Gun Control: Forewarned is Forearmed
- Johnnie Cordero
- Oct 9, 2017
- 9 min read
Let's be real. I understand the argument for gun control. I really do. I also believe that most Americans - including gun owners understand it. But the reality is that you will never get America to give up its more than 350 million guns. Ain't gonna happen. The repetitive pattern is clear and predictable, massacre followed by debate followed by no meaningful legislative change. We have heard it all before. "Guns don't kill people ... people kill people." You would think that this argument (if we can call it an argument) could only be made by the National Rifle Association or Captain Obvious. I think most people will agree that a loaded weapon will not discharge unless and until someone pulls the trigger. There is never a need to state the obvious. But of course this is Radikal Review and my intention, as always, is to present a radical view of issues pertinent to the African American community. You don't hear people calling for gun control when it comes to trigger happy cops executing African Americans. So lets look at the real issue of gun control - the Radikal African American perspective.
Is the Second Amendment really the issue?
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary
to the security of a free State, the right of
the people to keep and bear Arms, shall
not be infringed."
"...the right shall not be infringed...." Seems straight forward enough. Shall not means it is mandatory. To infringe means to "to act in a way that is against a law or that limits someone’s rights or freedom:" but who were the people whose right to bear arms could not be infringed. This is the part of the argument that both liberals and conservatives avoid like the plague. Curiously this is one time when the so-called originalists like Scalia and Thomas and now presumably Gorsuch are silent. I won't keep you guessing. The answer is found in the (now called infamous) United States Supreme Court decision in the matter entitled Dred Scott v. Sandford.
In Sandford the Court held, we were not to be included under the word "citizens" in the Constitution because we were "... considered as subordinate and inferior beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race and whether emancipated or not...." had no rights but those who held the power granted us.
In layperson' s terms negroes whether slave or free and their descendants were an inferior class of beings, not citizens and had no rights under the Constitution. The Second Amendment right to bear arms whatever it meant could not according to the Supreme Court apply to African Americans. Is it only because we were not citizens at the time or is there another reason?
Long before the United States Constitution was written there were laws on the books of all thirteen colonies that prohibited gun possession and ownership to negroes whether slave or free. Technically, gun control began as a racial issue whose intent it was (and I contend remains) the disarming of the African American population.
Gun control in America began with the prohibition against negroes owning or possessiong guns. It should be noted here that the right to bear arms included the right of self-defense. When this simple fact is understood the ominous corollary becomes blatantly obvious. We, African Americans, had no right to defend ourselves our families or property against attack. Since the only people we were ever under attack from were white people (whether hooded or not) these laws made it clear that we had no right to defend ourselves against attack by white people. Say it again - we had no right to defend ourselves against attack by white people.
Now let us look more specifically at the the Second Amendment as it originally applied to white people and since the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment nominally applies to all citizens of the United States. First we will look at the individual right to bear arms that according to the clear reading of the Amendment cannot be infringed.
In District of Columbia v. Heller, the United States Supreme Court held, inter alia, that: "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home." Pp. 2–53.
In McDonald v. City of Chicago, Illinois, the Court held that the holding in Heller applies to all the states of the United States through the Fourteenth Amendment.
To summarize, the Second Amendment right to bear arms applies to individual citizens in all the states and for the lawful purpose of self-defense in the home. There is nothing in the Second Amendment that allows the Congress or the states through the Fourteenth Amendment to infringe the right of citizans to bear arms for any reason let alone felony conviction. So where did the felony conviction prohibition come from. And how can it be justified? To answer this question we must look at the historical correlation between felony disenfranchisement and the right to bear arms as it relates to African Americans. They are flip sides of the coin white supremacy.
Felony disenfranchisement is one of the many modern day replacemnts for the Black Codes that denied the vote to African Americans. Can't vote if you are convicted of a felony. Which of course means you can't change the law that you were convicted of violating (Remember every law creates an outlaw) and denial of the right to bear arms for self-defense means you cannot protect yourself from those who are intent upon imposing their will upon you and those for whom you have the duty of protection and care. Remember self-defense is both defensive and offensive. That it is defensive needs no explanation. It is offensive in that it alerts those who are intent on violating your rights that any such attempt will be met with maximum retaliation. But I digress. How did felony conviction become an exception to the Second Amendment right to bear arms for self-defense? That is the real question.
It appears that the modern authority for the exception to the Second Amendment right to bear arms comes from, of all places, the Fourteenth Amendment. Remember prior to the adoption of that Amendment African Americans could not in most states vote or bear arms.
