The racial politics of gun control

Washington (CNN)When Americans talk about guns, what's arguably most interesting isn't what we say about the devices themselves. It's what we betray about whose voices -- and lives -- matter when it comes to our country's virulent gun culture.

Indeed, the heartbreaking permanence of the school shooting reality is undeniable when watching Sandy Hook Promise's wrenching new back-to-school PSA , which forces viewers to come to grips with present-day America for school children.

The heightened concern over mass shootings in schools is something Dave Chappelle satirizes in his controversial new Netflix stand-up special that highlights a harsh truth about America's relationship with gun control.

One of its few moments of insight arrives during the comic's discussion of gun violence. In particular, he subtly gets at a key trend: how much the messaging on gun regulation, on the whole, has changed in recent decades.

"Shooting up schools is a white kid's game. I hated school, too. It never occurred to me -- kill everybody in school? It's f***ing crazy," Chappelle says.

Decades ago, when Congress actually passed an assault weapons ban (that, notably, was allowed to expire in 2004), the broad concern was around guns in the hands of minorities -- black Americans, specifically. Our modern Congress finds itself paralyzed now that we're increasingly facing a different dimension of the issue: white people's guns and the consequences of their contested rights to have them.

even the National Rifle Association Understanding this shift requires looking back at the social and political pieties that helped to spur America's contemporary gun-rights movement. Consider how fear of the Black Panthers motivated conservative politicians -- even the National Rifle Association -- to push for stricter gun control in the 1960s. The Panthers, frustrated by the country's repeated failure to protect its black citizens, advocated for black self-defense via gun ownership and "copwatching."

To no one's surprise, the backlash against this vision of protection was swift. In 1967, in response to the Panthers' activities, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act, named after Republican Assemblyman Don Mulford and which repealed a California law that permitted people to carry loaded firearms in public.

Reagan said later Of the bill, Reagan said later that it'd "work no hardship on the honest citizen." (This citizen, we can assume, was white.)

as Adam Winkler, a professor at the UCLA School of Law, charts Crucially, while unthinkable today, the NRA's position on gun regulation until the late '70s -- when more and more (white) people began viewing guns as a means of protecting themselves and their status -- was noticeably divorced from Second Amendment arguments, as Adam Winkler, a professor at the UCLA School of Law, charts

despite a bit of a resurgence in black gun ownership These days, despite a bit of a resurgence in black gun ownership , the face of the gun-rights advocate has changed -- rural white conservatives are now among the most vocal proponents.

Take, for instance, Missouri, where, in the past two decades, "an increasingly conservative and pro-gun legislature and citizenry had relaxed limitations governing practically every aspect of buying, owning, and carrying firearms in the state," writes Jonathan M. Metzl, a professor of sociology and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, in his new book, "Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland."

former President Bill Clinton said Compare this to the rhetoric of the '90s, when, in signing what became the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (which contained the aforementioned Federal Assault Weapons Ban), former President Bill Clinton said , "Gangs and drugs have taken over our streets and undermined our schools."

It's the difference between vanquishing the specter of black criminality -- seen in gangs and the weapons associated with them -- and protecting the property of white conservatives.

There was a nod to this knotty history at the Democratic debate in September, when Cory Booker, New Jersey's junior senator and a presidential candidate, mentioned how even though gun violence had long afflicted areas of the state, it was often ignored until it crept into other, presumably whiter neighborhoods.

Chappelle may be (half-)kidding, but in his gag is also a history that reveals more about the politics of gun regulation in America than the words of most politicians.

Source: CNN

Powered by NewsAPI.org

Keywords:

Gun control • CNN • Global gun cultures • School shooting • Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting • Public service announcement • Dave Chappelle • Satire • Netflix • Stand-up comedy • Gun control • Gun violence • Gun control • Federal Assault Weapons Ban • African Americans • United States Congress • White people • Consequentialism • Rights • National Rifle Association • Society • Politics • Contemporary philosophy • Gun rights • Social movement • Black Panther Party • Conservatism • Politics • National Rifle Association • Gun control • Counterculture of the 1960s • Black Panther Party • Nation state • African Americans • Citizenship • African Americans • Self-defense • Gun politics in the United States • Copwatch • Black Panther Party • Ronald Reagan • Mulford Act • Republican Party (United States) • California State Assembly • Don Mulford • Law of California • White people • Adam Winkler • UCLA School of Law • National Rifle Association • Gun control • White Americans • Second Amendment to the United States Constitution • Adam Winkler • UCLA School of Law • Assault weapon • Assault weapon • Second Amendment to the United States Constitution • Gun rights • White people • Conservatism • Missouri River • Conservatism • State (polity) • Sociology • Psychiatry • Vanderbilt University • Death • Politics • Race (human categorization) • Bill Clinton • Rhetoric • Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act • Federal Assault Weapons Ban • Bill Clinton • Gang • Drug • Black people • Crime • White people • Conservatism • Democratic Party (United States) • Cory Booker • New Jersey • United States Senate • President of the United States • Gun violence in the United States • White people • History • Politics • Gun control • Politics •