Posted: 9/23/2014 1:42:01 PM EDT
| Not here to debate it or rehash how smart/dumb it is, just looking for the history. I know we have to have a permit in order to do it and it's been around a while, but for how long and what were the requirements before? |
| Before the current GWL laws went into effect there was a grey area (to some folks) because the law made no specific mention of open carry and it was called a "concealed weapons permit". There are a lot less OCers around here since the GWL. Those changes were sometime in the 00's I thought. |
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Quoted: Before the current GWL laws went into effect there was a grey area (to some folks) because the law made no specific mention of open carry and it was called a "concealed weapons permit". There are a lot less OCers around here since the GWL. Those changes were sometime in the 00's I thought. Negative. It was not called a "concealed weapons permit" and the law was clear that the license was required for open or concealed carry.
Prior to the current, Georgia Weapons Carry License we had the Georgia Firearms License. The predecessor to it was the "Pistol Toters Permit". In no time in any sort of modern history spanning decades has GA had a "concealed weapons permit". |
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Quoted: And it's always been this way? What probably confused the issue for many is that there were separate offenses for carrying a pistol without a license and carrying a concealed pistol without a license, but the same license worked for both. To make life even more fun, there used to be restrictions on how you could wear a concealed handgun (in a holster at or above the waist, IIRC), which Fulton County tried to argue meant you could "conceal" a handgun by putting it in a holster, but you could not then conceal the holster... Some of the momentum for all of the legislative changes to our gun laws came from fighting that one in the early to mid '90's. |
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Quoted: Wow. Interesting. Here's a link to a picture of one: http://www.theoutdoorstrader.com/threads/538758-Pistol-Toter-s-License-picture-of-a-piece-of-history Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: It was really called the " pistol toters permit" ?  Yup. Wow. Interesting. Here's a link to a picture of one: http://www.theoutdoorstrader.com/threads/538758-Pistol-Toter-s-License-picture-of-a-piece-of-history  Very cool to see that picture. Open carry and specific to a gun. Wow, we sure have come a long way haven't we? |
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carrying concealed was a dishonorable and nefarious practice..its very recently been legalized in the past few decades...there was no license to carry before the early 1900s till they wanted to disarm the black men...
http://www.georgiacarry.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/racist-roots-of-ga-gun-laws.pdf |
Here are some I dug up via an image search:  This is the one I find most interesting:  Note that it is issued by a city and to a business. I also find it interesting that "License" was struck through with "permit" being handwritten to the side. I do suspect that "Pistol Toter's License" was probably the correct legal term. |
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Quoted:
Here are some I dug up via an image search: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gaoglet2/jg_hobbs_pistol_toter_bond.jpg http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gaoglet2/na_hobbs_pistal_toter_app.jpg This is the one I find most interesting: http://i.imgur.com/GIyutX7.jpg Note that it is issued by a city and to a business. I also find it interesting that "License" was struck through with "permit" being handwritten to the side. I do suspect that "Pistol Toter's License" was probably the correct legal term. That's awesome! I was taking to one of the ladies at the forestry service office one time asking some questions. She referred to a GFL (correct at the time) as a pistol toters permit. I just figured that wad what she called it, but looking back she was old enough that was the correct term. |
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Quoted:
This is the one I find most interesting:
Note that it is issued by a city and to a business. I also find it interesting that "License" was struck through with "permit" being handwritten to the side. I do suspect that "Pistol Toter's License" was probably the correct legal term. It's also short term, less than 4 months. I wonder if it was someone from out of town applying for it for a special short term usage in town. Crazy. With a name like Merry Goround, maybe a circus or fair? It was also backdated a few weeks prior to issue. |
| I think it's insane that back in 1917, you had to place a $100 in surety with the Governor's office. $100 was a helluva lot of money back then. I have to assume that the purpose of the surety was to try and keep blacks from being able to carry, although it would have had the same affect on all poor folks. |
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Quoted: I think it's insane that back in 1917, you had to place a $100 in surety with the Governor's office. $100 was a helluva lot of money back then. I have to assume that the purpose of the surety was to try and keep blacks from being able to carry, although it would have had the same affect on all poor folks. |
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Quoted:
I think it's insane that back in 1917, you had to place a $100 in surety with the Governor's office. $100 was a helluva lot of money back then. I have to assume that the purpose of the surety was to try and keep blacks from being able to carry, although it would have had the same affect on all poor folks. well if your grandfather faught for the confederacy then you could bypass that fee... "grandfather clause" |
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Quoted:
well if your grandfather faught for the confederacy then you could bypass that fee... "grandfather clause" Quoted:
Quoted:
I think it's insane that back in 1917, you had to place a $100 in surety with the Governor's office. $100 was a helluva lot of money back then. I have to assume that the purpose of the surety was to try and keep blacks from being able to carry, although it would have had the same affect on all poor folks. well if your grandfather faught for the confederacy then you could bypass that fee... "grandfather clause" Serious question (and I apologize for a partial de-rail of the thread): If your grandfather was a slave who fought for the Confederacy, and you wanted to claim this, how would you prove it? How well were written records kept back then? Or did it not even matter? |
