A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.
The Second Amendment to The Constitution Of The United States. It’s pretty simple, really; the right of all people to own and carry weapons to defend themselves and their freedom is a right that the government shall not interfere with. This right is further codified in many state constitutions. In my home state of Alabama’s constitution, Article I Section 26 states that “[e]very citizen has a fundamental right to bear arms in defense of himself or herself and the state.” I believe, as do many others, that this right is perhaps the most important, as it protects all our other rights. Thus it is my proposition that all gun laws are an infringement! Further, gun control is actually people control, and has historically been used to control poor and marginalized populations from pre-revolution America to freemen aiding those escaping slavery to the Jews in Nazi Germany to the freedom fighters of the Civil Rights era and so on.
Let us first look at my first claim, that every gun law is an infringement. It is a bold statement, I know. Have you read anything by any of our founders that was not bold? There are two words in the Second Amendment that proponents of gun control like to focus on in defense of their point of view. The first being “regulated.” The argument goes that “regulated” means what “regulate/regulations” means now, 250 years later—that the state can control you and tell you how you may or may not use something, how that something can be built/configured, etc. That argument does not pass muster. Firstly because it says, “well regulated militia,” not well regulated firearms. Secondly, because “regulated” in the late 18th century meant to be kept regular and in good working order. The founders were saying that in order to defend their freedom, the people shall be allowed to keep and maintain arms, and they should remain proficient in the use of those weapons.
This brings us to the word “militia.” Gun control proponents argue that “militia” means military/army. At the writing of the 2A there was no standing army. In fact, the country had just fought a war to expel a standing army. The war for independence was not just about taxation without representation as the story goes. The war was about a number of issues. One of the greatest being the occupation of the colonies and over-policing of colonists by the British Red Coats. The militia were the Minute Men, normal citizens prepared to take up their arms and defend themselves, their families, and their neighbors, against a tyrannical government. The militia is, simply put, the people.
Speaking of the people, these same proponents of gun control ignore entirely everything after the second comma of the Second Amendment. It very clearly states “the right of the PEOPLE…” The gentlemen who wrote these words were not ones to mince words. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are both clear evidence that these gentlemen knew very clearly the difference between the government and the people. Had they intended only for the militias of the various states to have said arms they would have written “the right of the militia…” They didn’t! And because the militia is the people, and because the militia is necessary to the security of their freedom, the right of the PEOPLE to own and to carry and to use weapons in defense of themselves and their countrymen shall NOT be infringed. And because the reasoning for and purpose of the 2A is to defend against a tyrannical government, it includes weapons equal to—and if they exist, superior to—any weapons which that government and its army may use against the people. And any attempt to restrict ownership or use of weapons, of ANY weapons, is a clear infringement on the right of the people to protect themselves from anyone, any government, or any occupying army who may try to interfere with their right to life, liberty, or property.
Amongst the American colonies there were a number of laws enacted throughout the 17th and early 18th centuries that prevented “negroes, slave and free” from owning weapons of any kind. Those laws restricted natives and mixed-race people as well. But that was British ruled America. Surely a country founded on the claim “that all men are created equal,” and “to secure the Blessings of Liberty,” would avoid such tyranny going forward, right? Don’t hold your breath.
The Bill of Rights was ratified and added to The Constitution in December of 1791. Less than five months later the Militia Act of 1792 was enacted. The Militia Act granted the President the ability to call up state militias as necessary for national defense. However, also nestled in the Act was this: “[t]hat each and every free able-bodied white male citizen…be enrolled in the militia.” Obvious in that statement is the fallacious notion that white men are somehow superior to everyone else. Hidden in that statement is that the Militia Act, combined with the militia language in the Second Amendment, could now be used to prevent people of color from “lawfully” owning firearms for self defense.
Throughout the 1800s virtually every state, from Deleware to Florida to Texas, put laws on the books preventing blacks from owning weapons. Often referred to as the “slave codes,” these were often presented as preventing slave revolt. In reality they were preventing slaves from self-defense and often prevented free or recently freed slaves from owning weapons for fears they may support slave revolts or otherwise help to free slaves. How many more Harriett Tubman’s might there have been if freemen were able to access firearms?
