Posted on 09/08/2002 11:45:20 AM PDT by Pat Bateman
Racism and the Second Amendment
Ken Hamblin
Special to the Denver Post
Sunday, September 08, 2002 - After a discussion with my granddaughter about the Second Amendment, I find myself refurbished, eager to probe into the political intrigue that has engulfed the Second Amendment since the Founding Fathers decreed it to be the right of every American to keep and bear arms if he or she should deem it necessary to defend hearth, home and self.
Last week I wrote about my determination to protect my 11-year-old granddaughter, Olivia Christine, from being fooled into believing that none but a constable on patrol is morally and legally enabled to own a gun. Today I want to share some of the racist history linked with keeping the benefit of the Second Amendment out of the reach of black Americans.
I believe this history laid the groundwork for a web of anti-firearms legislation that would eventually embrace every man, woman and child who takes the Second Amendment literally.
In researching this topic, I happened upon "The Racist Roots of Gun Control" by Clayton E. Cramer.
While well-meaning liberals - be they black or white - will deny it, "The Racist Roots of Gun Control" provided compelling evidence that racism underlies many gun-control laws. It documents that throughout U.S. history, gun control has been openly used as a method for keeping firearms beyond the reach of minorities.
"Beginning in 1751, when the French Black Code required Louisiana colonists to stop any blacks, and if necessary, 'beat any black carrying any potential weapon, such as a cane.' If a black refused to stop on demand, and was on horseback, the colonist was authorized to 'shoot to kill.'
"When the first U.S. official arrived in New Orleans in 1803 to take charge of this new American possession, the planters sought to have the existing free black militia disarmed, and otherwise exclude 'free blacks from positions in which they were required to bear arms.'
"The perception that free blacks were sympathetic to the plight of their enslaved brothers, and the dangerous example that 'a Negro could be free' also caused the slave states to pass laws designed to disarm all blacks, both slave and free.
"Unlike the gun control laws passed after the Civil War, these antebellum statutes were for blacks alone. In Maryland, these prohibitions went so far as to prohibit free blacks from owning dogs without a license, and authorizing any white to kill an unlicensed dog owned by a free black, for fear that blacks would use dogs as weapons.
"In State v. Huntley (1843), the North Carolina Supreme Court had recognized that there was a right to carry arms guaranteed under the North Carolina Constitution, as long as such arms were carried in a manner not likely to frighten people.
"The following year, the North Carolina Supreme Court made one of those decisions whose full significance would not appear until after the Civil War and passage of the Fourteenth Amendment.
"An 1840 statute provided: That if any free Negro, mulatto, or free person of color, shall wear or carry about his or her person, or keep in his or her house, any shot gun, musket, rifle, pistol, sword, dagger or Bowie-knife, unless he or she shall have obtained a license therefore from the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions of his or her county, within one year preceding the wearing, keeping or carrying therefore, he or she shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and may be indicted therefore."
While most gun grabbers would will deny it, much of the same emotional if not racist antagonism against arming minorities still exists in 21st-century America.
The irony in it all is that the racist opposition to allowing blacks to bear firearms provided the foundation for a cornerstone in America that would ultimately challenge the legitimacy of the Second Amendment itself.
In a great many American cities where large populations of blacks and Hispanics dwell, I believe the gun grabbers live in a state of outright fear that the state legislature might someday pass a law to allow any law-abiding member of a minority group to own or carry a firearm. Colorado is no exception to the anxiety about minorities packing guns.
Ken Hamblin (bac@compuserve.com; www.hamblin.com) writes Sundays in The Post and hosts a syndicated radio talk show.
California included.
when a man said that he believed that the Constitution of the USA protected the common man from harm by the government, one of the "officials" of the group said, "we just can't have those N#GGERS & spics carrying guns;they are ALL animals without sense".
when i spoke up against this OBVIOUS racism, i was told to "sit down & shut the (obscenity deleted) up! we don't want any input from (vulgarity deleted) like you".
so much for free speech & fair play.
free dixie,sw
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The year 1840 is not all that long ago in the grand scheme of things. This article is a real eye opener. At that time they did not justify gun control as a safety issue for the general population, but as a means to control one group of people. Only a government that fears its citizens wants to disarm them.
