Diggapedia

  Today there is anger, disappointment, and shock on the left and glee, gloating, and snark from the right.   Yes, today in the U.S. Senate 54-46 was a losing score; no there isn’t a vote spread, it’s just the American Senate where 60 is the new majority.   Today, an already watered down bipartisan bill, the Manchin-Toomey bill, a bill that would mandate criminal background checks for all gun purchases via the internet or at gun shows was defeated.   The watered down version exempted family member transfers, private party sales, and ‘non-commercial’ sales and yet it was still defeated.   This bill, a far cry from the President’s goal of universal background checks, could not muster the necessary procedural 60 votes.   Depending what poll you look at, the American public, republicans and democrats, gun owners and otherwise, NRA members and not, universally supported increased background checks.   Why?   Because most intelligent Americans ...

On December 16, 1689 an Act of Parliament created the English Bill of Rights.   Amongst these rights were: Protestant subjects "may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions, and allowed by law".   100 years later the US Constitution would also include a Bill of Rights, and its 2 nd amendment would state: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. There is little debate that our Bill of Rights were strongly based on the English Bill of Rights.   But the English Bill of Rights was as much about righting the wrongs of the monarchy and establishing Parliament’s power while the American counterpart was about protecting citizens from tyrannical government.   Nonetheless, when it came to guns, the English Bill of Rights was specifically addressing the 1671Game Act that forbid Protestants from owning guns.     This new Bill of Rights would ...