Disarming the other

Enlightened appearance, racist roots: it's not widely appreciated, but most American weapons laws were intended to keep down the rabble, not disarm propertied whites. When I lived in California, concealed carry of an unlicensed pistol was a misdemeanor, whereas carrying a knife was a felony -- a decades-old measure directed especially at Mexicans, as it was explained to me. And the notorious Sullivan Laws in New York were specifically intended to disarm Tammany's rivals, not to keep the peace (at least in the conventional sense). A common characteristic of these laws -- most of which still remain on the books, in some form or another -- is the provision of selective loopholes, usually in the form of permits to be granted at the pleasure of the powers-that-be. In case you haven't followed the issue, this is the main reason for the recent push to reform concealed-carry laws, moving away from the old and inherently arbitrary "may issue" formulation to a "shall issue" form predicated on equal treatment and due process.

Some states, however, took a cruder approach, as noted in two articles cited this morning by Glenn Reynolds -- one on selectively (racially) applied laws in the American South and another on gun laws from an African-American perspective). There's also a piece (for which I don't have a link handy) on the use of guns for self-protection by civil rights workers in the South, which adds a bit more perspective on an already quite complex story.

Posted by David on April 19, 2004 10:04 AM