On January 17, 1968 during Lyndon B. Johnson's State of the Union Address, he spoke just a few but passionate words on the gun control laws that Congress had been deliberating on for five years.
"And I urge the Congress to stop the trade in mail-order murder, to stop it this year by adopting a proper gun control law."This was four years after the Warren Commission ruled that Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone killing the President John F. Kennedy with a cheap mail-order rifle fired from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository in downtown Dallas.
As you can imagine, Senator Bobby Kennedy the brother of the late John F. Kennedy was very outspoken on the ability to purchase a gun through the mail, and a strong supporter of new gun control laws. On May 25 1968, while on the Campaign trail in Roseburg, Oregon Senator Kennedy was challenged about the impact of Gun Control legislation on the second amendment. In his response, he explained what he considered our current gun industry to be an outrageous system that in that day would allow the criminal, the insane, and even a young child to purchase a gun through the mail.
"The requirement is that when somebody purchases a gun through a mail-order, So you send a gun or a rifle across the state line that you abide by the law of a particular state. All it does a the present moment is that the person who is insane, a man with a long criminal record of having killed a dozen people can go in and buy a rifle. Now if you think that makes sense for all of us. A person that is four years old can go buy a rifle now, a person who is 6 years old, a man in the death row, on death row in Kansas who killed a half a dozen people. If someone there sent for a rifle through the mail from Chicago, for him to have a rifle while he is waiting on death row, after killing people and the rifle was sent to him. Now does that make any sense that you put rifles and guns in the hands of people who have long criminal records, of people who are insane, or of people who are mentally incompetent, or people who are so young they don't know how to handle rifles or guns. I just ask you." (Robert F. Kennedy 1968)
This was just two weeks before Robert F. Kennedy was mortally shot at a Hotel in Los Angeles California where he was celebrating his winning the California presidential primary. A bullet from a .22 small caliber handgun was shot at a range of about 1 inch, entering behind his right ear and dispersing fragments throughout his brain. Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:44 a.m. (PDT) on June 6, nearly 26 hours after the shooting. Four months later, on October 22, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Gun Control Act of 1968. The CGA was the most sweeping gun control legislation at the time. In his remarks at the signing, Johnson spoke that with this bill, "Today we begin to disarm the criminal and the careless and the insane". He tied the bill to "crime control" which he called a "community problem". Johnson spoke about how the Gun Control Act will help fight organized crime, with local crime-fighting programs, tackle problems of "teenage crime", and protect against random gun violence. But according to Johnson what the CGA bill really does is "stop murder by mail order".
"Some of you may be interested in knowing-really-what this bill does: --It stops murder by mail order. It bars the interstate sale of all guns and the bullets that load them.--It stops the sale of lethal weapons to those too young to bear their terrible responsibility.--It puts up a big "off-limits" sign, to stop gunrunners from dumping cheap foreign "$10 specials" on the shores of our country." (Lyndon B. Johnson 1968)
Yet, President Johnson was not happy, because as big as the bill was, he said it still fell short. Johnson wanted a national registration of all guns. He lamented that in 1968 there were 160 millions guns in America, "more firearms than families", and the only way to keep guns out of the hands of the criminal or insane is to have federal licensing of guns so that can be tracked down quickly. Johnson blamed the powerful gun lobbyists for the failure of the CGA to include this provision, and in his speech at the signing, he urged Congress to continue working on passing stricter gun control laws.
For the next three decades, the Gun Control Act (CGA) of 1968 provided the legal foundation of federal gun policy in the United States, and much of it still applies today. It repealed and replaced Federal Firearms Act (FFA) of 1938. The earlier 1938 act required that all gun manufacturers, importers and persons selling firearms, and like it, the CGA also required manufacturers, importers and dealers to obtain a federal licenses before engaging in any business. In addition the CGA expanded the Federal Firearms Act of 1938 in many ways in including:
- Prohibit the sales, transfer or receiving of firearms to out-of-state residents, minors, felons, persons indicted for a felon, fugitives, unlawful users of narcotics, or committed to a mental institute. Individuals had the right to petition a prohibition to the Secretary for relief of this in court.
- Prohibited interstate mail order sales of guns or ammunition, and had severe restrictions on mail order sales within a state.
- Prohibited dealers from delivering firearms to felons, and transfers by individuals to felons or across state lines.
- Required manufacturers and importers to stamped or engraved a serial number on every firearm. Eventually, it became a violator of the law for any person to knowingly transfer or sell a firearm without a serial number or with one that was modified in any way.
- Modifies the National Firearms Act, by amending what weapons are covered by the Control Act. Title I refers to the firearms covered by the GCA, while Title II refers to those that were covered by the original FFA act and it's amendments. Title II includes Machine Guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, silencers and destructive Devices.
References
Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2018). Lyndon B. Johnson: Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union.. [online] Available at: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=28738 [Accessed 19 Apr. 2018].
Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2018). Lyndon B. Johnson: Remarks Upon Signing the Gun Control Act of 1968.. [online] Available at: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29197 [Accessed 19 Apr. 2018].
Jpfo.org. (2018). THE GUN CONTROL ACT OF 1968. [online] Available at: http://jpfo.org/articles-assd02/gca68-nra4.htmhttp://jpfo.org/articles-assd02/gca68-nra4.htm [Accessed 19 Apr. 2018].
Nytimes.com. (2018). Papers on Kennedy Assassination Are Unsealed, and '63 Is Revisited. [online] Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/24/us/papers-on-kennedy-assassination-are-unsealed-and-63-is-revisited.html [Accessed 19 Apr. 2018].
YouTube. (2018). The Gun Control Act of 1968 and why it matters - The Legal Brief!. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjp8S5aLt0c [Accessed 19 Apr. 2018].
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