2nd Amendment was ratified to preserve slavery

A slave uprising sounds much less paranoid than the guv'ment heel-face turning.

then, as now, the path to ratification is a nuanced and extensive balancing act that often reflects the era in which it was hammered out. that slavery informed the subtext of the wording, or even contributed to the motivation to get it codified, is hardly shocking. it's good for people to know the mentality from which any number of american laws emerged.

for some, the emotional appeal of these types of angles on the gun control debate is intended to make people equate the right to gun ownership with the "master mentality" and, as a result, find it guilt-inducing and deplorable.

but the philosophical underpinnings of the second amendment, specifically that free individuals should have the right to keep arms, is rooted in european political struggle and regarded as a natural right under english law. to think that it would not have been codified in the american constitution, even had slavery not existed, is specious.

Hartmann--the author of the piece--also argued that Scalia should be impeached for the same reason Justice Chase was impeached in 1804. Hartmann--in his analysis--basically ignores reality (Marbury v. Madison, Chase siding with Marshall, and Jefferson's attempt to get rid of that decision by getting the Federalists off the bench) in favor of one-sided spin.

This piece reads the same way. Certainly, Henry used slavery in the Ratification Debates in VA. But he used basically everything he could lay his hands on, in this regard. His biggest fear--expressed numerous times in the Debates--was tyranny on the part of the Federal Government. And he believed--rightly or wrongly--that the principle safeguard in that regard was an armed populace.

Madison it is true thought Henry's fears were misplaced, but that's because he did not believe the Constitution as drafted gave the Federal Government the power to disarm the citizenry. He argues as much in the Federalist Papers.

Nonetheless, Madison ultimately introduced the Second, largely as a means of pacifying Henry and people like him.

And note that Virgina, Georgia, and South Carolina all ratified the Constitution prior to the introduction of the Bill of Rights, which more or less destroys the thesis. If preserving "slave patrols" was such a critical issue, why would these States ratify the Constitution prior to the resolution of the issue?

William Haskins said:

but the philosophical underpinnings of the second amendment, specifically that free individuals should have the right to keep arms, is rooted in european political struggle and regarded as a natural right under english law. to think that it would not have been codified in the american constitution, even had slavery not existed, is specious.

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Agree. It's a Machievellian thing (from his Discourses, not The Prince).

Let's have fun tinkering with an entirely different hisotical position.

Let's explore the claim that the very first US gun control laws were in fact meant to prevent African Americans (ie, the random former slave prior to the Civil War, and then the vast sea of freed slaves slaves after the Civil War) from ever owning guns.

My distinction here is not to sniff out ulterior motives for the Bill of Rights freely allowing ALL citizens to carry arms. Instead I am sniffing out ulterior motives behind dubious colony-level and (later) state-level legislations which selectively disallowed SOME citizens from carrying arms




GUN CONTROL AND RACISM by Stefan B. Tahmassebi, 1991, George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal

http://www.saf.org/lawreviews/tahmassebi1.html

"That all such free Mulattos, Negroes and Indians . . . shall appear without arms." [-- The Virginia Legislature, circa 1823.]

INTRODUCTION

The history of gun control in America possesses an ugly component: discrimination and oppression of blacks, other racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, and other "unwanted elements," including union organizers and agrarian reformers. Firearms laws were often enacted to disarm and facilitate repressive action against these groups.

The first gun control laws were enacted in the ante-bellum South forbidding blacks, whether free or slave, to possess arms, in order to maintain blacks in their servile status. After the Civil War, the South continued to pass restrictive firearms laws in order to deprive the newly freed blacks from exercising their rights of citizenship. During the later part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, gun control laws were passed in the South in order to disarm agrarian reformers and in the North to disarm union organizers. In the North, a strong xenophobic reaction to recent waves of immigrants added further fuel for gun control laws which were used to disarm such persons. Other firearms ownership restrictions were adopted in order to repress the incipient black civil rights movement....

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Thaddeus Russell on Gun Control’s Racist Roots, Dec. 21, 2011, "Hit & Run Blog" Reason

http://reason.com/blog/2011/12/21/thaddeus-russell-on-gun-controls-racist

From our January 2012 issue, historian Thaddeus Russell reviews the new book Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America [written by Adam Winkler]. Not only does Gunfight establish that the first gun control organizations in the United States were the posses that terrorized freed slaves after the Civil War, Russell writes, the book also shows how gun control has long gone hand in hand with fear of black people—and of The People....

http://reason.com/archives/2011/12/21/controlling-guns-controlling-people

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The Racist Roots of Gun Control by Clayton E. Cramer, 1993

http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/cramer.racism.html

The historical record provides compelling evidence that racism underlies gun control laws -- and not in any subtle way. Throughout much of American history, gun control was openly stated as a method for keeping blacks and Hispanics "in their place," and to quiet the racial fears of whites. This paper is intended to provide a brief summary of this unholy alliance of gun control and racism, and to suggest that gun control laws should be regarded as "suspect ideas," analogous to the "suspect classifications" theory of discrimination already part of the American legal system.

