3 ms·

According to the article. "The trend did not appear to be related to...any major shifts in American attitudes towards crime, fear of time, or reports of being v

by learc83 15y ago

According to the article. "The trend did not appear to be related to...any major shifts in American attitudes towards crime, fear of time, or reports of being victimized, reports Gallup." I thought that at first as well, however.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
hga 15y ago
Well, a good part of it could be a reversal to the American norm; American gun control has gone through these phases, only the first of which could be considered legitimate: Pre-Civil War suppression of dueling. Post-Civil War suppression of freedmen, despite the 14th Amendment. Starting around the turn of the last century, measures against recent immigrants (in the case of NYC, one set of older immigrants (the Irish) against others (principally the Italians), hence the patrimony of the Sullivan Law). Following that, crime was the excuse (the Roaring '20s and Prohibition) and all but the elite were the target, and this just continued to increase. With the exception of a counter-reaction to the Black Power movement and the related big riots of the '60s. Keeping inexpensive guns out of the hands of blacks was an explicit goal in this period. Followed by more of the middle of the century stuff peaking with the Clinton "assault weapons" "ban" that finally started causing tremendous political damage, culminating in Gore's loss in 2000 (not the only reason of course, but one of several that if not for any of them he would have won). Since them, at the national level outside of safe seats (Schumer, DiFi (well, maybe not in 2012)) gun control has become another 3rd rail of American politics. And the gun culture's counter-revolution has been quite successful, among other things re-norming the ownership of guns. And these video games haven't hurt one bit. One thing I didn't mention but that might be relevant is the sharp decline in trust of our ruling class, who's fruits were are enjoying at large scale in the Great Recession and that otherwise rather resemble this bit from the Deceleration of Independence: "He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance." But it's not so much that as the shear ineptness of our ruling class. No one with a clue (often requiring some time in the real world) and the courage to face the facts is confident that this ruling class is a good steward of the nation's future, that we can trust them to take care of us. We're pretty much on our own until (ideally) we have a Pareto circulation of elites, and much can go wrong until then and after then. I could go on but I think you get the idea. What I'm expressing should get a hearing from people who are attracted to a site that's dedicated to people not working for the man....
- learc83 15y ago
  That was a Very interesting brief history of gun control. I've always been hostile to gun control, because I believe in the gun's ability to act as an equalizer--I believe it was a prerequisite for a modern, large scale, egalitarian society (well more egalitarian society anyway). Any recommended reading on the history of gun control? I'd also like to see a study on gun control support in other countries from the same time period.
  - hga 15y ago
    For the former, I need to look around, I've been fighting it since the early-mid '70s, not long after sugar price supports destroyed the moonshine industry and the BATF was in danger of being downsized because their Revenuers were out of a job. But they had this shiny new Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968 which completely changed the legal regime for gun sales and they preceded to use and abuse it heavily. For the latter, this book is supposed to be good, probably the best in breadth, I've read quite a bit of the author's words and he's honest and very good, and the used price is right: http://www.amazon.com/Samurai-Mountie-Cowboy-David-Kopel/dp/0879757566/ http://www.amazon.com/Samurai-Mountie-Cowboy-David-Kopel/dp/... I have to run right now, I'll see what I can come up with later (you might want to add your email address to your "about" entry to make it easier to contact you). And your point about "a modern, large scale, egalitarian society" is spot on: "God created men, and Samuel Colt made the equal" is the old saw. Adjust as desired, e.g. the feminist version is "created men and women"....
    - learc83 15y ago
      Thank you very much for the recommendations. I'll have some time to read in a month or so. I'm taking the Stanford A.I., machine learning, and database classes at the moment so they are monopolizing all my free time. I've also taken your advice and added my email to the about section.
  - hga 15y ago
    My goodness, how could I forget that the first bit of gun control in America is what directly sparked the American Revolution, what Lexington and Concord were all about. The British also played nasty games with the colonists trapped in Boston proper (I was quite surprised when I first came to Boston and found out that they'd filled in Back Bay over the last few centuries :-). Needless to say that put gun control is a bad light for the Founders, resulting in all the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) provisions in the Constitution and many state constitutions. For the first phase, the only source I know of is this pricey book by one of the best scholars in the field (and also one of us, i.e. a hard core programmer), Concealed Weapon Laws of the Early Republic: Dueling, Southern Violence, and Moral Reform, see more including the TOC and first chapter at: http://www.claytoncramer.com/books/books.htm http://www.claytoncramer.com/books/books.htm But this is mostly a historical curiosity, only important in providing context for these laws which tended to regulate concealed carry when the open carry was the norm (or so I remember). There's a tremendous amount of literature on "The Racist Roots of Gun Control" as the above author puts it in one essay: http://www.claytoncramer.com/scholarly/racistroots.htm http://www.claytoncramer.com/scholarly/racistroots.htm Not the least of which is the infamous