The Atlantic: "The Secret History of Gun Control" article

[krispos42]

It's long, but interesting. Those Black Panthers in California were pretty badass! :rofl: :wow: :thumbsup:

<snip>

In February of 1967, Oakland police officers stopped a car carrying Newton, Seale, and several other Panthers with rifles and handguns. When one officer asked to see one of the guns, Newton refused. “I don’t have to give you anything but my identification, name, and address,” he insisted. This, too, he had learned in law school.

<snip 4 short lines of dialogue between Newton and the police, to comply with excerpt rules>

By this time, the scene had drawn a crowd of onlookers. An officer told the bystanders to move on, but Newton shouted at them to stay. California law, he yelled, gave civilians a right to observe a police officer making an arrest, so long as they didn’t interfere. Newton played it up for the crowd. In a loud voice, he told the police officers, “If you try to shoot at me or if you try to take this gun, I’m going to shoot back at you, swine.” Although normally a black man with Newton’s attitude would quickly find himself handcuffed in the back of a police car, enough people had gathered on the street to discourage the officers from doing anything rash. Because they hadn’t committed any crime, the Panthers were allowed to go on their way.

The people who’d witnessed the scene were dumbstruck. Not even Bobby Seale could believe it. Right then, he said, he knew that Newton was the “baddest motherfucker in the world.” Newton’s message was clear: “The gun is where it’s at and about and in.” After the February incident, the Panthers began a regular practice of policing the police. Thanks to an army of new recruits inspired to join up when they heard about Newton’s bravado, groups of armed Panthers would drive around following police cars. When the police stopped a black person, the Panthers would stand off to the side and shout out legal advice.

Don Mulford, a conservative Republican state assemblyman from Alameda County, which includes Oakland, was determined to end the Panthers’ police patrols. To disarm the Panthers, he proposed a law that would prohibit the carrying of a loaded weapon in any California city. When Newton found out about this, he told Seale, “You know what we’re going to do? We’re going to the Capitol.” Seale was incredulous. “The Capitol?” Newton explained: “Mulford’s there, and they’re trying to pass a law against our guns, and we’re going to the Capitol steps.” Newton’s plan was to take a select group of Panthers “loaded down to the gills,” to send a message to California lawmakers about the group’s opposition to any new gun control.

<more>

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/8608/

[X_Digger]

1. I'm definitely going to be buying Winkler's book when it comes out..

Interesting stuff.

[TheWraith]

2. Kicked, recced, still at zero.

Apparently for some people, The Atlantic doing good journalism on the real origins of California's laws is something to be suppressed.

[krispos42]

3. The article has much more than the excerpt above...

...I just thought the idea of activists following around the cops and screaming legal advice was just too cool!

[virginia mountainman]

4. It is a terrible shame..

That some have such short memories, and allow their blinding hatred of an inanimate object to so cloud their judgment.. It is almost as if, History began last year for some of these people.

It really speaks volumes about their character, or lack their of.

BTW the Black Panthers, full name was: The Black Panther Party for Self Defense.

[friendly_iconoclast]

6. K&R. They *really* don't like to talk about the Panthers and the Mulford Act, do they?

What's the over/under on one of them showing up on this thread?

I can't wait to hear about the Black Panthers' "false consciousness"....

[TheWraith]

7. I'm betting this thread gets completely ignored.

Just like the ones on Eleanor Roosevelt's pistol permit. Or the Deacons for Defense. Or MLK's application for a self-defense weapon after his home was firebombed... denied by the white sheriff, of course.

[X_Digger]

8. Or the quotes from MLK and Ghandi about self-defense.. n/t

[iverglas]

27. you lost within the hour

where's that cricket pic ...

[TheWraith]

29. Posting random insinuations != responding to the content.

Try something other than insinuating that black people and self-defense are diametrically opposed, and maybe you'll rise to the level of addressing the article. In the meantime, the Black Panthers are laughing at you.

[iverglas]

40. I could post anything other than what you have posted:

Try something other than insinuating that black people and self-defense are diametrically opposed

-- anything at all, just anything -- and it would be truthier and factier and honester than that.

I could say "the earth is flat" and it would be.

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AzWorker]

5. The truth....

....can hurt

[iverglas]

9. as I have asked over and over and over

-- why doesn't anyone here ever post this stuff in the place where it would get the audience it so obviously needs and so richly deserves?

African-American Issues Group

Nobody wants to know what actual progressive African-Americans have to say about it?

You think maybe they could tell (... acknowledge) the difference between a struggle waged by an oppressed GROUP against their oppressors and a bunch of yahoos strolling the streets packing heat in case somebody bothers them?

You think maybe they could also tell the difference between the 1960s and today, when it comes to who and what is speaking and acting in THEIR interests?

The militant racists of the mid-1960s became the gun militants of the end of that decade and forward to today.

No serious African-American leader or grassroots organization TODAY would have any truck nor trade with any element of the gun militant brigade or its agenda. And you all know that.

For their “righteous revolutionary struggle,” the Panthers were trained, as well as armed ...

It was (supposedly) a REVOLUTION, not open season on "goblins" or "da thug" (and I am quoting from many, many posts in this forum there).

