his company of men, some four hundred in number, in the streets of the city of Chicago, he riding on horseback and in command; the company was armed with rifles and Presser with a cavalry sword; the company had no license from the governor of Illinois to drill or parade as a part of the militia of the State, and was not a part of the regular organized militia of the State, nor a part of troops of the United States, and had no organization under the militia law of the United States. Presser was found guilty by a jury trial and sentenced to pay a fine of $10.00.[77] Presser charged that this violated his Second Amendment rights. Justice Woods delivered the majority opinion for the U.S. Supreme Court: We think it clear that the sections under consideration, which only forbid bodies of men to associate together as military organizations, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns unless authorized by law, do not infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms. But a conclusive answer to the contention that this amendment prohibits the legislation in question lies in the fact that the amendment is a limitation only upon the power of Congress and the National government, and not upon that of the States. It was so held by this court in the case of United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 553, in which the Chief Justice, in delivering the judgment of the court, said, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms "is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second Amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the National government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow-citizens of the rights it recognizes to what is called in The City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 139, the 'powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was perhaps more properly called internal police,' 'not surrendered or restrained' by the Constitution of the United States." The plaintiff in error was not a member of the organized volunteer militia of the State of Illinois, nor did he belong to the troops of the United States or to any organization under the militia law of the United States. On the contrary, the fact that he did not belong to the organized militia or the troops of the United States was an ingredient in the offence for which he was convicted and sentenced. The question is, therefore, had he a right as a citizen of the United States, in disobedience of the State law, to associate with others as a military company, and to drill and parade with arms in the towns and cities of the State? If the plaintiff in error has any such privilege he must be able to point to the provision of the Constitutional statutes of the United States by which it is conferred. For as was said by this court in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 560, 551, the government of the United States, although it is "within the scope of its powers supreme and above the States," "can neither grant nor secure to its citizens any right or privilege not expressly or by implication placed under its jurisdiction." "All that cannot be so granted or so secured are left to the exclusive protection of the State." The provision in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," is a limitation only on the power of Congress and the national government, and not of the States. But in view of the fact that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force of the national government as well as in view of its general powers, the States cannot prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security. The provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States," does not prevent a State from passing such laws to regulate the privileges and immunities of its own citizens as long as they do not abridge their privileges and immunities as citizens of the United States. It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as of the States, and, in view of this prerogative of the general government, as well as of its general powers, the States cannot, even laying the constitutional provision in question out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to the general government. But, as already stated, we think it clear that the sections under consideration do not have this effect.[78] One should conclude that the Presser case upholds the ruling of Cruikshank, in that the Second Amendment only bars the Congress (and federal government) from infringing on the right to keep and bear arms and that the Second Amendment was again not made applicable upon the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Presser case illustrated that the Second Amendment protects individuals, not groups such as Presser had amassed.[79] Additionally, the Second Amendment does not apply to private armies (again, Presser's group) but "only to the militia and formal state or federal military forces..."[80] Miller v. Texas The last U.S. Supreme Court case of significance in the 19th century was Miller v. Texas.[81] For those readers not familiar with the various cases in the gun control issue, please note that this is not the same case as U.S. v. Miller 307 U.S. 174 (1939). In the Miller v. Texas case, the grand jury of Dallas County, Texas, indicted Miller on June 18, 1892, for the murder of a man named Riddle. The court convicted Miller on July 23, 1892, and sentenced him to death. Miller appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, the court of last resort in criminal cases, where the judgment of the original court was affirmed. The Texas court overruled a motion for a rehearing. Miller appealed through the federal court system, arguing that the statute of the State of Texas prohibiting the carrying of dangerous weapons on the person, of which he was also convicted, infringed upon his right as a citizen of the United States and conflicted with the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Second, that the same statute, which provided that any person carrying arms in violation of the previous section might be arrested without warrant, contravened the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. Justice Brown, speaking for the majority ruling at the U.S. Supreme Court, stated: In his motion for a rehearing, however, defendant claimed that the law of the State of Texas forbidding the carrying of weapons, and authorizing the arrest without warrant of any person violating such law, under which certain questions arose upon the trial of the case, was in conflict with the Second and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, one of which provides that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and the other of which protects the people against unreasonable searches and seizures. We have examined the record in vain, however, to find where the defendant was denied the benefit of any of these provisions, and even if he were, it is well settled that the restrictions of these amendments operate only upon the federal power, and have no reference whatever to proceedings in state courts....There was no other question under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.[82] Note in the Miller v. Texas ruling that the Court re- stated (as in Cruikshank and Presser) the standard belief of the 19th century legal philosophy that the Bill of Rights (the Second and Fourth Amendments in this instance) were not applied to the states. But also notice the last sentence in the above paragraph. One gets the distinct impression that, perhaps, the Court would have been sympathetic to an argument raised regarding the application of such Amendments through the Fourteenth Amendment. However, that is pure speculation and Miller's attorneys did not raise such arguments. The Court dismissed the appeal and the destiny of Mr. Miller was not discussed. With the conclusion of the Miller v. Texas case, our legal research takes us into the 20th century. The 1930s witnessed the dregs of the Great Depression and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal programs to cope with the attendant unemployment and poverty. The poverty bred desperation and desperation led to crime. The Twenty-first Amendment repealed Prohibition (created by the Eighteenth Amendment) but crime and gangsters survived the repeal. The 1930s became an era that showed the American public the "practical" uses of Colonel John T. Thompson's submachinegun by such criminal pariahs as Frank McErlane, "Polack" Joe Saltis, Al Capone, Hymie Weiss, "Machine Gun" McGurn, "Machine Gun" Kelly, John Dillinger, Ma Barker, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.[83] In response to this, in typical New Deal fashion, Congress passed the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 (Appendix D). This was nothing more than a revenue producing and registration measure designed to control the various "gangster" weapons through the imposition of taxes on the importers, manufacturers and dealers in such firearms. A base transfer tax of $200 was normally assessed (and still is today) on each sale of a machinegun. To guarantee that it would receive the monies, the NFA required that any weapon subject to the transfer tax had to be individually registered with the federal government. The NFA made it a felony to possess an unregistered machinegun.[84] Expanding their control of firearms even more, Congress passed the Federal Firearms Act in 1938. This legislation, again primarily a revenue and registration measure, gave the country licensed firearms dealers, manufacturers and importers. This licensing applied to all firearms, not just NFA registered weapons. Thus, to sell, manufacture or import firearms legally, one needed the appropriate Federal Firearms License (FFL).[85] This attempted to get the felons out of the firearms business. While the law ultimately brought dealers, manufacturers and importers into compliance, it should be considered first a revenue producing measure, since the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is a division of the U.S. Treasury Department. Toward the end of that decade came the major case of this century, U.S. v. Miller. This May, 1939, case effectively tested the 1934 and 1938 acts in the U.S. Supreme Court.[86] U.S. v. Miller An indictment in the District Court, Western District - Arkansas, charged that Jack Miller and Frank Layton "did unlawfully, knowingly, wilfully, and feloniously transport in interstate commerce from the town of Claremore in the State of Oklahoma to the town of Siloam Springs in the state of Arkansas a certain firearm, to wit, a double barrel 12- gauge Stevens shotgun having a barrel less that 18 inches in length, bearing serial identification number 76230, said defendants, at the time so transporting said firearm in interstate commerce as foresaid, not having registered said firearm as required by" [the NFA]. The Supreme Court reviewed the appeal. It is critically important for the reader to note that the defendants' attorneys did not appear before the Supreme Court and present any defense arguments; only the government's attorneys did so. Consequently, the value of issues raised by the defense were not available for the Court to consider. Justice McReynolds delivered the opinion of the Court: In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense. Aymette v. State, 2 Humphreys (Tenn.) 154, 158. The Constitution as originally adopted granted to the Congress power - "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress." With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view. The Militia which the states were expected to maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which they were forbidden to keep without the consent of Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia - civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion. The signification attributed to the term Militia[87] appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and states, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. "A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline." And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.[88] The Government and the Militia At this juncture, it is necessary to point out that the current United States government definition of the "militia" is found in Title 10 of the federal codes and specifies: 311 Militia: Composition and classes (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 or title 32 {32USCS | 313}, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are commissioned officers in the National Guard. (b) The classes of the militia are --- (1) The organised militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) The unorganised militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval militia.[89] Note the discrimination against women who are not commissioned officers in the National Guard as well as toward persons over the age of 45 in that definition. In comparison, the original Militia Act of 1792 defined the militia in the terms of that day as: That the Militia of the United States shall consist of each and every free, able bodied male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who are or shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as hereinafter excepted) who shall severally and respectively be enrolled by the captain or commanding officer of the company within whose bounds such citizen shall reside....That every citizen so enrolled and notified shall within ____Month_ thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock of a bore not smaller than seventeen balls to the pound, a sufficient bayonet and belt, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball, two spare flints, and a knapsack, and shall appear so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise or into service as is hereinafter directed...[90] Commentary on the U.S. v. Miller case has been made in scores of publications, by both sides of the gun control issue. Since the defense failed to provide arguments, the Court took a middle ground in its decision. When Justice McReynolds stated, "In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a `shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument," he did not apparently have the knowledge before him ("not within judicial notice") showing such weapons were commonly in use during World War I by the American forces. It is revealing to note that if the test will be whether a firearm "has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia" then the future outcome of the denigrated "assault rifles" should be revealing. If those particular firearms are not of militia value, one would be hard pressed to determine what was. To summarize, in this section we have examined the major U.S. Supreme Court cases addressing the Second Amendment over the past 159 years. Each case has basically demonstrated the concept of precedence, whereby the Court applies the case law developed in a prior case to a similar present one. However, we have seen the demonstrated reluctance of the Court to incorporate the Second Amendment under the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, as they have with the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments, and make it binding upon the states. This reticence on the Court's part has permitted and perhaps encouraged the numerous states to create their own laws regarding firearms to the point where there exist today a patchwork quilt of laws. The prevalent belief put forth by the Court is that the Second Amendment is a limitation upon Congress and not upon the states. Since the U.S. v. Miller decision in 1939, the Supreme Court has not heard another case directly addressing the Second Amendment. This brings us to current legal action that may be presented to the Court. Pivotal Firearms Crimes Since 1984 James Oliver Huberty On July 18, 1984, James Oliver Huberty, an out of work security guard, used a conventional Browning 12 gauge Model 12 pump shotgun, a Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistol and a 9mm semiautomatic Uzi carbine to kill 21 people at a McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro, California. He used the shotgun to kill 11 of his victims and either the Hi-Power or the Uzi carbine to kill 10 others. Huberty was killed by a police sniper.[91] Patrick Edward Purdy Four and a half years later on January 17, 1989, Patrick Edward Purdy, using weapons he legally purchased, killed 5 children and wounded 29 others in a crowded Stockton school yard and then immediately shot and killed himself with a pistol. These incidents, together with two or three others across the nation, drove the media into a frenzy and the legislature responded predictably. It was against this background that the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 was formulated in California to prevent the further proliferation of "assault weapons."[92] Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 The Act passed by the California legislature banned and/or controlled certain specified and unspecified firearms that were termed "assault weapons." Only those firearms listed in the Act were thus termed. This legislation was introduced in the California House of Representatives by Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles) and was co-sponsored by State Senator David Roberti (D-Hollywood). Because of the potential impact of this legislation on the constitutional rights of the citizens of California, the author and two colleagues sought to analyze the needs for this Act.[93] Conversations with various authorities throughout the state (including, but not limited to, the California Department of Justice) provided anecdotal evidence suggesting that existing laws adequately regulate the purchase, use and misuse of firearms, to include the so-called "assault weapons." According to the Act, the legislature intended to guarantee that certain firearms be prohibited from future purchase and that current owners of "assault weapons" register them with the California Department of Justice (DOJ). Additionally, the Act provided penalties for failure to adhere to it. The Act comprises Chapter 2.3, sections 12275 through 12290 of the California Penal Code (Appendix B). The Act was hurriedly constructed and, according to present California Attorney General Daniel E. Lungren, filled with legally flawed descriptions of firearms.[94] Lungren advised law enforcement officials in a June 18, 1991 bulletin that the Act, as originally written, could not be enforced. He further concluded that: "...to protect persons who are qualified to register assault weapons from undue prosecution, caution should be used in any seizure, arrest or prosecution for the single possession of a firearm which may be viewed as an assault weapon, pending legislative action."[95] Lungren later convinced the California legislature that the Act was so flawed that the legislature, in 1991, corrected many, but not all, of the errors in the original version of the Act.[96] Throughout the period that the Act has been in force in California, there has been a demonstrated reluctance on the part of legitimate owners of the subject weapons to register the firearms with the California Department of Justice, in accordance with the specifics of the Act.[97] According to recent figures released by DOJ, 79,277 firearms (estimated by DOJ using 1.8 firearms per applications; 44,043 applications had been received by DOJ as of May 22, 1992) have been registered or applied for registration. This contrasts with the estimated 500,000 such firearms throughout the state believed to be in the hands of legitimate owners.[98] Thus, resistance to registration has become a sign of civil disobedience. Originally, the Act stipulated that owners of such banned firearms had until December 31, 1990, to register their weapons subject to the Act. When the registration figures were shown to be appallingly low, a grace period was introduced, an advertising campaign was launched by DOJ and registration was again permitted between January 1 and March 30, 1992.[99] According to DOJ representatives, late applications are still being accepted. The registration procedure requires that the owner be thumbprinted by an approved agency (police department, DMV, etc.), complete a state registration form and submit it together with a twenty dollar fee to the California DOJ office in Sacramento. This registration program would have brought into the state coffers some $10,000,000 had full compliance been achieved (thus far, the state has received approximately $880,000). Opposed to the Act, the National Rifle Association (NRA), together with several other co-litigants, filed a suit in federal District Court in Fresno in 1990 seeking to overturn the legislation.[100] In September, 1990, District Court Judge Edward Dean Price ruled against the plaintiffs, upholding the Act. The NRA contingent appealed and on April 16, 1992, a three judge panel heard the appeal in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. On May 22, 1992, that two-women, one-man, three judge panel ruled 3-0 against the NRA, stating that the U.S. v. Cruikshank determination (that the Second Amendment only restricted Congressional infringement on the right to keep and bear arms) still applied.[101] According to an interview[102] with Richard Gardiner, NRA legal counsel, the organization will probably first seek a hearing before the entire 28 judge 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and then petition for a hearing by the United States Supreme Court should the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals not decide in their favor. Thus, the matter is far from settled as to the disposition of the Act. But no amount of gun control would have prevented America's worst mass murder. In the worst single-event mass killing in the United States, 87 people died in a 1990 arson fire at the Happy Land social club in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The arsonist, Julio Gonzalez, was subsequently convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. No calls for a ban on gasoline were issued. A review of numerous publications on the subject of gun control illustrated that there seemed to be no convincing empirical data to support the proposition that a decrease in crime logically follows an increase in gun control restrictions, with one recent exception. A study was published in the December 5, 1991, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine and authored by researchers from the University of Maryland; they examined a handgun control law that took effect in Washington, D.C. in 1976: They concluded that the law had resulted in a decrease in the number of gun-related homicides and suicides. Their study examined gun-related deaths in Washington between 1967 and 1987 (the latest year for which federal statistics were available). Thus, it did not include the soaring homicide rate in the city since 1987, caused largely by the spread of crack cocaine. Washington currently has the highest murder rate in the nation. The researchers found that the number of gun-related homicides in Washington had decreased 25%, from an average of 13 per month in the eight years prior to adoption of the gun law, to an average of 9.7 per month in the last 10 years of the study. The number of suicides in which guns were used fell by 23%. The study was criticized by some criminologists, who argued that the researchers had misinterpreted the data and failed to take into account other factors, such as stepped-up law enforcement efforts. A spokesman for the National Rifle Association dismissed the study as "pure science fiction."