Reagan bans guns now and of the future

Joliet Jake

Moderator
This was getting OT in another topic so continue here please and anyone else is also invited to discuss. :)

Tamara said:
So you weren't there.

I never said that and you never answered my question.

So what was it like for you, especially if it was that bad? Please be as specific as possible with your examples that were so bad it needed a gun ban of current designs and what's worse is any future designs to fix. So in a hundred years is it going to be ok with your anscestors to just own that old relic? Inquiring minds yearn to know, kiddo.

Your post had only one factual statement in it, the one immediately below this, and that's where we disagree but you put forth no defense of your position except to attack me. Excellent tactic if you don't have a solid case for your position though. Fine, you win, can I now assume you have some old guns that are artificially worth alot more than they should be due to Reagan's gun ban? You are shortsighted and refuse to see why we even have the 2nd Amendment. So you would be ok with the hypothetical if Lincoln signed a ban on sales of repeating rifles to the people so we could purchase our ammo and 6 shooters easier but we could now only purchase muskets and handguns?

Tamara said:
the only federal legislation that has rolled back existing federal anti-gun laws, 11th hour Hughes Amendment notwithstanding.

Tamara said:
Ah.

So you weren't there. Thought not.

You believe the absolute bullcrap that the the kiddies peddle these days; that everything was hunky-dory in the ol' gun rights world until Mean Ol' President Reagan came along and signed that nasty old machinegun ban.

I'm going to phrase this as gently as I can: With that post, you have handily disqualified yourself from further discussion of McClure-Volkmer, which is the only piece of pro-2nd Amendment legislation that has passed at the national level in my lifetime; the only federal legislation that has rolled back existing federal anti-gun laws, 11th hour Hughes Amendment notwithstanding.

You can't imagine what it was like before FOPA '86, kiddo.
Joliet Jake said:
So what was it like for you?

You couldn't buy your ammo mailorder? I challenge that the ammo issue would have been resolved by now anyway.

You had to be really careful who you sold to as a private citizen? Nothing has changed.

You had to go the the gun store to pick up your new gun you liked at the gun show? Oh my gosh.

Somebodies full auto m16's quadrupled in value overnight and have since quadrupled again?

Maybe I just don't see what hardship or combinations of hardships you claim are greater than a complete ban of firearms and the ban of any new desgns of those firearms. Help me out. anybody want an M249? too bad. What becomes of other future designs?

I stand by my statement. Reagan stabbed all the people in the back while they weren't looking and the few people that don't complain have a monetary vested interest in the status quo because if the registry was opened again they would have nothing but old guns.

It was the FIRST total ban of firearms and Reagan signed it. He was no friend to gun owners that's for sure. Now Fred Thompson is "almost" running for president and everyone has forgot or forgiven him for his part of the "Lautenberg Amendment" that has banned millions of citizens from even owning one firearm. Not me. He is no protector of the Constitution/BoR's and alot of his other votes show just that.

Republicans like these are no friend of the people and are as bad or worse than the dems that don't protect our basic rights because they hide behind a false front. At least we know where pelosi and lautenberg stand.
Tamara said:
If it's not too prying a question, how old were you in 1986?

I was around during the post-GCA '68/pre-FOPA days. I'm an RKBA absolutist, and I'd have signed McClure-Volkmer with or without the Hughes Amendment, too, because I remember what it was like before.
Joliet Jake said:
That's like Reagan banning full-autos in 1986.
 
First, I redacted the excessively inflammatory "kiddo" from my original first thing when I woke up this morning, it was the mojitos talking, and I apologize for using it. And no, I don't have a closet full of NFA weapons; they were too expensive and too much of a hassle to buy back then.

On to the show.

Taking the tack you were following, let's use the original purpose of the Second Amendment as the starting point for our discussion. Which do you think is a stronger deterrent: 1,000 M249s? Or 100,000 SKS's, Garands, and M1 Carbines?
 
Apology accepted. Most of us have been guilty of TUI (typin uner infuence) at one point or another, moi included. I'm partial to the Captain though.


let's use the original purpose of the Second Amendment as the starting point for our discussion. Which do you think is a stronger deterrent: 1,000 M249s? Or 100,000 SKS's, Garands, and M1 Carbines?