They were acting as what Gandhi referred to in his oft misrepresented quotation: A PEOPLE. Collectively. A people taking collective action against oppression.

And I'll bet that everybody here who was alive then was just a huuuge fan of the Black Panthers. Yeah.

The right wing in the mid-1960s wasn't opposed to black people having guns.

It was opposed to BLACK PEOPLE.

[gejohnston]

12. that is the thing about history

the more you learn, the more you learn that people and their motivations are far deeper and complex than shallow half baked ideologies can explain.

[iverglas]

13. sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about

... unless you are agreeing that pretending that the situation in which the Black Panthers (sort of) took up arms, and their actions at that time, has 1% of a thing to do with firearms control in the 21st century is totally bogus ...



typo fixed

[gejohnston]

15. not directly, but it is still a tile in the mosaic.

but if I were to agree with you, your rants are equally bogus, if not more so.

[krispos42]

20. Maybe because the I hang out here, in a busy Forum, instead of a much-smaller Group?

Or maybe because the title is "The Secret History of Gun Control"?

Or we can ask "what's stopping you?"

[Blown330]

31. I have to ask...

...is why you think you are some sort of moderator on these forums? Thought you have learned that lesson by now. Very slow on the uptake.


You think maybe they could tell (... acknowledge) the difference between a struggle waged by an oppressed GROUP against their oppressors and a bunch of yahoos strolling the streets packing heat in case somebody bothers them?


They probably can and maybe you can get them to teach you the difference.

[friendly_iconoclast]

35. That's a rather rude question. Almost as rude as...

How is a Canadian of decidedly European extraction presuming to speak for African Americans not paternalistic?

Especially since the one self-identified (that I know of) AA poster here disagrees with her....

[iverglas]

56. but nothing is as rude as intentionally not telling the truth

How is a Canadian of decidedly European extraction presuming to speak for African Americans not paternalistic?

Love your false premise there.

Kinda invalidates ... oh, pretty much everything else you say, when you demonstrate such a total lack of scruples and integrity ... doesn't it?

[Glassunion]

36. An actual progressive African American, and what he has to say.

Yes, in the past, prior to the 1960's gun control was more openly aimed at the black "citizens" of this nation.

Today however, strict gun controls are not aimed directly at the black community. Nor do I think that those laws have the black community in mind when they are drafted. However, they do have a disproportionate ill effect on the black community.

For most of us, especially those in the inner cities, gun ownership is an expendable rather than inalienable right, one worth surrendering in exchange for a feeling of security. Myself and many others like me disagree with this position, because it is a feeling of security and time and time again, it offers no reduction in crime, nor does it actually provide for our security.

We live in a country that was birthed in the violence of the Revolutionary War and it remained cohesive, at least in the first century, through very violent seasons(Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, etc...). The Second Amendment gives us the right to keep and bear arms, not only for our self defense but to stand in the face of the possibility, albeit remote in today's age, of a tyrannical government. Basically that we(all of us) have a right to protect ourselves from harm.

To give you a small amount of my history in this nation, my mothers family has been in the US since well before the American Civil War. Originally they lived as free people(not citizens) in Pennsylvania, however at some point(I do no know when or how), one of my direct descendants ended up a slave in the south, Mississippi to be exact. This I can guarantee was not by his choice. Who protected him when he was taken from his family to become a slave in the south? The government sure did not, his family could not(remember, blacks were not citizens back then). Was this the only time in American history that African Americans were left unprotected by our government? Was this an anecdotal case? Or was this one drop in the ocean of government abandonment that continues to this day?

Sure, today we are citizens. Been that way for some time now. For those of us who have been repeatedly abandoned by our government, our rights(all of them) should be viewed as a nonnegotiable component of citizenship. Problem is, that we as a whole are citizens, but we are treated as second-class citizens.

In our past, the governments of our country and sates have worked quite diligently to disarm us. From direct laws stating that we are not citizens and therefore not due our 2nd Amendment rights(nor any other for that matter) to gun taxes that prohibited us from affording firearms.

This was quite effective at making us very easy targets for hate. Do you think that the Klan would have been so bold and effective, if the local sheriffs did not go in before a lynching to disarm their potential targets cloaked in the veil of some bullshit legality? We are still threatened today. Although the culprit is not so often the Klan but gangs and crime perpetrators of all colors.

As I stated, the laws of today are racially neutral, but they have a clear and disproportionate impact on poor black communities, leaving us defenseless against thugs in our own neighborhoods.

Several states impose laws that allow police and other state agencies to determine who is worthy of a firearm. The problem with this, is that we are consistently overrepresented among those deemed unworthy. This in the face of being statistically more likely to confront random violence. Don't even get me started on gun bans in public housing.

One of my black heroes is Otis McDonald. He successfully sued the City of Chicago to affirm his right to defend himself. This was one of the biggest punches in the face of this disproportionate impact these laws have on our communities. I personally hope, that this landmark decision will spark similar lawsuits around the country. Just look at how the New York Police Department is already lowering their financial barriers for gun possession. This I can say stems from a fear that the courts could strike down its current policies.