Racist arms laws predate the establishment of the United States. Starting in 1751, the French Black Code required Louisiana colonists to stop any blacks, and if necessary, beat "any black carrying any potential weapon, such as a cane." If a black refused to stop on demand, and was on horseback, the colonist was authorized to "shoot to kill...."

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I've never heard this side of the story before, and I have no idea how valid it is, but I will say it's interesting and not entirely beyond belief, either.

Well, it's long been argued that one purpose of the 14th Amendment was to preserve the right of black freedmen to protect themselves from white racist violence.

The fact that there's such a large overlap today between the white racists and NRA members just shows, I guess, how slippery these ideas can be.

This concept may well have contributed to the crafting of the 2nd Amendment, but I tend to fall on the side of Haskins's previous comment. The 2nd was an artifact of its time, and lots of threads of social thought came together in its articulation. Not least of which was the firearm technology of the time, which was pretty primitive. Not one of the founders ever considered the development of individually-borne weapons-of-mass-destruction, the kinds of things that have enabled the James Holmeses and Adam Lanzas and Seun-hui Chos and others to perpetrate the horrors they did. Nor did the founders have knowledge of the psychology of suicidal mass destruction involved in our modern mass shooting events. We still don't understand that, but they didn't even have it on their radar (come to think of it they didn't have radar).

The concerns of the founders were various, but certainly included a justified paranoia about foreign invasion, primarily from the pissed-off British, and which in fact did come to pass in 1812. There was also a concern about personal safety, not so much from criminal peers as from hostile natives, and also justified. I really don't think they gave as much weight to the possibility of, say, Pennsylvania invading Virginia, but I suppose that was a possibility in the minds of some.

But, the schism between North and South over slavery had already been born, and was by then at least a toddler, able to walk. The difference in industrial development between North and South had also already begun to develop, along with associated population disparities. Southern agricultural property owners were mightily invested in 'the peculiar institution' of slavery, and it had evolved its own peculiar culture and practices, unique to this part of the new nation. Those practices included a deep paranoia about a slave revolt and 'slave patrol militias'.

In the Year of Our Lord 2013, I think all that analysis and debate is pretty useless for purposes other than historical. What we need to come to grips with now is what does the 2nd Amendment mean, meaningfully, to today's United States of America. It isn't going to go away, other than by amendmental repeal, in the way the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th. I'm actually not sure a Bill of Rights Amendment can be repealed in that manner, but wouldn't support doing so in any case.

HOWEVER, the 2nd Amendment does not say that individuals have the right to possess any 'arm' they choose, and courts have already established that there can be limitations on the sorts of weapons that can be owned legally, on the basis of primary utility. A sawed-off shotgun, for example, is illegal pretty much everywhere, because its only practical use is for criminal purposes. Fully automatic weapons require a license from a federal agency, involving establishment of justification for possession and use of such.

On that basis comes the current debate about 'assault rifles'. A large part of that will involve defining what those are. But the concept that the 2nd Amendment provides a blanket protection for individuals owning such things, along with high-capacity magazines, armor-piercing ammunition, etc., is bogus.

caw

William Haskins said:

but the philosophical underpinnings of the second amendment, specifically that free individuals should have the right to keep arms, is rooted in european political struggle and regarded as a natural right under english law.

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No it's not. The experience of the English Civil War turned the English completely against anyone having arms. There was strong opposition even to having an army on home soil in case it decided to intervene in political matters, as had happened in Cromwellian and Cavalier times. The quid pro quo for this demilitarisation was that the citizenry also shouldn't be armed, and that's been the English way for a long time now.

The North Carolina procedure for obtaining a state Pistol Purchase Permit is administered on a county level by county sheriffs throughout the state, and each sheriff is given full discretionary power to deny a pistol permit of whomever he wants, for whatever reason that the sheriff wants to deny it. This arbitrary aspect of who gets approved for a permit and who doesn't was deliberately built into the system for the specific purpose of discriminating against blacks.