[103] One of the co-authors of "Evaluation - A Systematic Approach," Peter Rossi, stated in another work: "There is little or no conclusive evidence to show that gun ownership among the larger population is, per se, an important cause of criminal violence."[104] Texas A&M professor Morgan O. Reynolds' research results were even more to the point when he revealed: "As the models and estimation techniques have grown more sophisticated, the tendency has been to find an inverse relationship between crime and gun ownership rates -- the higher gun ownership is, the lower crime is, all others things being equal."[105] Alan M. Gottlieb, of the Second Amendment Foundation, provided some statistical data showing that inverse relationship: a. In 1966, New Jersey passed a gun control law described by its sponsors as `the most stringent' in America. In the 5 years after it went into effect, murders rose 65.7%, rape rose 55.9%, and robbery jumped a staggering 245%. b. Twenty percent of all homicides in this country occur in 4 cities with just 6% of the population -- New York, Chicago, Detroit and Washington, DC. All have strict gun control. c. The four countries with the highest gun ownership [per capita] rate all have low crime rates. These countries are Switzerland, Israel, Denmark and Finland.[106] Keeping guns out of the hands of criminals by banning them, as the Act intends, appears to be a fallacious argument. Even if the Act were so unimaginably successful as to cause legitimate owners of the weapons to dispose of them, surrender them or send them out of state, that would still not keep such weapons out of the hands of criminals. As long as there is a demand for a product, a ready supply will be made available. As an example, the 18th Amendment prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages and resulted in the rather immediate supply of such matter by some notables, including President John F. Kennedy's father, Joe Kennedy. Thus, one can anticipate that a black market would grow to fill the perceived void in supply. Again, as pointed out by Peter Rossi and his colleagues: "It is, after all, not much more difficult to manufacture serviceable firearms in one's basement than to brew up a batch of home-made gin. Afghanistani tribesmen, using wood fires and metalworking equipment that is much inferior to what can be ordered through a Sears catalog, hand craft rifles that fire the Russian AK-47 cartridge. Do we anticipate a lesser ability from American do-it-yourselfers or [organized crime]?"[107] This bears some discussion. Within the United States there are numerous suppliers of the materials required to construct semiautomatic firearms of a military caliber.[108] Several schools throughout the United States offer courses in gunsmithing, either as a home study course of instruction or as a regular residence program. One of the most notable schools is Lassen College, a community college located 85 miles northwest of Reno, Nevada in Susanville, California.[109] The skills necessary to assemble firearms from parts are readily learned. High schools and community colleges throughout America offer machine shop courses that develop talent with lathes, mills, band saws and the hand tools used in the manufacture of metal objects. These courses easily enable the student to produce a firearm or its parts.[110] Should a total ban on a particular class of firearms, such as handguns, come to pass, there would logically be illicit firearms constructed, if not by the aforementioned professional group then surely by less skilled home machinists. Much, if not most, of the equipment can be purchased through Sears and Roebuck.[111] Should the political climate in America become such that a significant percentage of the population felt unable to purchase firearms, it is ludicrous not to predict that a black market in firearms would emerge. One need only examine the evidence room of any major police department to see examples of the ingenuity of people intent on having a firearm.[112] One item worth noting is the difference in effective killing power/capability of the handgun versus the long gun (rifles and/or shotguns). One study acknowledged that: "Even if only 30% of the criminals chose long guns (and the remaining 70% took knives) -- there would be a substantial net increase in homicides... This is because long guns are inherently more accurate and devastating. They are much more likely to kill someone than a handgun."[113] The literature on gun control support generally seems to favor restrictions of handguns. The rifle is far more accurate than the typical handgun, often can carry far more rounds of ammunition and, in this author's personal experience as a firearms armorer, is often better built and more reliable than the handgun. It may have been the startling number of injuries sustained from the use of "assault" rifles during the 1980s that caused the advocates of gun control to throw in their support of the ban in California and elsewhere. That said, the assassinations of President Abraham Lincoln, President William McKinley, Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, and musician John Lennon, along with the attempted assassinations of Alabama Governor George Wallace, President Gerald Ford, and President Ronald Reagan, were carried out with handguns, probably due to the handgun's inherent concealability. But concealability was never in the mind of 35 year old George J. Hennard. In a Killeen, Texas restaurant on October 16, 1991, Hennard killed 22 people and wounded at least 20 others before turning one of his two pistols on himself. One of those wounded died later in the hospital. That shooting spree was the worst mass shooting ever in America in terms of the number of people killed. Hennard used an 18 round 9mm Glock 17 and a 16 round 9mm Ruger P-85. Both of the pistols were legally purchased.[114] Since the passage of the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 several other areas have adopted similar laws, the State of New Jersey and New York City being the two major cases and theirs include confiscation clauses.[115] Additionally, the number of incidents involving the use of these firearms by mass murderers has dropped radically, suggesting that perhaps the murders were a string of "copy cat" killings. One argument surfaced that the media, in whipping up the public over the issue and in their rather graphic coverage of the killings, may have precipitated more copy cat killings. When media attention diminished, the number of killings across the nation generally decreased. Amid these various killings has come cries for reform. The arguments are presented by interest group representatives, politicians and, of course, the media. We have now reviewed some of the infinite amount of literature on the subject of the historical, legal, and constitutional factors that weave their way into the gun control tapestry. We have discussed each of the factors individually. Next we will assess the value of this material. CHAPTER 3 - Biases and Assessment THE AUTHOR'S BIAS Before a reasonable attempt can be made at placing value judgments on a sensitive and volatile subject, such as gun control, it aids the reader if the biases of the researcher are known. For the previous nine years this author has owned a gun store in Castro Valley, California, a suburb in the San Francisco Bay area, and is a life member of the both the National Rifle Association and California Rifle and Pistol Association. During that period the author specialized in the selling and servicing of paramilitary weapons to law enforcement, collectors, survivalists, and persons interested in the defense of themselves and their property. During that period the author watched the misuse of firearms by criminal elements grow and observed the responses of the courts to such misuse. During that period middle class men and women came to the author to be taught how to use firearms for defense effectively and safely. During that period the author watched and interacted with the media, both print and electronic, every time a major shooting occurred. During that period the author watched the growth and further polarization of both pro-gun and anti-gun forces and the inability of either coalition to capture the imaginations of the citizens across America for more than mere moments. During that period the author watched politicians at all levels seek to benefit from the fiery emotions held by advocates on both sides of the gun control issue but also noted that these same politicians failed to provide either of those constituent groups with effective legislation. During that period the author watched the economy of the United States change and observed its impact on crime, businesses, politicians and the "average" citizen. During that period the author watched as misinformed people reacted to misinformation campaigns. And, finally, during that period the author watched as the need and meaning of firearms changed in the minds of people in response to changes in their economic and social conditions. To say that this author is an advocate of the private ownership of firearms is an understatement. It must not be confused with the realization that firearms, in and of themselves, are not inherently dangerous. However, they are extremely unforgiving in the hands of the unwary, incompetent, or criminal factions. All of this combines to underscore the author's sense that the current policy of gun control in America does little to protect either the freedoms of individuals or the safety of persons from the criminal abuse of firearms. These are the prejudices this author carries forward into this work and attempts to overcome in providing a reasoned approach to the problems at hand. BIAS IN OTHER RESEARCH There is a decided bias on the part of many other authors as well and it deserves mention, for balance if no other reason. Various forms of firearms control and restrictions have existed since the dawn of their manufacture, if no more subtle than the admonition levied against those patrons of America's Western frontier saloons during the 1800s about hanging up their guns when entering the premises of same. Research into the field of gun control prior to 1960 was generally accomplished by presumed experts in the field, including representatives of psychiatry and sociology. However, in the 1960s, when assassination seemed to be the rage, the social scientist entered the arena to do battle and to bring his expertise to the forum. It was at that point that a decided turn in the demeanor of such research occurred. The work was done by well educated, admittedly politically "liberal" (that term could be the subject of an entire paper in itself; there are many who feel that such a label should be changed to "neo- conservative") members with an urban background. Addressing the issue of gun control, they labeled and viewed themselves as cosmopolitan while depicting advocates of the private possession of firearms as self-serving, irrational, overly conservative, backward, unenlightened, etc.[116] Such a class differentiation set the stage for endless attacks upon pro-gun groups and legislative lobbying measures by the gun control advocates. Viewed as far from being red neck, pistol packing members of the National Rifle Association (NRA), the pro-gun faction emerged with rebuttals from learned, degreed, and even cosmopolitan writers on the issues of gun control (such as Don B. Kates, Jr., graduate of Yale Law School; David B. Kopel, former Assistant District Attorney from Manhattan and graduate of the University of Michigan Law School; Dr. Edward F. Leddy, former NY parole officer, who received his Ph.D. at Fordham; Dr. William R. Tonso, professor of sociology at the University of Evansville, who received his Ph.D. at Southern Illinois University). But the view seems to persist in the media that gun owners are a throw back to days gone by, incapable of intelligent thought. Nothing could be further from the truth. Dr. William Tonso seems, to this writer, to have garnered the best understanding of this phenomenon when he said, referring to Lee Kennett's and James LaVerne Anderson's work, "The Gun in America: The Origins of a National Dilemma": If as Kennett and Anderson argue, the gun controversy is "a skirmish in the larger battle over the nation's cultural values," a battle pitting cosmopolitan America's lifestyles, worldviews, and ways of interpreting reality against those of bedrock America [sic; a term coined by Kennett and Anderson] it is hardly surprising that the conventional social scientific treatment of the control issue amounts to an unquestioning scientific stamp of approval of the media-supported pro-control stand. Kennett and Anderson make no claim that the "cultural battle lines" between the two Americas are rigidly fixed. In fact, they claim that "sophisticated America and shirtsleeve America war in all of us." And of course, the American intellectual elite includes not only the nation's "top" writers, journalists, and other such literary folk, but its "top" educators, scholars, and scientists, social and otherwise, as well. Cosmopolitan America, therefore, is not only generally more adept at articulating its views than is bedrock America; it also possesses the means to place its views before bedrock as well as cosmopolitan America; Reader's Digest and TV for the former; New Republic and college social science courses for the latter. Through its scholarly and scientific connections, cosmopolitan America can also coat these views with a thick veneer of what passes for impartial scientific authority: consider the gun control issue and the conventional social scientific treatment of it as a case in point.[117] Social scientists, such as Hofstadter, have often unintentionally committed the strategic error of over- reliance upon survey polls, often using "social desirability" questions (with their attendant difficulty of measurement), improperly posing the questions ("tilting" the questions and thereby skewing the results), coaching through the demeanor of the interviewer or posing meaningless questions (such as inquiring whether the subject was for or against more rigid gun control measures after an assassination) or by running a series of questions that can elicit responses desired by those commissioning the polls.[118] Every student in a survey research course has been cautioned against these potential pitfalls by the third lecture. However, it would seem that the lesson must be learned repeatedly. When asked by pro-control commissioned Harris and Gallup pollsters if the respondent was for tougher gun controls, the answer was invariably in the affirmative. However, when asked, "What can be done to reduce crime?" only 11% responded that tougher gun controls measures were the solution.[119] This is a classic error and suggests that reliance on pro- or anti-control polls be viewed with a jaundiced eye. Thus, evidence accumulated through biased polling, whether such bias is intended or not, defeats any measurements made and any conclusions drawn from them. Usually such polls merely lay their results before the general public and allow the media to draw the conclusions. This author suggests that the interpretive capability of the media, at least as it applies to gun control and related polls, is less than scholarly and professional. When the aforementioned errors of good survey techniques are compounded by a media receptive to any "evidence" that furthers its own agenda, the result is less than flattering to the statistical field. WEIGHING THE FACTORS We have now discussed each of the originally stated factors (historical, constitutional and legal) in a fashion that permits us to understand how each component influences the gun control debate. But what weight can we give to each of the three elements discussed? Can we state categorically, for example, that one of these three factors had more influence upon the gun control policy debate than the remaining two? Is there even a need to weigh one factor against the others to determine relative weights? We submit that there is no need for the social scientist, the attorney, or the layman to engage in such ponderous pursuits. Like multiple tributaries depositing their outflow into yet a larger river, the result is blurred and rather homogenous. We suggest the three factors cannot be independent of each other and that to consider them independently may make one guilty of taking things out of context, a sin often committed by both sides of the gun control debate. But if one is compelled to dissect this factorial triad and give credence to one factor more than another, we invite the reader to consider the historical factor as deserving such import. It is from the historical arms that came the constitutional and legal hands and fingers. It is through the historical view that one sees a uniqueness in American philosophy. During the early 1900s German economist Max Weber gave a definition of the state and he meant the central government to be the repository of the means of legitimate violence.[120] This statist definition, popular among today's political scientists, runs counter to the history of America. Weber said: A compulsory political association will be called a `state' if and in so far as its administrative staff successfully upholds a claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order....to-day, the use of force is regarded as legitimate only so far as it is either permitted by the state or prescribed by it....The claim of the modern state to monopolize the use of force is as essential to it as its character of compulsory jurisdiction and continuous organization.[121] What this nation's Founding Fathers did not want, and even feared to the degree that they created a Bill of Rights to protect them from it, was an overly strong central government. So typical in Europe, this was an anathema to the founders of America. Weber's strong, decidedly Germanic central government form was the antithesis of what was in the minds of the initiates of America's experiment in democracy. If this assessment of America's historical factor is true, as we believe it to be, then it explains the pervasive distrust of big government in America and the fear on the part of its gun rights advocates that, by acquiescing to Weber's proponents and relinquishing their right to keep and bear arms, the people of America may be subjected to the horror and tyranny of minority rule by a cadre of elitist bureaucrats, statists and a standing army. Our American paradigm, both in terms of gun ownership and reliance upon the state, is different from that of our European brothers. With cities crowded and densely packed, the citizenry of European nations looked to government for solutions. In America, the tradition has been one of more open spaces and self-reliance. But it is from within America's greatest areas of population density that the European solution seems to be birthing yet again. Time and again, this nation has found itself enmeshed in the political turmoils of statist and nationalist insanity. On not less than two occasions (World Wars I and II) America spilled the blood of its youth in stopping the statist tyranny in Europe. On not less than three occasions (World War II, Korea and Vietnam) America interceded in Asia to stop the spread of their brand of despotism. It may be this historical factor, more than anything else, that encourages proponents of the individual right to keep and bear arms to continue its fight. Thus, for the reader who seeks to divide the interweaving of these three factors, we would suggest the historical influence weighs more heavily. If America is the republican democracy it claims to be, then while each of its people is encouraged to participate in the democratic process by voting for his or her elected representatives, does it not follow that these same citizens should also participate in their own defense of self and property,[122] which are hallmarks of freedom? To this point, the Founding Fathers wrote a Second Amendment that called for an armed populace who represented a militia, a militia different from the militia which protected the states from encroachment from the federal government. It was and is an unorganized militia. Thus the importance of the constitutional factor. In America's paradigm of government, it was designed so that the law would serve as a counterpoise against the actions of the legislative and executive branches. It is within the law that one looks to solutions for disagreement, until such time as there can be no more trust in the law. Under the umbrella of the law, we seek guidance and instruction in the meanings of the metaphors used by the Founding Fathers. Thus the value of the legal ingredient. The three factors are truly a set of Siamese triplets. If one elects to surgically separate that group, the remainder cannot be disregarded nor their value and contributions lessened. In this chapter the biases of the author and others have been discussed and the inseparability of the three factors shown, while at the same time illustrating the overriding consideration due the historical factor. CHAPTER 4 - Conclusions In examining the various factors (principally the historical, constitutional and legal factors) mentioned in the introductory chapter, what does the culmination of these factors tell us about the gun control policy debate? Do the historical, constitutional and legal factors have anything to do with our contention that there is no national gun control policy in America? Finally, if we conclude that the gun control debate will continue to be controversial because of the historical, constitutional and legal factors discussed in this paper, what suggestions can be put forth in view of that continued debate? We can see that the gun control debate centers on two fundamental points. The opponents of control generally contend that the historical, constitutional and legal factors support their thesis that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, a natural right guaranteed the citizens of the United States by the Constitution and its Second Amendment. The proponents of control generally suggest that those aforementioned factors must be disregarded in view of the growing number of deaths and injuries resulting from firearms, especially the criminal abuse of firearms and the negligence of some firearms owners. The advocates of a right to keep and bear arms have yet to have their final legal say in the courts, for the U.S. Supreme Court has waffled in directly and clearly addressing the issue of the Court's interpretation of the Second Amendment. These advocates can be expected to continue to oppose legislative movements which reduce their access to firearms. They can also be expected to increase their political clout by organizing grass roots groups to get politicians elected who more openly share their views on the Second Amendment. There is decided merit in the argument that the American public has been left wondering exactly what its rights are regarding firearms, in as much as the U.S. Supreme Court has not truly addressed the issue since 1939. The proponents of gun control rightfully complain that criminal access to firearms is out of control. The multifarious gun laws in the United States do not help either side. While the author has yet to hear the proponents of gun control raise the argument, there is some constitutional and legal justification for the individual states making whatever laws the elected state legislators deem appropriate for their constituents (Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."). But that seems to beg the question. So that business could be readily conducted between various states, a Uniform Commercial Code was adopted. But there is no Uniform Penal Code. There are even more efforts to get uniform divorce, child custody and adoption laws than penal statutes. This, the proponents of gun control would argue, justifies a nationwide gun control policy. That argument is immediately countered by the advocates of the right to keep and bear arms when they submit that Congress would violate the provisions of the Second Amendment in doing so. Thus, this author concludes that the prospects for a national gun control policy seem dim. This is not to say that the federal government will not continue to regulate or that, in response to lobbying efforts by gun control enthusiasts, the federal government will not ban certain weapons (recall the earlier reference that President George Bush banned the importation of specified "assault" weapons in 1989). There exists mounting evidence of both the value of an armed population and its ability to deter governmental aggression. The late 1980s witnessed the televised massacre of the students in Tianamen Square in China. The students were unarmed. The freedom fighters in Afghanistan fought to reject the Soviets and their puppet government. David B. Kopel, former Manhattan District Attorney and Second Amendment researcher, stated: Anti-gun groups argue that the militia concept is obsolete, in light of advances in military science. Yet that argument is at odds with contemporary history. The mujahadeen guerrillas in Afghanistan fought the greatest military power in the world's history to a draw for seven years, before U.S. Stinger missiles finally arrived. In that period, the Afghans used, among other weapons, AK-47's supplied by the Chinese, or captured from the Soviets. In the months after Pearl Harbor, Japan seized several Alaskan islands, and military strategists feared more Axis landings. But the regular army and the National Guard had been sent overseas into combat. So the Governors of Hawaii, Virginia, and Maryland called the militia to duty. Maryland Governor O'Conor summoned "members of Rod and Gun Clubs, of Trap Shooting and similar organizations," to "furnish their own weapons" for the purpose of "repelling invasion forays, parachute raids, and sabotage uprisings," as well as patrolling railroads and beaches. It has been more than 40 years since the last invading troops left American soil. No invasion is plausible in the foreseeable future. But Constitutional rights are for all time. Only the most naive believer in American omnipotence or the nuclear umbrella can feel certain that America will never again need the militia.