The Real and Racist Origins of the Second Amendment

[BainsBane]

11. Yes, that was in order to prop up slavery

So why do you claim Edmund Morgan's argument is wrong? You don't actually think The founders intended the Second Amendment to apply to blacks? None of the rest of the constitution did.

You've obviously put guns at the center of your understanding rather than thinking about the relationship between slavery and race. There were many ways in which whites maintained supremacy. And the very notion of privileging whiteness emerged in the context of the development of slavery over the 17th century. The law you site about guns was one of many steps in creating slavery in the colonies, and far from the most important. When the first Africans arrived in 1604, they were treated as indentured servants. Over the course of the century, as white servants increasingly demanded land, Virginians gradually created slavery as a racialized institution: they forbade miscegenation, forbid Africans from holding indenture contracts over whites, took away their property rights, and eventually made their servitude permanent. You can see Virginia laws gradually codify slavery, step by step, over the course of the 17th century.

Firearms were part of maintaining control over slaves, and naturally that wasn't going to work if they were armed.

Racial equality never existed as a concept in the 17th century, but race as a distinct marker of status didn't exist until the end of the 17th century. The notion of race as a biological category emerged in the 19th century. Equality itself was never at issue until the American Revolution and what historian Bernard Baylin called the "contagion of liberty" unleashed by the language of the declaration of independence.

You are taking 21st century concepts of racial equality and looking backward in an effort to buttress your love of guns, but in doing so you miss the key historical dynamics of the period.