Prior to this summer, you would have had to explore the darkest corners of the gun rights movement to find anyone openly exclaiming that “gun control is racist.” This assertion—and the corollary allegation that the civil rights movement succeeded not because of disciplined nonviolence, but because African Americans were willing to take up arms against their oppressors—emanated mostly from obscure right-wing and libertarian websites like LizMichael.com or The Campaign for Liberty. The most-cited proponent was Clayton Cramer, a software engineer with a not-so-subtle agenda (that paved the way for Rand Paul), who has written that: “Racism is so intimately tied to the history of gun control in America that we should…require that the courts use the same demanding standards when reviewing the constitutionality of a gun control law, that they would use with respect to a law that discriminated based on race.”
“The Only Black”
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent 5-4 ruling in McDonald v. Chicago, however, the “gun control is racist” argument is all the rage. The June 28 decision overturned Chicago’s longstanding handgun ban and ruled that the Second Amendment applies to the states. The lead plaintiff in the case, Otis McDonald, is a 76 year-old African-American who wants a handgun for self-defense. “I would like to have a handgun so I could keep it right by my bed, just in case somebody might want to come in my house,” McDonald explained. The problem is that criminals never visit McDonald when he is home—loaded shotguns have been stolen from his home on multiple occasions while he was away. McDonald might have bought those shotguns to protect himself and his family, but they ended up on the street in criminal hands and might have been used to intimidate, injure or kill innocent people.
McDonald has long been a gun rights activist in Illinois, traveling to rallies in Springfield, Illinois, where he was “probably the only black person.” When attorney Alan Gura selected him as the lead plaintiff in the case, he inquired, “Why would you name [the case] after me? Is it just because I’m the only black [plaintiff]?”
Nonetheless, Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority in McDonald, imagined many other African-Americans in our nation’s history standing with the aged pro-gunner. Specifically, Alito concluded that Reconstruction-era efforts designed to grant equal citizenship to black Americans were equally as much about gun rights as they were about civil rights. He found a general right to bear arms within the “Freedmen’s Bureau Act of 1866,” a law that guaranteed blacks property ownership rights they were denied as slaves and created a federal agency to secure housing, establish schools, and litigate discriminatory policies for freedmen. Alito also reasoned that the Fourteenth Amendment contemplated guns rights because the amendment was based on the “Civil Rights Act of 1866,” which used some of the same language as the “Freedmen’s Bureau Act” (but which Alito himself admits did not specifically mention any right to keep and bear arms). Citing Congressional debate over the Fourteenth Amendment, Alito made reference to the following remark by Republican Senator Samuel Pomeroy from Kansas:
Every man….should have the right to bear arms for the defense of himself and family and his homestead. And if the cabin door of the freedman is broken open and the intruder enters for purposes as vile as were known to slavery, then should a well-loaded musket be in the hand of the occupant to send the polluted wretch to another world, where his wretchedness will forever remain complete.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote his own concurring opinion, noted that blacks were disarmed by state legislatures and denied protection from white mobs:
The use of firearms for self-defense was often the only way black citizens could protect themselves from mob violence. As Eli Cooper, one target of such violence, is said to have explained, ‘[t]he Negro has been run over for 50 years, but it must stop now, and pistols and shotguns are the only weapons to stop a mob.’
All Aboard
Almost as soon as the McDonald ruling was issued, articles began to appear in popular conservative periodicals declaring gun control to be “racist.”
Robert “Guns are Fun” Farago and David Rittgers opened fire in the Washington Times and National Review, respectively. Farago proclaimed that:
The McDonald decision is really a victory for and about black Americans … America’s gun-control laws owe their genesis to the post-Civil War era, when white southerners moved to disarm freed slaves. The former Confederate states’ successful efforts to restrict gun ownership had disastrous long-term consequences for black Americans’ life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Rittgers stated that:
Racism created gun control in America. Confronted with the prospect of armed freedmen who could stand up for their rights, states across the South instituted gun-control regimes that took away the ability of blacks to defend themselves against the depravity of the Klan.
Even moderate African-American commentators Clarence Page and Courtland Milloy jumped on the bandwagon. Page commented:
Armed self-defense is a long-running theme in black American history. As recently as the 1960s, the Deacons for Defense and Justice were a popular, powerful self-defense group in the last days of Jim Crow segregation. Yet news media paid more attention to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his nonviolent side of the civil rights movement.
Milloy, suggesting that many blacks view Justice Thomas as an “Uncle Tom,” nonetheless praised him for “a scorcher of an opinion that reads like a mix of black history lesson and Black Panther Party manifesto.” “[Black people] might not agree with his conclusion, but there’ll be no mistake about where he’s coming from,” he concluded.
Back to the Beginning
Forget for a moment that the two propositions examined in this article seem to be contradictory (i.e., If gun control laws had targeted blacks for disarmament, how would they have been able to successfully engage in armed resistance against White terrorists during Reconstruction and the civil rights movement?) and let’s evaluate them separately.
For starters, the “gun control is racist” argument, working from the McDonald decision, makes the assumption that there was no gun control before the Reconstruction period. Nothing could be further from the truth. As Justice John Paul Stevens noted in his dissent in McDonald:
From the early days of the Republic, through the Reconstruction era, to the present day, States and municipalities have placed extensive licensing requirements on firearm acquisition, restricted the public carriage of weapons, and banned altogether the possession of especially dangerous weapons, including handguns … After the 1860’s just as before, the state courts almost uniformly upheld these measures.
These laws were enacted to provide for the public’s safety, not to discriminate against any particular minority, and were enforced uniformly against all state residents.
Additionally, regarding the argument that the 14th Amendment was somehow focused on gun rights, Stevens was not persuaded:
Consider, for example, that the text of the Fourteenth Amendment says nothing about the Second Amendment or firearms; that there is substantial evidence to suggest that, when the Reconstruction Congress enacted measures to ensure newly freed slaves and Union sympathizers in the South enjoyed the right to possess firearms, it was motivated by antidiscrimination and equality concerns rather than arms-bearing concerns per se … Apart from making clear that all regulations had to be constructed and applied in a nondiscriminatory manner, the Fourteenth Amendment hardly made a dent.
This is not to say that there were not discriminatory gun control laws at this time—and other times—in our history that specifically targeted blacks. But the fact is that for most of our 234 years, the entire U.S. legal system has been arrayed against blacks. Using gun rights activists’ weak logic, one could claim that virtually any type of law has racist origins: property laws, marriage laws, tort laws, contract laws, etc., etc. Just because there was once racial inequity in certain, long-abolished laws, however, does not mean we should abandon all efforts at government regulation.
Rebellion and Retribution
Did lack of access to firearms play a unique role in preventing blacks from vindicating their rights prior to the civil rights movement? That seems to be the obvious inference of statements like, “The former Confederate states’ successful efforts to restrict gun ownership had disastrous long-term consequences for black Americans’ life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”
The problem is that history is replete with examples of African-American communities being severely punished and repressed after they did take up arms against white terrorists. Take, for example, the admission by David Rittgers:
Confronted with the prospect of armed freedmen who could stand up for their rights, states across the South instituted gun-control regimes that took away the ability of blacks to defend themselves against the depravity of the Klan.
