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45 Comments

  1. Thank you for the great and informative article Mr. Rawles.

    Question: At the time Virginia instituted the death penalty for selling a firearm or ammunition to an Indian, were the Indians a danger to the colony? I don’t know the history of the Virginia colony that well but I do know certain tribes were friendly and some were adversaries. In a more modern context, I could see this like an American citizen selling arms to the Germans during WW2. Of course today the idea of prohibiting Americans of Native or German ancestry their right to keep and bear arms is reprehensible, but the context of the times could put a different light on the subject.

  2. Excellent piece Mr. Rawles. I’m going to suggest my wife read this. Every time I come home from my local supply store, I have to listen to her nagging on why I need another rifle, spare mags, or God forbid, more ammo.

    1. Here in California, those few who are aware of the upcoming 2019 ammo registration requirements have been slowly stockpiling over the past couple of years. Another box or two with every trip to the store…paid via cash, of course. 😉

        1. No; CA stops everyone at the border to search cars under the guise of preventing quarantined agricultural products from getting in the the state; blanket cause for search and seizure…

      2. “Oh My Lord!” Guesty,

        The comrades of the peoples republic of Kaliforniastan are finally going to make ammo illegal. Figures, I thought they’d have done that along time ago. I left the Left coast in 2000. You might think of gathering the reloading components for the firearms you own. Plus brass, lead, and powder. You guys are reverting back to the later half of the 17th century. And, on that note, I’ll say “keep your powder dry pilgrim!.”

  4. It happens everywhere, everywhen, with a wearying, predictable inevitability. An oscillation with the length of the pendulum’s string, the mass of the bob and the amplitude of the swing permutated and tweaked bit by bit from time to time, but never really altered.

    The only thing that grows is the depth and breadth and efficency of Man’s inhumanity to himself.

    “I can change almost anything. But I can’t change human nature.”

    “They claim their labors are to build a heaven, yet their heaven is populated by horrors. Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. A clock without a craftsman.
    It’s too late.

    Always has been. Always will be.”

    — Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, 1986

    1. Very good post. And the pendulum seems to be swinging back to the point where we were in the 1940s, the elimination of the communist threat to the world-as we eliminated the nazi threat back then. A horrible prospect, total war, but becoming increasingly imperative for decent people to do. This means all left-leaning Americans,and all subversives. Get out ! Head first or feet first ! It is coming.

  6. Re. We Deplorables

    “We got ours.” Those three words describe red-county Americans today. This old coot fought for liberty for 40 years. I put skin in the game and paid a dear earthly price. Liberty lost.

    The Republicans’ NDAA destroyed our Bill of Rights. Jefferson’s ‘tree of liberty’ fell on our watch. Not a shot was fired. That was 7-1/2 years ago. Like A. B. Prosper said on thezman, “Americans may have hundreds of millions of guns and metric tons of ammo but the question is do they have anything they will fight for?” Will we wait until the enemy is literally at our door or that of our children? Apparently, ‘Yes’.

    Thomas Paine’s words In ‘Common Sense’ would ring as true today as they did in 1776. He warned of a lack of masculinity, a short-sighted and selfish attitude that disregards its effects on future generations. Paine spoke to people being content with conditions that “will last my time”. Today Paine’s words would fall on deaf ears.

  9. It is disingenuous to blame all gun registration schemes in Germany during the 1930s on the National Socialists. In a side by side comparison of the 1923 law and the 1938 law it is evident that registration was enacted by the Weimar government 10 years before the National Socialists came to power. The Weimar government did this in an attempt to disarm their political opponents, the National Socialists.

    When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, it took them five years to finally get around to addressing the gun law. They amended it to suit their needs but the registration scheme was ALREADY in the law.

    This is a simplistic view of what happened but it is the truth.

    1. The POINT, for those of you who missed it, is that all guns were confiscated and mass extermination followed, not coincidentally. It matters not one bit who did the confiscation, unless you are trying to make some OTHER point.

      1. My point, Mr. Hail, is that IF we are going to tell the truth, then tell the WHOLE truth. Lets not lie by omission.

        I am not interested in half-truths. The left tells enough of them as it is.

        1. I agree with Snotty Boy on this one. Hitler did amend gun laws for his supporters. The confiscation was implemented by the Weimar government in effort to show good faith for the allied forces.

