[795] in libertarians
Laissez Faire Book News: FOR THE DEFENSE OF THEMSELVES AND THE STATE
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chris Whitten)
Thu Mar 2 11:56:58 1995
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 1995 11:52:51 -0500 (EST)
From: Chris Whitten <lfb@panix.com>
Apparently-To: <libertarians@mit.edu>
The shocking history of gun control laws
$20 off the publisher's price
FOR THE DEFENSE OF THEMSELVES AND THE STATE
The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation
of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
by Clayton E. Cramer
(reviewed by Jim Powell)
It's hardly the best-kept secret that judges enforce constitutional
protections only when they feel like it. Still, you will probably be taken
aback to see dozens and dozens of cases where judges brazenly disregard
the Second Amendment.
In this book, Cramer provides the most comprehensive analysis of
Second Amendment cases. He establishes beyond reasonable doubt the
Founders' original intent--namely, the Constitution protects the right of
individuals to keep and bear arms. Then Cramer goes on--for two-thirds
of the book--to review state and federal court decisions. His largest
single section exposes the racist history of gun control laws.
He establishes original intent by analyzing state constitutions during
the period, state requests for a Bill of Rights, actions of the First
Congress on the Second Amendment and contemporary commentaries about
it. In particular, he cites Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry
Lee, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and others who supported the right
of individuals to keep and bear arms.
Chronicling the judicial history of the Second Amendment proved
to be much tougher. Many of the most detailed state court decisions were
written before the Civil War, but a lot of law libraries don't have
complete records. Nor are older decisions well-indexed. Cramer started
with recent decisions, then traced back the chain of precedents.
He discovered how judges weasled out of upholding the Second
Amendment. He provides many examples where judges simply ignored
it as well as their own state constitution which protected gun rights,
without offering a reason why. An Illinois Supreme Court judge
dismissed the Second Amendment as "that right, whatever it may be,"
refusing to elaborate. Other examples show how judges supported their
decisions with factual errors about the origin of the Second Amendment.
Then there are examples of judges who cited misleading precedents--legal
reasoning supposedly contained wasn't there, or one point cited was
contradicted by other points in a decision.
In documenting the racist history of gun control laws, Cramer
makes clear that a major purpose is to keep people down. For example,
he tells how, during the 1830s, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia and Florida
enacted laws disarming free blacks. Cramer notes how the Supreme
Court, in the notorious Dred Scott case (1857), denounced the idea that
free blacks should be able to keep and bear arms.
Cramer talks at length about the gun control laws which Southern
states enacted after the Civil War to keep blacks down. For example,
Louisiana: "No negro who is not in the military service shall be allowed
to carry fire-arms, or any kind of weapons, within the parish, without
the special written permission of his employers, approved and endorsed by
the nearest and most convenient chief of patrol." And Mississippi: "No
freedman, free Negro, or mulatto not in the military service of the
United States government, and not licensed so to do by the board of
police of his or her county, shall keep or carry firearms of any kind..."
States used various tactics to restrict gun rights. Judges
limited the kinds of weapons individuals could own, ruled it was illegal
to carry concealed weapons--or illegal to carry weapons openly.
Judges used a variety of weasel words to uphold these laws. A
Tennessee judge declared such laws were legit because their aim was to
"promote the public peace." He claimed that when a lot of people carried
pistols, the result was "dangerous wounds, as well as frequent
homicides."
In 1872, a Texas judge was surprisingly frank in admitting that gun
control promoters don't give a hoot for liberty: "It is useless to talk
about personal liberty being infringed by laws such as that under
consideration. The world has seen too much licentiousness cloaked under
the name of natural or personal liberty..." The judge trashed the
state's constitution which spoke clearly: "Every person shall have the
right to keep and bear arms."
Republicans were self-righteous about winning the Civil War and
abolishing slavery, yet it was Republicans, Cramer points out, who
controlled the Reconstruction era state houses when anti-black gun
control laws were passed. Northern Republicans didn't do anything or
even speak out about what was going on down South. Democrats who
came to power continued the process of taking away rights from blacks.
Cramer covers 20th century weaseling, notably the epidemic of gun
control laws in the 1920s and since the 1960s. A sober reminder that
defending liberty requires eternal vigilance.
Book No. PO6259 (hardcover) 286p. publisher's price $49.95
LAISSEZ FAIRE PRICE ONLY $29.95
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Thanks,
Chris
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Chris Whitten LFB@panix.com
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