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Quoted:
Serious question (and I apologize for a partial de-rail of the thread): If your grandfather was a slave who fought for the Confederacy, and you wanted to claim this, how would you prove it? How well were written records kept back then? Or did it not even matter? Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
I think it's insane that back in 1917, you had to place a $100 in surety with the Governor's office. $100 was a helluva lot of money back then. I have to assume that the purpose of the surety was to try and keep blacks from being able to carry, although it would have had the same affect on all poor folks. well if your grandfather faught for the confederacy then you could bypass that fee... "grandfather clause" Serious question (and I apologize for a partial de-rail of the thread): If your grandfather was a slave who fought for the Confederacy, and you wanted to claim this, how would you prove it? How well were written records kept back then? Or did it not even matter? I think it's safe to say it would be very difficult bordering impossible. Between poor record keeping and few slaves could read or write, family records like pictures might be the only way. And most of that information is long lost to time. |
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Quoted:
Serious question (and I apologize for a partial de-rail of the thread): If your grandfather was a slave who fought for the Confederacy, and you wanted to claim this, how would you prove it? How well were written records kept back then? Or did it not even matter? Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
I think it's insane that back in 1917, you had to place a $100 in surety with the Governor's office. $100 was a helluva lot of money back then. I have to assume that the purpose of the surety was to try and keep blacks from being able to carry, although it would have had the same affect on all poor folks. well if your grandfather faught for the confederacy then you could bypass that fee... "grandfather clause" Serious question (and I apologize for a partial de-rail of the thread): If your grandfather was a slave who fought for the Confederacy, and you wanted to claim this, how would you prove it? How well were written records kept back then? Or did it not even matter? you would have been denied on the character clause...after all the ordinary(probate) would have been a white man and well i doubt he would issue them one... |
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Quoted:
And it's always been this way? Quoted:
And it's always been this way? No. Originally, Georgia was a state with unregulated carry. The legislature banned the carry of weapons in the 1840s, and the state Supreme Court struck down that law as applied to carrying openly. In that case, the man had a "horseman's pistol" carried openly in the hand, and the Court said that this conduct was protected by the constitution, but that the law was valid with respect to arms carried "secretly." We are of the opinion, then, that so far as the act of 1837 seeks to suppress the practice of carrying certain weapons secretly, that it is valid, inasmuch as it does not deprive the citizen of his natural right of self-defence, or of his constitutional right to keep and bear arms. But that so much of it, as contains a prohibition against bearing arms openly, is in conflict with the Constitution, and void; and that, as the defendant has been indicted and convicted for carrying a pistol, without charging that it was done in a concealed manner, under that portion of the statute which entirely forbids its use, the judgment of the court below must be reversed, and the proceeding quashed. The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked sons and successors, re-established by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Magna Charta! And Lexington, Concord, Camden, River Raisin, Sandusky, and the laurel-crowned field of New Orleans, plead eloquently for this interpretation! And the acquisition of Texas may be considered the full fruits of this great constitutional right. Two years later, the racist GA Supreme Court made sure to clarify that this was in no way meant to apply to "free persons of color." The public gathering law came about after the Civil War, and then, in 1910, the law required for the first time a license to carry a pistol openly. This license was discretionary so that ordinaries (now probate judges) did not have to issue to blacks. Carrying concealed was unlawful for everybody and had been since about 1840. This changed, arguably, in 1976. It changed for sure in the 1990s when the legislature added "may be concealed." More recently, the General Assembly has struck any distinction between carrying a pistol openly or concealed. Georgia remains one of only 13 states that require a license to carry openly, thanks to the racist history of oppressive laws here. The majority of states have never imposed a licensing requirement upon pistols carried openly. So, yes, Georgia has pretty much always permitted the carry of firearms openly, excepting at certain times for blacks and for a couple of years for all Georgians until the GA Supreme Court struck down that law in 1846. |
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You will notice our constitutional provision on the right to bear arms states that the General Assembly may prescribe the manner in which arms may be borne. This was aimed squarely at banning concealed carry.
Mr. Toombs, at the constitutional convention of 1877 argued for removing this language. His position failed on a vote. Interestingly, there was a vote on adding the power to prescribe the "place" of carry, so as to let the General Assembly make certain places off limits. That vote failed, too. While this would normally be good news, the GA Supreme Court declared that the power to prescribe the manner of carry necessarily included regulating or banning the place of carry, even though the state constitutional convention specifically voted down that power when it was debated. |
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The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. This is awesome language. If only the framers of the US Constitution had worded it this plainly. |