PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
Gun Control Act of 1968 crumbling around the edges :: 02/12/2015
If you were born around 1950 or earlier, you may recall going into your local Western Auto store and being able to handle all the guns, because they were all in readily accessible racks. At least that is the way it was in Douglas, Georgia.
If a lad decided he wanted a box of .22’s, he could go into that store or Lott’s hardware, as well as a host of others and get that ammo.
Mail-ordering guns was just a thing back then, too. Call, or go down to the local Sears catalog store, and order that Winchester or Marlin, or a plain-vanilla model with the J. C. Higgins label on it.
That was a simpler time.
Of course you could also get a Vespa Scooter with the Allstate label on it. But I digress.
Unfortunately, a perfect storm of assassinations, JFK in 1963, and MLK and RFK in 1968, provided statist politicians with the golden opportunity to ram through the Gun Control Act of 1968.
How did that play out in the early days? Teenagers who had been buying ammo for the last decade were carded for ammo purchases. Seventeen year-olds could no longer buy that box of .22’s. They had to get someone else to make the purchase.
- Eighteen to twenty? Long gun ammo only:
- Dealer:
- Boy, is thet ammo fer a rifle or a pistol?
- Kid:
- Hit’s fer a rifle.
- Dealer:
- You’ll hafta sign my book.
- Kid:
- Awright
- Had the kid said it was for a pistol, the dealer would deny the sale.
Concurrent with that was the ban on interstate sale by dealers of handguns to individuals. (Remember, until then, it was just plunk your money down, or maybe set up a revolving charge account at Sears.) Maybe a .401 Magnum from Herter’s -
Now fast forward to March of 1981, an assassination attempt is made on President Ronald Reagan, and James Brady takes a bullet.
The Brady Law eventually happens, which requires background checks on new firearms purchases from Dealers. There is now an instant check (NICS) required for all such purchases.
The court today, in Mance v. Holder, says the Brady Law renders the law requiring that new handgun purchases be made in-state null and void. Judge O'Connor went on to say that this is a strict scrutiny case, meaning the .gov can show no compelling governmental interest, therefore the law is unconstitutional. See the court order at the Instadundit site HERE. It will probably be appealed.
Still, this is another carefully crafted win for attorney Alan Gura, the Second Amendment Foundation, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and all gun owners.
http://www.examiner.com/article/gun-control-act-of-1968-crumbling-around-the-edges
