That time Blacks Did Carry Guns to Support Their Rights...

[n2doc]

THE GHOST OF RONALD REAGAN
By Charles P. Pierce

Let's close today by recalling the Mulford Act, and why there was a Mulford Act, and why Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act, and why the Mulford Act is very, very relevant to the current events that the president is talking about at this minute on the electric teevee machine.

Once upon a time in California, the police were knocking off black folks with an alarming regularity. In 1967, a black man named Denzil Dowell was blown away by a shotgun wielded by the police in North Richmond, an impoverished, largely black suburban community outside Oakland. According to the official police account, Dowell had been caught while breaking into a liquor store. He had then refused a command to stop and, therefore, was riddled by police who considered themselves threatened by him. Members of the community believed, with some justification, that Dowell had been killed while raising his hands to surrender. At the same time, the Black Panther Party in Oakland had been operating what it called Black Panther Police Patrols. The members of the patrol would listen to police scanners and then hustle to the scene of an arrest, where they would remind the suspect of his legal rights. They also showed up armed, because California then was an open-carry state because, of course, freedom.

This scared the bejesus out of white people, and the cops weren't too enthusiastic about it, either. So along came a Republican state assemblyman named Don Mulford, and he proposed a bill that would ban the carrying of loaded weapons in public throughout California. The Panthers enlivened the debate by showing up at the state capitol in Sacramento while exercising their god-given right to bear arms, which again scared the bejesus out of people. (I think it was the shades and the berets myself.) Speaking in language that today would make Wayne LaPierre cry like a child -- the NRA of the time was curiously supportive of the Act in question -- Don Mulford said he was proposing his law to keep us safe from "nuts with guns," especially the ones who lived in "urban environments." (No, you don't need the Enigma machine to decode that one.) The law passed. Governor Reagan signed it, and that's how history was made.

The floor is now open for thought experiments based on recent events.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Don_Mulford_Makes_History_Again

[Lee-Lee]

1. That was just a more recent example

Through this nations history most laws restricting ownership or carry of weapons were primarily intended to keep minorities disarmed.

[DetlefK]

2. Why are the gun-enthusiasts mum on Ferguson?

Why is nobody proposing that the people of Ferguson should arm themselves and stand up against tyranny?

[hack89]

3. Because violence plays right into the hands of the police and the white power establishment?

a bloodbath provoked by the protestors would take Michael Brown off the front page in a nanosecond.

[Trajan]

13. Nonsensical apologist response

It's about the hypocrisy, not the fear of a 'bloodbath' that is in question here ...

As long as gun 'aficionados' like yourself have access to all the guns you can dream up, there will ALWAYS be the chance of a bloodbath ...

Isn't that the crux of the argument AGAINST RKBA supporters like yourself? ... that unfettered gun ownership can lead to this 'bloodbath' problem?

You don't seem too concerned otherwise about the possibility of a 'bloodbath' when we discuss RKBA issues outside of the Ferguson disaster ...

I find your response disingenuous and self serving ...

[hack89]

15. Except I don't support unfettered access to guns

I support all proposed gun control laws with two exceptions - AWBs and registration. I do not support open carry. I support firearm ID cards coupled to training.

I also don't own guns for self defense or to protect myself from a tyrannical government - I just like to compete in target shooting matches.

[gratuitous]

4. Why aren't they flocking there, like they did to the Bundy Ranch?

Because as we all know, there's no racial component anymore, being all post-racial and stuff like we are, thanks to the Roberts Court. You'd think this would be right in the wheelhouse for the self-styled patriots, defending helpless citizens against the heavy hand of oppressive government. But for some reason, they're staying away in droves. Deucedly odd, I would say.

[jeff47]

6. Because said enthusiasts tend to have a melanin deficiency

and tend to believe that melanin deficiency is an important characteristic.

[aikoaiko]

5. And that more recent time when Blacks Did Carry Guns to Support Their Rights...

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7ca_1250667222


re-edited the title.

[jeff47]

7. There was a wave of gun control laws that passed in the 1960s and 1970s.

Why? Black Panthers walked around with guns.

If we want to pass more gun control legislation, start passing out free AR-15s to minorities.

[NoMoreRepugs]

16. agree 1000% jeff47

I've been saying much the same thing for years - you want gun control? - have minorities sign up in LARGE numbers for concealed carry permits where permissible. I'm of the opinion that if minorities mimicked the goobers and started to open carry the situation would get out of hand so fast and the hysteria so widespread it might not be able to be stopped.

[BlueCaliDem]

8. Thank you for this bit of gun-law history. I didn't know about it and I'm a Californian!

Now, the next time some pumped up Tea Partier starts yelling about freedumbs and unfettered gun-rights, and that California is the worst State in the Union because we have the strictest gun laws "cuz of dem libruls", I'll remind them that it was a Republican State Assemblyman, Don Mulford, and their Republican Saint Reagan who put those stricter gun laws into the books because White Californians and the predominantly White police back then were afraid of the Black Panthers and had a huge problem that Black people were taking advantage of that 2nd Amendment they hold so dearly - but only for White America, of course.

[treestar]

9. That is interesting

Thanks for that - good point. Why did that beacon of freedom, Ray-gun, sign a law restricting the precious Second Amendment right to bear arms? I bet his supporters would be disappointed in him.

[aikoaiko]

11. On internet gun forums many are unhappy with reagan because of that law

and signing FOPA with the Hughes Amendment which placed a moratorium new machine guns being transferred into the hands of law abiding residents (during his presidency).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_Owners_Protection_Act

[former9thward]

12. Reagan also signed the most liberal abortion law

in the country at that time. He was never the cookie cutter stereotype people make him out to be. No politician is as good as people say and no politician is as bad as people say.

[MineralMan]

10. The unspoken statement of the open carry and gun rights crowd

is that they mean for the right to bear arms only to apply to white Americans. As we saw in the Bundy incident, the authorities stand down in the face of heavily armed white citizens. That would not be the case in a place like Ferguson, should the black residents there show up openly carrying, or in most other places, either.

An armed black man is a "dangerous thug" in the minds of police and other authorities. An armed white man is someone who is "exercising 2nd amendment rights." This is unspoken, but the reality is that a black man openly carrying is very likely to be shot and killed, and such an action will not be treated as anything but justified. The same is not true for a white man.

That is the reason we're not seeing armed black men in Ferguson. It is also the reason that the white gun advocates are nowhere to be seen in that city. They simply do not support black people being armed. Only white people.

Racism at its worst.

[tclambert]

14. Wait, black men openly carrying guns? No, no, no, the NRA couldn't support that!

Guns are for white men. (Little, tiny guns are for white ladies.) They're to protect white men from scary minorities.



(You know what? I was gonna put the smiley on this, but then I thought I'm not sure it is sarcasm. This world has me befuddled.)