Author Attacks Individual Gun Rights By Claiming the Second Amendment Is Rooted In Racism

Civil-rights leaders of the 19th and early 20th centuries also lamented that the right to self-defense was denied them. Fredrick Douglass reacted to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 by editorializing that the best remedy would be “a good revolver, a steady hand, and a determination to shoot down any man attempting to kidnap.” The late-19th-century … Read more

Kopel: The Second Amendment Meant No Person in the U.S. Could Be a Slave

Just a few weeks after the Confederate States surrendered at Appomattox, Frederick Douglass declared: Now, while the black man can be denied a vote, while the Legislatures of the South can take from him the right to keep and bear arms, as they can—they would not allow a negro to walk with a cane where … Read more