[123] The 1980s saw the Kurds in northern Iraq decimated by the totalitarian regime of Saddam Hussein. For the most part, the massacres occurred before the Kurds were armed. But those populations that were equipped with small arms resisted attempts by government to suppress them: It is simply silly to respond that small arms are irrelevant against nuclear-armed states: Witness contemporary Northern Ireland and the territories occupied by Israel, where the sophisticated weaponry of Great Britain and Israel have proved almost totally besides the point. The fact that these may not be pleasant examples does not affect the principal point, that a state facing a totally disarmed population is in a far better position, for good or ill, to suppress popular demonstrations and uprisings than one that must calculate the possibilities of its soldiers and officials being injured or killed.[124] Can we expect to see the existing laws within the states and at the federal level rigidly enforced against the criminal use of firearms? It can be argued that this is very doubtful. There are too many repeated instances of weapon violations being plea bargained away or simply not prosecuted. Such actions protect neither side of the gun control debate and continue to leave society wondering dumbfounded why the criminals remain unpunished. It is altogether too easy then to decry the quandary and advocate that specified firearms be banned, which is exactly what the proponents of gun control have done. Gun control advocate and University of California (Berkeley) professor Franklin E. Zimring suggests: If history's an appropriate guide, the next 30 years will bring a national handgun strategy composed of three parts: (1) federally mandated or administered restrictions on handgun transfers that amount to permissive licensing and registration; (2) wide variation in state and municipal governments adopting restrictive licensing schemes or "bans" on handgun ownership; and (3) increasing federal law enforcement assistance to states, and more particularly, to cities attempting to enforce more restrictive regimes than the federal minimum. Under such a scheme, federal law will neither set quotas on the number of handguns introduced into civilian markets nor dictate ownership policy to the states. Rather, designated high-risk groups, such as minors, convicted felons, and former mental patients, will be excluded from ownership, as is presently the case.[125] Even though there is no way to prevent the criminal access to and misuse of the firearm, for all the reasons mentioned in this paper, your author sees no alternative avenue for the proponents of gun control except to continue to press their pleas for a near or total ban. As the advocates of the right to keep and bear arms become politically wiser and organize to the same level as their opponents, they may be able to offset some of the impact of the gun control movement. This country has a love-hate affair with firearms. The gun control advocates repeatedly state that the NRA is the root cause of delays in getting gun control legislation passed. To some degree they are correct, for the NRA fights such measures rather vigorously. But the gun control advocates are either naive or expect their audience to be easily deceived when they argue that the NRA blocks their attempts at such social reform movements by contributing heavily to legislators and by being such a powerful lobbying organization. The gun control advocates need only muster greater support for their cause at the grass roots level and the efforts of the NRA would amount to nil. The primary reason the NRA is successful is that there are untold tens of millions of people in America who seem to believe that a firearm has value to them, for any number of reasons. This base support of gun owners in America can be expected to continue to write their representatives opposing gun control measures, particularly bans. The rising tide of crime in America will do nothing to ameliorate the debate. Incidents such as the Los Angeles riot of the underclass will drive more upper and middle class members of society to get a firearm to protect themselves and their property. It can be predicted, easily enough, that riots will increase in number as the underclass of America is pushed further from the table served by the upper and middle class in this country. More often we hear from the political left that crime control is people control. On that point even the NRA would probably agree. But if the state cannot, and in some instances will not, protect its people, then the people are left, in the final analysis, to fend for themselves. In spite of the demands of the gun control advocates to ban or seriously restrict firearms from individual ownership, these events will force gun control to take a back seat to the realities of personal peril. But the debate will linger long after the last shot has been fired. Through this research an attempt has been made to provide an insight into the trinity that makes up the basis for any gun control policy in America. In Chapter 1 we argued that the formulation of the gun control policy in America has been less than successful. The reader should share that opinion based upon the material presented herein. In the preface we said that we would ask if, in view of all of the evidence in this paper, the reader feels that the enumerated policy, whatever that policy might be, on firearms control is effective and reasonable. Again we suggest that the answer must be a resounding, "No." It is also hoped that perhaps this material may serve as a foundation for education on the Second Amendment and the gun control policy issue as well. Lastly, we trust that we have made clear the need for a definitive statement from the Supreme Court on the meaning of the Second Amendment, whichever way they should ultimately rule. Today Americans are an armed people who intend to remain free. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH Capable, scholarly research is still needed in this field. We have seen many unexplored areas, such as the use of a firearm as a successful deterrent (brandished but not fired), research regarding the early use of firearms by women in the United States, the contributions of women to the thinking of the Founding Fathers, and lawsuits filed to challenge state encroachment of the Second Amendment by pro per (acting without an attorney) law students and scholars. Further research is also suggested into the area of the Fourteenth Amendment and the selective incorporation rule, particularly as they apply to the Second Amendment. Strong papers on these aforementioned topics will clarify historical considerations for gun control advocates, provide increased attention to the Second Amendment by law students and increase the depth of understanding about the Fourteenth Amendment application to the states regarding gun control. The issue of women with respect to gun control is critical, for the woman of today cannot make an intelligent choice in the gun control debate unless she involves herself more deeply into it. Too often today's woman is stereotyped, with respect to firearms, as being for gun bans or other extreme positions. A historical review of the woman's role in America's history of firearms may aid in quashing that rather myopic and sexist image. REFERENCES (Marked in the text in the [##] format) 1. "Historical Development and Subsequent Erosion of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms" by James B. Whisker. Extracted from the Summer, 1988 edition of "Journal on Firearms and Public Policy," page 124-152, sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation, Bellevue, Washington. This 20,000 figure (page 124) is an estimate provided by the National Shooting Sports Foundation in 1968. National Shooting Sports Foundation, True Facts on Firearms Legislation, 1968. 2. Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. 3. "The Gun Control Debate - You Decide" edited by Lee Nisbet, page 12, Prometheus Book, 700 Amherst Street, Buffalo, NY 14215, 1990. 4. Based upon the 20,991 handguns per 100,000 of population in the United Sates in 1979 from "Why Handgun Bans Can't Work" by Don B. Kates, Jr., page 20, Second Amendment Foundation, Bellevue, WA, 1982. The 1979 population of 220,100,000 (ibid) was then multiplied by Kates figure of 20,991 handguns per 100,000 to yield 46,201,191 handguns in 1979. This latter figure was then increased by this author very conservatively at 2% per annum from 1979 until 1992 (46,201,191 x [1.02^13] = 59,766,167 or approximately 60 million. On June 2, 1992 NBC Sunrise news reporter Ann Curry reported that there were 200 million guns in circulation (Channel 8, KSBW, Monterey, California, 6:15 a.m. PST). This author feels that number is too exaggerated. 5. Ibid. Page 24. 6. "America as a Gun Culture" by Richard Hofstadter. This article appears as chapter 1 in "The Gun Control Debate - You Decide" (supra) and originally appeared in "American Violence: Documentary History," edited by Richard Hofstadter and Michael Wallace, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1970. 7. "Handguns in the Twenty-first Century: Alternative Policy Futures" by Franklin E. Zimring; from "The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science," edited by Richard D. Lambert, assisted by Alan W. Heston, "Gun Control," special editor of this volume, Philip J. Cook, Volume 455, May, 1981, published by The American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1981. 8. "Guns, Murders, and the Constitution: A Realistic Assessment of Gun Control" by Don B. Kates, pages 45-49, Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, San Francisco, February, 1990. 9. "Gun Control and Opinion Measurement - Adversary Polling and the Construction of Social Meaning" by David J. Bordua, in "Firearms and Violence - Issues of Public Policy", pages 51- 70, edited by Don B. Kates, Jr., Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, San Francisco, 1984. 10. "Reducing Firearms Availability - Constitutional Impediments to Effective Legislation and an Agenda for Research" by Leroy Clark, in "Firearms and Violence - Issues of Public" "Policy", pages 51-70 (supra). 11. "Gun Control Legislation - Impact and Ideology" by Matthew R. DeZee (Florida State University), "Law and Policy" "Quarterly", Volume 5, No. 3, July, 1983, pages 367-379, Sage Publications, Inc., Beverly Hills, CA, 1983. 12. For an analysis of what the term "underclass" means, see "The""Urban Underclass" by Christopher Jencks and Paul E. Peterson, page 3, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 1991. Also see "The Ghetto and the Underclass - Essays on Race and" "Social Policy" by John Rex, pages 112-114, Gower Publishing Co., Brookfield, Vermont (also in Aldershot, England), 1988 and "The Jail - Managing the Underclass in American Society" by John Irwin, pages 1-2, 8-9, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1985. Irwin refers to the underclass as "rabble," which he describes as "poor, undereducated, unemployed," sharing two essential characteristics: detachment from conventional society and disrepute because "they are perceived as irksome, offensive, threatening, capable of arousal, even protorevolutionary... disorderly and disorganized, the lowest class of people." Irwin also explains that in the 19th century this segment of society was called the "dangerous class" and that "America today has a sizable detached and deviant population whose members accumulate in the cities, where their presence in public places offends and threatens conventional people." 13. "All 4 Acquitted in King Beating" by Richard A Serrano, "Los""Angeles Times", April 30, 1992, pages A1, A20-21. To expand upon this incident, the referenced report stated that Rodney King was beat on March 3, 1991. This beating was videotaped by an amateur and the resulting tape (81 seconds in actual length) was displayed to the jury. The public, as of June, 1992, has not been shown the entirety of the tape. On August 21, 1991, in response to defense motions, Judge Bernard J. Kamins was prohibited by the California 2nd District Court of Appeals from presiding over the trial. Kamins was replaced by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stanley M. Weisberg. On November 26, 1991, Weisberg granted a defense motion for change of venue from Los Angeles to Simi Valley, where the trial began in February, 1992. On April 29, 1992, after about six hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted the defendants. The trial was prosecuted by Terry White, 35, who graduated from the U.C.L.A. law school in 1984 and immediately came to work at the District Attorney's office. White was assisted by Alan S. Yochelson, 37, who graduated from Southwestern University law school in 1980 and joined the D.A.'s office in 1981. The rioting and looting began the day after the trial's verdict was announced. 14. "A National Army and Internal Security," Federalist Paper No. 28 by Alexander Hamilton, as published in "Journal on" "Firearms and Public Policy", Volume 2, Issue 1, edited by Dr. Edward F. Leddy and published by the Second Amendment Foundation, James Madison Building, 12500 N.E. Tenth Place, Bellevue, WA 98006, Telephone (206) 454-7012. 15. "Hayward Daily Review" (newspaper), Hayward, CA, May 4, 1992,page 1 and KRON 6:00 p.m. newscast, Channel 4, San Francisco, May 4, 1992. 16. Data transmission from Ron Phillips on July 21, 1991. He supplied the references to the "California Government Code", which were subsequently verified at the Alameda County Law Library, and the data he researched on the number of states with liability release laws for the government. 17. "California Government Code", generally beginning with Section 800, as amended. The publisher of this work naturally varies. The material is available at any California law library and often at major university law libraries. 18. "Police Officials Say Citizens Should Take Up Arms," "Reuters""News Service", May 1, 1991, poll from the National Association of Chiefs of Police, a non-profit organization that operates the American Police Hall of Fame and Museum in Miami. 19. "Myths About Guns," "The Washington Times", February, 15,1990. 20. Historical Statistics of the United States; "Statistical""Abstract of the United States". Extracted from page 21 of the November, 1991 issue of "American Firearms Industry" magazine. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. 23. "Guns, Murders, and the Constitution: A Realistic Assessment of Gun Control" by Don B. Kates, February, 1990, pages 45-49. Mr. Kates' entire work is available from the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 177 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94108, (415) 989-2411. Pages 45-49 are available for retrieval from the Combat Arms Bulletin Board Service (BBS) as "ACQUAINT.ZIP" at 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600 and 14400 b.p.s., telephone (503) 221-1777 in Portland, Oregon. 24. Ibid. Originally from "A Carnage in the Name of Freedom," by Kairys, "Philadelphia Inquirer", Sept. 12, 1988. Mr. Kairys is a lawyer and part-time teacher of sociology. 25. Ibid. 26. Supra, "Guns, Murders, and the Constitution: A Realistic""Assessment of Gun Control", pages 45-49. Originally attributed by Kates to Lane, "On the Social Meaning of Homicide Trends in America," in T. Gurr, "Violence in America", volume 1, 59 (1989) ("...the psychological profile of the accident-prone suggests the same kind of aggressiveness shown by most murderers"). 27. Ibid. Originally from the "Uniform Crime Report", Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1971, page 38. 28. Ibid. "Police have traditionally been loathe to arrest in such situations; moreover, in upwards of 50 percent of relatively serious cases, the police have no opportunity to make an arrest because the victim fails to report the matter (out of belief that the matter is a private affair, or that the police will not take action, or out of fear of retaliation)." See the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics publications, "Family Violence" (April 1984); "Preventing Domestic Violence Against Women" (Aug. 1986); and "Violent Crime by Strangers and Non-Strangers" (Jan. 1987), all based on survey responses rather than reports to police. Also see Kleck, "Policy Lessons from Recent Gun Control Research," 49 "Law & Contemporary Problems" 35 (1986) at 40-41. and Browne & Williams, "Resource Availability for Women at Risk: Its Relationship to Rates of Female-Perpetrated Partner Homicide", a paper presented at the 1987 annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology (available from the authors at Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire). 29. "Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime, and Violence in the United""States" by James Wright, Peter H. Rossi, & K. Daly, Aldine, New York, 1983. Unless otherwise stated, all references to the NIJ Evaluation are to this, its final commercially published version, rather than to the NIJ-published version, which is J. Wright, P. Rossi, & K. Daly, "Weapons Crime and" "Violence in America: A Literature Review and Research" "Agenda", U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1981. 30. News item printed in the "American Rifleman", June 1991 issue,National Rifle Association, Washington, D.C. Page number not recorded. 31. "That Every Man Be Armed - The Evolution of a Constitutional Right" by Stephen P. Halbrook, page 37, LibertyTree Press, San Francisco, 1984. Original copyright held by University of New Mexico Press and reprinted with permission by LibertyTree Press. For a copy of the LibertyTree Network catalog on this and other writings related to constitutional issues, contact LibertyTree Network, 350 Sansome Street, San Francisco, CA 94104. 32. Ibid. Page 38. 33. Ibid. Page 38. This is item 5: "If anyone bearing these arms shall have died, let his arms remain for his heir." 34. Ibid. Page 39. 35. Ibid. Page 39. 36. Ibid. Page 40. 37. Ibid. Page 41. 38. Ibid. Page 42. 39. Ibid. Page 43. 40. Ibid. Page 44. 41. Ibid. Pages 43-46. 42. Ibid. Pages 54-57. 43. Ibid. Pages 99-100. The act was reenacted in 1705 and 1792. The commentary was originally found in "Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it, in the State of Virginia" by St. George Tucker, page 55, Philadelphia, 1796. Tucker also included his "Dissertation" as an appendix to his edition of Volume 1 of Blackstone's "Commentaries" (1803). 44. Ibid. Page 59. 45. "The American Constitution - Its Origins and Development" by Alfred H. Kelly and Winfred A. Harbison, page 78, Volume I, W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York, 1948. 46. Ibid. Pages 78-85. 47. Told at a lecture held by Stephen P. Halbrook at the LibertyTree branch office at 134 98th Avenue, Oakland, CA 94603 (telephone 510-632- 1366) on May 16, 1990 at 6:45 p.m., which I attended. In that lecture, Halbrook (accordingly to the notes I made that evening) told of 1,778 muskets being turned into the British by Boston residents as they fled the city on April 27, 1777. Counting handguns and blunderbusses, over 3,000 firearms were surrendered by the fleeing Bostonians to the British that single day. 48. "A decision by the Bush administration to suspend imports of semiautomatic assault weapons has fueled the debate over proposals to ban sales of such weapons," "Congressional Quarterly" weekly report, March 18, 1989, volume 47 number 11, page 579. The following material may be of interest to the reader. Unless noted otherwise, each of the following articles were extracted from "Facts on File World News Digest" published by Facts on File Inc. in the referenced year. I am deliberately providing the full text to enable the researcher to see the flow and response to President Bush's ban on certain imported assault weapons. ------------------Facts On File------------------ 1. April 19, 1990 - Colt Revives AR-15 Colt Firearms (formerly Colt Manufacturing Co.), which had halted public sales of its AR-15 semiautomatic rifle in 1989 in the wake of complaints that the weapon was being used by drug dealers and other criminals, had recently introduced a new rifle similar to the AR-15, it was reported April 19. The new weapon, dubbed the "Sporter," reportedly resembled the AR-15, but without the AR- 15's bayonet mount and flash suppresser. It was equipped with a five-round magazine (as opposed to the AR-15's 20- round magazine), but gun control supporters said the change was virtually meaningless, since the Sporter magazine could easily be replaced with up to 30- round magazines. The introduction of the new weapon embarrassed Connecticut state officials, whose pension fund had acquired a 47% interest in Colt in March in an effort to help save the Hartford- based company. 