2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
- 111,977
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Great article by David Kopel...he explains how liberty and equality are part of the gun experience in the U.S......while gun control was racist and anti-freedom...
In US History, the Right to Arms Is Associated With Liberty, Legal Equality; Gun Control Isn't
If The New York Times’ project is historically accurate, then it will explain that America’s unique arms culture predates slavery, and historically developed in opposition to slavery. By contrast, American gun control had a close connection with slavery and the maintenance of a racial caste system.
Throughout U.S. history, the right to bear arms has been associated with liberty and legal equality, and gun control with the opposite.
The New York Times chose the “1619” name because that was the year the first slaves were imported into British North America, in Virginia. That’s the founding year for gun control in America, with a Virginia statute forbidding blacks and Indians to have arms, unless they were issued a license “to keep and use guns, powder, and shot.”
By contrast, gun rights in America were solidly established before 1619—indeed, before the first colonists landed at Jamestown. When the Virginia colonists set sail from England in 1606, they brought with them the first express written guarantee of arms rights in the English-speaking world, the Virginia Company charter granted earlier that year by England’s King James I.
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Racist Gun Control
Unlike American gun culture, gun control in America did grow out of slavery. Most colonies at one time or another attempted to limit arms sales to hostile Indians, which were, legally speaking, foreign nations. None of these gun controls had much success.
But gun controls for blacks were a different matter.
The colonies with large slave populations also had significant populations of free blacks. South of the Mason-Dixon line, various laws were enacted against unauthorized arms possession by slaves, and sometimes against free blacks as well. In the South, slave patrols searched slave quarters to look for unauthorized arms.
Today, some people believe a bogus theory that the Second Amendment was created for the sole purpose of suppressing slave insurrections. But this can’t explain the ardent support for arms rights in Massachusetts, where slavery had already been abolished by 1791, or in Pennsylvania, where slavery was rare and already on its way to extinction.
In fact, American abolitionists such as Joel Tiffany and Lysander Spooner later used the Second Amendment to argue that slavery was unconstitutional: The distinction between a free person and a slave is that the latter is forbidden to possess arms. Because the Constitution guaranteed all persons the right to keep and bear arms, it thereby implicitly forbade slavery.
In US History, the Right to Arms Is Associated With Liberty, Legal Equality; Gun Control Isn't
If The New York Times’ project is historically accurate, then it will explain that America’s unique arms culture predates slavery, and historically developed in opposition to slavery. By contrast, American gun control had a close connection with slavery and the maintenance of a racial caste system.
Throughout U.S. history, the right to bear arms has been associated with liberty and legal equality, and gun control with the opposite.
The New York Times chose the “1619” name because that was the year the first slaves were imported into British North America, in Virginia. That’s the founding year for gun control in America, with a Virginia statute forbidding blacks and Indians to have arms, unless they were issued a license “to keep and use guns, powder, and shot.”
By contrast, gun rights in America were solidly established before 1619—indeed, before the first colonists landed at Jamestown. When the Virginia colonists set sail from England in 1606, they brought with them the first express written guarantee of arms rights in the English-speaking world, the Virginia Company charter granted earlier that year by England’s King James I.
------
Racist Gun Control
Unlike American gun culture, gun control in America did grow out of slavery. Most colonies at one time or another attempted to limit arms sales to hostile Indians, which were, legally speaking, foreign nations. None of these gun controls had much success.
But gun controls for blacks were a different matter.
The colonies with large slave populations also had significant populations of free blacks. South of the Mason-Dixon line, various laws were enacted against unauthorized arms possession by slaves, and sometimes against free blacks as well. In the South, slave patrols searched slave quarters to look for unauthorized arms.
Today, some people believe a bogus theory that the Second Amendment was created for the sole purpose of suppressing slave insurrections. But this can’t explain the ardent support for arms rights in Massachusetts, where slavery had already been abolished by 1791, or in Pennsylvania, where slavery was rare and already on its way to extinction.
In fact, American abolitionists such as Joel Tiffany and Lysander Spooner later used the Second Amendment to argue that slavery was unconstitutional: The distinction between a free person and a slave is that the latter is forbidden to possess arms. Because the Constitution guaranteed all persons the right to keep and bear arms, it thereby implicitly forbade slavery.
