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The state is given a huge amount of power and discretion in the way that it decides who should be allowed to have a firearm and who should not. Background checks are a common tool for enforcing gun-control. This has been yet another tool of the state that is enforced inequitably. It has regularly been used as a means to over-police and disarm communities of color and also to discriminate against LGBTQ+ individuals. 

Real, informed solutions to gun violence in America must take into account the inequality that exists, the need for protection and the overreach of the state being used against already disenfranchised groups that continues to be used against these groups to this day. The right to bear arms is especially important for disenfranchised communities. 

Police cannot be trusted to protect the communities that they were created to eradicate. As such, we need access to a reliable means to do it ourselves, many of these forms of gun-control are not only ineffective but actively work to disarm the communities most at risk in our society. Gun-violence is a real problem in this country, but disarming those most at risk only creates vulnerable targets for this violence. We need solutions that are equitable and account for the need for protection.

— Andrea Nadal in Gun Control: Misguided attempts to curb gun violence

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

32 COMMENTS

  1. Ohhh wee stirring that pot early in the morn. Gots to get muh click baiting comments

  2. Ms. Nadal is on the wrong track. This has nothing to do with curbing gun violence and everything to do with controling the population. Don’t let the tyrants fool you into thinking they care one iota for you. Molon Labe.

  3. Well andrea…You certainly managed to make Guns the center of attention. What about cars, swimming pools and all the other inanimate objects that are connected to injury, crime, death, etc? Why the discrimination? How about making morons the center of attention? Millions and millions of firearms out there and the one problem seems to always be moron criminal misuse. I mean brakes could fail on diesel truck and by the time it stops there could be bodies all over the highway, etc. Airplanes can crash into buildings and thousands perish.
    C’mon andrea man, No pledge, no God, No Constitution taught in schools so what do you expect? Certainly not the kind of “Content of Character” I want to associate with. What about you?

    • Well, give some credit. The writer is admitting that many Dims/Leftist/Liberals are tooling up to protect themselves from us.

      It is fair to dismiss this article about “disenfranchised” communities. Given the highest vote count in history, who didn’t get to vote because of “oppression” of POC?

      • Obviously the writer deserves credit for misleading…

        Besides my previous points that must have not registered…What she clearly attempts to portray as the “state” is in fact the Gun Control democRat Party which has a long, long well documented history of targeting the rights of people of color. Let’s not be fooled by some play on words that on one hand talks rights and on the other hand provides cover for the Guilty Party. Cover that further disenfranchises such communities all for the sake of maintaining the plantation.

        Look at it from the perspective of the military wing of the democRat Party better known as the KKK…Gun Control was N Control and N Control was Gun Control. Throughout the article that underbelly of the democRat Party was whitewashed with the word, “state.”

        • The article was curious. The use of “disenfranchised” was nonsensical, as it leads one to think the writer believed that POC were wholesale denied the right to vote, and such an event was due to the lack of armed people in certain communities (as if with firearms, thousands would descend on election stations and demand to vote).

          Following that confused thought line was a declaration that POC needed to be armed against non-POC, i.e. we deplorables/white supremacists. I always give credit to evil when it reveals itself, which it often does….and vast numbers of people refuse to accept evil means what it says.

          The article almost addressed a significant problem with gun control law….rampant crime in poor neighborhoods is not a consideration when it comes to gun control laws, Gun control laws address rare incidents outside the inner cities, and strike almost exclusively on a segment of society that could be entirely eliminated without any change in inner city violence. That would be a real truth-telling, and a legitimate grievance about how gun control laws do nothing to address the real dangers.

          Conflation of ideas rendered the article gibberish.

  5. [From the original article text:] “ ‘. . . necessary to the security of a free State, . . . ‘ These words and what they protect are . . . at the heart of the debate, . . . to decipher what exactly the founding fathers would have intended to protect with them. . . . . My [Nadal’s] interest, however, lies . . . in understanding what gun control would really mean for those most at risk of violence by both state and non-state actors, and specifically in advocating for the right to community protection. My interest is not in what the intention was, but rather what our intention ought to be moving forward.”

    An entirely reasonable perspective; yet, it seems to suggest that the Founders’ views WERE AT ODDS with a modern perspective “moving forward”. Such is NOT necessarily the case; the original and contemporary views MIGHT be MUCH THE SAME.

