[coma]

Have them read these two articles from Reason Magazine. They are about how gun control was used in the south by white racists after the civil war to keep the freedman in check. Just two more examples of why gun control is bad for everyone!


Article one (http://www.reason.com/hod/dk021505.shtml)


and

Article two (http://www.reason.com/hod/dk022405.shtml)


If you are at all libertarian in your views you will love this magazine.

[giancarlo]

Indeed. Also the main reason the Saturday Night Special was banned. Because blacks were using them.

[The_Antibubba]

If they really think that guns oppress minorities, you'll probably lose them at the word "Reason". :banghead:

[AZRickD]

I found that article a few days ago.

Antis are always saying, "Yeah, Hitler did that, but that was sixty years ago and 8,000 miles away." This puts it closer to home.

It starts here an moves forward a century or so.

The Klan's Favorite Law
Gun control in the postwar South

Dave Kopel

If you believe everything that Michael Moore says in Bowling for Columbine and his books, then you would think that "pro-gun" people are white racists, and that "gun control" would be a wonderful way to help minorities. But a look at America's past reveals what historian Clayton Cramer has accurately called "The Racist Roots of Gun Control."

After the Civil War, the defeated Southern states aimed to preserve slavery in fact if not in law. The states enacted Black Codes which barred the black freedmen from exercising basic civil rights, including the right to bear arms. Mississippi's provision was typical: No freedman "shall keep or carry fire-arms of any kind, or any ammunition."

Under the Mississippi law, a person informing the government about illegal arms possession by a freedman was entitled to receive the forfeited firearm. Whites were forbidden to give or lend freedman firearms or knives.

The Special Report of the Anti-Slavery Conference of 1867 complained that freedmen were "forbidden to own or bear firearms and thus.rendered defenseless against assaults" by whites. Or as a letter printed in the Jan. 13, 1866 edition of Harper's Weekly observed: "The militia of this county have seized every gun found in the hands of so-called freedmen in this section of the county. They claim that the Statute Laws of Mississippi do not recognize the Negro as having any right to carry arms."

[cuchulainn]

I'd be very careful with the race argument as justification for public policy -- and *not* for any PC reasons.

Gun control that singles out or disproportionately targets Race-X is wrong because it violates equal protection. But that would true of any law, even murder and rape.

It does not logically follow that the underlying law would be wrong if applied equally.

Don't get me wrong. I'm strongly pro-RKBA. I'm simply pointing out a logical fallacy that I've seen our side commit when discussing race and gun control.

[Old Fuff]

After a long and continuing lifetime I have yet to meet a gun control law that was equally applied. The core purpose of "control" is so the authorities can control whatever according to the way they want.

[iapetus]

cuchulainn
I'd be very careful with the race argument as justification for public policy -- and *not* for any PC reasons.

Gun control that singles out or disproportionately targets Race-X is wrong because it violates equal protection. But that would true of any law, even murder and rape.



True, although you could also say that in general, when [powerful group X] has been denying a right to [vulnerable group Y] while maintaining it for themselves, it tends to be more "progressive" to grant/stop infringing that right for everyone, rather than denying it to everyone.

At least, that's what happened with the vote, the right to own property, freedom of speach / association / marriage / etc, so presumably ought to apply to RKBA as well.

[coma]

cuchulainn said :
Quote:"I'd be very careful with the race argument as justification for public policy -- and *not* for any PC reasons.

Gun control that singles out or disproportionately targets Race-X is wrong because it violates equal protection. But that would true of any law, even murder and rape.

It does not logically follow that the underlying law would be wrong if applied equally.

Don't get me wrong. I'm strongly pro-RKBA. I'm simply pointing out a logical fallacy that I've seen our side commit when discussing race and gun control."end Quote

I was not really thinking of using "just" the race argument, I guess i was noting it as one more example that we can use against the "Anti gun movement". Because many times to silence the other side it takes several examples to prove our point, and this is just one more examle of how gun control is really used.

[Cliff]

Thanks Coma, I'm passing this on to a lot of folks. :evil: :D

[Standing Wolf]

It does not logically follow that the underlying law would be wrong if applied equally.

True, but the fact remains: a great many leftists are profoundly ignorant of the racist roots of so-called "gun control."

[coma]

True, but the fact remains: a great many leftists are profoundly ignorant of the racist roots of so-called "gun control."


That is a big part of the point I was after, leftists need proof that "gun control" would be a bad thing, because in their minds no matter what, the "GUN" is bad and needs to be controlled. They never connect the two facts that the key word is control. And that who ever has the guns will be in complete control.(this is preaching to the choir i know, but we all need to keep hearing it, speaking it and practicing it.)

[cuchulainn]

coma,

I wasn't saying that you were committing the fallacy. I was simply pointing out that it's commonly made by our side when discussing guns and racism. It was a general warning, not a specific complaint. :)

[coma]

Cuchulainn,
I understand what you meant, but I guess the "race thing" was less of an issue to me. The way I was looking at it was to point out people with all the guns and all power, will nearly always force their will on the disadvantaged, be it whether they are poor, from a different race or follow a different religion.

[Barbara]

Just don't complain when people complain about racism in other contexts and not just the ones that benefit you.

[pax]

"Guns oppress minorities."

See my sig du jour.

pax

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. -- Ayn Rand

[Zundfolge]

There is a good tactical (and I don't mean black carbon fiber) reason for pointing out the racist roots of Gun Control.


Among many "liberals" there is a tendency to blindly accept that if something has even the slightest hint of racism (even if clearly imagined ... like the word niggardly) it is pure and absolute "evil".

If you can get this particular breed of "liberals" to see that gun control = racism/racist oppression then we at the very least take them out of the gun control fight.

Even though these same "liberals" aren't the kind of people we want to hang out with, and even though these same "liberals" are so mired in anti-logic as to be completely useless for anything, they still vote.

[Soap]

People don't say that to me because I am a minority. Imagine my own guns oppressing me :)

[Standing Wolf]

Just don't complain when people complain about racism in other contexts and not just the ones that benefit you.

Evil is evil is evil.

[Poodleshooter]

There's a lot of weird social dynamics affecting urban minority views of guns, particularly in poor urban areas where a very high percentage of the young men are already criminals,and there exists a great deal of suspicion towards wealthier citizens. Would you want a proliferation of legal weapons among law abiding citizens if some of your children and close relatives were criminals?
The sensible views of race and guns shown above would be educational to the wealthier and middle class urban minorities, but will not overcome much of the disdain for weapons found in poorer urban minority neighborhoods.
Rural minorities views of firearms are a whole 'nother ballgame. Just from my personal experience,they seem to be a bit more uniform across racial lines.