Monday, January 16, 2012

The Secret History of Gun Control



via The Atlantic I love this story about the Black Panthers. The article contains much more though. What do you think?

In February of 1967, Oakland police officers stopped a car carrying Newton, Seale, and several other Panthers with rifles and handguns. When one officer asked to see one of the guns, Newton refused. “I don’t have to give you anything but my identification, name, and address,” he insisted. This, too, he had learned in law school.

“Who in the hell do you think you are?” an officer responded.

“Who in the hell do you think you are?,” Newton replied indignantly. He told the officer that he and his friends had a legal right to have their firearms.

Newton got out of the car, still holding his rifle.

“What are you going to do with that gun?” asked one of the stunned policemen.

“What are you going to do with your gun?,” Newton replied.

By this time, the scene had drawn a crowd of onlookers. An officer told the bystanders to move on, but Newton shouted at them to stay. California law, he yelled, gave civilians a right to observe a police officer making an arrest, so long as they didn’t interfere. Newton played it up for the crowd. In a loud voice, he told the police officers, “If you try to shoot at me or if you try to take this gun, I’m going to shoot back at you, swine.” Although normally a black man with Newton’s attitude would quickly find himself handcuffed in the back of a police car, enough people had gathered on the street to discourage the officers from doing anything rash. Because they hadn’t committed any crime, the Panthers were allowed to go on their way.

1 comment:

  1. I think that it's good to have witnesses whenever the police do something. But let's look deeper about racism and gun control. Are you familiar with Tennessee's attempt at it? During Reconstruction, it was decided that the old laws banning blacks from owning guns were unconstitutional, so a new one was passed that banned the sale of any handgun other than the Army or Navy varieties--in other words, Colt's relatively expensive models that freed slaves couldn't afford. You can read about it and much more here:

    http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Tahmassebi1.html

    ReplyDelete