glennreynolds081029

“We are often told that gun control is more appropriate for ‘urban’ areas than for rural ones, but one key difference between rural and urban areas is that the latter are more heavily populated by African Americans and other minorities. If–as is often the case in today’s discourse, ‘urban’ is a synonym for ‘black,’ then what does it mean to say that gun control is more approriate in urban settings?” — Glenn Harlan Reynolds,  in foreword to “The Second Amendment as Ordinary Constitutional Law“

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

23 COMMENTS

  2. More importantly, when anti-gun studies say “some people” are prone to “impulsive” anger and therefore should not have (or carry) a gun (see here http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-angry-impulsive-gun-access-20150408-story.html), who exactly do they mean? My take: They are just perpetuating the stereotype of angry urban minorities who should not have guns. The real question – why aren’t urban minorities mad about anti-gun studies that stereotype them as somehow less than human, unable to control their emotions.

    • Too me, That particular article was trying to stereotype gun owners as unstable and angry, they never mentioned race.

      FBI crime stats do say that the highest crimes rates are among Blacks, then Hispanic, then the lowest are among white and Asians.

      Does this fact perpetuate “stereotypes” that Urban minorities are more prone to having a violent and/or criminal history?

      I lived in an Urban ghetto area for almost ten years, mostly hispanic. It was a hispanic gang member that tried to mug me. There were three hispanic drug gangs in a ten block area with drive by’s and turf wars with bullets flying overhead between those hispanice gangs and another turf war with a black gang trying to move into the area.

      But I also knew that the vast majority of hispanic people in the “hood” were law abiding, working hard to make a better life for themselves.

      It was only a small minority of the those “urban Youts”, black and hispanic, that were involved in criminal activity.

      These facts are only bad “stereotypes” if people try to say that all minorities are criminals because of the actions of an even smaller minority among them.

    • The “should not haves” have ALWAYS been the non-WASP vulgarians. The “betters” pay full lip service to those on lower rungs but won’t go near them. The best example is the NYS Sullivan Law written by a Tammany Hall hack named Big Tim Sullivan who was committed less them 90 days later to a mental institution as his brain was eaten up by advanced STD.

      His bosses wanted to disarm unionists, Jews, blacks, Hispanics, Italians, Poles, Slavs and any other of the “wrong people” they could think of.

  3. Now because we are of the gun we are raciest? Don’t those people realized the truth about the first gun law’s in this nation? And how by supporting ani gun laws they are actually the one’s supporting institutional racism?

  4. I read that gun control laws were originally enacted to keep firearms away from African-American citizens. Looks like it is still that way.

  5. Yeah, IIRC obama mentioned it in a speech. Something about “Kansas gun laws would not be appropriate for Chicago.” I’ve got a feeling he wasn’t referring to population density, because in the 90’s (when he was cutting his teeth in Chicago) the gun control movement was shamelessly using the “gang violence” whistle to justify the AWB, even after the shceiststorm with Bush srs “Willie Horton” ad. It has always been pretty brazen on that side.

  7. There were a few other notable statements in the essay:

    “If the right to own a gun is protected by the Constitution, then
    efforts to treat it as, in effect, a deviant act must be disfavored, and
    those in terrorrem aspects now look more like efforts to chill the
    exercise of a protected right.”

    “Though the state might prefer to sacrifice citizens’ lives and safety in
    order to limit gun ownership, such a sacrifice is not permitted. This
    indicates that individual citizens’ lives and autonomy are
    themselves, in some important aspects, beyond the power of the
    state to sacrifice.”

    Wonder what the anti-2As say about those?

  8. The entire abstract was very good reading.

    Yeah, what up with that “urban” prejudice.? Well, Bloomberg did say that it was the Urban Youts that shouldn’t have guns.

    My belief, if your not in jail, no one should be denied their natural and G-D given of self defense with the best weapon available.

    And if they show by their actions they can’t be trusted with that right, and they weren’t killed by those they preyed upon with their own self-defense weapon, back to jail they go, but with increased penalties and no plea bargaining.

  9. Glenn’s got it right. Remember when Bloomberg said black men in their 20’s need to be disarmed, and then ‘persuaded’ whoever held the video footage of him making this statement not to publicly release it? He didn’t bother making any distinction between a young black Marine Corps vet or a gangster. They usually aren’t that forthright, but it’s still what they mean.

  10. Drugs, guns, night time, dogs, strangers, it’s always just fear of the black man.

    Sometimes I think those who boil everything down to racism might be right. Only their solution is often just more racism.

  11. Democrats in the Michigan legislature have stated they don’t want to loosen our gun laws because of the blacks in Detroit and Flint.

  14. Seems to me that the effort toward gun-control is aimed at OFWGs; i.e., depriving the law-abiding of the RKBA. Criminals can always be incarcerated for the crime of felon-in-posession; quite a different sort of measure to control who has access to which kinds-of-guns.
    The problem with violence- and accidents- with-guns is primarily with suicides and secondarily with individuals with a history of crime (and those with whom they associate). Understandably, surviving loved-ones of suicides / criminal-violence / accident victims are desperate for any measure with the faintest promise of reducing future incidents. And, there is the opportunity for insight.
    Somehow, we need to communicate the idea that regulating OFWGs’ use of guns is far off-the-mark. There is virtually no gun-control measure – applied to the law-abiding – that will result in a measurable reduction in suicide, crime or accidents. Suicides will usually find some alternative means. Criminals will always have a black market. Accidents are a consequence of lack-of-training and lack-of-discipline.
    There is no short-cut around the need for a culture-change in the “hood”. The law-abiding in the inner-city need to look inward – into their own culture – and find solutions to the problems corroding their own culture.
    Likely, they will find no effective solution any time soon. Even so, they ought to realize that controlling gun-usage by the law-abiding is NOT the answer. That recognition would be a great leap forward.

  15. Gun control is, as it has always been and forever shall be, meant exclusively to be enforced against people that aren’t white. It’s racist, classist, and sexist.

    That’s exactly how I label every gun control advocate I debate with, and they’re never able to shake it.

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