(This article originally appeared at jpfo.org and is reprinted here with permission.)
By Neil Smith
Less than a hundred years ago, there were laws in many states and localities — not just southern ones, by any means — maliciously written, passed, and enforced for no other reason than to make living just as difficult as it could be for black people, and to make voting, traveling, and doing everyday business in any normal manner all but impossible. Such restrictions were popularly known as “Jim Crow” laws, named for yet another ugly epithet that white bigots reserved for black people. Where I went to high school, for example, there was a nearby town with official signs at the city limits warning black people — in the rudest imaginable terms — not to be there once the sun had gone down . . .
In 1961, an extraordinarily courageous white journalist named John Howard Griffin, had his skin color medically altered and made other cosmetic changes for several weeks, in order to experience the way ordinary black people were forced to live. The simple acts of moving from one city to another, complying with the segregationist policies of bus companies, of trying to find a place to eat, or a decent place to sleep became nightmarishly complicated — if you happened to be black. For some, America was the land of the free and the home of the brave. For others, it was more like living in a bad movie about Nazi Germany.
Griffin wrote a series of magazine articles about what he’d seen and done, later combining them into an amazing book called Black Like Me, which finally became a movie with James Whitmore. As a budding libertarian, there were aspects of the left wing civil rights movement I didn’t like and openly opposed, but the idea that some Americans could be routinely treated the way Griffin described made my blood boil, and deepened my natural loathing for the authority that made it possible.
Rex Stout has overweight, agoraphobic detective Nero Wolfe tell a group of black men who have come to consult with him that had he been born black in such circumstances, he would be in prison, by now, or dead.
Today, Jim Crow laws are making a comeback, and they aren’t just for black people any more. In many cases the same individuals — or their children — who once played a large and commendable part in ending this form of tyranny based on the color of a person’s skin, are now revealed to harbor prejudices of their own, which they are energetically and enthusiastically imposing on others they perceive as their moral and social inferiors. And it doesn’t look any better on them than it did on fat white southern sheriffs wearing mirrored sunglasses.
Understand that, for some long-range planners in what might be called the victim disarmament industry, anti-gun laws have strategic significance.They are opening bids in a worldwide effort, hammered out by environmental fascists and eugenics fanatics, mostly under the auspices of the United Nations, to disarm and enslave entire peoples, and to engineer a new Holocaust, reducing the Earth’s human population by 90 percent, to what they believe is lovely Mother Gaia’s “carrying capacity”. It’s very hard to do that to people who are adequately armed.
For others, though, the new Jim Crow laws are being passed merely as harassment, designed to make life difficult, if not impossible, for members of an American culture of freedom and independence that the self-appointed elite have always hated, loathed, and despised — and seen themselves at war with. They know that none of these laws will have any effect on crime. They are intent on committing cultural genocide.
Yet the 14th Amendment was passed expressly so black people would be free to exercise the unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry weapons. In the name of racial equality, then, if nothing else, I demand the same right for myself.
Charles Schumer, Harry Reid, Barack Obama, Caroline McCarthy, John Hickenlooper, Diane Feinstein, Rahm Emanuel, Diana DeGette, Michael Bloomberg, Joseph Biden: every one of these tax-fattened parasites, and the rest of their ilk might as well be wearing bed-sheets and burning crosses on the lawns of Productive Class gun-owners across the land. They can always count on the “embedded” media to help with the lynchings.
Like the bigots they are, professional gun-grabbers continue to stereotype gun owners as ignorant, impoverished rednecks, when every survey shows we are racially and ethnically mixed, better-educated, and more profitably employed than the average American. If I had a nickel for every doctor I’ve met at the shooting range, or every PhD I know who owns and uses guns, or every black or Asian individual I’ve seen enjoying gun shows, I wouldn’t have to worry about collecting royalties.
Any early 20th century bigot could give you plenty of reasons — entirely unsupported by real data or logic — why black people (or the Chinese, Jews, or Catholics) were lacking in intelligence and moral character, and were not to be trusted, but must be denied basic freedoms the bigots themselves enjoyed. New York City’s Sullivan Act was passed by Irish politicians (who themselves had been discriminated against only a generation earlier) to keep Italians from obtaining guns.
Today’s anti-gunners, mostly “progressive” Democrats, imagine that everybody else shares their larcenous nature and infantile lack of impulse-control. They are extremely violent by nature (as they have demonstrated on countless occasions like the so-called “Million Mom March”), can’t trust themselves or their children with the means of self-defense, and assume everyone else is as untrustworthy as they are.To avoid being identified as the sick, twisted bigots that they are, they attempt to force the focus onto inanimate objects, rather than on the people whom they’re attempting to strip of the means of self-defense.
