Firing Back at Jim Crow - Editorial by the Wall Street Journal

[Thomasss]

ZMack and other “pot metal”, yet functional, firearms are banned from sale in state, supposedly to keep the populous safe from “cheap firearms”

I wonder how they enforce that rule?
The Milwaukee Journal, back in the 70's always talked about banning "cheap Saturday night specials", until someone wrote in that a S&W model 10 could be purchased for $79.95.

 

[rust collector]

What possible relevance does race or ethnicity have in the purchase of a firearm? The fact that those questions remain is evidence of a far greater intrusion into our privacy than the law provided for.

We have much more accurate tools for identification than skin hue or ancestry. Maybe it is time to swim upstream to the source of this overreaching, and to eliminate such nonsense.

 

[Demi-human]

I wonder how they enforce that rule?
The Milwaukee Journal, back in the 70's always talked about banning "cheap Saturday night specials", until someone wrote in that a S&W model 10 could be purchased for $79.95.

I was researching it more and it appears they don’t. Although I brought it up after just recently seeing on a gun ad that it couldn’t be sold in Illinois, but it seems the HIPoint club is large in The Windy City, and they are Zmack. So I’m confused. And how could they stop pistols from private ownership entering the state, too?

So while the law isn’t really enforced today, the laws itself is a remainder of racism and classism.
The lack of enforcement is not an excuse for not removing such erroneous legislation, I think.
We must be reminded that racism did and can exist, but not by arbitrarily enforced laws.

 

[230RN]

Right now, all laws directed at 'things' ignore the reality that simple bad conduct - ignoring signals for pedestrians, parking without regard to lines or other conditions - and crime is due to human decision and desire. Fast cars, booze, firearms, matches, heavy walking sticks can all be used for evil. But only if the human perpetrator has the impulse.
Any law limiting access to firearms is for control of the population.

That triggers the obligatory movie clip from 1953 (SFW, but watch sound level beginning at 1:12):

(2:42)

"A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it." --Shane

Terry, 230RN

 

[Archie]

230RN: Read the book AND saw the movie. Ignored by the left.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

I remember in the 1960s the commentator TRB in Washington in the progressive magazine The New Republic criticized the National Rifle Association for giving civil rights leader Robert F. Williams a charter to set up a "rifle club" of black WWII and Korean War vets to acquire DCM M1 Carbines and Garands to defend the Black people of Monroe, North Carolina from the Ku Klux Klan.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Demi-human: ZMack and other “pot metal”, yet functional, firearms are banned from sale in state [Illinois], supposedly to keep the populous safe from “cheap firearms”

Thomasss: I wonder how they enforce that rule?

Dealers in states like Illinois, Minnesota, etc comply with the state law. The Dunhams sales paper often has "Not available in ..." with a short list of certain states.

 

[AlexanderA]

Search on Google for “white supremacy” and “gun rights” and you’ll see plenty of articles claiming the Second Amendment is a tool for white America. But a new paper from Clemson University economists Michael Makowsky and Patrick Warren finds the opposite is true. They say gun ownership helped black Americans defend themselves when no one else would. The key finding of “Firearms and Lynching” is clear: “Rates of Black lynching decreased with greater Black firearm access” in the Jim Crow South. In other words, when black Americans couldn’t count on the cops to protect them, guns made a difference."

This has to be put into the historical perspective. While the RKBA has been protective of black Americans after the Civil War and the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, up to that point it was a tool for their subjugation. The Founders (at least the ones from the South) had in mind that the militias -- mentioned in the prologue of the 2nd Amendment -- would encompass the "slave patrols" which would round up runaway slaves and put down slave revolts. Part of the reason for the 2nd Amendment, in the eyes of these Founders, was to preclude the federal government from interfering with these slave patrols.

Of course all this is a moot point now.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Carl T. Bogus, a co-author and supporter of Michael Bellesiles, has engaged in tealeaf and mind reading to come up with his "hidden history showing that the Second Amendment was adopted to ensure that militias could enforce slave control".

There is a counterpoint (also available at Social Sciences Research Network in working paper form and as a published paper in Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy) here:
Stephen Halbrook, "Second Amendment Roundup: To Preserve Liberty, Not Slavery", Volokh Conspiracy, 11 Apr 2023.
https://reason.com/volokh/2023/04/11/second-amendment-roundup-to-preserve-liberty-not-slavery/
https://ssrn.com/abstract=3941401
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/publ...nt/uploads/sites/23/2022/09/GT-GLPP220045.pdf

Carl T. Bogus, "Madison's Militia: The Hidden History of the Second Amendment", Oxford University Press, 2023.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/madisons-militia-9780197632222?cc=us&lang=en&

 

[Outlaw75]

I have pointed this out to many of my friends that blindly vote democratic tickets. Yes it was the Southern Democrats that passed all of the Jim Crow Laws.

Missouri got rid of the last Jim Crow law in 2007 when the need for a permit to purchase from the Sheriff was needed before one could buy a handgun. There was definitely no need for it since FFL's had been doing NICS checks since 1998.

