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Gun control genesis lies in racism
By Erik Wiesner
ewiesner@mscd.edu

A lot of arguments get tossed around in the gun control debate, and I’m sure you’ve heard most of them before. However, that doesn’t mean the public discourse on guns involves all the facts. Rarely mentioned is the origin of U.S. gun control. Just as drugs were originally only illegal for certain immigrant and minority groups, gun control comes from laws designed to maintain white dominance and slavery.

Gun control began in America long before the creation of the United States. In the 16th century, for example, New Spain made it illegal for all blacks, free or slave, to carry weapons. Virginia, in 1640, enacted laws banning slaves from carrying weapons “including clubs,” and outlawing “free Mulattoes, Negroes, and Indians” from carrying arms. In 1751, the French Black Code in Louisiana authorized whites to attack “any black carrying any potential weapon.”

U.S. independence didn’t change things for minorities. Even though the Second Amendment stipulated the right of the people to keep and bear arms, similar racially-based laws continued. The Uniform Militia Act of 1792 required the enrollment and armament of “every free, able-bodied, white male citizen” for militia duty, making sure white people were armed while blacks were often prevented from owning weapons by local laws. When the United States took over New Orleans from the French in 1803, it went so far as to outlaw blacks from learning how to fence. In 1834, Tennessee even changed its constitution from providing for the rights of “freemen” to bear arms to “free white men.”

Such racist anti-weapon laws were not limited to the southern states. An 1831 law in Delaware required free blacks to get court approval before owning guns. The same year, Maryland passed a gun ban on free blacks. Of course, I am not citing every law, but giving a few examples to illustrate the origins of gun control.

Even though the Civil War ended slavery, racist policies and attitudes remained. After the end of the Civil War in 1865, southern states began enacting “black codes” to guarantee that former slaves would remain second-class citizens. In 1866, Alabama prohibited “any person to sell, give, or lend fire-arms or ammunition of any description” to blacks.

Although openly racist laws continued after the Civil War, some also took on politically correct tones. The “Saturday Night Special” laws exemplify this. These laws banned the sale of cheap handguns, ensuring whites would be better armed than minorities. The first such law, in Tennessee, banned the sale of all handguns but the “Army and Navy” models. The legal guns were popular with whites, but were too expensive for most non-whites.

In 1902, the first total ban on handguns was passed in South Carolina, with an exemption for law enforcement and special deputies – special deputies including the Ku Klux Klan. New York enacted a law in 1911 requiring a police-issued permit to own a handgun. The police, naturally, refused most minority applicants (a practice that continues to this day).

A recent practice to enforce racial gun control has involved public housing. In 1988, the Chicago Housing Authority began “Operation Clean Sweep,” which involved the Chicago Police conducting warrantless searches in public housing and seizing all firearms and narcotics. After a complaint was filed, the CHA and CPD backed off and limited their incursions. Despite clear questions of constitutionality, such bans on guns in housing projects continued in other cities.

Today, when we hear how criminals are running rampant and that the “streets aren’t safe for our children,” we know exactly which criminals and which streets are in question. People know full well that the police establishment is not color-blind. It pains me that the history of gun control is one of keeping guns from minorities, and yet nobody knows about this history. Gun control has historically been a racist institution and continues to be.