2. May 25, 1990 - Limited Assault-Rifle Ban Approved The Senate May 23 approved, by a vote of 50-49, legislation that would impose a three-year ban on the manufacture or sale of nine types of semiautomatic assault rifles. The measure was part of an omnibus anticrime package being considered by the Senate. No similar legislation had yet been introduced in the House. The Senate approved the measure after defeating a broader proposal on May 22, introduced by Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum (D, Ohio) that would have permanently banned all assault rifles. The approval was seen as a rare and unexpected blow to the National Rifle Association, which had lobbied heavily to kill the measure. Some legislators credited efforts by national law enforcement groups, who had mounted a lobbying effort in favor of the measure. (Many law enforcement groups were opposed to private ownership of semiautomatic weapons because such weapons were often used by drug traffickers and other criminals.) In 1989, following the killing of five California schoolchildren by a gunman wielding an AK-47 assault rifle, President Bush had issued an executive order banning five types of imported semiautomatic weapons. The Senate measure would write Bush's action into law and extend it to cover an additional four types of domestic-made weapons. Critics noted that the law did not affect several other types of semiautomatic weapons. 3. July 27, 1990 - Assault Rifle Imports Cleared The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had given permission for the import of modified versions of several types of semiautomatic assault rifles that had been banned in 1989 by President Bush, it was reported July 23- 24. The bureau had renewed its approval after the manufacturers of the rifles, including the Uzi, the AK-47 and the HK- 91, redesigned the weapons to eliminate such military features as bayonet mounts, flash suppressers and grenade launchers. The rifles were still able to accept high-capacity magazines of up to 30 rounds of ammunition, however, and could be readily modified to accept military-style attachments. Gun-control advocates, who had criticized the initial ban as ineffective because it did not ban domestically made assault weapons, blasted the bureau's decision. The import approval "essentially renders the (1989) ban null and void," charged Josh Sugarman, director of the Firearms Policy Project. "These guns look less threatening, but they are not less deadly." Sugarman's group had uncovered the bureau's action through a request filed under the federal Freedom of Information Act. Bureau officials said that none of the redesigned weapons had yet been imported into the U.S., although they had been advertised in gun catalogues. According to government estimates, there were about three million semiautomatic weapons in the U.S. About 25% of those weapons were said to be foreign models, including the assault-style weapons. 4. June 27, 1991 - Assault Rifle Loophole Seen A Justice Department official June 12 told the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime and criminal justice that the Bush administration's import ban on military-style assault rifles was becoming less effective because foreign manufacturers were modifying the design of their weapons to make them eligible for sale in the U.S. "The import ban is like a wall that is trembling and the cracks are appearing," said the official, Paul J. McNulty, the deputy director of the Justice Department's policy office. "The soundness of it is in question because of the ability (of foreign manufacturers) to circumvent" the design specifications, he added. McNulty's testimony followed that of an official from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, who said that his agency had approved nearly 100,000 import permits for weapons that were nothing more than slightly modified versions of the weapons that had been banned by the Bush administration in 1989. The reconfigured weapons were said to lack such military-style features as flash suppressors, bayonet mounts and grenade launchers, but remained capable of handling high-capacity, detachable magazines of up to 30 rounds. 49. Supra, "That Every Man Be Armed", page 59. Originally attributed to Volume II of "Writings" by Samuel Adams, page 119. 50. Prepared by Gerald Murphy (The Cleveland Free-Net - aa300) and distributed by the Cybercasting Services Division of the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) and downloaded from the Case Western Reserve University bulletin board. The original text is to be found in the "Journal of Congress", edited 1800, volume I, pages 134-139. 51. Supra. "That Every Man Be Armed", page 61. 52. Ibid. Page 62. 53. "Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry"; text assembled by William Wirt, derived from accounts of those who heard the speech, 1818. The entire speech is provided in Appendix C of this paper. 54. "101 Patriotic Poems", published by Contemporary Books, Inc.,180 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60601, 1986. The entire text of the poem is available for downloading as "REVERE.ZIP" from the Combat Arms BBS (503-221-1777). 55. "Thoughts on Defensive War" by Thomas Paine (1775). Ibid. Page 63. For a review of Paine's writings, see the source where this was originally derived: "Writings of Thomas Paine", Volume I, edited by Conway (1894). This particular article appears on page 56 of the latter work. 56. "The American Crisis" by Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.Available for downloading from the Combat Arms BBS, Portland, Oregon (503-221-1777) as "THE_TIMES.ZIP". 57. Supra. "The American Constitution - Its Origins and" "Development", pages 85-89. 58. Ibid. Pages 90-92. 59. Ibid. Pages 89-90. 60. Excerpts from "The Declaration of Independence", July 4, 1776.Available for downloading from the Combat Arms BBS as "DEC_INDE.ZIP". Telephone (503) 221-1777 in Portland, Oregon. 61. Supra, "The American Constitution - Its Origins and" "Development", page 174. 62. Ibid. Pages 148-149. 63. Supra. "That Every Man Be Armed", pages 80- 81. 64. Supra, "The American Constitution - Its Origins and" "Development", pages 174-177. 65. "It`s Time to Repeal Right to Bear Arms" by George Will, extracted from "The Oakland Tribune", Oakland, CA, Thursday, March 21, 1991, page B-7. 66. The following is the entirety of "House Joint Resolution 438" introduced by Congressman Major R. Owens: 102d CONGRESS 2D SESSION H. J. RES. 438 Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States repealing the Second Amendment to the Constitution. ____________________________________ IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES March 11, 1992 Mr. Owens of New York introduced the following joint resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary ____________________________________ JOINT RESOLUTION Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States repealing the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid for all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification: "ARTICLE --- "The second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is repealed." 67. Warren E. Burger, Chief Justice of the United States (1969-86), wrote an article in the January 14, 1990 "Parade" Sunday newspaper magazine in The Anchorage Daily News, Anchorage, Alaska. This article was prepared by Wesley J. Jones and is available in its entirety for downloading from the Combat Arms BBS as "BURGER.ZIP". Telephone (503) 221-1777 in Portland, Oregon. 68. Supra. "That Every Man Be Armed", pages 7-35. 69. For examples of this, refer to such cases as State v. Chandler, Louisiana, 1850. Every notable scholar on either side of the gun control issue concurs with this premise. 70. Ibid. Pages 89-97. 71. "John Barron, survivor of John Craig, for the use of Luke Tiernan, executor of John Craig v. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore", Supreme Court of the United States, 32 U.S. 243; 8 L. Ed. 672, January, 1833 Term. The entirety of this case may be downloaded from the Combat Arms BBS as BARRON.ZIP. Speaking for the majority, Chief Justice John Marshall stated in his opinion in this case: "The constitution was ordained and established by the people of the United States for themselves, for their own government, and not for the government of the individual states. Each state established a constitution for itself, and, in that constitution, provided such limitations and restrictions on the powers of its particular government as its judgment dictated. The people of the United States framed such a government for the United States as they supposed best adapted to their situation, and best calculated to promote their interests. The powers they conferred on this government were to be exercised by itself; and the limitations on power, if expressed in general terms, are naturally, and, we think, necessarily applicable to the government created by the instrument. They are limitations of power granted in the instrument itself; not of distinct governments, framed by different persons and for different purposes....In compliance with a sentiment thus generally expressed, to quiet fears thus extensively entertained, amendments were proposed by the required majority in congress, and adopted by the states. These amendments contain no expression indicating an intention to apply them to the state governments. This court cannot so apply them." 72. "Dred Scott, plaintiff in error, v. John F. A. Sandford",Supreme Court of the United States, 60 U.S. 393; 15 L. Ed. 691, December, 1856 term. The entirety of this case may be downloaded from the Combat Arms BBS (503-221- 1777) as DREDSCOT.ZIP. 73. Fourteenth Amendment to the "U.S. Constitution", adopted on July 28, 1868, Section 1. 74. Supra. "The American Constitution - Its Origins and" "Development", pages 436-437. 75. "United States v. Cruikshank", 92 U.S. 542 (1876). Chief Justice Waite delivered the majority opinion of the Court on March 27, 1876. 76. Ibid. On May 22, 1992, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled against the NRA action to overturn the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 by referring to this same section in the Cruikshank case. 77. "Presser v. Illinois", Supreme Court of the United States, 116 U.S. 252; 29 L. Ed. 615; 6 S. Ct. 580, January 4, 1886. Bear in mind that this case ended up in the Supreme Court because one man thought he was unjustly found guilty and fined a mere $10.00. While the previous sentence has nothing whatsoever to do with the gun control issue, it does speak well of the greatness of the United States, where the small voice of a single man can be heard. The entirety of the "Presser v. Illinois" may be downloaded from the Combat Arms BBS (503-221-1777) as "PRESSER.ZIP". 78. Ibid. 79. "Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second""Amendment" by Don B. Kates, Jr., University of Michigan Law Review, Volume 82, No. 3, page 246, November, 1983. 80. Ibid. 81. "Miller v. Texas", 53 U.S. 535; 38 L. Ed. 812; 14 S. Ct., 874,Supreme Court of the United States, May 14, 1894. 82. Ibid. 83. "The Social History of the Machine Gun" by John Ellis, pages 149-158, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1987. 84. Supra, "Historical Development and Subsequent Erosion of the""Right to Keep and Bear Arms", page 134. 85. Ibid. 86. Ibid. 87. In the margins of the Court's opinion on "U.S. v. Miller",some of the more important opinions and comments by writers regarding the concept of the militia are cited. Concerning the Militia - Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252; Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275; Fife v. State, 31 Ark. 455; Jeffers v. Fair, 33 Ga. 347; Salina v. Blaksley, 72 Kan. 230; 83 P. 619; People v. Brown, 253 Mich. 537; 235 N.W. 245; Aymette v. Sate, 2 Humphr. (Tenn) 154; State v. Duke, 42 Texas 455; State v. Workman, 35 W. Va. 367; 14 S.E. 9; Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, Vol. 1, p. 729; Story on the Constitution, 5th Ed., Vol. 2, p. 646; Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. X, pp. 471, 474. 88. "U.S. v. Miller", U.S. Supreme Court, 307 US 174, 1939. 89. Title 10, U.S. Code, Section 311. 90. "Documentary History of the First Federal Congress 1789-1791",edited by Charles Bickford and Helen Veit, Volume 5, pages 1460-1461, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1986. 91. "24 Dead in Worst U.S. Mass Shooting," "Facts on File World""News Digest", page 778A2 (1991). Facts On File World News Digest is published weekly by Facts On File Inc., 460 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10016. This on-line version contains the full text of all issues from January 1990 to the present. The information is updated each week. It was accessed via modem from the author's home to CSUNet at California State University. This article was primarily about George Hennard's murder spree but also explained the details of Huberty's work. 92. "Special Report - Assault on Guns," Kathleen Z. McKenna, "The Oakland Tribune" (newspaper), starting on page 1, Sunday, April 16, 1989, Oakland Tribune, Inc., 409 13th St., P.O. Box 24304, Oakland, California 94623-1304. The article appeared in the Tribune the day before the vote to pass the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act, which was passed on Monday, April 17, 1989. 93. The author worked on a public administration graduate school research project with Sandra Martinez and Luis Walker. This research consisted of a three prone examination of the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 done for Dr. Jay Umeh's class in Policy Evaluation (PA 6809 - California State University, Hayward, Spring quarter, 1992). The examination included a survey, a literature review and a process evaluation of the California Department of Justice procedures. This work contains parts of that research. 94. "Information Bulletin #91-17-BJIS" from the California Department of Justice dated June 18, 1991. 95. Ibid. 96. "California Penal Code, 1992 Compact Edition", West Publishing Company, 1992. 97. "Assault Weapon Owners Ignoring Registration Law," Bill Snyder, Thursday, December 13, 1990 issue of "The Oakland" "Tribune", starting on page 1, Oakland Tribune, Inc., Oakland, CA. 98. This figure came from an interview the author had on May 22, 1992, with Shelley Rife, manager of the DROS section at the California Department of Justice, 4949 Broadway, Sacramento, CA 04203, telephone (916) 739- 4201. Ms. Rife stated that estimates given that department ranged from 200,000 to 600,000 and that the NRA had told the department that the number was incalculable. The half-million figure is also one the author heard from time to time in speaking to other DOJ employees in the past. It is believed by the author that the use of this value has merit. 99. "HSPO poster" that accompanied registration materials sent to gun shops and law enforcement agencies by the California Department of Justice in December, 1991. 100. "Fresno Rifle and Pistol Club, Inc., et al. v. John K. Van De Kamp, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the State of California". 746 F. Supp. 1415; 1990, September 6, 1990. 101. "Gun Law Survives Assault," Hayward Daily Review, Saturday, May 23, 1992, page A-3, written by the Associated Press. The "Hayward Daily Review" is published in Hayward, California. The article is reprinted in its entirety as follows: GUN LAW SURVIVES ASSAULT Federal court upholds ban inspired by Stockton massacre San Francisco --California's first-in- the-nation ban on sales of semiautomatic rifles and pistols, passed in 1989 after a gunman killed five Stockton schoolchildren, was upheld Friday by a federal appeals court. Rejecting arguments by the National Rifle Association, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 that the Constitution does not prevent the states from keeping certain types of guns out of private hands. The court also said the law did not conflict with a federal marksmanship program. "I hope this helps put to rest the lie that the NRA has been spreading about what the Second Amendment means," said Robert Vanderet, lawyer for the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence and eight police groups supporting the state law. "States are free under the Bill of Rights to regulate firearm possession as they see fit." The Second Amendment refers to the right to bear arms. Without deciding whether it protects only a state militia, as courts have generally held, or individual gun ownership, the appellate panel said the amendment restricts only actions by Congress and not by the states. Attorney Stephen Halbrook, whose clients included the NRA and a Fresno gun club, said the court had given unduly short shrift to evidence that the post-Civil War Congress considered gun ownership a basic right. He said he was unsure about a further appeal but certain that the law is worthless. "This law has had absolutely no effect on crime," Halbrook said. "This law was aimed primarily at law-abiding target- shooters....The recent disturbances in Los Angeles bear this out. Criminals don't abide by this law....These rifles have not been used very much in crime." The law was passed after Patrick Purdy opened fire with an AK-47 rifle in a Stockton schoolyard in January 1989, killed five children, wounded 30 other people and then killed himself. The law banned sales of specified military-style rifles and pistols to private citizens and required current owners of those weapons to register them with the state. State officials say the law's registration provisions have been widely ignored, prompting several extensions of the deadline. About 45,000 weapons had been registered as of early March, David Puglia, spokesman for Attorney General Dan Lungren, said recently. He said Lungren had no estimate of the number of privately owned assault weapons in the state. 102. Personal interview with Richard Gardiner, NRA legal counsel, at the NRA National Convention, Salt Lake City, Utah, April 26, 1992, by the author. 103. "Facts On File", December 19, 1991. Obtained through the University of California (Berkeley) computer network with the University of Colorado. 104. "Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime and Violence in America", James D. Wright, Peter H. Rossi and Kathleen Daly. Aldine Publishing Co., New York, 1983. 105. "Gun Rights Fact Book", by Alan M. Gottlieb, Merril Press,Bellevue, WA, 1988, page 146. Originally taken from "Crime by" "Choice: An Economic Analysis" by Morgan O. Reynolds, Fisher Institute, Dallas, TX, 1984, page 166. 106. Ibid. Page 160. 107. "Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime and Violence in America", James D. Wright, Peter H. Rossi and Kathleen Daly. Aldine Publishing Co., New York, 1983. 108. For a complete catalog of gunsmithing supplies, contact Brownells, Route 2 - Box 1, Montezuma, Iowa 50171-9989, telephone (515) 623-5401, FAX (515) 623-3896. Additionally, Jantz Supply, 309 West Main, Davis, Oklahoma 73030, telephone (405) 369-2316, FAX (405) 3082. These two companies, and particularly Brownells, sell the tools and equipment necessary to construct and repair firearms. Gun parts themselves may be procured from, among others, Essex Arms, P.O. Box 345, Island Pond, Vermont 05846, telephone (802) 723-4313 (manufacturer of quality semiautomatic pistol kits), Essential Arms Co., P.O. Box 121, Krotz Springs, Louisiana 70750, telephone (318) 566-2230 (manufacturer of quality semiautomatic rifle kits), or Auto-Ordnance Corp., West Hurley, New York 12491, telephone (914) 679-7225, FAX (914) 679-2698 (manufacturer of the Thompson machinegun, they also manufacture quality materials for making semiautomatic pistols). Finally, distributors such as Sherwood International Export Corp., 18714 Parthenia Street, Northridge, California 91324, telephone (818) 349-7681 (suppliers of many parts needed to construct semiautomatic rifles and pistol of military calibers), supply nearly everything needed to make a firearm. "Shotgun News", published by Snell Publishing Co., Inc., P.O. Box 669, Hastings, Nebraska 68902, telephone (402) 463-4589, is a newspaper published three times a month that lists literally pages of supplies, tools, parts, and other resources for constructing firearms. None of this material is illegal or prohibited. 109. Lassen College offers, in addition to their regular courses of instruction typical in a two year community college, one of the finest programs in gunsmithing available in America. A two year program is provided to enable the graduates to repair or even manufacture their own firearms. The intent of the instruction is to provide training to enable graduates to secure employment as a gunsmith. During the summer periods, Lassen College also offers NRA sponsored courses in firearms design and repair. Your author is a graduate of several of the summer programs, which include such variety as shotgun design and repair, semiautomatic pistol design and repair, semiautomatic rifle design and repair, etc. and has received a scholarship award from the National Rifle Association to attend such courses. Located in Susanville, California, Lassen College has maintained a gunsmithing program since the 1940s. 110. Chabot College, in Hayward, California, offers a two year program in machine shop technology that is thorough and complete. While it does not address the manufacture of firearms specifically, it does teach the student all the necessary skills to manufacture complete firearms from raw materials. Having completed part of that very program, your author can attest to its thoroughness. There are literally thousands of people in America trained in such manual skills, often with the titles of "machinists," "tool and die operators," or "machine operators." While possibly considered anecdotal evidence, any machine shop instructor would confirm that there exists a vast reservoir of supply of such talented machinists in America and that they could readily produce, for a price, any parts needed to construct an operable, quality produced firearm. 111. A walk through the home repair department at any Sears outlet will illustrate the availability of the hand tools and power tools required for the task of building firearms. 112. Oakland Police Department, Oakland, California. Their property room, used to confine evidence collected in the commission of a crime, is rife with examples of crude, homemade firearms. Such firearms are inherently inaccurate by target shooter standards but typically are able to place their rounds within a 12 inch circle at 10-15 yards. The infamous zip gun, made from pipe or telescoping radio antenna, a clothes pin spring, a nail for a firing pin, a piece of wood to serve as a stock and either thick rubber bands or duct tape to hold it all together, can be assembled by nearly anyone in 20 minutes. Though only slightly less crude, General Motors produced the all-metal .45ACP "Liberator" pistol during World War II that was to be dropped from aircraft to the French resistance forces; the pistol cost General Motors under $10.00 to produce. 113. "Firearms and Firearms Regulations: Old Premises, New Research," a collection of essays edited by Don Kates, Jr. and published in "Law and Policy Quarterly: An Interdisciplinary Journal," July, 1983, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, CA. 114. Supra, "24 Dead in Worst U.S. Mass Shooting," Facts on File World News Digest, page 778A2, 1991. 115. "Crime News in Brief," Facts on File World News Digest, page 443G2, June 13, 1991. Facts On File World News Digest is published weekly by Facts On File Inc., 460 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10016. This on-line version contains the full text of all issues from January, 1990, to the present. The information is updated each week. It was accessed via modem from the author's home to CSUNet at California State University. The article also mentions: "A New Jersey state ban on assault weapons took effect May 30. The law banned 60 specific weapons, as well as others that were judged to be `substantially identical' to those on the list. As of June 3, one gun owner had turned in a banned weapon to police and 191 people had certified that they had rendered their now-illegal weapons inoperable. A third choice available to owners was to sell their weapons out of state." 