From the official web site of the North Carolina Rifle and Pistol Association, on their FAQ page concerning gun ownership in North Carolina....


http://www.ncrpa.org/faq/ownership.shtml

Q: You said that I have to get a Pistol Purchase Permit to receive a handgun as a gift. My father wants to give me a handgun for my 21st birthday. Do I really have to get a permit for a birthday gift?

A: Yes. NC law makes no distinction between purchases or gifts, and makes no distinction between strangers or relatives when it comes to transfer of a handgun. You must go through the legal process in order to obtain a handgun in North Carolina. There are no exceptions, except for Concealed Handgun Permit holders.

Q: What is the deal with this Pistol Purchase Permit law? I moved from one NC county to another and found that the Sheriffs of each county have vastly different requirements for getting Permits. Isn't this covered by State law?

A: The Pistol Purchase Permit law was passed in 1919, and is a classic piece of Jim Crow-era legislation (Jim Crow History). The recognition of civil rights for blacks and other minorities meant that the Constitution applied to minorities. This meant that blacks and other minorities could exercise their natural right to self-defense, with the full support of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution and Article I, Sec. 30 of the North Carolina Constitution. This did not sit well with the Ku Klux Klan (which for many years was headquartered in Raleigh, just down the street from the Legislature) and other racist groups and influential individuals. The racist members of the State Legislature knew they could not overtly prevent minorities from purchasing handguns for protection, so the seemingly innocent Pistol Purchase Permit law was passed. This law allowed local Sheriffs and government officials to discriminate with impunity at the local level.

Even today, the Pistol Purchase Permit law is implemented in an arbitrary and capricious fashion by 100 individual County Sheriffs. Some Sheriffs do little more than collect the fees and hand out permits to the law-abiding, because more than that is not necessary. Others implement ridiculous, intrusive requirements that either discriminate on a wholesale basis or are selectively applied so that discrimination can be more personalized.

With the advent of the National Instant Check System (NICS) there is no public safety reason why the Pistol Purchase Permit system needs to continue. The Jim Crow era is over, and the laws of that era need to be eliminated. Most people agree with that in principle, but for some reason when it comes to guns a significant number of people seem to think that discrimination and arbitrary requirements are a good thing. This is something NCRPA totally disagrees with.

We have been trying for 10 years to get the Pistol Purchase Permit system completely eliminated. Apparently when it comes to gun control a lot of people think Jim Crow is still a good idea.

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I don't know who these asshole are who wrote the above statements on behalf of the NCRPA web site, but obviously they must be from that "large overlap between white racists and NRA members."

Priene said:

No it's not. The experience of the English Civil War turned the English completely against anyone having arms. There was strong opposition even to having an army on home soil in case it decided to intervene in political matters, as had happened in Cromwellian and Cavalier times. The quid pro quo for this demilitarisation was that the citizenry also shouldn't be armed, and that's been the English way for a long time now.

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that's just not true. the english bill of rights, enacted decades after the civil war, went as far as to explicitly address the right to keep arms for defense, in this case reinstating the right of protestants to have guns.

http://davekopel.org/2a/LawRev/It_Isn't_About_Duck_Hunting.htm

The Convention Parliament's efforts to protect the rights of Englishmen to arms met with great success over the next centuries. By the middle of the eighteenth century, Blackstone, after describing the three primary rights of Englishmen--personal security, personal liberty, and private property--then pointed to the five auxiliary rights that served to protect the primary ones:

"The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law ... and it is indeed a public allowance under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.[65]"

Blackstone's treatise immediately became legal orthodoxy in Great Britain and America. He wrote as if he were merely describing an ancient common law right, rather than one that had come into formal existence in 1689. Just as Blackstone had uncritically accepted the Convention Parliament's claim that it was only recognizing old rights, the Anglo-American legal community uncritically accepted Blackstone--at least until Joyce Malcolm came on the scene.

Although the militia eventually withered into nothingness from disuse and a peacetime standing army became normal in Great Britain, the government recognized that the right to arms could be exercised not just by lone homeowners faced with intruders but also by groups. In 1780, after some riots, the Recorder of London-- (p.1351)the city attorney--was asked if the right to arms protected armed groups. He wrote:

"The right of his majesty's Protestant subjects, to have arms for their own defence, and to use them for lawful purposes, is most clear and undeniable. It seems, indeed, to be considered, by the ancient laws of this kingdom, not only as a right, but as a duty; for all the subjects of the realm, who are able to bear arms, are bound to be ready, at all times, to assist the sheriff, and other civil magistrates, in the execution of the laws and the preservation of the public peace. And that right, which every Protestant most unquestionably possesses, individually, may, and in many cases must, be exercised collectively, is likewise a point which I conceive to be most clearly established by the authority of judicial decisions and ancient acts of parliament, as well as by reason and common sense."[66]

The right to arms became so commonly regarded as sacrosanct that even Edward Gibbon, a Tory M.P. and close associate of King George III--whose American governors were working hard to disarm disobedient colonials--could remark that: "A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against enterprises of an aspiring prince."

