What gun control is all about

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While my greatgrandfather was not Catholic or an African-American, greatgrandfather did make booze during Prohibition (e.g. apple schnapps) and even ran it himself (Terre Haute and Indy). The Klan also served as de facto (and de jure) Probihition Agents. Rifle fire deterred a nighttime "investigation". He bought a Colt Monitor after that.

You would think of all the ethnic groups in the USA that African-Americans would be the most ardent RKBA zealots. If I were African-American, my current collection would look like a starter kit.:D

Didn't a prominent Civil Rights leader use a .444 Marlin to defend his house once? Wasn't it Medgar Evers before he was murdered???
 
Didn't gun control in the States start with banning blacks from owning guns after the civil war?
 
Tejon, it must have been .45-70 Gov--I'm pretty sure that .444 Marlin isn't that old, because I'm also pretty sure that it is based on the .44 magnum, which was only seven or eight years old at the time Medgar Evers was killed.

Ah, yes, I googled it, and Chuckhawks sez it came out in '64, and Medgar Evers was killed in '63.
 
"2nd Amendment Aided the Civil Rights Movement"
Are there many people here who remember the events of the early sixties?
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There are two sides to that coin. Yes, I was there and I saw first hand how the second amendment also set some very real boundaries on the anarchy that ensued. It was before the term "neighborhood watch" originated but that didn't seem to matter one bit.

That's why the downtown areas got hit so hard. No people lived there.
 
Link works fine for me. Text below:


Second Amendment Freedoms Aided the Civil Rights Movement
By Ken Blackwell
Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Prominent and indispensable among our rights is the "right of the people to keep and bear arms." Second Amendment rights, never to be infringed, were posited by our nation’s founders as among the most essential tenets of the free and just republic they sought to establish.

The empowering freedom of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is particularly timely during Black History Month, for its role in the victory of civil rights for all is sorely overlooked.

As the nation reflects on the struggles and achievements of our African-American citizens, we must celebrate the actions of heroic civil rights activists known as the Deacons for Defense. In the fight for equality, these brave men utilized their right to bear arms to protect their families, possessions and liberties.

Unfortunately, these freedom fighters are seldom mentioned as an important part of African-American history.

Even prominent civil rights movement chronicler Taylor Branch gives the Deacons only passing mention in his three-volume work on the movement during the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. years.

In his 2004 book, The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement, Tulane University history professor Lance Hill tells their story. Hill writes of how a group of southern working class black men advanced civil rights through direct action to protect members of local communities against harassment at schools and polling places, and to thwart the terror inflicted by the Ku Klux Klan. He argues that without the Deacon’s activities the civil rights movement may have come to a crashing halt.

The spring and summer of 1964 were landmark periods for civil rights. In growing numbers, Southerners marched against segregation. The battle over race lit Louisiana aflame. In response to civil rights activism, the Klan wreaked havoc on black neighborhoods, but soon found itself face-to-face with the Deacons.

Following a KKK night ride in Jonesboro, the Deacons approached the police chief who had led the parade and informed him that they were armed and unafraid of self-defense. The Klan never rode through Jonesboro again. Local cross burnings ceased when warning shots were fired as a Klansmen’s torch met a cross planted in front of a black minister’s home. The initial desegregation of Jonesboro High School was threatened by firemen who aimed hoses at black students attempting to enter the building. When four Deacons arrived and loaded their shotguns, the firemen left and the students entered unscathed. It was this series of efforts by the Deacons that caused the Klan to leave Jonesboro for good.

Similar work in Bogalusa, Louisiana drove the KKK out of that town as well, and led to a turning point in the civil rights movement. Acting as private citizens in lawful employment of their constitutional rights, the Deacons demonstrated the real social impact of the freedoms our nation’s founders held dear.

As legendary civil rights leader Roy Innis recently said to me, the Deacons forced the Klan to re-evaluate their actions and often change their undergarments.

Their actions in the mid 1960s had perhaps more impact on the progress of civil rights than did President Eisenhower’s 1957 dispatching of troops to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

That gun rights have played such a pivotal role in racial equality makes the historical correlation between gun control and discriminatory policies unsurprising. From their beginnings, gun control measures have worked to create legal disparities, granting unequal rights to members of various socioeconomic groups.

In fact, restrictive gun laws have long been employed to the benefit of a select elite while circumscribing the liberty of populations less popular or less powerful.