116. Supra, "The Gun Control Debate - You Decide," page 38. "Social Problem and Sagecraft: Gun Control as a Case in Point" by Dr. William R. Tonso. This entire work appeared as Chapter 2 of "The Gun Control Debate - You Decide." 117. Ibid. Pages 40-41. 118. Ibid. Page 47. 119. Ibid. Page 47. 120. "The Theory of Social and Economic Organization" by Max Weber,translated by A.M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons, The Free Press (Division of Macmillan Publishing Co.), New York, 1964, page 154. Weber, an economist and holder of an economics chair at Heidelberg, can be viewed (by the work of both himself and his translators (supra)) as not altogether clear on the use of force. Realizing that Weber's sociological interests and economic training were at conflict with Weber's Germanic upper class upbringing, Parson's said in his introduction, "War is always to him [Weber] an unsettling element in an economic situation, and the influence of groups primarily oriented to military values is in general economically `irrational.'" But a full reading of Weber's work suggests to this writer that Weber, admittedly not a communistic or socialist, and his rigidity of position and definition, would have been quite at home in a right wing totalitarian state. Naysayers are invited to read the latter half of Weber's book; Weber would have loved Albert Speer. 121. Ibid. Pages 154-156. 122. Ibid. Page 320. 123. "Banning Assault Rifles Won't Work" by David B. Kopel, "Colorado Statesman," March 17, 1989. In that same article, Kopel also stated: Why would any sane person own an assault rifle like the AK-47? Why are military guns such as the Soviet AK-47 and the Israeli Uzi available to maniacs like Patrick Purdy -- who last January murdered five children in Stockton, California with a Chinese version of the AK-47. Inflamed to a white heat over the shootings, the California legislature may ban all military-type weapons. U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) has introduced a Congressional bill to confiscate all military-style guns in civilian hands. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) prefers to confiscate some weapons, and tightly regulate others. The anti-gun lobby argues that no hunter needs a rifle capable of holding 50 bullets in its magazine. No sportsman really needs the semi-automatic firing capability of an Uzi or an AK-47. (A semi-automatic gun requires a new trigger squeeze for each bullet fired, and automatically ejects the empty shell casing.) True enough, no-one needs an Uzi to kill innocent deer for sport. But to defend one's family from murder, Uzis and other semi-automatics are sometimes essential. For example, pleasure boat owners in the Gulf Coast have been stocking up on Uzis. Why? Because drug smugglers commonly pull alongside a pleasure boat, murder all the passengers, use the boat to transport a load of drugs to the mainland, and then abandon the boat. The drug runners do their killing with high- powered guns stolen from the military, or bought on the same international black market that supplies cocaine by the pound. Boat owners who hope to survive an encounter with the smugglers must arm themselves with reliable, military-style weapons capable of firing at several attackers in quick succession. The typical urban homeowner, of course, doesn't need an AK-47 to confront a lone burglar; a revolver or a shotgun will suffice. But anyone who reasonably fears attack by a gang -- such as a store-owner in the middle of a Miami riot -- could reasonably conclude that the rapid-fire capability of an Uzi or AK-47 would mean the difference between life and death. In rural areas, farmers who may confront a bear attacking their livestock also carry assault guns. Bears don't fall down after being shot just once. Rugged and reliable, military style guns can be bounced around in a pickup truck, frozen on a winter night, caked with mud, and still fire with absolute reliability. Further, the best military guns, such as the Uzi, have excellent safety mechanisms that make them more childproof than any other gun. More fundamentally, the Constitution -- despite what the NRA claims -- does not protect a right to hunt, nor does it protect a right to own guns solely for hunting. The Second Amendment states: "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." The militia -- not hunting -- is the core of the Second Amendment. Thus, as the Supreme Court declared in U.S. v. Miller (1939), guns that are useful for the militia are protected by the Constitution; non-militia guns are not protected. Thus, it is precisely the AK- 47s, Uzi's, and other civilian versions of military guns, that are most clearly secured by the right to bear arms. "Who are the militia?" asked founding father George Mason of Virginia. He answered his own question: "They consist now of the whole people." Before independence was even declared Massachusetts patriot Josiah Quincy had called for "a well- regulated militia composed of the freeholder, citizen and husbandman, who take up their arms to preserve their property as individuals, and their rights as freemen." 124. Supra, "The Embarrassing Second Amendment" by Sanford Levinson in "The Gun Control Debate - You Decide," page 324. 125. "Handguns in the Twenty-First Century: Alternative Policy Futures" by Franklin E. Zimring, "The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science;" edited by Richard D. Lambert, assisted by Alan W. Heston; "Gun Control;" special editor of this volume, Philip J. Cook; Volume 455, May 1981; published by The American Academy of Political and Social Science; 1981. The file containing the complete Zimring text was typed by Sam McClure and is available for downloading from the Combat Arms BBS (telephone 503-221-1777) as ZIMRING.ZIP APPENDICES APPENDIX A UNDERSTANDING LEGAL CASE CITATIONS To do meaningful research requires that the researcher provide the reader with his relevant source material. When the source material is a legal case, the reader may be confused as to the referencing. To clarify that area, and spare the reader from a law school course on the subject, I present the following material. This will enable the reader to visit the local law library and review the cited cases or any others of his choosing. Legal cases are typically described in the following arcane format: DRED SCOTT v. SANDFORD 60 US 393 The first part of the citation (the legal term for the law case listing) is the name of the plaintiff. This is the person or persons initiating the legal action. It could be the name of an individual (Dred Scott), a company (Western Electric v. John Robertson), a state (California; also shown perhaps as People v. Carrol or State v. Carrol) or the federal government (U.S. v. Miller). The second part (Sandford in our citation) is the name of the defendant in the action (legal term for the case). The description of the defendant can also be an individual, company, state, federal government, etc. Following the names of the plaintiff(s) and defendant(s) is the volume number of the law book where the case appears. In this example, 60 means volume 60. Following the volume number is the abbreviation for the court or the "reporter" (a reporter in this instance is a law book that contains the text of cases) where the case may be found. Here is a list of most of the meanings of the abbreviations used for the courts and reporters: COURTS US or U.S. United State Supreme Court USCA United States Court of Appeals USCC United States Circuit Court USDC United States District Court Cal. (or C.) California Supreme Court (something similar is available for other states) REPORTERS ALR American Law Reports Cal. Rptr. California Reporter (something similar is available for other states) F (and the district) Federal Reporter F.Supp. Federal Supplement Pac. (or P.) Pacific Reporter (something similar is available for other regions) In the Dred Scott decision, the court was the United States Supreme Court and the US represents the Supreme Court. This "US" means that there is a series of books in the law library that cover the U.S. Supreme Court decisions and the Dred Scott decision is in volume 60 of that series. Following the abbreviation for the source book series is the page number (or numbers) where the case begins in the referenced work. So, 60 US 393 means that the Dred Scott (plaintiff) versus (v.) Sandford (defendant) case can be found in a U.S. Supreme Court decision in volume 60, beginning on page 393. That is as simple as case citations get. But, as the reader may well have imagined, it gets more complex. The first point of complexity comes when the case is located in one of the reporter series of books. Each state has one or more reporter series for its state cases. There are reporters that cover just federal court cases. Add to that the reporter series that covers regional cases (such as the Pacific Reporter which covers the Pacific states). Finally we have the American Law Reports (ALR). The ALR provides dialogue and background on a case. The reporters consist of one or more editions. An example of a case listed in one of the reporter series of books is: ENGBLOM v. CAREY 724 F.2d 28 As with federal and state citations, the plaintiff(s) versus the defendant(s) identifier precedes the listing. This particular case is found in volume 724 of the second edition of the Federal Reporter and begins there on page 28. Eckert v. City of Philadelphia 477 F.2d 610 will be the case found in volume 477 of the second edition of the Federal Reporter, beginning on page 610. The plaintiff is Eckert and the defendant in this case is the City of Philadelphia. Because a particular case may be listed in more than one publication, you may find references to a listing in a particular volume for the U.S. Supreme Court as well as in other reporters. Every publisher of these reporter series makes certain that their works contain the important cases that apply to that particular series. It is not at all uncommon to see multiple references. It is recommended that one review the first referenced work cited in a series. An example of this is: United States v. Miller et al 307 U.S. 174; 59 S. Ct. 816; 83 L. Ed. 1206; 39-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) P9513; 22 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 331; 1939-1 C.B. 373; 1939 P.H. P5421. This May 15, 1939, decision by the U.S. Supreme Court is referenced in several different reporters and you should check volume 307 of the U.S. Supreme Court series beginning on page 174. This introductory material will aid the reader in finding the preponderance of cases. If difficulty is in any way encountered, merely ask the librarian at the law library for assistance. I have never found one who was unwilling to help. They have infinite patience with academic researchers and attorneys. APPENDIX B ROBERTI-ROOS ASSAULT WEAPONS CONTROL ACT OF 1989 This is the original Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 as incorporated into the California Penal Code at the time of its original inclusion. The Act has since been slightly modified and the Act includes provisions for further modifying it and the list of firearms affected by the Act. For the latest revision to the Act, please consult a current copy of the California Penal Code (available at all law libraries within California as well as through the facilities of LEXIS). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=- CALIFORNIA PENAL CODE PART 4. Prevention of Crimes and Apprehension of Criminals TITLE 2. Control of Deadly Weapons CHAPTER 2.3. Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 ARTICLE 1. General Provisions 12275. Citation of chapter This chapter shall be known as the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989. 12275.5. Legislative findings and declarations The Legislature hereby finds and declares that the proliferation and use of assault weapons poses a threat to the health, safety, and security of all citizens of this state. The Legislature has restricted the assault weapons specified in Section 12276 based upon finding that each firearm has such a high rate of fire and capacity for firepower that its function as a legitimate sports or recreational firearm is substantially outweighed by the danger that it can be used to kill and injure human beings. It is the intent of the Legislature in enacting this chapter to place restrictions on the use of assault weapons and to establish a registration and permit procedure for their lawful sale and possession. It is not, however, the intent of the Legislature by this chapter to place restrictions on the use of those weapons which are primarily designed and intended for hunting, target practice, or other legitimate sports or recreational activities. 12276. "Assault weapon" As used in this chapter, "assault weapon" shall mean the following firearms known by trade names: (a) All of the following specified rifles: (1) Avtomat Kalashnikovs (AK) series. (2) UZI and Galil. (3) Beretta AR-70 (SC-70). (4) CETME G3. (5) Colt AR-15 series and CAR-15 series. (6) Daewoo K-1, K-2, Max 1, and Max 2. (7) Fabrique Nationale FN/FAL, FN/LAR, and FNC. (8) FAMAS MAS223. (9) Heckler & Koch HK-91, H-93, HK-94, and PSG-1. (10) MAC 10 and MAC 11. (11) SKS with detachable magazine. (12) SIG AMT, SIG 500 Series, and SIG PE-57. (13) Springfield Armory BM59 and SAR-48. (14) Sterling MK-6 and SAR. (15) Steyr AUG. (16) Valmet M62, M71S, and M78. (17) Armalite AR-180 Carbine. (18) Bushmaster Assault Rifle (armgun). (19) Calico M-900 Assault Carbine. (20) Mandall THE TAC-1 Carbine. (21) Plainfield Machine Company Carbine. (22) PJK M-68 Carbine. (23) Weaver Arm Nighthawk. (b) All of the following specified pistols: (1) UZI. (2) Encom MP-9 and MP-45. (3) MAC 10 and MAC 11. (4) INTRATEC TEC-9. (5) Mitchell Arms Spectre Auto. (6) Sterling MK-7. (7) Calico M-900. (c) All of the following specified shotguns: (1) Franchi SPAS 12 and LAW 12. (2) Gilbert Equipment Company Striker 12 and SWD Street Sweeper. (3) Encom CM-55. (d) Any firearm declared by a court pursuant to Section 12276.5 to be an assault weapon. 12276.5. Declaration of temporary suspension of manufacture, sale, or importation; Notice; Hearing on permanent declaration; Description for identification purposes (a) Upon request by the Attorney General filed in a verified petition in a superior court of a county with a population of more than 1,000,000, the superior court shall issue a declaration of temporary suspension of the manufacture, sale, distribution, transportation, or importation into the state, or the giving or lending of a firearm alleged to be an assault weapon within the meaning of Section 12276 because the firearm is either of the following: (1) Another model by the same manufacturer or a copy by another manufacturer of an assault weapon listed in subdivision (a), (b), or (c) of Section 12276 which is identical to one of the assault weapons listed in those subdivisions except for slight modifications or enhancements including, but not limited to: a folding or retractable stock; adjustable sight; case deflector for left-handed shooters; shorter barrel; wooden, plastic or metal stock; larger magazine size; different caliber provided that the caliber exceeds .22 rimfire; or bayonet mount. The court shall strictly construe this paragraph so that a firearm which is merely similar in appearance but not a prototype or copy cannot be found to be within the meaning of this paragraph. (2) A firearm first manufactured or sold to the general public in California after June 1, 1989, which has been redesigned, renamed, or renumbered from one of the firearms listed in subdivision (a), (b), or (c) of Section 12276, or which is manufactured or sold by another company under a licensing agreement to manufacture or sell one of the firearms listed in subdivision (a), (b), or (c) of Section 12276, regardless of the company of production or distribution, or the country of origin. (b) Upon the issuance of a declaration of temporary suspension by the superior court and after the Attorney General has completed the notice requirements of subdivisions (c) and (d), the provisions of subdivision (a) of Section 12280 shall apply with respect to those weapons. (c) Upon declaration of temporary suspension, the Attorney General shall immediately notify all police, sheriffs, district attorneys, and those requesting notice pursuant to subdivision (d), shall notify industry and association publications for those who manufacture, sell, or use firearms, and shall publish notice in not less than 10 newspapers of general circulation in geographically diverse sections of the state of the fact that the declaration has been issued. (d) The Attorney General shall maintain a list of any persons who request to receive notice of any declaration of temporary suspension and shall furnish notice under subdivision (c) to all these persons immediately upon a superior court declaration. Notice shall also be furnished by the Attorney General by certified mail, return receipt requested (or substantial equivalent if the person who is to receive the notice resides outside the United States), to any known manufacturer and California distributor of the weapon which is the subject of the temporary suspension order or their California statutory agent for service. The notice shall be deemed effective upon mailing. (e) After issuing a declaration of temporary suspension under this section, the superior court shall set a date for hearing on a permanent declaration that the weapon is an assault weapon. The hearing shall be set no later than 30 days from the date of issuance of the declaration of temporary suspension. The hearing may be continued for good cause thereafter. Any manufacturer or California distributor of the weapon which is the subject of the temporary suspension order has the right, within 20 days of notification of the issuance of the order, to intervene in the action. Any manufacturer or California distributor who fails to timely exercise its right of intervention, or any other person who manufactures, sells, or owns the assault weapon may, in the court's discretion, thereafter join the action as amicus curiae. (f) At the hearing, the burden of proof is upon the Attorney General to show by a preponderance of evidence that the weapon which is the subject of the declaration of temporary suspension is an assault weapon. If the court finds the weapon to be an assault weapon, it shall issue a declaration that it is an assault weapon under Section 12276. Any party to the matter may appeal the court's decision. A declaration that the weapon is an assault weapon shall remain in effect during the pendency of the appeal unless ordered otherwise by the appellate court. (g) The Attorney General shall prepare a description for identification purposes, including a picture or diagram, of each assault weapon listed in Section 12276, and any firearm declared to be an assault weapon pursuant to this section, and shall distribute the description to all law enforcement agencies responsible for enforcement of this chapter. Those law enforcement agencies shall make the description available to all agency personnel. 12277. "Person" As used in this chapter, "person" means an individual, partnership, corporation, association, or any other group or entity, regardless of how it was created. 12280. Manufacture, transportation, importation, or sale of weapons; Felony; Punishments; Exceptions (a) (1) Any person who within this state manufactures or causes to be manufactured, distributes, transports, or imports into the state, keeps for sale, or offers or exposes for sale, or who gives or lends any assault weapon, except as provided by this chapter, is guilty of a felony, and upon conviction shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for four, six, or eight years. (2) In addition and consecutive to the punishment imposed under paragraph (1), any person who transfers, lends, sells, or gives any assault weapon to a minor in violation of paragraph (1) shall receive an enhancement of one year. (b) Except as provided in Section 12288, any person who, within this state, possesses any assault weapon, except as provided in this chapter, is guilty of a public offense and upon conviction shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison, or in the county jail, not exceeding one year. However, if the person presents proof that he or she lawfully possessed the assault weapon prior to June 1, 1989, or prior to a declaration issued pursuant to Section 12276.5 declaring that firearm to be an assault weapon, and has since either registered the firearm and any other lawfully obtained firearm subject to this chapter pursuant to Section 12285 or relinquished them pursuant to Section 12288, a first-time violation of this subdivision shall be an infraction punishable by a fine of up to five hundred dollars ($500), but not less than three hundred fifty dollars ($350), if the person has otherwise possessed the firearm in compliance with subdivision (c) of Section 12285. In these cases, the firearm shall be returned unless the court finds in the interest of public safety, after notice and hearing, that the assault weapon should be destroyed pursuant to Section 12028. (c) Notwithstanding Section 654 or any other provision of law, any person who commits another crime while violating this section may receive an additional, consecutive punishment of one year for violating this section in addition and consecutive to the punishment, including enhancements, which is prescribed for the other crime. (d) Subdivisions (a) and (b) do not apply to the sale to, purchase by, or possession of assault weapons by the Department of Justice, police departments, sheriffs' offices, marshals' offices, the Department of Corrections, the California Highway Patrol, the California State Police, district attorneys' offices, or the military or naval forces of this state or of the United States for use in the discharge of their official duties; nor shall anything in this chapter prohibit the possession or use of assault weapons by sworn members of these agencies when on duty and the use is within the scope of their duties. (e) Subdivision (b) does not apply to the possession of an assault weapon by any person during the 1990 calendar year if all of the following are applicable: (1) The person is eligible under this chapter to register the particular assault weapon by January 1, 1991. (2) The person lawfully possessed the particular assault weapon described in paragraph (1) prior to June 1, 1989. (3) The person is otherwise in compliance with this chapter. (f) Subdivisions (a) and (b) shall not apply to the manufacture by persons who are issued permits pursuant to Section 12287 of assault weapons for sale to the following: (1) Exempt entities listed in subdivision (d). (2) Entities and persons who have been issued permits pursuant to Section 12286. (3) Entities outside the state who have, in effect, a federal firearms dealer's license solely for the purpose of distribution to an entity listed in paragraphs (4) to (6), inclusive. (4) Federal military and law enforcement agencies. (5) Law enforcement and military agencies of other states. (6) Foreign governments and agencies approved by the United States State Department. 