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The English Bill of Rights doesn't exactly lay out the right to bear arms as absolutely and unequivocally as you are claiming. It appears to me that it only prohibits the monarchy from denying the right to bear arms, but places no such restrictions on Parliament.

That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;

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http://www.constitution.org/eng/eng_bor.htm

who has said "absolutely and unequivocally"?

You and Rob seemed to imply that - if I'm mistaken, I apologize for misinterpreting what you meant.

clintl said:

The English Bill of Rights doesn't exactly lay out the right to bear arms as absolutely and unequivocally as you are claiming. It appears to me that it only prohibits the monarchy from denying the right to bear arms, but places no such restrictions on Parliament.



http://www.constitution.org/eng/eng_bor.htm

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Canada still has the Bill of Rights in effect, checked by the Charter. The most common interpretation of it here is that the Crown may not deny through arbitrary discrimination. The People elected to prohibit handguns, and the People elected to keep registration of long-guns, and then revoked it later.

clintl said:

You and Rob seemed to imply that - if I'm mistaken, I apologize for misinterpreting what you meant.

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i can't speak for rob, though i don't believe he was saying that either.

ETA: i'm pretty simple on gun rights. i believe i have an inherent right as an individual to own a firearm in order to protect and defend my family and my property, with deadly force, if necessary.

outside of that, i think both sides can go to hell with their posturing and selective outrages.

Plot Device said:

The North Carolina procedure for obtaining a state Pistol Purchase Permit is administered on a county level by county sheriffs throughout the state, and each sheriff is given full discretionary power to deny a pistol permit of whomever he wants, for whatever reason that the sheriff wants to deny it. This arbitrary aspect of who gets approved for a permit and who doesn't was deliberately built into the system for the specific purpose of discriminating against blacks.

From the official web site of the North Carolina Rifle and Pistol Association, on their FAQ page concerning gun ownership in North Carolina....


http://www.ncrpa.org/faq/ownership.shtml





I don't know who these asshole are who wrote the above statements on behalf of the NCRPA web site, but obviously they must be from that "large overlap between white racists and NRA members."

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It would make sense if that was the intention behind the law at that time, but that would not stand up to federal scrutiny today, of course. Federal civil rights trump a sheriff's ability to be a racist, absolutely.

The reason that I've heard that folks still like the law is that it is supposed to keep guns out of the hands of obviously anti-social people. The sheriff will know if he's been called to the person's house 20 times for aggressive offenses that can't be prosecuted (the victim not filing charges, for instance). It's supposed to be good that the sheriff can ask the neighbors and workmates about the person, etc.

I don't know if it was in NC, but I have read of cases of going to a court over a sheriff's decision on gun ownership. He can't act outside of federal laws like 1st Amendment rights, etc. The case I'm thinking of had a man turned down because of his political views in letters to the editor.

So, it's still a case of the Bill of Rights trumping local law. One of the biggest problems for the slaves was the definition of a citizen back in the day, imho! If federal law itself treated slaves or PoC as not full American citizens on the same level as White men, that was the elephant in the room at the time, not 2nd Amendment provisions and their motivations, I think.

The thread is very interesting, though, and it shows a lot. I think the motivation behind both sides was very influenced by views on slaves (and immigrants, later). Folks wanted their guns because of racial fears and slave uprisings, and folks wanted to limit guns -- from certain classes of people.

I do know people who believe in their right to be armed because of the Civil Rights struggle and what it exposed. There is a whole Nation of Islam sort of line of thought that gets ignored as an 'American' view, but they are Americans through and through. I don't think they were paranoid. I don't believe in any more armed revolutions here, but they certainly weren't paranoid.

clintl said:

You and Rob seemed to imply that - if I'm mistaken, I apologize for misinterpreting what you meant.

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No, my last post was just to note that William was correct in noting that the philosophical roots of the 2nd extend back to Europe in general and England in particular. Which again is evidence against the idea in the op article, that the 2nd was somehow all about slavery. 'Tis silliness.