A popular talking point among Conservatives that riles up their base is based on a lie that the US government is coming to confiscate their guns and violate their Second Amendment rights. Again, this is a lie that has worked among the white voting bloc to scare up support for conservatives and anger against Democrats for over 25 years, every since 9/11.
There are no gun laws on the books that would suggest the government is coming for anyone’s guns. But white voters do not research so all they can do is believe the lie. This lie has been circulated in the circles of conservative talking heads to this day, where the former 45th president continues to lie to his base at his rallies. But do they care? No. it feeds their blood thirst.
The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free, the right of the people keep and bear Arms, not be infringed.” This has been widely interpreted to protect the right of individuals to own guns. It’s important to note that any law directly taking away the Second Amendment itself would face strong constitutional challenges. But there is none.
That said, there have been laws and regulations aimed at limiting access to firearms for public safety reasons. Some people argue that these laws infringe upon the Second Amendment, while they align with its stated goal of well-regulated gun ownership. Here are a few:
- The National Firearms Act of 1934: This law imposes a tax on the manufacturing and transfer of certain firearms and mandates the registration of such firearms. It was primarily aimed at reducing the criminal use of automatic-fire weapons, short-barreled long guns, and silencers.
- The Gun Control Act of 1968: This created stricter licensing and regulation on the firearms industry, established new categories of firearms offenses, and prohibited the sale of firearms and ammunition to felons and certain other prohibited persons.
- The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993: This law requires that background checks be conducted on individuals before a firearm may be purchased from a federally licensed dealer, manufacturer, or importer—unless an exception applies.
- The Federal Assault Weapons Ban (1994-2004): This prohibited the manufacture for civilian use of certain semi-automatic firearms, so-called “assault weapons”, and certain large-capacity ammunition magazines. The law expired in 2004 and was not renewed, so this restriction is no longer in place.
It’s also worth noting that individual states have their own laws regarding gun ownership, some more restrictive than others. For instance, states like California, New York, and Massachusetts have laws regarding the permitting, purchasing, and carrying of firearms that are more restrictive than others.
However, these laws do not take away the Second Amendment right, instead, they set standards and procedures intended to balance individual rights with public safety considerations. It is a point of ongoing debate and eventually is up to the courts to interpret the legality and constitutionality of such laws in relation to the Second Amendment.
The truth is found in the past reasons gun laws have been enacted. Before any public disturbance on guns, “The Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked to control guns. The Founding Fathers? They required gun ownership—and regulated it. And no group has more fiercely advocated the right to bear loaded weapons in public than the Black Panthers—the true pioneers of the modern pro-gun movement.”
It was only after the Black Panther Party in 1967, walked into the California state capital armed with rifles, and to police the police by following them around Black neighborhoods, that white lawmakers decided it was time to enforce more gun regulations. “It was May 2, 1967, and the Black Panthers’ invasion of the California statehouse launched the modern gun-rights movement.” In fact, Malcolm X and the Panthers described their right to use guns in self-defense in constitutional terms. “Article number two of the constitutional amendments,” Malcolm X argued, “provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun.”
As a result, the then California “Governor Reagan told reporters that afternoon that he saw “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.” He called guns a “ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will.” In a later press conference, Reagan said he didn’t “know of any sportsman who leaves his home with a gun to go out into the field to hunt or for target shooting who carries that gun loaded.” The Mulford Act, he said, “would work no hardship on the honest citizen.”
The hypocrisy behind this political move reveals that the problem is not gun rights, but who is carrying the guns. In addition to the Black Panther Party calling law enforcement’s bluff, “after the JFK assassination; there was a strong sense that people should not buy guns through interstate mail, because Lee Harvey Oswald did through an ad that appeared in an NRA magazine. Congress held hearings, but it did not really go anywhere.
So, in 1968, the country is facing rising urban rioting. In the mid-to-late ’60s, crime begins to increase. There’s greater concern about guns and easy accessibility to guns. Martin Luther King is assassinated in April. In June, Robert Kennedy was assassinated and that was really the final push that brought the law back and got it through Congress.”
As of today, conservatives are using the same lie to booster gun ownership in hopes of white guys stocking an armory against liberals and people of color. That is all that is happening. Especially after the election of Obama, the gun scare phase increased because they thought the first Black president was going to disarm white folks and start a Black Muslim uprising, which scared the hell out of every white boy in the back woods. So, gun sales soared.
No one is proposing or even thinking about proposing a law that would allow the US government to go door to door and confiscate people’s guns. This is a lie and millions of paranoid people have bought it and lost their minds. The conservatives continue to play on their fears and now we have a country where there are more guns than citizens and mass shootings and gun violence has exploded.
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