Hatewatch Tweets
Hatewatch is managed by the staff of the Intelligence Report, an investigative magazine published by the Alabama-based civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center.
Second Amendment Vigilantes
Editor’s note: The author of this guest column, Ron Carver, is a former field organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He is currently an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPC). This piece was distributed via OtherWords, a nonprofit editorial service operated by the IPC.
I don’t hunt, but I have nothing against hunters or owners of rifles, bows and arrows, or boomerangs. However, I am against vigilantes and those, like the NRA leaders, who encourage them.
I had my own run-in with vigilantes when I joined the movement to end segregation and guarantee all citizens the right to vote.
After weeks of death threats delivered by phone to our Freedom House in Starkville, Mississippi, I was alone on a November night in 1964 when three armed and drunken Klansmen banged on the door of our two-room shack. I demanded to know who was there, and a chill ran through my body when the white men responded, “just us niggers.”
There wasn’t a stick of furniture I could use to defend myself, only the bar across the door. But lift and wield it, and the front door would swing open. And who could I phone for help? The sheriff? The chief of police? For all I knew, they were waiting out front, too.
Terrified, I slammed through the nailed-shut back door and slid on my belly down the hill into the darkness, as fast as I could.
That was one incident in a violent, bloody year.
Armed Klansmen burned 50 African-American churches and kidnapped and killed three civil rights activists in an infamous attack that became a pivotal moment in the civil rights struggle. During the search for Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner, Lyndon Johnson sent Navy sailors to scour Neshoba County’s riverbeds. They didn’t find them, but they uncovered the corpses of dozens of African American men. It was a time and place where any crime was tolerated if it preserved the segregationists’ “way of life.”
In the previous hundred years, thousands of African Americans had been lynched, as documented in scores of gruesome photos that were proudly sold as souvenirs.
It is no surprise to me, then, to learn that James Madison’s reason for proposing the Second Amendment in 1789 was to preserve the state militias, the white population’s “principal instrument of slave control.” As documented in The Hidden History of the Second Amendment, an article published in 1998 in the University of California, Davis Law Review, these militias (often called “slave patrols”) were tasked with periodic sweeps of plantations to seek runaway slaves and intimidate any who dreamed of freedom.
Today, the proliferation of armed hate groups, which sometimes call themselves militias, is at least as dangerous as isolated, unbalanced, and gun-toting men with scores to settle. The number of anti-government so-called Patriot groups, such as armed militias, grew by 755 percent in the first three years of President Barack Obama’s first term, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The number of these groups rose from 149 at the end of 2008 to 1,274 in 2011, the SPLC reports.
Hate groups have expanded into every state but Hawaii. They are in everyone’s backyard.
The atmosphere today is toxic. Radio talk jocks promote armed struggle and one security industry executive boasts on YouTube that he would “start shooting people” in response to new gun controls.
For more than a hundred years the NRA promoted sportsmanship and responsible gun ownership — period. But since extremists seized control in 1977, the organization has forced a stranglehold on Congress while promoting the myth that the Second Amendment was enacted to facilitate armed rebellion against our own government, should it become tyrannical.
I support the right to own guns, but we don’t need 30 rounds in a semi-automatic weapon — or a well-armed militia — to bag a deer. I draw the line when my fellow citizens turn their homes into armories and begin training for insurrection. We used to call that treason.
on January 24th, 2013 at 10:32 am
I can’t help but feel that having a 12 gauge pump shotgun loaded with 00 buck shot might have deterred your attackers. Bobby Sears on said (Paraphrased) ” Nothing Racist fear more then a Black man (sic) with a gun.” Peaceful non-violent protest is one thing but Appropriate self-defense can save your life. You were lucky.
on January 24th, 2013 at 10:51 am
And I can’t help but feel that one man with one gun is not “appropriate self-defense” against 3 men with 3 guns. So he blasts one and then what? There’s no guarantee that they’re going risk an open shot at their backs by running instead of both blasting him with their own guns. Result: 2 dead instead of 0 dead.
on January 24th, 2013 at 10:54 am
William, say he wounded — or killed — one of his assailants. The town would have simply formed a posse and lynched him.
Just like there’s no simple — or even RIGHT — answer to gun control, there is no simple answer to self defense.
In this case, running was the correct response.
on January 24th, 2013 at 11:00 am
Pretty much the same: “gun control” usually involves keeping guns out of the hands of the poor and disenfranchised. Who knows how many blacks would have been lynched if they had free access to firearms with which to defend themselves? Just a wild guess, but after the first 2 or 3 Klansmen got shot, the rest would probably go elsewhere and drink heavily, or find someone not so inclined to defend themselves, their family and their home.
Would you have rather had a stick of furniture to defend yourself with, or an AR15 with a 30 round magazine? Yes, they existed in the mid-60s. The fact that you considered means of defense negates any argument that your actions were truly non-violent, or proscribed the use of force in self-defense. You just found out, as many people do, that needing a gun and not having it can suck.
I’d never consider joining the NRA, because of the bellicosity and intolerance of some of it’s more strident members, but I also wouldn’t dare impose what I thought was “reasonable” in weapon design or magazine capacity on the lawful owners and users of firearms. Neither you nor I get to tell people what they need or don’t need or can or cannot keep or do in their home unless and until it has been legislated. And legislation based on spectacularly horrific but statistically insignificant, in the mathematical sense of the word, is a major league Bad Idea.
on January 24th, 2013 at 11:03 am
@William McLaughlin:
That’s assuming, of course, that the local authorities would’ve recognized Mr. Carver’s right to appropriate self-defense. A black voting rights activist drawing a gun on a Klansman in Mississippi circa 1964 would only have escalated the situation and resulted in the sheriff issuing a police report blaming the terrifying black man for the entire incident. That’s exactly the kind of discriminatory response faced by the Black Panther Party for Self Defense when its members did patrols of neighborhoods openly carrying legally possessed and registered long arms.
