Reddit mentions of The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction

Sigh.

OK. The original 2nd Amendment says we have a right to "keep and bear arms". The Amendment officially took effect in 1792 along with the rest of the 10 Bill Of Rights that passed (out of 12 submitted).

In 2008 the US Supreme Court said that the right to "keep" arms was clearly a personal civil right. The particular law that was struck down as infringing was a ban on ownership of handguns in the home. Therefore, the Heller case was described as "supporting the right to keep arms".

In 2010 the 2nd Amendment (in it's entirety!) was placed as a limit against the states. Under some very screwed up case law, pieces of the Bill Of Rights do NOT automatically apply as limits to the state or local governments...they only apply once "selectively incorporated" against the states. Want to understand it better? Go read this:

http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Rights-Creation-Reconstruction/dp/0300082770

...and as a supplement in case you REALLY want to understand how America's first Civil Rights Movement crashed and burned:

http://www.amazon.com/Day-Freedom-Died-Massacre-Reconstruction/dp/0805089225

OK. So where we're at today is this: the gun-grabbers (the anti-self-defense crowd) thinks that while the US Supreme Court has supported a right to KEEP arms, they have no yet explicitly supported a right to BEAR (carry) guns.

This is complete and utter bullshit. There's no historical evidence or scholarship whatsoever that says that the people who have a right to "keep" arms are in some way separate from the people who have the right to "bear" them. Prior to the Heller decision, there was a huge debate on who had either one. The anti-self-defense types believed it was a "collective right of the states to form militias" - that whole class of thinking died with Heller.

The current "thinking" among some judges is that since the US Supremes haven't yet ruled on the "bear" part, Illinois which completely bans carry of a defensive gun (concealed or open) is doing just fine. Ditto states like California, Hawaii, Mass., NY, NJ and a few others that seriously limit carry rights to a "chosen few".

They're missing something: the Bill Of Rights was ratified in 1792. So, under that "thinking", in 1793 it would have been perfectly legal for the US government to, say, kill a condemned prisoner by way of slow torture, or torture a confession out of somebody, or ban a church as being "unchristian" in some doctrinal point or otherwise piss all over the BoR. Because the US Supreme Court hadn't yet ruled on ANY of it yet. Under this "thinking", we only have those rights that the US Supreme Court has "granted" us.

And that's bullshit. We have the rights in the Bill Of Rights and then some. The job of the courts is to protect those rights, not to grant them.

So, without question, we have a right to bear (carry) arms for personal defense. We'll just have to prove it one court case at a time.

I think what the OP is looking far are specific examples of armed resistance against White Racists.

The Colfax massacre comes to mind and it is reported to be the worst one day every massacre of Black Americans by White Supremacists. It occurred in 1873 and ended with 60 or so Black Americans being killed.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/grant-colfax/


I haven't read this book but a good friend of mine advises me it is a good read:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Day-Freedom-Died-Reconstruction/dp/0805089225

I am reading The Day Freedom Died and am saddened and disappointed in the behavior of our fellow citizens, as well as the failure of the Supreme Court to properly handle the crisis.