Of course 100,000 beats 1000 but those are both relatively modern small arms and the point is it should be 3,000,000 m249s or any arms, for that matter, to whatever an unelected tyrant dictator or invading foreign force has and his guns will be more than an m249 that's for sure.

What's happens to your theoretical advantage in 50-100years when arms have gone through another major technological advance? and it's arguable that it has already happened with the massive advances in electronics, computers, satellite military equipment and munitions. But if we only argue small arms we can look at my example of 100,000 muskets against 1000 m249s. I have no doubt who would come out on top of that one.

I truly believe the founders knew and considered that arms were going to advance. They had history as their guide. They weren't living in a time bubble as some would want us to believe.
 
It was the FIRST total ban of firearms and Reagan signed it. He was no friend to gun owners that's for sure.

FYI, Reagan offered to veto the bill after it passed with the Hughes Amendment. He left the decision totally in the hands of the NRA and they told him to sign the bill, thinking that the improvements it made exceeded the loss of new full auto weapons.

I have some of the artificially inflated full autos and would love to see the price drop out the bottom because the ban was lifted.
 
At the time, nobody thought the poorly-worded Hughes Amendment would stand up to judicial review.
 
FYI, Reagan offered to veto the bill after it passed with the Hughes Amendment. He left the decision totally in the hands of the NRA and they told him to sign the bill, thinking that the improvements it made exceeded the loss of new full auto weapons.

I guess now that his memoirs are out there would be a link to where a president allowed the NRA to make his decision for him. Not calling you a liar but maybe the story got mixed up because just 6 years later as a former president Reagan actively lobbied FOR Clinton's AWB. I'm now wondering if the NRA told him to do that too? In Cal as governor he was an active gun banner also.

I still don't see the validity in this trade off for a total ban on new and a whole class of firearms.

What was SO worth it?
 
This is why it's pointless to even debate this.

We had been suffering for almost twenty years under the most poorly written federal gun law ever. People were getting thrown in prison for typos. You couldn't drive two states over to go hunting for fear of violating some petty state or local firearms law by having a rifle in your trunk. No weapon that had ever been used by a military could be imported, from Lugers and Mausers to Garands and SKS's. Things were bad enough... and I want you to think about this for a second...

...that a Democrat-controlled Congress formed a commission to investigate abuses by the BATF of the citizenry and their 2nd Amendment rights.

Legislation to clear up the muddied wording of GCA '68 and remove its most egregious provisions started moving, picking up cosponsors, with every politically-aware gun owner cheering it on, writing their congressmen, following it...

...and at the very last minute comes the Hughes Amendment. The Hughes Amendment that is so garbled that nobody knows what it means. I think Hughes thought he was banning all civilian machine guns. Who knows?

Of course, in the echo chamber of the Intarw3bz 21 years later, it's easy to make that call, and find plenty of kids who weren't even alive then to cheer you on.

Let's get the Hughes Amendment repealed. But writing "Repeal FOPA '86" makes the writer sound a little thick.

(Actually, let's get the "Sporting Purposes" clause of GCA '68 axed next; it'll probably be the easiest target. Then go after the Hughes Amendment. This crap got added one dumb law at a time; it ain't going to go away with a magic wand...)
 
I guess now that his memoirs are out there would be a link to where a president allowed the NRA to make his decision for him. Not calling you a liar but maybe the story got mixed up because just 6 years later as a former president Reagan actively lobbied FOR Clinton's AWB.

The incident was told to me by Byron Quick, a moderator over at THR. As for the AWB, Reagan was losing his mind while still in office. Six years later he would support anything Nancy told him.
 
Tamara said:
People were getting thrown in prison for typos. You couldn't drive two states over to go hunting for fear of violating some petty state or local firearms law by having a rifle in your trunk. No weapon that had ever been used by a military could be imported, from Lugers and Mausers to Garands and SKS's. Things were bad enough... and I want you to think about this for a second...

...that a Democrat-controlled Congress formed a commission to investigate abuses by the BATF of the citizenry and their 2nd Amendment rights.