There are two basic reasons why you don’t see black and Latino civil rights activists rushing to defend an absolutist interpretation of the Second Amendment that says there can be no controls on individuals owning weapons. The first is that they see the damage done by the huge oversupply of firearms in their communities, many of them purchased and registered legally at some point and then resold under the table. The second is that they recognize that, under a corrupt and racialized law enforcement system, the rights of all citizens to defend themselves are equal in theory, but the right of a white citizen to defend himself is more equal in practice.
on January 24th, 2013 at 11:19 am
Running was the ONLY response. And it only works if the victim is a faster runner than the attacker. Colt revolvers were called “equalizers” for a reason.
Would the town have formed a posse & lynched him? They might have. Or they might have decided it wasn’t worth getting shot by someone who didn’t really want to be lynched that day. Never underestimate the cowardice of large groups when facing someone who just won’t back down.
Actually, there is a simple answer to self-defense: do it.
on January 24th, 2013 at 11:45 am
Bill, two words for you:
FIRE BOMB.
on January 24th, 2013 at 12:03 pm
For those who disregard self- defense. Bigots are bullies. When you run there is not guarantee you survive. When you have the ability to defend yourself and the will there is only one guarantee. They will think twice before doing it again. As for the police. You don’t have to be there when they arrive. As for choice of weapons. one round of 00 bock is 12 .36 cal balls x 5 rounds is 60 balls at 3 targets. do the math. It is better to die standing up then running. Been there.
on January 24th, 2013 at 12:07 pm
Some of the commenters above seem to have overlooked the fact that Mr. Carver was a member of the Student *Nonviolent* Coordinating Committee. That group’s commitment to nonviolent resistance to injustice along Gandhian lines, a principle embraced by the Civil Rights Movement as a whole, obviously ruled out going around heavily armed.
Mr. Carver’s words are a timely reminder that he and hundreds of others chose to walk into the lion’s den of violent bigotry armed with nothing more than their moral courage. Many of them died as a result, and everyone saw that it was their oppressors who were in the wrong.
We should keep that in mind when we hear self-styled patriots claim that they’re entitled to take up arms against their own country over unsubstantiated allegations that their rights are somehow being infringed. There’s an ugly undertone of intimidation in that kind of talk, which is an important reason why it fails to persuade anyone that there’s any real injustice taking place.
on January 24th, 2013 at 12:20 pm
This story is a fairy tale. Note the author is anonymous. We’re supposed to believe that evil white racists are attacking innocent blacks all over the South. The truth is the exact opposite. Hundreds of white people are attacked by blacks everyday in America. They have been for many decades. The media just never publishes the stories. Then they write about some church burning that happened 50 years ago. At the same time Communists were murdering millions and millions worldwide, but of course this isn’t mentioned. What a load of crapola this story is! And then we’re supposed to believe there are “hate group”, and these evil white devils are all hateful racists. What crap!
on January 24th, 2013 at 12:29 pm
Maybe if 1 billion people all had guns they would all shoot each other and we can move on as a society. There never seems to be enough guns for those that argue in defense of them.
on January 24th, 2013 at 12:29 pm
But let’s not forget the Deacons for Defense and Justice here in my hometown of Bogalusa, LA during those very turbulent years. This parish, Washington Parish, was labeled as the Klan capital of America at the time; Bogalusa was called “Bloody Bogalusa.” But guess what, those armed Deacons sure made those Klansmen think twice about entering black neighborhoods. And ultimately, because of the armed Deacons, Bogalusa integrated and assimilated, for the most part, with the rest of modern society instead of remaining stuck in the “good ‘ol days.”
on January 24th, 2013 at 12:32 pm
I wonder, when the Founding Fathers placed the right to bear arms via the 2nd Amendment, in the Bill of rights of the Constitution, what they hoped to achieve, as pertains to our rights? I can’t believe they were hoping their posterity would always be able to hunt, since it never occurred to any of them then that they’d ever not be able to, 2nd Amendment or not.
Reading the writings of the various Founders, they seemed to think that all government by its very nature is corrupt and tends towards tyranny and despotism over time. They also seemed to think that the people of the US needed to retain the ability to resist the government by force, should that effort become necessary, and that a people without adequate arms would be unable to offer a credible resistance. If the right to bear arms is ceded to the government, should that government become even more tyrannical than it presently is, would they accede to the people’s right to defend themselves by armed resistance? Somehow I don’t think so.
I wonder if the Jews who Hitler was able to disarm would have been better off to fight to retain the arms they had, rather than just accede? Would more of them be alive today if they had resisted a tyrannical government? Should our government become such a government or worse, would it be to our advantage to have arms adequate to resist?
on January 24th, 2013 at 12:34 pm
The problem is nothing is black and white. There are no simple answers. This country is absolutely drowning in guns. We are worse than any 3rd world war mongering country on earth when it comes to the insane amount of guns people own. When you listen to many gun rights fanatics they sound pretty similar to the KKK, Skin heads or any other number of groups that thrive on their perceived power by using intimidation. Their arguments are all based on a feeling of power derived from paranoia and has very little to do with reality. Much of their thinking is absolute, black and white, lacking rationality, very little common sense and arrogance IE; We are right you’re wrong and that’s just the way it is and if you refuse to agree with us then we will just shoot you because guns are the only true way to settle this.
on January 24th, 2013 at 12:44 pm
With all due respect, the word “hunting” is not in the Second Amendment, and any argument that uses hunting (pro- or anti- gun rights) is not well founded. Secondly, the paper cited which equates gun ownership with the promotion with slavery has been largely disproven. The advent of gun control, especially in the South, was largely to prevent the African American population from owning guns; the rallying cry for gun control was long “No Guns For Negroes” (but they used a different N-word). The goal of disarming the population is not based on safety or civil rights. If that were the goal, we’d have to pay attention to the fact that every single study comparing gun ownership has shown that ALL crime statistics fall in proportion to increasing gun ownership by civilians.
on January 24th, 2013 at 1:15 pm
Thanks to the author for a brilliant article.
