Minorities:
Gun control, in the modern sense, was a fixture of the pre-Civil War Slave Codes designed to prevent a rebellion. These laws restricted all blacks both slave and free. Immediately after the war, laws were passed in the South to prohibit freedmen from owning firearms. But in response, civil rights legislation during Reconstruction made prohibition of black gun ownership impossible, so southern laws were rewritten to restrict pistols to the expensive "Army pistol." The effect was similar to a poll tax - it discriminated against both blacks and poor whites. " Guns and Gun Control
Maryland has always been severe, restrictive and close to paranoid about letting its citizens make their own decisions involving anything to do with guns. Maryland’s first gun control act was in 1715 that made it illegal for any person of color to own a firearm. We were one of the first states to implement the seven-day waiting period on top of the federal three-day waiting period. We created a bigoted “Saturday Night Special” rule so that handguns cost so much that working people must choose between making a rent payment or buying a gun for protection. We still vote on which firearms are legal for sale in our state. You can’t even buy every thing that is available to other Americans because of our “Handgun Roster Board” rules. We have an over zealous trigger lock rule that puts another added burden on honest federally licensed firearm dealers. Criminals by definition do not obey the law. All of our attempts hurt the honest people of Maryland. - Kenneth Blanchard in MD and DC Gunowner Information http://www.blackmanwithagun.com/MDandDC.html
The gun debate should not be made into a black and white issue. The right to keep and bear arms is not just for hunters, the National Rifle Association (NRA) or the elite. Unfortunately, many people of color have selectively forgotten the struggles of there ancestors. The legacy of my grandparents still lives. The firearms I saw daily in their modest backwater Virginia home were never misused and did not become the tool of suicide. Grandma’s shotgun sat unlocked and loaded in the kitchen 24-hours a day with 30 plus grandchildren sometimes around. My grandparent’s firearms brought home food, protected them from robbers and the Ku Klux Klan. - Kenneth Blanchard in Gun Rights = Civil Rights http://www.blackmanwithagun.com/articles/gun-rights.html
Pink pistols
By Jonathan Rauch
March 14, 2000
One night in the autumn of 1987, in Little Rock, Ark., a boy named Austin Fulk smelled his own death. He was 17, too young to drink in the bars, so he often hung out in a park that was popular among gay teenagers. On this night the sky was overcast, the ground soggy from a day's rain and the place mostly deserted. He was standing in a dimly lit parking lot, chatting with a man who had driven into town in a pickup truck.
A car drove past very slowly, sped up, turned around and came back. Someone inside yelled something like, "F***ing faggots, get AIDS and die!" Fulk's companion returned the compliment. The car slammed to a stop and four young men piled out, one with a baseball bat, another with a crowbar or tire iron.
"I thought I was about to die," says Austin; but he is alive, and that is because his companion reached into the truck and whipped out a pistol from under the seat, leveled it at the gay-bashers and fired a single shot over their heads. All at once, their courage deserted them. They ran back to their car and drove away.
More at: http://dir.salon.com/news/feature/2000/03/14/pistol/index.html