The Arkansas high court declared "That the words 'a well-regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free State', and the words 'common defense' clearly show the true intent and meaning of these Constitutions [i.e., Arkansas and the U.S.] and prove that it is a political and not an individual right, and, of course, that the State, in her legislative capacity, has the right to regulate and control it: This being the case, then the people, neither individually nor collectively, have the right to keep and bear arms." Joel Prentiss Bishop's influential Commentaries on the Law of Statutory Crimes (1873) took Buzzard's militia-based interpretation, a view that Bishop characterized as the "Arkansas doctrine," as the orthodox view of the right to bear arms in American law.[24][25]
According to journalist Chip Berlet, concerns about gun control laws along with outrage over two high-profile incidents involving the ATF (Ruby Ridge in 1992 and the Waco siege in 1993) mobilized the militia movement of citizens who feared that the federal government would begin to confiscate firearms.[39][40]
disarmed the missing movement for gun control in america pdf free
Download Zip: https://miimms.com/2vKjIs
In order to demonstrate the significance of broad possibilities for imagination and open futures, it is also important to consider the consequences of limited political imagination and a fixed sense of the future. The politics of gun control throughout the late twentieth century offer a compelling example of how a lack of radical activism and narrowing down of possibilities have stymied the political imagination of the Left in the United States. Focusing on the legislative battles around Concealed Carry and Campus Carry in Texas, I demonstrate how the gun control movement has continuously surrendered ground in the face of relentless efforts by the political Right to pursue their own utopian project. This ceding has led some scholars to question whether a gun control movement as such has even existed until very recently.11
I continue to examine how this hope was again animated by the MFOL marches that cascaded to Austin too. The mass mobilization of young people and students managed to revive political hope in a manner that brought to mind the spirit of the 1960s to the older activists that had lived through the mobilization against the Vietnam War. By considering a variety of data, ranging from policy letters drafted by MFOL and MFOL Texas, campaign ads and a series of speeches and photographs taken at an MFOL protest march in Austin, Texas in 2018, I show how radical political imagination propelled by mass mobilization can exponentially broaden the futures that movements can perceive. I consider how a collective identity framed around an imagined generation has led to the confluence of different issue-based movements that has facilitated processes of imagining larger, utopian, projects. These projects are constructed in interactions within and across organizations, in coalitions centered on empowering minority voices. I conclude the chapter by exploring the future of youth activism and gun control movements.
This lack of radical political imagination and an ability to imagine alternatives was evident in U.S. leftist politics at the start of the twenty-first century, and in particular it was the underlying condition characterizing the politics of gun control. At first glance, radical political imagination and utopia in the context of gun politics may not seem an obvious pair, especially if utopia is considered to be something unreachable in human societies. However, if we consider radical political imagination to be about understanding issues as systematic and utopia as the opening of possibilities to imagine things that previously were inconceivable, then the concepts are useful in gun politics, too. Furthermore, in many ways the successes of the Right regarding the right to carry guns has enabled the imagining of a type of utopia where every citizen is free to carry guns wherever they wish without any oversight from the government. For example, if the trajectory since post-Civil War Texas had been toward restricting gun carrying rather than making it more accessible, the Concealed Carry bill (SB 60 in 1995), the Campus Carry bill (SB 11 in 2015), the Open Carry bill (HB 195 in 2015), and a law allowing guns in churches (SB 535 in 2019) proved to be watershed moments that would have a profound impact on expanding which and where citizens were allowed to carry.43
What made generational community important here is that by adopting such a frame, the organizers of the MFOL movement were able to create an imaginary of a collective that is large enough to support radical political imagination, not only in identifying current problems but establishing an orientation toward the future that can be seen as utopian in nature. Building on creative means of seeking gun control and efforts to contest the normalization of gun culture, such as those constructed by groups such as CNG, MFOL began to see an open future beyond the impenetrable wall of gun legislation that, at least to their generation, had previously appeared closed and fixed. In this way, goals came to be considered not in terms of what is feasible but what is desirable. Moving from individual experiences of insecurity to collectively constructed generational utopian visions for the future, the MFOL youth went from imagining something that feels possible in the present to striving toward something larger and a different way of thinking about public safety altogether.
The politics of gun control in the United States have for the most part appeared to be closed and with limited options for the future. Within this reality, CNG contested their present by making visible the absurdities they perceived in what had become normal. Through radical political imagination, CNG was also able to reimagine the ways of thinking about and engaging in gun control advocacy. Mass mobilization can also provide increased opportunities to imagine what was previously unimaginable. MFOL was able to harness that power and thereby construct utopias for an imagined generational community. Yet, movements on the ground before mass mobilization are what support the relationships and networks to be tapped into, like awakening a slumbering giant, until an opening in the political structure appears. As movements and organizations such as Cocks Not Glocks and March For Our Lives are banging on the impenetrable wall of the status quo, the future thus appeared, even if only for a moment, to be open instead of closed.
No topic is more polarizing than guns and gun control. From a gun culture that took root early in American history to the mass shootings that repeatedly bring the public discussion of gun control to a fever pitch, the topic has preoccupied citizens, public officials, and special interest groups for decades. In this thoroughly revised second edition of The Gun Debate: What Everyone Needs to Know noted economist Philip J. Cook and political scientist Kristin A. Goss delve into the issues that Americans debate when they talk about guns. With a balanced and broad-ranging approach, the authors thoroughly cover the latest research, data, and developments on gun ownership, gun violence, the firearms industry, and the regulation of firearms. The authors also tackle sensitive issues such as the impact of gun violence on quality of life, the influence of exposure to gun violence on mental health, home production of guns, arming teachers, the effect of concealed weapons on crime rates, and the ability of authorities to disarm people who aren't allowed to have a gun. No discussion of guns in the U.S. would be complete without consideration of the history, culture, and politics that drive the passion behind the debate. Cook and Goss deftly explore the origins of the American gun culture and the makeup of both the gun rights and gun control movements.Written in question-and-answer format, this updated edition brings the debate up-to-date for the current political climate under Trump and will help readers make sense of the ideologically driven statistics and slogans that characterize our national conversation on firearms. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in getting a clear view of the issues surrounding guns and gun policy in America. 2ff7e9595c