A civil rights activist friend was in Mississippi in 1964 and talks about the vigilantees. He was white so he slipped “undercover” into Natchez from Jackson, which was deep in KKK country.
Locals told him the civil rights people were planning to “invade” and that they didn’t like the Klan and their lynchings much but they would be there with a shotgun on their porch when the “outsiders” came.
on January 24th, 2013 at 1:18 pm
Someone needs to go to Hawaii and experience hate at its finest. Spent two years in that place. All is not what you see. One does not a gun to hate or kill.
on January 24th, 2013 at 1:35 pm
The problem here in New Jersey is the ill-advised words of Governor Christie. He likes to single out persons and target him for his personal wrath. He inspires others to negative action. He is floundering over his position on the issue of gun control to retain conservative support.
I had a run-in with two of Humpty Dumpty’s good old boy supporters a few nights ago when I was walking. I heard a male voice say: “where’s my money?” I turned and observed two white males in a large black pickup truck. The pickup truck was very clean and shiny. The words of the passenger caused me serious alarm. I turned around again to see if they were gone. He repeated his question. I said in a loud and clear voice “up your rectum”. The instigator replied: “do you mean up my ass?”. I turned around and returned to walking towards home. Both passenger and driver continued their verbal assault on me. They drove away after about saying three more insults to me. I reported them to the police. Hopefully, they will disenfranchise themselves on election day by spending their time in a bar.
I am for ballots rather than bullets. I am directing my energies to replace the proto-fascist schoolyard bully with Barbara Buono, the Democratic candidate for governor.
on January 24th, 2013 at 1:37 pm
Eric in Ohio, you need to brush up on your reading comprehension skills. The article is not anonymous, the author’s name is stated right up front. In addition, you seem to have missed the part about how the events described took place in 1964, probably long before you were born. Anyone who was alive and aware at the time, as I was, knows that Mr. Carver (the “anonymous” author) is quite accurate in his description of the atmosphere that prevailed in the Deep South.
But recognizing that would prevent you from trotting out the current racist enabling myth, that “Hundreds of white people are attacked by blacks everyday in America” and “The media just never publishes the stories.” A word of advice: If you read something on vdare or stormfront or wndaily, it’s probably not true.
on January 24th, 2013 at 1:51 pm
Well, well, Jason/Eugene/Annie/Eric, welcome back.
on January 24th, 2013 at 2:27 pm
Rey,
Maybe the Resurrection Committee took the holidays off. They certainly didn’t spend the time developing new material. I wonder if “Eric” is a real scientist as well.
on January 24th, 2013 at 2:37 pm
Nineteen guns and more than a thousand rounds of ammunition weren’t much help to Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party when the CPD came calling.
on January 24th, 2013 at 2:49 pm
i guess this means that Jason/Ezra/Annie/Jessica/Eugene/Eric/etc. was not the junior Nazi arrested in Alabama after all. Or maybe he was able to get bail.
on January 24th, 2013 at 3:29 pm
First class malarky. Not only were most “gun control” laws passed after the Civil War to keep guns out of the hands of newly freed Blacks, the NRA went to court to ensure the rights of project dwellers in New Jersey to keep a gun for defense in their home. The State had argued that it was not their home, it was owned by the Government. There are also Black people on the NRA’s Board of Directors.
on January 24th, 2013 at 3:51 pm
Great article. Too bad Congress and the Justice Dept. has allowed these groups to thrive. If this was Black groups arming yelling 2nd amendment rights, government would have destroyed them by now.
on January 24th, 2013 at 4:55 pm
Once again, Sam is wrong. The Army and Navy Act was passed to keep guns out of the hands of the poor black AND white people. It stated that citizens could only carry large Army or Navy revolvers, which most folks simply couldn’t afford.
It has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with class. Except now there are plenty of poor folks with access to very inexpensive guns, so that argument is largely moot.
But as usual, nice try.
on January 24th, 2013 at 5:35 pm
I’m sure you can provide a reference to back up your claim right Sam?
on January 24th, 2013 at 5:40 pm
I really can’t help but think that all the furor over the Sandy Hook, shootings, wouldn’t so virulent if the school had been full of black kids. That said, I own some guns. but I have no use for the NRA and the hate mongers they embrace and whip up on a daily basis. Yes we should have some limits on guns, but how many more people are killed by drunk drivers and tobacco and even texting and not paying attention to the world around you.
on January 24th, 2013 at 5:56 pm
Tis amazing, is it not. Those that preach peace and tolerance are only tolerant with those that share the same views as they do. This used to be a free nation, then we obtained political correctness.
If the anti-freedom crowd REALLY wanted to resolve the issue of violence with guns, why have the FAILED to ask Mr Holder and Mr Obama why they continue to withhold evidence and records about the DOJ’s illegal international gun running to the Mexican Drug Cartels which is know to have resulted in the deaths of HUNDREDS of innocent Mexican citizens?
What have then done rather than release these records? They simply nominated one of the guys that brain stormed that bloody diaster to run the ATF! What a joke!!!
As Mr. Biden admitted, we have more gun laws on the books today than we can enforce. May I ask what one more proposed law would do for an individual who thought nothing of committing 26 cold blooded acts of murder? Our Government promised health care to those in need starting in the 60s, that goal has yet to be achieved – in fact its WORSE today. We used to at least respect our Vets, that too is a joke today.
