Anyone else surprised thehill.com ran this op-ed? . . . The racist origin of gun control laws

Kansas Senator Samuel Pomeroy extolled the three “indispensable” “safeguards of liberty under our form of government,” the sanctity of the home, the right to vote, and “the right to bear arms.” So “if the cabin door of the freedman is broken open and the intruder enter…then should a well-loaded musket be in the hand of the occupant to send the polluted wretch to another world.”

Because of the 14th Amendment, gun control laws now had to be racially neutral. But states quickly learned to draft neutrally-worded laws for discriminatory application. Tennessee and Arkansas prohibited handguns that freedmen could afford, while allowing expensive “Army & Navy” handguns, which ex-Confederate officers already owned.

The South Carolina law against concealed carry put blacks in chain gangs, but whites only paid a small fine, if anything. In the early 20th century, such laws began to spread beyond the ex-Confederacy. An Ohio Supreme Court Justice acknowledged that such statutes reflected “a decisive purpose to entirely disarm the Negro.”

How are masked club-wielding antifa thugs supposed to deal with armed opposition? . . . Why States Should Ban Guns From Political Rallies

There is no constitutional conflict. Citizens have a constitutional right to attend a political rally, but the right to bring guns to that rally exists only if the state wants it that way. There was no conflict between the First and Second Amendments in the Charlottesville riot: the conflict was between common sense and the legislative will of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

It’s worth mentioning that after granting the neo-Nazis the right to rally at the base of the statue, the Charlottesville city council withdrew the permit and moved the rally to a larger venue one mile away. The ACLU, representing the neo-Nazis, went to court and urged that the anti-Semitic racists had the right to protest at the base of the Lee statue. They succeeded, and the Charlottesville riot ensued. The ACLU has asserted that it was not responsible for the violence — and it is not responsible for the murder of Heather Heyer — and that it just protected the free-speech rights of the hate groups.

This raises questions about why the organization did not consider that the presence of assault rifles by one group might inhibit the free-speech rights of the other group — or that it could requiring its clients to not bring weapons? But in the end, it has since adopted a no-guns policy. Now it’s up to the Commonwealth and states like it to do the same.

Remington says court should approve rifle settlement even if gun owners may be suspicious

Attorneys for America’s oldest gun maker say gun owners’ suspicions about the government may explain why only a relative handful have expressed interest in getting their Remington rifles repaired under a nationwide class action settlement. Nonetheless, they say claims have jumped roughly 25 percent since February, and that is reason enough for a federal appeals court to let the settlement proceed.

Timing is critical, with this year’s hunting season just a few months away. …

If the owners of all 7.5 million guns were to submit claims, the repairs would cost Remington upwards of half a billion dollars, according to multiple court filings. As of last week, according to Remington and plaintiffs’ attorneys, the number of claims had risen to 29,214. While that still represents less than half of one percent of the guns in question, Remington argues in its latest filing that the figure is significant.

https://youtu.be/4k9LsP5TjVk

Except it probably won’t . . . The NRA’s Plan to Make People Fear Liberal Activists Could Backfire

The gun group and the president have both sought to use fear to their political advantage. For the NRA, at least, this approach could backfire in a big way, political scientist Alexandra Filindra says. Filindra has run a slew of experiments on how people’s feelings about race, crime, and violence influence their positions on gun laws. In a study she published last year, she found that racial resentment strongly influenced white people to oppose gun control.

But, according to her latest research, escalating racial tensions don’t lead to retrenchment of hard-line attitudes against gun laws. Fear of social violence, Filindra says, can drown out worries about racial identity. In an as-yet unpublished experiment, she found that if white people are prompted with descriptions of violent protests or street brawls, they are more likely to support gun control.

“Threat operates differently than identity,” she explains.

Last Hurrah With Josh Kline

Josh Kline is no stranger to hard work and the need to overcome adversity. Looking back at the last five years of his NFL career it’s filled with highs and lows.

