Do you know why leftists call themselves "progressives"? It's because they're always PROGRESSIVELY stealing your freedom.
Let's look at the timeline, shall we?
1934 - FDR comes to us and says, "Look at all these crimes being committed by gangsters with machine guns. We have to have gun control!" So he gets the National Firearms Act of 1934 and a $200 tax on the manufacture or sale of machine guns and sawed-off shotguns with the sales to be recorded in a national registry. The NRA actually helped draft that bill, and everyone's happy and thinks they've struck a blow for law and order.
1938 - Four years later, FDR comes back again and says, "It's not enough. We need even more!" And he gets the National Firearms Act of 1938, requiring licensing of interstate gun dealers, records of their sales, and banning of felons from owning and purchasing guns. Again, everyone goes, "Hooray!" and thinks it's good and no major deal.
And for a while, they're right. The left spends time nibbling around the edges.
1939 - U.S. Supreme Court hears the case
United States v. Miller, ruling that through the National Firearms Act of 1934, Congress could regulate the interstate selling of a short barrel shotgun.
1968 - Now we really start to see the left and their policy of never letting a good crisis go to waste shine. Following the assassinations of JFK, MLK Jr., and Robert Kennedy, Johnson pushes for the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and the Gun Control Act of 1968. It 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. How any of this - allegedly a reaction to the assassinations - would have actually stopped the assassinations had it been in place before, is left unanswered.
1972 - The federal
Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) is created listing as part of its mission the control of illegal use and sale of firearms and the enforcement of Federal firearms laws. ATF issues firearms licenses and conducts firearms licensee qualification and compliance inspections.
1976 - Washington, DC, bans residents from owning handguns, and requires registration of all rifles and shotguns within the District of Columbia.
1986 - Congress passes the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986. The law limits the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms from inspecting gun dealers more than once a year, with follow-up inspections allowed only if multiple violations are found. An amendment is also passed banning civilian ownership of machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986. Weapons made and registered before that date are grandfathered in. The law specifically forbids the government from creating a national registry of gun ownership. Notice that even when laws are passed to protect gun ownership, they include a wholesale ban on something.
1986 - The
Armed Career Criminal Act increases penalties for possession of firearms by persons not qualified to own them under the Gun Control Act of 1986.
1986 - The Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act (
Public Law 99-408) bans possession of "cop killer" bullets capable of penetrating bulletproof clothing.
1989 - California bans the possession of semiautomatic assault weapons following the massacre of five children on a Stockton, CA school playground. (Notice how the definition of "assault weapon" slides around from what's already been banned to whatever it is they want to ban next.)
1990 - The Crime Control Act of 1990 bans manufacturing and importing semiautomatic assault weapons in the U.S. "Gun-free school zones" are established carrying specific penalties for violations.
1993 - After the shooting of President Reagan, we see the emergence of the leftist "Victim Infallibility" doctrine. James Brady didn't know any more about guns, gun laws, crime, or anything else than any other person, but he got shot, so suddenly, he was an unassailable expert on all of the above, and we got the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993, mandating background checks of gun buyers in order to prevent sales to people prohibited under the 1968 legislation. We got the creation of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). And we got a 5-day waiting period on the purchase of handguns.
1994 - The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 produces a 10-year federal ban on the manufacture of new semi-automatic assault weapons. The law specifies 19 weapons that have the features of assault rifles, including the AR-15, certain versions of the AK-47, the TEC-9, the MAC-10 and the Uzi. The act also bans large-capacity ammunition magazines, limiting them to 10 rounds.
1997 - We're back to the courts again. The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of
Printz v. United States, declares the background check requirement of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act unconstitutional. The Florida Supreme Court upholds a jury's $11.5 million verdict against Kmart for selling a gun to and intoxicated man who used the gun to shoot his estranged girlfriend. Major American gun manufacturers voluntarily agree to include child safety trigger devices on all new handguns. (Those evil, child-killing profiteers.)
1998 - An amendment requiring a trigger lock mechanism to be included with every handgun sold in the U.S. is defeated in the Senate. But, the Senate approves an amendment requiring gun dealers to have trigger locks available for sale and creating federal grants for gun safety and education programs.
1998 - New Orleans becomes the first U.S. city to file suit against gun makers, firearms trade associations, and gun dealers. The city's suit seeks recovery of costs attributed to gun-related violence.
1998 - Chicago, IL files a $433 million suit against local gun dealers and makers alleging that oversupplying local markets provided guns to criminals.
1998 - A negligence suit is brought against gun maker Beretta in California by the family of a 14-year old boy killed by another boy with a Beretta handgun.
1999 - Civil suits against gun makers seeking to recover costs of gun-related violence are filed in Bridgeport, Connecticut and Miami-Dade County, Florida.
1999 - Leaping onto tragedy like a pit bull on a ham bone, Democrats respond to the Columbine shooting by passing a bill requiring trigger locks on all newly manufactured handguns and extending waiting period and background check requirements to sales of firearms at gun shows. How that would have prevented Columbine is never answered.
1999 - The Los Angeles County, CA Board of Supervisors votes 3 - 2 to ban the Great Western Gun Show, billed as the "world's largest gun show" from the Pomona, CA fairgrounds where the show had been held for the last 30 years.
2004 - Massachusetts becomes the first state to implement an electronic instant gun buyer background check system with fingerprint scanning for gun licenses and gun purchases.
2005 - California bans the manufacture, sale, distribution or import of the .50-caliber Browning rifle.
2008 - President Bush signed the
National Instant Criminal Background Check Improvement Act requiring gun buyer background checks to screen for legally declared mentally ill individuals, who are ineligible to buy firearms.
2015 - In an effort to close the so-called “
gun show loophole” allowing gun sales conducted without Brady Act background checks, U.S. Rep. Speier, Jackie (D-California) introduced the
Fix Gun Checks Act of 2015 (H.R. 3411), to require background checks for all gun sales including sales made over the Internet and at gun shows.
2016 - President Obama called on Congress to enact or renew a law prohibiting the sale and possession of assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines after the Pulse nightclub shooting.
2017 - In the aftermath of the Vegas shooting, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle called for laws specifically banning bump stocks, while others have also called for renewal of the assault weapons ban.
So yeah, we're not exactly buying it when you say, "Just this one thing. We don't want any more. HONEST."