During this time in American history, possession of a firearms was illegal for a person of color. This racism is the base of gun control today.
Kenn Blanchard
February 14, 2012
Maryland vs Moses – The Antebellum Madea
[It’s one of the dirty little secrets of gun control. Nearly all gun control laws in this country had their origins in the insistence that “those people” should not be allowed to posses guns. Most of “those people” had black skin, but sometimes they were from Ireland, and sometime they were from Italy or some other place. But the bottom line is people in power decided some minority with a different skin color or ethic background were not worthy to exercise the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.
I hear it even today with code words to hide their prejudice. I’ve had people tell me things like, “I don’t see a problem with people like you having guns but the people in the inner cities just can’t be allowed to have them.”—Joe]
Actually, I think the truth may be even worse. I admit to not being an expert on Southern history, but from what I gather, most of the Jim Crow laws were passed at a time when the real political struggle was not between whites and blacks, but between Populists and planters. (Note that the KKK went out of existence sometime during the 1870s, and was not revived until the 1910s). Based on this, I suspect that the original gun control laws were intended to prevent poor white Populists from revolting–using hysteria about armed blacks to get them enacted–and that the Populists managed to restrict the laws to blacks. To put it differently, if I’m right, when Clinton and Feinstein raised the specter of (cough*black*cough) drug gangs armed with “assault weapons,” they weren’t just taking up a cause with racist roots. Rather, by using racist fears in an attempt to disarm their white political opponents, they were adopting exactly the same strategy.
@Ken
Yeah I think it has more to do with economic classes now than race (whoever has the money/connections), but it does disproportionally affect ethnic minorities. Our opponents say that we should have to prove a ‘need’, if anything those in the inner cities need it more.
“I don’t see a problem with people like you having guns but the people in the inner cities just can’t be allowed to have them.”
The appropriate response to a restriction of a right specified in the Constitution is as I forget exactly which Supreme court Justice said with regards to the First Amendment, “More speech.” If too many young thugs are preying on poor people in the inner city, the appropriate response is more Second Amendment liberty. The thugs are able to prey on the poor, the weak, the elderly and the female because of restrictions on concealed carry and on “Saturday Night Specials”, which could have just as easily been termed “Mother Preservation Specials”, because if you expect to use the gun every week to earn your livelihood you can afford to spend $1,000 on some blinged out Glock, but if you’re buying insurance you might use once in your life, some pot metal revolver for $100 is more your budget.