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On this date...
On this date (some sources day tommorrow) in 1919 Congress enacted the Volstead Act, or as it is now known, Prohibition.
The "Great Experiment" in keeping Americans from getting what they want, as a way of improving their lot, was repealed in 1933, but not before it had fueled massive lawbreaking, corrupted countless governments and law enforcement agencies, encouraged disrespect for the law, killed far more than it saved, and created modern Organized Crime.
Maybe someday people will learn from experience.
[update in light of comment: I think Don Kates has some writings on how the press hailed the Sullivan Law as disarming disliked minorities -- in that case Italian and eastern European immigrants. And Bob Cottrol and Nick Diamond have written on the racist origins of other gun laws around that time. There a state court opinion on a CCW law where one judge comes right out and says it was aimed at blacks in lumber camps, and was never understood to apply to the white population.
BUT -- courts are reluctant to strike statutes on bases like those. The fact that a statute, neutral on its face -- unlike segregation laws, etc. -- was enacted from a racist or related motive is hard to prove. The legislators' hearts might have been pure, whatever the NY Times or this judge thought. So the courts are pretty reluctant to rule on the basis of indirect evidence of a bad motive.
Digression: Kates has also remarked to me that he thinks Prohibition cooled the ardor for gun laws like the Sullivan Law. In 1913 or whenever, very strict gun laws sounded like a good idea. After 1919, the idea that strict legal controls means domestic peace went down the tubes. The state gun laws that were enacted in the Northeast were much milder than the Sullivan Law, and outside the mideast and midwest even these rarely were passed. It wasn't until this experience had been largely forgotten, a generation or two later, that we see the urge for stricter gun laws gaining way.]
Comments
In line with that experiment - I read someplace recently, and mea culpa, can not remeber where, that New York Sullivan law was really an attempt by the establishment to keep guns out of the hands of the undesirables, (low class whatevers) who of course could not be trusted not to confine their harm to just among themselves. This was supposedly actively endorsed by the NY Times at the time.
Would be interesting if this was true, as maybe it could be shown that the effect of the law is discrimatory and therefore unconstitutional? I am thinking Jim Crow type law here.
Realize that I am not a lawyer and do not even play one on TV but is an interesting thought.
Posted by: Rich at October 28, 2006 12:39 PM
Maybe I'm just repeating hearsay, but I'd add "creating the Kennedy's" as another bad feature of the Volstead Act.
I've heard a large part of the the family fortune was made by Joe running foreign booze into the states, which is why one heard the cliche about "set(ing) a thief" when FDR appointed him to the SEC.
Posted by: bud at October 29, 2006 10:18 AM