"One of the biggest secrets is the racism that underlies so many people's support for gun control."
Was operative a hundred and more years ago, probably as few as sixty years ago.
Today we must realize, as few are capable, that we are ALL in that same category of 'less than equal' to the elite that intends to guide us...
Don't gotta be black, don't gotta be irish, don't gotta be nothing except not in agreement.
It is the right to stand up and defend against government excess (yes, even in a democracy) that is guraranteed by the Second Amendment.
"One of the biggest secrets is the racism that underlies so many people's support for gun control."
Was operative a hundred and more years ago, probably as few as sixty years ago.
Today we must realize, as few are capable, that we are ALL in that same category of 'less than equal' to the elite that intends to guide us...
Don't gotta be black, don't gotta be irish, don't gotta be nothing except not in agreement.
It is the right to stand up and defend against government excess (yes, even in a democracy) that is guraranteed by the Second Amendment.
I have forgotten many of the details, but several years ago I read a brief account of the origin of the infamous Sullivan law. I believe Sullivan was a corrupt NYC police commissioner who was heavily involved in protection rackets on the NYC waterfront. The Italian and other recent southern European immigrants who worked the docks were being shaken down for protection money by Sullivan's Irish cops and other Sullivan-employed thugs. Many arms and legs were broken when protection money wasn't forthcoming, and quite few uncooperative dockhands went to the bottom of NY harbor wearing "cement shoes". Of course the immigrant workers didn't exactly cotton to that sort of treatment, so many of them began buying and carrying cheap handguns and often using them to poke multiple holes in Sullivan's thugs. That's when Sullivan went to the "right" people in the city government with the "right" kind of persuasion ($) and had the "Sullivan" law enacted. At first the law was selectively enforced against victims of Sullivan's rackets, but it soon came to be a useful tool for helping the NYC establishment keep the lower classes in their "place". Even today 90 years later the wealthy, the "politically well connected", and most celebrities have little trouble aquiring a handgun permit in NYC, but any and all others may as well not bother to apply.
Actually, if memory serves, good ole 2nd amendment-loving TX was one of the first, if not THE first, states to pass a law against "civilians" carrying firearms in public, either openly or concealed. I believe that law, which still exists in a modified form BTW, went into effect sometime in the late 1870's, but I could be off by a few years either way. Apparently, if we are to believe all the shoot'em up tales and movies about frontier times in TX, that law was also enforced on a very selective basis. My grandfather was born and raised in the 1870's and 1880's on a ranch in Bexar county, but I neglected to ask him before he passed away in 1955 about how strictly TX gun laws were enforced in those turbulent days.
I'm sure some New Yorker(s) and Texan(s) out there in FReeperland will kindly correct me if I'm wrong about any of this.
New Jersey used to have "strict-but-reasonable" gun laws ( as these things go ! )Unfortunately, the laws were used as a basis to enact incrementally tougher laws, that evolved into the truly draconian code we have today.
In the "Garbage State" , anything you pick up and use to defend yourself is a "weapon", the instant you deploy, or offer to deploy it as such.If Granny threatens a would-be mugger with her cane,she is ( theoretically at least ) chargeable with: possession of a weapon other than a firearm,possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes (eg: threatening another ),and, a NJ invention : terroristic threats.
As might be imagined, any person who actually uses a ( gasp!choke! ) firearm for self-defense is beyond the pale in NJ !
Simply unbelievable that such a state of affairs could exist anywhere in the "land of the free and the home of the brave". I was aware that in recent years NJ has become one of the most liberal, and therefore most anti-gun, states, but I had not realized the situation was as bad as you say.
Thanks for the warning. Since I place a high priority on retaining my liberties and exercizing my rights, including the right to self defence, in the future I will do my best to avoid ever crossing the borders of the Garden State. I am sure there is a very good reason why it is necessary for you to live in such a repressive, anti-freedom environment, and my sympathies go out to you.
One of the biggest secrets is the racism that underlies so many people's support for gun control.
Gun grabbers are largely elitists. For many of them, they view minorities condescendingly as useful mascots.
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