From: [s--e--y] at [MCS.COM] (Synergy) Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns Subject: Minorities and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Date: 16 May 1996 00:24:03 -0500 The following article plus photos of many of the people mentioned in it can be found at http://www.amfire.com/afinews/minority.html . There is also a lot of interesting firearms-related information available at that Web site. ======== New Racial Alliances Forming On Gun Ownership Issue Minority Leaders in the Legal, Academic, Media and Political Realms are Increasingly Joining with their Majority Counterparts in the Fight to Preserve Firearms Rights. By Robert Hausman "Minorities do not have a different agenda from other Americans, and have every right, as do their white counter parts, to be able to purchase a firearm without undue restrictions (and in some cases racist policies) implemented by said to be liberal administrations." asserts Ken Hamblin, a black radio talk show host in Denver. "The liberals employ a double-standard by using the presence of the Second Amendment to reinforce their failed social policies. And as soon as they are able to pull down the Second Amendment, they will go after the First, because liberals do not cotton to written or verbal opposition to their views and policies. It is a pitched battle that is reaching its zenith." "Let Citizens Tote Concealed Guns," was the headline on a Chicago Sun-Times editorial in March, 1995 endorsing a bill (The Personal Protection Act of 1995) which would have required Illinois State Police to issue a concealed weapons permit to law-abiding state residents penned by Michelle Stevens, editorial page editor. Stevens (an African-American), cogently asked, "Why should criminals be the only people carrying concealed weapons? Armed violence is running rampant in this country, in reckless defiance of the 20,000 laws aimed at regulating gun use. But those laws haven't done a thing to disarm the gun-toting killers, rapists and robbers." Voicing concerns felt by many Americans, Stevens added, "We don't need more tough talk from politicians. We need the right to arm ourselves so we can defend ourselves...I'd feel more safe with a gun in my purse or pocket, and less like a prisoner forced to stay home behind locked doors. (The) bill would even the lopsided odds against law -abiding citizens who have been disarmed by gun-control laws that do nothing to control crime." Recruiting Black Sportsmen "Firearms ownership is important to all Americans as it is part of the legacy of the civil rights movement of the 1950's and '60's," says Kenneth V.F. Blanchard, a federal law enforcement officer, and one who regularly testifies on behalf of Second Amendment issues. He urges the firearms industry to reach out to minority urban resi dents in their marketing efforts as he believes fostering responsible gun ownership will help to instill traditional American values in those who lack positive role models. And Blanchard practices what he preaches, as he is also president and CEO of African American Arms & Instruction, Inc. (AAAI), and founder of the Tenth Cavalry Gun Club. AAAI, formed in 1992, provides firearms instruction leading to duty certification of security and law enforce ment personnel. Tenth Cavalry is a gun club providing an avenue for those who have not traditionally participated in sport-shooting. Most members live in the greater Washington, DC, area and a new chapter is forming in the New York-New Jersey region. The members recently took a tour of the National Rifle Association's new headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia, and learned "the NRA is not the evil empire," Blanchard explains. "Even if they do not become sports shooters, the exposure they receive to the positive aspects of gun ownership, works wonders in changing their attitude toward Second Amendment issues." Blanchard may be contacted at: PO Box 12424, Arlington, VA 22209, or by calling (301) 772-0817. Another minority gun club is the Motor City Sportsmen's Association started about 12 years ago in Detroit. General Laney, the club's executive director and one of its founders says the need for a range where blacks could shoot prompted its formation. "The white ranges at the time were all members only facilities and the one public range in the area, called Proud Lake, was closed down by the State of Michigan when blacks started going there. We now have a membership of about 400." Laney sees an urgent need for pro-gun organizations to mount membership recruitment drives in the inner cities. "We are losing the fight in urban America and unless we do something about it we will lose as pro-gunners will be out-voted." He challenges pro-gun organizations to undertake this task. Gun Control's Racist Origins "Gun Control Sprouts From Racist Soil," was the title of an article appearing in The Wall Street Journal several years ago penned by Roy Innis, national chairman of the New York-based Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and a member of the NRA's board of directors and executive committee. "What irony. Most black leaders (as distinct from rank-and-file blacks) are supporters, at least in public, of the gun control - really prohibition - movement. Do they realize that America's gun-control movement sprouted from the soil of Roger B. Taney, the racist chief justice who wrote the (US Supreme Court's) infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857?" During the early 19th Century, Scott, a black slave, had been taken by his owner from Missouri, a slave state, to live for a while in Illinois and the Wisconsin terri tory, both free areas. Later he returned with his owner to Missouri. When his owner died, Scott sued for his freedom. The case, which was ultimately heard by the Supreme Court, resulted in Taney's ruling that black people, whether free or slave, were not