Thanks for bringing your objections but none of those things affected me or any of my friends. That's not saying it was not a hardship for a some but your bolded statement above is the very reason Reagan could have easily vetoed the whole package and made Congress remove the unconstitutional Hughes ban, if he didn't really approve of Hughes but he didn't so he signed and is responsible for the very first ban of firearms in the history of the republic, a republican. He had an obligation under his oath to notice that and veto it, because of Hughes, but he didn't and say whatever you want but his support and lobbying for Clinton's AWB proves my point. He wasn't a demented puppet. He truly believed in weapons bans. I will never forgive him for that. He was no patriot in my book and was no different from Clinton who doesn't know the definition of "is".
Neither of them know the definition of "shall not infringe".
 
Thanks for bringing your objections but none of those things affected me or any of my friends.

Then you and your friends don't own any guns or buy any ammunition.

You claim to have a C&R license in another post. Own any milsurps?
 
You know what I think is funny. Someone who has been here for 11 days and has 73 posts NOT ONE which deals with firearms and most which support Ron Paul.

Lets not feed the troll folks.
 
NOT ONE which deals with firearms

and here I thought we were talking about Mom's apple pie.

Go look in the mirror,pal. When you attack the messenger and not the message, you got nothing. Did you think that was funny too? How about YOU tell us how bad it was for YOU before full autos were banned by Reagan. Did you go to prison for a paperwork mistake too?

:)
 
Joliet Jake said:
Thanks for bringing your objections but none of those things affected me or any of my friends.
Tamara said:
Then you and your friends don't own any guns or buy any ammunition.
Tam, I'll go a little farther and narrower and say that Jake and his friends never owned guns or ammo between the '68 GCA and the '86 FOPA. So how could it affect him or his friends?

Jake, I lived in CA under Reagan. Long Beach, to be exact. The only people who disliked what he was doing were the democrats!

I also see that STAGE 2 is not the only one who has observed your posting history and observed you have not engaged in anything "gun" but have instead posted almost entirely within the L&P forum.

While I won't go as far as calling you a troll (shame on you STAGE 2! you know the rules on ad hominems), your response(s) sorta bears out the idea that you are an agent-provocateur. You appear to be more interested in stirring-the-pot than in what this forum is about: Responsible Gun Ownership.

Most gun owners, even those (like myself) who are political activists, do tend to spend a little time in some of the sections of this board that actually deal with guns. You haven't.

To many of us, that raises a red flag indicating you may not be a "gun person." That in itself is not sufficient reason to sling ad hominems, but it does cause one to wonder what your agenda might be.

Yes, I know this is totally off topic. If one of the other mods want to close this down, I'm fine with that. I simply thought, now that STAGE 2 has broached the subject, you would want to share with us a bit...
 
(shame on you STAGE 2! you know the rules on ad hominems),

Fair enough. However I've been here (and other boards) long enough to know when one intends on being a contributing member and when they intend otherwise.

When a person's postings are as previously described and they all either contain the words "Ron Paul" or "republicans are bad because" my money is on otherwise.
 
Antipitas said:
Tam, I'll go a little farther and narrower and say that Jake and his friends never owned guns or ammo between the '68 GCA and the '86 FOPA. So how could it affect him or his friends?
I didn't want to say it but since you brought it up again. Don't question my integrety and I won't question Tam's age which would have made her 18 in 1986 unless that's not her true age.

Antipitas said:
Jake, I lived in CA under Reagan. Long Beach, to be exact. The only people who disliked what he was doing were the democrats!
who's talking about Gov. Reagan anyway. See topic title and the OP or did he sign any anti gun bills then too that we aren't aware of?
Antipitas said:
I also see that STAGE 2 is not the only one who has observed your posting history and observed you have not engaged in anything "gun" but have instead posted almost entirely within the L&P forum.

While I won't go as far as calling you a troll (shame on you STAGE 2! you know the rules on ad hominems), your response(s) sorta bears out the idea that you are an agent-provocateur. You appear to be more interested in stirring-the-pot than in what this forum is about: Responsible Gun Ownership.

Most gun owners, even those (like myself) who are political activists, do tend to spend a little time in some of the sections of this board that actually deal with guns. You haven't.

To many of us, that raises a red flag indicating you may not be a "gun person." That in itself is not sufficient reason to sling ad hominems, but it does cause one to wonder what your agenda might be.