The more promises the Government makes, the more they fail at, and the cycle of doom continues. Will we awaken in time or will we go the route of the USSR and many other great Big Brother governments throughout history?
on January 24th, 2013 at 6:07 pm
For being awash in guns, it’s noteworthy that violent crime in the US has been trending downward steadily for a number of years. I doubt that it has much to do with the number of guns we own, but it’s hard to logically presume that guns are all of a sudden “causing” mass violence.
Stringent enforcement of child restraint and bike helmet laws would likely save more kid’s lives than 7 round magazines. And the smug moral superiority of “non-violence” looses its luster when it’s your friends getting lynched.
on January 24th, 2013 at 6:10 pm
Young Sam is getting desperate.
on January 24th, 2013 at 6:50 pm
Anon – what’s your point? Do you want the bad guys to win? You prefer potential victims to be helpless? Ok, I’ll see your fire bomb and raise you a bucket of water. Eventually we can get to Death Star and X-Wing fighter. I just happen to believe that letting Bad People do Bad Things to Good People is Bad, particularly when the technology exists to enable Good People to stop it from happening.
on January 24th, 2013 at 7:28 pm
What a sad, pitiful group of people the racists, homophobes, misogynists and other hate-based people are. And how very, very sad it is what they’re doing to our beautiful country. I guess we never did stand for the basic principle that “all men [sic] are created equal.”
on January 24th, 2013 at 7:54 pm
Sam,
“There are also Black people on the NRA’s Board of Directors.”
Oh my, how open-minded of them. But to be exact, there are exactly four African Americans (all men) on the NRA’s 75-member board. That’s 5 percent, or less than one-fourth of what the number should be to reflect African Americans’ share of the U.S. population.
One of the favored four is the egregious Ken Blackwell, who is also on the board of the National Taxpayers Union and a senior fellow at the Family Research Council. And when you consider that Ollie North and Grover Norquist, among many other far-right notables (not to mention Ted Nugent) are on the board, it’s clearly more about politics than public safety or the constitution.
on January 24th, 2013 at 9:18 pm
@William McLaughlin
“As for the police. You don’t have to be there when they arrive.”
Because yes, being labelled an armed fugitive who flees from the scene of a homicide or a discharge of a weapon is the best outcome in this situation (racist police force, Mississippi, 1964).
on January 25th, 2013 at 1:30 am
Mr. Carver,When I attend church or a mission, no one questions if I need it. It is my right to religious freedom.No one questions,”Do I need it?” should I choose to write to you. I may because I have a right to freedom of speech. Mrs. Parks did not need to sit in the front of the bus. It was her RIGHT to sit wherever she wanted.
I agree with your thought, “I support the right to own guns,” We disagree on this however,
“but we don’t need 30 rounds in a semi-automatic weapon — or a well-armed militia — to bag a deer.”
No one has the right to determine how many rounds I need. Should I be competing, I may need 100 or more rounds. If I am plinking at the range, 50 might be enough for my old trigger finger. If there is an intruder, I need one more round than the threat.
My personal experience is that the average individual has little idea what constitutes a “home armory.” Is that 5,000 rounds, 500, 50? One hand gun , ten? How many?
My experience has been with legacy firearms collectors,those investing in firearms to pass along to the next generation, or those seeking the latest available technology. Some people collect books,jewelry, or coins. Others collect firearms.
I’ve been on fellowship shoots, but thankfully, I’ve never known any individuals interested in forming a militia for treason!
on January 25th, 2013 at 7:25 am
I am generally a great fan of SPLC but am enormously disappointed by certain elements of this article. First, there is the revisionist history positing the Second Amendment was ratified because of slavery. The amendment was born primarily as a guarantee against tyranny, domestic or abroad. Anyone with a fundamental grasp of constitutional history understands this.
Secondly, this blog fails to show how many elements of modern gun control were motivated by racism and were in RESPONSE to the Civil Rights movement. The KKK was a big support of gun-control (sorry, but it’s true.) And the 2nd Amendment was never about ‘deer hunting’ (a simple-minded rhetorical trick.) Revisionist history in advance of a political agenda is propoganda, not truth. Have we already forgotten the genocides, democides, and brutalities of the last century? Does anyone really believe this cycle cannot repeat itself? I support civil rights – all of them, including the right of our citizenry to own state of the art weaponry. I will take my chances with an armed populace before I trust a police state. Vigilantism, no. Cautious hope that we may never need our firearms to defend our civil liberties, yes.
on January 25th, 2013 at 9:28 am
Having true Gun Control, a citizen won’t need a gun to protect himself. What about countries in Europe? In population ratio comparable to the USA, private persons don’t have guns and there isn’t as much gun crime related incidents as there is in the USA. AGAIN! The 2nd Amendment only give permission to Militias to own guns, not to private citizens.
on January 25th, 2013 at 9:58 am
“Yes we should have some limits on guns, but how many more people are killed by drunk drivers and tobacco and even texting and not paying attention to the world around you.”
Pete, not a gainsay, just some observations:
The actual numbers of traffic deaths are very close to gun deaths in America. However, we don’t seem to have a problem with regulations that make our roads safer, including some signficant challenges to state authority such as occured decades ago in Colorado when federal highway funding was used to force the state legislature to raise the drinking age to 21.
Another observation is that cars were not designed with the express purpose of taking lives. So if we can regulate transport in the interests of public safety, it stands to reason it is all the more urgent to regulate weapons. An analogy is that the right wing is screaming the government will confiscate cars through the mere existence of traffic laws.
on January 25th, 2013 at 10:00 am
Bill, you aren’t worth my time. You obviously have no idea what SNCC was really about.
And a bucket of water to fight a petrol bomb? Are you crazy? Or just stupid?
on January 25th, 2013 at 10:11 am
Donna Marie,
Gun ownership makes you a target for crime. In 1994, more than a quarter-million households experienced the theft of one or more firearms; nearly 600,000 guns were stolen during these burglaries.