Then there are Eli Cooper and Nat Turner, two African-Americans cited by Justice Thomas in his opinion in McDonald. Thomas cites the remark that Cooper is alleged to have made in Georgia in 1919: “[The] Negro has been run over for 50 years, but it must stop now, and pistols and shotguns are the only weapons to stop a mob.” What he doesn’t tell us is that this statement was apparently the provocation that caused 20 white men to attack Cooper in his home with axes and knives. Nor does Thomas explain how a firearm would have preserved Cooper’s life in such a situation. Finally, the same newspaper article cited by Thomas that mentions Cooper also tells the story of Berry Washington, a black man who was lynched in the same town as Cooper mere months earlier. Washington took up arms against a White terrorist, shooting and killing a man who was about to rape his 16-year-old daughter. After surrendering to the local sheriff, Washington was pulled out of jail by a mob and lynched.
Thomas also refers to Nat Turner, a Virginian slave and preacher who staged a rebellion to seek God’s judgment against the institution of slavery. The revolt began on the night of August 13, 1831, when Turner and six of his followers went from house to house killing slave owners and their families with a hatchet and a broad axe. At each house, the rebels freed any slaves they encountered and stocked up on more weapons. Eventually, his force numbered 60 men—all armed with guns, axes, swords and clubs. The revolt lasted nearly 10 days and 57 whites were killed before the group was pushed back by militia and federal forces. Although Turner escaped, he was caught two months later, immediately convicted, and hanged.
In Virginia, the retribution was brutal:
A reign of terror followed in Virginia. Labor was paralyzed, plantations abandoned, women and children were driven from home and crowded into nooks and corners. The sufferings of many of these refugees who spent night after night in the woods were intense. Retaliation began. In a little more than one day 120 Negroes were killed … One individual boasted that he himself had killed between ten and fifteen Negroes … Negroes were tortured to death, burned, maimed and subjected to nameless atrocities.
Thomas himself tells us the broader consequences of Turner’s exercise of “Second Amendment rights”: “The fear generated by these and other rebellions led southern legislatures to take particularly vicious aim at the rights of free blacks and slaves to speak or to keep and bear arms for their defense.”
The Colfax Massacre is another tragedy frequently cited by the majority in McDonald. Colfax actually began as a civil rights success story. During the Reconstruction period, African-Americans in the small Louisiana town elected officeholders, held important public positions, and even organized a state militia company led by a black man, William Ward. Eventually, however, their unit was demobilized after moving too aggressively to arrest white terrorists. A withdrawal of federal government support set the stage for the massacre on April 13, 1873, when between 62-81 African Americans—more than half of them armed with firearms—were slaughtered by a larger, better-equipped force of whites.
As my boss, CSGV Executive Director Josh Horwitz, and Casey Anderson put it, according to gun rights activists:
…the collapse of Reconstruction—and every tragic consequence that followed—could have been avoided if the newly freed slaves had had access to firearms. This explanation of events is a fantasy. It is easy…to identify incidents where the victim of racist violence might have defended themselves more effectively if they had been armed with guns. The idea that white racists could have been kept in check by ensuring widespread access to firearms among black southerners, however, is absurd. In fact, the American experience during and after Reconstruction illustrates that the…premise…that private ownership of guns safeguards individual rights against tyranny of the majority is exactly backward in explaining the relationship between private force and state power in protecting individual rights … Not only is the claim that gun rights could have stopped the Jim Crow system a falsehood, but it covers up the even more important insight that [this argument] is a continuation of a concerted effort, born and nurtured in the antebellum South, to limit the federal government’s effectiveness in protecting the democratic rights of the most vulnerable Americans.
I can’t help but think of Lifetime National Rifle Association (NRA) Member Rand Paul advocating for the repeal of a section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and stating that gun carriers should be a protected class like minorities. Nor could “Reclaim the Dream” rally organizer Rev. Al Sharpton when he recently referred to Paul while noting that King’s life work was conducted “for the precise purpose of pushing for increased federal action and involvement to nullify all discriminatory state and local practices.”
“Soul Force”
It is clear that armed resistance—while often noble and heroic—did little to vindicate the rights of African Americans during and immediately after Reconstruction. Is there any evidence it was more effective in the 20th century when the civil rights movement became a national cause?
The leading proponent of the “armed resistance won the civil rights movement” idea is Dr. Lance Hill, the Executive Director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University and the author of The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement. In his book, Hill gives primacy to the role of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, a group that wielded guns against white terrorists and provided armed guards for nonviolent protests in certain local communities in the South from 1964-1968. Hill’s central thesis is that:
Nonviolence unquestionably defined the black freedom movement from 1954-1963 … But by the end of 1962 Martin Luther King and the more militant nonviolent organizations had fallen victim to state repression and terrorism. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), [Congress of Racial Equality] CORE, and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had all failed to secure local reform, voting rights, or protective federal legislation … [The Deacons’] willingness to retaliate against Klan violence ultimately forced the federal government to enforce the Civil Rights Act and the Bill of Rights, assert federal supremacy, and destroy two major pillars of white supremacy—local police repression and Klan terror.
The problems with Hill’s argument are obvious. The Deacons were (and remain) a little-known group that had no discernible impact on the national civil rights movement. The group did not even form until the summer of 1964 in Jonesboro, Louisiana. This was after Brown v. Board of Education; after Rosa Parks refused to leave her seat on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama; after federal troops integrated Little Rock High School; after student sit-ins were initiated at lunch counters across the Deep South; after the “Freedom Riders” boarded buses to test desegregation laws; after the University of Mississippi was integrated; after a national television audience watched “Bull” Connor turn fire hoses and police dogs on demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama; after more than 200,000 attended the historic March on Washington; after the 24th Amendment abolished the poll tax; and just as President Johnson was signing the Civil Rights Act into law with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. looking on.
It is difficult to find any historians outside of Hill who view the Deacons or other armed groups as the engine behind the great achievements of the Civil Rights Movement. Howard Zinn, in A People’s History of the United States, concluded, “King’s stress on love and nonviolence was powerfully effective in building a sympathetic following throughout the nation, among whites as well as blacks.” Peter B. Levy, author of The Civil Rights Movement, wrote:
For many Americans, the image of Connor’s German shepherd dogs biting at the limbs of peaceful protestors became a symbol of the viciousness and ugliness of the southern way of life. Polls showed an outpouring of support for King; letters and telegrams poured into the White House expressing support for the goals of the movement… It took the assassination of John F. Kennedy, brutal assaults against nonviolent protesters in Birmingham, Selma, and elsewhere, and a massive lobbying effort to gain passage of [the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act].
Journalist/author Charles Lane, reflecting back on the Colfax Massacre, wrote, “The revolutionary new ingredient was nonviolence. The dignified resistance of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legions succeeded where William Ward and P.B.S. Pinchback had failed.”
King understood that white supremacists were the only winners when blacks resorted to violence. “The plain, inexorable fact was that any attempt of the American Negro to overthrow his oppressor with violence would not work,” he said. “The courageous efforts of our own insurrectionist brothers, such as Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, should be eternal reminders to us that violent rebellion is doomed from the start. Anyone leading a violent rebellion must be willing to make an honest assessment regarding the possible casualties to a minority population confronting a well-armed wealthy majority with a fanatical right wing that would delight in exterminating thousands of black men, women, and children.” “And when it was all over,” King noted, “the Negro would face the same unchanged conditions, the same squalor and deprivation.”
