[Cowboy Preacher]

While it is true gun cotrol as we know it started after the Civil War, why do people keep picking on the South? These laws would neverbeen passed if the North had left us alone. Given time the slaves would have been released because with the advent of new farming technology they would have outlived there usefullenss. Why pay the upkeep on slaves whev a machine can do the work of 50 men. The same goes for the 1960's. The Jim Crow laws would have passed. But as always the North can not keep their noses out of our lives and they always are in a hurry. Maybe we just like to move a little slower. Just think if no war had been fought maybe, just maybe no permit required to carry a weapon no laws aginst open carry because it scared the poor sharecroppers. We could have avoided the whole basis of American gun control.

[Preacherman]

Actually, gun control was very specifically an issue with slavery - Jim March has some excellent stuff on this (do a search on his username). The Dred Scott decision actually stated specifically (I'm paraphrasing the court here! :D ) that if Scott were allowed all the rights of a US citizen, he'd be free to keep and bear arms, which was too ghastly to contemplate...

[Kaylee]

given the nature of the question, this sounds like an L&P issue.. so awaaaayyyy we go... :)

[Kaylee]

Now... (takes off moderator hat) a couple observations..


First, this one:
Given time the slaves would have been released because with the advent of new farming technology they would have outlived there usefullenss.
While I've heard that before, I don't believe it's true.. even today. Someday check out the fields being worked my Mexican migrant labor. acres and acres and acres being tended - -by hand -- at a wage that's next thing to slavery today. The difference being no one takes a buggy whip to their back if they split. Thank God.

To continue...

Now... I'll be the first to admit that the South has a lot of sins on it's collective soul... our handling of race relations from the founding right on up to the 1960's-70's.

BUT BUT BUT.. UNLIKE a lot of the rest of the country, it was looked at square in the face, and DEALT with. Things aren't perfect to this day... but then that's true all over. I too get real bugged when it seems the South gets all the blame here... let's not forget black folks were strung up from NYC lampposts to. The Chinese in California got the "our ballots or our bullets will get them out" treatment. The Irish were the next thing to Disposable Humanity in the industrial north. And of course, we wiped out and herded up the Indians everywhere we could. There is no clean slate then or now, anywhere in the country. So yeah, I tend to agree that a lot of the southern discussion borders on "tend to the plank in your own eye..."

Now.. all THAT said... I think the south is different in that we CODIFIED much of our sins. Personally, I tend to think that's an effect more of Reconstruction and related enforcement than a radically different mindset, but I could be wrong there.

And finally.. I will wholeheartedly agree with Jim that a lot of modern gun control is a PC way of saying "we don't trust the undertoned whisper.... BLACK gang members with guns" But then, what do you expect when in many areas of the country the only black folks that white folks ever talk to are either:

A: behind a counter
or
B: a gangbanger character on TV or a rapper dude on MTV
or
C: Bill Cosby to assuage the conscience.

anyhow.. enough rambling from me for now. :)

-K

[Keith]

While I've heard that before, I don't believe it's true.. even today. Someday check out the fields being worked my Mexican migrant labor. acres and acres and acres being tended - -by hand -- at a wage that's next thing to slavery today.

KayLee,

You're wrong on that. It's far cheaper to hire a migrant laborer for a few weeks a year, than keep a slave year-round.
And don't forget that slavery was about cotton, and the American cotton industry was about to collapse due to cheaper Egyptian and Indian cotton which was just being opened up by the British.
By 1870 the American cotton industry was dead, and with the introduction of various mechanical devices not so labor-intensive anyway.

With or without the war, slavery was about to end.

Keith

[Cowboy Preacher]

From what I can remember from school Lincoln wanted to send the slave back to Africa not make them equals to whites. May be wrong but I think that was what I read.

[bogie]

IMHO, the industrial north was realizing that it was in need of a great quantity of laborers... So they went south after 'em.

[DigitalWarrior]

What can we learn from it even if what you say is true? How will that knowledge help us today and tommorow?

[Cowboy Preacher]

What do learn from it all these black liberal saying how bad we made it for them I say put them on aslow boat to Sudan or Liberia and let them have the life they deserve

[Thumper]

Haw when eagle nest perturbed rascal aerodrome functionally illiterate rolling saipans, in my book.

