Posted on 07/19/2010 8:34:19 PM PDT by neverdem
Editor's note: In his concurring statement in 'McDonald v. Chicago' -- the Supreme Court case affirming that the Second Amendment ensures an individual right to own firearms -- Justice Clarence Thomas discussed the history of gun-control laws, whose purpose was to stifle the rights of minorities and to prevent African-Americans from defending themselves against the likes of the Ku Klux Klan. Excerpts from Thomas' opinion appear below.
In the contentious years leading up to the Civil War, those who sought to retain the institution of slavery found that to do so, it was necessary to eliminate more and more of the basic liberties of slaves, free blacks, and white abolitionists. Congressman Tobias Plants explained that slaveholders "could not hold [slaves] safely where dissent was permitted," so they decided that "all dissent must be suppressed by the strong hand of power."
The measures they used were ruthless, repressed virtually every right recognized in the Constitution, and demonstrated that preventing only discriminatory state firearms restrictions would have been a hollow assurance for liberty. Public reaction indicates that the American people understood this point. The overarching goal of pro-slavery forces was to repress the spread of abolitionist thought and the concomitant risk of a slave rebellion.
Indeed, it is difficult to overstate the extent to which fear of a slave uprising gripped slaveholders and dictated the acts of Southern legislatures. Slaves and free blacks represented a substantial percentage of the population and posed a severe threat to Southern order if they were not kept in their place. According to the 1860 Census, slaves represented one quarter or more of the population in 11 of the 15 slave States, nearly half the population in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana, and more than 50 percent of the population in Mississippi and South Carolina.
. . .
The...
(Excerpt) Read more at 2.timesdispatch.com ...
MUST READ!!!
Racism is the basis for the war on drugs, too. Southern Democrats needed more ways to imprison black men on their prison-plantations, with the New York Times publishing claims that cocaine crazed black men were raping white women.
Here is the deal as I see it.
That black man down the street has the same rights as me.
That redneck with the mullet in a single wide. Yup him too
Nervous old gal in a mansion?
Sure.
You have no right to disarm a populace on prejudice.
We have a God Given Right to Self Defense.
Powerful!
I wouldn’t say “you (the State) have no right to disarm..”
I’d say “you (the State) have no Authority to disarm..”
People have rights, not States.
Well yeah, and the FED should have even less authority.
The southern Dem’s ran slavery, fought to keep it then kept the south segregated until a Republican president broke it apart (Eisenhower) - the Dems fought tooth and nail against civil rights - it was the Republicans that pushed it over. So please tell me, why do Blacks still vote for that party?
Btt
cuz republicans hate black folks. And women too. And homos. They even hate the planet. THEY ARE TRYING TO KILL THE PLANET SO BLACKS WON’T HAVE ANY PLACE TO LIVE! Obama will save the planet so blacks can go on living.
Because the Democrat party is the party of handouts.
Because the government doctrination centers teach NONE of what the dems did to stop civil rights. It was LBJ that realized that to keep “blacks on the plantation” was to give them “free money,” otherwise known as the “Great Society.”
It worked.
Lyndon Johnson
It was Eisenhower who sent the national guard to integrate the school where that Black girl was denied entrance in Alabama ... Dem. governor, Dem sheriff ... that was the first where the federal gov’t go involved ....
Sorry, it’s late here ...long day ... had Selma in my mind. But yes, you’re right ... >yawn< ... beddie time ....
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