And eating donuts....
Posted on 03/24/2008 12:30:11 PM PDT by neverdem
Nearly 135 years ago, the United States experienced what may have been the worst one-day slaughter of blacks by whites in its history. On April 13, 1873, in the tiny village of Colfax, La., white paramilitaries attacked a lightly armed force of freedmen assembled in a local courthouse. By the time the Colfax Massacre was over, more than 60 African American men lay shot, burned or stabbed to death. Most were killed after they had surrendered.
Though it caused a national sensation in post-Civil War America, this horrible incident has been largely overlooked by historians. It deserves fresh study today not only to illuminate the human cost of Reconstruction's defeat but also to enrich our understanding of constitutional history. Some of the most relevant lessons relate to the issue at the heart of District of Columbia v. Heller, the case on the D.C. gun control law currently before the Supreme Court: whether the Constitution guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms.
During oral arguments on Tuesday, the justices debated what the framers of the Second Amendment intended. The members of the court did not mention Reconstruction. Yet during this period, we the people gave the Union a second "founding" through constitutional amendments abolishing slavery, granting blacks citizenship and enabling them...
--snip--
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.
In the D.C. gun case, the Supreme Court should find that local governments may enact reasonable and necessary restrictions on dangerous weapons. To be sure, if the justices also back an individual right to keep and bear arms, that will be harder for legislators to do. But as a matter of historical interpretation, the court would be correct.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
> Check again. Although the article was common sense, the idiot author managed to force a conclusion exactly opposite of what the article stated.
Alternatively, perhaps an idiot editor didn’t like his conclusions and re-wrote the end of the article for him?
Yeah, what’s the point of this race-baiting?
To further indocrinate blacks and encourage them to further hate and attack whites? Like they haven’t been doing that for years. I’m sick of this “poor oppressed black” bullcrap.
Nah, don't think so. Ever heard of a police artist? They're the guys who come out after a crime and draw those really neat chalk lines around the folks who waited on the cops to protect them.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/ovracetab.htm
No...it don’t need to be relooked at. It was a different time and a different era. It has nothing to do with life as it is today. So give it a rest....let it go......get a life!!!
“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.”
Check the founders’ context again. It was the militia at Lexington and Concord, a loose confederation of like-minded and equipped individuals. The overarching concept of the Second Amendment is defense against tyranny. It is the individual’s responsibility to be armed. It is the government’s responsibility do defend the country (calling on the militia if needed). That an armed society is more polite (criminals have less traction) is simply a joyous byproduct of individual taking on the responsibility of personal and familial defense.
“...a ship can get you work. A gun can help you keep your ship.”
“Unlike 19th-century rural Americans, we can call on professional police.”
Because all Americans live in cities today.
Oh, wait. They don’t.
My parents live less than a mile outside a city, and have had to wait several hours for law enforcement to tend to a wreck on the road in front of their house. Good thing nobody was breaking into their house.
> Unlike 19th-century rural Americans, we can call on professional police.
I haven’t had that good a laugh in a long while.
Nothing beats the 3 S’s (Shoot, Shovel and Shutup.)
Did you see the story posted here last week, about a Covina CA woman who was killed by burglars, while she was on the phone begging the 911 operator for help?
“reasonable and necessary” is a cover for pretty much unlimited restriction in this case. Don’t grant the WP any Constitutional common sense.
“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.
In the D.C. gun case, the Supreme Court should find that local governments may enact reasonable and necessary restrictions on dangerous weapons. To be sure, if the justices also back an individual right to keep and bear arms, that will be harder for legislators to do. But as a matter of historical interpretation, the court would be correct.”
****
The entire Colfax incident that the writer recounts is one proof why people need to keep and bear arms. Then the writer contradicts the entire premiss of the article by the above-quoted statement.
Has human nature somehow changed or improved since the Colfax massacre? The massacred blacks had no access to police promptly arriving on the scene, but today we do...
What comes to my mind are the images of a local SWAT team waiting outside Columbine High School until the shooting stopped before taking “effective” action...
Professional Police?
Many departments BARELY require a GED for the police accademy!
Professional Police with one the highest rate of domestic violence of other careers?
Professional Police who are routinely shown to tamper with evidence and manipulate testimony. (ie drop guns, stepping too close to a suspect to induce a trip which causes arms to fling up and the officer can claim self defense, tasering anything that moves, absurd swat overtraining, police who routinely violate civil rights...)
If the police do manage to “get to you” in time, you become expendible as long as they have contained the perpetrator in your house.
The central dishonesty of this approach is that it steals from the American people our right to control our own Constitution, through the amendment process. The control of our own government is the very first political right stated in the Declaration of Independence. Yet this writer tramples it without even noticing that it is there.
Congressman Billybob
Latest article, "The Uber-Nigerian Scam"
P.S. I wrote one of the briefs in the Heller case, supporting the opposite conclusion from this guy.
It has always been open season on Black Republicans.
Redcloak linked it in comment# 3, thanks.
I posted it for the story of the Colfax massacre.
It is the strict scrutiny test which the left fears.
If every piece of gun control has to pass a strict scrutiny test, the same high level of examination which freeom of speech cases have to pass, then many gun laws will go down in massive flames.
Just like in all states where gun ownership leads to lower crime levels, it will eliminate the “government will protect you” taxation gravytrain.
This guy sounds like a weenie that runs away from a kid holding a squirt gun.
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