How bout we try the classist/racist thread one more time. [View All]

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With a quick search i found 4 states with racist amendments in their state constitutions, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Arkansas. http://www1.law.ucla.edu/~volokh/beararms/statecon.htm
I will quote Florida's state constitution as an example: : "That the free white men of this State shall have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence." Laws regarding racism in Florida were recognized as late as 1941 in Watson v. Stone

Black Codes and Slave Codes existed before the civil war in an attempt to disarm both free and slave blacks. South Carolina, Virginia, Loiusiana, Florida, Deleware, Maryland, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, Mississippi, and even the United States of America had some form of these black codes or slave codes. I will take the united states as my example piece here. In 1792 blacks were specifically excluded from the militia with the Uniform Militia Act of 1792. Quote: I. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act. http://www.constitution.org/mil/mil_act_1792.htm Some could also see the Dred Scott v. Sandford US supreme court case as racist gun control since slaves were found to not be considered citizens therefore not covered under any of the constitutional amendments, including the 2nd.

These bans didnt stop after the Civil War was won though. Many states still restricted blacks from owning guns. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1866 could be enacted, Alabama and North Carolina had race based gun bans. In 1866 the 14th amendment to the constitution was debated. Sen. Thomas A. Hendricks (D-Ind.) said "if this amendment be adopted we will then carry the title and enjoy its advantages in common with the negroes, the coolies, and the Indians." .

In Tennessee in 1870, the first "Saturday Night Special" ban took place. Tennessee has already been noted a couple of times for racism in their laws and even in their state constitution. This law, past by white supremist in control of the legislation, banned all handguns except the Army and Navy revolver which most whites already had or could afford. This came from an article post originally with Reason, the article can be read here: http://www.sightm1911.com/docs/whitelaw.htm

Arkansas also passed one of these bans on "saturday night specials". You might also make a note that Arkansas was one of the original 4 states that i mentioned in the second paragraph as having racist amendments in their state constutions regarding the rights of blacks to keep and bear arms.

The May Issue concealed weapons permits are also extremely borderline, and i use borderline sarcasticly, racist. Fresno county, with a high number of hispanics, has a high number of concealed weapons permits, or CCW's, compared to other California states. That isnt the problem though. THe problem is the major majority of permit holders are the whites in that county. The hispanics were turned down since its up to the police to decide if a person is fit to hold a permit, and yes race can and does play a part in who gets a permit as does bribery. Fresno's major paper did a study on this in their county. More information can be found here: http://www.ninehundred.com/~equalccw/ If it is like this in one may issue state, why would it not be possible for all of the states that are shall issue to be the same?

As of lately though these laws seem to be more about disarming the poor although they could still be considered racist since the minority groups are leading the poverty levels in many states. A few more states have bans on inexpensive handguns, including South Carolina and Virginia, with their history of racism.

Who could forget the Chicago Housing Authorities Project Clean Sweep, later ruled unconstitutional and was fought by the ACLU? If you arent fimiliar with it all residences in the Chicago projects were raided and searched for drugs, weapons, and gang activity. Firearms, whether they were legal or not, were taken from both gang bangers and honest citizens who were just trying to defend themselves from the crime in their neighborhoods.

The Clinton administration tried to pass H.R. 3838 in 1994 that would have banned guns in all federal public housing. It didnt pass.

Back to my original topic starter, Massachusettes. They already have a "saturday night special" ban on affordable handguns. This passed in 1988. They have a Ballistic Fingerprint Data base that trickles the cost on to the gun dealers who trickle it down to the gun buyers, this data base has never solved a single crime. They have licensing and identification cards, all costing hundreds of dollars for someone to obtain. I will quote a few sources.

Under the Senate plan, firearms dealers will now pay $100 for a license to sell guns, of which $50 will be placed in the general fund, with $25 going to the licensing authority and $25 to the Firearms Fingerprint Identity Verification Trust Fund.

A similar arrangement is being made for stores selling ammunition. But it's not just stores that will pay more, so will gun buyers.

They will pay $100 for a license to carry a firearm, $100 for a firearms identification card, $100 for a permit to buy a firearm, and another $100 if they are either a non-resident or resident alien.

In all, a gun buyer could end up paying $400 to $500 just to get approval to buy and own a gun -- more than the cost of actually purchasing a handgun.http://www.ecnnews.com/cgi-bin/n/nstory.pl?slug-NFEES527

Add in the facts that poverty is unequally distributed to minorities, mainly blacks, and one might consider these laws racist. I do. Ethnical minorities like Afro-Americans and Hispanics represent only a small part of the whole population. But their quotes of poverty are overproportional high in comparison of the white majority. The poverty figures of these minorities have increased over the past 15 years. There is a trend of growing disparities between the ethnical minorities.http://tiss.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de/webroot/sp/spsba01_W98_1/usa4.htm