12285. Registration procedure; Fee; Sale or transfer to licensed gun dealer; Conditions for possession; Persons excluded from registration or possession (a) Any person who lawfully possesses an assault weapon, as defined in Section 12276, prior to June 1, 1989, shall register the firearm by January 1, 1991, with the Department of Justice pursuant to those procedures which the department may establish. The registration shall contain a description of the firearm that identifies it uniquely, including all identification marks, the full name, address, date of birth, and thumbprint of the owner, and any other information as the department may deem appropriate. The department may charge a fee for registration of up to twenty dollars ($20) per person but not to exceed the actual processing costs of the department. After the department establishes fees sufficient to reimburse the department for processing costs, fees charged shall increase at a rate not to exceed the legislatively approved annual cost-of-living adjustment for the department's budget or as otherwise increased through the Budget Act. (b) No assault weapon possessed pursuant to this section may be sold or transferred on or after January 1, 1990, to anyone within this state other than to a licensed gun dealer, as defined in subdivision (c) of Section 12290, or as provided in Section 12288. Any person who (1) obtains title to an assault weapon registered under this section by bequest or intestate succession, (2) moves into the state in lawful possession of an assault weapon, or (3) lawfully possessed a firearm subsequently declared to be an assault weapon pursuant to Section 12276.5, shall, within 90 days, either render the weapon permanently inoperable, sell the weapon to a licensed gun dealer, obtain a permit from the Department of Justice in the same manner as specified in Article 3 (commencing with Section 12230) of Chapter 2, or remove the weapon from this state. A person who lawfully possessed a firearm which was subsequently declared to be an assault weapon pursuant to Section 12276.5 may alternatively register the firearm within 90 days of the declaration issued pursuant to subdivision (f) of Section 12276.5. (c) A person who has registered an assault weapon under this section may possess it only under the following conditions unless a permit allowing additional uses is first obtained under Section 12286: (1) At that person's residence, place of business, or other property owned by that person, or on property owned by another with the owner's express permission. (2) While on the premises of a target range of a public or private club or organization organized for the purpose of practicing shooting at targets. (3) While on a target range which holds a regulatory or business license for the purpose of practicing shooting at that target range. (4) While on the premises of a shooting club which is licensed pursuant to the Fish and Game Code. (5) While attending any exhibition, display, or educational project which is about firearms and which is sponsored by, conducted under the auspices of, or approved by a law enforcement agency or a nationally or state recognized entity that fosters proficiency in, or promotes education about, firearms. (6) While transporting the assault weapon between any of the places mentioned in this subdivision, or to any licensed gun dealer, as defined in subdivision (c) of Section 12290, for servicing or repair pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 12290, if the assault weapon is transported as required by Section 12026.1. (d) No person who is under the age of 18 years, no person who is prohibited from possessing a firearm by Section 12021 or 12021.1 of this code, and no person described in Section 8100 or 8103 of the Welfare and Institutions Code may register or possess an assault weapon. (e) The department's registration procedures shall provide the option of joint registration for assault weapons owned by family members residing in the same household. 12286. Permit requirement Any person who lawfully acquired an assault weapon before June 1, 1989, and wishes to use it in a manner different than specified in subdivision (c) of Section 12285, any person who lawfully acquired an assault weapon between June 1, 1989, and January 1, 1990, and wishes to keep it after January 1, 1990, or any person who wishes to acquire an assault weapon after January 1, 1990, shall first obtain a permit from the Department of Justice in the same manner as specified in Article 3 (commencing with Section 12230) of Chapter 2. 12287. Issuance of permits for manufacture of assault weapons (a) The Department of Justice may, upon a finding of good cause, issue permits for the manufacture of assault weapons to federally licensed manufacturers of firearms for the sale to, purchase by, or possession of assault weapons by, any of the following: (1) The agencies listed in subdivision (d) of Section 12280. (2) Entities and persons who have been issued permits pursuant to Section 12286. (3) Entities outside the state who have, in effect, a federal firearms dealer's license solely for the purpose of distribution to an entity listed in paragraphs (4) to (6), inclusive. (4) Federal law enforcement and military agencies. (5) Law enforcement and military agencies of other states. (6) Foreign governments and agencies approved by the United States State Department. (b) Application for the permits, the keeping and inspection thereof, and the revocation of permits shall be undertaken in the same manner as specified in Article 3 (commencing with Section 12230) of Chapter 2. 12288. Relinquishment of weapon to peace officers Any individual may arrange in advance to relinquish an assault weapon to a police or sheriff's department. The assault weapon shall be transported in accordance Section 12026.1. 12290. Transportation, display or sale of weapons; "Licensed gun dealer" (a) Any licensed gun dealer, as defined in subdivision (c), who lawfully possesses an assault weapon pursuant to Section 12285, in addition to the uses allowed in Section 12285, may transport the weapon between dealers or out of the state, display it at any gun show licensed by a state or local governmental entity, sell it to a resident outside the state, or sell it to a person who has been issued a permit pursuant to Section 12286. Any transporting allowed by this section must be done as required by Section 12026.1. (b) (1) Any licensed gun dealer, as defined in subdivision (c), may take possession of any assault weapon for the purposes of servicing or repair from any person to whom it is legally registered or who has been issued a permit to possess it pursuant to this chapter. (2) Any licensed gun dealer may transfer possession of any assault weapon received pursuant to paragraph (1), to a gunsmith for purposes of accomplishing service or repair of the same. Transfers are permissible only to the following persons: (A) A gunsmith who is in the dealer's employ. (B) A gunsmith with whom the dealer has contracted for gunsmithing services. In order for this subparagraph to apply, the gunsmith receiving the assault weapon must hold all of the following: (i) A dealer's license issued pursuant to Chapter 44 (commencing with Section 921) of Title 18 of the United States Code and the regulations issued pursuant thereto. (ii) Any business license required by a state or local governmental entity. (c) The term "licensed gun dealer," as used in this article, means a person who has a federal firearms license, any business license required by a state or local governmental entity, and a seller's permit issued by the State Board of Equalization. APPENDIX C THE WAR INEVITABLE SPEECH Patrick Henry (1736-1799) March, 1775 No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as the abilities of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the house. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, entertaining as I do, opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I should speak forth my sentiments freely, and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The question before the house is one of awful moment to this country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the majesty of heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings. Mister President, it is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth - and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the house? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation - the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can almost be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains, which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it was capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find that we have not already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done every thing that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned - we have remonstrated - we have supplicated - we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, we may indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free - if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending - if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained - we must fight! - I repeat, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak - unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means the God of Nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we are base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable - and let it come! I repeat, sir, let it come! It is in vain, sir to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace - but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it the gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. Forbid it, Almighty God - I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! APPENDIX D THE NATIONAL FIREARMS ACT OF 1934 What follows is the text of the National Firearms Act of 1934, as currently amended. The NFA is being provided as an appendix to this work so that future researchers may monitor changes to this act. This is taken from "(Your Guide to) Federal Firearms Regulation 1988-89," published by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a division of the Department of the Treasury. This 1988-89 edition is the current edition at the time of this writing (June, 1992). The material provides definitions used by the federal government of various types of firearms and specifies the economic factors (revenue aspects) of control. I am grateful to the assistance of David Jeffries for his help in making this information available in electronic format. The current edition of the Act may always be downloaded from the Combat Arms BBS (503-221-1777) as NFA_1934.ZIP. -=-=-=-=-=-=- Federal Firearms Laws The National Firearms Act As Amended By: Public Law No. 99-308, 100 Stat. 449, Approved May 19, 1986 and Public Law 99-100-203, 101 Stat. 1330, Approved December 22, 1987. [references to the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 within this Act or amendments thereto refer to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. (2, Public Law 99-514, 100 Stat. 2085, October 22, 1986)] TITLE II MACHINE GUNS, DESTRUCTIVE DEVICES, AND CERTAIN OTHER FIREARMS Section 201, Chapter 53 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 is amended to read as follows: CHAPTER 53 MACHINE GUNS, DESTRUCTIVE DEVICES, AND CERTAIN OTHER FIREARMS Subchapter A. Taxes. Subchapter B. General provisions and exemptions. Subchapter C. Prohibited acts. Subchapter D. Penalties and forfeitures. SUBCHAPTER A-TAXES Part I. Special (occupational) taxes. Part II. Tax on transferring firearms. Part III. Tax on making firearms. PART I SPECIAL (OCCUPATIONAL) TAXES Section 5801. Tax. Section 5802. Registration of importers, manufacturers, and dealers. SECTION 5801. TAX. (a) GENERAL RULE. On first engaging in business and thereafter on or before July 1 of each year, every importer, manufacturer, and dealer in firearms shall pay a special (occupational) tax for each place of business at the following rates: (1) Importers and manufacturers: $1,000 a year or fraction thereof; (2) Dealers: $500 a year or fraction thereof. (b) REDUCED RATES OF TAX FOR SMALL IMPORTERS AND MANUFACTURERS. (1) IN GENERAL. Paragraph (1) of subsection (a) shall be applied by substituting `$500' for `$1,000' with respect to any taxpayer the gross receipts of which (for the most recent taxable year ending before the 1st day of the taxable period to which the tax imposed by subsection (a) relates) are less than $500,000. (2) CONTROLLED GROUP RATES. All persons treated as 1 taxpayer under section 5061(e) (3) shall be treated as 1 taxpayer for purposes of paragraph (1). (3) CERTAIN RULES TO APPLY. For purposes of paragraph (1), rules similar to the rules of subparagraphs (B) and (C) of section 448(c) (3) shall apply. (Pub. L. 90-618, Title II, 201, Oct. 22, 1968, 82 Stat. 1227; amended by Pub. L. 100-203, 10512(g) (1), Dec. 22, 1987, effective 01/01/88.) [Section 10512(h) (2) also provides: (2) All taxpayers treated as commending in business on January 1, 1988. (A) In general. Any person engaged on January 1, 1988, in any trade or business which is subject to an occupational tax shall be treated for purposes of such tax as having 1st engaged in such business on such date. (B) Limitation on amount of tax. In the case of a taxpayer who paid an occupational tax in respect of any premises for any taxable period which began before January 1, 1988, and includes such date, the amount of the occupational tax imposed by reason of subparagraph (A) in respect of such premises shall not exceed an amount equal to 1/2 the excess (if any) of- (i) the rate of such tax as in effect on January 1, 1988, over (ii) the rate of such tax as in effect on December 31, 1987. (C) Occupational tax. For purposes of this paragraph, the term `occupational tax' means any tax imposed under part II of subchapter A of chapter 51, section 5276, section 5731, or section 5801 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (as amended by this section.) (D) Due date of tax. The amount of any tax required to be paid by reason of this paragraph shall be due on April 1, 1988.] SECTION 5802. REGISTRATION OF IMPORTERS, MANUFACTURERS, AND DEALERS. On first engaging in business and thereafter on or before the first day of July of each year, each importer, manufacturer, and dealer in firearms shall register with the Secretary or his delegate in each internal revenue district in which such business is to be carried on, his name, including any trade name, and the address of each location in the district where he will conduct such business. Where there is a change during the taxable year in the location of, or the trade name used in, such business, the importer, manufacturer, or dealer shall file an application with the Secretary or his delegate to amend his registration. Firearms operations of an importer, manufacturer, or dealer may not be commenced at the new location or under a new trade name prior to approval by the Secretary or his delegate of the application. PART II TAX ON TRANSFERRING FIREARMS Section 5811. Transfer Tax. Section 5812. Transfers. SECTION 5811. TRANSFER TAX. (a) RATE. There shall be levied, collected, and paid on firearms transferred a tax at the rate of $200 for each firearm transferred, except, the transfer tax on any firearm classified as any other weapon under section 5845(e) shall be at the rate of $5 for each such firearm transferred. (b) BY WHOM PAID. The tax imposed by subsection (a) of this section shall be paid by the transferor. (c) PAYMENT. The tax imposed by subsection (a) of this section shall be payable by the appropriate stamps prescribed for payment by the Secretary or his delegate. SECTION 5812. TRANSFERS. (a) APPLICATION. A firearm shall not be transferred unless (1) the transferor of the firearm has filed with the Secretary or his delegate a written application, in duplicate, for the transfer and registration of the firearm to the transferee on the application form prescribed by the Secretary or his delegate; (2) any tax payable on the transfer is paid as evidenced by the proper stamp affixed to the original application form; (3) the transferee is identified in the application form in such manner as the Secretary or his delegate may by regulations prescribe, except that, if such person is an individual, the identification must include his fingerprints and his photograph; (4) the transferor of the firearm is identified in the application form in such manner as the Secretary or his delegate may by regulations prescribe. (5) the firearm is identified in the application form in such manner as the Secretary or his delegate may by regulations prescribe; and (6) the application form shows that the Secretary or his delegate has approved the transfer and the registration of the firearm to the transferee. Applications shall be denied if the transfer, receipt, or possession of the firearm would place the transferee in violation of law. (b) TRANSFER OF POSSESSION. The transferee of a firearm shall not take possession of the firearm unless the Secretary or his delegate has approved the transfer and registration of the firearm to the transferee as required by subsection (a) of this section. PART III TAX ON MAKING FIREARMS. Section 5821. Making tax. Section 5822. Making. SECTION 5821. MAKING TAX. (a) RATE. There shall be levied, collected, and paid upon the making of a firearm a tax at the rate of $200 for each firearm made. (b) BY WHOM PAID. The tax imposed by subsection (a) of this section shall be paid by the person making the firearm. (c) PAYMENT. The tax imposed by subsection (a) of this section shall be payable by the stamp prescribed for payment by the Secretary or his delegate. SECTION 5822. MAKING. No person shall make a firearm unless he has (a) filed with the Secretary or his delegate a written application, in duplicate, to make and register the firearm on the form prescribed by the Secretary or his delegate; (b) paid any tax payable on the making and such payment is evidenced by the proper stamp affixed to the original application form; (c) identified the firearm to be made in the application form in such manner as the Secretary or his delegate may by regulations prescribe; (d) identified himself in the application form in such manner as the Secretary or his delegate may by regulations prescribe, except that, if such person is an individual, the identification must include his fingerprints and his photograph; and (e) obtained the approval of the Secretary or his delegate to make and register the firearm and the application form shows such approval. Applications shall be denied if the making or possession of the firearm would place the person making the firearm in violation of law. Subchapter B General Provisions and Exemptions Part I. General Provisions. Part II. Exemptions. PART I GENERAL PROVISIONS Section 5841. Registration of firearms. Section 5842. Identification of firearms. Section 5843. Records and returns. Section 5844. Importation. Section 5845. Definitions. Section 5846. Other laws applicable. Section 5847. Effect on other law. Section 5848. Restrictive use of information. Section 5849. Citation of chapter. SECTION 5841. REGISTRATION OF FIREARMS. (a) CENTRAL REGISTRY. The Secretary or his delegate shall maintain a central registry of all firearms in the United States which are not in the possession or under the control of the United States. This registry shall be knows as the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. The registry shall include- (1) identification of the firearm; (2) date of registration; and (3) identification and address of person entitled to possession of the firearm. (b) BY WHOM REGISTERED. Each manufacturer, importer, and maker shall register each firearm he manufactures, imports, or makes. Each firearm transferred shall be registered to the transferee by the transferor. (c) HOW REGISTERED. Each manufacturer shall notify the Secretary or his delegate of the manufacture of a firearm in such manner as may by regulation be prescribed and such notification shall effect the registration of the firearm required by this section. Each importer, maker and transferor of a firearm shall, prior to importing, making, or transferring a firearm, obtain authorization in such manner as required by this chapter or regulations issued thereunder to import, make, or transfer the firearm, and such authorization shall effect the registration of the firearm required by this section. (d) FIREARMS REGISTERED ON EFFECTIVE DATE OF THIS ACT. A person shown as possessing a firearm by the records maintained by the Secretary or his delegate pursuant to the National Firearms Act in force on the day immediately prior to the effective date of the National Firearms Act of 1968 shall be considered to have registered under this section the firearms in his possession which are disclosed by that record as being in his possession. (e) PROOF OF REGISTRATION A person possessing a firearm registered as required by this section shall retain proof of registration which shall be made available to the Secretary or his delegate upon request. SECTION 5842. IDENTIFICATION OF FIREARMS. (a) IDENTIFICATION OF FIREARMS OTHER THAN DESTRUCTIVE DEVICES Each manufacturer and importer and anyone making a firearm shall identify each firearm, other than a destructive device, manufactured, imported, or made by a serial number which may not be readily removed, obliterated, or altered, the name of the manufacturer, importer or maker, and such other identification as the Secretary or his delegate may by regulations prescribe. (b) FIREARMS WITHOUT SERIAL NUMBER. Any person who possesses a firearm, other than a destructive device, which does not bear the serial number and other information required by subsection (a) of this section shall identify the firearm with a serial number assigned by the Secretary or his delegate and any other information the Secretary or his delegate may by regulations prescribe. (c) IDENTIFICATION OF DESTRUCTIVE DEVICE. Any firearm classified as a destructive device shall be identified in such manner as the Secretary or his delegate may by regulations prescribe. SECTION 5843. RECORDS AND RETURNS. Importers, manufacturers, and dealers shall keep such records of, and render such returns in relation to, the importation, manufacture, making, receipt, and sale, or other disposition, of firearms as the Secretary or his delegate may by regulations prescribe. SECTION 5844. IMPORTATION. No firearm shall be imported or brought into the United States or any territory under its control or jurisdiction unless the importer establishes, under regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary or his delegate, that the firearm to be imported or brought in is- (1) being imported or brought in for the use of the United States or any department, independent establishment, or agency thereof or any State or possession or any political subdivision thereof; or (2) being imported or brought in for scientific or research purposes; or (3) being imported or brought in solely for testing or use as a model by a registered manufacturer or solely for use as a sample by a registered importer or registered dealer; except that, the Secretary or his delegate may permit the conditional importation or bringing in of a firearm for examination and testing in connection with classifying the firearm. SECTION 5845. DEFINITIONS. For the purpose of this chapter- (a) FIREARM. The term `firearm' means (1) a shotgun having a barrel or barrels of less than 18 inches in length; (2) a weapon made from a shotgun if such weapon as modified has an overall length of less than 26 inches or a barrel or barrels of less than 18 inches in length; (3) a rifle having