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I just got done sharing the current issue of Guns Magazine with Gun Rights Examiner readers. They're the folks who publish my monthly "Rights Watch" column.
They also do something each month I've talked about before, and that I think is very cool: They post the corresponding monthly issue of their magazine from 50 years ago on their website.
It's amazing going through it and seeing the guns, the prices...like opening up a time capsule. But it's more than just entertainment--we get recent history that allows us to understand today's climate and how it got that way.
Case in point, on page 6 of this month's featured issue, the lead item in the "Guns in the News" section gives a discouraging assessment:
Chicago, Ill. A year-and-a-half inquiry among nearly half a hundred lawyers of all branches of the profession by H. Jay Erfurth, local gun enthusiast, has revealed the astonishing fact that not one of them knew the words or the meaning of the 2nd Amendment to the Federal Constitution. The group queried individually over a period of time includes several attorneys active in Civil Liberties work, a professor of Constitutional Law, and numerous others. The general consensus was: "It has something to do with quartering troops in time of war, doesn't it?"
I guess when people don't feel their rights are threatened, they tend to take them for granted. Here's hoping we can learn from the past.
Read the entire August 1959 issue of Guns Magazine by clicking here.
Have you read the latest from all the Gun Rights Examiners?
- Atlanta: Ed Stone
- Austin: Howard Nemerov
- Boston: Ron Bokleman
- Charlotte: Paul Valone
- Chicago: Don Gwinn
- Cleveland: Daniel White
- DC: Mike Stollenwerk
- Denver: Dan Bidstrup
- Los Angeles: John Longenecker
- Minneapolis: John Pierce
- National: David Codrea
- Seattle: Dave Workman
- St. Louis: Kurt Hofmann
- Wisconsin: Gene German
Thanks to Jeffersonian for pointing the above passage out.
Comments
I don't remember who it was, but somebody once said: "If you don't know your rights, you don't have any."
I agree Omar. It is about educating yourself and in America there are soooo many ways to educate yourself on human rights with respect to infringements especially via the press and law books...
Problem is, telling a cop "I know my rights" is an invitation to be the new object of their instrument of torture, otherwise known as a TASER.
Frank, you may be right. However, when law enforcement performs such a tactic, they are at risk of losing the public. After all, the reason why this conversation is even taking place is because overzealous "respect-my-authoritah" types of L.E.O. have taken too much heavy handed approach for too long.
Whenever anyone gets tasored in our communities, we need to discover, discuss, and decry LE's approach.
I finally understand what their problem is. No one ever explained the Constitution to them. This is obviously why they are so stupid.
Everyone here should spread this word vehemently !
The second amendment does not give us the right to keep and bear arms! THIS IS COMPLETELY OFF POINT !!! It is not a "gun ownership amendment.
The second amendment confirms our inalienable and previously existing right to keep and bear arms. The purpose of the second amendment is to prevent the government from EVER taking that right away. It goes so far as to say the Government cannot even INFRINGE upon that right.
It means the Government cannot put any restrictions upon our right to keep and bear arms. NONE!!
There can be no such thing as "reasonable gun control", "limited gun control", or any of the other types or names of gun control that cannot be considered as INFRINGEMENT.
Please look up the word INFRINGE and memorize the definition!
Always refer to the second amendment as the ANTI-INFRINGEMENT AMENDMENT. In fact it has little to do with gun ownership rather it has everything to do with Government Infring
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