From his jail cell in Birmingham, King laid out his belief that, “There is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest.” Why did nonviolent protest succeed where armed rebellion had failed? “The social tool of nonviolent resistance…was effective in that it had a way of disarming the opponent,” King wrote. “It exposed his moral defenses. It weakened his morale, and at the same time it worked on his conscience. It also provided a method for Negroes to struggle to secure moral ends through moral means… The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, so that when the battle is over, a new relationship comes into being between the oppressed and the oppressor.”
Even after his home was bombed in Montgomery, King told blacks: “Don’t get your weapons. He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword. Remember that is what God said. We are not advocating violence. We want to love our enemies. I want you to love our enemies. Be good to them. Love them and let them know you love them.”
King could see that there was only one path to freedom for African-Americans:
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The millions of African-Americans who engaged in nonviolent action to obtain their rights as democratic citizens during the civil rights movement rose to such “majestic heights” time and time again.
The Target Audience
In a Pew poll taken last year, an overwhelming majority of blacks, 72%, said it was more important to control gun ownership than to protect the right to own guns. Only 20% said that protecting the right to own guns was more important.
There’s a good reason why few African-Americans associate guns with “freedom” and “liberty.” The national U.S. homicide rate is 5.3 per 100,000 people. Among blacks, it’s 20.9 per 100,000. That’s four times the national rate and seven times the white rate. In 82% of black-victim homicides in which the fatal weapon can be identified, it’s a gun. And 73% of those gun deaths are inflicted by handguns.
Charles Lane has said that, “Firearms pose threats to modern-day urban dwellers—crime, suicide, accidents—that may outweigh any self-defense they provide. Unlike 19th-century rural Americans, we can call on professional police.”
Otis McDonald might not agree, but certainly other African-Americans in his community do. Annette Holt, whose 16 year-old son was shot and killed on a Chicago school bus while shielding a fellow student from harm, called the McDonald v. Chicago decision “a slap in the face to all of us who have lost children to gun violence.”
Then there is the Chicago City Council, which voted unanimously to approve the city’s strict, post-McDonald gun laws. Robert Farago was blunt in his assessment: “Not to put too fine a point on it, Chicago’s new handgun-licensing laws are inherently racist.” NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre ranted about “defiant city councils” that seek to “nullify” McDonald with regulations that are akin to “the poll tax or the literacy test.” Both men failed to mention that 20 out of the Chicago City Council’s 50 members are African-American.
One has to wonder if the tragic irony of the McDonald decision was lost on the Supreme Court’s conservative majority and pro-gun activists. “[The Second Amendment] now is being used to help protect a black Chicago man from local gangbangers,” Clarence Page wrote. Those gangbangers aren’t white terrorists from days gone by. In many cases, they’re black kids with sophisticated weaponry courtesy of a deliberate marketing effort by firearm manufacturers. The Bureau of Justice Statistics has reported that, between 1976 and 2005, 94% of black homicide victims were killed by blacks.
I Know You Are, But What Am I?
Could gun rights activists’ attempts to paint those who advocate for gun control as racist be the result of a guilty conscience? Gun lobby leaders are certainly no strangers to questionable comments about race.
In 1990, NRA Board Member Ted Nugent told the Detroit Free Press magazine that:
…apartheid isn’t that cut and dry. All men are not created equal. The preponderance of South Africa is a different breed of man. I mean that with no disrespect. I say that with great respect. I love them because I’m one of them. They are still people of the earth, but they are different. They still put bones in their noses, they still walk around naked, they wipe their butts with their hands … These are different people. You give ‘em toothpaste, they f***ing eat it.
One year later, another NRA Board Member, Jeff Cooper, commented on gun homicides in Los Angeles in Guns & Ammo magazine:
The consensus is that no more than five to ten people in a hundred who die by gunfire in Los Angeles are any loss to society. These people fight small wars amongst themselves. It would seem a valid social service to keep them well supplied with ammunition.
NRA Director of Research Paul Blackman agreed with Cooper, writing that since young homicide victims “are frequently criminals themselves and/or drug abusers,” their deaths offer “net gains” to society.
In December 1997, former NRA President Charlton Heston made the following remarks at a Free Congress Foundation event:
Why is ‘Hispanic pride’ or ‘black pride’ a good thing, while ‘white pride’ conjures up shaved heads and white hoods? Why was the Million Man March on Washington celebrated in the media as progress, while the Promise Keepers March on Washington was greeted with suspicion and ridicule? I’ll tell you why: cultural warfare … Mainstream America is depending on you, counting on you to draw your sword and fight for them. These people have precious little time or resources to battle misguided Cinderella attitudes, the fringe propaganda of the homosexual coalition, the feminists who preach that it’s a divine duty for women to hate men, blacks who raise a militant fist with one hand while they seek preference with the other.
Then there was the bizarre, insulting 2003 editorial by Gun Owners of America Executive Director Larry Pratt, entitled, “Why Blacks Tend to Support Gun Control.” “Hatred is the ‘glue’ that has been used by many black leaders—preachers and politicians alike—to keep blacks on the plantation,” wrote Pratt. “Not surprisingly, one of the elements of the liberal worldview supported by many blacks is opposition to self-defense. Indeed, most black politicians are gun-bashing anti-Second Amendment zealots … Dependence on the state for food and shelter includes depending on the state for protection. That the state provides none of these things well has not shaken the firmly held commitment to restricting firearms. Regarding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), [Rev. Lee] Peterson says this: ‘These are radical socialists who have little respect for individual responsibility or the Second Amendment.’”
Finally, you have to wonder how African-Americans feel when they hear a gun extremist like Philip Van Cleave of the Virginia Citizens Defense League describing efforts to legalize the carrying of guns in bars by saying, “We tried to throw off the bonds that have tied down gun owners unconstitutionally for years.”
A Familiar Tune
In today’s political climate, not even progressive African-Americans are immune from the “racist” charge, whether it’s Glenn Beck claiming that President Obama has a “deep-seated hatred for white people” or Andrew Breitbart creating an alternate history where USDA employee Shirley Sherrod refuses to help white farmers.
Ultimately, there is nothing racist about efforts to reduce the annual toll of 30,000+ gun deaths in America. In 1963, Dr. King expressed great concern about “our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim.” He also decried a popular culture which taught children “that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing.” Those concerns remain equally valid today, nearly half a century later.
If gun control in the 19th and early 20th century wasn’t racist, please explain these two items for your readers and yourself.
1. What happened in the underlying incident that resulted in the Supreme Court case so lovingly cited by the proponents of gun control entitled US v. Cruikshank.
