This site did something strange. I am not responsible for the way it quoted Picaro. Picaro wrote:
Our founders never had machine guns.....you can look it up
Some citizens could own cannons, though.
In any case, the fact is states could and did pass and enforce gun control laws, same as they had state supported religious sects and several things that would annoy ideologues on either wing, like regulation of corporations and allowing very few the privilege of limited liability protections of shareholders. Gun control laws were extensively based on racial discrimination, from colonial times onward, but they applied many of the restrictions now whined about in this thread. Pseudo-intellectuals trying to use 'The Founders' in silly appeals to authority only prove their ignorance on both guns and religion. Many towns and territories in the 'Old West' practiced strict gun controls as well.[/QUOTE]
RESPONSE TO PICARO
You're making it very plain that you're addicted to partisan politics rather than a civil discussion that would lead us to the truth. The only reason our founders didn't have "machine guns" is due to the simple fact that they had not been invented. OTOH, high capacity firearms go back as far as 1580.
At the time that the Second Amendment was being ratified, the state of the art for multi-shot guns was the Girandoni air rifle, with a twenty-two-shot magazine capacity. Meriwether Lewis carried a Girandoni on the Lewis and Clark expedition. At the time, air guns were ballistically equal to powder guns in terms of bullet size and velocity. The .46 and .49 caliber Girandoni rifles were invented around 1779 for use in European armies and were employed by elite units. One shot could penetrate a one-inch thick wood plank or take down an elk.
There is no doubt that many a state and local jurisdiction passed anti-gun laws. But, what must be remembered is that the courts are the bodies that the Constitution gives the authority to interpret the laws. So, let's get real for a moment.
The Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. Only 31 years later in the state of Kentucky you will find the courts busy deciding what the Second Amendment means.
In
1822 a man named Bliss was fined $100 for carrying a concealed weapon. He took the case to court and the law was ruled unconstitutional. Anti-gunners might argue that Bliss was carrying a sword disguised as a cane. But, swords are "
arms" as per the definition of the word. Bliss used as his defense, the state constitution which read:
“
The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state, shall not be questioned.”
Bottom line: Bliss won his case. The law was declared unconstitutional. The next time a case made it through the court system was in the state of Georgia in
1846. There, the Georgia Supreme Court
HELD:
"
The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed." The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, "
Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243 (1846)
In the state of Texas their Supreme Court made the Right unequivocally clear:
"The
right of a citizen to bear arms in lawful defense of himself or the State, is
absolute.
He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the high powers delegated directly to the citizen, and is excepted out of the general powers of government. A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because
it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power."
-
Cockrum v. State, 24 Tex. 394 (1859)
So, while you can find all kinds of laws that infringed on the Right to keep and bear Arms, the laws were quite clear AND those laws - even back then, would have protected weapons that have a high capacity mechanism. So, sadly, your statutes are irrelevant if / when the courts rule the law unconstitutional.
ALL of the early court decisions did just that. Have I mentioned a founding father yet?