Gun Control Policies Are Rooted in Racism
By: Professor Gregory Parker
Tags: Gun Rights, Conservatives, Gun Control, Racial Justice, Racism

“To ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless, and that the law will permit them to have only such rights and liberties as the lawless will allow. … For society does not control crime, ever, by forcing the law-abiding to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of criminals. Society controls crime by forcing the criminals to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of the law-abiding.”[i] ~ Jeffrey R. Snyder

History provides convincing evidence that racism is at the core of gun control laws and activism. This I believe carries over into the modern-day. Over and over again throughout American history, gun control was openly stated as a method for keeping free or enslaved blacks from obtaining firearms.

Laws in the original colony of Virginia in 1640 declared slaves and free blacks were barred from owning firearms. The Act for the Better Ordering of Negroes and Slaves enacted by South Carolina in 1712, included significant no firearms provisions for blacks.[ii]

After the Civil War, night riders or Ku Klux Klan (KKK) groups, were created by Democrats in late 1865, to generate the correct level of terror in black victims.[iii] The passage of the 14th amendment by Republicans, while intended to offer the protection for blacks from the Democrats KKK raids, did not stop such intimidation or racist gun control laws as planned. Gun control shifted from outright bans to discretionary permitting. Discretionary permitting allows local law enforcement to determine who is suitable to carry a firearm. Some states and local governments required blacks to obtain permits, requiring hefty licensing fees, thereby allowing local police or licensing boards to keep whom they deemed “undesirable” from legally accessing firearms.[iv] These requirements were done to make it significantly more difficult for blacks to defend themselves against night riders or KKK lynch mobs. Even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, a southern preacher in the mid-1950s, applied for a concealed carry permit in Alabama, after the firebombing of his home in 1956. The local police, using discretionary licensing policies, denied Dr. King a permit, claiming he was unsuitable.[v]

Clear evidence concerning this discriminatory intent of gun control permitting laws can be found in the 1941 Florida Supreme Court case of Watson v. Stone involving a gun violation under an 1893 Act. Justice Buford wrote

“The original Act of 1893 was passed when there was a great influx of negro laborers in this State drawn here for the purpose of working in turpentine and lumber camps. The same condition existed when the Act was amended in 1901, and the Act was passed for the purpose of disarming the negro laborers and to thereby reduce the unlawful homicides that were prevalent in turpentine and saw­mill camps and to give the white citizens in sparsely settled areas a better feeling of security. The statute was never intended to be applied to the white population and in practice has never been so applied.”[vi]

Now the question becomes, has the modern era changed these discriminatory tactics? According to a 1986 Assembly Office of Research report, in liberal California, a discretionary ‘may issue’ firearms permit state, where the police chiefs or sheriffs have complete discretion in granting an applicant a license, most permits are issued to white males.[vii] The report stated “In most cases, the permit holder is personally known to the local sheriff or chief of police…[with] the overwhelming majority of permit holders are white males.” In Los Angeles County California with some 7.6 million people out of the state’s 39+ million, there were only 173 permits issued as of 2013 and only 59,808 permits issued statewide.[viii]

In the liberal State of Illinois, another discretionary ‘may issue’ firearms permit state, where the state police and county sheriffs have total discretion in granting an applicant a permit, as of 2014 only 73,714 permits were issued statewide. Only 8 percent had been issued to blacks, while 90 percent issued to whites.[ix] An examination at a county level, I.E. Cook County, where Chicago is located, we can see a glaring disparity. The suburbs, which have a lower overall crime rate, comprised of 96 percent white residents with average incomes of $121,000, have a higher rate of registered concealed carry permit holders. In contrast, to the south Chicago with an overall high crime rate and the most violent neighborhoods, comprised of 98 percent black residents with average incomes of $48,000, have significantly lower rates of registered concealed carry permit holders. The 2014 article confirmed that the crime-ridden neighborhoods of Chicago’s Englewood and West Englewood and West Garfield Park, have only 193 concealed carry license holders out of a total population of 114,933 residents.[x]