    What was/is meant by “necessary to the security of a free state”? The founding generation certainly thought that “a free state” was a desirable objective; don’t we hold this objective today? Would we wish to be governed by the will of a tyrant or by our own consent?

    Whether the tyrant be foreign or domestic seems of little importance. Either alternative seems to be an anathema to consent of the governed. Whether the tyranny be by consent of a simple majority or minority seems inconsistent with the principle of inalienable rights of the individual.

    Ida B. Wells put the matter succinctly in 1892: “A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.” As did Chairman Mao in 1927: “Political power emanates from the barrel of a gun.”

    It suffices for our purposes – and that of the author – to study our own history with gun control. From the beginning, and at each step in its evolution, the manifest objective was for the powerful to exert their will over the powerless; might makes right. This propensity was most clearly documented by R.J. Rummel in his work Death by Government.

    Each of us ought to remember that our respective “turn in the barrel” awaits us. Though I may feel comfortable in my position as a majority member today, tomorrow may hold a different fate for me. Security never lies in maintaining one’s personal (or group) hold on power; rather, it lies in maintaining a social order that holds sacred the rights of each individual. Such an order can not, by definition, be maintained by a simple majority.

    Somehow, the rights of the individual must ever remain assert-ABLE. The inalienable right of the individual to defend her life from the highwayman has in all civilizations been held sacrosanct. As Blackstone put it: “The . . . right of the subject, . . . , is that of having arms for their defence . . . 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.”

    Whether that “violence of oppression” be by a private highwayman or a state agent, the sanctions of society are insufficient to restrain one nor the other. When Blackstone wrote those words a sheriff would happen upon a highwayman’s victim – at best – hours after he bled-out. Today, it would be within minutes of her bleeding-out. In either case, too late; for “the sanctions of society and laws [would be] found insufficient to restrain the violence”. As a practical matter, nothing has changed in the centuries since Blackstone penned this insight.

    • MarkPA,

      The founding generation certainly thought that “a free state” was a desirable objective; don’t we hold this objective today? Would we wish to be governed by the will of a tyrant or by our own consent?

      Your question fails to recognize three underlying factors:

      1) Many people think that they will be part of the ruling class and therefore stand to gain significantly in addition to being immune to the dictates of their tyrant (expecting the manta, “Rules for thee and none for me.”).

      2) Many people fall for the lie that our would-be tyrants are not tyrants at all — rather that our would-be tyrants are kind and compassionate saints working tireless for our best interests and providing “social safety-nets”.

      3) And many people think that they are “little people”, have nothing of significant interest to would-be tyrants, and hence there would be no significant impact in their lives if our would-be tyrants achieve unlimited power. (The extreme example of this is a homeless person who owns no property, has no assets, has no job nor business, and lives day-to-day on the handouts of others — such a person could care less about who runs the government or what government does.)

      It is for those three reasons that the vast majority of people, in my opinion, ignore the prospect of tyrants. Instead, most people focus on whatever they think provides the greatest immediate-gratification for themselves. For people who fancy themselves part of the ruling class, that means supporting would-be tyrants because they think that they stand to gain and will be immune to losses. For people looking for caring and nurturing government, they support the would-be tyrants who always promise all the “free” stuff. And the rest of the people are more interested in getting high, laid, or some new trinket/toy to dazzle them for a couple days.

  6. Police cannot be trusted to protect the communities that they were created to eradicate.

    Wow. Just, wow. I am as critical and untrusting of the police as anyone — even I cannot get behind that outlandish claim.

    As such, we need access to a reliable means to [protect] ourselves, many of these forms of gun-control are not only ineffective but actively work to disarm the communities most at risk in our society.

    And then a tiny ray of light shining through the darkness. Sort of. That statement indicates that the speaker thinks that police are here to simultaneously eradicate minority communities AND protect minority communities. At least the speaker realized that we are ultimately responsible for our own protection.

    I cannot begin to imagine the tempest of thoughts, emotion, fantasy, facts, and fiction swirling in the mind of a Progressive — all of them constantly competing to be his/her outward platform/worldview at any given moment. I specified, “at any given moment,” since any one of those elements could displace the previous preeminent plank in his/her mind. Hence the “schizophrenic” nature of many Progressives that we observe.

