by Dave Hardy, attorney and legal scholar, has done gun rights activists a great service. He has posted and updated his legislative history of the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986. As he notes:
A large portion of what we today regard as the Gun Control Act of 1968 — and virtually all of its safeguards and protections — derives, not from the legislation of 1968, but from the amendments known as the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act, pushed in the House by Rep. Harold Volkmer, and in the Senate by Sen. James McClure. That statute extensively rewrote the earlier law, expressly overruled six Supreme Court decisions construing it, and negated about a third of the case law which had arisen under it.
Having an understanding of the Act – and what it took to get it passed – is important if we want to continue to pass legislation to preserve, protect, and advance our Second Amendment rights.
Dave deserves a great deal of thanks for the hard work that it took to assemble this history of FOPA. Much of the data and historical information was buried in various government documents. Out of this morass of historical documents, Dave has assembled something that is readable and understandable.