North Carolina finally got rid of it's purchase permit law this year.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Brief of Amicus Curiae submitted by Congress of Racial Equality in Support of Respondent, in the case of D.C. v Heller 2008. lays out the history of gun control used as control of Black Americans, quoting Florida State Supreme Court Justice Rivers H. Buford.

Watson v. Stone, 148 Fla. 516, 524, 4 So.2d 700, 703 (1941)
Justice Buford of the Florida Supreme Court noted in his concurring opinion narrowly construing a Florida gun control statute:
"I know something of the history of this legislation. The original Act of 1893 was passed when there was a great influx of negro laborers in the State drawn here for the purpose of working in turpentine and lumber camps. The same condition existed when the Act was amended in 1901 and the Act was passed for the purpose of disarming the negro laborers .... The statute was never intended to be applied to the white population and in practice has never been so applied .... there has never been, within my knowledge, any effort to enforce the provisions of this statute as to white people because it has generally conceded to be in contravention of the Constitution and nonenforceable if contested."

[emphasis added]
Summary of Argument, folio 2, page 17 in
https://www.rkba.org/judicial/heller/07-290_RespondentAmCuCongrRacialEqualitynew.pdf
accessed through American Bar Association blog, live copy ar RKBA blog

Not only was the Act laxly enforced against native Florida whites, I suspect it was laxly enforced against native Florida blacks. But it was used against people caught by the law with an unpermitted gun. In Watson v Stone they made the mistake of trying to apply it to a party with standing to contest it in court..

 

[Kleanbore]

Some years ago, I took the MAG-20 classroom course. It was held in the now-defunct Rangemasters facility in Memphis.

The afternoon before the class. I drove over from the hotel to try out and time the route.

Several large CCW classes were just getting out. Dozens of African-American women were coming out to their cars and making cell-phone calls. Many of them were carrying their targets.

Memphis is a rough town. Seeing those citizens with their targets warmed my heart.

A couple of years before that, I took my Missouri CCW class. During a break, many people were coming in to use the ranges. I happened to be explaining to a few folks younger than I that American gun laws originated during Reconstruction, with the objective of keeping Freedmen from having the means to defend themselves against nightriders. A young man who overheard me asked to joint the conversation. He was a St. Louis parole officer who had obtained his permit and who was there to practice. He was African American, and he strongly opposed gun control laws.

 

[JeffG]

The pistol permit law here in NC is an old Jim crow law. It was written so the sheriff of a county can deny a permit without having to give a reason. How do you think this was used in the 1960's?

When I was in the Marines the 70's in NC, My black Sergeant and I applied for handgun permits, to the local Sheriff. Same day same time, we had the same specialty in the Marines. Mine was approved, his was not. I got it in my head to go and defend my Sergeant's position to the sheriff's office. He revoked mine, and sent me on my way. My Sergeant laughed at me, and how naïve I was.

 

[Sistema1927]

Contrary to the current narrative, it is gun control that is racist, and not the Second Amendment.

 

[JTHunter]

In NJ they discriminate against the poor for ccw permit because
1)$50 application fee
2)fingerprints $56 + tax
3)qualifying class $100 or more + tax depending on location instructor etc
4)repeat all of the above every 2 years
Absolutely ridiculous
Supposed to be approved within 60 days,mine is 6 weeks old and just got notified it just left my local PD.Still has to go to county,state and judge then back to my PD.

IL-ANNOY pulls the same stunt.
$150 NON-refundable application fee;
LiveScan prints are ~$70 (optional - see below);
Classes are at least $150 for the full 16 hours;
but our license is for 5 years.
The CCP are supposed to be processed in 90 (business) days WITH prints and 120 without but some people have waited over 18 months. In fact, the federal judge hearing some of the lawsuits against Pritzker (etc.) in East St. Louis ripped the AG's lawyer a good one the other day when he asked how long it should take. The lawyer didn't know but did admit that it was taking longer than it should. Then, Judge McGlynn pointed out that he had been waiting on his since last September. And this is a federal judge that has already been vetted numerous times.

 

[Thomasss]

What possible relevance does race or ethnicity have in the purchase of a firearm?

I only learned recently that the NRA advocated back in 1927 that blacks should be allowed to owned guns to ward off KKK harassment. Upon further research I found many states had Jim Crow laws preventing blacks from owning firearms.

 

[wayneinFL]

I remember in the 1960s the commentator TRB in Washington in the progressive magazine The New Republic criticized the National Rifle Association for giving civil rights leader Robert F. Williams a charter to set up a "rifle club" of black WWII and Korean War vets to acquire DCM M1 Carbines and Garands to defend the Black people of Monroe, North Carolina from the Ku Klux Klan.

I would love to read that if you can find a copy of it.

 

[Robert]

Part of the reason for the 2nd Amendment, in the eyes of these Founders, was to preclude the federal government from interfering with these slave patrols.

Do you have any kind of creditable source to cite for that statement? Like letters written by the founders, or a speech one gave?