After signing with the New England Patriots in 2013 for his rookie year, he rode that roller coaster of ups and downs. By 2016, and starting only 18 games for New England, Josh was released by the Patriots in Week 1 to be claimed soon after by the Tennessee Titans. His approach to the game allowed him to adjust to a new offensive scheme and have an immediate positive impact in Tennessee.

As a child, Josh was sure of two things: he wanted to play in the NFL, and he loved the outdoors. Like many of us, he had no idea how these two passions would play hand-in-hand in his future.

Your feel-good story of the day . . . Woman beats robbery suspect with his own gun

Three thrift store employees overpowered a robber who was wielding a shotgun in Long Island — including a woman who grabbed the weapon and beat the robber about the head with it, cops and witnesses said Sunday.

Ronald J. Kelly walked into Island Thrift store carrying the firearm around 8:25 p.m. Saturday, and demanded the store manager empty the til, according to the Suffolk County Police Department.

The woman grabbed the gun, and with the help of two other employees managed to wrestle him to the ground.

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54 COMMENTS

  2. I counted almost thirty weapons in the hands of those masked thugs… and that doesn’t include the 96 fists and 96 feet attached to them either. So, “your” demonstrators get to bring somewhere in the neighborhood of 225 weapons to the party but a handful of guns are the problem?

    • Fine. I only have one question for you. Which side, completely ignoring ideology, would you rather be on? The side with 30 AR-15s, or the side with 200 cudgels? Technically two questions.

      • Oh, I’m totally on the side carrying the guns! I was pointing out to the writer of the original piece that his precious “Aunty Fey” people are just as dangerously armed. Yes, I know said writer will NEVER see my post, and I probably should have added a “/sarc” at the end. My bad.

    • Jeff Cooper sez:”It has long been my conviction that a masked man with a gun is a target.”

      Maybe he should have said “an armed man wearing a mask is a target”?

    • The preference for labor leaders and left-wing politicians to favor heavy restrictions on gun ownership and carry reflects the facts of their constituencies: If relatively poorer but much more numerous demonstrators (strikers, etc.) can carry clubs, but the opposition cannot carry guns, then the club-wielding hordes win. Simple.

      If the less numerous group can carry guns, but it is politically out-of-the-question to actually use them, then, again, the hordes win.

      It is this calculus which requires the universal requirement to have police physically keep demonstrators and counter-protesters separate (except in Charlottesville, thanks to its mayor and Governor McCauliffe).

  3. ” Tennessee and Arkansas prohibited handguns that freedmen could afford, while allowing expensive “Army & Navy” handguns, which ex-Confederate officers already owned.”

    An example of one of those racist laws were known as ‘”melt laws”, where a gun couldn’t melt if exposed to a certain temperature.

    That was designed to prohibit the sale of guns that used zinc alloys to keep the cost down, like Hi-Points…

    • The only difference is that gun-control measures were once used to disarm black people and today the exact same political process is being used to disarm a larger population. The context is the different but the process of using laws to prohibit gun ownership is the same.

  4. The NRA does not promote violence or use of fear among people to achieve their goals. That is such a damn fracking cliche of the left it begs to wonder if those leftists have anything left in their brain pans to function with! The militia didn’t march under any NRA banner promoting such asinine ideas. The leader said they marched for their own rights under the 2nd. Peacefully and with no violence. Probably the most disciplined group there. They did not protect any right wing groups, nor leftists. How ever when they left any area violence did erupt. Open carry is a deterrent to open violence in the hands of responsible gun owners.

  6. “But states quickly learned to draft neutrally-worded laws for discriminatory application.”

    Rich people are allowed armed security, regular folks are denied permits to acquire, possess, or carry.

  8. What the hill piece doesn’t mention is Klansman Hugo Black’s role in destroying respect for the second.

  9. The first amendment protects all speech and the freedom to assemble. Those that supress speech or peaceful assembly – regardless of the topic of the speech or the assembly – are the fascists.

