The Daily Beast
The most arresting idea in Adam Winkler's impressively learned study of US gun law, Gunfight, is the suggestion that contemporary American gun culture was more or less invented by the Black Panthers.
Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the party founders, had studied law and discovered California allowed the carrying in public of loaded rifles and shotguns, provided that the guns were not pointed at anyone. They seized on this law to stage theatrical confrontations with an Oakland police force they deemed hostile and oppressive - and then, most dramatically, in May 1967, to walk armed into the chamber of the California State Assembly. Police tried to intervene, but Newton and Seale recited the authorizing law, and pushed ahead.
The most arresting idea in Adam Winkler's impressively learned study of US gun law, Gunfight, is the suggestion that contemporary American gun culture was more or less invented by the Black Panthers.
Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the party founders, had studied law and discovered California allowed the carrying in public of loaded rifles and shotguns, provided that the guns were not pointed at anyone. They seized on this law to stage theatrical confrontations with an Oakland police force they deemed hostile and oppressive - and then, most dramatically, in May 1967, to walk armed into the chamber of the California State Assembly. Police tried to intervene, but Newton and Seale recited the authorizing law, and pushed ahead.
The article goes on to point out the similarities between modern-day gun-rights activists and the Black Panther Movement of the 1960s. Fascinating.
And? The Panthers are mostly before my time, and I disagree with them in matters of detail, but they show you what happens when a group is denied rights for a long time.
ReplyDeleteJeepers, I thought it started at Lexington-Concord.
ReplyDeletebtw, Good point Greg. And those Democrats still don't want the uppity ones to have guns.
orlin sellers
Exactly so--they've just broadened the list of people who deserve second-class status.
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