Gun ownership is an integral part of the fabric that makes up US identity, with the right to bear arms found in the Constitution’s Second Amendment, adopted in 1791.
But racism in gun laws predates the founding of the nation.
A century earlier, the colony of Virginia had laws prohibiting slaves from owning guns.
After being emancipated as a result of the Civil War (1861-1865), southern states passed laws known as the “Black Codes”, which disarmed and economically disabled African Americans in order to sustain enforcing white supremacy.
Many point to laws passed in the turbulent 1960s, when Black nationalist groups took up arms to defend their communities, as examples of racist implementation.
The leftist Black Panther Party (BPP), whose members carried weapons to guard against police brutality, “invaded” the California capitol building in Sacramento in 1967.
California’s then-Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act shortly after that, prohibiting open carry of weapons in public places.
The following year would see the passing of the Gun Control Act of 1968, signed by then-President Richard Nixon. That law banned “Saturday Night Specials”, cheaply-made handguns associated with crime in minority communities, as well as barring felons, the mentally ill and others from owning firearms.
Throughout much of American history gun control was a method for keeping Blacks and Hispanics, ‘in their place’.
While a deep commitment to firearm-ownership rights (and an interest in guns) is typically associated with American conservatives, contingents of the far left also advocate against gun-control laws.
American citizens have a right to bear arms, as guaranteed by the Second Amendment, in order to protect their families and property from would-be invaders. The right of self-defense and self-preservation is not a civil right but a natural God-given right. It is the right of law-abiding Americans to carry firearms for defense of themselves and others regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation.
Enlightened folks on the left contend that gun-control laws usually are harmful to people of color. Members of the left who are interested in arms are wary that new regulations would further discriminate against people of color and blue collar citizens. The Brown Girls Project (BGP), is an initiative that aims to encourage and inspire black women and teaches them to responsibly own and use firearms.
Mass shootings in America are not necessarily becoming more common, but one analysis finds that they are becoming more deadly. The problem is not the guns, which are inanimate objects, but the mindset of those in society who are using the guns to commit these atrocities. It is, in the end, not a gun problem but a people problem.
Guns can be fun. Guns can put food on the table. But, more importantly, at many points in the struggle for human freedom, guns have kept people alive when faced with the terror of of tyrants.
According to Charles E. Cobb, author of This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible, at many points “the willingness to take armed defensive action enabled the civil rights movement to sustain itself” in the midst of night raids from the Klan.” Conversely, a study of history will show that the disarmament of the populace by dictators has been the precursor of mass exterminations of dissidents and political opponents ranging from Communist Russia, to Nazi Germany, to Communist China, North Viet Nam, Cambodia and many others.
As we enter a new era of attacks by the government “officials” on activists, dissidents, Constitutionalists and organizers many will face similar questions to those early civil rights organizers had to answer: What are we willing to do to keep ourselves and our communities safe?”
Guns, or the lack thereof, will play a part in answering that question.
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