Gun violence is a real and honest problem in this country, and reasonable gun control makes perfect sense. I fully support laws that punish: straw purchases, interstate gun trafficking and other legal omissions that allow firearms to get into the hands of criminals. I want stronger reporting from the states on making sure that records are up to date in the NICS systems to keep the mentally ill and felons from purchasing firearms.

I'm not making the assertion that guns will solve all of the problems of inner city violence. However, it would be equally naive to ignore the impact of further disarming a community of people who need the most help and who have been consistently abandoned by their government.

EDIT: b'cause i spelt sum stuf bhad.

[DonP]

37. "One of my black heroes is Otis McDonald."

I'll settle for "Hero" for Otis, black or white.

He is also one of the nicest people you could ever meet. Very polite and soft spoken, but he has nerves of steel beneath that quiet exterior.

I've met him on a few occasions from ISRA range events to running into him at DiCola's seafood store across the street from my old house. Otis lives in Morgan Park, just off 111th street, about a mile from my old house. I introduced myself and shook his hand and talked with him about the neighborhood and what was going on with his suit while we waited for our orders. He said he was getting a lot of pressure from "government people" in Chicago that worked for Daley and company to let the suit go, that he was "being used" etc. Otis is no dummy and knew what he was getting into.

But I guess the "poor man" needs some self appointed know it alls to tell him how he is supposed to feel about gun control as an African American?

All he wanted was the ability to keep a 1911 Mil Spec .45 (his army issue sidearm) in his home with his wife for protection from break ins. I'm pretty sure that Springfield Armory will take care of that with the ISRA as soon as Chicago stops dicking around with their "rules" in court. Hell, if they don't I'd be proud to give him one of mine and a box of Gold Dots.

Otis proved you can fight city hall, win and stick them with a big ass legal bill at the same time.

[friendly_iconoclast]

38. +1. Well put. Too bad it will be ignored by those that most need to read it n/t

[rrneck]

47. One of the best posts I have read on DU. nt

[iverglas]

54. um ... who's that, then?

I seem to have missed something ...

[Glassunion]

55. Correct me if I am wrong...

But in post 9 did you not make the following request?

Nobody wants to know what actual progressive African-Americans have to say about it?

I gave you what you asked for.

[iverglas]

58. I gather you are claiming to be

"an actual progressive African American".

Fascinating.

I know that if it were me making the claim, I'd be asked for some proof.

Never mind the African American part. It's the progressive part I'll be needing proof of.

[shadowrider]

60. Your post is a perfect example of why I quit arguing with gun-control types

on this board and others.

NOTHING is ever good enough. You asked for input, you were given exactly and precisely what you asked for. You summarily dismiss it until he now proves something to you you did NOT ask for.

"I ask you to prove A"
"Great, you answered A, but before I'll believe you, you have to prove B"
"Wonderful, you discussed and proved B (which is again summarily dismissed) but you didn't address C"

In other words, nothing is ever good enough. It's why we (pro-gun people) must be ever vigilant where gun rights are concerned.

"We got 30 round magazines outlawed and you're allowed 15 round magazines"
"15 round magazines are too much, 10 should be the limit"
"10 is too much, why can't you be happy with 5?"
"5 rounds are too many for a magazine, 1 should be plenty"

and the kicker

"Since you only have 1 round per magazine, why do you need a gun?"

THAT is where it's going.

[iverglas]

65. snork

So if I ask for a reply from a two-headed garden gnome, and somebody comes along and says "I'm a two-headed garden gnome, here's my reply" ...

:eyes:

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

69. If you...

...really think you're talking to a "two-headed garden gnome" you need help.

[Glassunion]

68. I have never questioned your claims

That you are a progressive, nor your claims of being a Canadian, nor your claims of being a female.

You have been a member of a progressive community(DU) for some time, so even though we do not see eye to eye, I would not question your progressive values.

I'd appreciate being extended the same courtesy from you.

[iverglas]

70. If you want to find my progressive values

you will find them on display in numerous forums at this site over the past decade.

I'd think I might find something similar re you ...

[Glassunion]

71. There is no need for me to take my time looking at 10 years worth of your posts

Like I said, you have been a member of a progressive community(DU) for some time. I do not doubt that you have progressive values. I would expect the same courtesy.

We may not see eye to eye on this issue, however it does not lessen either of our progressive values. We simply disagree on this one issue. That's why we are here, so that the topic could be debated. Not to belittle, insult, or question values, but to debate in a forum of our common values.

[iverglas]

72. let's be clear

You made an assertion.

I am under no obligation to accept it.

Nor do I need to agree that your offering yourself as a case in point, even if that be the case, in any way alters the fact that the overwhelming majority of opinion of others in the situation is against you.

[Glassunion]

73. Perhaps you should go back and read my original reply.

Nor do I need to agree that your offering yourself as a case in point, even if that be the case, in any way alters the fact that the overwhelming majority of opinion of others in the situation is against you.

I addresed that very point in my post.

Initially you were asking for an opinion of the OP, by an actual progressive African American. I gave you that.

