“A House Democrat is pushing a package of gun reforms that a recent poll indicates are popular among members of the National Rifle Association (NRA),” thehill.com reports. “Representative Jim Moran (D-Va.) said the legislation — which comes as a response to last week’s massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. — will highlight what he calls a disconnect between NRA members and the group’s leaders, who are in near-blanket opposition to tougher gun laws.” There’s the latest strategy from the gun control industry: marginalize the NRA, divide American gun owners and conquer. It’s not a bad plan (for them). But where is it coming from? History is our guide. Let’s start with voting . . .
In the post-Civil War South, various state governments placed “common sense” conditions on voting. A literacy test, for example. What’s wrong with that? Surely any right thinking person agrees that a person who votes should be able to read and write! A literacy test exclude voters who can’t understand the political system. OK, sure, the literacy test included clauses designed to exempt whites. But the idea was sound, right?
By the same token, why not require that voters pay a tax? A poll tax ensures that they’re economic “stake holders.” I mean, should someone who can’t pay a nominal tax get to decide how taxpayers’ money is spent? Obviously not!
Equally obvious: these laws disenfranchised African Americans. Literacy tests and poll taxes throughout the South infringed upon their right to vote. Oh wait. African Americans didn’t have a right to vote. Not until the 15th Amendment, passed in 1870. Only fully realized by the Voting Rights Act, signed into law in 1965.
On the other hand, all Americans have a Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Have done since 1789. And guess what? As the Supreme Court’s recent McDonald decision pointed out (numerous times), American gun control laws were the firearms equivalent of the literacy test and poll tax: specifically created and designed by southerners to subjugate African Americans.
Modern gun control laws continue this racist legacy through various tests (e.g., concealed carry applications), taxes and restrictions on firearms ownership. And the vast majority of the cities and states that violate the Second Amendment’s prohibition against laws that infringe upon Americans’ right to keep and bear arms have a high concentration of minority citizens.
You want to see gun control in action? Go to New York City. Los Angeles. Chicago. Boston. Camden. And New Haven, Connecticut. The Nutmeg State’s second largest city (New England’s sixth) is 35.4 percent African American.
New Haven is 31 miles from Newtown, Connecticut as the crow flies. More to the point, Newtown Connecticut is just off of Interstate 84. It’s a direct shot to Stamford Connecticut, where 13.2 percent of the population is black. In Newtown itself, 1.75 percent of their population is African American.
At this point, I feel obliged to say that no child deserves to be shot. The blame for the unconscionable slaughter of 20 children at Newton Elementary School lies squarely on the shoulders of Adam Lanza.
But it’s also true that the gun control laws that make it difficult if not impossible for an ordinary citizen in Connecticut to exercise their Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms, the laws that (at least theoretically) left Sandy Hook Elementary School teachers and staff defenseless against a murderous madman, are rooted in racism.
Connecticut, the Constitution State, a state with a long and noble history of firearms manufacture, passed 2A-subverting gun control legislation to disarm their African American population. It may not be quite that blantant, but it’s true. Connecticut’s gun control laws were designed to protect the white public from black criminals.
So how’d that work out? It depends on where you live.
If you live in one of the Connecticut’s minority communities, not so well. According to stats compiled by neighborhoodscout.com, your chances of being a crime victim in New Haven are one in 74. That’s 13.53 crimes per 1000 residents, with 1753 violent crimes last year.
If you live in Newtown, Connecticut the chance of being a victim of crime is one in 2141. That’s .47 crimes per 1000 residents, with 13 violent crimes last year.
Make no mistake: there is a direct connection between violent crime and gun ownership, or lack thereof. You can argue against it all you like, but John Lott’s More Guns, Less Crime is the definitive study on the subject. Its findings couldn’t be more clear: crime is lower where guns are more prevalent.
The hidden truth: states without significant firearms ownership have crime rates that are relatively the same as crime rates as those of states with high gun ownership rates—outside urban areas. The people who suffer most from gun control live in the cities. Within minority communities. Away from the white population.
In short, gun control was, is and always will be a racist policy. It is, in fact, a form of segregation.
The spree killing-related gun control legislation coming down the pike in Connecticut is only possible because of the state’s racist legacy of gun control. While the death of 20 children is horrific beyond imagination, it should be seen in the context of the suffering of Connecticut’s minority communities, who are personally defenseless against the criminals in their midst.
In states which haven’t violated the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, where the government respects the individual’s right to keep and bear arms, assault weapons and “high capacity” magazine bans are politically impossible.
Strangely (or not), the same Southern states whose racism gave birth to gun control are now bastions of gun rights. They’ve moved on. It’s time for northern liberal-minded states to do the same. Until and unless they do so, they are perpetuating racism in its most virulent and dangerous form. And it will continue to haunt them.