 

[AlexanderA]

Like letters written by the founders, or a speech one gave?

They were smart enough politicians not to say the quiet part out loud. The whole of Southern history, from before independence to 1865, revolved around the slavery issue. The slave patrols were essential to that, and "militia" was a code word for the slave patrols. That's not to say that the militia didn't serve other purposes as well.

 

[danmc]

When I was in the Marines the 70's in NC, My black Sergeant and I applied for handgun permits, to the local Sheriff. Same day same time, we had the same specialty in the Marines. Mine was approved, his was not. I got it in my head to go and defend my Sergeant's position to the sheriff's office. He revoked mine, and sent me on my way. My Sergeant laughed at me, and how naïve I was.

Standing up for what’s right is something to be admired. The world is better because of you and others like yourself.

 

[Kleanbore]

While the RKBA has been protective of black Americans after the Civil War and the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, up to that point it was a tool for their subjugation.

Actually, laws restrtcting the carrying of firearm were first enacted in this country to deny Freedmen the right to bear arms.

he Founders (at least the ones from the South) had in mind that the militias -- mentioned in the prologue of the 2nd Amendment -- would encompass the "slave patrols" which would round up runaway slaves and put down slave revolts. Part of the reason for the 2nd Amendment, in the eyes of these Founders, was to preclude the federal government from interfering with these slave patrols.

Can you cite any source for that from contemporaneous writing or speeches?

They were smart enough politicians not to say the quiet part out loud

Why, then would anyone attribute that motive to them;? Did they commmunicte their secret intention by b blinking their eyes?

and "militia" was a code word for the slave patrols.

that's poppycock.
Contemporary writings tell us that the subject of 'militia" was incidental to the rKBA.

 

[Elkins45]

Restrictions on who can own and who can carry started with limits on poor and minorities from the start. It has never been the wealthy that the prohibitions were applied to.

A couple of years ago I stumbled across a statement that totally rearranged my thinking: If paying a fine is the punishment for violating a law then it’s a law that only poor people have to follow.

In the context of the discussion here it makes me reflect on the $200 tax levied by the NFA back in 1934. The clear message is that it’s OK for rich people to own machine guns. We trust them.

 

[Capybara]

Gun control has always been people control and has always been about the entrenched power of government and the wealthy keeping guns out of minority and other marginalized communities hands. Regardless of how "free" one feels the state they live in is now and how that state is on gun rights, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the Potato Administration/Federal Government and the Governors of at least a third of all states are driving full court toward complete civilian disarmament as quickly as possible. The Potato has given the ATF the mandate to shut down as many gun dealers as possible. The lies, half truths and misinformation are raised to five alarm levels with every criminal psychopath who creates a mass shooting. The Radical Anti gun Left now owns the media, owns the justice system, the Executive Branch, the Senate and at least a third of the State Governments so this is all expected. The government cannot have complete and utter domination and control over every serfs life unless those serfs are unarmed and defenseless and that is the goal. Leftists worship at the altar of Statism and the State cannot tolerate an armed populace.

With the latest numbers showing that 60 million new guns were placed in civilian hands during the pandemic, that surely means that nearly half a billion guns are in American civilian hands. Within most of our lifetimes reading this, we will see even more radical and tyrannical efforts to disarm all Americans, not just the poor and minorities. The Federal government and many state governments are completely ignoring the law of the land and the Supreme Court so where do you think this all leads to? Where do you think it ends? The Second Amendment and what it means is solely in the hands of the people now, the government has decided it is irrelevant, along with many of our other civil rights. Things are definitely getting interesting, it's just a matter of time before they get ugly.

 

[AlexanderA]

In the context of the discussion here it makes me reflect on the $200 tax levied by the NFA back in 1934. The clear message is that it’s OK for rich people to own machine guns. We trust them.

Remember that when the NFA was enacted, already-possessed NFA items were grandfathered -- for free. The $200 tax was for transfers going forward. The main item to be regulated, actually, was the Thompson submachine gun. And the initial run of 25,000 (from 1921) hadn't been depleted, and wouldn't be depleted until the start of WW2. So the NFA did not have a particularly great impact, initially. Even the 1939 Miller case, upholding it, was a sloppily-reasoned afterthought.

The tax was set at $200 because that was slightly less than the retail price of a Thompson (about $250). It was felt that, basically, a 100% tax would be enough to discourage future sales. I don't think the wealth of the buyers entered into it.

 

[AlexanderA]

Contemporary writings tell us that the subject of "militia" was incidental to the rKBA.

That statement could be lifted straight out of Justice Scalia's opinion in the Heller case. He was so anxious to decouple the individual right from the militia that he, in effect, treated the Militia Clause as a nullity.

That position is going to come back to bite us. By saying that the militia -- and militia weapons -- have no place in the 2nd Amendment, that will make it easier to uphold, for example, an AWB. No, the proper pro-gun approach would have been to give the Militia Clause due weight, with the understanding that everybody is an ex officio member of the militia.