Dred Scott decision; from Wikipedia: 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 [emphasis added]. And that just wouldn't do. Look into the 14th Amendment, which among other things was intended to stop the disarming for freedmen, and how it was judicially nullified by the Supreme Court in the 19th century, resulting in really messy jurisprudence in the 20th as the Supremes have selectively applied it (for the 2nd, in McDonald very recently). An old (1984) but excellent book that includes coverage of this is That Every Man Be Armed: http://www.amazon.com/That-Every-Man-Armed-Constitutional/dp/0945999380/ http://www.amazon.com/That-Every-Man-Armed-Constitutional/dp... The beginning and as I recall bulk of the book is on the 2nd Amendment period, and that's useful for learning why our current police forces would be called "select militias" by the Founders, a phrase with the emotional loading of, say, "Communist" in the '50s. But aside from the genesis and nullification of the 14th Amendment it's not particularly a history of gun control; recommended reading, though. I've read enough of Neal Knox's columns to know that this book is almost certainly very good for the "modern" history period (perhaps to the '60s): http://www.amazon.com/Neal-Knox-Gun-Rights-War/dp/0976863308/ http://www.amazon.com/Neal-Knox-Gun-Rights-War/dp/0976863308... and it will likely include some stuff on earlier parts. But note that he was an activist, someone who made history, not a historian or someone engaged in that role when he wrote the columns compiled in this book. David Kopel, author of the book recommended in my other post, has lots of short stuff at this page: http://www.davekopel.com/2dAmendment.htm http://www.davekopel.com/2dAmendment.htm I'm not aware of anything on the immigrant through New Deal era, but there's stuff out there. The above should give you plenty to get going with, and anything by Cramer or Kopel is rock solid. Also historian (not activist, as the other two also are) Joyce Lee Malcolm, I've read at least one of her shorter essays and her Guns and Violence: The English Experience http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Violence-Joyce-Lee-Malcolm/dp/0674016084/ http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Violence-Joyce-Lee-Malcolm/dp/067... is supposed to be definitive. And very significant, in that starting around 1300 violent crime in England steadily decreased ... and then all that progress and more was thrown away in less than a century. And feel free to ask me questions ( hga@ancell-ent.com ).
hga 15y ago
Here are some good comments on polling on gun questions in the US: http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2011/10/don_kates_on_po.php http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2011/10/don_kates_on_po.ph... Bottom line: be extremely skeptical about any single poll; the willingness of people to answer questions like "Do you own a gun" appears to be a much greater factor than anything else in these polls. Which is one of the reasons I stressed "revealed public opinion" like what happens in the privacy of the voting booth. It could be the overwhelming factor in the changes plotted by Gallup starting in 1959 are only in the nation's Zeitgeist, the level of controversy of the issue, and people's reaction to a modern witch hunt. The gun-grabbers and their cause is in such poor shape ( review the recent archives of this politically oriented gun blog: http://www.pagunblog.com/ http://www.pagunblog.com/ ) that it's likely that recently many more people are willing to tell the truth in an opinion pool, something that wasn't so truth in the period after 1959. I again bring up the example of Massachusetts citizens voting down a handgun ban at the first height of their state government's anti-gun hysteria in the '70s.
hga 15y ago
Here's the Instapundit in 2004 on how "Terrorists Attacked Gun Control Movement": http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,41735,00.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,41735,00.html The Instapundit posted this as a note to a link "Gallup: Self-reported gun ownership rises, especially among women, Dems": http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/27/gallup-self-reported-gun-ownership-rises-especially-among-women-dems/ http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/27/gallup-self-reported-gun-o... It's got some good theories, and I'd expand on the point that "though it is little publicized, much of the gun-control movement’s financial and institutional support comes from non-evangelical Protestant denominations". The United Methodist Church (one of several different Methodist denominations in the US) established the National Coalition to Ban Handguns (now the Coalition Against Gun Violence), which at last count had an office in their D.C. HQ, etc. etc. That denomination's option on when self-defense is warranted is quite vile. From footnote number 11 of a paper by Don Kates (another good pro-gun author): Though implicit in the sources already cited, the immorality of owning a firearm for self-defense is most explicitly avowed by the Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church which founded, and still sponsors, NCBH. The Methodist Board of Church and Society deems it a victim's moral duty to submit to whatever a criminal demands rather than do anything that might imperil a rapist's life. The editor of its official publication rhetorically poses the question "Is the Robber My Brother" and answers "yes," arguing that although the burglary victim or the "woman accosted in the park by a rapist is [not] likely to consider the violator to be a neighbor whose safety is of immediate concern, [c]riminals are members of the larger community no less than are others. As such they are our neighbors or, as Jesus put it, our brothers." Allen Brockway, But the Bible Doesn't Mention Pistols, Engage-Social Action Forum, at 39-40 (May, 1977) (This article also appears in a separate pamphlet put out by the Methodist Board of Church and Society under the title Handguns in the United States.)...." That's in: http://www.guncite.com/journals/krealsym.html http://www.guncite.com/journals/krealsym.html