Post Civil War it was more of the same. When the 14th Amendment was finally ratified in 1868, states shifted to a creative new way to restrict firearm ownership—economially. An 1870 Tennessee law banned the sale and possession of all handguns sans the pricey Colt Navy and Army revolvers. Many whites already owned these from their recent service in the Confederate Army, whereas sharecroppers and other recently freed slaves could not afford them. Arkansas would adopt the same law in 1882. In 1893, Alabama levied a significant tax on handguns, economically restricting both blacks and poor whites from owning the most effective tools for self defense.
Following World War I, the 1919 Versailles Treaty forced Germany to surrender or destroy all of their weapons. The country in turmoil and fearing revolt, it promptly passed laws restricting gun ownership by civilians. In 1928, Germany replaced the firearms ban with firearms registration. When Hitler rose to power he passed legislation banning Jews first from manufacturing, then from posessing firearms. The 1938 Nazi gun laws used in conjunction with the 1928 registration laws simplified the process of disarming Jews and thereby making them vulnerable. These laws may not have paved the way for the Holocaust, but they definitely made its implementation a lot easier.
The Civil Rights Era was another where gun control legislation was used to restrict blacks and their white allies from properly defending themselves. In my home state of Alabama, the concealed weapons permit laws were changed to further restrict blacks from carrying. Prior to 1956, Alabama’s pistol permit law stated that “No person shall carry a pistol, CONCEALED in any vehicle or on or about his person…without a permit.” In 1956 the word concealed was moved a mere four spaces, and a comma moved along with it, so that the law now read, “No person shall carry a pistol in any vehicle, or CONCEALED on or about his person…” It seems trivial, but the difference is significant. Open carry without a permit in Alabama was(is) legal. A person open carrying could get in their vehicle to travel without needing a permit.
This very intentional change in the language now made the act of getting into a vehicle with an openly carried firearm illegal. Combined with the language in the pistol permit issuance laws that said Sheriffs “may” issue a permit, it gave law enforcement the ability to restrict who could carry a pistol in their vehicle. This same “may issue” law was the reason Martin Luther King, Jr. was unable to get a permit to carry a pistol for self defense, even after his home was fire bombed, also in 1956. Reason has a brief article about this here. Alabama remained a “may issue” state until 2013, and although open carry is still legal, the ridiculous “in a vehicle” permit requirement remains.
In 1967, California Governor Ronald Reagan passed the Mulford Act, after the Black Panthers began lawfully carying arms and encouraging blacks to take up arms for defense as is their inalienable right, excepted from government’s purview by the Second Amendment. Proponents of the Mulford Act might argue that the Black Panthers were being intimidating but the reality is that they were making it harder for blacks to be intimidated. After JFK and King, Jr. were assassinated, with rifles, the 1968 Gun Control Act was passed to restrict handguns. Yes, you read that right. It was later repealed and revised to restrict rifles, after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated with a handgun. By now you have to be pe picking up on it, right? It’s not aout safety, it’s about control.
People control under the guise of safety continues today, but it’s nothing new. As long as there are differing castes, rulers and subjects, governments and citizens, wealthy and poor, the former will always try to control the latter. The founders—the ones who insisted on a Bill of Rights, at least—new this. They tried to design a system that would restrict such overarching control. The Second Amendment is a reminder that the government should not interfere with these rights. It is not what grants the right, however. Life, liberty, and property are the foundations of our humanity. Without the right to defense, we lose the right to pursue life, liberty, and property. That is why any attempt to restrict a person’s right to self defense or the tools necessary for defense is an infringement on that right. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
https://www.sedgwickcounty.org/media/29093/the-racist-origins-of-us-gun-control.pdf
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/1327/
https://reason.com/2021/10/27/why-martin-luther-king-couldnt-get-a-carry-permit/
https://www.history.com/news/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-support-mulford-act