Official studies also show that up to a third of convicted felons who used weapons got them through burglary. More guns in the home means more guns in the hands of criminals.
on January 25th, 2013 at 10:26 am
“The amendment was born primarily as a guarantee against tyranny, domestic or abroad.”
Thirty thousand Americans die each year to gun violence.
That death toll is on par with the deaths in the Bosnian war (100,000-110,000 in three years), which was the most devastating military conflict in Europe since WWII.
I find it hard to accept the argument that we are defending ourselves against tyrants when we are killing as many civilians at tyrants.
on January 25th, 2013 at 10:26 am
“The amendment was born primarily as a guarantee against tyranny, domestic or abroad.”
Thirty thousand Americans die each year to gun violence.
That death toll is on par with the deaths in the Bosnian war (100,000-110,000 in three years), which was the most devastating military conflict in Europe since WWII.
I find it hard to accept the argument that we are defending ourselves against tyrants when we are killing as many civilians as tyrants.
on January 25th, 2013 at 10:46 am
No Paul, anyone with a true grasp of actual history knows that the only purpose of the Second Amendment was to protect the state militias which indeed in the South were primarily devoted to protecting slavery. Any doubt of that should be removed by the plain language of the Second Amendment and the fact that “bear arms” was in the 18th Century only used in referring to military service. The Constitution is a very short document, it simply did not include extraenous langauge – the original understanding is thus clear that the Second Amendment only protects militias.
When for 200 plus years everyone agreed that the Second Amendment was only to protect the right to bear arms within a state militia and does not protect an individual right to bear arms it is pretty clear which side is promoting revisionist history for political gains. The fact that they have had considerable sucess in spreading their myth doesn’t make it any less of a myth.
on January 25th, 2013 at 3:37 pm
Yes, the NRA has some people I disagree with. And some laws do need to be adjusted to keep our streets safer. But obviously from reading these posts the NRA is really all we have to prevent poorly educated airheads from totally removing one of our God given rights. The SPLC should stick to what it is for, reporting on hate and educating for tolerance. Apparently it is infested with whining liberals who, like sharks who smell blood in the water, think their gun grabbing opportunity has finally arrived. A few years ago it was “Saturday Night Specials” that were causing all the problems. no definition given. Now it is “Assault Rifles”, no definition given. The problems were, and are, actually caused by criminals run through a revolving door legal system. The SPLC has, and should have, the protection given by the American tradition of firearms. All good people deserve the same.
on January 25th, 2013 at 3:49 pm
Sam, far from a revolving door the U.S. has some of the harshest criminal sentences and one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. And since the Rehnquist and Roberts courts have basically sent the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments through a shredder, it has very little problem getting convictions.
on January 25th, 2013 at 4:09 pm
IIRC, the last time the term “Saturday Night Specials” figured prominently in the debate was leading up to the Gun Control Act of 1968. That was a few years ago, give or take forty.
on January 25th, 2013 at 4:18 pm
Right on, Erika. The revolving door if there is such a thing in our grotesquely bloated prison system has to do with the failure to rehabilitate.
After subjecting inmates to torture, denial of medical care, rape and unwholesome condtions to punish them as harshly as possible, our 80% recidivism rate suggests that is not the way to go.
In fact, four things have been shown to be effective in keeping people out of prison upon release, which are 1) education, 2) substance abuse treatement and counseling, 3) job skills and professional training, and 4) faith-based initiatives that provide a perspective on ethics and a new sense of self.
Unfortunately those four things are secondary to the intentions of our prison system, which seeks foremost not to rehabilitate, but to punish.
on January 25th, 2013 at 8:03 pm
Gun ownership makes you are target for crime? In that case we should ban cash, prescription drugs and LCD TVs. Maybe we could crush crime by just setting all our stuff by the curb.
My unofficial study indicates that criminals account for 100% of stolen stuff. Not owning something because someone might steal it is strange. I’m guessing we need to ban cars, then also.
on January 25th, 2013 at 8:09 pm
Aron said,
ON JANUARY 25TH, 2013 AT 10:00 AM
Bill, you aren’t worth my time. You obviously have no idea what SNCC was really about.
And a bucket of water to fight a petrol bomb? Are you crazy? Or just stupid?
“Not worth my time” is the typical response from someone who has suddenly realized they have a position they can’t defend. And I’m not crazy, or stupid, just a cop who sees the results of violence on a regular basis, and recognizes that it can’t be wished away if only this gun or that gun were to be banned.
on January 26th, 2013 at 6:10 am
Anyone who believes the idea that if “blacks had access to guns there would be less lynchings” forgets the institutional power that racists had. These weren’t just a small amount of men. They were the cops, they were the governments, they were in charge, and they were invested in terrorizing black people into submission. As we saw in situations like Rosewood and Tulsa, blacks with guns defending themselves often brought more angry whites who would go on to destroy entire families, even black townships, often killing dozens if not hundreds of black people, many unarmed. Any suggestion that guns might have “helped” is made from the privileged position that guns help prevent “tyranny” while conveniently forgetting how “tyrannical” racial disenfranchisement was.
on January 26th, 2013 at 9:17 pm
@aadila-According to the CDC in 2010, 11,078 homocides were committed with a firearm in the US. Check your facts.Secondly, as to my firearms being stolen, that is highly unlikely.As a responsible firearms enthusaist, those not carried on my person concealed, are carefully locked in my refrigerator sized safe! Stop being silly and get to the range. You might have fun!