Gun control measures, from the slave gun bans of the 1700s South to the Brady Bill regulations of the 1990s have unfairly targeted black Americans and have worked to curtail a disproportionate number of their constitutional rights. Access to firearms was understood by our founders and many early American jurists as an essential aspect of full US citizenship, and it was for this reason that the Black Codes established after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment -- which constitutionally abolished slavery -- prevented black freemen from owning guns.

In prohibiting blacks from exercising the freedoms granted other Americans in the Second Amendment, the Black Codes emphasized the notion that African-Americans were not true citizens with full human rights. This point was raised by the Majority in Dred Scott v. Sanford in defense of the institution of slavery. By the 1870’s, preventing Blacks from having access to guns had become one of the primary goals of the Ku Klux Klan.

As Gun Owners of America President Larry Platt shared with me this summer and wrote in 2004 regarding the Deacons, the history of gun control appears to have been one of controlling people rather than reducing violence.

Examining both our nation’s constitution and the history of gun rights in America, the right to keep and bear arms has been at the forefront of our nation’s march to liberty and equality. The Second Amendment, which empowers Americans to embrace all of the freedoms and responsibilities their citizenship entails, has been the catalyst of tremendous social progress. While some may dismiss the centrality of gun ownership to “progressive” ideals, groups such as the Deacons for Defense have shown us that a citizenry understanding of their rights to bear arms is one likely to understand and defend our basic civil rights and the principles of equality and freedom.

Ken Blackwell is the former Secretary of State of Ohio.
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>
> Subject: Darrell Scott Testimony
>
>
> Guess our national leaders didn't expect this, hmm? On Thursday,
> Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine
> High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, was invited to address
> the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee What he said to our
> national leaders during this special session of Congress was painfully
> truthful. They were not prepared for what he was to say, nor was it
> received well. It needs to be heard by every parent, every teacher,
> every politician, every sociologist, every psychologist, and every
> so-called expert! These courageous words spoken by Darrell Scott are
> powerful, penetrating, and deeply personal. There is no doubt that God
> sent this man as a voice crying in the wilderness. The following is a
portion of the transcript:
>
> "Since the dawn of creation there has been both good and evil in
> the hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or
> the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy
> Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other eleven
> children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.
>
> "The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his
> brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used..
> neither was it the NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer
> was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain's
heart.
>
>
> "In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed
> at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA.
> I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a
> gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA - because I don't
> believe that they are responsible for my daughter's death. Therefore I
> do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had
> anything to do with Rachel's murder I would be their strongest opponent.
> I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy
> - it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where
> the real blame lies! Much of the blame lies here in this room. Much of
> the blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers
> themselves." I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my
> feelings best. This was written way before I knew I would be speaking here
today:
>
>
>
> Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
> Your words are empty air.
> You've stripped away our heritage,
> You've outlawed simple prayer.
> Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
> And precious children die.
> You seek for answers everywhere,
> And ask the question "Why?"
> You regulate restrictive laws,
> Through legislative creed.
> And yet you fail to understand,
> That God is what we need!
>
>
>
> "Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body,
> soul, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our
> make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to
> rush in and reek havoc. Spiritual presences were present within our
> educational systems for most of our nation's history. Many of our
> major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical
> fact. What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor
> God, and in so doing, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And
> when something as terrible as Columbine's tragedy occurs --
> politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They
> immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to
> erode away our personal and private liberties. We do not need more
> restrictive laws. "Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal
> detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months
> planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own
hearts.
> "As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and
> saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes - He did not
> hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him
> that right! I challenge every young person in America , and around the
> world, to realize that on April 20, 1999 , at Columbine High School
> prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers
> offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new
> millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your
> God-given right to communicate with Him. To those of you who would
> point your finger at the NRA - I give to you a sincere challenge. Dare
> to examine your own heart before casting the first stone! My
> daughter's death will not be in vain! The young people of this country
will not allow that to happen!"
>
> Do what the media did not - - let the nation hear this man's speech.

> Please send this out to everyone you can.
 
My apologies, was the article by Ken Blackwell or Ken Blanchard?
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Oops...mine too.

But check out the link on the site I provided, "History of Gun Control."

Great stuff.

And an amazing coincidence in content.
 
If I were African-American, my current collection would look like a starter kit.
Click to expand...

Well.. I am and Im trying to do my part. :)
IMO, you dont see more interest in firearms among blacks is because guns are either associated with inner city violence/crime or racist redneck types.
 
But check out the link on the site I provided, "History of Gun Control."
Click to expand...

I have, thank you. I actually made the same mistake looking for the original article on Mr. Blanchard's site before I realized it was a different author.
 
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