Not so much at the federal level, but prior gun control at the local and state levels often was racially motivated.
Gun control at the local levels, before the modern elements which are different, was all about keeping guns in the hands of who they wanted to be in control. Well back then they didn't have large police forces, and depended more on a community effort.
They didn't want poor people, minorities, etc, with guns or a host of other weapons.
The latest poor immigrant group was often the target of the latest arms controls because quite frankly they were behind a lot of the new crime, and were also foreign and scary while taking jobs away from the more established Americans.
At one point that was Scottish and Irish, at others it was Italians, and for most of the time it was the blacks and Native Americans.
You see dirks, (Scottish name) daggers and other fighting blades banned many places, were a weapon more common among the poor.
These knife and other laws are often targeting poor immigrant groups, regardless of ethnicity.
Which still is in place years later in many places, including Texas with its limits on Bowie and other fighting knives.
Why would you have a society that could freely carry guns, but limited knives? Because poor people could get knives easily, but only a small percentage would get an expensive handgun.
You see gun laws like the ones that limited people the the Army or Navy pistol in some places, because that set a minimum price by limiting you to quality firearms of the time. Limiting what poor could afford a handgun and become thus armed.
Classism and racism is behind most weapon laws in US history.
You see a lot of martial arts or Asian immigrant weapons targeted by bans in places that had the poor Chinese building the railroads or having opium dens.
California's first law that required a permit to carry concealed (could still carry openly without one) was said to target Hispanic and Asian people engaged in crime based on a papers of the time, Tong wars, or Hispanic Vendettas for example mentioned in one of the more infamous ones. They felt Hispanics were prone to shooting it out over disputes, and Chinese were engaged in organized crime turf battles.
That same law is the one now applied to everyone and in the more populated counties used to deny everyone the ability to legally carry.
It doesn't make restricting them right, but most violent crime is committed by poor people.
The biggest single cause of homicide in the US since the 1980s is the gangster culture, with an emphasis on drugs, clubs, loose women, and fighting rivals.
It is little wonder entire communities with a large percentage of that are falling apart.
Part of the problem with race issues in the US today is the majority is too politically correct and has been for decades.
Out west I can tell you racism is overly claimed by minorities and only a small percentage of 'whites' are racist, but most black families and a large percentage of poorer hispanics seem really focused on ethnicity and race. While rarely hearing any reference to race from whites you hear race referenced all the time by minorities.
Maybe things are different in Southern households where race tensions were traditionally greater.
I would conclude minorities are raised more racist in the USA, taught they were victims through the mandatory curriculum of school, and then use that as the excuse for any shortcomings in life. While the majority white won't tolerate racism against the minorities, the minorities often encourage racism among each other and incorporate it as part of the culture. Referencing race regularly. It is socially acceptable to be a moderately racist minority, and is even referenced in popular culture all the time.
A black man is far safer walking through a poor white neighborhood than a white man walking through a poor black neighborhood.
Now if you look at modern statistics on crime, with blacks committing about 50% of all murders (most victims are also black) and being several fold more likely to commit murder or violent crime than any other ethnicity, while only being around 13% of the population, I would certainly imagine that is not the segment of society local governments want well armed.
Nobody wants to actually reference the problem because then they get called on racial profiling.
But Homie-G in the hood, typically a young black male, is the primary perpetrator of most violent crimes in many cities with a sizable black population, yet focusing resources on that demographic results in cries of racism. So you can't tell police to pay special attention to the young black males who have adopted the gangster dress and mannerisms.
Gun and weapon laws traditionally were about keeping guns in the hands of the established American, typically white and owning property. Out of the hands of the poor.
However in America even the poor are supposed to have the right to self defense, after all guess who is the primary victims of poor violent criminals? Their neighbors. So it is also poor often minorities in most desperate need of defense.
So it was not right, but prior to the civil rights era, and certainly for a time after that in the South, many gun laws are in fact race and class based.
Many of those same laws are still on the books, though as in the case of California are now applied to people irregardless of ethnicity.
Today though I think that clouds the issue.
Today new gun laws are more about reducing ownership among all civilians, and especially poor and middle class. Leaders from around the world have agreed, and the UN has plenty of treaties trying to reduce small arms in the hands of civilians. Nobody cares about small arms in police and military hands. Tactical paramilitary police forces that look like special operations commandos and operate from armored cars are encouraged, but guns in the hands of the rabble is discouraged.
Leaders never liked the average rabble armed, they pose a threat to their power, and a threat to their safety. How does the population being armed benefit them? How does it benefit them if that population is disarmed, except for their own bodyguards and the police force?
If you were the President, with plenty of people willing to kill you even at the expense of their own life all over, would you like that much of the population is well armed? How about a member of Congress, very aware of incidents like with Giffords being shot (and people had warned not to appear in public like that out of fear of just such a thing.) Do you not think you would fear the masses being armed? Know you are at risk in public, and depend on your armed security and spending little time in unsecured public places.
That is without even going into how to impacts power.
So they want guns in general to be owned by less of the population, but they focus on what they feel are the most effective legal guns first.
They already banned rockets, select fire weapons, weapons over a certain bore diameter (even the .50 BMG is considered mediocre on a modern battlefield where most mounted guns are 20-30mm cannons), and other modern individual weapons of war, and so instead they move on to the next thing, semi autos that are similar to the select fire weapons they already banned. If they had those banned they would be moving on to pistols and shotguns, starting with semi autos, or those over a certain capacity. It doesn't stop and you only need to see how it is in nations similar to ours, England and Australia.
