One of the more ironic facets of modern gun control advocacy is how the majority of gun control boosters fancy themselves as liberals and progressives. However, most proponents of gun control of the political Left have a historical blind spot when it comes to gun control’s checkered history with respect to race. Namely, how gun control has been historically used to infringe on the rights of the very minorities liberals and their leftist bedfellows claim to champion.
This blind spot on gun control’s racist history was exposed when Colorado Rep. Javier Mabrey (D) tried justifying his vote against HB25-1164, Colorado’s Constitutional Carry bill. On Feb. 24, 2025, Mabrey issued a closing statement where he alluded to 19th-century gun control laws to justify his vote against the Constitutional Carry bill.
He said, “..by 1800, four states had enacted gun carry restrictions…” prior to citing a 1837 Georgia Statute prohibiting the carry of several types of bowie knives and pistols. Independent journalist Kelyn Lanier noted that Mabrey “neglected to mention that the vague slew of laws he grouped together for dramatic effect were largely racist laws originating in southern states with the express intent of limiting the rights of free Black people.”
Gun control is a policy suffused with racial ramifications. During the antebellum period, southern states implemented gun control laws that targeted freemen and slaves alike. After the Nat Turner slave revolt of 1831, the leaders of slave states grew increasingly wary of armed African American populations. States such as Virginia quickly banned freemen from carrying and possessing firearms out of fear of an armed African American population potentially carrying out additional insurrections.
Although the end of the American Civil War saw African Americans finally earn civil liberties, Southern states quickly passed the Black Codes to undermine African Americans’ freedoms. For example, Mississippi’s Black Code, implemented in 1865, explicitly banned freedmen, free Negroes, and mulattoes from owning or carrying firearms without a license from the county’s board of police. The law stated:
No freedman, free Negro, or mulatto not in the military service of the United States government, and not licensed so to do by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or carry firearms of any kind, or any ammunition, dirk, or Bowie knife.
In a similar vein, South Carolina’s Black Code restricted firearm ownership for African Americans:
Persons of color constitute no part of the Militia of the State, and no one of them shall, without permission in writing from the District Judge, or a Magistrate, be allowed to keep a fire-arm, sword, or other military weapon.
The Black Codes and other government discriminatory measures stripped blacks of their ability to bear arms in self-defense throughout the Jim Crow era, which rendered thousands of blacks defenseless against white militias and other groups willing to inflict harm on blacks. This history is conveniently ignored by Mabrey and fellow anti-gun liberals.
Mabrey is a fanatic gun control booster. He has been a vocal supporter of a bill to prohibit semiautomatic firearms in Colorado. He called on fellow lawmakers to join other states in prohibiting these weapons, contending that semiautomatic guns can dish out large amounts of damage in a rapid manner. Further, Mabrey sponsored Senate Bill 168, which aims to get rid of immunity provisions that shield gun manufacturers and merchants from civil lawsuits. This bill would allow individuals to file lawsuits if they believe these companies are responsible for facilitating acts of gun violence.
The Colorado State Representative should exercise some degree of historical self-awareness when talking about gun control. It’s a policy that harms the interests of the minority groups he purports to defend. But when you’re consumed with a desire to expand government power at all costs, such philosophical consistency goes out the window.
About José Niño
José Niño is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. You can contact him via Facebook and X/Twitter. Subscribe to his Substack newsletter by visiting “Jose Nino Unfiltered” on Substack.com.
from https://ift.tt/x1hfJRA
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment