That rule has been there since the beginning even if you don't acknowledge it.
EDIT: It didn't need to be acknowledged because there wasn't a strong push to disarm the population until fairly recently.
EDIT2: It looks to me like they only really go back to just after the civil war, largely to keep African Americans from carrying firearms. The first attempt by the Federal Government to ban them was in the mid 20th century which was exactly what I expected.
EDIT3: James Madison tried and failed to pass the legislation (presumably because it was unpopular), at the state level (not federal level) and it didn't prevent people from owning guns just carrying them in public.
There were laws in most states banning blacks from owning guns [1], presumably largely out of fear that they might fight back if armed. Even long after the civil war laws were passed to implicitly prevent blacks from being able to obtain guns. For instance the National Firearms Act of 1934 put a whopping $200 tax on firearms purchases. The goal, like many earlier bills, was just to ensure that blacks and poor whites could not effectively arm themselves. Even the gun control act of 1968 was influenced out of a fear that black groups, such as the Black Panthers, were starting to arm themselves and demonstrate accordingly. There's a really interesting article on that here [2].
And actually this is a general theme throughout history. For instance gun laws which effectively disarmed their target population played a crucial role in the numerous 20th century genocides. From the Jews in Germany, to the Armenians in Turkey, to the "intellectuals" in Cambodia, to subversives and dissidents in Stalin's Soviet Union, and many more. First came the the restriction of guns then came the unveiling of what the beasts behind these governments truly were.
This of course is not to imply that all efforts at gun control come with some ulterior motive, but simply to exemplify that governments that do have that ulterior motive tend to be damn scared of an armed population.
Don't forget that in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War some of the first gun control laws were passed. Specifically, the laws restricted ownership of firearms to particular models that the newly freed Black population would be unlikely to be able to afford. The effect was essentially disarmament of the Black population in the South.
Gun control in the USA has always been enacted specifically for racist reasons, from the very first regulations designed to disarm freed slaves that defended themselves against lynch mobs, to federal regulations in recent history when the black panthers carried long arms onto the floor of congress.
Quick correction, fully automatic machine guns have effectively been banned for far longer than that. The National Firearms Act of 1934 was the first stab at gun control, on the heels of Prohibition.
That line of logic towards gun ownership made sense when the constitution was written, and the musket you owned was not far off from the musket a soldier was issued. What is your ar15 going to do to an unmanned drone six miles in the air? Or a missile launched from a battleship hundreds of miles off the coast? We’ve long passed the point of the second amendment. The only reason guns arent’t totally banned now is because how entrenched the arms industry is in american politics.
Here's a brief outline of the "anti-gun lobby's" successes in the US:
Prior to the Civil War: bans on concealed carry ostensibly to discourage dueling.
Post-Civil War: bans mostly in the South on carry, or types of weapons allowed to be carried, to keep blacks disarmed.
Early 20ths Century: More widespread bans on carry, and restrictions on handgun ownership, prompted by the waves of non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants. New York's Sullivan Law, named after a gangster politician who disarmed his southern and eastern European rivals with it, is still the law of the land there.
The National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 was the first national level gun control law, which as a "compromise" didn't effectively ban the transfer of handguns.
Lots more where this came from with of course enforcement beyond the initially targeted populations, by the early '60s it was a big thing that Washington State passed a shall issue concealed carry licencing law.
Big push in the '50s and '60s to restrict gun ownership, especially of handguns (I've read many contemporaneous issues of the NRA's American Rifleman membership magazine that covered the Congressional hearings etc. on this, generally lead by the criminal Senator Thomas Dodd, ah, I see he also got LSD banned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Dodd#Congress).
The Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968 completely changed the way guns were sold in the US, opened the door for massive abuses by the BATF that were well on their way to extinguishing the country's gun culture when party reversed in 1986, etc. etc. etc.
The anti-gun lobby was very much a thing that very year, the GCA pretty much marked the beginning of their greatest successes in the country. If we "reflexively" vilify the gun grabbers today, it's because it's been such a thing, and so strong for all of our adult lives for the majority of us (those of us less than 65 years old, including all Baby Boomers born starting in 1950, those of us less than 100 years old if you include that Federal effort to effectively ban handgun ownership with a $3,500 transfer tax in 2015 dollars).
Not sure why you're getting downvoted, it's a good joke - this is one of the two standards (along with "necessary and proper") that courts have used to justify ~every federal law as constitutional.
Fun fact: the federal law that bans firearms in schools is based on "interstate commerce".
> the firearm in question "has moved in or otherwise affects interstate commerce."[3] As nearly all firearms have moved in interstate commerce at some point in their existence, critics assert this was merely a legislative tactic to circumvent the Supreme Court's ruling.[2]
It was removed, but also (and maybe because) it was nearly impossible to effectively enforce. Gun restrictions would very much experience the same problems. There are millions of guns and gun owners in the US and many of those people are firm believers in their right to own a gun. They'd likely bury them in the yard or, as the old joke goes, "lose" them in a boating accident, before turning them over to authorities.
I personally would _never_ willingly turn mine in--they're for my and my family's protection and have saved my life before. I am certain many gun owners feels this way as well. Trying to enforce such a rule would be difficult, if not impossible.
You raise a very good point. And something else -- during this time, the US started to pass gun control laws. They were understood primarily to apply only to black men at the time.
This is the heritage of gun control in America -- racism and hate written down and codified in law.
All of these mass shootings are using long-guns, because they are more accurate than pistols. Furthermore, when a mass-shooter is using a long-gun, police (see Uvalde) are less willing to engage, because the police know they're outgunned.
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If we cannot stop the mass shootings, at least we can mitigate their damage and improve the odds of local Policemen of having enough of an advantage against the perpetrator, right? No one needs a long-gun for self defense, its too awkward to carry around.
The only people using semiautomatic or automatic long guns are mass shooters. Hunters use simpler reload mechanisms and are fine with it (its no longer a sport if its a 30-ammo magazine in that gun).
Who else needs a highly accurate long gun with high-reload capacity (over 5 shots per reload) ??
It hasn't actually been virtually impossible to legally own a gun. In fact, since the bill passed, the number of legal guns has increased substantially, especially along the last three or four years.
Guns and gun ownership are a deeply ingrained and arguably sacred part of culture for a lot of America. A law to outright ban firearms would not be enforceable. Not now, and probably not even in 100 years from now. Not without a secession or civil war, anyway. Too many people would be very vehemently opposed to it and would genuinely rather be shot and killed by law enforcement than allow their guns to be confiscated. Not even a semi-automatic ban or something like that could ever happen; at least not for many generations.
Not everyone feels this way, but more than enough people do to make a universal ban completely infeasible. The question right now is if there can even be any federal legislation passed to address issues like gun access to the mentally unstable and people on watchlists, let alone high-capacity magazines or gun modifications or a ban on certain classes of firearms.
There was plenty of gun control enacted in the late 19th and early 20th century. It was targeted toward black southerners, however, and AFAIK rarely made it to the US Supreme Court. The laws were usually ruled more-or-less constitutional.
EDIT: It didn't need to be acknowledged because there wasn't a strong push to disarm the population until fairly recently.
EDIT2: It looks to me like they only really go back to just after the civil war, largely to keep African Americans from carrying firearms. The first attempt by the Federal Government to ban them was in the mid 20th century which was exactly what I expected.
EDIT3: James Madison tried and failed to pass the legislation (presumably because it was unpopular), at the state level (not federal level) and it didn't prevent people from owning guns just carrying them in public.
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