@ Erika- The prison system in the US is the largest single employer, aside from the Federal govenment including the armed forces. It “pays” to incarcerate large segments of the population.Ask me. I know.
on January 27th, 2013 at 9:31 am
I had always heard (and maybe I heard wrong) that the shocking thing about that search for bodies in Mississippi was the number of women’s corpses — of all colors — that were found. But, of course, the murder of women (by men of all ethnicities) is a whole different thing than a hate crime, and hardly worth mentioning. Or so they tell us.
on January 28th, 2013 at 10:07 am
Bill, you’re not worth my time because as I said, you obviously have no idea what SNCC stood for as an organization.
And far be it for me to cure your ignorance.
on January 28th, 2013 at 1:25 pm
“@aadila-According to the CDC in 2010, 11,078 homocides were committed with a firearm in the US. Check your facts.”
I did not say homicides. I said deaths to gun violence, which includes accidents and suicides. Check your facts. Also I find it noteworthy that the Bosnian war is over but we continue to have 30,000 gun deaths a year without any sign of abatement.
That 600,000 guns are stolen per year suggests guns are not being stored properly as you claim. What is your solution? Your right to bear arms doesn’t give you the right to arm criminals through negligence and inadequate safeguards. Cars have annual inspections…why not gun owners?
Have fun at the range with your death toy.
on January 29th, 2013 at 10:18 am
“And I’m not crazy, or stupid, just a cop who sees the results of violence on a regular basis, and recognizes that it can’t be wished away if only this gun or that gun were to be banned.”
Bill, I do not think that anyone actually believes gun control measures will end gun violence or somehow “wish it away”. That might be an ideal to work toward but it would be a reduction to the absurd to claim that is what gun control is all about.
As you claim to be a police officer, how about we simply eradicate all traffic laws, take out all the stop signs, and just let everybody drive the way they want? After all, traffic laws can’t “wish away” traffic fatalities so what good are they?
on January 31st, 2013 at 3:51 pm
That would be a straw man, or straw car crash argument. There are already laws that prohibit using any weapon to cause harm or kill. There are already laws that control types of guns and who can or cannot legally purchase, possess or use them. It’s against the law to drive with over a statutory established concentration of blood or controlled substances in your bloodstream, yet people violate that law all the time, often repeatedly. No one claims that drunk driving laws prevent or reduce drunk driving. Placing additional laws on the books, statutorily limiting magazine capacity or physical features of a firearm will not stop someone willing to violate the law from doing so, any more than the fact that many drugs are illegal to possess stop their use.
And “gun violence” is a misnomer. An injury resulting from a negligent discharge is the result of negligence, not violence. Is a brain injury due to being hit in the head with a hammer different from that resulting from a bullet? Violence is violence, how it is committed isn’t the major issue in preventing or reducing it.
on February 1st, 2013 at 4:36 pm
Bill,
First, my argument is not a strawman, so your comment is not inherent to this debate.
I am making an analogy, not arguing against something you didn’t say or believe. It happens to be a good analogy because deaths to firearms and deaths to vehicles are in close parity. In my state it is much easier to purchase a weapon legally than it is to own or drive a car legally. For a long gun, you hand over the money and walk, that simple. No one has to present proof of insurance, or perform a competency test.
A bad analogy would be your comparison of prescription drugs making people a target of crime. As far as I am aware someone cannot use a vial of oxycontin to gun down an elementary school.
Drug abuse is a physical and psychological dependency. You are right that more laws won’t stop it and they don’t — at least not punitive laws. What drug abusers need is treatement, not jail time. So again, bad analogy.
You are correct that the mere existence of laws on the books does not stop criminal behavior; however, neither does the existence of ineffective laws mean they cannot be made more effective. Gun laws do not aim to correct the underlying evil of gun violence, but to make it less likely to happen and establish a means of redress.
While on the topic if negligence. Since FBI estimates are of 600,000 weapons stolen from homes and cars each year, why don’t we try the owners of those weapons for criminal negligence in failing to safeguard them?
I agree with you violence is violence, but since you are a police officer (or claim to be) why not put aside your firearm and carry a hammer, since there is really no difference between the two?
on February 9th, 2013 at 1:54 pm
My question on firearms is a little different:
What is it about this country — as opposed to other countries — that we feel we have to live in a state of paranoia, assuming that our government is an incipient tyranny, and all of our fellow citizens and neighbors are potential deadly enemies? Why are we so bellicose?
As Rodney King said, “Why can’t we all just get along?”
on February 9th, 2013 at 11:30 pm
This is the most ridiculous anti-2nd amendment hit article I have seen in a good long while. It is racist, it is inaccurate, and it is full of hatred for American Values.
I have been around racists both white and black my whole life; and even being white been the victim of racial violence twice. I learned martial arts and support the 2nd amendment because I understand natural law and REALITY. This writer has his opinion, and I’m glad that because of the 2nd amendment he can use his 1st to post it. But I’ll be damned if I don’t stop and say you cannot call the kettle black if you’re the dag-gone pot.
I own guns. I know how to kill with a pencil. But I also pray for world peace with Buddhist chanting weekly. The idea that the first part makes me a radical right extremist is insulting. I have more peace and tolerance in my pinky finger than what I’ve seen in this article. And the conclusions reached under the ostensible authority of being ‘right’ are simply laughable. It’s an opinion; and point for point I could destroy it as an argument. So please, do not pretend you’ve got the answers or that you’re tolerant.
We’ve given MILES in the direction of gun control in the name of safety with the result of palpable tyranny and rising violent crime in “Gun free zones.” 20000 Gun Control laws.
What has the LEFT given? Don’t say CC[D]W… we fought HARD for these laws with DEMOCRACY, and we didn’t use massacres of children to get them. We have public opinion on our side; but the left stands on the graves of children pretending to be sane while we’re simply heartless killing machines. It’s asanine, illogical, and an insult to the human brain.