Gun control at the local levels, before the modern elements which are different, was all about keeping guns in the hands of who they wanted to be in control. Well back then they didn't have large police forces, and depended more on a community effort.
They didn't want poor people, minorities, etc, with guns or a host of other weapons.
The latest poor immigrant group was often the target of the latest arms controls because quite frankly they were behind a lot of the new crime, and were also foreign and scary while taking jobs away from the more established Americans.
At one point that was Scottish and Irish, at others it was Italians, and for most of the time it was the blacks and Native Americans.
You see dirks, (Scottish name) daggers and other fighting blades banned many places, were a weapon more common among the poor.
These knife and other laws are often targeting poor immigrant groups, regardless of ethnicity.
Which still is in place years later in many places, including Texas with its limits on Bowie and other fighting knives.
Why would you have a society that could freely carry guns, but limited knives? Because poor people could get knives easily, but only a small percentage would get an expensive handgun.
You see gun laws like the ones that limited people the the Army or Navy pistol in some places, because that set a minimum price by limiting you to quality firearms of the time. Limiting what poor could afford a handgun and become thus armed.
Classism and racism is behind most weapon laws in US history.
You see a lot of martial arts or Asian immigrant weapons targeted by bans in places that had the poor Chinese building the railroads or having opium dens.
California's first law that required a permit to carry concealed (could still carry openly without one) was said to target Hispanic and Asian people engaged in crime based on a papers of the time, Tong wars, or Hispanic Vendettas for example mentioned in one of the more infamous ones. They felt Hispanics were prone to shooting it out over disputes, and Chinese were engaged in organized crime turf battles.
That same law is the one now applied to everyone and in the more populated counties used to deny everyone the ability to legally carry.
It doesn't make restricting them right, but most violent crime is committed by poor people.
The biggest single cause of homicide in the US since the 1980s is the gangster culture, with an emphasis on drugs, clubs, loose women, and fighting rivals.
It is little wonder entire communities with a large percentage of that are falling apart.
Part of the problem with race issues in the US today is the majority is too politically correct and has been for decades.
Out west I can tell you racism is overly claimed by minorities and only a small percentage of 'whites' are racist, but most black families and a large percentage of poorer hispanics seem really focused on ethnicity and race. While rarely hearing any reference to race from whites you hear race referenced all the time by minorities.
Maybe things are different in Southern households where race tensions were traditionally greater.
I would conclude minorities are raised more racist in the USA, taught they were victims through the mandatory curriculum of school, and then use that as the excuse for any shortcomings in life. While the majority white won't tolerate racism against the minorities, the minorities often encourage racism among each other and incorporate it as part of the culture. Referencing race regularly. It is socially acceptable to be a moderately racist minority, and is even referenced in popular culture all the time.
A black man is far safer walking through a poor white neighborhood than a white man walking through a poor black neighborhood.
Now if you look at modern statistics on crime, with blacks committing about 50% of all murders (most victims are also black) and being several fold more likely to commit murder or violent crime than any other ethnicity, while only being around 13% of the population, I would certainly imagine that is not the segment of society local governments want well armed.
Nobody wants to actually reference the problem because then they get called on racial profiling.
But Homie-G in the hood, typically a young black male, is the primary perpetrator of most violent crimes in many cities with a sizable black population, yet focusing resources on that demographic results in cries of racism. So you can't tell police to pay special attention to the young black males who have adopted the gangster dress and mannerisms.
Gun and weapon laws traditionally were about keeping guns in the hands of the established American, typically white and owning property. Out of the hands of the poor.
However in America even the poor are supposed to have the right to self defense, after all guess who is the primary victims of poor violent criminals? Their neighbors. So it is also poor often minorities in most desperate need of defense.
So it was not right, but prior to the civil rights era, and certainly for a time after that in the South, many gun laws are in fact race and class based.
Many of those same laws are still on the books, though as in the case of California are now applied to people irregardless of ethnicity.
Today though I think that clouds the issue.
Today new gun laws are more about reducing ownership among all civilians, and especially poor and middle class. Leaders from around the world have agreed, and the UN has plenty of treaties trying to reduce small arms in the hands of civilians. Nobody cares about small arms in police and military hands. Tactical paramilitary police forces that look like special operations commandos and operate from armored cars are encouraged, but guns in the hands of the rabble is discouraged.
Leaders never liked the average rabble armed, they pose a threat to their power, and a threat to their safety. How does the population being armed benefit them? How does it benefit them if that population is disarmed, except for their own bodyguards and the police force?
If you were the President, with plenty of people willing to kill you even at the expense of their own life all over, would you like that much of the population is well armed? How about a member of Congress, very aware of incidents like with Giffords being shot (and people had warned not to appear in public like that out of fear of just such a thing.) Do you not think you would fear the masses being armed? Know you are at risk in public, and depend on your armed security and spending little time in unsecured public places.
That is without even going into how to impacts power.
So they want guns in general to be owned by less of the population, but they focus on what they feel are the most effective legal guns first.
They already banned rockets, select fire weapons, weapons over a certain bore diameter (even the .50 BMG is considered mediocre on a modern battlefield where most mounted guns are 20-30mm cannons), and other modern individual weapons of war, and so instead they move on to the next thing, semi autos that are similar to the select fire weapons they already banned. If they had those banned they would be moving on to pistols and shotguns, starting with semi autos, or those over a certain capacity. It doesn't stop and you only need to see how it is in nations similar to ours, England and Australia.
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