In Illinois, the cost of a concealed carry licenses can run as high as $600, which does not include the firearms training cost at a state-approved range. Proponents of gun control continue to make it difficult for minorities to obtain firearms. Chicago Democrat Rep. Luis Gutierrez continually authors legislation to ban the production of inexpensive guns useful for self-defense.[xi] These firearms are the preferred choice of more impoverished potential victims who cannot afford more expensive firearms. Moreover, In 2013, the Obama administration lobbied the Colorado state legislature to pass a bill that would impose both a tax and a background check on the private transfers of all guns.[xii] These background checks again would disproportionately affect the lower-income population adversely. In 2013, Maryland Democrats passed legislation requiring the licensing and registration of handguns, which can cost upwards of $230. Maryland Republicans tried to exempt poor individuals from paying the government fees, but the Democrat-controlled state legislature did not allow the amendment to come up for a vote.[xiii]

Not only is gun control discriminatory, but it is also hypocritical. If we look back to the case of Temia Hariston, the mother of a black robbery suspect that died from a gunshot wound he suffered while robbing a Pizza Hut, we can plainly see the hypocrisy of identity politics within her comments.

“If there was to be a death, it was not the place of the employee at Pizza Hut. That is the place of law enforcement. It was an act of desperation, but I do not believe that Michael would have hurt anyone. Why in the hell did this guy have a gun?”[xiv]

It is obvious from her comments she believed that only the police should be allowed to use deadly force, “If there was to be a death, it was not the place of the employee at Pizza Hut. That is the place of law enforcement.” This comment epitomizes the conflicts between identity groups that delegitimizes the scope and activism of each group. Mrs. Hariston statement that only the police should have used deadly force for her black son is in direct contradiction to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) advocacy, which believes all police officers are racist and should not be allowed to use deadly force against blacks. Further, BLM believes the police are the “new slave catchers and are only out to kill blacks.”[xv]

It is undoubtedly evident that gun control in the United States is based on a history of racism and discrimination by liberal democrats. It is also apparent that those same liberal democrats currently appear to display the same discriminatory tactics on minorities today.

“The white liberal is the worst enemy to America, and the worst enemy to the black man.” ~ Malcolm X. “… I must say this concerning the great controversy over rifles and shotguns. The only thing I’ve ever said is that in areas where the government has proven itself either unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes, it’s time for Negroes to defend themselves. Article number two of the constitutional amendments provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun. It is constitutionally legal to own a shotgun or a rifle.”[xvi] ~ Malcolm X.

[i] Jeffrey R. Snyder, “Who’s Under Assault in the ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban?”, American Rifleman, October 1994, p. 53;

[ii] Markus T. Funk, “Gun Control and Economic Discrimination: The Melting-Point Case-in-Point,” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 1995.

[iii] Clayton E. Cramer, “The Racist Roots of Gun Control”, 1993

[iv] David Babat, “The Discriminatory History of Gun Control”, University of Rhode Island, 2009

[v] Adam Winkler, “ Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America”, W. W. Norton & Company, 2011

[vi] Watson v. Stone, 4So,2d 700, 703 (Fla. 1941)

[vii]Assembly Office of Research, “Smoking Gun: The Case For Concealed Weapon Permit Reform”, Sacramento, State of California, 1986

[viii] John R. Lott, “Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States:, Crime Prevention Research Center, 2016

[ix] Kelly Riddell, “Data divulges racial disparity in Chicago’s issuance of gun permits”, The Washington Times, September 29, 2014

[x] Kelly Riddell, “Data divulges racial disparity in Chicago’s issuance of gun permits”, The Washington Times, September 29, 2014

[xi] Mike Lillis, “Democrat’s bill targets ‘junk’ handguns,” The Hill, March 4, 2013,

[xii] Staff, “From Veep to Lobbyist: Biden Pressures CO Democratic Lawmakers to Pass Gun Control,” Colorado Peak Politics, February 15, 2013 / Lott, John R.. The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies (Kindle Locations 3091–3092). Regnery Publishing. Kindle Edition.

[xiii] Lott, John R.. The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies (Kindle Location 194). Regnery Publishing. Kindle Edition.

[xiv] Dave Urbanski, “Even a criminal has rights’: Dead robbery suspect’s parents angry that store worker shot their son”, The Blaze, November 4, 2016

[xv] Dave Urbanski, “Black Lives Matter leader: Police officers ‘evolved’ from ‘slave catchers”, The Blaze, March 22, 2017

[xvi] Malcolm X Speaks, Merit Publishers, 1965