Thread by @K_Thomas_Ross

The NRA’s expansive misinterpretation of the Second Amendment is “(o)ne of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special-interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”
Retired Chief Justice Warren Burger, 1991

For 240 years, the Supreme Court correctly interpreted the 2nd Amendment as the right of state governments to have militias, controlled by those govts, & appointing their officers. The Federal government could not prohibit them. We have such organizations – the National Guard.

In the 1800s, 38 of the then 45 states had gun control laws. By the early 1900’s, it was 44 out of then 48 states.

During Prohibition (of alcohol 1919-1933, the homicide rate in the country nearly doubled. Many states passed laws against guns. RI, Mass, Mich, Minn, OH, SD and VA passed laws against automatic or semi-automatic weapons.

In 1934, the federal government passed its first such law, the National Firearms Act of 1934. It heavily taxed machine guns and sawed-off shotguns, and mandated a national registry of such guns.

The National Firearms Act of 1938 licensed interstate gun dealers, and prohibited the sale of guns to violent felons.

In 1939, the Supreme Court ruled (US v. Miller) 8-0 that 2A applied only to militias, and that the Federal control of guns was legal.

After the assignations of JFK, his brother and MLK, 1968 saw the passage of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act and the Gun Control Act. They “prohibits all convicted felons, drug users and the mentally ill from buying guns;

raises the age to purchase handguns from a federally licensed dealer to 21; and expands the licensing requirements to more gun dealers and requires more detailed record-keeping.”

n 1986 ownership by civilians of machine guns not previously owned were banned.

Prevention Act. It created the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to enforce the 1968 law. But unlicensed private sellers were not included.

From 1994-2004, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act prohibited the manufacture of new semi-automatic assault weapons, and of large-capacity ammunition magazines.

Then the NRA began to win significant victories. In 2005, in one of the most corrupt and deadly betrayals by Congress, gun manufacturers were protected from civil liability, as tobacco companies has been.

The Senate passed it by a vote of 65-31. 13 Democrats voted for it. None remain in the Senate. In the House the vote was 283-144. 59 Democrats voted for it.

Their other big victory was in 2008, with Supreme Court’s DC v. Heller. Scalia’s decision is the stuff of nonsense, totally changing the meaning of 2A, because the prefatory clause was mean verbiage, and the operating clause was the only thing meaning,

It claimed to be an originalist argument, but an anti-originalist one. The original purpose has no bearing. Pure judicial activism.

Scalia also includes a lot of legal ‘history’ taken from the NRA and other propaganda. Reality seemed to have no bearing on the case.