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Proud Heritage of Gun Control.

While gun control appears to be a modern idea, it is in fact almost as old the firearms themselves. Precedents for prohibiting certain weapons had already existed. For example Jews in most of Europe were prohibited from owning arms or joining armies. Naturally, all that was done for their own good. Similarly, peasants were prohibited from owning swords. Crossbowmen and archers were threatened with mutilations if captured on the battlefield. In case of guns, the imperative to ban them was even stronger than with muscle-powered arms.

1518. Enlightened Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian I bans wheel-lock firearms.

Stating that a concealable weapon was the choice of bandits, he prohibited manufacture and use of wheel-lock firearms. While the ban did retard development of the mechanism, it did nothing to reduce crime. Wheellocks were so expensive that it would take an exceptionally well-heeled brigand to own one.

An unfortunate side effect of this ban was that people who depended on pistols to deter highwaymen were out of luck. Likewise, people accused of witchcraft or herecy had no effective means of defense, as blunt and edged weapons required strength and years of training to be effective.

The ban had eventually lapsed, as the Emperor's son liked guns and had not renewed the ban. As with many laws of that time and place, it was enforced mainly against the commoners.

Public Safety in 17th century France

Posession of flint-lock or snaphaunce firearms was punishable by death. Naturally, that prohibition did not extend to the king or his partisans in the on-going civil war against the Hugenots.

Japan Controls Guns and other Weapons
In the late 16th and early 17th century, the Shoguns who unified Japan sought to prevent further challenges to their authority from peasants and monks alike. To that end, they had confiscated all weapons, including firearms, from the population in the Sword Hunt of 1588. They succeeded by murdering not only those who did not obey promptly but also their entire families. Such are the measures needed for successful gun control.

America tries half-measures.

The end to slavery after American Civial War had led to first serious gun control here. Originally enforced against Blacks, these laws had later been applied to Chinese and other Asian immigrants, East Europeans and just plain poor people. That pattern continues to this day: the wealth and political influence of many gun control leaders makes them exempt from the same laws that they helped to author. That is why the founder of Handgun Control Incorporated has a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Efficient German approach succeeds

Jews were required to turn in guns, sticks and anything else that could be used for self-defense in 1938. That co-incidentally was the year the first concentration camp opened. Most of the six million that perished in the next seven years were disarmed by laws of Germany or their respective home countries. By contrast, when the wised-up survivors with illegal arms made a stand in 1948 Palestine, they had succeeded in protecting themselves and all those who were in no shape to fight. Shall we condemn them for using weapons illegal by British law of the time and place to survive attempted genocide?

Why dig in the ancient history?

With the benfit of hindsight, it is easy to see that depriving a population or an individual of means of self-defense is never done for the benefit of the people disarmed. Are current efforts do do the same to us any different?