Happy Independence Day, or Fourth of July to those of you who don't know why we light off fireworks and barbecue. It's time to look back into history and read a patriotic editorial that shows us, as far as gun control goes, there is nothing new under the sun. This could be written today. The date will be at the end. Remember and be grateful for the 6,800 men died in battle and many tens of thousands more to disease and climate so that we could celebrate this two-hundred and forty-first year of American independence.
“EDITOR OF THE ARGUS—I do not say,
for I do not believe, that the , legislators who passed these laws were all, or
any of them, were personally in favor of disarming the people, as a step
towards restoration of caste, I do not think this hidden toryism sufficiently
wide spread at present to stock the legislatures of a majority of our 'states,
with its conscious devotees, but I do say that the sentiment among the people
the hidden power behind public opinion which led to the enactment of this law,
was secretly inspired by the ' influence of tory minds and flunkey hearts as a
means to an end, and that end was the ultimate disarming of the American
people, of course I shall be told that there is nothing in this law against
bearing arms that the prohibition is only of the concealment thereof. Of
course, no one would be idiotic enough to suppose Jesuitism whether religious
or political, would spoil its plans by exposing them before the time for full
fruition. But sometime there will be bills introduced into our legislatures,
prohibiting the carrying of pistols openly or in secret, and the quiescence of
the people under those laws will be cited as a precedent in favor of the new
ones The same arguments advanced in favor of these laws, will be equally valid
in advancing those, indeed as we shall see further on, the clause against
concealment in the present statutes, is only inserted to evade that section of
our Magna Charta which declares that
the right of every man to bear arms, shall not be infringed. These new laws
will not be directed against bearing arms as such, but against pistols and
small arms only. It will be urged that the right to bear muskets will and shall
be intact, but the constitution says nothing in favor of Colts revolver and it
will be perfectly lawful to legislate against them. Such a law will be passed
at no very distant day, if the present furor in favor of the most rigid enforcement
of the present laws to-day continued. And then those men who own the elegant
little nickle plated denizens of the hip pocket will be compelled to dispose of
them altogether, or to keep them hid behind the clock case or down cellar,
where no careless eye may chance to see them. For the right of owning an
article implies the right of carrying the same, and when the one is abrogated
the other is rendered void.-- Then men will become more and more unaccustomed
to the use of firearms, for guns are clumsy and costly, and many people can not
afford to procure them, and still fewer would be able to spend the time
necessary to become familiar with their use. Then again, laws will be passed
debarring the people from forming societies and bearing arms en masse. Later still a license law will
be passed prohibiting all persons from bearing or possessing arms, who are not
able and willing to pay a license for so doing— license at first ridiculously
small and insignificant. And lastly the license will be increased until only
persons of a certain opulence will be able to afford the luxury, and this by
throwing all the firearms into the hands of the wealthy classes will render the
completion of the Toryistic scheme as easy as rolling off a log, and the grand
programme of aristocratic restoration will be complete.
“This is the inevitable tendency or
all laws against carrying concealed weapons, and the fact seems so self-evident,
the person must be stupidly blind who does not perceive it. Nevertheless there
are many who profess themselves quite unable to believe there can be any harm
in such a law who can read nothing between the lines. They pooh pooh the idea that
anyone would try or would wish to try to curtail the privileges of freeborn
American citizens. They seem to imagine that laws are incapable of possessing hidden
meanings, though in ambiguous terms. Though the uncertainty of legal processes
is every day made more glaringly evident. They seem forgetful of the fact that
the evident spirit of the Constitution is violated in these laws, though they
may be literally constitutional, and that where the spirit of a creed is
outraged, the outrages are scarcely liable to conscientious scruples about the
strict observance of the letters or the same, perhaps these persons would not
be so very deserving of repute had the laws against concealed weapons been the
only steps taken thus for in this direction. But, though it is only a very few
years since these laws were first passed, the quiescence of the people under
them has already led to of more advanced legislation. Already the rights of the
people to near arms en mass in civil
societies, has been contested in the courts, and eminent legal talent has arrayed
itself against the people. The arrest and imprisonment of the Socialistic company
leaders of Chicago, not many months ago, though provoking but little comment
throughout the land, was a very significant straw, showing which way the
current of opinion was tending. And it may not wholly have escaped the reader's
memory, that during the "Great Strike" of 1877, the opinion was
widely advanced by the partisans of monopoly, that the rights of people to bear
arms was a standing menace to the Government, and that some license law should
be enacted to limit the possession of arms to those whose interests were
supposed to be identical with "Strong Government, in other words,
despotism. If such things do not prove that these laws are but pointers, but
stepping-stones to something beyond, I cannot imagine what sort of evidence
would be considered convincing.
“I do not know whether the constitutionality of the laws against
concealed weapons has or has not been subjected to the test of supreme court
examination, nor do I care, since no decision of any court, whether favorable
or adverse can have any bearing on the argument. The constitution of the United
States is perhaps the best example in existence of terse expression and rigid
simplicity of style. It needs for its comprehension no extensive culture, nor
legal education nor exhaustive researches in black letter literature. It
demands only moderate acquaintance with Webster's spelling book, and a small modicum
of common sense. It is so simple straightforward and honest that the wayfaring
man though a fool can read and understand. It is true that hired shysters and hair-splitting
gibblers may profess to find hidden meanings under the most obvious texts, but
the common sense of the American people if not an infallible guide, nearly so
at least has long since declared that the value of a magna carta lies in its
being easily understood by every person affected by its decrees, and that,
hence, the literal interpretation of the text is the most natural and true one.
To assert otherwise, is to not only depreciated the wisdom of the framers, but
to impeach their patriotism as well. The fathers or our government may not have
been the paragons of perfection, our Fourth of July orators would have us
believe, but they were certainly as well versed in the English language, as any
of our modern constitutional lawyers, and were actuated by motives of
patriotism where purity has never been denied, and when they drew up the
national constitution, they sought only to preserve and perpetuate by legal
enactments the liberties so dearly bought with the sword. It is ridiculous to
suppose, and slander to assert that such men would have concocted a charta for
the people which not one man in ten thousand of those people would, be able to
understand, which would be so obscure its meaning and uncertain in its
renderings as to resemble the revelation of St. John the Divine, which ten thousand
learned commentations have not yet made clear. They would rather used plain
language to express their meaning: they would not have crowded different meanings
into one expression, and the meaning they would intend to convey by any one
sentence, would be the one apparent on its face. They had no object in using
ambiguous language, which could be "made to support contradictory and
unthought of hypotheses. When (figuratively, of course), they spoke of a spade,
they meant and intended to be so under stood the garden utensil of that name;
and when they declared that the right American citizens to bear arms should not
be infringed, they meant just what they said, and would have been surprised to
learn that their language justified such interference with that right, as is
perpetuated in the laws against concealed weapons." —Guy Rivers
“Plea For the Hip Pocket.” The Rock Island Argus.” Nov. 1, 1881. (original)
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