In light of President Barack Obama’s emotional speech about the need for gun control in the U.S., the dominant society has displayed much (real or fake) outrage out of fear that they will be losing their firearms, but to Black society, we have seen this scenario enacted upon us time and time again.

The earliest accounts of the disarmament of Melanoid people in this country took place around when the Virginia Slave Code of 1680. The law stated that “It shall not be lawfull [sic] for any negroe [sic] or other slave to carry or arme [sic] himselfe [sic] with any club, staffe [sic], gunn [sic], sword or any other weapon of defence [sic] or offence [sic]”. Twenty-five years later, the code was revised in a more modernized form, stating the following: “no slave go armed with gun, sword, club, staff, or other weapon.”

Gun control laws on Black people became more stringent following the heralded Nat Turner Rebellion of 1831. In the eyes of the white supremacists during the 1800’s, they were hellbent on ensuring that another Nat Turner or Haitian Revolution would never happen again. There is an article published in 1993 by Clayton E. Cramer titled The Racist Roots of Gun Control. The article highlights a plethora of laws and bylaws mandated by the U.S. to keep guns out of the collective hands of Black people.

In 2011, Adam Winkler spoke about his book “Gun Fight,” and the origins of gun control, saying, according to The Wall Street Journal:

“The KKK began as a gun-control organization. Before the Civil War, blacks were never allowed to own guns. During the Civil War, blacks kept guns for the first time — either they served in the Union army and they were allowed to keep their guns, or they buy guns on the open market where for the first time there’s hundreds of thousands of guns flooding the marketplace after the war ends. So they arm up because they know who they’re dealing with in the South. White racists do things like pass laws to disarm them, but that’s not really going to work. So they form these racist posses all over the South to go out at night in large groups to terrorize blacks and take those guns away. If blacks were disarmed, they couldn’t fight back.”

Perhaps the most pivotal moment in recent history occurred in 1967 when the Black Panther Party walked into California’s state capital building carrying firearms after being well-read on their constitutional rights to do so. Frightened by the sight of the Panthers openly carrying their firearms and the thought of other Black revolutionary groups (and ordinary Black citizens alike), California governor at the time Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act into law. This new law prohibited citizens from publicly carrying loaded firearms, and ironically it had the full support of the NRA.

The NRA has a history of being against any laws that would place restrictions on gun ownership and the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. But they had no problem flip-flopping on their position when it came to a significant number of Black people exercising those same rights.

The concerted efforts of white supremacists to keep firearms out of the hands of Black people exposes an interesting comparison to the Late Dr. Frances Cress Welsing’s studies which highlighted the dominant society’s fear of genetic annihilation due to Black procreation–namely via the Black male genitalia–which on many levels would explain the panic (and inferiority complex) shared by white supremacists for hundreds of years.

Like everything else in life, however, times–and the minds of the people who live it–change. With the recent senseless killings of Black men, women, and children at the hands of law enforcement and white extremist vigilantes, the concept of implementing gun control within Black Society is generally no longer even being considered among the oppressed individuals of this “free country” who stand on the wrong end of injustice. Much of our Melanoid family around the country is taking the initiative to exercise the same rights that their non-Black counterparts have long used , and are getting armed themselves. For years following the end of the era of stand-up firearm-bearing Blacks such as the Black Panther Party of the 60s and 70s, there was a stereotypical notion in Black Society that the only people who owned firearms were the “good ol’ boys” of the dominant society, criminals, and the standard gun connoisseur who we witness at the gun shows.

Last year, The New York Times featured a report that covers the issue of Black gun ownership in America. Check it out in the video below.

As a means of proactively dealing with the escalated aggressive acts of racism in this country, many Blacks are beginning to form gun clubs, which is what members of the dominant society have done since the early days of this country. We’ve even witnessed Black gun advocates create platforms on sites such as YouTube, where they’ve amassed a substantial following. In the process, they’ve dispelled (some of) Black Society’s preconceived notions of what a gun owner should look like. If people in the dominant society embrace their rights to defend themselves, then shouldn’t we as Melanoid people do the same?

by B. Clark

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