Although rumor has it, that you owned your first gun in the year 1834. Haha, (J/K)
You don't have to label it as a joke. I have a pretty good sense of humor about age.
I hate to sound like an Old Pharte talking down to you Whippersnappers, but I fired my first gun in about 1946-ish and owned my first cartridge gun in about 1959 (some air/CO2-operated guns before then). This latter was under the very restrictive laws of New York, which I thought were Supposed To Be Universal Truths.
When I moved out to Colorado in about 1963, I discovered what it was like to breathe "free air" and bought my first handgun (a cheap "Saturday Night Special" in .22LR) out here in about 1963, practically the moment I established residency and got a Colorado driver's license. No paperwork, no nuthin' except to show my new DL to prove residency.
Still, for months, I felt like a criminal because I had a "GU-UHN," almost to the point where I'd draw the curtains so nobody outside could see me fondling it. It took a while to break away from that "Noo Yawk attitude" about "GU-UHNS."
But I gradually became acclimated to "freedom" out here in CO and soon bought a Commercial 1911. This was quite a challenging mental change after the NY brainwashing I'd been subjected to. I also met and befriended a guy who was pretty gun-savvy and let me borrow a couple of his guns from time to time. He also sponsored my membership in the NRA... yes, you needed a sponsor to join, at the time.
Got into reloading and especially high-power precision shooting, etc, etc, to the point nowadays where I own guns I haven't even fired yet.
I was royally pissed soon after GCA 1968 when I found I had to fill out paperwork to purchase a gun, and I couldn't mail-order them (thanks, Lee Harvey Oswald!
) . At the time, the "paperwork" was a mimeographed one-page affair from the ATF, or whatever it was called at the time,
And look where we've gone from there.
So here comes the Old Pharte "talking down" to you Whippersnappers part.
(1) As I stated above,
Any fee, tax, delay, training requirement, "reasonable burden," or any other restriction on firearms ownership or manner of bearing whatsoever, is inherently unconstitutional and illegal.
This, under the "shall not be infringed" rubric. You can fiddley--fart around all you want about the meaning of the first clause, but the meaning of the operative clause is clear. And to me, well-regulated means well-trained and equipped, not well-trammeled and restricted. And "militia" means you and me, despite any Post-Ratification Weasel-Word definitions thereof. You can squirm and worm your way around with local Court definitions of "
constitutional," but that don't make them laws
Constitutional nohow.
(2) Any Post-Ratification Weasel-Word laws about firearms are null and void. You can talk about "reasonable" all you want, but "reasonable " is an indefinite term. Attempts to "clarify" it with a "reasonable man" test fall short, since "reasonable" to me means no restrictions, and "reasonable" to you means "yeah, sure, but a guy who is caught taking a leak in an alley should be branded as a sex offender (public exposure) and forever barred from owning or possessing a gun." Which, I am told, is at least a theoretical possibility, even if it may never have been documented. "Reasonable," my sweet pink wrinkled old ass.
(3) While Colorado is not the most 2A-respecting state in the nation, when 2ahawaii started this site, I got interested because I loved Hawaii when I was there a couple of decades ago. I have since found by reading your site that your restrictions are
inherently unreasonable and I am passionately engaged in your struggle to make them reasonable.
To my Olde Pharte definition.
....
Gotta go. Gotta batten down some hatches a little bit 'cause 80 mph winds are blowing things around outside.
Terry, 230RN
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