They demonize handguns they say are too small or too inexpensive (depriving poor people of the means of self-defense), identifying them as “Saturday Night Specials”, originally a very nasty racist insult.
They demonize modern high-capacity magazines which can defend an individual man or woman — and their family — from an entire gang of thugs.
They demonize semiautomatic weapons as if they were some new, diabolical development, but which were marketed more than a century ago.
They demonize trivial features of a weapon, like its shape, color, or the material it’s made from, or the presence of a pistol grip or bayonet lug which reflect certain historical interests and aesthetic preferences, and have nothing whatever to do with the operation of the firearm.
They demonize certain “assault rifle” cartridges, ignorantly characterizing them as being especially powerful, when they are, in fact, far less powerful than many of the most common deer hunting cartridges.
They demonize the standard military rifle of the nation, carried by hundreds of thousands of young soldiers, and adapted to civilian use.
At the same time, they and their pet media adamantly refuse to acknowledge the historic fact that the Second Amendment — and the weapons it sanctions — was written, above all, to protect the country from stupid, evil, irrational, power-hungry monsters exactly like them.
Perhaps the victim-disarmers have forgotten that the American Revolution began with a British attempt to confiscate the firearms and ammunition of a people they mistakenly regarded as subjects, but whom frontier life had hardened into tough, self-reliant, sovereign individuals. Perhaps the same brilliant “strategists” who told them that Iraq and Afghanistan would be a “cake-walk” are telling them now that the descendents of these pioneers will be just as easy to overcome.
Every member of the victim disarmament conspiracy must be made to understand clearly that he or she will eventually and inevitably be punished — under due process of law — for the crime of endangering “the security of a free state” which clearly constitutes an act of treason.
Equally, we must get America out of the U.N. and the U.N. out of America. This is an organization openly dedicated to the suppression of individual rights and to mass-murder on an absolutely unprecedented scale.
We must be resolved — and we must demand the same resolve from the Republicans and the NRA — not to be satisfied merely with fending off this or that newly-proposed law, as we have been over the past several decades. That’s the “strategy”, both cowardly and stupid, that brought us to the ugly mess we find ourselves in now. The entire structure of federal, state, and local gun law must be obliterated. That’s what the Constitution mandates; we must be content with nothing less.
Award-winning author and lecturer L. Neil Smith, a fifty-year veteran of the American freedom movement, has written over 30 liberty-oriented books. He is the publisher and senior columnist of The Libertarian Enterprise, now in its 17th year online. He is also Senior Editorial Consultant to Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.
Visit the Neil Smith archive on JPFO.
HEAR, HEAR!!!
But… BE HONEST, now: how many of you CRINGED – even just a little bit – at Neil’s use of the word “conspiracy”? I can’t HEAR you!!!
It IS, of course, a massive conspiracy – to disarm America in advance of whatever they have planned for us.
But every one of you who wave the phrase, “conspiracy theorist” about something you know less about that the person who described the conspiracy: YOU’RE A ‘CONSPIRACY THEORIST’, TOO – if you believe there is a forceful, foreplanned effort to disarm American citizens.
Be careful what you toss around. It might just splatter on you, too….
You have to also understand that gun controls are another form of WITCHCRAFT (C.MARX) was very heavy into devil worship etc.. YES the hidden truth the liberal left does not want you to understand …. The attacks on guns etc. is saying we hate evil ,,, but only people can be evil…. The battle for LIBERTY for all will not be won until America returns to BASIC TRUTH….. We are the problem… All man kind is in SIN and CHRIST is the ONLY answer to ALL our problems… LAWS only work for a moral people … Even George Washington , Ben Franklin and most other of our founders said the same ..Two roads one to freedom , or the other to slavery… !
Yeah, witchcraft – pre-christian Celtic Paganism – had no need for a devil.
Be careful tossing around religious epithets; we’re not ass WASPs around here.
How did this thing change “all” to “ass…?”
I liked it better that way.
I snicker.
Russ, I think you created a whole new category, ass WASPs. In a few years better known people than us will be claiming to have started it.
But we’ll know the truth.
I feel like a wasp stung me in the ass every time I hear ‘double barrel’ Joe, or some other libtard, speak.
Don’t judge me pal. People can be moral without religion.
Exactly! Stay on topic, you know the one topic we all agree on. Leave the wedge-driving to the grabbers.
Or TTAG: The Truth About Golf.
Was it use of the word “Christ” and/or “sin” that made it feel too religious to be on topic, or was it the several words in caps that put it over the edge?
Lots of opinions and beliefs are stated here; a few sentences supporting Christianity do not make a comment section cluttered.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t call the above comment a convincing or well placed argument.