[Skunkabilly]

The Chinese in California got the "our ballots or our bullets will get them out" treatment.

I'll take your bullets, thanks :D

[Thumper]

Anticipating threadlock unless this one gets away from the current tone.

[Joe Demko]

Even if it was on the way out due to changing economic factors, it is indisputably evil to hold other humans in bondage. Slavers belong at the end of a rope. They shouldn't have been enslaved in the first place and there is no justification whatsoever for holding them as slaves no matter what the economic situation was or wasn't.
How about I own you until my economic situation changes and I find something cheaper?

[El Tejon]

Cowboy, you are building on a faulty foundation. "Gun control" in da Souf started looong before the Civil War. The Civil War was started by the South to keep their slaves.

They got thumped good and thus formed the Klu Klux Klan and passed Jim Crow to oppress the freedmen. Gun control and racism go hand in hand.

[Keith]

I'm not trying to argue that slavery was morally defensible. I was just pointing out that it would have ended soon, and without tearing the nation apart with a civil war.

Of course, nobody then could have predicted that. Who knew that the British would soon glut the cotton market with cheaper cotton harvested with Egyptian and Indian field workers? You only have to feed a hired worker during planting and harvest, rather than year round. It's cheaper than slavery.

Keith

[DigitalWarrior]

I am afraid that I didn't understand this:What do learn from it all these black liberal saying how bad we made it for them I say put them on aslow boat to Sudan or Liberia and let them have the life they deserve Is it even a sentence?

I was caught off gaurd by
Haw when eagle nest perturbed rascal aerodrome functionally illiterate rolling saipans, in my book
I nearly went insane after reading it.

Seriously, What can we learn from it even if what you say is true? How will that knowledge help us today and tommorow?

If there is no answer, isn't the point moot?

DigitalIamremindedofWildAlaskaWarrior

[Thumper]

I nearly went insane after reading it.

:D

I was trying to emulate the spectacularly creative grammar of the previous post.

Feeble attempt at humor. Never mind.

[bogie]

Keep in mind that most of the Jim Crow laws were instituted by the damn yankee carpetbaggers (and supported by the general white populations...) who moved in to loot the south following the war of northern aggression, and things start to get clearer. It wasn't about slavery - it was about relocating a labor pool.

But I'm pretty sure that all of those folks are now more or less DEAD, so we should get on with our lives.

[cuchulainn]

Haw when eagle nest perturbed rascal aerodrome functionally illiterate rolling saipans. Haiku-ish, though not in 5/7/5 (it's 5/7/8/5)

Haw when eagle nest
perturbed rascal aerodrome
functionally illiterate
rolling saipans


Ahhhh. I'm very peaceful now. I have an urge for some green tea ;)

[El Tejon]

bogie, not so. "Jim Crow" was a recodification of the Slave Code of the antebellum South.

This is no doubt that carpetbaggers took advantage of this condition to be certain.

[bogie]

If the damn yankees allowed the laws to be passed, they may has well have written 'em themselves. They were designed to keep people apart, keep people from working together, and to encourage black migration to the more "enlightened" north, where they'd be forced to live in ghetto conditions, etc., etc... Heck - the Jim Crow firearms laws still exist in a lot of the north too.

[Keith]

If the damn yankees allowed the laws to be passed, they may has well have written 'em themselves.

Right. If voters in Mississippi elected officials who introduced Jim Crow laws, then it's the Yankee's fault...

How would the "Yankee's" prevent the state governments from passing legislation? Is there a "Yankee clause" in the various southern state constitutions?

Keith

[Baba Louie]

We could have avoided the whole basis of American gun control.

Gun Control = people control = victim disarmament

It still would have reared it's ugly head, slaves or no. How many slaves were there in the UK or Austrailia?

Sooner or later, an oligarchy will always pass some form of laws outlawing possession of rock or spear chucking devices... for the children, ostensibly. In reality it's to protect them from us (pick a side).

Hence, article 2 in the BOR.