You are more than welcome to doubt the race or values of a paying contributor to a progressive website. You are entitled your own opinion. I just gave you what you requested, you are more than welcome to consider me a lier. That would be your problem.

[iverglas]

74. so I guess I'm still wondering

My actual question was why nobody posts this crud in a forum at this website (there is an appropriate forum as well as the group I mentioned) where there are people, whose bona fides as what I described are at least open to some scrutiny, are surely to be found.

To my knowledge, it ain't been done. Maybe you could be the first.

[Glassunion]

75. Considering that the original post was on the topic of gun control

Im afraid that the guns forum was the most appropriate location to post it.

I'd trust that the author of the OP would be more than aware where they should be posting such a topic, as they have been a forum moderator.

I'd also disagree with you that it is crud. I found it quite interesting.

[iverglas]

76. who exactly said anyone "should" do anything?

My question was and is a simple one, and has nothing to do with anything that anyone "should" do.

The reason the article was posted here is the bog standard tired old "racist roots of gun control" bilge. The reference to it was posted here to play the race card and nothing else. I still want to know what mainstream progressive African-American opinion on that matter is.

The article itself is interesting, but we all know perfectly well what I said some time ago: not a person here did support or would have supported the Black Panthers at the time.

[Glassunion]

77. The admins and moderators of DU have the final say in what "should" be done.

It was an article on gun control, and according to forum moderation, it belongs in the guns forum.

As to your comment on "the bog standard tired old "racist roots of gun control" bilge." I'm afraid you are mistaken. Do yourself a favor, and simply look it up.

In 1640 what was the very first law written just for negroes?
In 1712 what was the aim of the Virgina insurrection laws?
In 1712 what was the aim of the South Carolina gun control?
In 1792 what was the intent of defining members of the militia?
In 1806 what was the aim of the Louisiana gun control laws?
Etc... etc... etc... Skip ahead to 1988
In 1988 what group was overrepresented in the CHA housing rules? And... What Amendments were and are violated to this day?
In 1994 what group was overrepresented in the President's federal housing rules or Maine's housing rules? Why did the President's rules get knocked out of committee? Why were Maine's rules struck down?

But hey you are right... The roots of gun control had nothing to do with race.

You should come visit our Smithsonian Museum. It contains an unburned Klan cross. The story of how it did not burn on someone's lawn is a good one.

Of course now that you have moved the goal posts, with your request by adding in one word... "I still want to know what mainstream progressive African-American opinion on that matter is." You are now instead of looking for DU-African American opinion, you are looking for mainstream opinion outside of DU. So to that I would say that your question was posed in the wrong place. You should be asking mainstream progressive African Americans.


But as I stated before. Throughout American history, our safety has been in the hands of the state. Every single time, we have been abandoned or even intentionally fed to the wolves. I cannot say if I did or did not support the Black Panthers during that period as I was not alive at the time. But I understand where they were coming from.

Two times in American history, once after the Revolution, and again following the Civil War, America has held out to us the promise of a nation that would live up to its ideology. Where all of us are equal and free. Twice this nation has failed to follow through on that promise.

With Brown v. Board., the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the judicial triumphs of the 1960s and early 70s, all these have held out to us in today's age that very same promise.

Yet, given this country's history, it is not unreasonable to believe that law, politicians, and society's established customs will swing the pendulum of social progress in a different direction. Much to the potential detriment of blacks and their rights, property, and safety.

Given the history of African Americans, firearms regulations, and the right to bear arms, I think that we should ask new questions regarding the Second Amendment. I know full well that these questions will pose problems both for those on my side of the argument as well as those on the other side. Much of the crime that concerns Americans is in our poorer neighborhoods and a great case can be made that strict gun-control might alleviate this tragedy.

However, I feel another, maybe stronger case can be made that a state with a dismal record of protecting a specific minority of people has quite a dishonest claim on the right to disarm them.

Perhaps a fresh look into our history of gun control, our history of abandonment, our history of failed promises can lead us to a modern realization of what the framers of the 2nd Amendment understood:
1. It is unwise to place the means of protection totally in the hands of the state
2. Self-defense is a civil right.

[MicaelS]

10. Great article, thanks for posting...

And I too will be buying the book when it comes out. And I recc'd your post.

[iverglas]

11. the NRA-ILA's blacklist

http://www.nraila.org/issues/factsheets/read.aspx?id=15

includes

Black Mental Health Alliance
Congress of National Black Churches, Inc.
National Black Nurses` Association
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Council of Negro Women
National Political Congress of Black Women
National Urban League, Inc.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference

and of course all the African-American individuals who are members of all the many, many other public service groups listed there.

Why is this, do we suppose? Hmm.

National Organizations With Anti-Gun Policies

The following organizations have lent monetary, grassroots or some other type of direct support to anti-gun organizations. In many instances, these organizations lent their name in support of specific campaigns to pass anti-gun legislation such as the March 1995 HCI "Campaign to Protect Sane Gun Laws." Many of these organizations were listed as "Campaign Partners," for having pledged to fight any efforts to repeal the Brady Act and the Clinton "assault weapons" ban. All have officially endorsed anti-gun positions.

What does the NRA have?

Roy Innis and CORE.