U.S. citizens. And that if blacks were "entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens...it would give them the right...to keep and carry arms wherever they went." The decision has since been superseded. "By the early 20th Century, carry and ownership licensing laws targeted the large influxes of poor immigrants coming into the country. Unaffected were the rich and powerful who have enjoyed easy access to licenses to carry handguns. For instance, of the 27,000 handgun carry permits in New York City, fewer than 2% are issued to blacks - who live and work in high-crime areas and are most in need of protection," Innis observes. The racist nature of gun control is clearly illustrated in the writing of a Florida state judge in 1941 regarding the purpose of a statute forbidding carry of pistols as intended to "affect only blacks." The case is mentioned in a paper entitled "The Second Amendment: Toward An Afro -Americanist Reconsideration," co-authored by black law professors Robert J. Cottrol, of Rutgers University, Camden, New Jersey, and Raymond Diamond, Tulane Law School, New Orleans. "The original Act of 1893 was passed when there was a great influx of negro laborers in this state drawn here for the purpose of working in the lumber and turpen tine camps. The same condition existed when the Act was passed for the purpose of disarming the negro laborers and to thereby reduce the unlawful homicides that were prevalent in turpentine and saw-mill camps and to give the white citizens in sparsely settled areas a better feeling of security. The statute was never intended to be applied to the white population and, in practice, has never been so applied," the judge wrote. Diamond and Cottrol note: "Throughout history, black and white Americans have had radically different experiences with respect to violence and state protec tion. Today, the state seems powerless in the face of the tragic black-on-black violence in inner cities. And a case can be made that greater firearms restrictions might alleviate this tragedy. But another, perhaps stronger case can be made that a society with a poor record of protecting a people has a dubious claim in the right to disarm them." Similarly, Nicholas Johnson, a black associate professor of law at Fordham University Law School in New York City, finds it "offensive when politicians who are surrounded by armed guards, say that the public should rely solely on a generic public security force for their safety and security." Jewish Perspective Daniel Polsby, a Jewish professor of law at Northwestern University, says firearms "are an obvious last resort. So for African-Ameri cans, at least to the extent that they live in the three or four meanest zip codes in Chicago, there is a self-defense tool, which if you forgoe, at least in some neighborhoods, you will be the only guy on the street who doesn't have a gun. That is asking for trouble. Anyone who does not live in privileged circles in which the arms bearing is done by others, and who may get themselves into a bind that will resolve itself long before the police get there, needs to have a gun." Richard Feldman, the Jewish executive director of the American Shooting Sports Council (ASSC) the trade group which bills itself as being "as pro-gun as our customers," says "I find it particularly sad that American Jews have not learned the lesson that Israelis have - guns may not buy you peace, but they sure keep you safe during times of war. If the Israelis were as disarmed as the B'Nai Brith would like to see Americans, I don't think Israel would have survived the war in 1947 let alone been around to see the peace accords. It was the guns of Israel that kept the country safe when they were attacked, not the good wishes of the B'nai Brith." Historical Perspective Historical perspective on the origins of U.S. gun control is offered by prominent firearms civil rights attorney Stephen Halbrook. "The very first gun laws were the slave codes enacted during the beginning of slavery. They made it unlawful for a black person or a slave to own a firearm or weapon of any kind with the usual punishment being 29 lashes. After the Civil War, Congress passed the Freedmen's Bureau Act in 1865 which included a provision specifically referencing the right to keep and bear arms." "Congress also passed enforcement legislation in the form of the Civil Rights Acts of 1870 and 1871. The policy of the U.S. Justice Department and Attorney General in the early 1870's was to prosecute those who infringed on the right to keep and bear arms of others. Can you imagine Attorney General Janet Reno stating this today?" Halbrook asks. Political Considerations "Gun control bills are really Band-Aids, if that, in their ways of not dealing with the deeper causes of violence in society," says Dr. Lenora B. Fulani, Ph.D., a black developmental psychologist, and an independent candidate for U.S. president in 1992. Fulani also raises an important political point. "Bill of Rights matters have come to be identified as white issues and I have attempted through my political activities to bring together issues of significance to ordinary white and black Americans. A very important bridge to build is that between African-Ameri cans and the white center as they are raising some very similar concerns. Politics is organized to keep them so divided that they can't be of use to each other. I have put a lot of effort into challenging that," Fulani concludes. ======== Robert Hausman is a freelance journalist specializing in firearms issues. He may be reached at P.O. Box 54-1565, Flushing, NY 11354 or by E-Mail to: [103365 2270] at [COMPUSERVE.COM] -- "Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -- William Pitt "The power to tax involves the power to destroy." -- John Marshall Annoy a Fascist: Just Say No to Gun Control! Annoy a Liberaloon: Don't be dependent upon the government.