Back from the dead!
Back from the dead!
Along with ...The American Library Association condemns censorship and works to ensure free access to information. Every year, the Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) compiles a list of the Top Ten Most Challenged Books in order to inform the public about censorship in libraries and schools. The lists are based on information from media stories and voluntary challenge reports sent to OIF from communities across the United States.
Clayton Cramer, a historian, software engineer, gun enthusiast and early critic of Bellesiles, later argued that the reason "why historians swallowed Arming America's preposterous claims so readily is that it fit into their political worldview so well... Arming America said things, and created a system of thought so comfortable for the vast majority of historians, that they didn’t even pause to consider the possibility that something wasn’t right." Historian Peter Charles Hoffer, an advocate of gun control, lent support to Cramer's charge when, in a 2004 examination of the Bellesiles case, he noted that influential members of the historical profession had "taken strong public stands on violence in our society and its relation to gun control." For instance, the academics solicited for blurbs by Bellesiles’ publisher Alfred A. Knopf "were ecstatic in part because the book knocked the gun lobby."
Bellesiles energized this professional consensus by attempting to play "the professors against the NRA in a high-wire act of arrogant bravado." For instance, he replied to Heston’s criticism by telling the actor to earn a Ph.D. before criticizing the work of scholars. He pointed out that Cramer was "a long time advocate of unrestricted gun ownership" while he was a scholar who had "certain obligations of accuracy that transcend current political benefit." After Bellesiles claimed he had been flooded by hate mail, both the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians endorsed a resolution condemning the alleged harassment. As Hoffer later wrote, Bellesiles was convinced that whether the entire profession agreed with “his stance on gun ownership (and I suspect most did), surely academic historians would not let their expertise be impugned by a rank and partisan amateur like Cramer.”
In 2002, the trustees of Columbia University rescinded Arming America's Bancroft Prize, the first such action in the history of the prize. Alfred A. Knopf, publisher of Arming America, did not renew Bellesiles' contract, and the National Endowment for the Humanities withdrew its name from a fellowship that the Newberry Library had granted Bellesiles. In 2003, Arming America was republished in a revised and amended edition by Soft Skull Press. Bellesiles continued to defend the book's credibility and thesis, arguing that roughly three-quarters of the original book remained unchallenged.
Public Law 93-639
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as "Amendments of 1973 to Federal Law Relating to Explosives"
SEC. 101. Section 845(a) of title 18 of the United States Code
(relating to exemptions from certain provisions of Federal law relating
to explosives) is amended by striking out paragraph (5) and
inserting in lieu thereof the following new paragraph:
"(5) commercially manufactured black powder in quantities
not to exceed fifty pounds, percussion caps, safety and pyrotechnic
fuses, quills, quick and slow matches, and friction primers,
intended to be used solely for sporting, recreational, or cultural
purposes in antique firearms as defined in section 921(a) (16) of
title 18 of the United States Code, or in antique devices as
exempted from the term 'destructive device' in section 921(a) (4)
of title 18 of the United States Code; and".
SEC. 102. Section 921(a) (4) of title 18 of the United States Code is amended by inserting after the word "sporting" in the last sentence the following:", recreational or cultural".
Approved January 4, 1975.
It's been active since 2014. I wonder who created it? Bloomberg?