Yes, I know this is totally off topic. If one of the other mods want to close this down, I'm fine with that. I simply thought, now that STAGE 2 has broached the subject, you would want to share with us a bit...
__________________

"may not be a "gun person." What is that supposed to mean? You don't know me from jack. "Shall we dogpile on jack?" Link us to even one anti 2nd Amendment post I have made or please retract your statement. Maybe I'm just not like any "gun person" you've met before and apparently my opinion differs from yours in what the 2nd really means. You got a problem with being an individual? I just like politics. Because I mostly post in the pp forum at the guitar board doesn't mean I don't pick. What do you want to know, I need a spring for my marlin or I'm starting to worry that my saiga12 may be deemed a dd one day especially now that drums and 10rd mags are a reality? What? You talk about ad hominem and then imply just that or were you just discouraging others to use the term "agent-provocateur" when they don't agree but have nothing to argue. If you don't agree, fine, but I have never started name calling if I have nothing to argue and have even changed my opinion when the other side presents logical and well reasoned arguments.

I'll probably get banned now because I stand up for myself and my argument or my topic will be locked.

and Stage 2, you are so crystal. " Fair enough but.........ad hom." btw, I AM republican but I'm not happy with the direction they have taken at all. If I post how I believe Clinton screwed the nation and the BoR's you would agree with me so what's the point. Alot of people don't know Reagan was a gun banner, hence my topic.

:)
 
I have to wonder why you are bringing this up

I don't know anything about you except what you have written, and I don't need to know anything about you, except what you wish known. But I was there, both before and after. And if you aren't inclined to believe more than 40 years of experience, so be it.

I lived through having to produce ID and be logged in a book every time I bought ammunition. I lived through the loss of direct mail order guns (and ammo) without having to have any kind of govt. license. While it never got me personally, I did know people who lost their freedom, jobs, and rights because of a typographical error on a form, and a zealous prosecutor. And people suffering the same fate, because they had a flat tire while driving through someplace with a cased unloaded gun in the trunk. These things affected all gun owners, or had the potential to.

As to import restrictions, at the time, the real reason behind the push for import restrictions (68) was simple trade protectionism. To protect the business of American gun makers. Oh yeah, we were ticked off. Especially so when some desirable guns from quality foreign makers were banned from import because of the totally arbitrary decision process instituted by the Feds. But we lived with it, and argued and fought and eventually got some of the more minor provisions (ammo record keeping) eased. But people were still having their lives destroyed by paperwork errors and being jailed for having the misfortune to have their car break down in an anti-gun area while they were on their way through.

The 86 FOPA would virtually end that. It was, and is a good law, and as has been noted, the ONLY Fed law in our favor. It would actually help honest people by keeping them safe from prosecution because of things that were out of their control.

And we got stabbed in the back by Congress. At the last minute, by voice vote only, they added the Hughes amendment, and passed the whole bill.

Of there was ever a valid argument for the President having line item veto power, this one is it. But the President doesn't have that power. He either has to take the whole thing, or reject the whole thing. And based on the advice he got (no matter how we may feel about it now), Reagan went for the greatest good for the greatest number. And at the time, NFA owners were the minority. Remember the spin. If Reagan had killed the bill, he would be blamed by many, as opposed to the few who were affected by the bill as passed.

A political decision at the time. Not one we approved of, but one we understood. With the passage of the FOPA, there was, for a time, a feeling of optimism about our gun laws, and it was widely felt that we would also be able to remove the Hughes amendment, eventually.

A sad fact of life in these United States is that outside if the shooting community, (and even inside of it to a lesser extent) few people understand much about machineguns, and the laws that regulate them. Except for the one fact they do understand, that "they are illegal" Not quite accurate, but the general assumption remains. And has been re-enforced by over 50 years of the entertainment industry showing private machinegun ownership only in criminal hands. The Bad Guys own machineguns. The Good Guys only use govt owned machineguns, and turn them back in after shooting the Bad Guys.

Decades of that image being hammered into the minds of people who don't know any different creates a powerful "everybody knows" these things are bad. Evil. Only bad people have them, and therefore, if you have or want them, you must be or want to be evil as well. Not the truth, certainly, but a commonly held belief.

Now, you can be angry at Reagan for allowing this come to pass, your opinion is of course, your own. But remember that this was the same Reagan who refused to support any gun control legislation after being shot! That is certainly not typical anti-gun political behavior. A real anti-gun politician who survived an assassination attempt would have written sweeping gun bans in their own blood if they couldn't get a pen fast enough.

