I didn't know this ... do you?

[sunnystarr]

I watched a panel discuss the upcoming Supreme Court case on the 2nd Amendment - the right to bear arms - on C-Span in today's early hours. I learned that the reason for armed state militias was to have white men armed to quell slave insurrections. While the main body of our Constitution gave the federal government the right to arm militias, it also meant that it had the right to disarm these militias. The Southern states wanted a guarantee that the state militias would be armed. They believed they needed armed militias comprised of white men to put down any insurrection from the male black slaves. The solution came in form of the 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

Learn something new every day! Maybe it's time for the country to learn and feel what it must be like to be black in the USA. Maybe then Rev. Wright's rhetoric wouldn't be viewed as offensive.

[Fredda Weinberg]

1. Wright's rhetoric is offensive. I'm not responsible for history and

neither are you. We don't need politicians w/a vendetta - hasn't Europe or the Middle East taught us the futility of using the past to set policy?

Open your eyes: if you want a transcendental symbolic candidate, then Wright must be denounced. I walked away from the bigots in my community, which suffered as much as African-Americans, my friend ... Obama has not.

[Beregond2]

3. Excuuse

"I'm not responsible for history." What a lovely, all-purpose excuse for bigotry. We are responsible for our actions in the present, and those are what Wright was condemning. There is nothing "racist" in ackowledging racism.

[Fredda Weinberg]

6. Excuuse yourself. I've done my share in the African American

community where I live, so take your racist attitude elsewhere. I'm a Jew in a country that, in my lifetime, put up signs that said, No Jews or Niggers served.

Get it? I reached past my own community's anger to set up prototypes programs where they were needed most. Where's Obama's outreach?

You've picked the wrong DUer, anonymous poster. I have nothing to be ashamed of ... you seem to be venting White guilt and I won't buy your syndrome.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

4. I agree

[democrattotheend]

17. Obama does not have a vendetta

Nothing he has ever said suggests that he does. You can't hold him responsible for everything his pastor says in church. This is just ridiculous.

[frogcycle]

2. day-um

I'd like to find documentation of that. Sounds like the sacrosanct 2nd Amendment is as despicable as the Missouri Compromise! I hope this is true, and that solid documentation is available.

I am not against gun ownership but sick of having the 2nd used to beat everyone over the head shutting down any rational discussion of how it could be managed.

[Recursion]

12. Part of the problem is mass ignorance of both guns and the law

First off, I'd point out that the 14th amendment was mostly an attempt to keep the southern states from disarming their black populations (it didn't work very well, sadly; the cases we know of African Americans defending themselves with guns against white terrorism, eg Rob Williams, were very effective at shutting down white terrorist groups).

Secondly, we have a legislative framework for managing the right to bear arms, and it's been in effect for over 70 years. That's why it's nearly impossible to legally obtain an assault rifle, machine gun, or grenade launcher. It's called the National Firearms Act, and there's no reason we can't tweak it if we need to. The NRA does not oppose the NFA, neither do the vast majority of gun owners.

[benEzra]

15. Read the Federalist #46...it had nothing to do with perpetuating slavery. (n/t)

[shraby]

5. I was always under the impression the 2nd

amendment was made to ensure that the fledgling government would have recourse against the crown in case the King decided to "retake" the colonies, in which instance the new states would be able to defend themselves to a man
Not to mention the fact that the new country would be able to keep the new government in check in case it got to be a lot like the one they threw off, or in case of another country thinking it might invade and make hay while the new government was still weak.

edited to add.

[merh]

13. you are, of course, correct

Just like the occupation of Iraq allows for the US military to go in and seize Iraqi citizens' weapons, so too the King ordered the red coats to do the same thing to the colonists. The british army actually was allowed to kick in doors and search the colonists' homes indiscriminately, to expel the colonists and use their homes as the British army deemed neccessary to protect the loyalist from the revoluntionaries and the Crown's interests. The british army could search homes and buinesses looking for traitors and those that supported the revolution. Thus there the need for the 4th amendment realized. The King also used mercenaries to do the dirty work, the King also condoned the torture and prolonged imprisonment without trials (5th, 6th, 8th amendments).

What is sad is that instead of viewing history in the correct light, relative to our nation's behaviors today, instead of recognizing what our goals must be, some will misstate history to make a point when that misstatement is not necessary and said inaccuracy only takes away from the legitimacy of the point.

Yes, racism still exists in this nation as it does across the globe.

The GOP will do nothing to bridge the divide, the divide has always been useful to them. So our goal must be to secure a democratic president who will restore to the citizens the rights we have lost, who will see that we are repeating history and our role is that of the evil aggressor, not the valiant revolutionaries that fought for life, liberty, freedom and equality for all.

[Little Star]

7. Yeah preaching separatism is good for race relations. Sitting

there listening to that crap and then expecting us to just excuse the white hate is worse. Sorry my ancestors did not own slaves and
I have never been anti black nor did I ever sit and listen to anyone say obnoxious things against blacks. I spoke up loud and clear the few times I had been in the company of anyone who tried to use offensive language against blacks. Then to hear that most black churches preach hate white america (Donna Brazille this morning on Steph).......Well I am sorry that is just unacceptable.

[Raejeanowl]

8. I Taught My Children Carefully And Well

I have walked the walk along with the talk.

So to know that the Obamas take those little girls to places where they hear African American history taught with a heaping helping of hate and vengeance, and the light-years of progress of interracial relations undone in fiery and unconciliatory rhetoric, makes me want to weep in frustration as much as those obscene photos certain DUers are repeatedly throwing in everyone's faces as if they are present-day justification for continued social bad blood. How many of the people in those pictures are even ALIVE at this juncture, much less, dictating policy or influencing personal freedoms in negative ways?

As an accused member of white "KKK-America,"(gee, no reason at all for me to get offended by that "truth!":sarcasm:) how can I help heal a wound the victim won't stop picking?

And how can a 20-year association and embrasure (including as a teacher for his children) of an antagonistically Afro-centric pastor, NOT have helped shape the man who is Barack Obama?

[Little Star]

9. Exactally.

[Recursion]

10. Don't forget that the first gun control laws were Jim Crow

Gun control was pioneered in southern states after Reconstruction to disarm African Americans. Similarly, California had very little gun control until Panthers decided to (perfectly legally) appear in public bearing arms.

Few things scare suburban whites more than the notion of armed black people, and sadly gun control has never quite shaken that legacy. Note the insistence that "hunters" (ie, rural and suburban whites) be allowed to keep guns; it's just those urban criminals (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) that we want to disarm.

[benEzra]

16. Yup. In the Northeast, it was xenophobia...

New York's Sullivan Law (yes, that Sullivan) was passed in order to keep guns out of the hands of Italians and other "undesirables" who weren't Anglo-Saxon enough.

The Conservative Roots of U.S. Gun Control

[Raejeanowl]

11. No

And I'd like to know who the panel member was (scholarly credentials) and what he or she was referencing, because I don't recall "slave uprisings" being a primary motivating feature of the political landscape in or prior to 1791 when the 2nd Amendment was ratified. Now, it's entirely plausible that the 2nd was cited or relied upon in later years for those exact purposes, but I suspect the facts of its origins are getting skewed somewhere in the retelling.

[applegrove]

14. Michael Moore sorta touches on that in Bowling for Columbine. The fear

that built the USA was based on slave insurrections.