:rofl:

You know what gun militants are in this scenario?

The Man, that's what.

[iverglas]

14. hmm

[gejohnston]

16. HCI listed them as campaign partners

Which means what? Does the average member know? Does the average member care? Is HCI and Brady honest about how they count memberships or anything else?

good question, maybe, maybe, no fucking way on earth.

My gecko ate your crickets.

[SteveM]

18. Ha! In Florida, the culprit was the almighty skink!...

My Dad, after a day of fishing using crickets as bait, placed the jar atop a high bench. There was no top as crickets didn't bother to escape by going up the jar. But a skink (an enormous lizard of varied colors) crawled in overnight. Next morning, Dad went to retrieve the crickets for another go at the lake and found only a sleepy-eyed skink looking back at him. He dumped the bloated lizard out and shooed at it. It went under a bush and sacked out.

[iverglas]

19. as is so often the case

I just don't know what you're talking about.

HCI listed "them" as campaign partners. Them?

What do HCI and Brady have to do with the NRA-ILA's blacklist?

Some (unspecified) organizations on the blacklist are listed as HCI/Brady campaign partners. Who cares? That was not the basis for the blacklisting; that was obiter.

The NRA-ILA has blacklisted the foremost representative organizations of African-Americans and the African-American community in the US.

What such organizations does it endorse / have endorsements from?

None, that's what.

[gejohnston]

21. nonsense

the basis is their partnership with HCI/Brady

[iverglas]

23. now try reading what the NRA-ILA said

I did post it for you.

National Organizations With Anti-Gun Policies

The following organizations have lent monetary, grassroots or some other type of direct support to anti-gun organizations. In many instances, these organizations lent their name in support of specific campaigns to pass anti-gun legislation such as the March 1995 HCI "Campaign to Protect Sane Gun Laws." Many of these organizations were listed as "Campaign Partners," for having pledged to fight any efforts to repeal the Brady Act and the Clinton "assault weapons" ban. All have officially endorsed anti-gun positions.

("Anti-gun positions" being the NRA's words, of course. I still can't figure out how somebody can be pro or con an inanimate object ...)

Any clearer now?

If any of those organizations didn't want to be on the blacklist, I'm sure they would have explained themselves to the NRA-ILA.

HCI/Brady did not prepare the blacklist. The NRA-ILA did.

[friendly_iconoclast]

17. Was that an 'argumentum ad populum' or an 'argument from authority'?

Still trying to force people into groups, eh?

[iverglas]

24. no, but that was sure crap

Still trying to deny the obvious, I see.

[krispos42]

22. 8 out of 141.

Although to be fair, I noticed 8 duplicates in the list, so there's really 133.





That's pretty selective there, iverglas.

American Jewish Committee
American Jewish Congress
Anti-Defamation League
B`nai B`rith
Central Conference of American Rabbis
Jewish Labor Committee
National Council of Jewish Women
Union of American Hebrew Congregations


Oh shit! They're Nazis! They hate Jews!


American Federation of Teachers
American Association of School Administrators
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
American Academy of Pediatrics
Children`s Defense Fund
Council of the Great City Schools
Disarm Educational Fund
National Safe Kids Campaign


Oh, shit! They hate children!






Episcopal Church-Washington Office
Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Mennonite Central Committee-Washington Office
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
U.S. Catholic Conference, Dept. of Social Development
United States Catholic Conference


Oh, shit, they're Al Qaeda! They hate Christians!


By picking 8 names at random, I can also prove they hate: medical students, mental-health professionals, schools, cities, women, whites, and hospitals.



Weak.

[iverglas]

25. I keep expecting better, I keep not getting it

What kick do you get out of posting deceitful filth like this?

Oh shit! They're Nazis! They hate Jews!

You are trying to convince someone that I said that the NRA-ILA hates African-Americans.

Why are you doing that? You know that this is not what I said, nor what I meant, nor what I implied, nor what I thought in a secret place in my head.

I asked:

Why is this, do we suppose? Hmm.

and then IN REPLY to my question, I posted the NRA-ILA statement, which comes down to this:

The following organizations ... have officially endorsed anti-gun positions.

The NRA-ILA, an excellent proxy for the gun militant brigade, has blacklisted every important representative African-American organization in the US because those organizations support firearms control.

You are trying to pretend that I alleged that the NRA-ILA blacklisted those organizations because of the skin colour of their members and constituencies.

That is just pure filth.

The fact is that all of those organizations, and all of the others you name that are equally representative of their own constituencies, SUPPORT FIREARMS CONTROL.

That is what is relevant to the opening post, to which I replied.

White apologists for the right wing in academia and white gun militants write their screeds about how firearms control oppresses this group of people -- and this group of people firmly rejects their ideology and their agenda.

African-Americans do not want the gun militant ideology or agenda. They want firearms control.

Now do you want to try to twist that into something it isn't?

[krispos42]

26. So then why didn't you make the argument you just made...

...in your original reply?


Why do I have to get you to debate yourself, to refute yourself, in order for you to state what you're trying to say?