You double-talk out of the sides of your mouths; you cannot win any debate point for point, I can tell you that. I’ve won debates for 15 years (since I was a CHILD) and I know for a fact you will simply resort to ad hominem in a vain attempt to pretend to be winning. If you’re racist you call OTHERS racist. Ridiculous.
There are many forms of violence. Control of others’ minds through fear, intimidation, marginalization, and elitist, jussive Voice is an evil violence of the most deplorable kind. I would spit in your general direction if it were worthy of my fluids.
Good day, and try to recall that in the End; when the Void comes, God saves a special reward for traitors to humanity – freedom and Truth – and to their own countrymen’s safety.
on February 12th, 2013 at 2:30 pm
It sure is nice that we have big, strong keyboard kommandos like Shifu C to protect us with their deadly, deadly pencils.
If you are actually a Buddhist, you strike me as having more in common with the Buddhists calling for the massacres of Burmese Muslims than the Buddha Siddartha.
on February 14th, 2013 at 11:32 am
“But if someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, he said, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun. Not at the head, where a fatal wound might result. But at some other body part, such as a leg. “- The Dali Lama, 2001
Buddhism takes a nuanced view of self defense and gun control. Of course, what may be an appropriate policy for a rural, agrarian society like Tibet could be entirely inappropriate for a modern, densely populated city such as Chicago.
on March 1st, 2013 at 2:33 pm
I’m a lifelong liberal Dem who owns and shoots guns for fun and for self defense and home defense. I carried concealed for my job for over 40 yrs. I know guns.
Here’s some reasons why shooter buy the AR15 etc..
(1) Target practice. The ability to shoot 5 bullet holes within a quareter-szed circle at 100 yards requires the same kind of hand-eye co-ordination, muscle and breathing contol as any quarterback, batter or other shot maker.
(2) Self defense. If you live in the city, a shotgun is an efficient deterent for home defense but its not so good in the country. Why? Because some bad guys who wants to invade your home and rob you can sit 300 feet away waiting for you to poke your head out the door and shoot you. Your shotgun is worthless at long range whereas an AR15 is effective at long range. Furthermore, the average home invasion involves 3-4 thugs (FBI stats) and you may well need a 20 or 30 round magazine in the gravest estreme.
3) Hunters don’t need a high capacity magazine. In NY state the law limits any gun capacity to 6 rounds. I you hunt with an AR you carry the 5 round mag. That’s all you need.
4) Every cop in NYC carries a Glock Mod. 19 pistol with a 14 round mag. They also carry 2 additional mags on their duty belt. That’s over 40 rounds. The recently passed NY law requires bans most pistols. Why should civilians carry guns that are half-loaded?
I’m not a militia guy and I don’t belong to the NRA. I do value the 2nd Amendment. Most folks in the country have guns to protect themselves. We don’t brag about it. We know that 911 responses is too long to wait in a real emergency. Guns are part of the culture and just another tool – but a valuable tool, to be sure. .
on March 6th, 2013 at 11:02 am
For the first time in my adult life I am on the other side of the SPLC.
I am a gun owner and have one of the ‘assault weapons’ that are being railed against.
Does this automatically make me ‘the enemy’ now?
I have ‘high capacity’ magazines (the same sized ones that Eugine Stoner designed in the 1960′s), an AR rifle – the same sort of rifle that Colt sold to the civilian market BEFORE the M-16 was ever ordered by the US government.
Why do I need these items? It’s not a question of need.
I have done nothing to block my access to my right to keep and bear arms. That is why I have this rifle, as well as other reasons.
At no time has any thoughts of hatred against my fellow man ever entered into my heart. At no time have I used my rights as a middle-class middle aged white guy to block the rights of folks outside that demographic and have actually supported groups such as SPLC in the past.
We have a Bill of Rights that protect our access to our rights. Denial of rights through no actions of any individual is a denial of rights for all of us.
As many have stated before me, I am not an NRA member. I am a Director-level member of the Liberal Gun Club and a paying contributor to the Second Amendment Foundation. Until the ACLU and the SPLC can agree that the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is an individual right protected by the Second Amendment I can not support those groups.
Please, come back to protecting all of the rights of all of the people, especially those whose voices are routinely drowned out which is what the Southern Poverty Law Center was set up to do. We can’t do this on our own but we still will if we do not get support from your organization.
on April 5th, 2013 at 8:09 pm
Before I respond to Ron Carver’s comments: “Second Amendment Vigilantes.” January 24, 2013, a personal note: my brother, Kenneth Paul Kruger (1944-2012) was one of the “Navy sailors” sent to scour Neshoba County’s riverbeds for the missing civil rights workers. He remembered it as a most painful experience.
Now to the Second Amendment:
Thanks to Ron Carver for pointing out “the myth that the Second Amendment was enacted to facilitate armed rebellion against our own government, should it become tyrannical.” It is shocking that so many Americans believe this untruth. Belief is getting confused with evidence these days, unfortunately.
I am concerned about leaving the impression that James Madison’s intent (“main purpose”) behind the Second Amendment was “slave control.” Let me see if I can shed a little more light on this issue.
Ron Carver writes: ”It is no surprise to me, then, to learn that James Madison’s reason for proposing the Second Amendment in 1789 was to preserve the state militias, the white population’s “principal instrument of slave control.” Yes and no.
I don’t pretend to be a constitutional or Madison scholar, but I have been studying this issue earnestly [See my related articles on ConsortiumNews.com and bio below]. It is correct to say that the Second Amendment was proposed to preserve state militias, but slave control was not the only issue: insurrections were a major concern period.
One has to be careful about language anytime, but particularly during these turbulent, polarized times. We must avoid jumping to conclusions and to distinguish fact from argument, and parts from the whole, and also from depending on only one or few sources.