a barrel or barrels of less than 16 inches in length; (4) a weapon made from a rifle if such weapon as modified has an overall length of less than 26 inches or a barrel or barrels of less than 16 inches in length; (5) any other weapon, as defined in subsection (e); (6) a machinegun; (7) any silencer (as defined in section 921 of title 18, United States Code); and (8) a destructive device. The term `firearm' shall not include an antique firearm or any device (other than a machinegun or destructive device) which, although designed as a weapon, the Secretary or his delegate finds by reason of the date of its manufacture, value, design, and other characteristics is primarily a collector's item and is not likely to be used as a weapon. (b) MACHINEGUN. The term `machinegun' means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person. (c) RIFLE. The term `rifle' means a weapon designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder and designed or redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of the explosive in a fixed cartridge to fire only a single projectile through a rifled bore for each single pull of the trigger, and shall include any such weapon which may be readily restored to fire a fixed cartridge. (d) SHOTGUN. The term `shotgun' means a weapon designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder and designed or redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of the explosive in a fixed shotgun shell to fire through a smooth bore either a number of projectiles (ball shot) or a single projectile for each pull of the trigger, and shall include any such weapon which may be readily restored to fire a fixed shotgun shell. (e) ANY OTHER WEAPON. The term `any other weapon' means any weapon or device capable of being concealed on the person from which a shot can be discharged through the energy of an explosive, a pistol or revolver having a barrel with a smooth bore designed or redesigned to fire a fixed shotgun shell, weapons with combination shotgun and rifle barrels 12 inches or more, less than 16 inches in length, from which only a single discharge can be made from either barrel without manual reloading, and shall include any such weapon which may be readily restored to fire. Such term shall not include a pistol or a revolver having a rifled bore, or rifled bores, or weapons designed, made, or intended to be fired from the shoulder and not capable of firing fixed ammunition. (f) DESTRUCTIVE DEVICE. The term `destructive device' means (1) any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas (A) bomb, (B) grenade, (C) rocket having a propellent charge of more than four ounces, (D) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce, (E) mine, or (F) similar device; (2) any type of weapon by whatever name known which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant, the barrel or barrels of which have a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter, except a shotgun or shotgun shell which the Secretary or his delegate finds is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes; and (3) any combination of parts either designed or intended for use in converting any device into a destructive device as defined in subparagraphs (1) and (2) and from which a destructive device may be readily assembled. The term `DESTRUCTIVE DEVICE' shall not included any device which is neither designed nor redesigned for use as a weapon; any device, although originally designed for use as a weapon, which is redesigned for use as a signaling, pyrotechnic, line throwing, safety, or similar device; surplus ordnance sold, loaned, or given by the Secretary of the Army pursuant to the provisions of section 4684(2), 4685, or 4686 of title 10 of the United States Code; or any other device which the Secretary of the Treasury or his delegate finds is not likely to be used as a weapon, or is an antique or is a rifle which the owner intends to use solely for sporting purposes. (g) ANTIQUE FIREARM. The term `antique firearm' means any firearm not designed or redesigned for using rim fire or conventional center fire ignition with fixed ammunition and manufactured in or before 1898 (including any matchlock, flintlock, percussion cap, or similar type of ignition system or replica thereof, whether actually manufactured before or after the year 1898) and also any firearm using fixed ammunition manufactured in or before 1898, for which ammunition is no longer manufactured in the United States and is not readily available in the ordinary channels of commercial trade. (h) UNSERVICEABLE FIREARM. The term `unserviceable firearm' means a firearm which is incapable of discharging a shot by means of an explosive and incapable of being readily restored to a firing condition. (i) MAKE. The term `make' and the various derivative of such word, shall include manufacturing (other than by one qualified to engage in such business under this chapter), putting together, altering, any combination of these, or otherwise producing a firearm. (j) TRANSFER. The term `transfer' and the various derivatives of such word, shall include selling, assigning, pledging, leasing, loaning, giving away, or otherwise disposing of. (k) DEALER. The term `dealer' means any person, not a manufacturer or importer, engaged in the business of selling, renting, leasing, or loaning firearms and shall included pawnbrokers who accept firearms as collateral for loans. (l) IMPORTER. The term `importer' means any person who is engaged in the business of importing or bringing firearms into the United States. (m) MANUFACTURER. The term `manufacturer' means any person who is engaged in the business of manufacturing firearms. SECTION 5846. OTHER LAWS APPLICABLE. All provisions of law relating to special taxes imposed by chapter 51 and to engraving, issuance, sale, accountability, cancellation, and distribution of stamps for tax payment shall, insofar as not inconsistent with the provisions of this chapter, be applicable with respect to the taxes imposed by sections 5801, 5811, and 5821. SECTION 5847. EFFECT ON OTHER LAWS. Nothing in this chapter shall be construed as modifying or affecting the requirements of section 414 of the Mutual Security Act of 1954, as amended, [now section 38 of the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, as amended], with respect to the manufacture, exportation, and importation of arms, ammunition, and implements of war. SECTION 5848. RESTRICTIVE USE OF INFORMATION. (a) GENERAL RULE. No information or evidence obtained from an application, registration, or records required to be submitted or retained by a natural person in order to comply with any provision of this chapter or regulations issued thereunder, shall, except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, be used, directly or indirectly, as evidence against that person in a criminal proceeding with respect to a violation of law occurring prior to or concurrently with the filing of the application or registration, or the compiling of the records containing the information or evidence. (b) FURNISHING FALSE INFORMATION. Subsection (a) of this section shall not preclude the use of any such information or evidence in a prosecution or other action under any applicable provision of law with respect to the furnishing of false information. SECTION 5849. CITATION OF CHAPTER. This chapter may be cited as the `NATIONAL FIREARMS ACT' and any reference in any other provision of law to the `NATIONAL FIREARMS ACT' shall be held to refer to the provisions of this chapter. PART II EXEMPTIONS Section 5851. Special (occupational) tax exemption. Section 5852. General transfer and making exemption. Section 5853. Exemption from transfer and making tax available to certain government entities and officials. Section 5854. Exportation of firearms exempt from transfer tax. SECTION 5851. SPECIAL (OCCUPATIONAL) TAX EXEMPTION. (a) BUSINESS WITH UNITED STATES. Any person required to pay special (occupational) tax under section 5801 shall be relieved from payment of that tax if he establishes to the satisfaction of the Secretary or his delegate that his business is conducted exclusively with, or on behalf of, the United States or any department, independent establishment, or agency thereof. The Secretary or his delegate may relieve any person manufacturing firearms for, or on behalf of, the United States from compliance with any provision of this chapter in the conduct of such business. (b) APPLICATION. The exemption provided for in subsection (a) of this section may be obtained by filing with the Secretary or his delegate an application on such form and containing such information as may by regulations be prescribed. The exemptions must thereafter be renewed on or before July 1 of each year. Approval of the application by the Secretary or his delegate shall entitle the applicant to the exemptions stated on the approved application. SECTION 5852. GENERAL TRANSFER AND MAKING TAX EXEMPTION. (a) TRANSFER. Any firearm may be transferred to the United States or any department, independent establishment, or agency thereof, without payment of the transfer tax imposed by section 5811. (b) MAKING BY A PERSON OTHER THAN A QUALIFIED MANUFACTURER. Any firearm may be made by, or on behalf of, the United States, or any department, independent establishment, or agency thereof, without payment of the making tax imposed by section 5821. (c) MAKING BY A QUALIFIED MANUFACTURER. A manufacturer qualified under this chapter to engage in such business may make the type of firearm which he is qualified to manufacture without payment of the making tax imposed by section 5821. (d) TRANSFERS BETWEEN SPECIAL (OCCUPATIONAL) TAXPAYERS. A firearm registered to a person qualified under this chapter to engage in business as an importer, manufacturer, or dealer may be transferred by that person without payment of the transfer tax imposed by section 5811 to any other person qualified under this chapter to manufacture, import, or deal in that type of firearm. (e) UNSERVICEABLE FIREARM. An unserviceable firearm may be transferred as a curio or ornament without payment of the transfer tax imposed by section 5811, under such requirements as the Secretary or his delegate may be regulations prescribe. (f) RIGHT TO EXEMPTION. No firearm may be transferred or made exempt from tax under the provisions of this section unless the transfer or making is performed pursuant to an application in such form and manner as the Secretary or his delegate may by regulations prescribe. SECTION 5853. TRANSFER AND MAKING TAX EXEMPTION AVAILABLE TO CERTAIN GOVERNMENTAL ENTITIES. (a) TRANSFER. A firearm may be transferred without the payment of the transfer tax imposed by section 5811 to any State, possession of the United States, any political subdivision thereof, or any official police organization of such a governmental entity engaged in criminal investigations. (b) MAKING. A firearm may be made without payment of the making tax imposed by section 5821 by, or on behalf of, any State, or possession of the United States, any political subdivision thereof, or any official police organization of such a government entity engaged in criminal investigations. (c) RIGHT TO EXEMPTION. No firearm may be transferred or made exempt from tax under this section unless the transfer or making is performed pursuant to an application in such form and manner as the Secretary or his delegate may by regulations prescribe. SECTION 5854. EXPORTATION OF FIREARMS EXEMPT FROM TRANSFER TAX. A firearm may be exported without payment of the transfer tax imposed under section 5811 provided that proof of the exportation is furnished in such form and manner as the Secretary or his delegate may by regulations prescribe. Subchapter C Prohibited Acts SECTION 5861. PROHIBITED ACTS. It shall be unlawful for any person- (a) to engage in business as a manufacturer or importer of, or dealer in, firearms without having paid the special (occupational) tax required by section 5801 for his business or having registered as required by section 5802; or (b) to receive or possess a firearm transferred to him in violation of the provisions of this chapter; or (c) to receive or possess a firearm made in violation of the provisions of this chapter; or (d) to receive or possess a firearm which is not registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record; or (e) to transfer a firearm in violation of the provisions of this chapter; or (f) to make a firearm in violation of the provisions of this chapter; or (g) to obliterate, remove, change, or alter the serial number or other identification of a firearm required by this chapter; or (h) to receive or possess a firearm having the serial number or other identification required by this chapter obliterated, removed, changed, or altered; or (i) to receive or possess a firearm which is not identified by a serial number as required by this chapter; or (j) to transport, deliver, or receive any firearm in interstate commerce which has not been registered as required by this chapter; or (k) to receive or possess a firearm which has been imported or brought into the United States in violation of section 5844; or (l) to make, or cause the making of, a false entry on any application, return, or record required by this chapter, knowing such entry to be false. Subchapter D Penalties and Forfeitures Section 5871. Penalties. Section 5872. Forfeitures. SECTION 5871. PENALTIES. Any person who violates or fails to comply with any provision of this chapter shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $10,000, or be imprisoned not more than ten years, or both, and shall become eligible for parole as the Board of Parole shall determine. SECTION 5872. FORFEITURES. (a) LAWS APPLICABLE. Any firearm involved in any violation of the provisions of this chapter shall be subject to seizure and forfeiture, and (except as provided in subsection (b)) all the provisions of internal revenue laws relating to searches, seizures, and forfeitures of unstamped articles are extended to and made to apply to the articles taxed under this chapter, and the persons to whom this chapter applies. (b) DISPOSAL. In the case of the forfeiture of any firearm by reason of a violation of this chapter, no notice of public sale shall be required; no such firearm shall be sold at public sale; if such firearm is forfeited for a violation of this chapter and there is no remission or mitigation of forfeiture thereof, it shall be delivered by the Secretary or his delegate to the Administrator of General Services, General Services Administration, who may order such firearm destroyed or may sell it to any State, or possession, or political subdivision thereof, or at the request of the Secretary or his delegate, may authorize its retention for official use of the Treasury Department, or may transfer it without charge to any executive department or independent establishment of the Government for use by it. FOOTNOTES PUBLIC LAW 90-618, APPROVED OCTOBER 22, 1968: SECTION 202. The amendments made by section 201 of this title shall be cited as the National Firearms Act Amendments of 1968. * * * * SECTION 207. (a) Section 201 of this title shall take effect on the first day of the first month following the month in which it is enacted. (b) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a) or any other provision of law, any person possessing a firearm as defined in section 5845(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 (as amended by this title) which is not registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record shall register such firearm so possessed with the Secretary of the Treasury or his delegate in such form and manner as the Secretary or his delegate may require within the thirty days immediately following this effective date of section 201 of this Act. Such registration shall become a part of the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record required to be maintained by section 5841 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 (as amended by this title). No information or evidence required to be submitted or retained by a natural person to register a firearm under this section shall be used, directly or indirectly, as evidence against such person in any criminal proceeding with respect to a prior or concurrent violation of law. (c) The amendments made by section 202 *** of this title shall take effect on the day of enactment. (d) The Secretary of the Treasury, after publication in the Federal Register of his intention to do so, is authorized to establish such periods of amnesty, not to exceed ninety days in the case of a single period, as the Secretary determines will contribute to the purposes of this title. * * * * PUBLIC LAW 99-308, APPROVED MAY 19, 1986: SECTION 109. AMENDMENT OF THE NATIONAL FIREARMS ACT. (a) Machinegun definition in 5845(b) of the National Firearms Act [26 U.S.C. 5845(b)] is amended; and (b) CONFORMING AMENDMENT (Cross reference: 5845(a)(7) of the National Firearms Act [26 U.S.C. 5845(a)(7)] refers back to 921 of title 18, U.S.C. amend definition of silencer.) * * * * PUBLIC LAW 100-203, APPROVED December 22, 1987: OMNIBUS BUDGET RECONCILIATION ACT OF 1987: TITLE X. REVENUES. Extension and increase in certain alcohol, tobacco and firearms occupational taxes. 10512(g), (h). FIREARMS Special Occupational Tax Imposed by 26 U.S.C. 5801: AMENDED. [Set out within the National Firearms Act, 26 U.S.C. 5801.] * * * * [Historical Note: Except for the importation provisions which went into effect on the date of enactment (October 22, 1968), Title I went into effect on December 16, 1968 and Title II became effective on November 1, 1968.] GLOSSARY The firearms and related definitions provided here are taken from "(Your Guide to) Federal Firearms Regulation 1988-89," published by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a division of the Department of the Treasury and are contained with Title I of the Gun Control Act of 1968. They are provided so that the reader unfamiliar with firearms may obtain valid definitions. All references to "secretary" refer to the Secretary of the Treasury. All references to "this chapter" refer to Chapter 44 of Title I of the Code of Federal regulations. AMMUNITION Ammunition or cartridge cases, primers, bullets, or propellent powder designed for use in any firearm. ANTIQUE FIREARM (A) Any firearm (including any firearm with a matchlock, flintlock, percussion cap, or similar type of ignition system) manufactured in or before 1898; and (B) any replica of any firearm described in subparagraph (A) if such replica- (i) is not designed or redesigned for using rimfire or conventional centerfire fixed ammunition, or (ii) uses rimfire or conventional centerfire fixed ammunition which is no longer manufactured in the United States and which is not readily available in the ordinary channels of commercial trade. ANY OTHER WEAPON Any weapon or device capable of being concealed on the person from which a shot can be discharged through the energy of an explosive, a pistol or revolver having a barrel with a smooth bore designed or redesigned to fire a fixed shotgun shell, weapons with combination shotgun and rifle barrels 12 inches or more, less than 16 inches in length, from which only a single discharge can be made from either barrel without manual reloading, and shall include any such weapon which may be readily restored to fire. Such term shall not include a pistol or a revolver having a rifled bore, or rifled bores, or weapons designed, made, or intended to be fired from the shoulder and not capable of firing fixed ammunition. This particular definition is taken from section 5845(e) of the National Firearms Act (26 U.S.C. 5845(e)). ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION A projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium. Such term does not include shotgun shot required by Federal or State environmental or game regulations for hunting purposes, a frangible projectile designed for target shooting, a projectile which the Secretary finds is primarily intended to be used for sporting purposes, or any other projectile or projectile core which the Secretary finds is intended to be used for industrial purposes, including a charge used in an oil and gas well perforating device. COLLECTOR Any person who acquires, holds, or disposes of firearms as curios or relics, as the Secretary shall by regulation define, and the term "licensed collector" means any such person licensed under the provisions of this chapter. CRIME PUNISHABLE BY IMPRISONMENT FOR A TERM EXCEEDING ONE YEAR This term does not include- (A) any Federal or State offenses pertaining to anti-trust violations, unfair trade practices, restraints of trade, or other similar offenses relating to the regulation of business practices, or (B) any State offense classified by the laws of the State as a misdemeanor and punishable by a term of imprisonment of two years or less. What constitutes a conviction of such a crime shall be determined in accordance with the law of the jurisdiction in which the proceedings were held. Any conviction which has been expunged, or set aside or for which a person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored shall not be considered a conviction for purposes of this chapter, unless such pardon, expungement, or restoration of civil rights expressly provides that the person may not ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms. DEALER (A) Any person engaged in the business of selling firearms at wholesale or retail, (B) any person engaged in the business of repairing firearms or of making or fitting special barrels, stocks, or trigger mechanisms to firearms, or (C) any person who is a pawnbroker. The term "licensed dealer" means any dealer who is licensed under the provisions of this chapter. DESTRUCTIVE DEVICE (A) any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas- (i) bomb, (ii) grenade, (iii) rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces, (iv) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce, (v) mine, or (vi) device similar to any of the devices described in the preceding clauses; (B) Any type of weapon (other than a shotgun or a shotgun shall which the Secretary finds is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes) by whatever name known which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant, and which has any barrel with a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter; and (C) any combination of parts either designed or intended for use in converting any device into any destructive device described in subparagraph (A) or (B) and from which a destructive device may be readily assembled. The term "destructive device" shall not include any device which is neither designed nor redesigned for use as a weapon; any device, although originally designed for use as a weapon, which is redesigned for use as a signaling, pyrotechnic, line throwing, safety, or similar device; surplus ordnance sold, loaned, or given by the Secretary of the Army pursuant to the provisions of section 4684(2), 4685, or 4686 of title 10; or any other device which the Secretary of the Treasury finds is not likely to be used as a weapon, is an antique, or is a rifle which the owner intends to use solely for sporting, recreational or cultural purposes. ENGAGED IN THE BUSINESS (A) As applied to a manufacturer of firearms, a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to manufacturing firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the sale or distribution of the firearms manufactured; (B) as applied to a manufacturer of ammunition, a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to manufacturing ammunition