by learc83 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

hga 15y ago

Well, a good part of it could be a reversal to the American norm; American gun control has gone through these phases, only the first of which could be considered legitimate: Pre-Civil War suppression of dueling. Post-Civil War suppression of freedmen, despite the 14th Amendment. Starting around the turn of the last century, measures against recent immigrants (in the case of NYC, one set of older immigrants (the Irish) against others (principally the Italians), hence the patrimony of the Sullivan Law). Following that, crime was the excuse (the Roaring '20s and Prohibition) and all but the elite were the target, and this just continued to increase. With the exception of a counter-reaction to the Black Power movement and the related big riots of the '60s. Keeping inexpensive guns out of the hands of blacks was an explicit goal in this period. Followed by more of the middle of the century stuff peaking with the Clinton "assault weapons" "ban" that finally started causing tremendous political damage, culminating in Gore's loss in 2000 (not the only reason of course, but one of several that if not for any of them he would have won). Since them, at the national level outside of safe seats (Schumer, DiFi (well, maybe not in 2012)) gun control has become another 3rd rail of American politics. And the gun culture's counter-revolution has been quite successful, among other things re-norming the ownership of guns. And these video games haven't hurt one bit. One thing I didn't mention but that might be relevant is the sharp decline in trust of our ruling class, who's fruits were are enjoying at large scale in the Great Recession and that otherwise rather resemble this bit from the Deceleration of Independence: "He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance." But it's not so much that as the shear ineptness of our ruling class. No one with a clue (often requiring some time in the real world) and the courage to face the facts is confident that this ruling class is a good steward of the nation's future, that we can trust them to take care of us. We're pretty much on our own until (ideally) we have a Pareto circulation of elites, and much can go wrong until then and after then. I could go on but I think you get the idea. What I'm expressing should get a hearing from people who are attracted to a site that's dedicated to people not working for the man....