And I frankly don't give a shit if African-Americans want gun control, and I don't care if they reject the agenda of what you term "white apologists" and "white gun militants". Their right to keep and bear arms exists, whether they want it to or not. And it will be protected, whether they chose to use it or not. Just like I don't care about any other group of people lobbying to reduce their rights. I don't care about, for example, women who want to outlaw abortion. Or poor people that think only landowners should be allowed to vote.


And what are you basing this assumption that African-Americans want gun-control more than, say, white people? Are you sure your division isn't really the urban-rural divide, instead of racial?

[iverglas]

28. no, that is not the question

The question is why you (pretended to) think I was making an argument that had nothing to do with the opening post / subject of the thread.

But hey, keep it up:

Why do I have to get you to debate yourself, to refute yourself, in order for you to state what you're trying to say?

What I refuted was your misrepresentation of what I said.

And I frankly don't give a shit if African-Americans want gun control ...

Tell it to your "racist roots of gun control" buddies, who might be more interested than I am (or African-Americans are).

Just like I don't care about any other group of people lobbying to reduce their rights. I don't care about, for example, women who want to outlaw abortion.

Oh dear. The problem there is that what those women are actually doing is trying to have other people's rights violated.

That's what gun militants claim is being done African-Americans, or anyone else, who advocates firearms control that would actually be effective at reducing harm, particularly the grossly disproportionate harm they and their communities suffer, right?

Women lobbying to outlaw abortion aren't affected by abortion, have no interest in anyone else's pregnancy, and have no public interest in anyone else's pregnancy to assert. They're just right-wing assholes.

Kinda not like the situation when it comes to guns.

[friendly_iconoclast]

30. I have one observation, and some rather rude questions for you.

All those .orgs you listed are worthy, and I don't doubt for a moment they mean well. That aside-

Where is the decreased crime and increased "social cohesion" produced by gun control in heavily AA places like Oakland,
Compton, Newark, Camden, Baltimore, Chicago and DC?

If all the gun control laws past and present in those places did not produce a measureable effect (and if they have, I'd like to know where that's been quantified) then why on Earth should they be supported?

Where has "harm" been reduced by the laws that the NRA, et al, have sought/are seeking to overturn?

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[iverglas]

48. well hey

What did any of that have to do with anything I said?

If all the gun control laws past and present in those places did not produce a measureable effect (and if they have, I'd like to know where that's been quantified) ...

Come on now, don't be a dog in the manger.

Let the rest of us join you in your voyages through the alternative time lines where such things may be quantified.

I'm assuming you have access, because otherwise you wouldn't be suggesting that such things CAN be quantified.


Now, you show me the moats and border guards and metal detectors around the perimeters of any of the jurisdictions you cited, and we'll talk.

Meanwhile, I'll cite comparable civilizations with different firearms policies, in situations where they are actually reasonably effectively applied, and different outcomes. And you'll close your eyes and put your hands over your ears and go wah-wah.

[ileus]

33. Thanks for the list...

[Glassunion]

34. Ok so you found 8 African American groups that are for gun control.

Do these 8 groups represent the whole of the black community?

[iverglas]

39. found any that aren't?

The corrupt Innis & son don't count, nor does Mr. Black Man With A Gun. They represent no one.

Did I mention I'm still waiting?

[friendly_iconoclast]

41. Well, one person- Otis McDonald. And he's already addressed your objections:

He doesn't care what you think.

Guess he didn't get the memo that announced that a Caucasian Canadian was appointed to speak on behalf of African Americans.
Or that all political action must be vetted by a plurality of groups of whatever "minority" you might belong to.
Come to think of it, we never got it either...


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=366156#366402

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=316785#316851

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/02/otis-mcdonald-the-lead-pl_n_482178.html

Chicago Sun-Times:

Otis McDonald doesn't care what you think.

You can accuse the black inner-city grandfather of betraying Chicago neighborhoods overrun by thugs with guns. Go ahead, call him a pawn of wealthy, white gun-nuts suing to lift the city's handgun ban....

Needless to say, that didn't go over too well with some alleged "progressives", one of whom called him a 'boy':


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=316785#316813

[PavePusher]

45. To be fair...

"poster boy" does not at all have the same connotation as "boy" in the racial sense.

Let's not cheapen the debate by inventing stuff. That's the other sides job.

[friendly_iconoclast]

46. Calling an African American man a "boy" in any context is rather insensitive

I doubt the poster that wanted to put down McDonald meant it in a racial sense, but it was still a remarkably thoughtless thing to say.

[iverglas]

50. and the same to you

Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. And I'm not talking about the subject of your remarks, I'm talking about your remarks.

[friendly_iconoclast]

63. Tsk. Such high levels of dudgeon can't be good for your health

Perhaps you should see someone about it. You might want to get a self-righteousness screen while you're there, too.

[PavePusher]

52. Sorry, but we accuse the other side of playing the race card often enough when it's true...

we certainly don't need to do the same when it's not.

"Poster boy" is used in a lot of different circumstances, but I've never seen/considered it to be a racial diminuation. If you can cite to such an instance, I'll concede the point, of course.

