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Daily Archives: January 25th, 2013

Another Take ON the Firearm Issue


Fear of a Black Gun Owner

 

Ironically, the NRA used to support gun control — when the Black Panthers started packing.

By: Edward Wyckoff Williams Posted: January 23, 2013 at 12:21 AM

Huey Newton of the Black Panthers at a Revolutionary People’s Party Convention in 1970 (David Fenton/Archive Photos/Getty)

(The Root) — It may seem hard to believe, but the modern-day gun-rights debate was born from the civil rights era and inspired by the Black Panthers. Equally surprising is that the National Rifle Association — now an aggressive lobbying arm for gun manufacturers — actually once supported and helped write, federal gun-control laws. In light of the Newtown, Conn., school massacre that claimed the lives of 20 children as well as escalating violence in cities like Chicago, which saw 500 homicides in 2012 alone, President Barack Obama recently unveiled his plan for stricter gun control. The proposal calls for a universal background check and a ban on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, along with 23 executive orders. But these efforts — no matter how reasonable — are not without their critics.

In a statement released last week, the NRA expressed its disappointment that “the task force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearm owners.” Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) went so far as to threaten impeachment if President Obama used executive action. The conservative entertainment complex — from Fox News and the Drudge Report, which likened gun control to Nazi Germany, to talk-radio host Alex Jones, who invoked the Tea Party insurrection of 1773 — employs propaganda tactics to convince Americans that Obama wants to take away their guns. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the history of this debate is a curious one.

It is ironic that the modern-day argument for citizens to arm themselves against unwarranted government oppression — dominated, as it is, by angry white men — has its roots in the foundation of the 1960s Black Panther movement. Huey Newton and Bobby Seale became inspired by Malcolm X’s admonishment that because government was “either unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property” of African Americans, they ought to defend themselves “by any means necessary.”

UCLA law professor Adam Winkler explores this history in his 2011 book, Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America. “Like many young African Americans, Newton and Seale were frustrated with the failed promise of the civil-rights movement,” Winkler writes. In their opinion, “the only tangible outcome of the civil-rights movement had been more violence and oppression, much of it committed by the very entity meant to protect the public: the police.” Winkler goes on to say, “Malcolm X and the Panthers described their right to use guns in self-defense in constitutional terms.” Guns became central to the Panthers’ identity, as they taught their early recruits that “the gun is the only thing that will free us — gain us our liberation. “The Panthers responded to racial violence by patrolling black neighborhoods brandishing guns — in an effort to police the police. The fear of black people with firearms sent shockwaves across white communities, and conservative lawmakers immediately responded with gun-control legislation.

Then Gov. Ronald Reagan now lauded as the patron saint of modern conservatism, told reporters in California that he saw “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.” Reagan claimed that the Mulford Act, as it became known, “would work no hardship on the honest citizen.” The NRA actually helped craft similar legislation in states across the country. Fast-forward to 2013, and it is a white-male dominated NRA, largely made up of Southern conservatives and gun owners from the Midwest and Southwestern states, that argues “do not tread on me” in the gun debate.

The gun-rights movement has been co-opted in the post-civil rights era. Loud voices both inside and outside the NRA use the claxons of government tyranny and fear of supposed “street thugs” to justify deregulation. The Second Amendment text that calls for a “well-regulated militia” is often ignored in favor of the ambiguous phrase, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The framers never could have imagined the sophisticated artillery available in 21st-century America, yet despite military-style assault weapons being used by the likes of Jared Loughner in Tuscon, Ariz.; James Holmes in Aurora, Colo.; or Adam Lanza in Newtown, Conn., the gun lobby and their most ardent supporters remain obstinate.

It seems the arguments and the players have been reversed. At its founding in 1871, the NRA was an organization dedicated to promoting marksmanship, firearms-safety education and shooting for recreation. Today it promotes utter irresponsibility and unfettered access to deadly weapons.

In just a few short decades, what was once a reasonable debate in Washington has become corrupted. In 1989, Republican President George H.W. Bush issued an executive order banning the importation of semiautomatic weapons. Bill Clinton followed suit in 1998 and, in 2001, banned the importation of assault pistols. Today the inmates are in control of the asylum, with Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee refusing to entertain any civilian restriction to military-style assault rifles.

But unlike Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the NRA and their GOP allies find it hard to justify unbridled support of gun ownership and access. As MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry brilliantly described in a recent segment, the Black Panthers may not have been what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they described “a well-regulated militia” taking up arms against the tyranny of the state, but that is exactly what they represented.

The Panthers sought to protect themselves and other law-abiding citizens against indiscriminate violence perpetrated by police forces. But firepower in the hands of black men was — and still is — seen as dangerous and wildly inappropriate. Unless, of course, that violence is intraracial. When black males from Baltimore to Chicago shoot each other, policymakers hardly notice. Apathy breeds inaction, and big business encourages that the status quo be maintained.