learc83 15y ago
That was a Very interesting brief history of gun control. I've always been hostile to gun control, because I believe in the gun's ability to act as an equalizer--I believe it was a prerequisite for a modern, large scale, egalitarian society (well more egalitarian society anyway). Any recommended reading on the history of gun control? I'd also like to see a study on gun control support in other countries from the same time period.
- hga 15y ago
  For the former, I need to look around, I've been fighting it since the early-mid '70s, not long after sugar price supports destroyed the moonshine industry and the BATF was in danger of being downsized because their Revenuers were out of a job. But they had this shiny new Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968 which completely changed the legal regime for gun sales and they preceded to use and abuse it heavily. For the latter, this book is supposed to be good, probably the best in breadth, I've read quite a bit of the author's words and he's honest and very good, and the used price is right: http://www.amazon.com/Samurai-Mountie-Cowboy-David-Kopel/dp/0879757566/ http://www.amazon.com/Samurai-Mountie-Cowboy-David-Kopel/dp/... I have to run right now, I'll see what I can come up with later (you might want to add your email address to your "about" entry to make it easier to contact you). And your point about "a modern, large scale, egalitarian society" is spot on: "God created men, and Samuel Colt made the equal" is the old saw. Adjust as desired, e.g. the feminist version is "created men and women"....
  - learc83 15y ago
    Thank you very much for the recommendations. I'll have some time to read in a month or so. I'm taking the Stanford A.I., machine learning, and database classes at the moment so they are monopolizing all my free time. I've also taken your advice and added my email to the about section.
- hga 15y ago
  My goodness, how could I forget that the first bit of gun control in America is what directly sparked the American Revolution, what Lexington and Concord were all about. The British also played nasty games with the colonists trapped in Boston proper (I was quite surprised when I first came to Boston and found out that they'd filled in Back Bay over the last few centuries :-). Needless to say that put gun control is a bad light for the Founders, resulting in all the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) provisions in the Constitution and many state constitutions. For the first phase, the only source I know of is this pricey book by one of the best scholars in the field (and also one of us, i.e. a hard core programmer), Concealed Weapon Laws of the Early Republic: Dueling, Southern Violence, and Moral Reform, see more including the TOC and first chapter at: http://www.claytoncramer.com/books/books.htm http://www.claytoncramer.com/books/books.htm But this is mostly a historical curiosity, only important in providing context for these laws which tended to regulate concealed carry when the open carry was the norm (or so I remember). There's a tremendous amount of literature on "The Racist Roots of Gun Control" as the above author puts it in one essay: http://www.claytoncramer.com/scholarly/racistroots.htm http://www.claytoncramer.com/scholarly/racistroots.htm Not the least of which is the infamous Dred Scott decision; from Wikipedia: 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 [emphasis added]. And that just wouldn't do. Look into the 14th Amendment, which among other things was intended to stop the disarming for freedmen, and how it was judicially nullified by the Supreme Court in the 19th century, resulting in really messy jurisprudence in the 20th as the Supremes have selectively applied it (for the 2nd, in McDonald very recently). An old (1984) but excellent book that includes coverage of this is That Every Man Be Armed: http://www.amazon.com/That-Every-Man-Armed-Constitutional/dp/0945999380/ http://www.amazon.com/That-Every-Man-Armed-Constitutional/dp... The beginning and as I recall bulk of the book is on the 2nd Amendment period, and that's useful for learning why our current police forces would be called "select militias" by the Founders, a phrase with the emotional loading of, say, "Communist" in the '50s. But aside from the genesis and nullification of the 14th Amendment it's not particularly a history of gun control; recommended reading, though. I've read enough of Neal Knox's columns to know that this book is almost certainly very good for the "modern" history period (perhaps to the '60s): http://www.amazon.com/Neal-Knox-Gun-Rights-War/dp/0976863308/ http://www.amazon.com/Neal-Knox-Gun-Rights-War/dp/0976863308... and it will likely include some stuff on earlier parts. But note that he was an activist, someone who made history, not a historian or someone engaged in that role when he wrote the columns compiled in this book. David Kopel, author of the book recommended in my other post, has lots of short stuff at this page: http://www.davekopel.com/2dAmendment.htm http://www.davekopel.com/2dAmendment.htm I'm not aware of anything on the immigrant through New Deal era, but there's stuff out there. The above should give you plenty to get going with, and anything by Cramer or Kopel is rock solid. Also historian (not activist, as the other two also are) Joyce Lee Malcolm, I've read at least one of her shorter essays and her Guns and Violence: The English Experience http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Violence-Joyce-Lee-Malcolm/dp/0674016084/ http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Violence-Joyce-Lee-Malcolm/dp/067... is supposed to be definitive. And very significant, in that starting around 1300 violent crime in England steadily decreased ... and then all that progress and more was thrown away in less than a century. And feel free to ask me questions ( hga@ancell-ent.com ).