I don't see what purpose it serves to hammer on where Reagan let us down. He can't do us any harm or good any more, and all it does as far as I can see is lower our opinion of those doing it.

I'm sorry you can't go out and buy a new NFA weapon at any price, or a used one at a reasonable price. I'm sorry I can't do it as well. But until we can get the law changed, that's where we are. Personally, I would like to see the Hughes amendment repealed in the same manner it was passed. Attached to a big bill that has a lot of support, at the last minute, with a voice only vote. This might even be remotely possible someday, but unfortunately, today is not yet that day.

I do admit that if you are hammering on the damage done to us by the Clinton administration I would support you. Not because I dislike the Clintons (which I do), but because the Clintons are still active in politics, and so their past actions must not be allowed to be forgotten, ignored, or "spun" into something less than the truth. Because no matter what these people say, what they did (and allowed to be done) is incontrovertible proof of who, and what they are. These people must not be given another chance to do it to us again.

A lot of the people I see on these forums who are the most vocal about their anger over "losing a whole class of firearms" tend to be younger, and have only fairly recently learned about what was done to us then, and therefore their anger and indignation is much fresher in their minds. So is the bitterness against those who "allowed it" to happen. Oddly, there doesn't seem to be nearly as much written against those who actively brought it about as there is against those who let it happen. I wonder why?

To my mind, the 94 AWB was a greater evil, because it affected many more people. The only saving grace to the AWB was the suset provision, and we should thank again those who got that provision included. And the Lautenberg Amendment is pure vindicitive evil. Worse and any of the others in it's own way. Denying our rights permanently, for misdemeanor offenses is just wrong. And being retroactive just adds insult to injury. The only "bright spot" in that bill is the fact that Lautenberg is such a fanatic that he excluded the "regular" exceptions for police and active duty military. It may seem hypocritical, but to me, THAT is a good thing. No offense to those good people activly serving in uniform, either civil or military, but there should be only one law for all of us. We should not have one law for some of us because of their job, and a different law for the rest of us. Period.

None of us should have to suffer under a bad law, but if I have to suffer under a bad law, so should you. No matter who you are or what you do. That is the whole idea of all of us being equal under the law. Perhaps if this concept was actively applied to Congress, the way our Founding Fathers intended, we would have fewer bad laws.

And as far a Reagan lobbying for the Clinton AWB, well, my cynical worldview says, why not? It was a bad law, which never could do what it was claimed to do, and was guaranteed to generate a lot of anger and resentment. Why not support it, because Clinton and the Democrats were sure to get the blame. The next election after the AWB passed clearly proved that. The Republican "victory" after the Clinton AWB which broke a 40 year lock on the Democrat's congressional majority was a direct result of the outrage the AWB created. Clinton himself admitted this to fellow Democrats (but never directly to the press). I would say it was a rather shrewed political move on Reagan's part, helping to pass something which damaged his rival party and gave control to his. Well.....
 
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. Remember the spin. If Reagan had killed the bill, he would be blamed by many, as opposed to the few who were affected by the bill as passed.

Great post, 44 and your conclusion here was probably very true but it still doesn't relieve the notion that it WOULD have been renegotiated without the hughes A if he vetoed it especially with all the public and political support it had without the added amendment. I disagree with your whole argument on ammo though. So what, I had to sign for ammo. And what form were you refering too that sent people you knew to prison, the ammo declaration or were they FFL01 dealers? People were worried it was a form of registration but again, so what? We're all registered now with 4473's, concealed carry and you still provide a signed statement for interstate ammo sales. ie registration. It was just too much to give up. We had already had gca for 17 years and now like you said full autos are demonized and it will never be readdressed and repealed by congress.

I think you are on the money though and the same thing is going to happen to most firearms eventually. Most don't care about assault looking weapons now, so they will be next to go. Then handguns. Then ....then.....
 
Is it just me or does it seem like Jake just goes from thread to thread dropping nades. Google is dangerous in the hands of those that live to argue.

BTW.....Jake......What kind of guns do you have? What BTDT experience? Just asking because I sense your not just a gun enthusiast looking for discussion with like minded people.

My instincts tell me you have an agenda. I believe it is trolling for comments and attitudes that you can use to cast a light on our community that promote your politics.

I could be wrong, but I have pretty damn good instincts.
 
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