Interesting, and sensible overall. I worry about the idea of “environmental fascists,” though; I see no intention on the part of world leaders to slaughter 9/10ths of the population.
Hell, we finally learning to stop breeding like insects, and have the declining birth rates to show it. My grand kids will have a world that’s not 100% cornfields and condos without and mass slaughter.
That said, I’m glad to know of him.
look up “Agenda 21”. no, it’s not just another whackjob conspiracy theory; it is already being implemented by our government and others. the ultimate goal is to reduce the overall human population to under 10 million.
and a declining population is NOT a good thing! you will notice that while the US population is declining, the muslim population is growing. quickly.
Civil rights are civil rights.
As a biracial man who was raised to appreciate the black Civil Roghs Movement, I too see similarities between Jim Crow laws and NYs “SAFE Act.” A modern day gun owner in liberal places is treated with the same systematic police discrimination as a black man in Alabama was decades ago.
What we gun owners need is the firearms equivalent of Martin Luther King Jr.
Mr. Colion Noir is pretty close to that.
That man does not mince words. Bravo.
Griffin was a fraud. People weren’t reacting to him because he looked ‘black.’ They were reacting to him because he looked like a nut who had painted his face.
And you know this how?
“Perhaps the same brilliant “strategists” who told them that Iraq and Afghanistan would be a “cake-walk” are telling them now that the descendents of these pioneers will be just as easy to overcome.”
and
“We must be resolved — and we must demand the same resolve from the Republicans and the NRA — not to be satisfied merely with fending off this or that newly-proposed law, as we have been over the past several decades. That’s the “strategy”, both cowardly and stupid, that brought us to the ugly mess we find ourselves in now. The entire structure of federal, state, and local gun law must be obliterated. That’s what the Constitution mandates; we must be content with nothing less.”
While I appreciate the overall sentiment of the article (comparing recent gun control measures to the disenfranchisement of various sub-cultures in America such as Blacks, Jews, Italians, Chinese, etc.), it must be pointed out the same “strategists” and architects behind the war in Iraq and Afghanistan were mainly Republican. And putting pressure on only the Republican party? Why not put pressure on BOTH parties?
I’m nitpicking, but overall a well-written article. Unfortunately, the cynic in me says that America’s not had a great track record when it comes to the rights of the minority versus the majority, even with the protections built into our Constitution to guard against the tyranny of the mob…
America’s not had a great track record when it comes to the rights of the minority versus the majority
@g, I think you’re being kind.
An understatement, I know.
Losers always have to have somebody to blame their own failings on. Blacks, Jews, Gun Owners. We all take our turn in the barrel.
Which is why I say we gun owneras need unity. Our race, gender or which god we choose to believe in or not to believe in should be secondary to our just cause of keeping gun ownership alive.
I agree, but I take that philosophy beyond the 2A. I hope that most of the commenters here are pro-individual liberty and not just pro gun.
Brock, I view all of our freedoms as being very important. But i place the 2a at the top of the list.
Fair enough, and I’ve seen in your comments that you value individual liberty. My comment just kind of fit after yours.
“Which is why I say we gun owneras need unity. Our race, gender or which god we choose to believe in or not to believe in should be secondary to our just cause of keeping gun ownership alive.”
I disagree with this statement. If a man held me out over a pit, threatening to kill me, and said, “Do you believe in God or the right of a man to have a gun?”, why would say the latter? (If you were a believer.)
2nd amendment rights are nice (and by that I mean extremely useful), but claiming that they are more important than God is kind of silly, especially if you believe that your rights are endowed by your creator.
I never claimed a belief in god. I do believe in 2a. And since this is a gun oriented site I prefer to keep the issue focused on our gun rights as much as possible.
Well, if you intend to speak for “all gun owners”, you better take the beliefs of “all gun owners” into account.
Oh, I see, you said “Which god.” I don’t know. I am now more comfortable with what you are saying, but it seems to put the 2a up on a pedestal with deity.
I suppose that we could turn 2a into a religion. I’m more comfortable with it as a civil right coupled with the natural right to self defense.
I am not speaking for or against religion, or abortion or gay rights or hundreds of other devisive issues that I may have an opinion on. On this site i prefer to keep it about guns.
I have also not relegated myself to speaking for all People of the Gun. I speak only for myself.
BOTH parties have become tax-fattened!
Until we have an educated electorate, term limits, clear campaign finance and masses voting third party, there will be no change for good in this government.
Don’t blame the repubs or dems, it’s our fault for electing this liberty destroying mob.
“Don’t blame the repubs or dems, it’s our fault for electing this liberty destroying mob.”
