document: When his owner died in 1846 , Scott sued in the state courts of Missouri for his freedom , on the ground that he had lived in free territory . He won his case , but it was reversed in the Missouri Supreme Court . Scott appealed to the federal courts , since the person he was actually suing , John Sanford , the executor of the estate that owned Scott , lived in New York . It was in that setting that Chief Justice Taney made his infamous rulings : 1 . That black people , whether free or slave , were not citizens of the U.S. ; therefore , they had no standing in court . 2 . Scott was denied freedom . 3 . The Missouri Compromise was ruled unconstitutional . Well known to most students of race relations is the former attorney general and secretary of the Treasury 's pre-civil war dictum that black people `` being of an inferior order '' had `` no right which any white man was bound to respect . '' Much less known are his equally racist pronouncements denying black people , whether slave or free , specific constitutional protections enjoyed by whites . In Dred Scott Chief Justice Taney , writing for the court 's majority , stated that if blacks were `` entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens , ... -LCB- i -RCB- t would give persons of the negro race , who were recognized as citizens in any one state of the union , the right ... to keep and carry arms wherever they went . And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color , both free and slaves , and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them , and endangering the peace and safety of the state ... '' Although much of Justice Taney 's overtly racist legal reasoning was repudiated by events that followed -- such as the Civil War and Reconstruction -- the subliminal effects were felt throughout that era . In the post-Reconstruction period , when the pendulum swung back to overt racism , Justice Taney 's philosophy resurfaced . It was during this period that racial paranoia about black men with guns intensified . It was potent enough to cause the infringement on the Second Amendment to the Constitution 's `` right ... to keep and bear arms . '' Under natural law , a freeman 's right to obtain and maintain the implements of self-defense has always been sacred . This right was restricted or prohibited for serfs , peasants and slaves . Gun control was never an issue in America until after the Civil War when black slaves were freed . It was this change in the status of the black man , from slave to freeman , that caused racist elements in the country -LRB- North and South -RRB- to agitate for restrictions on guns -- ignoring long established customs and understanding of the Second Amendment . The specter of a black man with rights of a freeman , bearing arms , was too much for the early heirs of Roger Taney to bear . The 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution , along with the various Reconstruction civil rights acts , prevented gun prohibitionists from making laws that were explicitly racist and that would overtly deny black people the right to bear arms . The end of Reconstruction signaled the return of Taneyism -- overtly among the masses and covertly on the Supreme Court . Gun-control legislation of the late 19th and early 20th centuries , enacted at the state and local levels , were implicitly racist in conception . And in operation , those laws invidiously targeted blacks . With the influx of large numbers of Irish , Italian and Jewish immigrants into the country , gun laws now also targeted whites from the underprivileged classes of immigrants . Eventually these oppressive gun laws were extended to affect all but a privileged few . Throughout the history of New York state 's Sullivan law , enacted at the start of the 20th century , mainly the rich and powerful have had easy access to licenses to carry handguns . Some of the notables who have received that privilege include Eleanor Roosevelt , John Lindsay , Donald Trump , Arthur Sulzberger , Joan Rivers and disk jockey Howard Stern . Of the 27,000 handgun carry permits in New York City , fewer than 2 % are issued to blacks -- who live and work in high-crime areas and really are in need of protection . And what of the origins of the National Rifle Association , which is wrongly viewed as a racist organization by the black supporters of gun prohibition ? It was inspired and organized by Union Army officers after the Civil War . -- Mr. Innis is national chairman of the New York-based Congress of Racial Equality .
extractive_keyphrases: gun control second amendment racial paranoia dred scott infamous rulings black people