In closing, I will repeat: Inventing stuff that isn't there, reading out of context, and ignoring plain, common meanings, are all the job of the other team. We're not them, and we don't want to stoop to their level of insinuation, accusation, deception, mendacity, avoidance and distraction.

YMMV, but that will probably be my final word on the subject.

[iverglas]

59. I plan to quote you

Inventing stuff that isn't there, reading out of context, and ignoring plain, common meanings, are all the job of the other team. We're not them, and we don't want to stoop to their level of insinuation, accusation, deception, mendacity, avoidance and distraction.

Often. Since, based on past experience, I expect the occasion to arise often.

[PavePusher]

61. Better make it your sig line... n/t

[iverglas]

49. "Guess he didn't get the memo that announced that a Caucasian Canadian ...

... was appointed to speak on behalf of African Americans.

What, you forgot to send it out?

Needless to say, that didn't go over too well with some alleged "progressives", one of whom called him a 'boy':

What was said at your link:

"Like the NRA poster boy Otis McDonald?"

You're disgusting, and keeping your post on my monitor any longer may make me vomit.


Hmm, the NAACP or the Tea Party ...

http://teapartychicago.netboots.net/posts/otis-mcdonald-living-proof-that-concerned-citizens-can-make-a-difference-0

The friend of my enemy often isn't my friend. "Ethnicity" notwithstanding.

But hey, congratulations, the right wing and its gun militant brigade did indeed find a friend.

You actually have never ever seen me say that there are no members of any oppressed / exploited / minority group you might name that doesn't suffer oppression or exploitation or disadvantage as a result of their minority status themself (or denies it) and isn't willing to join the oppressors / exploiters / majority group to advance their own interests. Good grief, that would just be to deny reality, wouldn't it?

[friendly_iconoclast]

64. If "collective defense" via law enforcement, etc. fails, individual defense is what's left.

Why is McDonald (and the rest of us, for that matter) supposed to accept that the laws he fought against were "protecting" him
and other African Americans when they clearly were not and are not?

They weren't reducing crime in any meaningful sense. "Social cohesion" in poor AA neighborhoods in Chicago is weak to nonexistant,
so that particular argument against loosening gun laws is specious at best.

Who the fuck was he supposed to turn to? Cook County and/or the City of Chicago have failed him and other members of oppressed groups, and no amount of babble about how bad his choice of allies was can change that fact.

If he gets accused of "heresy" by people that believe they know better than he does where his interests lie, so be it.
I still support him and his actions.

[iverglas]

66. what are you yammering about?

If "collective defense" via law enforcement, etc. fails, individual defense is what's left.

If you are pretending to be talking about collective defence in the sense in which I have used that term ... well, sorry, I'm not that dim. Collective defence by a human group has precisely bugger all to do with "law enforcement".

Otis McDonald apparently views himself as a victim of crime -- not a victim of oppression or exploitation or subjugation, not as a victim of anything based on his membership in a class subject to such oppression or exploitation or subjugation. No "collective defence" here. None whatsoever.

There's nothing "collective" about his complaints or his proposals. There is not a shred of a familial connection between him and the victims that either the Deacons or the Panthers organized to protect or the enemies they organized to protect them against.

"Social cohesion" in poor AA neighborhoods in Chicago is weak to nonexistant, so that particular argument against loosening gun laws is specious at best.

Your incessant repetition of "social cohesion" in quotation marks is both tedious and meaningless. Social cohesion is a subject of current study and comment in modern social sciences, and a rather obvious value in a society. If you have something to say about the concept or the facts that relate to it or comment that has been made about it, do feel free to offer it up. Otherwise, I have no idea what you think you are accomplishing by tossing it into your word salads with gay abandon.

With respect to what you said: if someone has a high temperature, it is not an argument against applying cooling measures to say that they already have a high temperature. That would pretty obviously be just dumb, at best.

Who the fuck was he supposed to turn to? Cook County and/or the City of Chicago have failed him and other members of oppressed groups, and no amount of babble about how bad his choice of allies was can change that fact.

Life sometimes sucks. In fact, life very often sucks. Allowing/encouraging people to do things likely to make life worse for other people isn't generally regarded as wise or good. And that has nothing at all to do with his choice of allies, except that they are, of course, the ones encouraging him to do something likely to make life worse for a lot of other people ... in service of their own interests entirely.

If he gets accused of "heresy" by people that believe they know better than he does where his interests lie, so be it. I still support him and his actions.

I'm a little short of readies this month and the cupboard is getting bare, so my interests plainly lie in holding up the convenience store at the corner. I look forward to your support for me and my actions.

Quite an amazing statement you made there. If you decide that someone knows where their interests lie, you'll support them.

I'll bet there's a little implied qualifier in there. I'll bet it amounts to something along the lines of: IF I like what they propose to do ... because it is in my interests being the obvious unspoken link.

Because a lot more people than McDonald have decided that their interests lie somewhere else altogether, and I'm not seeing you supporting them.

[friendly_iconoclast]

67. To be blunt- Your claims to know where the interests of society lie are specious, at best.

Has the passage of more lenient laws regarding the ownership and/or carriage of handguns made things better or worse in states like
Minnesota and Ohio? If worse- how? Increased crime?