To take it a step away from the slavery issue, think state's tariff's imposed by Big Brother to control a whole section of the nation and the unwilling reception of same by those affected (kinda the same thing as slavery in a manner of speaking), or, My Kind, don't like Your Kind and here's what we're going to do about it.

It's easy to pick on a group of people who talk funny, act different, are hard headed and have something you want which they don't want to give up (sound familar... like a firearm owning BOR believing citizen?).

Ah, the good old days. Like now. You gotta fight, for the right, to... PARTY (sorry, couldn't resist :D a little Beastie Boys)

carry on.

Adios

[Thumper]

Hey cuch...that compares somewhat favorably to Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz' best work. (Taking a chance that you get a very obscure reference.
:D

[DigitalWarrior]

No hitchhiker's reference can be considered obscure. Ode to the lump of green jelly.... It was the universes 2nd worst

[Thumper]

:D :D

I think it was Ode to a small lump of green putty I found in my armpit one midsummer's morning but it's been a long time...yeah...second worst...
:D

[cuchulainn]

Since when was Douglas Adams obscure? ;)

...though I'm more of a Robert Anton Wilson fan.
fnord

[Thumper]

Hahah...I guess I meant in the context of hijacking this thread.

To paraphrase ('cause I can't remember): "this was such an awesomely spectacular thread, I thought I'd steal it."

[MeekandMild]

Given time the slaves would have been released because with the advent of new farming technology they would have outlived there usefullenss. I don't believe it's true.. even today. Someday check out the fields being worked my Mexican migrant labor. acres and acres and acres being tended - -by hand -- at a wage that's next thing to slavery today. Kaylee, actually slavery was doomed by waves of European immigration. At the time of the civil war it was much cheaper to "hire" Irishmen than to own slaves. Irish were used for the dangerous dirty work such as coal mining that was too dangerous to risk expensive slaves.

About the time new Irish were petering out there was the wave of German immigration of the late 1850's...followed by Russians, Lithuanians, Swedes, et cetera.

Look up the definition of "wage slavery" and compare it to "chattel slavery" and you will be enlightened.

I might point out the Sullivan Law was meant to control Irishmen, not Blacks. :rolleyes:

[Jim March]

Good God, what a mess. Where to even start?

<rolls up sleeves>

a) If slavery was doomed regardless, why was the South going to nutso lengths to keep it right up to the point where they declared war?

Example: in 1856, South Carolina passed a state law banning the preaching of abolition from the pulpit, regardless of the race of the preacher and/or the congregation.

The penalty was death.

:scrutiny:

b) This sort of totalitarian crap was going on because in 1833, the US Supremes had declared that the Bill Of Rights doesn't apply to the states. So weird repressive BS was going on all over the south in the pre-war period.

c) "Carpetbaggers caused the racist laws"?

That's a lie.

-----------------
1. That it shall not be lawful for any freedman, mulatto, or free person of color in this State, to own fire-arms, or carry about his person a pistol or other deadly weapon.

2. That after the 20th day of January, 1866, any person thus offending may be arrested upon the warrant of any acting justice of the peace, and upon conviction fined any sum not exceeding $100 or imprisoned in the county jail, or put to labor on the public works of any county, incorporated town, city, or village, for any term not exceeding three months.

3. That if any gun, pistol or other deadly weapon be found in the possession of any freedman, mulatto or free person of color, the same may by any justice of the peace, sheriff, or constable be taken from such freedman, mulatto, or free person of color; and if such person is proved to be the owner thereof, the same shall, upon an order of any justice of the peace, be sold, and the proceeds thereof paid over to such freedman, mulatto, or person of color owning the same. [Ed. note: the off-duty fashion choices of “justices of the peace, sheriffs, or constables” at that time tended toward an ensemble of basic white bedsheets with eyeholes...especially at night.]

4. That it shall not be lawful for any person to sell, give, or lend fire-arms or ammunition of any description whatever, to any freedman, free negro or mulatto; and any person so violating the provisions of this act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined in the sum of not less than fifty nor more than one hundred dollars, at the discretion of the jury trying the case.