hga 15y ago

Here are some good comments on polling on gun questions in the US: http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2011/10/don_kates_on_po.php http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2011/10/don_kates_on_po.ph... Bottom line: be extremely skeptical about any single poll; the willingness of people to answer questions like "Do you own a gun" appears to be a much greater factor than anything else in these polls. Which is one of the reasons I stressed "revealed public opinion" like what happens in the privacy of the voting booth. It could be the overwhelming factor in the changes plotted by Gallup starting in 1959 are only in the nation's Zeitgeist, the level of controversy of the issue, and people's reaction to a modern witch hunt. The gun-grabbers and their cause is in such poor shape ( review the recent archives of this politically oriented gun blog: http://www.pagunblog.com/ http://www.pagunblog.com/ ) that it's likely that recently many more people are willing to tell the truth in an opinion pool, something that wasn't so truth in the period after 1959. I again bring up the example of Massachusetts citizens voting down a handgun ban at the first height of their state government's anti-gun hysteria in the '70s.

hga 15y ago

Here's the Instapundit in 2004 on how "Terrorists Attacked Gun Control Movement": http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,41735,00.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,41735,00.html The Instapundit posted this as a note to a link "Gallup: Self-reported gun ownership rises, especially among women, Dems": http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/27/gallup-self-reported-gun-ownership-rises-especially-among-women-dems/ http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/27/gallup-self-reported-gun-o... It's got some good theories, and I'd expand on the point that "though it is little publicized, much of the gun-control movement’s financial and institutional support comes from non-evangelical Protestant denominations". The United Methodist Church (one of several different Methodist denominations in the US) established the National Coalition to Ban Handguns (now the Coalition Against Gun Violence), which at last count had an office in their D.C. HQ, etc. etc. That denomination's option on when self-defense is warranted is quite vile. From footnote number 11 of a paper by Don Kates (another good pro-gun author): Though implicit in the sources already cited, the immorality of owning a firearm for self-defense is most explicitly avowed by the Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church which founded, and still sponsors, NCBH. The Methodist Board of Church and Society deems it a victim's moral duty to submit to whatever a criminal demands rather than do anything that might imperil a rapist's life. The editor of its official publication rhetorically poses the question "Is the Robber My Brother" and answers "yes," arguing that although the burglary victim or the "woman accosted in the park by a rapist is [not] likely to consider the violator to be a neighbor whose safety is of immediate concern, [c]riminals are members of the larger community no less than are others. As such they are our neighbors or, as Jesus put it, our brothers." Allen Brockway, But the Bible Doesn't Mention Pistols, Engage-Social Action Forum, at 39-40 (May, 1977) (This article also appears in a separate pamphlet put out by the Methodist Board of Church and Society under the title Handguns in the United States.)...." That's in: http://www.guncite.com/journals/krealsym.html http://www.guncite.com/journals/krealsym.html