Any other metric is sheer moralizing, no different than banning the posession and consumption of alcohol or cannabis, or the anti-sodomy and anti-miscegnation laws beloved by the right wing.

Malum prohibitum is not malum in se, no matter how popular or unpopular the taget of a law may be. WWJBD? (What would
Jeremy Bentham do?)

In other words, Otis McDonald getting the ability to legally own a handgun will do fuck-all to "harm social cohesion",
"injure the community", "embolden gun militants", or whatever faith-based objection you might bring to bear.

It might, however, help Otis McDonald and his family, and that is what counts.
Not your injured sensibilities and those of other do-gooders, few (if any) of which are providing any protection
whatsoever to McDonald's neighborhood, "collective" or otherwise ...

[We_Have_A_Problem]

78. They have drugs for that

You said:

You're disgusting, and keeping your post on my monitor any longer may make me vomit.

If your stomach is so weak that your intentional misinterpretation of something written online causes you to vomit, you really need to seek medical assistance. That isn't healthy.

[MicaelS]

42. Here's a black man speaking...

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/baw_commentary_news/17375

What's Missing from Black Agenda? Gun Rights

Date: Thursday, March 25, 2010, 5:31 am
By: Gregory P. Kane, BlackAmericaWeb.com

McDonald is on his own. Those black elected officials, so-called “leaders,” spokesmen and spokeswomen, activists and self-appointed protectors of the race from Uncle Toms, Sambos, sellouts, traitors and Republicans want nothing to do with this brother or other black folks similarly situated.

Smiley doesn’t give a tinker’s dam about McDonald’s plight; he’s too busy frettin’ about black guys in prison and jail. Sharpton doesn’t care about McDonald either. And if you really want to get right down to it, neither does Obama.

I mean, a black man who wants to defend himself with a firearm? Just who does Otis McDonald think he is? He’s part of a long line of blacks who’ve done precisely that throughout American history, the early gun-control laws targeting blacks specifically notwithstanding. Robert F. Williams and other blacks did it in Monroe, N.C. in the late 1950s and early 1960s against marauding Klansmen. The Deacons for Defense and Justice did it in Louisiana in the 1960s. Brothers defended the black neighborhood of northwest Washington, D.C. from rampaging whites in that city’s 1919 riot. Robert Charles did it in New Orleans back in 1900.

Armed self-defense was a cherished African-American tradition - until we became Democrats. But brothers like McDonald know one thing: Well-meaning Democrats can’t stop the thug invading your home.

He's like Otis McDonald, he doesn't care what you think. And this man does represent someone, he represents himself. What names are you going to call him?

[iverglas]

51. crap almighty, you people are hopeless

I cite REPRESENTATIVE / GRASSROOTS African-American organizations, and you give me upstanding individual soldiers in the right wing's war.

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/baw_commentary_news/11232

The student body of any school for the blind could easily see what’s wrong with this picture. It’s a bleak one. And it’s one I’m going to refer to whenever those black folks with liberal leanings ask me, as a black conservative, “What do you want to conserve?” How about those days when black children could walk across the street without taking a bullet to the head?

We all know that "conservative" is the strange euphemism used in the US for what the rest of the world regards as the far right wing.

A dishonest piece of shit one, at that:

It’s not a question of what black conservatives want to conserve. Black Americans, up until the 1960s, had a tradition of values and morality that they cherished. The question is why black liberals want those values kicked to the curb.

This person is an opinion columnist, from what I can tell.

His opinion is valuable / of interest because ... ?

One commenter on one of his opinion pieces referred to him as a "right wing conservative wing nut".

And oh dear, he just doesn't seem to share the reverence for the Black Panther Party expressed in these environs ...

http://articles.philly.com/1998-05-09/news/25739681_1_black-panther-militia-groups-government-repression/2

Let's not mince words. When I heard that former Black Panther misleader Eldridge Cleaver had died, my immediate reaction was, "Damn! Stupid Negro died 30 years too late!" ...

Funny thing is, his assessment of the people in question is actually more reasonable than what has been posted here.

:rofl:

He ain't one of the worst examples of the weird opinion sources dug up by posters in this forum, but he sure ain't one of the best.

Oh, and while dissing the Panthers and their collective defence activities, he drags out the same misrepresentation of civil rights activists and firearms, as if Otis McDonald was on the same continent as them, values- and objectives-wise.

Armed self-defense was a cherished African-American tradition - until we became Democrats.

that's "armed COLLECTIVE defence" ... and I thought you were Democrats here?

Just dishonest, and that's enough for me:

Bzzt.



formatting fixed

[PavePusher]

53. "armed COLLECTIVE defence"

I suppose armed INDIVIDUAL defense never happened.

Hear that, folks? It. Never. Happened.

[iverglas]

57. I know what I hear

Noise.

[Name removed]

62. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Euromutt]

32. A point worth making about the "Uniform Firearms Act" project...

...is that it was intended at the time to head off the adoption by other states of laws like New York states' Sullivan Law; essentially the Uniform Firearms Act sacrificed unlicensed concealed carry in exchange for not requiring a permit to merely purchase and/or possess a handgun.