The abstract of Mr. Carl T. Bogus’s 1998 UC/Davis paper (Social Science Research Network) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pa.....=1465114## states:
“Professor Bogus argues that there is strong reason to believe that, in significant part, James Madison drafted the Second Amendment to assure his constituents in Virginia, and the South generally, that Congress could not use its newly-acquired powers to indirectly undermine the slave system by disarming the militia, on which the South relied for slave control. His argument is based on a multiplicity of the historical evidence, including debates between James Madison and George Mason and Patrick Henry at the Constitutional Ratifying Convention in Richmond, Virginia in June 1788; the record from the First Congress; and the antecedent of the American right to bear arms provision in the English Declaration of Rights of 1688.”
Prof. Bogus makes an argument in his 1998 paper, using the aforementioned significant sources. “A strong reason to believe…in significant part,” however, is not the same as an undebatable conclusion: “James Madison’s reason for proposing the Second Amendment in 1789 was to preserve the state militias, the white population’s ‘principal instrument of slave control.’ ”
What is beyond debate, of course, is that: a. The South was concerned about the possibility of slave insurrections. b. The federalists were having a hard time selling the resistant Southern slavery states the proposed Constitution during the 1787 convention and the ratification process (and the resistant anti-federalists), the period in which the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments of which the Second Amendment is part, were proposed in September of 1789 and came into effect on December 15, 1791.
Madison, himself a Southerner from Virginia, and the federalists wanted and needed the South “on board” or there would have been no U.S. Constitution. Compromise on the slavery issue (there were Framers against slavery) and other economic and moral issues was unavoidable if the Constitution was to be approved.
What we need to remember is not only the concern that the South had about slave insurrections, but the concern that the framers had about insurrections period. This appears to be the central reason for their defining of the Militia in Article 1, Section 8. The new nation, trying to recover from the trauma of the Revolutionary War and the stresses and strains of the ineffective Articles of Confederation, was politically fragile and in dire straits financially—it was faced with an enormous debt from the war, was out of money, was experiencing a post-war economic depression, a credit squeeze due to a lack of hard currency, and among other debts, was unable to pay its revolutionary soldiers.
Readers may be familiar with Shays’s Rebellion (1786-1787) and also the Whiskey Rebellion (1791). The former were revolutionary soldiers from western Massachusetts (but they were not alone in their extreme difficulties) who had not received the payment they had been promised and were suffering from not only the lack of money, but harsh tax and debt collection policies; the latter were tax protesters. The framers were faced with these insurrections, but were also concerned that the fragile new nation could face threats from foreign nations, most notably, of course, the power it had just defeated to gain its independence—the British. The framers had every reason to believe the humiliated and vanquished British might take advantage of any weakness of the very new United States of America. I believe some of the policies of the new nation, and the states therein, can be criticized, but starting a new nation is no easy nor tidy business.
Prof. Bogus’s argument (and his sources) should be considered seriously indeed, but it is an ARGUMENT. Readers might find his “The History and Politics of the Second Amendment Scholarship: A Primer” (2000) of interest as well. Also to be considered is a long list of additional scholarly works (arguments) on the Second Amendment, most importantly the work of historian and James Madison scholar Garry Wills (Wills states emphatically that:
“Madison did not address [the question of the private right to own and use firearms] when drafting his amendment.” Mr. Wills does not deny that there is any private right to own and use firearms. “Perhaps, that can be defended on other grounds—natural law, common law, tradition, statute.” His point is: the Second Amendment does not provide that right),
Other important scholars among others: Jack N. Rakove, and Robert J. Spitzer. Robert A. Feer’s paper on Shays’s Rebellion (1969) is provocative. I suggest readers check out investigative reporter Robert’s Parry’s related articles on his Consortium.com website, which also carries two of my articles in which I provide lengthy bibliographies.
It is important as well to do our homework as to what writings influenced the Framers. To what extent did English law (1688 Declaration of Rights, etc.] influence the Framers? We must remember that the Framers did not depend solely on English law, but on the Enlightenment philosophers, on Greek and Roman classicists (see Carl J. Richards’ books.)
The history of the Second Amendment is most interesting—and complex as is the history of the Constitution and all the Bill of Rights. There were 13 states, many individuals and many agendas (and consider the communication challenges). (I can only raise the question, not answer it.)
Sometimes I despair of all the current turbulence over the Constitution and the Second Amendment, etc., but then I think it does inspire us to read American history—ever complex, ever fascinating. The U.S. is no simple nation, and looking for truth is no simple task.
We just have to remember to think critically and remind ourselves that we charge the U.S. Supreme Court with interpreting the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Constitutional scholars spend LIFETIMES studying the Constitution.
Whether the Court’s justices reach a consensus, whether the Court meets the highest standards—are other matters altogether, of course.
Beverly Bandler’s public affairs career spans some 40 years. Her credentials include serving as president of the state-level League of Women Voters of the Virgin Islands and extensive public education efforts in the Washington, D.C. area for 16 years. Bandler attended Sarah Lawrence College (‘59) and has a master’s degree in Public Administration from George Washington University (‘82). She writes from Mexico.
on April 14th, 2013 at 3:15 pm
There are church burnings that have taken place recently so to the poster who claims that the church burnings were from 50 years ago, check out the most recent ones that happened in Texas and are still under investigation. Some of been some of been solved as hate crimes while others are still suspected to be…
on April 14th, 2013 at 3:20 pm
It’s true Bill reducing and stopping violence is the goal. We have become a very violent society. Perhaps reducing the advertisement of it will help to eliminate the growth of it as well.
on April 27th, 2013 at 9:04 pm
We have not become a very violent society, concernedcitizen. (name obscured because of fear, obviously) The crime statistics put out by the Federal Government of the United States of America show that violent crime has come down in the last several years. It is only in places like Chicago, where honest, law-abiding citizens are not allowed to protect themselves that violent crime is the worst.