2. In concurring opinion narrowly construing a Florida gun control law passed in 1893, Justice Buford stated the 1893 law “was passed when there was a great influx of negro laborers in this State….The same condition existed when the Act was amended in 1901 and the Act was passed for the purpose of disarming the negro laborers….The statute was never intended to be applied to the white population and in practice has never been so applied…”. Watson v. Stone, 148 Fla. 516, 524, 4 So.2d 700, 703 (1941) (GMU CR LJ, p. 69)
In the 21st Century, the US Conference of Mayors filed an Amicus brief to oppose the McDonald case that made clear that incorporation of the Second Amendment would limit the use of stop and frisk on gang members (http://www.chicagoguncase.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/08-1521bsacunitedstatesconferenceofmayors.pdf). Do you think the reality of that policing tactic is racially neutral?
-Gene
Notice how they omit the mention of the Dred Scott decision mentioning the possibility that blacks might “keep and carry arms wherever they went”, the French Code Noir of 1751, the changing of many state’s Constitutions from “freed men” to “free white men”.
And although they gladly parrot the “30,000 gun deaths” line, they ignore the fact that well over half are suicides, and the others include lawfully justified homicides, ie the killing of criminals in the commission of felonies, and exclude the 500,000 to 2.5 million lawful defensive gun uses that occur annually as cited in the post-Newtown CDC study “Priorities For Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence”. The study also states “self-defense can be an important crime deterrent” and that “studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies”.
But since none of this parrots their agenda? You’ll die of old age waiting for an answer, Gene.
I’ll never understand this racist mentality.
Is it an irrational fear of blacks that causes this compulsion to prevent them from being properly equipped to defend themselves? Is it the abject terror of the thought of armed black Americans at the root of this syndrome?
Or is it more that you actually take some sort of macabre satisfaction in the thousands of black Americans rendered defenseless by your policies that are helplessly slaughtered each year as a result?
Either way, it’s disgusting.
Please…for your own sake if nothing else…seek professional help.
Ladd – this is a very impressive article. I would add that the arguments from the most extreme in the gun rights side that gun control is racist is an argument of convenience, as they struggle constantly to call themselves a “civil rights movement.” There is no racism in background checks at gun show, no racism in denying firearms to convicted felons or spousal abusers, no racism in limiting gun purchases to one per month. But it serves the purposes of the gun rights crowd to make the claim. Because they cannot argue directly against such proposals on the facts, they construct any case they can.
@Peter – Talking about the racist ROOTS of gun control. The majority of gun control laws were initially crafted for, and applied only to blacks. Example – Florida gun control act of 1893.
I assume that commentators that think gun control IS racist are not talking about Federal laws which; a. contain no mention of race, b. apply equally to all races and c. there is absolutely no evidence that they are enforced in a racially biased manner.
If they are referring to the Chicago and DC handgun bans, that are no longer in force, please remember that these laws were voted in by the local populations, which would seem to imply that the laws represented the aspirations of the racial profile existing in those cities.
It seems strange that the loudest pro gun voices on comment sections of websites are usually EXTREMELY racist and usually imply that gun violence itself is race based, with blacks being both disproportionately targeted and responsible.
@unarmedbychoice – are you kidding? when was the last time you actually as an individual were allowed to ‘vote in’ ANY law? These laws are passed by the local or state legislatures. In the case of DC, they have to be approved by Congress.
Most Jim Crow laws didn’t explicitly mention race as well. Perhaps you think we should bring back literacy tests, unarmedbychoice (I, too, am unarmed by choice, but the key words here are “by choice”).
So what about the laws like the French Code Noir of 1851 which allowed colonists to kill armed negroes?
What about the states that changed their Constitutions from “Free men” to “Free white men” after Nat Turner’s rebellion?
As far as Chicago’s ban being an example of the blissful harmony of all races in the legislative process, perhaps you are unaware of when Mayor Richard J. Daley complained to LBJ about the “non-whites” going to the suburbs to buy guns, and use the actions of blacks as justification for his laws.
The evidence of racial bias in self-defense laws is there is you look. The concept of color-blind laws is relatively new – to cite a lack of them in current legislation as proof that it has never existed is naive.
State laws on carry in the few states that are not shall issue are still quite racist. Carry permits are “may issue” so that local government could make sure that the applicant was of the right racial make up. In 1923, when California’s modern handgun registration and may issue permit system was enacted, the San Francisco Chronicle quoted the bill’s sponsor as saying registration and may issue carry permtis would “have a salutary effect in checking tong wars among the Chinese and vendettas among our people of latin decent.” See page 42 of http://www.hoffmang.com/firearms/AB263-Hawes-1923.pdf
Even today, if one cares to look at the race of individuals who receive may issue carry permits in California, I can easily assert that they do not match the racial makeup of their communities and that minorities stand a significant disadvantage as compared to white folks in receiving a permit.
-Gene
A well-written and thoughtful article. As the father of two young, African-American children, I am particularly incensed by this “gun control is racism” nonsense. A bullet cannot tell race, and those who pull the trigger, if motivated by racism (which is uncommon), are almost never anti-White, but anti-Black. To have our legal system arguing the opposite, even as high as the Supreme Court, only underscores that racism and stereotyping are alive and well in our society and still used to justify damaging mindsets.
…those who pull the trigger, if motivated by racism (which is uncommon), are almost never anti-White, but anti-Black.
Really? Not according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.
According to the FBI, in interracial homicides involving whites and blacks, 209 black Americans were murdered by whites, while 454 whites were murdered by blacks.
Considering that whites make up about 80% of the population and blacks make up about 13%, that means that, per capita, blacks murdered whites 13 times more often than the other way around in 2009.
Granted, not all of those murders on either side were racially motivated…but does motivation really matter? Dead is dead as far as I’m concerned. And, as far as I know, we haven’t yet perfected the art of mind reading so motivation can be a pretty dicey thing to determine in any case.
A bullet cannot tell race
Very true…which is why gun rights advocates argue just as strongly for respecting the rights of blacks to keep and bear arms as for whites to do so, regardless of any disparities in interracial crime.
We know that it’s not the law abiding that we need to worry about…black or white. The criminals already have guns, always have and always will, regardless of the laws. Because of that, we support the right of ALL law abiding Americans, regardless of race, to be properly equipped to defend themselves against those criminals.
It is the gun controllers that insist that the very areas where minorities are most prevalent are the ones that are the most in need of having their right to defend themselves against criminals and thugs infringed.
Hmmm.
An example from real life:
The laws and court precedents in the state in which I live protect the right of law abiding citizens to openly carry firearms in public places.
I live in a city with a very anti-gun local government.
I am a middle aged, white male. I have been openly carrying firearms in all parts of this city and the surrounding area for at least ten years and have never had a problem.
I have a friend who happens to be black and in his late 20’s. He started openly carrying firearms about 4 or 5 years ago in this same area. He has been stopped and harassed for lawfully carrying a holstered firearm numerous times, has been unlawfully detained three times that I know of, and has been falsely arrested twice for nothing more than exercising his right to openly bear arms. He’s already won a $10,000 settlement against the city and has cases pending in both state and federal court for the latest incident.
But you don’t see the inherent racism in the way gun laws are administered in this country?
The very people who are the most likely to need guns to defend themselves against the thugs and criminals that rule the night…the ones who are the most often victimized by violent crime…are the very ones most discriminated against and disarmed by these racist laws.