          What is more, if you do some research in the Yale law review data base, you may find some shocking info as it pertains to the GCA of 68. And lastly, crossbows were said to be unfit for civilian ownership by the Catholic church during the 1500 or 1600s. Interesting article today, JWR.

  10. Thank You Sir, excellent overview.

    I would note that the design upon our liberties is evidenced in the very slightest of any gun laws. A government need not fear a free people. Fear is the “Inherent Compulsion.” The more power gathered, the more fear of losing it.

    I see where you went by classifying the prohibition on the sale of arms to foreign peoples (Indians) as gun control. “Foreign” has nothing to do with lines on a map. I say this even in the face of the overwhelming evidence of other ethnic slaughters and of Christians being disarmed and then slaughtered. I wonder how many who read this will take the critical thought leap of recognizing Us and Them and further, putting these concepts into practice here and now. Does our government then, not see Christians as foreign? And let’s pull this thread a little more; Mr. Trump used the term Deplorable to describe me, but has embarked on Veterans Affairs Red Flag laws, prompted state level Red Flag laws, and has created an entirely new exra-constitutional procedure by the banning of Bump Stocks in an administrative manner, a procedure that WILL be used again, and again. Beware the man who calls you deplorable affectionately on the one hand and seeks a gun controlled Police State on the other. Am I not foreign to my government both right and left?

    Why does the American Church not talk about the Armenian Genocide, or the Africa Christian Genocides? And, long before Hitler came for the Jews he nationalized the Church and then first killed a million Christians because, well, they resisted tyranny. Why doesn’t the American Church talk about this? I’m desperately confused, since being saved by Christ in 2009, why American Christians won’t fight back, against anything. What’s wrong with them?

    (Also, granting that it’s his actual historical title, no man has been or is or will be holy, save Christ. There was nothing holy about Frederick Barbarossa. I take exception to deifying Romanisms’ Pagan Idols. I know that you didn’t mean it that way but its use perpetuates the lie.)

    – ProGunFred

    1. Holy Roman Empire German Nation not holy Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa.

      It was considered a holy from god Mission to hold the western Roman empire.

      Interestingly did his law forbade the carrying of weapons or the carrying of Sword and lance?

      1. I should probably clarify what I mean in my comment above.

        What I mean is that the gun control provisions set forth in the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the restrictions on new manufacture of machine guns for private sale (1986) are working well.

        1. Working? Really? With machinegun prices elevated to the stratosphere? With somewhere between 5 and 10 un-registered machineguns and SBRs in circulation in private hands for every registered one? Turning hundreds of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens into un-convicted felons? How’s that “working” for America? Those firearms tax and ban laws are unconstitutional, and need to be abolished!

        2. S. Boy- Please state specifically how these laws are “working well”. Working well for what objective ? It appears that you are coming at this subject from a totally different perspective than many of the readers here at Survivalblog.com . I am not suggesting that we are monolithic, but you seem to have a very unique point of view, judging from your sometimes puzzling posts. Please explain further.

        4. Also not sure I agree with S. Boy on this one either! JWR said it better than I can. And ditto Nathan Hail’s point “but you seem to have a very unique point of view, judging from your sometimes puzzling posts. Please explain further.” I’ve read your posts before, and I’m not sure where you are coming from (or from where you are coming, as my English teacher would have corrected me).

  13. Whats remarkable is that the first part describes our present President to a Tee, I remember when he was a declared democrat from New York city. My theory is a majority of people in large metropolitan cities have strong gun control tendencies. I fear the left majority in the House and the unstable Executive branch leadership doesn’t bode well for those of us who believe in the 2A. Hopefully our Senate will prevail. Please let your Senators know how you feel about the slippery slope we are sliding on.

  14. And who said… “This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!”

    Adolph Hitler said it in a 1933 speech to the German people.

  15. Looking at it from the point of view of the statists who enacted the legislation, it is working well.

    The Gun Control Act of 1968 licenses those who would make a living manufacturing or selling firearms and ammunition. Those who want to make such a living dutifully line up for said government license. To do otherwise is “against the law”. I’d say that the intent of the law is working well.

    If you want to buy a brand new firearm you are forced by the government to buy it through a government licensed “dealer”. So everyone dutifully lines up and buys their brand-new firearms through someone with a government license. I’d say that the government control scheme is working well.

    The NFA of 1934 registered machine guns and then levies a tax on the transfer of those registered machine guns. If you want one then you dutifully line up and jump through the government mandated hoops.

    Any machine gun not registered with the government is considered contraband by the government and those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. There are those dutiful gun owners that will turn someone in who has a non-government registered machine gun. So I’d say from the statists point of view the NFA works very well.

    The fact is, the unintended consequence of the NFA and the 1986 ban on new manufactured machine guns for private sale has elevated prices to atmospheric levels, effectively putting ownership of machine guns out of the reach of almost everyone. If that was ultimately the statists goal, well then it has worked pretty well. Don’t you think?

    The fact is, from the government’s point of view, all of the big gun control laws enacted before the 1990s have worked very well indeed. They have controlled who can buy a gun, where you can buy it, and what type of gun you can buy. They have controlled the private sale of firearms across state lines and they are trying to control ALL private sales.

    The worst part of this is the normalcy with which the average American gunowner views these laws. To be a law-abiding gun owner one MUST obey the law.

    These laws are merely behavior modification tools of the statists. And most Americans are more than happy to have their behavior modified by the government supremists.

    Don’t get me wrong I am NOT in favor of ANY gun control schemes of ANY kind. But because of the present threat to firearms ownership, most lose sight of the fact that the government has been VERY successful, in the past, in controlling guns. Every Form 4473 that is filled out lends legitimacy to the statists control scheme.

  16. And how about the Horable Congressman Swalwell’s idea to use nukes or attack helicopters to eliminate American gun enthusiasts ? …here is one man’s idea-http://monsterhunternation.com/2018/11/19/the-2nd-amendment-is-obsolete-says-congressman-who-wants-to-nuke-omaha/

  17. For those who are interested, the novel, Unintended Consequences, by John Ross, is a fascinating, fictional story of how USA gun laws affected individuals in several families over a period of decades. Over 800 pages long, it’s not for light readers.

  18. There are dozens of organizations “fighting gun control”!
    When are the NRA, GOA, and others going to start working to Repeal gun control laws! It is past time to quit compromising with the “enemy” and fight them. No retreat! No compromise! Demand repeal of all laws restricting our right to remain free and Armed!!

    1. Are you a member of those organizations ? If so, then make your voice heard. Get active. If not, then it is none of your business telling them what to do. And realistically, how do you expect the feds to repeal gun laws when we can’t even get enough voters to vote for non communist representatives in the recent elections ? The system is rigged against us, and we are not doing anything about it. We need to support the President in the next election, or we are sunk. Don’t go around saying that others should do this and that unless you are doing it yourself. I am not telling you to do anything that I myself am not doing.

  19. My friend, Ron, after reading your article had an addendum: After Hideyoshi (see “Japanese Sword Hunts” in the article) had passed from the scene, Tokugawa Ieyasu fought and won a civil war using fusils, an early firearm. Once in power, he outlawed firearms and only allowed Samurai to have weapons of war. Japan knew peace (lack of warfare) from 1603 until the 1868 Mejii Restoration, quite a remarkable achievement. Still, there were plenty of weapons in Japan, just not the will to use them outside of banditry and self-protection from banditry when the government forces were too remote to intervene.

    Over 250 years without war. I’m curious to learn more and will certainly do so.

    Carry on.

  20. Don’t forget the Scottish arms confiscation of the early 1700’s where bagpipes were declared weapons
    Common Sense Gun Laws=170,000,000 victims just in the last century

  21. Jim

    You forgot the Czech’s…….. a year before the Russian overtake of Czechoslovakia, the Czech communists had the population all register their rifles, shotguns, pistols on a police regsister under a checking pretext, 99 percent complied, so just before the Russians were ” invited ” in, the Police went door to door along with their stooges and bullies and disarmed all registered owners….. ( I have first hand experience of this as my father is Czech ) fortunately now in slovakia and Czech republic, you can legally own firearms for self defence and carry concealed, it’s not perfect for being free of govt control, but much better than most in Europe, except for the Swiss and Finns.

  22. ‘Ever wonder why, in the old Frankenstein movies, the people always chased down old Frankie with farm implements? It’s because they were the only arms they people had!!!

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