Delaware Public Housing Authority's attempt to disarm the poor

    Oleg Volk photo (click photo to enlarge)

---

Related Articles

• Disarming the poor

With the revelation, by the Caesar Rodney Institute, that all four public housing agencies in Delaware have implemented policies forbidding residents from possessing firearms in their homes, we see, once again, that some would prefer to price the poor out of the self-defense market.

Thousands of Delaware’s most vulnerable residents, forced by their socio-economic status to live in some of the state’s most dangerous neighborhoods, are prohibited from possessing the means to defend themselves from the drug dealers and thugs who infest their communities.

A five-month investigation by the Caesar Rodney Institute has revealed that all four of the state’s public housing authorities ban their residents from owning firearms – despite clear protections in the Delaware Constitution, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Supreme Court decisions and recent rulings by lower courts that have found similar bans to be unconstitutional.

That's just one method by which the poor are disarmed.  As I discussed nearly a year ago, probably the first such law was Tennessee's "Army and Navy Law," an 1879 measure that banned all pistols except the pricey (for the time) Colt Army and Navy revolvers, thus effectively disarming blacks without explicitly specifiying "No Guns for Negroes.:

Moving along, the Gun Control Act of 1968, with its ban on the importation of "Saturday Night Specials" (itself a racist term) was intended to do much the same thing.  Since then, several states have their own affordable handgun bans (which apply not only to imports, but domestically manufactured guns, as well).  Now, proposed measures such as "microstastamping" will make guns much more expensive, while "ammunition accountability" laws would do the same for ammunition.  There have also been proposals (including a bill in Illinois last year) to require gun owners to buy insurance ($1 million worth, in the Illinois bill).

In fact, Roy Innis, national chariman of the Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE), and also an NRA board member, suspects that the same, ugly motivation is behind the Delaware Public Housing Authority gun bans.

“These bans are racist. The gun laws in general have an inception in racism,” Innis told the Caesar Rodney Institute. “The old definition: a free man is free to bear arms. There’s always a connection to being able to bear arms and freedom, and therefore denial is clearly racist.”

The NRA has become heavily involved in the Delaware situation, threatening lawsuits to force the rescinding of the bans, and also recruiting Delaware lawmakers, with the idea of drafting and passing legislation explicitly outlawing such bans.

The Caesar Rodney Institute was told Monday by members of all four legislative caucuses that they would support legislation to overturn the gun bans.

“I think we should be taking a look at it,” said Sen. Joe Booth, R-Bridgeville. “I do think they have the right to protect themselves in their own household.”

As it happens, one of the housing agencies, Delaware's Newark Housing Authority, has already read the writing on the wall, and agreed to voluntarily rescind its ban (pdf file).

A section in the handbook requiring that tenants must “not possess explosives, firearms or flammable material on NHA’s property,” will be removed, Detwiler told the Caesar Rodney Institute Wednesday morning.

Detwiler, who is nearing the end of his six-year term as commissioner, said NHA executive director Marene Jordan is “looking to change the pamphlet a soon as possible.”

I have had my share of disagreements with the NRA, but this is a noble effort on their part.  The Bill of Rights is not a country club, and the protections it offers are not limited to the wealthy.  Let us hope that the other three public housing agencies in Delaware remember that soon.