Perhaps you prefer to be defenseless and unable to defend your children from the criminals that walk among us because our “justice system” can’t seem to keep violent thugs behind bars; but, as for me, I prefer to have the proper tools to defend myself and my family and I will continue to fight for the right of law abiding Americans (and legal resident aliens) of ALL races to do the same.
Let’s make a deal: I won’t try to infringe upon your right to eschew firearms and remain defenseless prey if you’ll stop trying to infringe upon my right to choose the opposite.
@Jason – When talking about the roots of gun control, the earliest laws were passed against Blacks, other minorities, and the poor. In NJ, it’s almost impossible for a law-abiding citizen to get a carry permit, and the crime rate in Newark sure a hell hasn’t been improved by any of the existing super restrictive gun control laws.
I’m originally from NYC, where unless you’re Robert DeNiro, you can’t get a carry permit. My late mother was mugged twice, I was jumped by a bunch of guys as a young man, and we’ve been the victims of other minor crimes such as car theft, etc. Note that NYPD has a roster of over 34,000 officers. Am I safer? Not at all. I live in PA now, and I carry all the time. Why? Because a cop is too damn heavy…
Tell you what Jason – put up a sign in front of your house telling everyone that you don’t own any guns. See if that makes you safer.
If you want to be helpless and unable to protect your family in any way, go right ahead. Just don’t try to force that on my family.
The Sullivan Act, the New York City gun law still in effect and made stricter over the years, was passed to “disarm immigrants, Blacks and other undesirables.”
The 1968 Gun Control Act was passed “The Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed not to control guns but to control blacks” Gun control advocate Robert Sherrill – from his book “Saturday Night Special”.
Peter says there is no racism in “denying firearms to convicted felons”. Funny that many of those on Peter’s side nevertheless argue that there IS racism in denying VOTES to convicted felons. But if you don’t trust him with a trigger, why should I trust him with a lever? Voting is the indirect application of violence, or at least it’s threat.
Off topic, but I didn’t type that apostrophe, so how’d it get in there? Was it the iPad? Or does the site’s software try to make opposing views look illiterate?
Superb point, Reg.
Washington state’s inmate voting ban was overturned on the grounds that it is effectively racist, because minorities are prosecuted and incarcerated far more than white people whose behavior is equally criminal.
If it’s illegally racist to deny the vote to felons, how can it NOT be illegally racist to deny them the means of effective self-defense?
Well it is racist. That is the whole point in militantly policing black neighborhoods and people, to lock up as many as possible,. Make them felons and deny as many as possible their rights.
http://dev2.wagingnonviolence.org/2010/09/debunking-the-gun-control-is-racist-smear/
This was an interesting read. As a Black man who grew up on the South Side of Chicago, as a gun owner and as a believer in Black Self-Defense I happen to run up against most of the topics covered in this article.
1. I agree with the author that there are many dishonest people in the “2nd Amendment” movement who use the “gun control is racist” argument as a convenient tool to help hammer their political nail.
2. I agree that historical examples of Black Self-Defense have been met with even more powerful examples of State-driven and community-driven repression. Likewise,
3. I agree that legally-armed contemporary Black people are likely to be targeted for police attention and, perhaps, abuse.
As an aside, I find it odd that the author completely fails to make any mention of The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and the resulting repressive California gun laws as signed by Republican Idol Ronald Reagan.
4. I agree that it’s an unfortunate condition that leaves Black and brown communities vulnerable to a pandemic of gun violence.
–WHERE I DISAGREE–
5. I disagree that the absence of Black faces in 2nd Amendment events is indicative of Black political thought. It’s important to note that (anecdotally-speaking) Black people do not typically frame gun ownership in the terms of the constitution, so the idea of a “2nd Amendment” is a conversational non-starter. Further, Black people, in general, are largely absent from public demonstrations and political rallies.
5. The Pew poll lacks nuance. It fails to demonstrate any numbers to demonstrate any degree of a “gap… among gun owners” that involves ethnicity. In short, how do Black gun owners feel about ‘gun control’? One must ask the right questions of the right people to get complete answers.
E.g., My mother is highly likely to agree that controlling gun access is important, but she also owns her own .38 revolver and will not be forfeiting it to anyone.
6. I disagree that arming one’s self for self-defense is in itself anathema to “non-violence”. Sure, King-ian or Ghandi-esque philosophy might suggest that’s so, but neither of them are here to clarify the position. Both, of course, having been assassinated by armed opposition.
By my estimation, Black people and communities can either adhere to an outsider’s philosophy of “non-violence” and leave ourselves vulnerable as the only people without viable means of defending ourselves. Or we can create a culture of community and family self-defense that challenges the perspective of Black gun ownership and perhaps can shift the balance away from the modern position of the gun-as-a-fetish toward the return to a fundamental respect for the gun as a tool for self-defense, sport or sustenance.
While this was a well-written article, I believe the author possesses an unrealistic, outdated (dare I say nostalgic) view of Black community self-defense and would likely benefit greatly by getting away from the statistics for a while and talking with real life Black people about violence, non-violence, self-defense and gun control.
You can start over at http://www.blackgunowners.org
And after that, you can follow this link: http://www.lizmichael.com/racistgc.htm
Everyone really needs to read a lot more Ghandi, because hardly anyone has the slightest clue what the man stood for.
“I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence… I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor.”
“I have been repeating over and over again that he who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honour by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor.”
“Not knowing the stuff of which nonviolence is made, many have honestly believed that running away from danger every time was a virtue compared to offering resistance, especially when it was fraught with danger to one’s life. As a teacher of nonviolence I must, so far as it is possible for me, guard against such an unmanly belief.”
-Between Cowardice and Violence
Self-defence….is the only honourable course where there is unreadiness for self-immolation.
Though violence is not lawful, when it is offered in self-defence or for the defence of the defenceless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission. The latter befits neither man nor woman. Under violence, there are many stages and varieties of bravery. Every man must judge this for himself. No other person can or has the right.”
(reposting with better formatting)
This was an interesting read. As a Black man who grew up on the South Side of Chicago, as a gun owner and as a believer in Black Self-Defense I happen to run up against most of the topics covered in this article.
1. I agree with the author that there are many dishonest people in the “2nd Amendment” movement who use the “gun control is racist” argument as a convenient tool to help hammer their political nail.
2. I agree that historical examples of Black Self-Defense have been met with even more powerful examples of State-driven and community-driven repression. Likewise,
3. I agree that legally-armed contemporary Black people are likely to be targeted for police attention and, perhaps, abuse.
As an aside, I find it odd that the author completely fails to make any mention of The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and the resulting repressive California gun laws as signed by Republican Idol Ronald Reagan.
4. I agree that it’s an unfortunate condition that leaves Black and brown communities vulnerable to a pandemic of gun violence.
–WHERE I DISAGREE–
5. I disagree that the absence of Black faces in 2nd Amendment events is indicative of Black political thought. It’s important to note that (anecdotally-speaking) Black people do not typically frame gun ownership in the terms of the constitution, so the idea of a “2nd Amendment” is a conversational non-starter. Further, Black people, in general, are largely absent from public demonstrations and political rallies.
6. The Pew poll lacks nuance. It fails to demonstrate any numbers to demonstrate any degree of a “gap… among gun owners” that involves ethnicity. In short, how do Black gun owners feel about ‘gun control’? One must ask the right questions of the right people to get complete answers.
E.g., My mother is highly likely to agree that controlling gun access is important, but she also owns her own .38 revolver and will not be forfeiting it to anyone.
7. I disagree that arming one’s self for self-defense is in itself anathema to “non-violence”. Sure, King-ian or Ghandi-esque philosophy might suggest that’s so, but neither of them are here to clarify the position. Both, of course, having been assassinated by armed opposition.
By my estimation, Black people and communities can either adhere to an outsider’s philosophy of “non-violence” and leave ourselves vulnerable as the only people without viable means of defending ourselves. Or we can create a culture of community and family self-defense that challenges the perspective of Black gun ownership and perhaps can shift the balance away from the modern position of the gun-as-a-fetish toward the return to a fundamental respect for the gun as a tool for self-defense, sport or sustenance.
While this was a well-written article, I believe the author possesses an unrealistic, outdated (dare I say nostalgic) view of Black community self-defense and would likely benefit greatly by getting away from the statistics for a while and talking with real life Black people about violence, non-violence, self-defense and gun control.
You can start over at http://www.blackgunowners.org
And after that, you can follow this link: http://www.lizmichael.com/racistgc.htm
@freeman Your comment just made my day. I’m an older white guy, carried a .357 magnum when I was a cop in small town Iowa circa ’73-’74, largely ignored guns until the last ten years when I had a chance to shoot some big ones recreationally in Cambodia. Joined the NRA, got my permit to carry, and have been trying to get around to buying my first pistol so I can take my 9 grand kids out and teach them how to respect and use weapons (having failed to do the same for their parents).
I get so tired of the ‘you must be racist’ crowd. Not that I doubt there are a lot of them out there, but I always point out Hitler was a vegetarian, and that doesn’t mean all vegetarians are Nazis.
Anyway it was nice to read a thoughtful, nuanced perspective and I’ll be checking out the links momentarily.
Thanks so much for that very thoughtful and detailed response, Freeman.
Because you seem unfamiliar with my background, let me note that I got my start in advocating for sensible gun laws by working with the African American community here in Washington, D.C. (where I have resided since 1993). I was a member of the D.C. Chapter of the Million Mom March (and later president) for six years and worked primarily with African American families and organizations in some of D.C.’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods. Currently, I serve on the D.C. Crisis Response Team, doing volunteer response to families that have just lost a loved one to homicide. We provide comfort, support and information to these families.
In all my years working with African American families in the District, I’ve met exactly five people that oppose gun control and want weaker gun laws in the District. The overwhelming number of people I have come into contact with strongly support the District’s tough gun laws and reject the idea of violence as a solution to violence. There is very little idolization of guns in this community, and for good reason.
Both D.C. and Chicago are prime examples of cities with large African American populations that overwhelming support tough gun laws.
Let me say that I am a black man who has been licensed to carry a concealed weapon for over 25 years.
Unlike many involved in the anti gun rights debates; I have lost family to gun violence. As black people are often the victims of gun violence, it is not strange that we are easily swayed by a whisper into our ears at a time when we are most vulnerable “if only we had more gun control Your son or daughter would be alive.” Who among us is unmoved by the wails of a broken heart mother crying “please God not my baby, please God not my child”
But is at that exact moment of pain and anguish that the “Negro” preacher and others who in some cases mean well and in other cases do not; descend on the black community insisting that the only way to solve this issue is to disarm the black community. Torn by grief and not thinking straight the grieved parent begins to parrot those who have their own sinister agenda. Yes I said sinister.
Let me say that I am not the sharpest knife in the draw or the brightest bulb in the pack, but it is clear that the white community has 20 times more guns and yet do not have the same violence that the black community has. No, I am not an “Uncle Ruckus”. However if guns in themselves are the issue then violence would be 10 times worst in the white community. I frequent gun shows regularly and it is clear that white folks got the guns but it is us who have the issues.
While not a history scholar, I am well versed in the historical genisis that produced the current malady.
So I know how we got here. Moreover I know why we stay there. It has nothing to do with guns.
Yes it is about control. Not gun control, but community control, control of our children, and self –control. This is what is missing.
We have black elected officials like Congressman Bobby Rush, who is always trying to get some kind of gun legislation passed. For those who do not know, Bobby Rush is a former Black Panther. While not getting into the pros or cons of the BP one thing we know for sure, they went into the community and built institutions and processes to address the needs of the black community. They did not depend on government power structures to rescue the black community. In other word we were not going to be save then or now by legislation. He has forgotten this lesson. I know he lost his son to gun violence and I feel for him a Father and as a person who has lost very close relatives to gun violence and came six inches from losing my own son to same. Yet when it was all said and done I am clear that disarming law abiding citizens is not going to do anything to address the issue. This should be clear by now to anyone with a healthy mind.
“Both D.C. and Chicago are prime examples of cities with large African American populations that overwhelming support tough gun laws.”
And that is working out really well there. Toughest gun laws in the nation that are routinely ignored by the criminal element. I would imagine that those five people you speak about don’t routinely attend your meetings or move in the same circles you attend. Turn over the responsibility for the safety of African-Americans to the predominantly white police, who always have the best interests of the communities they work in at heart.
It’s interesting how the author pooh-poohs episodes of Black armed resistance because they were put down by violence, yet ignores unarmed resistance was also put down by violence. Nat Turner was assassinated. MLK was, too.
The author seems to ignore that the success of civil rights movements depends as much on time, place and circumstance as it does on method. Methods such as marches and sit-ins, while effective in the 1960s would not have fared so well in the 1860s.
What a bunch of tools you are. Waging Non-Violence? Do you know what the most powerful, murderous and heavily armed gang of criminal thugs in the world is? The U.S. Federal government. Next after them are the cops.
Anyone who claims to be ‘waging non-violence’ but supports the expansion of the power of the Federal government is an imbecile or a liar.
Don’t forget abortion, eugenics is alive and well. What scares me is the elite and those in “charge” of everything are so patient they go from generation to generation with a cohesive plan. The Rockefeller’s et al have been planning this for over 150 years. Break up the family, institutionalize the fathers, destroy us all. Their plan is to kill us all (see the GA guidestones) while they integrate with machines and live forever. I wish god was real. Now I realize that the elites are making themselves into gods and killing everyone so they have the world to themselves is what we are dealing with. I wonder how I would feel if I was one of them, I wonder if I too would want all the “eaters” killed. Certainly there are those who I don’t agree with, but I can’t fathom destroying everyone. Instead, if I were the leader of the world, I would be focused on building space ships and expanding humanity throughout the galaxy and beyond. I hope nature corrects itself-the elites are at odds with nature.
If you think gun control is not racist, what about the Jim Crow laws? If you think that all black people are for gun control you are wrong! Every non criminal citizen has a right to own and carry firearms.
This blog is fraught with inaccurate/simplistic statements. While the nonviolent resistance movements by the likes of A. Phillip Randolph, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and others were certainly very effective and very important, the armed resistance movements were also effective and important, and this article is omitting the full story of the American Civil Rights movement (I’ll give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is done out of innocent, well-meaning ignorance).
