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More Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth on McDonald
All week, we have discussed the Supreme Court's McDonald v. Chicago decision, and reactions to it. Pam Adams, of the Peoria Journal-Star, seems to have a somewhat unusual objection--not that it will cause blood to run in the streets, or that the decision is somehow "racist," although she begins in a way that suggests the "racism" angle.
The process by which the decision was reached, however, harbors the most cynical uses of race.
Adams then goes on to point out that the five justices who ruled in the majority Monday have also ruled (in other cases) in ways that she considers racially discriminatory. At the moment, she seems almost to be channeling Mark Karlin's "Racist!" theme, but she's going a different direction.
While Adams gives a nod to Justice Alito's accounts, in the majority opinion, of blacks being disarmed in the post-Civil War South, she points out a different current greatest threat to gun rights in the black community.
Again, as it did in the D.C. gun case, the court said the Second Amendment does not give citizens "a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsover in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose." The ruling also said people with mental illnesses and people with felony criminal records should have limits on their Second Amendment rights.
Of course, the broad group of felons will be comprised of black citizens far disproportionate to their numbers in the population, and not because they're more likely to commit crimes but because they're more likely to get arrested.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 bans felons' possession of firearms (and other laws even ban their possession of body armor). That African Americans are incarcerated at vastly higher rates than whites is well known. Some studies have found that the disparity is far greater than can be explained by the disparity in criminal behavior. In other words, blacks are far more likely to go to prison than whites who engage in the same behavior. More likely to be searched, more likely to be arrested if caught with contraband, more likely to be found guilty, and more likely to get a harsh sentence.
We've talked about this before. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Washington State's law against inmates voting, on the basis that Washington's justice system discriminates against blacks, thus incarcerating them at a discriminatory rate, so that a law against inmates voting would violate the Voting Rights Act. From the San Francisco Chronicle:
Among those in Washington state who commit crimes, "minorities are more likely than whites to be searched, arrested, detained and ultimately prosecuted," Judge A. Wallace Tashima said in the appeals court's majority opinion.
The 9th Circuit Court's ruling was based on a study that focused on the justice system of Washington State itself, so it's conceivable, I suppose, that other states' justice systems are not so discriminatory--but it's hard for me to imagine that Washington could be much worse than middle of the pack in that regard. We've certainly seen that kind of discrimination at work in "progressive" New York, with Mayor Bloomberg's "stop and frisk" policy.
As I said when Washington's inmate voting prohibition was struck down, if denying an inmate the right to vote is "racist," because the inmate population is unfairly tilted racially, then denying an ex-convict an effective means of self-defense would have to be at least as egregious an example of racial injustice. Since I agree with National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea, that any ex-convict so dangerous so as to be impossible to be trusted with a gun cannot be trusted to roam free among the populace without a keeper, I think Ms. Adams has something of a point.
African Americans will still bear the brunt of America's forcible citizen disarmament efforts--McDonald hasn't ended that. That would probably have been rather a lot to ask of it, though.
Atlanta: Ed Stone | Austin: Howard Nemerov | Boston: Ron Bokleman | Charlotte: Paul Valone | Cheyenne: Anthony Bouchard | Chicago: Don Gwinn | Cleveland: Daniel White | DC: Mike Stollenwerk | Denver: Dan Bidstrup | Des Moines: Sean McClanahan | Detroit: Rob Reed | Fort Smith: Steve D. Jones | Grand Rapids: Skip Coryel | Knoxville: Liston Matthews | Los Angeles: John Longenecker | Minneapolis: John Pierce | National: David Codrea | Parkersburg: Nicholas Arnold | Phoenix: Douglas Little | Pittsburgh: Dan Campbell | Seattle: Dave Workman | St. Louis: Kurt Hofmann | Tucson: Chris Woodard | Wisconsin: Gene German
Comments
How many of those "crimes" are acts of actual aggression or theft, and not just doing voluntary things the government prohibits?
I don't know if you saw my take on the Supreme Court and the Second Amendment: tinyurl.com/3xogxna
You are a moron. Felon's of any color shouldn't have guns. Let me ask you this, clown, is adding a 10% tax on tanning beds(which went into effect this week) a discriminatory tax on white people?
Now wait a minute. Since more black criminals prey on blacks than they do on whites, isn't putting firearms in the hands of more black criminals a racist act?
I'm somehow confused.
I reckon the MORON is the person that thinks that felons who are NO LONGER IN PRISON shouldn't be allowed arms like anybody else.
If you are not to be trusted in a mostly free society where you will be able to acquire fireams, you shouldn't be free in society.
Genie's out of the bottle "seriously" (moronic).
Maybe if you just THINK REALLY HARD AND WISH you can make things that don't make any logical sense to be true?
Guns are available, criminals don't care about laws if they still engage in criminal behavior, and if you believe them to have done their time they have the right to keep and bear arms just like everybody else. And they will ANYWAY.
The only thing the law against ex-cons having firearms has done is it created a black market for guns for felons. Nobody used to have gun safes, people hung guns on the wall, because they were bulky and not worth stealing compared to jewelry and such...
Congratulations. War on drugs-black market drugs. Limited gun rights-sam
There's a moron loose amongst us, seriously.
Check this out people: (type www. in front of co.jackson.wi.us to get the link to work. .co.jackson.wi.us/html/district%20attorney/Documents/McDonald%20vs.%20City%20of%20Chicago.pdf
Oh, I get it, "seriously". You believe that convicted felons have relinquished their unalienable rights. Thus, upon conviction they no longer have freedom of religion, nor freedom from illegal search and seizure, nor protection against self-incrimination, etc. And by your way of thinking, they certainly haven't any right to self-defense. Hmmm! So when the Founders were declared traitors to the crown (i.e. a hanging offense), technically they should have turned in their weapons?
"Resistance to sudden violence, for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs and life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I have never surrendered to the public by the compact of society, and which perhaps I could not surrender if I would." - John Adams.
A convicted felon will be restricted or prohibited from owning or carrying a gun.
For anyone to take ANYTHING racist out of that previous sentence, there is something seriously wrong with you. If more black people are getting convicted of felonies, than yes more white people will legally own guns than black people. If you feel like said black people were wrongfully convicted of a felony, than maybe you should take issue with that injustice and report it to the authorities. We have laws in place that cover unfair treatment by our government and protect all American citizens REGARDLESS of race.
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