The justified anger that informed decisions by the likes of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers to fully embrace their Second Amendment rights has been bastardized by contemporary arguments for lax gun control. And as money continues to corrupt, it only gets worse.

Last week, just one month after the Newtown massacre, the NRA released an iPhone app that teaches children age 4 and up how to shoot at targets. With gun sales at record highs, the NRA and its client roster profit at the cost of innocent lives. This prize of profits over people should make Obama’s decision to bypass Congress and issue gun restrictions by executive order all the easier.

As arguments over gun rights continue and the debate about what constitutes “well-regulated” becomes clearer, perhaps history will inform policy and remind Americans of a time when the tyranny wasn’t colorblind.

Edward Wyckoff Williams is a contributing editor at The Root. He is a columnist and political analyst, appearing on Al-Jazeera, MSNBC, ABC, CBS Washington and national syndicated radio. Follow him on Twitter and on Fa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opinion Worth considering Considered


I ran a cross this opinion a few days ago and  decided to post is as another side of the firearms issue. This posted by  California Congressman Mike Thompson:

“As a hunter and gun owner, I believe that we should protect the Second Amendment right of law-abiding individuals to own firearms. As a dad and grandfather, I also believe that we have a responsibility to make our schools, streets and communities safe. We can do both if Congress steps up. Many of the president’s executive actions will help reduce gun violence, but the policies that would have the greatest impact require congressional action.

After being named chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Gun Violence Prevention Task Force last month, I held town-hall meetings in my Northern California district. Hundreds attended, and I heard from law-enforcement officials, mental-health experts, school officials, National Rifle Association members and gun-control advocates.

Many feared that their Second Amendment rights would come under attack when my task force makes its recommendations to Congress next month. Others wanted to cast those rights aside. I think both views are extreme.

I will never give up my guns and I will never ask law-abiding individuals without a history of dangerous mental illness to give up theirs. Not only am I personally against this, but the Constitution wouldn’t allow it. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court affirmed once and for all that Americans have an individual right to keep and bear arms.

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David Gothard

However, just as the First Amendment protects free speech but doesn’t allow Americans to incite violence, the Second Amendment has limitations, too. As conservative Justice Antonin Scalia outlined in Heller, there is no constitutional problem with laws forbidding firearms in places such as schools or with laws prohibiting felons and the mentally ill from carrying guns.

This ruling provides people on both sides with an opportunity to work between the extremes and within the confines of the Second Amendment to pass legislation that will reduce gun violence.

There is wide agreement that we must close the holes in our mental-health system and make sure that care is available for those who need it by improving early intervention and addressing the shortage of mental-health professionals.

Many people on both sides also agree that everyone who buys a firearm should go through a comprehensive background check. No one wants convicted criminals or people with a history of dangerous mental illness to have access to guns. Yet our laws allow people to buy firearms privately or at some gun shows without going through a background check, and many states remain deficient in transferring important records to the federal database used to conduct background checks on gun buyers. This needs to change.

Voters also want Congress to crack down on “straw-purchasing,” the process by which someone legally purchases a firearm for the purpose of transferring it to a friend who is barred from gun ownership (someone with a history of domestic abuse, for example). There should be stricter federal consequences for such unlawful transfers.

The same goes for illegal gun trafficking. Many law-enforcement officials say that illegal gun-traffickers are most often charged with mere paperwork violations. To successfully cut down on their illicit conduct, we need more agents to conduct more frequent inspections of gun stores, and we need stiffer federal penalties for those who purchase and traffic these guns.

Federal authorities also give undue attention to prosecuting prohibited buyers who attempt to purchase firearms. Federal law bars nine categories of people—including felons and those who have been judged seriously mentally ill—from buying guns. But when ex-convicts attempt to buy guns, they are hardly ever prosecuted. Although the FBI referred more than 76,000 such cases to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in 2010, Justice Department attorneys prosecuted just 44 of them. Prosecuting these criminals should be a priority and Congress needs to stiffen the penalties.

There is also strong popular support for a national program modeled on California’s Armed Prohibited Persons System, which requires that those convicted of certain crimes or found to have serious mental illness turn in any firearms they own. Expanding California’s system nationwide would help make sure guns are kept out of the hands of those we all agree shouldn’t have them.

A majority of Americans also agree (according to a Pew poll released this month) that assault magazines have no place in our society. These magazines hold more than 10 rounds and allow a shooter to inflict mass damage in a short period of time without reloading. Banning them will save lives.

On the issue of reducing gun violence, there is a path between extremes. This debate isn’t a choice between protecting the Second Amendment or reducing gun violence. It is about the willingness of a responsible majority to do both.”

— Mr. Thompson, a Democrat, is a member of Congress from California