Let’s start with this statement:
—
“The problems with Hill’s argument are obvious. The Deacons were (and remain) a little-known group that had no discernible impact on the national civil rights movement. The group did not even form until the summer of 1964 in Jonesboro, Louisiana. This was after Brown v. Board of Education; after Rosa Parks refused to leave her seat on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama; after federal troops integrated Little Rock High School; after student sit-ins were initiated at lunch counters across the Deep South; after the “Freedom Riders” boarded buses to test desegregation laws; after the University of Mississippi was integrated; after a national television audience watched “Bull” Connor turn fire hoses and police dogs on demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama; after more than 200,000 attended the historic March on Washington; after the 24th Amendment abolished the poll tax; and just as President Johnson was signing the Civil Rights Act into law with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. looking on.”
—
1. The Deacons for Defense were far from an insignificant movement, and to say that they did not make a large impact is not only inaccurate, but highly disrespectful. There were a lot of things that the DFD accomplished (which I will mention in the following points), and just because they are not mentioned in most American history books does not mean that they were insignificant.
2. The year 1964 was still very early in the Civil Rights movement, and most Civil Rights legislation were still being blatantly ignored by the majority of the country. And terrorists from the KKK, the White Citizens Council, the Council of Concervative Citizens, and other terrorism networks were wreaking havoc on activists from SNCC, the NAACP, and other organizations. The loses of activists and firebombing of churches, in combination with failures such as the Albany Georgia desegregation attempt were starting to hurt the morale of the Civil Rights movement. The critical reason behind the formation of the Deacons for Defense was to protect these Activists from terrorist activity. And while the DFD certainly did not eliminate terrorist activity altogether, their presence DID make enough of a difference to restore the resolve of many activists. There were MANY attempted attacks upon marchers that would have resulted in activists being killed, that were averted by the presence of the Deacons for Defense.
3. The Deacons for Defense provided initial protection of students against white terrorists. The Federal government ignored the attacks and did not intervene until groups like the Deacons for Defense got involved.
4. The Deacons for Defense did not just provide armed resistance. They provided several other services to the community. Their model was duplicated by the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (the original party, not these clowns that call themselves the “New Black Panther Party”). The community patrols of the Black Panther Party played an enormous role in the reduction of police brutality in the Black community. Today, many successful civilian police oversight boards are a product of the original Black Panther Party. The Panthers were also instrumental in creating a community breakfast that would eventually evolve into the Head Start program.
Next, there is this…
—
“Even after his home was bombed in Montgomery, King told blacks: ‘Don’t get your weapons. He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword. Remember that is what God said. We are not advocating violence. We want to love our enemies. I want you to love our enemies. Be good to them. Love them and let them know you love them.’”
—
1. This was a shaming tactic and a part of Dr. King’s overall offensive strategy of embarrassing his enemies. An armed offensive would have been a diversion from this tactic. But Dr. King himself was well aware that nonviolence, while certainly effective, had limitations. Did you know that Dr. King himself was a gun owner and had armed bodyguards at times?
2. Dr. King would not have been as successful if it were not for the emergence of people like Malcolm X, whose vocal expression of disdain for nonviolent resistance scared moderate whites into seeing Dr. King as the lesser of the evils. Before the arrival of Malcolm X, Dr. King was viewed as a communist agitator and received little support from white moderates. When people like Malcolm X, Albert Cleague, and others emerged after Mike Wallace’s “The Hate that Hate Produced” documentary, it became clear to Moderate whites that a choice had to be made.
I don’t like the NRA one bit. It is a racist organization and they are an extremist organization. But there is some slight truth to the notion that gun control does not necessarily benefit Black communities, and there is a kernel of truth that gun control laws did have a racist twist to them. The Mulford Act of 1967 in California would not have existed if it were not for the fact that the Black Panther Party was effectively and lawfully defending the Black Community from racist police.
Manditory gun crim laws would be considered racist. If more blacks go to jail because of a law that has manditory sentances for crimes committed with a gun, you can guarrantee that our liberal left friends will tell us the law is racist……….
It’s what they do.
From the tape of Richard J. Daley speaking with LBJ 7/19/1966:
Something has to be done, Mr. President, about the sale of the guns.
Outside the suburbs in the city, we have control, but what the hell, in the suburbs, there are — you go out to all around our suburbs and you’ve got people out there, especially the non-white, are buying guns right and left. Shotguns and rifles and pistols and everything else. There’s no registration.
I somehow doubt the “non-white” he describes, especially given the proximity to Dr. King’s Soldier Field speech, were hispanic or oriental.
Mankind has been killing each other regardless of laws and codes for thousands of years, a belief in the effectiveness of gun control as a crime reduction tool requires so much faith in the face of reproducible statistics, evidentiary data & history it should be considered as much an organized religion as Christianity, Judaism or Islam.
The origins of many gun control statutes are indeed racist; or at least the enforcing of such statutes have been.
The historical purpose of gun control laws in America has been one of discrimination and disenfranchisement of blacks, immigrants, and other minorities. American gun control laws have been enacted to disarm and facilitate repressive actions against union organizers, [Page 69] workers, the foreign-born and racial minorities.[2] Bans on particular types of firearms and firearms registration schemes have been enacted in many American jurisdictions for the alleged purpose of controlling crime. Often, however, the purpose or actual effect of such laws or regulations was to disarm and exert better control over the above-noted groups.[3] As Justice Buford of the Florida Supreme Court noted in his concurring opinion narrowly construing a Florida gun control statute:
I know something of the history of this legislation. The original Act of 1893 was passed when there was a great influx of negro laborers in this State drawn here for the purpose of working in turpentine and lumber camps. The same condition existed when the Act was amended in 1901 and the Act was passed for the purpose of disarming the negro laborers . . . . The statute was never intended to be applied to the white population and in practice has never been so applied. . . .[T]here has never been, within my knowledge, any effort to enforce the provisions of this statute as to white people, because it has been generally conceded to be in contravention of the Constitution and non-enforceable if contested.[4]
http://www.saf.org/lawreviews/tahmassebi1.html
You guys are entertaining….spending all this time battling against gun ownership…promoting gun laws etc. Deal in facts. High gun ownership rates lead to lower crime rates. It is a fact. Strict gun control laws lead to higher crime rates. You can spin your wheels all you want, but the guns the police use to protect us are the same guns I will have in my home to protect my family. Pass as many laws as you want, it will have a negative effect and you will never get gun rights supporters guns nor will you ever impact the criminal elements from obtaining guns. But keep on keeping on…good luck.
I’m sure the KKK (arm of the Democrat party) liked the former slaves unarmed. As the present Democrat party would like it’s citizens unarmed. Gun control does not control guns. Gun control is to control citizens.
The KKK arm of the Democrat party = the GOP.
Yeah, Senator Byrd was not a member of the GOP for any of his fifty years in office.
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Dr. King believed in advancing civil rights non-violently, that does not mean that he didn’t believe in self defense, and he had guns in his house for that purpose.
“As we have seen, the first public expression of disenchantment with nonviolence arose around the question of “self-defense.” In a sense this is a false issue, for the right to defend one’s home and one’s person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law.” Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? Chapter II, Black Power, Page 55, Harper & Row Publishers Inc., First Edition, 1967.