Alabama statute of 1865, from “The Second Amendment: Towards An African-Americanist Reconsideration”, footnote 178 — two more state-level examples precede that one.

http://www.guncite.com/journals/cd-recon.html
--------------

When that was passed, there was still blood on some of the battlefields fer Chrissakes. A whole raft of such black-restrictive laws were passed practically within days of war's end, and not just weapons laws.

d) Between 1866 and 1868, the Feds tried to clean up the horrific civil rights violations going on, with the Freedmen's Bureau Act, the Civil Rights Act that produced what we now call 42 USC 1983/1986 and of course the 14th Amendment. The US Supreme Court basically gutted all this in a series of disgusting decisions such as Cruikshank 1876, Williams vs. Mississippi 1898 and of course the infamous Plessy vs. Fergusen's "separate but equal" :barf:.

True, in 1911 the idea of discretionary (discriminatory) gun permits "jumped the Mason-Dixon line" and landed in New York City...in a bill literally written by a gangster who was committed to a mental institution a year later :scrutiny:. More on that in an upcoming post on Legal/Political, I've turned up some MIND BLOWING stuff on "Big Tim Sullivan" :eek:.

But it all started in the South. And what happened there is purely the fault of the single most disgusting culture America has ever spawned :mad:.

(And before you call me on that: go to www.google.com and hit the "images" tab. Put in a single search term:

lynching

What you'll get is *mostly* reproductions of a common type of Southern *postcard* I kid you not, starting in the late 18th century and remaining popular through the WW2 period.

NOTICE HOW NONE OF THE MURDERERS THUS PHOTOGRAPHED CARED WHETHER OR NOT THEIR FACES WERE CLEARLY CAPTURED!

If you want to know why they didn't care, read this court case:

http://laws.findlaw.com/us/92/542.html

The USSC stated in 1876 that people who violated the civil rights of blacks in the South couldn't be prosecuted by the Feds.

Those pictures documented the results: thousands and thousands of lynchings.

:barf:

[MeekandMild]

Jim, I will lay out some puzzle pieces for you to put together.

From http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lynching/lynching.htm

"Between 1882 (when reliable statistics were first collected) and 1968 (when the classic forms of lynching had disappeared), 4,743 persons died of lynching..."

(That is roughly 55 per year. M&M)

From http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/jjbulletin/9812_2/murder.html

"The FBI estimates that in 1997, 7,726,000 larceny-thefts, 2,461,000 burglaries, 1,354,000 motor vehicle thefts, 1,022,000 aggravated assaults, 498,000 robberies, 96,000 forcible rapes, and 18,200 murders were reported to law enforcement agencies. One would have to go back to 1971 to find a lower annual number of murder victims in the United States and to 1967 to find a lower murder rate (i.e., murders per 100,000 persons in the population)."

From http://members.aol.com/dpen98/ucrus.htm we see the murder rate from 1960 to 1997.
From http://www.guntruths.com/Resource/facts_you_can_use.htm#U.S.%20Murder%20Rate%20Since%201900 we see the murder rate from 1900 to 1998.

(Murder rate has increased in the range of 1000% relative to the 1900 rate! M&M)

From http://www.hoboes.com/pub/Politics/United%20States/Trust%20Your%20Television/TIME%20and%20Splices
"The most frequent victims of the U.S. carnage were black males age 15
to 19: 49.2 per 100,000 in this group died in 1987 from the homicidal
use of guns. Among whites, the rate was 5.1 per 100,000. Said Health
and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan: 'We are losing our youth
increasingly to injury and violence.' "

Here is the obligatory piece from another puzzle put in to interest you.

From http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1994/152/152p10.htm
"In a 1987 study by the Stanford Law Review, it was found that at least 350 persons were mistakenly convicted of potentially capital crimes from 1900 to 1985. Of these innocent people, 139 were sentenced to death, and 23 were executed. "

And what happened there is purely the fault of the single most disgusting culture America has ever spawned WOW, Jim, I never knew the folks down in the Tenderloin District caused all this! Learn something new every day.

[Keith]

a) If slavery was doomed regardless, why was the South going to nutso lengths to keep it right up to the point where they declared war?

Because they couldn't possibly know that Egyptian cotton was going to swamp the world market by 1870.

Keith