as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the sale or distribution of the ammunition manufactured; (C) as applied to a dealer in firearms, as defined in section 921(a)(11)(A), a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms, but such term shall not include a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms; (D) as applied to a dealer in firearms, as defined in section 921(a)(11)(B), a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to engaging in such activity as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit, but such term shall not include a person who makes occasional repairs of firearms, or who occasionally fits special barrels, stocks, or trigger mechanisms to firearms; (E) as applied to an importer of firearms, a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to importing firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the sale or distribution of the firearms imported; and (F) as applied to an importer of ammunition, a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to importing ammunition as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the sale of distribution of the ammunition imported. FIREARM (A) Any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive; (B) the frame or receiver of any such weapon; (C) any firearm muffler or firearm silencer; or (D) any destructive device. Such term does not include an antique firearm. FIREARM MUFFLER - See "Firearm silencer." FIREARM SILENCER Any device for silencing, muffling, or diminishing the report of a portable firearm, including any combination of parts, designed or redesigned, and intended for use in assembling or fabricating a firearm silencer or firearm muffler, and any part intended only for use in such assembly or fabrication. FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE Any person who has fled from any State to avoid prosecution for a crime or to avoid giving testimony in any criminal proceeding. IMPORTER Any person engaged in the business of importing or bringing firearms or ammunition into the United States for purposes of sale or distribution; and the term "licensed importer" means any such person licensed under the provisions of this chapter. INDICTMENT Includes an indictment or information in any court under which a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year may be prosecuted. INTERSTATE OR FOREIGN COMMERCE Commerce between any place in a State and any place outside of that State, or within any possession of the United States (not including the Canal Zone) or the District of Columbia, but such term does not include commerce between places within the same State but through any place outside of that State. The term "State" includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the possessions of the United States (not including the Canal Zone). MACHINEGUN Any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person. This particular definition is taken from section 5845(b) of the National Firearms Act (26 U.S.C. 5845(b)). MANUFACTURER Any person engaged in the business of manufacturing firearms or ammunition for purposes of sale or distribution; and the term "licensed manufacturer" means any such person licensed under the provisions of this chapter. PAWNBROKER Any person whose business or occupation includes the taking or receiving, by way of pledge or pawn, of any firearm as security for the payment or repayment of money. PUBLISHED ORDINANCE A published law of any political subdivision of a State which the Secretary determines to be relevant to the enforcement of this chapter and which is contained on a list compiled by the Secretary, which list shall be published in the Federal Register, revised annually, and furnished to each licensee under this chapter. RIFLE A weapon designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder and designed or redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of the explosive in a fixed cartridge to fire only a single projectile through a rifled bore for each single pull of the trigger, and shall include any such weapon which may be readily restored to fire a fixed cartridge. This particular definition is taken from section 5845(c) of the National Firearms Act (26 U.S.C. 5845(c)). SAWED-OFF RIFLE - See "Short-barreled rifle." SAWED-OFF SHOTGUN - See "Short-barreled shotgun." SHOTGUN A weapon designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder and designed or redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of the explosive in a fixed shotgun shell to fire through a smooth bore either a number of projectiles (ball shot) or a single projectile for each pull of the trigger, and shall include any such weapon which may be readily restored to fire a fixed shotgun shell. This particular definition is taken from section 5845(d) of the National Firearms Act (26 U.S.C. 5845(d)). SHORT-BARRELED SHOTGUN A shotgun having one or more barrels less than eighteen inches in length and any weapon made from a shotgun (whether by alteration, modification, or otherwise) if such weapon as modified has an overall length of less than twenty-six inches. SHORT-BARRELED RIFLE A rifle having one or more barrels less than sixteen inches in length and any weapon made from a rifle (whether by alteration, modification, or otherwise) if such weapon, as modified, has an overall length of less than twenty-six inches. SECRETARY The Secretary of the Treasury or his delegate. SILENCER - See "Firearm silencer." UNSERVICEABLE FIREARM A firearm which is incapable of discharging a shot by means of an explosive and incapable of being readily restored to a firing condition. This particular definition is taken from section 5845(h) of the National Firearms Act (26 U.S.C. 5845(h)). WITH THE PRINCIPAL OBJECTIVE OF LIVELIHOOD AND PROFIT That the intent underlying the sale or disposition of firearms is predominantly one of obtaining livelihood or pecuniary gain, as opposed to other intents, such as improving or liquidating a personal firearms collection: PROVIDED, that proof of profit shall not be required as to a person who engages in the regular and repetitive purchase and disposition of firearms for criminal purposes or terrorism. For purposes of this paragraph, the term "terrorism" means activity, directed against United State persons, which- (A) is committed by an individual who is not a national or permanent resident alien of the United States; (B) involves violent acts or acts dangerous to human life which would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States; and (C) is intended- (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii)to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Richard Meek Bash was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on March 6, 1945. Upon graduation with a B.S. degree from Purdue University in January, 1972, he worked in the aviation industry as an instructor and eventually became an international airline flight engineer, flying the Lockheed C-130, Boeing 707 and the Boeing 727. His FAA aviation licenses include Airline Transport Pilot (Multiengine), Flight Engineer (Turbojet and Turboprop), A&P Mechanic, Flight Instructor, Ground Instructor and Aircraft Dispatcher. After living in several foreign countries, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Algeria, Germany and Singapore, Richard returned to America and settled in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife, Flora. After operating a ham radio publishing company for a number of years (ham radio call sign KL7IHP), he opened a gun store (Combat Arms) that catered to the unique needs of law enforcement, paramilitary enthusiasts and collectors. It was while running Combat Arms that Richard became concerned about governmental encroachment upon the rights of gun owners. He returned to school and initially obtained an A.A. degree in Administration of Justice at Chabot College in Hayward, California. Satisfied that he had sharpened his schooling skills, he entered the graduate school at California State University (Hayward) and in June, 1992, obtained a Masters in Public Administration degree. Realizing that additional research was needed in the field of gun control, he applied for and was accepted in the Ph.D. program at Portland State University (Portland, Oregon) in Public Administration and Policy (Fall, 1992). After receiving his doctorate, he hopes to teach at the graduate school level and do post-doctoral research on gun control and the Second Amendment. Richard also received training as a law enforcement armorer at Lassen College (Susanville, California), completed numerous courses in gunsmithing there, was awarded an NRA gunsmithing scholarship to Lassen for the Summer, 1992, program and presently holds both dealer and manufacturer licenses from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He also received factory armorer training at both Heckler and Koch (manufacturer of German made paramilitary weapons) and Glock (manufacturer of high technology handguns). A lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and the California Rifle and Pistol Association, Richard competed in rifle shooting (Director of Civilian Marksmanship program), built and repaired high precision sniper grade rifles and converted standard Colt type .45 ACP pistols to match grade firearms. He also plans to open a small shop in Portland while getting his doctorate. He will undoubtedly continue his interests in manufacturing and design of firearms. Richard may be contacted by writing to him at the Combat Arms BBS, P.O. Box 913, Portland, OR 97207-0913. INDEX About the author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .141 Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .iii Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii Adams John. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 , 19 , 24 Samuel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 , 19 , 20 , 26 American paradigm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Anderson, James LaVerne. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Antebellum period. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Anti-Federalists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 , 27 Appendices A - Understanding Legal Case Citations. . . . . . . . . . . .101 B - Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act. . . . . . . . .104 C - The War Inevitable Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113 D - The National Firearms Act of 1934 . . . . . . . . . . . .116 Arms control Early efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Army . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Assize of Arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 , 15 Attucks, Crispus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Bacon's Rebellion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Beccaria, Cesare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Berkeley, Sir William. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Bias in other research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Biases in this paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Boston Massacre. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Military occupation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Port Act. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Tea Party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Bronx. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Burger, Warren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 , 34 , 35 Bush, George . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 , 19 , 68 California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 , 6 , 58 , 60 California Government Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 California National Guard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Chicago. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Clinton, John. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Connecticut. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Continental Congress First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Second. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Cromwell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Death rate from firearms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Declaration of Causes of Taking Up Arms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Declaration of Independence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms. . . . 23 Democratic Party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 , 27 Denmark. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Detroit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 , 56 Dickinson, John. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 , 20 , 23 Eighteenth Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Emancipation Proclamation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 English Bill of Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Failure to make arrest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Failure to provide police protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Fairfax County Militia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 FBI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Federal Firearms Act of 1938 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Federal Firearms License (FFL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Federalist Paper No. 28. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Federalists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 , 27 Finland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Ford, Gerald . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Founding Fathers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 , 35 , 36 Fourteenth Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 , 40 Franklin, Benjamin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Gage, General Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Galloway, Joseph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Gardiner, Richard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Georgia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .133 Gonzalez, Julio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Gottlieb, Alan M.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Government liability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Grotius, Hugo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Hamilton, Alexander. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 , 26 Hancock, John. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Handgun Control, Inc. (HCI). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Handguns in the United States. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 Hennard, George J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Henry, Patrick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 , 20 , 26 , 113 Hobbes, Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Hofstadter, Richard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Homicide rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Homicide rates per 100,000 population 1980-1990. . . . . . . . . . .9 Hopkins, Stephen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Hutchinson, Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Intrafamily killings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Jay, John. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 , 26 Jefferson, Thomas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 , 20 , 23 , 24 Jews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 , 15 Justification for the paper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Kansas City. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Kates, Don B.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 , 62 Kennedy Joe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 John F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Robert. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Kennett, Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 King, Rodney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Kings Alfred. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Charles II. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 , 17 George III. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 , 24 Henry II. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 , 15 Henry VIII. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 , 16 James II. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 John. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 William . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Kopel, David B.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Korea. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Laws of Cnut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Leddy, Dr. Edward F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Lee, Richard Henry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Lennon, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Levinson, Sanford. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 , 29 Lincoln, Abraham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 List of figures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Livingston, Philip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Locke, John. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 , 36 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Los Angeles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 , 7 Damage assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Police. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Lungren, Daniel E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Machiavelli. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Madison, James . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 , 26 , 27 , 29 Magna Carta. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Maine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Marines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Mason, George. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 , 27 Massachusetts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 , 19 , 22 , 25 Concord . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Lexington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Militia - current government definition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Mohawk Indians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Montesquieu, Charles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Myth of self-protection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 National Association of Police Chiefs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 National Firearms Act (NFA). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 National Rifle Association (NRA) . . . . . . .vii , 30 , 54 , 55 , 61 New England Journal of Medicine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 New Jersey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56 , 58 New York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 New York (City). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 , 56 , 58 Owens, Congressman Major R.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Paine, Thomas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 , 24 Common Sense. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Pennsylvania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Philadelphia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Plato. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Polls Gallup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Harris. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v Price, Judge Edward Dean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Quartering Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Queen Mary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Reagan, Ronald . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Religious pacifists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Research focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Revere, Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Revolt of the underclass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Reynolds, Morgan O.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Rhode Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Roberti, David . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 . 52 , 53 , 54 , 56 , 58 , 104 , 105 , 106 , 107 , 108 , 110 , 111 , 112 Roos, Mike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Rossi, Peter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55 , 56 Rousseau, Jean Jacques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Rutledge, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Second Amendment . . . . . .1 , 27 , 28 , 30 , 37 , 38 , 41 , 67 , 68 Second Amendment Foundation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii Shay's Rebellion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Sherman, Roger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Sidney, Algernon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Smith, Adam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 South Carolina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Stamp Act. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Switzerland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Thirteenth Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Tonso, Dr. William R.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Twenty-first Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 U.S. Supreme Court cases Barron v. Baltimore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Dred Scott v. Sandford. .29 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 101 , 102 Miller v. Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 , 47 Presser v. Illinois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 , 45 , 47 U.S. v. Cruikshank. . . . . . . . . .41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 47 U.S. v. Miller. . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 , 48 , 51 , 101 , 103 Umeh, Dr. Jay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii Underclass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 71 Understanding legal case citations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101 Uniform Commercial Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 University of Maryland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Uses of firearms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Vietnam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Virginia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 , 18 , 19 , 20 Virginia Act of 1680 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Wallace, George. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Washington, D.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Washington, George . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 , 26 Weber, Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64 , 65 Will, George . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 , 30 , 35 Wilson, Pete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 World War I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Zimring, Franklin E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 This file (BASH.ZIP) and others regarding firearms are available at the Combat Arms BBS, P.O. Box 913, Portland, OR USA 97201. The BBS supports V.32bis (14,400 bps) calls and is available 24 hours per day. Member Fidonet (1:105/68). For a complete list of all of the files the system supports, call the BBS and download the file ALLFILES.ZIP. The telephone number to the BBS is (area code 503) 221-1777.