From a Huffington Post article-
Most people think King would be the last person to own a gun. Yet in the mid-1950s, as the civil rights movement heated up, King kept firearms for self-protection. In fact, he even applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
A recipient of constant death threats, King had armed supporters take turns guarding his home and family. He had good reason to fear that the Klan in Alabama was targeting him for assassination.
William Worthy, a journalist who covered the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, reported that once, during a visit to King’s parsonage, he went to sit down on an armchair in the living room and, to his surprise, almost sat on a loaded gun. Glenn Smiley, an adviser to King, described King’s home as “an arsenal.”
————————
Saying that blacks shouldn’t have resisted oppression because it went poorly for Nat Turner, a man who went around murdering people…I don’t even know what to say to that. I am equally at a loss as to how the author can’t understand how a GUN could help someone against a mob armed with AXES. We’re not talking about mindless zombies, we’re talking about men with axes. They don’t want to get shot. And should a man just throw his hands up and let someone rape his daughter? Should he instead assure his daughter that they’ll raise awareness in the white community afterward? No, sir. Where he went wrong was in surrendering to the sheriff.
There’s no real good way out of that situation, but it provides us with the perfect example of how gun rights are about EQUALITY. Where there is inequality in force, there is oppression. Where there is equality in force, say for example if the Washingtons lived in a large, well armed black community, then that could allow for some conflict mediation to occur, because no one gallops headlong into a well armed force without giving the matter some thought. That did not happen, specifically because blacks were always outgunned. That was by design.
Your shot at Col Cooper is ill timed. It’s ill timed, because that’s the exact same situation that we are in today, and not one person in the entire country is vocally addressing the all of the real issues. The VAST majority of our murder victims are criminals, which is why so many people completely ignore violent crime until white kids get killed. We were losing a Sandy Hook classroom full of Chicagoans every two weeks for all of 2012 and there was not one media campaign to demand something be done.
——————
From a USA Today article-
In Baltimore, about 91% of murder victims this year had criminal records, up from 74% a decade ago, police reported.
Philadelphia police Capt. Ben Naish says the Baltimore numbers are “shocking.” Philadelphia also has seen the number of victims with criminal pasts inch up — to 75% this year from 71% in 2005.
In Milwaukee, local leaders created the homicide commission after a spike in violence led to a 39% increase in murders in 2005. The group compiled statistics on victims’ criminal histories for the first time and found that 77% of homicide victims in the past two years had an average of nearly 12 arrests.
While it was common in the past for murder victims to have criminal records, the current levels are surprising even to analysts who study homicides.
“Anecdotally, the detectives on the street knew” victims with prior police contact were being killed, “but we wanted people to start to look at this” in the community, O’Brien says.
In Newark, where three young friends with no apparent links to crime were executed Aug. 4, roughly 85% of victims killed in the first six months of this year had criminal records, on par with the percentage in 2005 but up from 81% last year, police statistics show.
David Kennedy, a professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, says the rise in criminals killing criminals has escaped policymakers’ attention.
————————
It escapes their attention because no one gives a crap if gang bangers shoot each other down in the street. Until those white kids get killed, of course.
I love your version of history!! It is much better than the ugly truth. Don’t piss down your “Targeted audience’s” collective back and tell them that it’s raining.
Gun laws were designed solely to discriminate an minority, with pretense for [public safety]. ~ North Carolina law here Thus, in many of the ante-bellum states, free and/or slave blacks were legally forbidden to possess arms. State legislation which prohibited the bearing of arms by blacks was held to be constitutional due to the lack of citizen status of the Afro-American slaves. Legislators simply ignored the fact that the United States Constitution and most state constitutions referred to the right to keep and bear arms as a right of the “people” rather than of the “citizen”.[9] More where that come from..
1833 Georgia law The 1833 law
provided that “it shall not be lawful for any free person of colour in this state,
to own, use, or carry fire arms of any description whatever.” The penalty was
thirty-nine lashes and the firearm was to be sold and the proceeds given to the
Justice of the Peace, akin to today’s Magistrate.
8
1700’s Penn St law. — Any negro presume to carry any gun, sword, fowling piece, club, or any other arms what so ever with out his masters license, shall be whipped with 20 lashes on bare back.. Gun laws are made to enslave people.. debunked.
As I read this commentary regarding gun control is racist I can’t help but laugh. Saying that gun control is racist I believe is untrue because the mere act of saying does not lend any more truth to the words written in this article referenced from incidents in history. Situations that occurred in history as a result of any form of gun control were committed by selfless individuals for their own personal gain.
I am Black, and I carry a gun, not because I hate white people, black people or any specific race for that matter. I don’t hate anyone. I carry a gun to protect myself and those I love without flavoring the reason with politics by labeling the reason why. I, as many like-minded people I know, do not care what someone who has a bit of notoriety says about the issue, as it does not lend any more truth to a personal preference because more people are familiar with them. I know decisions have been made in history out of ignorance to categorize what has happened; maybe it’s time to stop narrating history as an excuse to say why something or someone had done a deed. Maybe its time to start saying we understand things did not go a particular way that we may have wanted it to go and start trying to work toward self-improvement by trying to understand our own reasons why we do things. Why should we care that something was “Racist” in the past? Why should we care that someone is “Racist” now? It is inherent within everyone to choose; make a positive choice to remove the “Racist” not only from gun control but from everything within our world to make those who we may someday be in company of respect the views shared amongst friends.
The purpose of the present study is to determine the effects of state-level assault weapons bans and concealed weapons laws on state-level murder rates. Using data for the period 1980 to 2009 and controlling for state and year fixed effects, the results of the present study suggest that states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murder rates than other states. It was also found that assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level. These results suggest that restrictive concealed weapons laws may cause an increase in gun-related murders at the state level. The results of this study are consistent with some prior research in this area, most notably Lott and Mustard (1997). http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504851.2013.854294#.UsmPnrTp9_X
You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble & simply looked at how enforcement of gun laws disproportionately affect people of color, and incarceration rates for people of color vs. whites for violating these laws. Regardless of the intent behind enactment of these laws, they clearly contribute to institutional racism & are therefore racist. I would also question the reactionary nature of these laws. Despite all the failed prohibitions or legal regimes that limited access to ordinary items (which can be produced with little technological know how), which always spur black markets, gansterism, and land yet more people in our bloated prison system, so called progressives are just unable to resist the temptation of reaching for the coercive apparatus of state to oppress ordinary citizens, in most cases, the most vulnerable and disenfranchised among us. You may count me as a proud left wing gun nut (even though I don’t own a firearm)!
Curious why you didn’t mention the fact that Dr. King used firearms to defend himself (he had a concealed carry permit), and surrounded himself with armed volunteers who protected him from racist violence. Even later on when he stopped surrounding himself with armed guards, in order to add credibility to his pacifist ideology, he still relied on armed police to protect him.
MLK was indisputably a leader in the 1960s, but MLK wasn’t the only leader. The Black Panthers armed (but lawful) arrival in the California legislative chambers, lawful carrying of firearms, and their belief that gun ownership was key to equal rights, played a more significant role in gun control act of 1967.