    • Uncommon, TTAG is acting weird, so apologies is my lengthy reply to you ended up in duplicate…

        • “A way less sad”?

          Nah, the widdle troll is providing amusement for me that is *priceless*… 😉

        • I was thinking more along the lines of

          I wake up and I’m not so mad at Twitter now/
          Livin’ sucks but it’s suckin’ just a little now/
          And I don’t wanna cry no more/
          So I set my bar real low/

          or

          Well, I can’t fall asleep and I’m losin’ my mind/
          ‘Cause it’s half-past three and my brain’s on fire/
          I been countin’ sheep but the sheep all died/
          And I’m tryin’ too hard but I can’t not try/

  7. Good salient points in this article, shame that the main thrust is a farcical diatribe against phatasms of “white supremacy” and “systemic racism” that hasn’t existed for decades.

    • drunkEODguy,

      You do realize that denying “white supremacy” and “systemic racism” is “hate speech”? Now the masses will call you a racist and try to “cancel” you.

      Note: I despise and denounce the concepts of modern-day wide-scale “white supremacy” and “systemic racism”.

  8. I’m beginning to think that guns need disenfranchised communities because politicians and judges can’t be trusted to protect guns.

  9. Somebody should inform the various minority and LBGTXYZ groups thus administration grows cozier by the day with a totalitarian nation that throws religious and ethic minorities into slave camps to make iPhones and finds any LBGTXYZ proclivities to be a mental illness.

    Nobody seems to want to stop handing our nation over to big red, many eagerly welcome it, but don’t expect Xi to tolerate any of the shit America does.

    Think Iran with more neon lighting. That’s what’s coming.

  10. DEPENDS ON THE POLICE OFFICER . SOME PROTECT BETTER THAN OTHERS .
    GOOD AND BAD IN ALL HUMANS , SO DON’T STEREOTYPE .
    TRUTH IS EASIER TO CARRY A WEAPON IN YOUR POCKET THAN A POLICE OFFICER IN YOUR POCKET ..
    PROTECT YOURSELF BEST YA CAN , STAY ALERT BEST YA CAN .

  11. “…LGBTQ+ individuals.”

    Fucking fake-ass ally. It’s LGBTTQQIAAP. You can’t be bothered to type out the QIAAP? Laziness like this is cis-supremacy you goddamn bigot! Liberals like you get a bullet too!

      • Yup, it’s an issue no doubt. Everyone has their own conundrum-mag ready to go.

        Heck, the LA teacher’s union is now trying to stir up a three way race war between Blacks, Latinos and people of Persian decent.

  12. I’m actually going to offer this woman some support. It is indisputable that the homicide rate for African Americans of almost an order of magnitude higher than the general population. Homicide rates for Hispanics are also sky high. I’ve been the one citing FBI statistics that confirm that the homicide offender rate for people of color (can I say “colored people?” Nope!) even higher than victimization rates. However; there are some caveats. A lot of the homicides of people of color by people of color are very arguably justified under current laws. A lot of cops and prosecutors will eagerly prosecute people of color killing in obvious self defense just because they aren’t members of the privaledged class. Minority communities are also acutely aware of the fact that the crime clearance and arrest rates in their communities are extremely low. This is partially the result of people of color not cooperating with the police. However; apathy and racism by police and courts is also a factor. When government abdicates its responsibilities, people naturally take the law into their own hands. How many drive by shootings are retribution for criminal assaults that government failed to respond to.

    All of this being acknowledged, there is an obvious advocacy of a race war in this article. The abortive “riot” by unarmed protestors at the Capitol have given leftests not just a boogeyman to demonize but a false sense of security. They don’t understand that conservatives haven’t become violent only because we were hoping that the election could resolve problems. The election was stolen and the leftests are now exploiting the Capitol riot as a ptetext to impose tyranny. At some point in the not distant future, the feces will impact the rotating air circulation device. When it does, leftests are in for a very rude awakening.

  13. Every state should make it mandatory, that if you are a LAW Abiding citizen you must have a FIREARM, TO Live in America, IF NOT A LAW ABIDING citizen and have a FIREARM, IT’S 5 + years if used in anyway of criminal behaviour acts, outside THE person or person’s residents, 5 years probation just for having a firearm with a criminal record,of felony violations.

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