In a matter entitled Richardson v. Ramirez, the Supreme Court held that "California, in disenfranchising convicted felons who have completed their sentences and paroles, does not violate the Equal Protection Clause." Pp. 418 U. S. 41-56, because the Fourteenth Amendment cannot be abridged in any way, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the Court continued,
"[t]his argument seems to us a persuasive one unless it can be shown that the language of § 2, "except for participation in rebellion, or other crime," was intended to have a different meaning than would appear from its face." Let's see if it can be easily shown.
"...participation in the rebellion or felony at common law...."
The rebellion was the American Civil War and those who rebelled were the confederate states. Remember the Civil War cost the lives of 620,000 Americans (including 50,00 civilians). Although some Confederate leaders were temporarily jailed none stood trial. President Andrew Johnson granted a full pardon and amnesty to everyone who participated in the rebellion which included Jefferson Davis President of Confederate States of America. So much for the participation in the rebellion.
"... Felony at Common Law...."
The federal government has no common law. The Common law referred to is that of England. According to Blackstone, at English common law "[t]he idea of felony is indeed so generally connected with that of capital punishment, that we find it hard to separate them; and to this usage the interpretations of the law do now conform. And therefore if a statute makes any new offense felony, the law implies that it shall be punished with death, viz. by hanging, as well as with forfeiture..."
What this means in modern English is that a felony at common law was a crime punishable by hanging and/or forfeiture of all lands and property to the sovereign. In short, they hung you and took all your property. Not much need for the right to vote or bear arms after you are dead.
What this means is that drug offenses were not felonies at common law nor were butter boostin' and ham snatchin'. But today a felony is defined at federal law as violation of a law conviction of which can subject a person to the death penalty or imprisonment for more than one year (technically a year and a day) whether the person actually serves time or not. So you can kill someone and get the death penalty in which case you won't need the vote or you can you can possess two grams of crack in which case bye bye right to vote and to bear arms for self-defense. In most states, including South Carolina where I live class A and B misdemeanors are considered felonies by federal law. This means that a misdemeanor conviction in South Carolina bars you from possessing a firearm under federal law and federal law supercedes state law.
The Gun Control Act (GCA), codified at 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), makes it unlawful for certain categories of persons to ship, transport, receive, or possess firearms or ammunition, to include any person:
convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year; [any court]
who is a fugitive from justice; [no conviction required]
who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act, codified at 21 U.S.C. § 802);
who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution; [no conviction required]
who is an illegal alien; [no conviction required]
who has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions; [no conviction required]
who has renounced his or her United States citizenship;who is subject to a court order restraining the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of the intimate partner; [no conviction required]
or who has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. [no felony conviction required]
To determine how many people are barred from possessing firearms we need only look at the rates of disenfranchisement for felony conviction.
The following statistics are taken verbatim from the Sentencing Project website:
In six states – Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia – more than 7 percent of the adult population is disenfranchised.
The state of Florida alone accounts for more than a quarter (27 percent) of the disenfranchised population nationally, and its nearly 1.5 million individuals disenfranchised post-sentence account for nearly half (48 percent) of the national total.
One in 13 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate more than four times greater than that of non-African Americans. Over 7.4 percent of the adult African American population is disenfranchised compared to 1.8 percent of the non-African American population.
African American disenfranchisement rates also vary significantly by state. In four states – Florida (21 percent), Kentucky (26 percent), Tennessee (21 percent), and Virginia (22 percent) – more than one in five African Americans is disenfranchised.
Notice that the states in which the greatest number of African Americans are disenfranchised are all former(?) confederate states. But they want us to believe that the confederacy was defeated. Just in case you have forgotten the eleven confederate states were: Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana and Virginia.
In Aroyim v. Rusk the United States Supreme Court held that citizens of the United States may not be deprived of their citizenship involuntarily. You can renounce citizenship but it can't be taken away. But what does in mean to be a citizen? What rights do I have as a citizen? And are those rights inalienable? Again the Supreme Court says:
The fundamental rights of United States citizenship are contained in the Bill of Rights. These ten amendments to the United States Constitution include the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Oddly enough the Amendment contains no exception.
All statutes that deny the right to bear arms for self-defense to any American citizen are clearly unconstitutional as violative of the Second Amendment. In a country that has historically demonstrated its willingness to inflict harm on its African Americans citizens solely based on the color of our skin can we really afford not to be armed? Especially when it is clear that the the intent of these laws was since the seventeenth century and remains today to prevent African Americans from arming themselves against the day when history will inevitably repeat itself. FOREWARNED IS FOREARMED.
_______________________________________________________ Johnnie Cordero holds a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and a Doctorate in Jurisprudence. He is the author of Total Black Empowerment: A Guide to Critical Thinking in the Age of Trump. His new book Theodicy and The Power of the African Will is sheduled for release October 18, 2017.