  10. Antifa looks more like nazis than anyone. Further proving the far left regimes of communism and national socialism are essentially the same thing:

  11. That antifa get-together looks like it came right out of the Middle East. Or a really bad 70s ninja film. Masked cowards who would be comically stereotypical if they weren’t ready and willing to kill people.

    And for some reason – I know this speaks bad of me but there it is – the words “what a Ma Deuce moment” kept rattling around between my ears.

  12. “As of last week, according to Remington and plaintiffs’ attorneys, the number of claims had risen to 29,214.”

    The other 7.47 million owners of Remington 700s just dropped in a Timney trigger and called it a day.

  13. If I see a group of douche bags coming at me looking like that, rally or not, I’m pretty sure there would be issues somewhere. These people can’t be bargained with, they can’t be reasoned with, and they absolutely will not stop…

  14. There’s quite the dichotomy of declarations about the Left expressed in this blog. On the one hand, “leftists are all anti-gun statist sissy snowflakes”, and on the other “leftists are vicious heavily-armed thugs we must protect ourselves from”. I wonder why that is.

    • Hmmm. That is a dichotomy, isn’t it? The truth is a blend of both, I think…
      The self-described intellectuals whom we call “snowflakes” get offended when someone uses logic, reason and facts to counter their arguments. The snowflake then makes a video about how hurt their feelings were and how the fascist right-wingers, Trumpsters, gun-owners, and the gainfully employed are keeping them from enforcing their worldview on the rest of us.
      Antifa – who was never directly offended to begin with – then takes it from there and “defends” the views of the snowflake on their behalf by picking up bricks and bashing in the heads of anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the snowflake’s views. It’s almost like they’re taking their orders from the snowflakes, isn’t it? Problem is, Antifa is a poorly trained attack dog: the snowflakes may point them at the enemy and say, “Sic em’!”, but they won’t stop when they cross the line and start wrecking things the snowflakes like.

    • Many of the commenters here have strong individualist tendencies and some of us are die-hard individualists. You are a collectivist. Of course you wonder, Francis.

    • It’s the same dichotomy of gun control advocates:

      (a) there are so many guns in the US that the streets will run red with blood, we must pass a law for safety;

      (b)why do you feel so unsafe that you need a gun?

      see (a) for the answer to (b)

    • Have you ever played Starcraft? Leftists are totally the Zerg – strong as a pack, on their own turf, and connected to the hive. Isolated, on foreign soil, and disconnected from the hive – they crumble.

  16. It seems the only free speech the three L’s Libertarians, Liberals and the Left, support is walking around with a well fitted strap on dildo and shooting up crystal meth in public to improve their sexual experience.

    The Christian bakers don’t have free speech. I’m now waiting for the three L’s to support book burning. That will be next.

    • You say that as though you think walking around with a well fitted strap on dildo and shooting up crystal meth in public to improve one’s sexual experience is a bad thing. Live a little.
      And protip: Burning books really adds ambiance.

      • I can see that in the future: A pile of burning books, people dressed in black waving red flags standing all around, all raising one hand in the air… to declare how “anti fascist” they are..

    • 2001, the congregation of the Christ Community Church in Alamogordo burned Harry Potter books. That’s just here in the US.
      Then there have been a few instances of Koran burnings by crackpots, as well.
      So, book burning here is still alive and well.

      • Big Bill
        Under the Obama administration bibles were burned on his order to placate Muslims in Afghanistan. Those bibles were not for locals. They were for American soldiers who wanted one.

        As for the churches, they have used church funds to purchase books and music records they would later burn in a protest over sinful material.
        Did BLM or Antifa purchase the statues and then tear them down????

        Personally I think the use of church money to buy and then burn their property of books was stupid. But it was their right. The three L’s will take public property, books from a library, and burn them. This will happen very soon.

        An asian radio reporter just lost his assignment job at a college football game because his name is Robert Lee. Just like General Robert E Lee.
        The three L’s are working to destroy the country.

    • Well I’m glad that you made your reference to “Libertarian” with a capital “L” as opposed to someone like me, a “libertarian”. I’m also a Christian.

      Small “l” libertarians, generally speaking, are completely on board with all freedoms. Disagree with what a person says but defend to the death their right to say it and all that.

      I generally hate broad brush labels, but just to note there are many “conservatives”, Republicans and other right wing groups that also don’t have great track records in upholding human rights or speech or views they disagree with…

  17. There were armed leftist there too. Redneck Revolt members had their our black guns. Either side has the same rights to open carry firearm in VA. I don’t have a problem with that.

    • Thank you. Almost no one mentions this. They were armed with rifles and they even brag about it.

  18. Lets see here where to start.
    1)It is less likely that people would feel inclined to go to such events armed if the government did their jobs and kept order instead of letting the sides fight so they can shut down the event and let the news spin it.
    2)It’s a right. Not a want, or a need.
    3)Yeah, gun control was and is racist. Lets not forget it’s about control, not guns.

  19. Trump was 100% correct in his comments. Violent scum on both sides looking for trouble. This country better wake the f@#k up and soon.

  20. Antifa is as necessary to combat the KKK and Nazis as the French Resistance was to fight the Gestapo. Self-defense on the behalf of minorities should be well-understood by all Second Amendment supporters: it’s too bad Hitler didn’t have an Antifa around in Germany to fight back against his mass slaughter of Jews and many others. I’m surprised that many conservative gun owners on this site are surprised by Antifa’s take on the KKK and the Nazis given what took place at Auschwitz. Fightback is good and violence against fascist evil is necessary. There’s no ‘polite society’ way to take on the KKK and Nazis.. you have to kill them all.

    • Unless Goebbels painted the jews to be like the KKK like all conservatives and republicans have been likened to KKK, thanks Howard Dean and CNN. Next the brown shirts (Antifa) goes out to clean up with the blessing of the ‘State’.

      Nope, two sides of the same coin. ‘Agree with me or pay the consequences’.

      Ideas need to be allowed to exist, debated rationally and through fact-based education, people will come to the right decisions. To everyone who is a parent or had a parent, did you ever force your kid to do anything? how many times did it backfire when you or your parents tried?

      Newton’s law of equal and opposite reaction occurs in people too.

      • “Nope, two sides of the same coin. ‘Agree with me or pay the consequences’.”

        I don’t see that of the Neos or the KKK. They just say what they say, for the most part. There are a few fringes of both (as there are of any belief system) that go for violence, but for the most part they are relatively peaceful, if stupid. (Note, I said “are,” not “were.”)
        The antifa, OTOH, have demonstrated a decided liking for violence.

        • If D-Day isn’t trolling and is serious, then just look at the comment to define their “rationale”:

          “Fightback is good and violence against fascist evil is necessary. There’s no ‘polite society’ way to take on the KKK and Nazis.. you have to kill them all.”

          This is the mentality of a child who hasn’t grown up to understand reality. Its’ simply, “I believe X and you believe Y, you need to believe in X and if you don’t and still insist on believing Y then we will either physically force you into agreement or kill you.”

          That’s been the tactics of any sort of governmental, authoritarian regime from the beginning of history.

    • How about a few talking points here:
      1)The two sides have been compared to Weimar in the 30s down to the flags they carried. Kind of amusing
      2)Stalin hated Jews too. He killed plenty of them, among many other peoples. Just like Hitler did.
      3)Perhaps you should look at the “horeshoe” theory of politics.
      4)Lets check Webster’s Dictionary for the definition of Fascism.

      often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

      That makes Antifa’s actions largely seem like double speak. War is peace afterall.

  21. ” In an as-yet unpublished experiment, she found that if white people are prompted with descriptions of violent protests or street brawls, they are more likely to support gun control.”

    In other words, if the question prompts the answer you want, it’s the right question to ask.
    Ever the way of pollsters.

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