Well…actually, we can share some minor blame for continuing it, but most of the liberty destroying mob that created it, is either vying to be Americas oldest living person, or they’re 6 feet under already. This slow crawl of liberalism began in the early 1900’s, and only now are more and more people becoming acutely aware of the damage it has caused. Ultimately, facts are facts, and the lions share of the blame rest squarely on the emo-rat party of Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Carter, Clinton, and Obama. Wilson was the first progressive president, and it has just slowly snowballed from that point on. I know it’s safe to criticize both parties, but the democrats have caused more bad Ju-ju for this country than any republican ever has. Too often, it’s a republican that has to pull our bacon out of a fire started by the previous democrat. Equanimity can be a fine thing, to be sure, but let’s not go overboard and grant the democrats such a generous pass.
Truth matters. Especially when it’s the unwelcome kind.
TR was the 1st “progressive” president. Only difference from Wilson was that TR had a pair.
This bigotry ended FIFTY YEARS AGO and is now practiced by blacks like Al Sharpton, “Rev” Wright, Jesse Jackson, and the NAACP!
“Affirmative Action” is a prime example.
“Dan Baum reads TTAG”.. wonder what he thinks about this?
Back in 1961, there was sign outside of the town of Harrison AR. it read, “…Ni_ _er don’t let the sun set on your a$$…” Thirty years prior, the good people of Harrison hanged some black men. I know neither the cause nor the reason. The good, kind, liberal we must deal with today, is of the same mentality as was their predecessors
of this past century. I fear we are going to see the same type of laws passed, as what the NAZI’s passed in order to deal with the “…Jewish problem…”
Pilate said unto him (Jesus) What is Truth??? That says it all … Jesus( GOD) is truth… America has LOST it’s way… YES there is REAL truth …. I am not talking about a church group…. THE BIBLE has the answer to all our problems … two roads HEAVEN or HELL …. and 2A will not save Amerika!!!!!!!!!!
Less caps bro, but exactly. We need to accept that the constitution was not sent from God, a government cannot be perfect, and that people at their root, are all evil.
Once you have that down, you can run from there.
Even if America does end up transformed beyond recognition, that wouldn’t be the end of the world for me. I’m more concerned with what I can do in my situation, not changing the situation.
This guy for president.
I’m so tired of decent gun folk being respectful and civil towards the domestic enemies of this country. They are not our countrymen and should not be treated as such. This author knows that and paints them how they are.
I wouldn’t wipe EVERY firearm related law off the books. Just get rid of ones that don’t have anything to do with promoting the 10 Commandments of Firearm Safety or sound conservation efforts. Clearly bans and restrictions on ownership of specific types of firearms, firearm accessories, and/or ammunition should be eliminated.
Instead of banning guns the ignorance of guns should be banned by making hunting/firearm safety courses mandatory for all citizens as part of the K-12 education system.
Gun rights, Civil Rights, any rights, are ALL MORAL ISSUES, Only TRUTH will bring liberty, freedom, and God given rights like self defense, The battle can or will only be WON on the moral levels, IT’s the most basic issue of our day and of all times, The truth can only be found in the Bible ,,, Have you even stopped to ask why Amerika has so many problems and you have not seen anything yet guys. JESUS said I Am ( that means he is the only true God) the TRUTH , the WAY and the Light …..that is the only answer that will save our 2A rights… America needs to REPENT and turn around… or be DESTROYED…..
I agree on the morality aspect but give the bible thumping a break.
This is a diverse forum, not one specific to your limited views.
This is a topic on which people of ALL faiths (or lack thereof) can agree.
Devout Christians have caused an awful lot of suffering in this world, as have those of other faiths. Live and let live, my friend.
L. Neil Smith is a well known author, who always uses his first initial. (He’s known as El Neil in Libertarian circles). Please use the proper attribution if you are going to copy his article.
“Help Wanted – Whites Only” is no worse than the “Black (only) Chamber of Commerce” or “Miss Black (only) USA” or the “United Negro (only) College Fund”
This has nothing to do with Jim Crow, and there was a damned good reason for Jim Crow laws. Look at the murder rates by race for cities like Chicago, nearly all the victims and perpetrators are black, and then you have common incidents such as the 500 strong mob which was attacking people in the loop and gold coast a week or so ago. Jim Crow needs a come back along with restrictive covenants.
So RF, assuming the WHOIS info for you domain is correct, I would like to ask, if you love black people and equality so much, why do you live in a neighborhood which is predominately white, where the vast majority of black people couldn’t afford to live, even with section 8 assistance? Why do you engage in voluntary segregation?
The HEART of crime in ANY CITY are the black welfare ghettos, the root of the Democratic Party’s power!
Get rid of the welfare bums and violent crime would drop 90%!
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